At A Glance

Analyzing data from zoo animal escapes.

New Zealand conducts a high-risk medical evacuation from Antarctica.

Research finds some people lived in Pompeii ruins for decades.

Why the Golden Gate was once considered impossible.

How the Grand Canyon's glass bridge gets cleaned. (via YouTube)

Rare first edition of "The Hobbit" sells for over $57K.

Tips for finding new music without Spotify.

What super-agers have in common.

Clickbait: The gross things butterflies eat.

Historybook: Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph (1876); Writer Shirley Jackson dies (1965); President Richard Nixon announces his resignation (1974); Roger Federer born (1981); Olivia Newton-John dies (2022).

Healthy & High protein Meal Prep | Healthy Bagels, Overnight Oats, Pasta...

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> ESPN signs five-year deal with the WWE for streaming rights to WrestleMania and other major live events; deal averages $325M per year (More)

> The PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Playoffs kick off today; read about the playoff format, including its bonus prize pool of $100M with the overall champion earning $10M (More)

> "Hamilton" to get US theatrical release on Sept. 5, five years after its initial premiere on Disney+, which purchased the rights to the filmed version of the Broadway hit for $75M (More)


Science & Technology
> Replenishing the brain's natural supply of lithium appears to reverse memory loss and neurological signs of Alzheimer's, new study suggests; researchers identify lithium orotate as potentially protecting against onset of the disease (More) | What we know about Alzheimer's (1440 Topics)

> OpenAI to offer the enterprise version of ChatGPT to federal agencies beginning next year at a cost of $1; move seen as a bid to beat competitors in adoption into government workflows (More)

> Ancient stone tools more than 1 million years old discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi; suggests human relatives made a major sea crossing prior to the use of boats (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +0.7%, Dow +0.2%, Nasdaq +1.2%) as corporate earnings continue rolling in and the Trump administration's new trade tariff deadline looms (More)

> Apple to invest an additional $100B on domestic manufacturing; Apple previously announced plans to spend $500B in the US over the next four years (More) | How Apple became a $3T company (1440 Topics)

> Accessories retailer Claire's files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for second time since 2018 amid debt load and changing consumer preferences; follows second bankruptcy of teen retailer Forever 21 in March (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> President Donald Trump imposes an additional 25% tariff on India over its Russian oil purchases, raising combined levies to 50%; takes effect Aug. 27 and comes as new tariffs kick in for dozens of trading partners today (More)

> Texas Democrats who left the state in protest of a redistricting bill were temporarily evacuated from an Illinois hotel following a bomb threat (More) | US Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) enters race to replace outgoing Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R), pledging to push forward Trump's agenda (More)

> United Airlines grounds flights nationwide for several hours amid technical issue with its weight calculation system (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Our Purpose Revisited

 

Human Beings were put on earth for what purpose?

This has been a question that has been asked by Philosophers ever since there were philosophers.

The only answer that they have been able to agree on is that no one knows for sure our purpose.

Some think our purpose is to serve God because we are all born with sin, and if we spend our days on earth serving his will, we will be rewarded in heaven for all eternity.  When we die, unless we are born into another body, we turn into spirits, a whisp of energy that carries our essence.  We will not know what life is like as an essence of energy until we die.

Others think our purpose could be:

• to earn as much money as we can
• to earn as much power & control as we can
• perpetuate the race by having babies
• to treat others as we want to be treated
• that we have no purpose at all except to live

No one knows who is right or who is wrong, and no one will know until we experience death.

What sticks in my head is the fact that our universe is ENDLESS so what's the point of the Human Race living only 80-100 years.  Seems rather pointless when one thinks about eternity.

What can we possibly learn about life in 80-100 years?

I do not subscribe to the religious point of view for a couple of reasons:

1.  We currently have 12 major religions in the world today, so which one of them is the correct one in which to believe.  I ask this because each of the twelve think they are right and the rest are wrong.  That's impossible unless all these twelve religions are somehow supposed to be combined.

