CLOSER TO TRUTH
https://youtu.be/y-jn13jkhnY
VIDEO EXCERPTS: I'm speaking with Stephan Wolfram, the distinguished physicist, computer scientist, and software entrepreneur. We're discussing in depth the Wolfram Physics Project. Steven's grand, indeed radical vision of a new kind of science in which computation via simple rules is the foundation of physical reality. This now is part six...
[...] And the way we realize to think about space is as it having a structure that is this giant hypergraph of atoms of space that are related to each other. That's kind of the substrate of the universe. Time is then the progressive rewriting of this hypergraph by computational processes.
[...] "How did the universe start?" is a question we can ask. As we perceive it today, the universe is roughly three-dimensional so far as we know. Our guess is that this giant kind of network of atoms of space was infinitely dimensional at the beginning of the universe. So that means that the universe gradually cooled down to be roughly three-dimensional.
We kind of suspect that there may be dimension fluctuations left over from the early universe and that somewhere in the universe there may be space that's effectively, let's say 3.01-dimensional or 2.99-dimensional. And this is one of the things that we think it might be possible to actually detect by astrophysical experiments the presence of those kinds of dimension fluctuations.
This is the idea that the universe doesn't have a fixed dimension -- that the dimension of the universe can change over time -- is a very unexpected idea that comes out of our physics project. It also happens to resolve some questions that I worked on a very long time ago in the 1970s on the beginnings of what became the inflationary universe scenario.
Which I've never been a big fan of, that tried to explain how it is that the universe is as uniform as it is. Because light signals shouldn't have been able to cross the universe in the time that was available. But if the universe starts with infinite dimensions, there is no such issue because in infinite-dimensional space everything is infinitely close to everything else.
And so there isn't the same issue of you having to go through space at just the speed of light, because everything effectively is right there and immediately connected to itself.
So does that obviate the need for cosmic inflation to explain the uniformity?
Yes, that is gone.
So the next issue that comes up is in the traditional view where you separate quantum mechanics from general relativity. You end up with this situation where there is a structure of space and...
What is time in the Wolfram Physics Project? ... https://youtu.be/y-jn13jkhnY
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/y-jn13jkhnY
“We often struggle to conceive of and describe the scope and scale of new technologies, meaning that we have trouble even thinking them. What is needed is not new technology, but new metaphors: a metalanguage for describing the world that complex systems have wrought. A new shorthand is required, one that simultaneously acknowledges and addresses the reality of a world in which people, politics, culture and technology are utterly enmeshed."----James Bridle
There is no debating the fact that when we are immediately aware of something, be it a state of our body or something in our environment, that we are "knowing" about it. Consciousness seems to presuppose this very act of knowing. Which suggests that there is another kind of knowing that often happens below the threshhold of our consciousness. We call this intuition--the unconscious processing of information that goes on without us even having the think about it. Like how you just know someone is not being on the level with you. Or how you just know how to type without even being conscious of it. In firearms training in the military they called this "muscle memory"--when you are able to go thru the routine of handling and shooting a firearm automatically and efficiently without thinking about it. Strange that consciousness had to even evolve at all when we already had this innate ability to cognize going on inside our brains. Just what IS the function of being conscious? Wouldn't we have all been better off as zombies?
Posted by: C C - Aug 1, 2026 01:26 AM - Forum: Survivalism
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Anti-Semitic attacks at deadliest level in decades, global report warns
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/2026...port-warns
EXCERPTS: The report identified hostility towards Zionism or Israel as a major motivating factor in incidents classified as anti-Semitic by its authors, accounting for 48 percent of recorded cases in the UK and 45 percent in the US. The task force warned that political arguments surrounding Israel and the Gaza war were increasingly being used to target Jewish individuals, institutions and communities, rather than remaining focused on the actions of governments.
It also highlighted the role of social media in spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric, accusing platforms of failing to apply their own rules consistently or act quickly enough against threatening and abusive material. Jewish organisations have reported that some people are avoiding displaying religious symbols or revealing their identity in public because of fears of harassment.
[...] The J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism report released on Wednesday shows that 20 people were murdered in anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in 2025.
Last year was the deadliest for such violence in the Jewish diaspora since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. In France, 1,320 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded. While that represented a 16 percent fall from the 2024 figure of 1,570, it was still more than three times the 436 incidents reported in 2022.
Anti-Semitic incidents represented 53 percent of all anti-religious incidents recorded in the country in 2025.
The report examined anti-Semitic incidents in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Together, the seven countries are home to more than 90 percent of Jewish people living outside Israel. France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community... (MORE - missing details)
Labour paid foreign criminals £6.5million of taxpayer cash to persuade them to leave the country
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-1...untry.html
EXCERPTS: The Government is spending millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash each year paying convicted criminals to leave the UK, the Daily Mail can reveal. Some £6.5million has been handed out to foreign criminals between July 2024, when Labour came to power, and October 2025.
The grants, awarded under the Facilitated Return Scheme (FRS), were given to 4,625 people at an average of £1,405 each, data exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail shows. The money is paid to 'encourage' foreign nationals who have been convicted of a criminal offence while in the UK to leave the country 'at the earliest possible opportunity' – some a whole four years before the end of their jail sentence.
The scheme was thrust into the spotlight last year after convicted sex offender Hadush Kebatu was given £500 by the Home Office to return to his native Ethiopia. Kebatu, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in the Bell Hotel, Epping, after arriving in the UK on a small boat and claiming asylum, sparked a nationwide manhunt after he was mistakenly freed from prison instead of being deported.
