Article History
White House authorizes 'lethal force' by troops at border. What does it mean?
Via: Split Personality • News & Politics • 85 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“Immigration activists, federal officials and reporters wrestled Wednesday with interpretations of a White House memo authorizing “a show or use of...”
Immigration activists, federal officials and reporters wrestled Wednesday with interpretations of a White House memo authorizing “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary)” by the troops deployed on the border with Mexico. The directive specified the purposes for which...
What is this alien fruit?
By: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 74 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“Evil friut...”
This is my neighbor's tree encroaching over my 11 foot fence. It's supposedly a peach tree although, neighboring peach trees bear fruit, we've never seen anything like fruit on this tree until three years ago. Then it developed something very odd That hung there for three years...
Rare microbes lead scientists to discover new branch on the tree of life
Via: Split Personality • Health, Science & Technology • 17 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“Hemimastigotes are more different from all other living things than animals are from fungi”
Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that's so different from other living things that it doesn't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms. Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were...
Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’
Via: Split Personality • Health, Science & Technology • 11 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“ An 72-meter ice core drilled in the Colle Gnifetti Glacier in the Swiss Alps entombs more than 2000 years of fallout from volcanoes, storms, and...”
Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, "It was the beginning of...
'There’s no way to make sense out of the senseless': gunman kills 12 in Thousand Oaks bar
Via: Split Personality • News & Politics • 44 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“ Terrified patrons scrambled for cover as smoke and bullets filled the room. Some hid behind pool tables and in bathroom stalls, crouching as they...”
A former U.S. Marine gunner who may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder burst into a Thousand Oaks bar packed with college students late Wednesday night, tossed a smoke bomb into the crowd and opened fire, authorities said. Eleven people were killed, along with a sheriff’s...
How One Inuit Community Won Against Big Oil
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 10 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“... and what it means for other environmental efforts.”
In April 2018, the Trump administration announced Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was open for business. By June, two Alaska Native Regional Corporations and a small oil company had already jointly applied to conduct extensive seismic testing in the refuge next winter. Seismic...
Graduate Student Solves Quantum Verification Problem
Via: Split Personality • Critical Thinkers • 11 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“Urmila Mahadev spent eight years in graduate school solving one of the most basic questions in quantum computation: How do you know whether a...”
In the spring of 2017, Urmila Mahadev found herself in what most graduate students would consider a pretty sweet position. She had just solved a major problem in quantum computation, the study of computers that derive their power from the strange laws of quantum physics. Combined with her earlier...
This teacher's favorite textbooks were taken from her classroom. Her principal did it
Via: Split Personality • Health, Science & Technology • 34 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“"They're gone," said Silverman. "Nobody knows where they are."”
Silverman, a 30-year veteran teacher whose scores deem her one of the best teachers in the state, has been using a textbook called "McDougal-Littell Literature" for a decade, although students were using an edition from four years ago. It's got poems, essays, short stories, Edgar Allan Poe and...
Humanoid construction robot installs drywall by itself
Via: Split Personality • Health, Science & Technology • 75 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“It's clever, if also a commentary on Japan's labor priorities.”
If Japan's Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Institute has its way, construction workers might be a thing of the past. Researchers have built HRP-5P, a humanoid bot that can handle a variety of construction tasks when there's either a staffing shortage or serious hazards. The...
NAFTA is now USMCA
Via: Split Personality • News & Politics • 9 Comments • 6 years ago • LOCKED
“The good, the bad, and the meh.”
Nothing President Donald Trump says about trade makes sense, so you have to look at the actual policy. That’s especially true if you, like me, are broadly sympathetic to the view that the pre-Trump bipartisan trade policy consensus really had veered off course. And looking this morning at the...