2.  What about the millions of people who are born each year and none of them will ever be exposed to religion their entire lives.  If religion was the key, then why are these people left out because of lack of exposure.  That makes no sense either.

Another problem is TECHNOLOGY.  Each year technology advances forward, never backwards and in so doing will take the earth and its inhabitants into areas no one ever dreamed possible.  This steady advancement was planned or not?

Is it our purpose to advance to the point that we create machines or conquer death with medicines so that no one ever dies?

The universe is large enough to accommodate no one ever dying once we get to that point...  or will the universe destroy itself before that happens or after that happens?

This is an interesting dilemma or maybe even a paradox because EVERYTHING HAS ENTROPY.

• Human beings
• Machines
• The Universe 

Is our ultimate purpose nothing more than to move towards entropy and everything else is irrelevant and meaningless?

Somewhat Political

 

We've discovered a door to a hidden part of reality – what's inside?

The discovery of a new door to a hidden part of reality, as described in a recent New Scientist article, could potentially reveal new particles or even deeper insights into the fundamental nature of reality. While the exact contents of this hidden realm are unknown, physicists speculate it might house particles like axions or non-Abelian anyons, which could be crucial for understanding dark matter or developing quantum computing.


Here's a more detailed breakdown:
New Particles:
The article highlights the possibility of finding new particles, possibly like those predicted by theoretical physics but not yet observed in experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), according to New Scientist.

Deepening Our Understanding of Reality:
Beyond specific particles, this discovery could shed light on the fundamental nature of reality, challenging existing theories about what constitutes a "particle" and potentially revealing deeper layers of the universe's structure.

Quasiparticles:
The article mentions quasiparticles, which are emergent properties of many-body systems that behave like particles. Non-Abelian anyons, a type of quasiparticle, are particularly interesting because of their potential to be used in quantum computing.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy:
The discovery might also offer clues about dark matter and dark energy, mysterious components of the universe that make up a significant portion of its mass and energy but remain largely unknown.

Speculative Imagination:
The search for these hidden realms and their potential contents relies on a combination of theoretical predictions, experimental data, and imaginative thinking.

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing (Old Grey Whistle Test, 16th May 1978)

Surfer

 

VINCE

 

Lara Trump

 

Russell Brand

 

Backyard Garden

 

The Amber May Show

 

Dinesh D'Souza

 

Sarah Westall

 

Fantasy

 

Bongino Report

 

Diamond & Silk

 

TimcastIRL

 

Disappearance

 

Brookings Brief

Could earmarking taxes help reduce the federal deficit?

The Big THINK

Credit: Plato’s Cave by Michiel Coxie (1499–1592) /Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

The thought experiments that test your life, not your logic

 

Headlines

A war memorial in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

Ximena Borrazas/Getty Images

Trump may meet with Putin and Zelensky next week, White House says. Yesterday, a Trump admin official floated the possibility of Trump meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future, but stressed that neither a date nor a location had been set yet, and also said POTUS would be open to meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Later in the day, Trump told reporters that there was “a very good prospect” of a summit with the three leaders occurring. A new Gallup survey released this morning found that 7 in 10 Ukrainians surveyed in early July said their country should seek a negotiated settlement to end the war as soon as possible.

An Army sergeant allegedly shot five soldiers at Fort Stewart. The suspect, Sgt. Quornelius Radford, is in custody and is accused of shooting five coworkers with a personal handgun. The five victims are in stable condition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X. The gunfire broke out at the Army training base in Georgia yesterday shortly before 11am, prompting the commander to lock down the facility until the afternoon. The commander said that Radford had no prior military disciplinary issues. Investigators were still determining a motive as of this morning.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled $500 million of mRNA vaccine funding. The US health secretary canceled 22 projects related to mRNA vaccines and is taking other steps to divest federal funding from the vaccine technology. In a video posted to X, Kennedy said, “After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses.” Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the surgeon general during Trump’s first term, said on X, “I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions—but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives…mRNA technology has uses that go far beyond vaccines…and the vaccine they helped develop in record time is credited with saving millions.”—HVL

READ MORE...

