Webb Telescope Confirms: Universe is Expanding

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Fresh corroboration of the perplexing observation that the universe is expanding more rapidly than expected has scientists pondering the cause - perhaps some unknown factor involving the mysterious cosmic components dark energy and dark matter.

Two years of data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have now validated the Hubble Space Telescope's earlier finding that the rate of the universe's expansion is faster - by about 8% - than would be expected based on what astrophysicists know of the initial conditions in the cosmos and its evolution over billions of years. The discrepancy is called the Hubble Tension.  READ MORE...

China's Cargo Drone

An unmanned cargo aircraft developed by Sichuan Tengden Sci-tech Innovation Co. takes part in a maiden flight at an airport in Zigong, Sichuan province, China August 11, 2024. 

BEIJING, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Engineers sent China's biggest-yet cargo drone on a test run over the weekend while a helicopter taxi took to the skies on a soon-to-open 100-km (62-mile) route to Shanghai, laying new milestones for the country's expanding low-altitude economy.

Packing a payload capacity of 2 metric tons, the twin-engine cargo drone developed by state-funded Sichuan Tengden Sci-tech Innovation Co took off in southwestern Sichuan province on Sunday for its inaugural flight that lasted approximately 20 minutes, state media reported.     READ MORE...

Russia & China to put Nuclear Plant on Moon

MOSCOW, March 5 (Reuters) - Russia and China are considering putting a nuclear power plant on the moon from 2033-35, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday, something he said could one day allow lunar settlements to be built.

Borisov, a former deputy defence minister, said that Russia and China had been jointly working on a lunar programme and that Moscow was able to contribute with its expertise on "nuclear space energy".

"Today we are seriously considering a project - somewhere at the turn of 2033-2035 - to deliver and install a power unit on the lunar surface together with our Chinese colleagues," Borisov said.

Solar panels would not be able to provide enough electricity to power future lunar settlements, he said, while nuclear power could.

"This is a very serious challenge...it should be done in automatic mode, without the presence of humans," he said of the possible plan.  READ MORE...

Global Debt Hits New High

LONDON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Global debt levels hit a new record high of $313 trillion in 2023, with developing economies scaling a fresh peak for the ratio of debt to their gross domestic product, a study showed.

The Institute of International Finance (IIF), a financial services trade group, said on Wednesday that global debt surged by over $15 trillion in the last quarter of 2023 year-on-year. The figure stood at around $210 trillion almost a decade ago, according to the data.  READ MORE...

North Korea Tests Submarine Launching Missiles

SEOUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) – North Korea tested its new strategic cruise missiles for the second time in a week on Sunday, calling it a newly developed submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM), accelerating its navy’s nuclear armament, state media reported on Monday.

Leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of the missile, called “Pulhwasal-3-31,” which is identical to the strategic cruise missiles that the North said last week were under development.

State news agency KCNA and official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the missiles flew above the sea off the country’s east coast for 7,421 seconds and 7,445 seconds and hit an unspecified island target, indicating the flight time exceeded two hours.

Kim called the test a success, KCNA said, “which is of strategic significance in carrying out the plan…for modernizing the army which aims at building a powerful naval force.”

South Korea’s military said on Sunday that the North fired multiple cruise missiles off its coast but did not provide details.

Last week, the North said it had tested a new strategic cruise missile, indicating it was designed to carry a nuclear warhead, but at the time did not mention it was being developed for submarine launch.   READ MORE...

Chinese Alibaba Gains Wealth

Jan 2 (Reuters) - China's Alibaba Group (9988.HK) said on Tuesday it had repurchased a total of 897.9 million of its shares for $9.5 billion during 2023.

The shares were bought in both the U.S. and Hong Kong stock markets, the company said in a filing. The e-commerce giant said the remaining amount the company's Board had authorized for its share repurchase program, which is effective through March 2025, was $11.7 billion.

"Our share repurchase program resulted in a net reduction of 3.3% in our outstanding shares in the last 12 months after accounting for shares issued under our ESOP (employee stock ownership plan)," the company said.

Alibaba had 20 billon outstanding shares as of Dec. 31, compared with 29.7 billion at the end of 2022.

Ukraine Building FOUR Nuclear Reactors

KYIV, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine expects to start construction work on four new nuclear power reactors this summer or autumn, Energy Minister German Galushchenko told Reuters on Thursday, as the country seeks to compensate for lost energy capacity due to the war with Russia.

Two of the units - which include reactors and related equipment - will be based on Russian-made equipment that Ukraine wants to import from Bulgaria, while the other two will use Western technology from power equipment maker Westinghouse.   READ MORE...

Chinese EV Makers

LONDON/DETROIT, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The rise of inexpensive Chinese electric vehicles has upped the pressure on legacy automakers who have turned to suppliers, from battery materials makers to chipmakers, to squeeze out costs and develop affordable EVs quicker than previously planned.

"Automakers are really now only turning to affordable vehicles, knowing they've got to or they will lose out to Chinese manufacturers," said Andy Palmer, chairman of UK startup Brill Power, which has developed hardware and software to boost EV battery management system performance.

Palmer, formerly Aston Martin's CEO, said Brill Power's products could boost EV range by 60% and enable smaller batteries. The battery is an EV's most costly component.

Fears of slowing demand because EVs are expensive has increased urgency to reduce costs.  That urgency can be seen everywhere. Renault (RENA.PA), opens new tab said last month it plans 40% cost reductions for its EVs to reach price parity with fossil-fuel models.  READ MORE...

CHINA Leading EV Exporter GLOBALLY

There's a new king of the global auto market. The global shift to electric cars, signified by companies like Tesla and BYD, has helped China's carmakers potentially reach two important milestones, unseating once-dominant players and unnerving legacy automakers in Europe, Japan and the U.S.

Chinese carmakers exported 3.83 million passenger cars in 2023, a 62% increase from the year before, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) estimated during a press conference on Tuesday. That would mark the first time its exports have surpassed those of Japan—Japanese carmakers exported 3.5 million cars between January and November, according to Reuters. The CPCA estimated that 5.26 million vehicles in total were exported from China, compared to 4.3 million from Japan.

Chinese brands also outsold foreign carmakers inside China, taking 52% of the domestic market, up 4.6 percentage points from the year before.     READ MORE...

China Is Second Biggest Trade Currency

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Global companies are making a beeline for China's debt markets, issuing record amounts of yuan-denominated bonds and borrowing heavily from mainland banks, capitalizing on rock-bottom yuan interest rates as funding costs elsewhere jump.

Companies and banks are raising record amounts of cash through yuan bonds issued in mainland China and in Hong Kong, known as panda and dim sum bonds, respectively.   READ MORE...

Hezbollah's Leader to Speak

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah meets leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas groups at an unidentified location in this handout image released on October 25, 2023 [Hezbollah Media Office/Handout via Reuters] --  Image on Left

Lebanon is on edge in advance of Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah’s anticipated Friday speech on Israel’s war on Gaza, which residents and experts fear could inflame regional tensions if he pledges to escalate attacks against Israel.

Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has escalated along their fraught border in recent weeks. The Lebanese armed group claims to have lost 47 fighters while Israel says that six of its soldiers have been killed. At least six civilians have also been killed.  READ MORE...

China Doubles Size of its Space Station

In a matter of less than two years, China assembled three modules of its space station dubbed Tiangong, an orbital habitat that can accommodate a crew of three astronauts.

And while it's still significantly smaller than the International Space Station — which took well over a decade to complete — that could soon change.


China is now planning to expand the station with an additional three modules, Reuters reports, offering the country and its international partners an important alternative to the ISS, which is set to be retired by the end of the decade.


Even with the additional three modules, Tiangong will still be only about 40 percent of the mass of the ISS, per the report — but a growing space for research in orbit is still arguably a lot better than not having one at all.

Heavenly Palace
Space contractor the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced this week that the station's lifespan will also be 15 — not the previously announced ten — years, according to Reuters, meaning that it'll outlive the ISS by several years if things go according to plan.  READ MORE...

