In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Top execs at Fuji TV, one of Japan's biggest networks, resign over handling of sexual assault allegations against one of Fuji TV's hosts (More)

> "The Lost Boys" musical, based on the 1987 cult horror-comedy film, set for 2026 opening on Broadway (More) | Lady Gaga's new album "Mayhem" to be released March 7 (More)

> Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter to step down after more than a decade leading the performing arts institution (More)


Science & Technology
> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered to suspend collaboration on World Health Organization projects following last week's executive order from President Donald Trump (More)

> Astronomers discover 74 nearby stars surrounded by small comet-like objects, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our solar system (More) | Where did the Kuiper Belt come from? (More)

> Genetic analysis reveals how giant clams evolved to harness certain species of algae to provide nutrition; study sheds light on the evolution of symbiotic relationships in the ocean (More)


Business & Markets
> Scott Bessent secures Senate confirmation for treasury secretary role by a vote of 68-29, becoming fifth official member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet (More) | See running list of confirmed Cabinet nominees (More)

> Startup Manas AI, co-led by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, raises nearly $25M for developing new treatments for cancer and other autoimmune diseases using artificial intelligence (More)

> China Vanke, one of China's largest property developers, replaces top executives and warns of record $6.2B loss for 2024; China Vanke is latest firm to feel ripple effects from China's real estate slump (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> President Donald Trump signs executive orders to reshape the military, including reinstating service members discharged for declining the COVID-19 vaccine (More)

> At least eight hostages of 26 due to be released by Hamas in coming weeks are deceased, Israel says; announcement comes as more than 200,000 Palestinians return to northern Gaza (More) | See war updates (More)

> Duck DNA found in both engines of South Korea's Jeju Air commercial plane that crashed on landing in December, killing 179 of 181 people on board (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Coffee

 

Over the years there is one thing that I can never get enough of and that is Vanilla Cappuccino.  It all started when my brother introduced me to it, when our father was in the hospital and there was a Starbucks in the lobby.  I thought $4 coffee was way expensive and was glad that he decided to pay.

Over the years, Starbucks has increased its price and I think I am paying over $6 for a Venti Vanilla Cappuccino.  I only buy Starbucks if I have a gift card, otherwise my coffee comes from a fast food or a convenience store.

I have also discovered online that I can order a sugar free vanilla cappuccino mix and have been buying that since 2015 when my wife and I retired.  Three tablespoons in a 12 oz glass of McCafe Keurig coffee pods which I have found to be the best after Dunkin Doughnuts and Green Mountain coffee.  

My coffee is decaf starting in 2015 and it took me awhile to get used to that change from regular but after 10 years, I am kinda liking the taste.  It really impacts me when we got out to breakfast and I get regular coffee instead of decaf.

We go to Perkins Restaurant about 8 miles from where we live and the coffee, they serve is delicious.  I asked and all they would tell me is that it is mixture of coffee blends and that Kona coffee from Hawaii is one of the blends

Somewhat Political

 

Ancient Genomes

An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has joined forces with archaeologists from Bournemouth University to decipher the structure of British Iron Age society, finding evidence of female political and social empowerment.

The researchers seized upon a rare opportunity to sequence DNA from many members of a single community. They retrieved over 50 ancient genomes from a set of burial grounds in Dorset, southern England, in use before and after the Roman Conquest of AD 43. The results revealed that this community was centered around bonds of female-line descent.

Dr. Lara Cassidy, Assistant Professor in Trinity's Department of Genetics, led the study that has been published in Nature.     READ MORE...

Traffic - Dear Mr Fantasy - Live - 1972

Fishing

 

CO2 Emissions

 

Success

 

Leader

 

FAA

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> American Madison Keys upsets top seed Aryna Sabalenka to win her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open (More) | World No. 1 Jannik Sinner beats Alexander Zverev to win his second straight Aussie Open title (More)

> DJ Unk, rapper best known for "Walk It Out" and "2 Step," dies at age 43 (More) | Rocker Marilyn Manson won't be charged with sexual assault following four-year investigation (More)

> Spotify signs multiyear deal with Universal Music Group to provide direct licenses for Spotify to stream UMG artists (More)


Science & Technology
> Researchers discover new way the microbiome of expecting mothers impacts their offspring's health; gut produces metabolites that help program stem cells during fetal development (More)

> Astronauts' eyesight weakens during long stays in microgravity environments, study finds; effect is temporary upon return to Earth but may have implications for eventual trips to Mars (More)

> Engineers develop 3D-printed ultralight material roughly five times stronger than titanium; process uses machine learning to produce strength-enhancing micro- and nanostructures (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets drop Friday (S&P 500 -0.3%, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.5%), but all three indexes post second straight week of gains (More) | Bank of Japan raises interest rates to highest level in 17 years (More)

> Sales of previously owned homes in the US fall to lowest level in nearly three decades; roughly 4.1 million such homes were sold last year, the lowest since 1995 (More)

> Trump administration reportedly negotiating TikTok deal that would give Oracle and a group of US investors control of the platform, with ByteDance retaining a minority stake (More) | Banks to sell up to $13B in debt from 2022 loan to Elon Musk to purchase Twitter (now X) (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Senate confirms Army veteran, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary in 51-50 vote; Vice President JD Vance casts tiebreaking vote, three Republicans vote no (More) | Confirmation tracker (More) | More than a dozen inspectors general fired across major federal agencies (More)

> Hamas frees four female Israeli soldiers, Israel releases 200 Palestinian prisoners in second swap under negotiated ceasefire (More) | See updates on the war (More)

> Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments over whether a religious charter school in Oklahoma can receive public funding (More) | CIA releases assessment finding COVID-19 more likely to have originated from a Chinese lab; conclusion made with "low confidence" (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Winter

 

We are now well into winter in most places and East TN is no exception...  We have already had our first snow that stayed on the ground a few days and in a couple of days, we will jump up into the 50s and 60s for a couple of weeks before returning back down to the 30s and 40s.

East TN is  great place to live because of the weather and it being mild during the winter months which last Jan-Feb-Mar.  Not all of March is cold as it starts warming up half way through the month.  And just when you think warm weather is back, April comes in being colder than normal.

We are protected by the Cumberland Plateau to our west and the Smoky Mountains to our east.

So, now that we are in our last few days our January, it is easy to smell warm weather coming in about 6 weeks, but if the 50s/60s hold true for two weeks, then we only have 30 more days of winter which is fine with me.

Other places are warmer and other places are colder most of the time which is why I like East TN as it is right in the middle and we get all four seasons but mainly spring, summer, and fall.

Somewhat Political

 

MIT Sets World Record

Researchers at MIT have developed two new control techniques that have enabled them to achieve a world-record single-qubit fidelity of 99.998 percent using a superconducting qubit called fluxonium.

This breakthrough marks a significant step towards the realization of practical quantum computing.  Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, are highly susceptible to noise and control imperfections.

“This introduces errors into the quantum operations and ultimately limits the complexity and duration of a quantum algorithm,” said the researchers.

To overcome this challenge, the MIT team focused on improving qubit performance by mitigating counter-rotating errors that arise during fast quantum operations.  

“Getting rid of these errors was a fun challenge for us,” said David Rower, PhD ’24, a recent physics postdoc at MIT.     READ MORE...

Could a Hidden 5th Force Explain Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

Remember

 

Guns

 

Border

 

Real Insurrectionists

 

Liars all

 

Deer

 

Propaganda

 

From a young age, I remember my parents trying to teach me civility when communicating with others, especially those who were older than me, primarily out of respect.

Back then, our communications were mainly verbal face to face, or via a letter, post card or on the telephone.  Today, we use cell phones, text messages, video chats, emails, and social media posts, along with short vid clips of one thing or another.

Most of the time our communications is NOT FACE TO FACE, it is written anonymously and we do not have any idea if we are talking with a male, female, adult, child, or some kind of programmed bot.

The communications we deal with today is rude, insulting, filled with profanities and is the farthest from civility that one can imagine.  Instead of communicating with words, we communicate with memes.  These memes are designed by use or are secured off the internet.

Most of the time, I would suspect about 95-99% of the time these memes are inaccurate, misleading, slanderous, and intentional lies, specifically designed to inappropriately influence the minds of people.

It is a war of who has the best propaganda with truth and honesty being completely irrelevant.

Somewhat Political

 

Goodby to Solar Panels

Windmills have been the emblem of the Netherlands since ancient times, a tradition that has not been lost to this day. Far from it, the country has become one of the leading wind energy nations in Europe. That said, it is not surprising that this new, smaller, more efficient and quieter wind turbine designed for domestic use comes from there. So, why do you need solar panel at home? You can have a silent wind turbine like this one.

The Netherlands reinvents windmills: an ultra-efficient silent wind turbine
It may be difficult, especially for younger generations, to think of the Netherlands as a heavy industrial powerhouse highly dependent on fossil fuels. However, until the 1970s, pollution due to large numbers of cars and emissions from natural gas and coal-fired power plants fueled a thriving chemical industry.

