Monday, October 21, 2024

Revenant

Apparently, there was a pro-Trump chant that arose at the Steeler game last night but I did not see it broadcast.

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Can you imagine the people behind the Harris campaign--or Trump's--monitoring speech in the public square?

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Universities hoping to reclaim trust must do more than simply make political activism evenhanded. They must reclaim the pursuit of truth that alone justifies university education.


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A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.

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Revenant

(This got lost in the wash last week but here it is.)

A rescue. A reprieve. In our daily human slog, a real human achievement.

I'm sure everyone has seen this but it is still just amazing.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1845542074609004971


SpaceX's Starship rocket achieved a world first on Sunday during its fifth test flight, showing for the first time that the launch system may really have what it takes to change spaceflight.

The launch system includes a Starship rocket ship stacked atop a 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster and stands taller than the Statue of Liberty.

The Super Heavy booster released Starship on its path toward space, then began to fall back to Earth. For the first time ever, as the booster descended toward the company's Texas launchpad, a pair of giant mechanical "chopsticks," or arms, snatched it.

The giant booster had returned to Earth in one piece. It was SpaceX's first attempt at the revolutionary chopstick maneuver.

This engineering feat is unlike anything ever seen in orbital-rocket technology.  

The feat brings SpaceX one step closer to Musk's goals of building the first fully reusable rocket system, slashing the cost of spaceflight, and, ultimately, making humanity a multiplanetary species.

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