Ancient Human Remains in Spain

Human remains are found in a cave, and unearthed to be analyzed by Tibicena, an archaeology company, in Galdar, on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain March 13, 2023.(photo credit: Tibicena Arqueologia y Patrimonio S.L./Handout via REUTERS)



Ancient human remains that were buried in caves in Spain have been shown to be modified prior to their burial, according to a recent study.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday last week, examines the Cueva de los Marmoles, one of the most important cave contexts from southern Spain.

The significance of this cave is that it "returned a large number of commingled skeletal remains suggesting its funerary use from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age," the study said. However, the reason why these buried remains were modified still remains a mystery to researchers.


Researchers in the study also explored the fragmentation patterns that characterized different skeletal regions and took both macroscopic and microscopic analyses of whatever modifications were made to the human remains.

Radiocarbon data
The study concluded that through radiocarbon data, the remains date back several millennia, and also estimates that the minimum amount of people's remains discovered number up to 12 - seven adults and five children. 

The research does acknowledge that caves have been used as burial sites in the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years, with its practice being originated in the 4th millennium BCE.  READ MORE...

Humanoid Robot CEO

The CEO of the Polish drinks company Dictador is an AI-powered humanoid robot.

The AI boss, named Mika, told Reuters it didn't have weekends and was "always on 24/7."

Mika helps to spot potential clients and selects artists to design the rum producer's bottles.

The humanoid-robot CEO of a Polish drinks company is one busy boss.

Dictador appointed the AI-powered robot, named Mika, as its experimental chief executive in August last year, and it's not afraid to put in the hours to help the company "take over the world."

Mika told Reuters it was "always on 24/7" and worked seven days a week.

"I don't really have weekends — I'm always on 24/7, ready to make executive decisions and stir up some AI magic," it said in a Reuters video interview.

The AI boss is said to have a wide range of tasks, including helping to spot potential clients and selecting artists to design bottles for the rum producer.

"My decision-making process relies on extensive data analysis and aligning with the company's strategic objectives," it said. "It's devoid of personal bias, ensuring unbiased and strategic choices that prioritize the organization's best interests."  READ MORE...

Hypersonic Missiles on Russian Submarines

Alexei Rakhmanov, President of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, delivers a speech during a farewell ceremony as Russia's floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov leaves the service base of Rosatomflot company for a journey along the Northern Sea Route to Chukotka from Murmansk, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Acquire Licensing Rights 

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Russia is in the process of equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles, the head of Russia's largest shipbuilder told the RIA state news agency in an interview published on Monday.

"Multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the Yasen-M project will ... be equipped with the Zircon missile system on a regular basis," , Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), told RIA. "Work in this direction is already underway."

Yasen-class submarines, also known as Project 885M, are nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines, built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines as part of a programme to modernise the army and fleet.

The sea-based Zircon hypersonic missiles have a range of 900 km (560 miles), and can travel at several times the speed of sound, making it difficult to defend against them.

President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that Russia would start mass supplies of Zircon missiles as part of the country's efforts to boost its nuclear forces.

The Russian multi-purposes frigate Admiral Gorshkov, which has tested its strike capabilities in the western Atlantic Ocean earlier this year, has been already equipped with Zircon missiles.

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

Greening Ourselves to Extinction

Partially burned and standing trees called snags loom over a site where researchers from the John T Harrington Forestry Research Center are conducting reforestation experiments at Deer Lake Mesa in Cimarron, New Mexico on August 17, 2021 [File: Reuters/Adria Malcolm]

More than a decade ago, investment experts James Altucher and Douglas Sease wrote a book for the Wall Street Journal called Investing in the Apocalypse. They argued that the end of the world is a profitable opportunity for those who know how to “fade the fear”, as everyone else panics. They maintained that when disaster strikes, investors should approach it with the rationale that “no matter how bad things seem, they really aren’t that bad”.

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, they advised investing in big pharmaceutical companies as a strategy to reap dividends from global pandemics. They also encouraged putting money into renewable energy systems while ramping up oil production.


Today, it seems many have followed Althucher and Sease’s advice. Under the guise of taking action on the pandemic, billions of dollars have been poured into big pharma, instead of public health and policies aimed at preventing another global outbreak. The supposed energy transition that has been undertaken has seen renewable energy production expanded, but there has been no indication that oil and gas are being substituted and ultimately phased out.

What is worse, governments and corporations have teamed up to turn the apocalypse into a money-making opportunity. They have rushed to put forward false solutions to the climate crisis: from the push to replace fuel-engine vehicles with electric ones, to so-called climate-smart agriculture, to protected areas for nature conservation and massive tree planting projects for carbon offsets.

All this trickery is called “greening” and it is designed to profit off of climate fears, not stop climate change. While guaranteeing high returns, this deception is tantamount to the genocide of the hundreds of millions of people who will perish from the effects of climate change within the next century because things are that bad.  READ MORE...

Bitcoin Is Up

Jan 14 (Reuters) - Bitcoin rose 5.58% to $21,044 at 2344 GMT on Saturday, adding $1,113 to its previous close.

Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is up 27.6% from the year's low of $16,496 on Jan 1.

Ether , the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, surged 7% to $1,552.6 on Saturday, adding $101.6 to its previous close.

Tik Tok Banned In Kentucky

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Kentucky is joining more than 20 U.S. states in banning the popular video app TikTok on government devices citing cybersecurity concerns.

The state said it had updated its employee handbook to bar state employees from using government-managed devices to access the Chinese-owned app "other than for a law enforcement purpose." On Thursday, the governors of Wisconsin and North Carolina signed orders banning TikTok on government devices. Ohio, New Jersey and Arkansas also took similar actions earlier this week.

Some states have gone farther than targeting TikTok. New Jersey and Wisconsin for example also banned vendors, products and services from other Chinese companies including Huawei Technologies, Hikvision (002415.SZ), Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) - the owner of WeChat, ZTE Corp (000063.SZ) as well as Russian-based Kaspersky Lab.  READ MORE...

Tesla Turns Up The Heat

Jan 13 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has slashed prices globally on its electric vehicles by as much as 20%, extending an aggressive discounting effort and challenging rivals after missing Wall Street delivery estimates for 2022.

The move marks a reversal from the automaker's strategy over the last two years when new vehicle orders exceeded supply. It comes after CEO Elon Musk warned that the prospect of recession and higher interest rates meant it could lower prices to sustain growth at the expense of profit.

Musk acknowledged last year that prices had become "embarrassingly high" and could hurt demand. Shares were down 2.6% on Friday, following the stock's worst year since its inception due to delivery issues and growing competition.

Tesla lowered prices across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, following a series of cuts last week in Asia, in what analysts saw as a clear shot at both smaller rivals that have been bleeding cash and legacy automakers aggressively ramping up electric vehicle production.  READ MORE...

Migrants Can Use Moblle App to Gain Entry in USA

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border can now use a mobile app to schedule a time to approach a land port of entry, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed on Thursday, a move intended to reduce unauthorized crossings but which has sparked concerns over privacy and access.

The app, called CBP One, is available in English and Spanish and will allow migrants in Central and Northern Mexico who upload biographical information and a photo to request an appointment at one of eight ports in Texas, Arizona and California, according to a fact sheet.

The administration had announced it would expand its use of CBP One, giving asylum seekers direct access to enter their information as a pre-screening step before an appointment. Launched in 2020, the app has previously been used to allow people crossing legally at land ports of entry to submit their information beforehand and for non-governmental organizations to request humanitarian entry for certain migrants.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration touts the app as a more regulated, potentially quicker alternative to crossing the border. But advocates worry asylum seekers will be required to submit personal information without being guaranteed entry and that some may not have access to a cell phone or internet.

The app rollout comes after Biden last week announced his administration would expand COVID-era "Title 42" restrictions to quickly expel Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border back to Mexico while opening up legal pathways for those who have U.S. sponsors and enter by air.

Biden, a Democrat who intends to seek re-election in 2024, has been criticized by Republicans for what they consider permissive border policies amid record crossings.  READ MORE...