Air pollution, land scarcity due to its high population density and rising sea levels that threatened to flood its cities led to a sustained effort to decarbonize its economy and diversify its energy sources and industries. Today, the Netherlands is an emblem of innovation in sustainable technologies and policies.

For this transition, one of the key technologies was wind energy, in which today they are one of the main leaders, developing important innovations in this field. The most recent of these innovations is the LIAM F1 UWT, a small and quiet wind turbine for urban use with the capacity to generate between 300 and 2500 kWh, approximately half of the average household consumption.     READ MORE...

Grand Funk Railroad I'm Your Captain

Mon Vid

In The NEWS

Hamas to free four Israeli female soldiers today.

Their release is part of a ceasefire deal struck between Hamas and Israel. In exchange, Israel will free at least 200 imprisoned Palestinians. The swap will be the second such exchange after Hamas released three civilian hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners last week. Israel will free 30 Palestinians in custody for every civilian hostage Hamas frees and 50 Palestinians in custody for every female Israeli soldier Hamas frees.



Storm Éowyn leaves one-third of Ireland without power.

Storm Éowyn (pronounced "Ay-oh-win") unleashed record-breaking winds of up to 114 mph across Ireland and the UK Friday, causing widespread disruption with over 725,000 homes in Ireland losing power. The wind speed beat a national record of 113 mph set in 1945. The storm is partly erupting from the same weather pattern that brought historic snowfall along the US Gulf Coast.



New giant pandas debut at Smithsonian National Zoo. (w/photos)

Male Bao Li (pronounced "BOW-lee") and female Qing Bao (pronounced "ching-BOW") made their official public debut at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Bao Li and Qing Bao, both 3 years old, arrived in the US in October as part of a 52-year-old conservation partnership with China. View a live panda cam daily from 7 am to 7 pm ET here.



Trump, Vance address annual pro-life March for Life rally.

President Donald Trump delivered a remote address, while Vice President JD Vance spoke in person to the tens of thousands of people who attended the 52nd annual March for Life in Washington, DC, yesterday. The event is the country's largest pro-life demonstration. Trump's remarks came a day after he pardoned nearly two dozen activists convicted of blocking access to reproductive health clinics.



Judge bars Oath Keepers from entering Washington, DC.

A federal judge yesterday banned the antigovernment Oath Keepers militia group from entering Washington, DC, and the US Capitol without court approval. The group includes Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was released from prison this week and met with lawmakers after Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol.

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Governments - People - Commerce

 

There are only a few types of governments which are:

• Democracy
• Socialism
• Oligarchs
• Dictatorship
• Communism

Each one of these governments must get involved in both domestic and international commerce to build their economies and societies over which they rule.

• Governments/military/law enforcement
• People
• Business/Commerce/Capitalism

I put people in the middle intentionally because that is exactly where they are in real life - caught between the other two giants that regulate and control their lives.

Socialism tries to give a little something back to the people, but it is oftentimes too little too late and when they do, they commerce suffers.

This has been the way it is for thousands of years and will no doubt continue to be this way.  Currently, the world is experiencing a new phenomenon which is the upsurge of global billionaires.

These billionaires are becoming wealthy because of all the people worldwide who are force to buy their products and/or services in order to survive.  There is also a new class of billionaires that is coming from entertainment and professional athletics.

These billionaires could solve all the world's problems if they would simply share their wealth with the rest of the world, which they refused to do for a variety of personal reasons.  One day they may see differently but right now they are not about to share any more than they absolutely have to by law.

Somewhat Political

 

Life Traced Back to a Single Ancestor

The origins of life on Earth have long fascinated scientists, particularly the nature of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). LUCA, the root of the evolutionary tree from which Bacteria and Archaea diverged, represents a key node in life’s history. 

This ancient organism’s characteristics, age, and ecological role offer critical insights into the early evolution of life on Earth.


LUCA is estimated to have existed approximately 4.2 billion years ago. Researchers from the University of Bristol and international collaborators employed innovative methods to trace its timeline. 

They used divergence time analysis of pre-LUCA gene duplicates, combined with microbial fossils and isotope records, to establish LUCA’s position in evolutionary history.


These findings challenge prior assumptions that life could not survive the Late Heavy Bombardment, a period of intense asteroid impacts occurring between 3.7 and 3.9 billion years ago.      READ MORE...