Wednesday, August 11
Gender Transition
Judge Reed O’Connor of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division, granted “a permanent injunction” to the Christian plaintiffs “to be exempt from the government’s requirement to perform abortions and gender-transition procedures.”
“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment–a victory for common-sense, conscience, and sound medicine,” vice president and senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Luke Goodrich said Monday.
The plaintiffs are a religious hospital and a group of over 20,000 healthcare professionals, Goodrich noted. READ MORE
Unique Exoplanet
This planet called ‘Nu2 Lupi d’ is located 50 light-years away in the constellation Lupus (Latin for Wolf), around a star called Nu2 Lupi. It is about 2.5 times the size of Earth and almost 9 times its mass.
What’s more, scientists used measurements with archival data from other observatories and numerical models to characterize the density and composition of the planet and its neighbors.
They found that the planet has a rocky interior. It has far more water than the Earth. However, the water is not liquid; instead in the form of high-pressure ice or high-temperature steam, making the planets uninhabitable.
In 2019, Swiss astronomers announced the detection of three exoplanets around this bright, Sun-like star.
In 2019, Swiss astronomers announced the detection of three exoplanets around this bright, Sun-like star.
The three exoplanets have masses between those of Earth and Neptune (17 times the Earth) and take 12, 28, and 107 days to circle their parent star.
Yann Alibert, professor of astrophysics at the University of Bern and co-author of the study, said, “We knew that already for the two inner planets, which led us to point CHEOPS to the system in the first place.
Yann Alibert, professor of astrophysics at the University of Bern and co-author of the study, said, “We knew that already for the two inner planets, which led us to point CHEOPS to the system in the first place.
However, the third planet is quite far away from the star; no one was expected to see its transit!” READ MORE
Tuesday, August 10
Free College
Many of us who did not have financially well off parents or who felt financially responsible for themselves, worked while we were attending college, especially to avoid receiving government grants that had to paid off.
Personally, I spent a couple of years in the military during the Vietnam War and used the GI Bill to supplement the cost of tuition as it increased from year-to-year.
There is also the feeling that if you have to pay for your own college education, not only will you learn more, but your grades will reflect that you have learned more... whereas, if someone else is paying, you do not have the same incentive to do well.
HOWEVER,
there is a more menacing issue here with free college education that has nothing to do with money... it revolves around the retention of knowledge and the difficulty of acquiring that knowledge.
For Example,
In 1980, I was awarded my MBA after passing with at least a "B" 60 hours of college credit.
In 2020, a student can receive their MBA after passing with a "C" only 30 hours of college credit.
Instead of education becoming more rigorous, it has become less rigorous and my concern is that if education is now free for ALL regardless of their intellectual capabilities then, in order to received Government monies, eductors will DUMB DOWN education even more and make sure EVERYONE PASSES...
This is EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE and our society is going to pay the price for it when we try to complete in a global marketplace with international graduates who have pass rigorous academic standards at their schools...
WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OURSELVES???
Stonehenge Reveals Its Age
A long-lost piece of Stonehenge that was taken by a man performing restoration work on the monument has been returned after 60 years, giving scientists a chance to peer inside a pillar of the iconic monument for the first time.
In 1958, Robert Phillips, a representative of the drilling company helping to restore Stonehenge, took the cylindrical core after it was drilled from one of Stonehenge's pillars — Stone 58.
In 1958, Robert Phillips, a representative of the drilling company helping to restore Stonehenge, took the cylindrical core after it was drilled from one of Stonehenge's pillars — Stone 58.
Later, when he emigrated to the United States, Phillips took the core with him. Because of Stonehenge's protected status, it's no longer possible to extract samples from the stones.
But with the core's return in 2018, researchers had the opportunity to perform unprecedented geochemical analyses of a Stonehenge pillar, which they described in a new study.
They found that Stonehenge's towering standing stones, or sarsens, were made of rock containing sediments that formed when dinosaurs walked the Earth.
They found that Stonehenge's towering standing stones, or sarsens, were made of rock containing sediments that formed when dinosaurs walked the Earth.
Other grains in the rock date as far back as 1.6 billion years. READ MORE
Babylonian Tablet
TUCKED AWAY in a seemingly forgotten corner of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Daniel Mansfield found what may solve one of ancient math’s biggest questions.
First exhumed in 1894 from what is now Baghdad, the circular tablet — broken at the center with small perpendicular indentations across it — was feared lost to antiquity.
But in 2018, a photo of the tablet showed up in Mansfield’s inbox.
Mansfield, a senior lecturer of mathematics at the University of New South Wales Sydney, had suspected the tablet was real. He came across records of its excavation and began the hunt.
Mansfield, a senior lecturer of mathematics at the University of New South Wales Sydney, had suspected the tablet was real. He came across records of its excavation and began the hunt.
Word got around about what he was looking for, and then the email came. He knew what he had to do: travel to Turkey and examine it at the museum.
Hidden within this tablet is not only the oldest known display of applied geometry but a new ancient understanding of triangles. It could rewrite what we know about the history of mathematics, Mansfield argues.
These findings were published Wednesday in the journal Foundations of Science.
It’s generally thought that trigonometry — a subset of geometry and what’s displayed on the tablet in a crude sense — was developed by ancient Greeks like the philosopher Pythagoras.
Hidden within this tablet is not only the oldest known display of applied geometry but a new ancient understanding of triangles. It could rewrite what we know about the history of mathematics, Mansfield argues.
These findings were published Wednesday in the journal Foundations of Science.
It’s generally thought that trigonometry — a subset of geometry and what’s displayed on the tablet in a crude sense — was developed by ancient Greeks like the philosopher Pythagoras.
However, analysis of the tablet suggests it was created 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born. READ MORE
Enemy of the State
Burns joined The New York Times’ "Sway" podcast to promote a new film about Muhammad Ali and was asked if a particular tech figure could be as culturally significant in a few decades as the boxing legend is now.
"I mean, I hope Zuckerberg is in jail by then," Burns said.
"This is an enemy of the state, and I mean the United States of America. He doesn’t give a sh-t about us, the United States," Burns continued. "He knows he can transcend it. He can get away to any place. And so it’s just about filthy lucre, that’s it."
Burns then turned his attention to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
"Because these people — and Sheryl is a complicit — the Nuremberg of this, is if it ever happens, which it won’t, will be pretty interesting," Burns said. "The way that we’ve been able to temporize and say, ‘Oh, it’s okay, we’ll just go a little bit further,’ right?"
Host Kara Swisher answered, "Yeah," and moved on to the next topic.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. READ MORE
Monday, August 9
My CT Scan
Today was my quarterly CT scan to see if there was any metabolic activity in either one of my cancers: Lymphoma and Melanoma.
Unlike PET scans, patients can eat or drink anything they want right up to the point that they start the machine. Actually, a few minutes before because you have to lay down on this movable rack and they have to position your head and knees and arms.
Prior to any of this, a nurse must insert an IV line into your arm but in my case, I have a port for them to access so they have to call upon a more skilled nurse. Wait time is usually 30 minutes or more depending upon how busy they are.
However, I was there at 7:30 am this morning and those nurses start at 8:00 am so I was the first person on his list.
Once the line is hooked up, they start they insert some kind of dye into your body that makes you feel like you have to go to the bathroom or for some that you peed in your pants.
The actually test is 3 passes in the machine and patients are usually in and out in less than 5 minutes.
The machine is like a huge doughnut hole so only a fraction of your body is inside the machine and the rack that you lay on can slide so that from your head down to your feet can be scanned.
A PET scan, you are a lot more enclosed... almost your entire body... and, it moves much slower so a PET scan will take about 15-20 minutes and for a while there is the feeling that you are in a coffin. I usually tilt my head back so I can see outside the machine and that helps.
An MRI is different and you are totally enclosed and I have to be knocked out for that scan to happen. I have only had one so far... knock on wood as they say...
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