After being captured by police Kebatu threatened to 'disrupt' his deportation, prompting the payment of taxpayer cash. He was ultimately forcibly deported by a team of five security officers.
Data obtained by the Daily Mail shows that between the day after Sir Keir Starmer's election win and the end of October 2025, the Government paid out £6,500,626 to foreign nationals convicted of criminal offences in Britain.
[...] The FRS has been in place since 2006 and, according to the Government, offers 'resettlement grants' in the form of 'financial support for reintegration to encourage FNOs [foreign national offenders] to cooperate with their early removal from the UK'.
The Home Office defines an FNO as someone who is not British and has been convicted of any crime in the UK. Criminals must apply for the grant, and are eligible to receive up to £1,500 if they make their application while serving a custodial sentence.
This drops to £750 for those who apply after finishing their prison sentence or who were not sentenced to prison time. Children of those awarded grants under the scheme are also eligible for an additional grant of up to £1,500 each if they are also returning to their home country... (MORE - details)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138413
INTRO: If it feels harder to keep the same doctor, you’re not imagining it. Healthcare leaders say retirements, burnout and changing workforce expectations are making it complicated to keep experienced clinicians in place.
A new study published in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety suggests the reasons go beyond staffing shortages. Leaders from four major health systems in one of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas say generational shifts are reshaping who enters healthcare, who stays and why clinicians leave.
“We’ve talked about clinical workforce shortages as a numbers problem involving training and retention,” said study co-author Dr. William Sage, founding director of the Texas A&M University Institute for Healthcare Access in Fort Worth. “What these leaders described was something more complicated, as healthcare organizations are struggling to meet growing patient needs while accommodating five distinct generations of clinicians with different needs and perspectives about work, well-being and career longevity.”
Study participants, 17 leaders from four major healthcare systems in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, repeatedly described the departure of clinicians as one of their biggest concerns, whether the higher turnover now common among young physicians or an older physician’s lack of transitional options short of full retirement. Some said replacing a highly experienced physician could require hiring multiple younger clinicians, given the way that the healthcare system measures and rewards productivity.
“When a veteran clinician leaves, healthcare organizations lose more than just a position,” said Keegan Warren, co-author and the institute’s executive director. “They can lose years of institutional knowledge, mentoring relationships and practical experience that are difficult to replace. For physicians in particular, departure carries a high institutional price tag. Treating clinicians as people whose lives and contributions matter is not just the right thing to do; it’s a critical strategy for protecting both continuity of care and the financial health of the system.”
Participants also pointed to burnout and shifting workplace expectations. Younger physicians and nurses are more likely to discuss mental health, work-life balance and scheduling flexibility, and they expect employers to play a major role in addressing those concerns.
Sage said the findings should not be interpreted as a simple clash between generations but as the shifting and mixing of expectations over time, including as the result of discrete events such as the introduction of work hours regulation for medical trainees, the reduction of physician-owned practices in favor of employment by hospitals and other large organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This isn’t a story about one generation being right and another being wrong,” Sage said. “It’s about how the profession is changing and how healthcare organizations can adapt while continuing to provide excellent patient care.” (MORE - no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138394
INTRO: A daily beetroot juice supplement could offer a simple and accessible approach to supporting kidney function during pregnancy for women living with chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to new research led by King's College London.
Pregnancy places extra strain on the kidneys, and for women with moderate to severe CKD, around half will experience a decline in kidney function during pregnancy. Despite these risks, outcomes for pregnant women with CKD have changed little over the past 30 years, and many of the treatments used to manage kidney disease are not safe during pregnancy, meaning women often need to stop their medication for at least nine months.
In the new study, published in Kidney International Reports, researchers investigated whether dietary nitrate from beetroot juice could offer a simple, safe way to support kidney health during pregnancy.
Beetroot juice is naturally rich in nitrate, which the body converts into nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps widen blood vessels and improve blood flow, leading researchers to investigate whether it could help reduce the strain placed on the kidneys during pregnancy.
The team recruited 108 pregnant women with stage 2–5 chronic kidney disease from eight hospitals across the UK. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either standard care or a daily beetroot juice supplement containing dietary nitrate before 25 weeks of pregnancy.
While the study was designed primarily to assess whether a larger clinical trial would be feasible, the findings also suggested potential benefits for both mothers and babies.
Kate Bramham, Consultant Nephrologist at King’s College Hospital, Professor at King's College London and senior author of the paper, said: "For women living with chronic kidney disease, pregnancy has always meant navigating a difficult trade-off between preserving their own health and keeping their baby safe, often with few tools to do both. These results are an encouraging first step towards a low-cost, low-risk intervention that could genuinely make a difference for this group of women, who have been underserved by research for far too long."
Women receiving beetroot juice experienced around 70% fewer serious adverse events overall than those receiving standard care. Of the serious adverse events that did occur, around half affected newborn babies.
Among women with more advanced kidney disease, the researchers also observed trends towards better kidney function after pregnancy, fewer admissions of newborn babies to neonatal care, and a reduced need for blood pressure medication during pregnancy.
Importantly, the researchers found no safety concerns associated with beetroot juice supplementation during pregnancy, including no increase in high blood potassium levels (hyperkalaemia). There have been concerns that beetroot juice could increase the risk of hyperkalaemia in pregnant women with CKD, with some online advice recommending that they avoid it. However, in this study, the authors highlight that no increase in hyperkalaemia was observed among the women receiving beetroot juice... (MORE - details)