Robert Reich

What you can do now
A baker’s dozen of important steps to fight Trump fascism






Friends,

In light of Trump’s worsening cruelty, vindictiveness, and ever more belligerent attacks on democracy, many of you ask: “What can I do now?” Here are a baker’s dozen of recommendations. (I’ve shared some of these with you previously but wanted to give you a revised and larger version.) If you have others, please feel free to share them with all of us in the comments.

1. Protect the decent and hardworking members of your communities who are undocumented.

This is an urgent moral call to action. As Trump’s ICE accelerates its roundups, detentions, and deportations, many of our hardworking neighbors and friends are being disappeared. ICE is rapidly becoming Trump’s police state enforcers.

One of Trump’s executive orders allows ICE to arrest undocumented immigrants at or near schools, places of worship, health care sites, shelters, and relief centers — thereby deterring them from sending their kids to school or getting medical or legal help they need. This is nuts.

READ MORE...

At A Glance

Ketchup is the newest fruit smoothie.

Excessive screen time linked to poorer kids' heart health.

Instagram rolls out new map feature.

The 10 wealthiest US states by income.

... PS—1440's Business & Finance newsletter comes out this morning at 8:30 am ET and covers exchange-traded funds. Sign up here!

NASA's Curiosity rover celebrates 13 years on Mars.

College kids schedule everything on Google Calendar.

Ranking top college football coaches of the past 25 years.

How to get your beer-to-foam ratio right every time.

Clickbait: Is it a cat or a rat?

Historybook: Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche born (1904); Operation Desert Shield preps the US to enter Gulf War (1990); US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed, killing 224 and wounding 4,500 (1998); Track and field star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone born (1999); Journalist Peter Jennings dies (2005).

My Formula for Fantastic Salads | healthy + vegan

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Department of Homeland Security revises eligibility rules for specific visa categories, which would ban transgender women from traveling to the US to compete in women's sports (More) | ESPN to acquire NFL Network and other NFL-owned assets in exchange for giving the NFL a 10% stake in ESPN (More)

> Legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne's cause of death revealed as a heart attack; death certificate also notes Osbourne suffered from coronary artery disease and Parkinson’s disease (More)

> Roku launches ad-free streaming service for $2.99 per month, will include 10,000 hours of movie and TV content from Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Discovery (More) | Fox One to launch Aug. 21 at $19.99 per month, will stream all sports and news programming across Fox's broadcast and cable channels (More)


Science & Technology
> NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy announces fast-track plans to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030; part of larger effort to build a permanent lunar base (More) | A brief history of the original space race (1440 Topics)

> Google DeepMind unveils Genie 3, an AI-powered model that creates interactive 3D worlds in real time (More, w/video)

> Pregnant roaches require additional sleep, similar to humans, new study shows; sleep deprivation impacted development of offspring (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close down (S&P 500 -0.5%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq -0.7%) as investors process weaker-than-expected jobs data and President Donald Trump floats new tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals (More)

> Former X CEO Linda Yaccarino named chief executive of telehealth startup eMed, which is designing a population health management platform for GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs (More) | Chemical giants Chemours, DuPont, and Corteva to pay New Jersey $875M over 25 years in forever chemicals settlement (More)

> US credit card debt rises $27B in Q2, totaling $1.2T, per new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; total is in line with last year's all-time high (More) | An overview of credit cards and how they work (1440 Topics)


Politics & World Affairs
> House Oversight Committee issues subpoena for records from the Justice Department over its probe into late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and eight former law enforcement officials subpoenaed for depositions (More)

> Hong Kong witnesses flooding, heaviest daily rainfall since the city began collecting records in 1884 (More) | Japan records hottest temperature on record yesterday, reaching over 107 degrees Fahrenheit (More)

> FBI data finds crime in the US went down in every category last year, including murder, violent crime, and theft; violent crime decreased 4.5%, with murder and manslaughter down 15% (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS