LOL Three so far! Golden statues created just for him! One and a half years folks..one and a half years.

“Any other adult in this country would feel completely embarrassed by the patronizing way that Trump is showered with fake awards on a near-daily basis.”
@jenpsaki reacts as Trump receives Congress’ inaugural ‘America First’ award, highlighting the other honors he has received in his second term.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/875750935505128

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/what...-3i-atlas/

EXCERPTS: Last year the inner solar system had an interstellar visitor – 3I/Atlas (which stands for the third interstellar object which was discovered by the Atlas telescope). [...] Now that it is passing out of the solar system we can look at all the data that NASA collected and make some fairly confident conclusions. There are a lot of sources of information, but Wikipedia actually has a pretty good summary and list of references. In the end, 3I/Atlas behaved mostly like a typical comet.

[...] At the other end of the spectrum, in my opinion, is Avi Loeb. He has seemed to make a career now out of mystery mongering anything unusual as a possible alien artifact. He claimed that all three interstellar objects might be alien craft. Why is he at the crank end of the spectrum? Because he elevated this possibility prematurely and with a series of really bad arguments, sometimes distorting the data or making bad calculations.

He said that Oumuamua might be alien because it was coming close to the Earth, to observe it. He then argued that 3I/Atlas might be alien because it was not coming close to the Earth, to hide from us. He exaggerated its possible size, its apparent lack of a tail, its composition. He made a lot of the fact that the comet’s trajectory is close to the ecliptic, about 5 degrees off, committing a classic lottery fallacy argument. He calculated how likely this specific feature is, but only after knowing it, and did not adjust for all possible features that might be individually unlikely.

He engaged in classic post-hoc reasoning. In the end, the predictions of NASA scientists all proved correct – 3I/Atlas is a comet, and displays all the features of a comet. Loeb attracted attention by saying 3I/Atlas might pivot toward the Earth once it emerges from behind the sun. When this prediction failed he did admit it was “most likely natural”, but is still emphasizing its apparent anomalies.

What he is doing is playing coy, which is a common strategy for those who are pushing fringe ideas but who are trying to seem reasonable. All along he said – the most likely explanation is that it is natural. But then follows up with – here are lots of (really bad) reasons why it is unusual and might be alien.

This is a win-win for him – in the rare case that he turns out to be right, he is a genius and takes all the credit (keep in mind, if it were alien NASA would have found out all by themselves, with his prodding). If it turns out he is wrong, then he can claim he said all along it was likely to be natural. Either way he sucks up as much oxygen as possible from the media and distracts from the hard-working scientists at NASA doing good work.

There is some great and interesting science here. The conclusion that this is almost certainly not an alien craft is a footnote at best, because there was never any good reason to hypothesize that it was... (MORE - missing details)

https://iai.tv/articles/theories-are-nev..._auid=2020

INTRO: We think our theories about reality – whether in physics, philosophy, or psychology – should aspire to be faithful descriptions of how reality actually is. But philosopher of science Manuel Delaflor makes the case that this aspiration is incredibly dangerous. Instead of thinking our theories map onto an underlying reality, Delaflor asks us to stop worshipping our models, even though we cannot stop modelling any more than we can stop breathing. Evaluating our theories by what they can do, and not by what they claim to be, will make us far more productive and happier... (MORE - details)

RELATED (scivillage): Meteor makes sonic boom over Cleveland
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Something is happening around Earth: Inside 2026’s massive fireball surge
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-...all-surge/

EXCERPTS: During the first three months of 2026, our planet waded through an unusually dense shooting gallery. The American Meteor Society (AMS) has tracked a staggering wave of large, bright meteors — known as fireballs — lighting up skies from California to Germany.

Earth sweeps up tons of space dust every day. Usually, this material is the size of a grain of sand and burns up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. But right now, we are colliding with much bigger rocks. And scientists are scrambling to figure out why.

[...] “After years of stable baseline activity, something appears to have shifted,” Hankey wrote in the AMS report. “The signal is consistent across multiple metrics.” If you look strictly at the raw numbers, the sky doesn’t look like it is falling. In the first quarter of 2026, the AMS recorded 2,046 total fireball events. That is high, but only marginally above the 2,037 events recorded in 2022 for the same three-month window. What’s changed is the physical size of the rocks from space.

Usually, a fireball event draws a handful of witnesses. But in March 2026 alone, five different fireballs exceeded 200 eyewitness reports. That is more mass-sighting events in one month than all previous Marches combined over the last fifteen years.

[...] So, what exactly is throwing these rocks at us? To find out, astronomers calculate a meteor’s radiant — the apparent point in the sky from which the fireball originated. By mapping the trajectories of these massive fireballs, researchers found two suspicious clusters.

The most prominent is the Anthelion sporadic source. This is a region of space sitting directly opposite the sun. Objects coming from the Anthelion direction are essentially catching up to Earth from behind as they plunge deeper into the inner solar system. Historically, this region has always produced a few fireballs.

[...] Earth is moving through a changed neighborhood. The rocks are bigger, they are louder, and they are hitting the atmosphere with alarming frequency.

“Whether this represents normal statistical variance, an uncharacterized debris population, or something else entirely will require continued monitoring and further analysis,” Hankey said... (MORE - missing details)

RELATED: Decolonization of knowledge
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Treating myths as science
https://quillette.com/2026/03/26/treatin...on-canada/

EXCERPTS: In the early 2000s, I spent much of my time over the course of several years fighting the incursion of religion into science classes in the United States. At the time, the main target of religious fundamentalists was evolution. [...] Let’s fast forward 25 years [...] A colleague recently forwarded me the current B.C. high school science curriculum for grades nine and twelve. It includes an embarrassing amalgam of religious gobbledygook and anti-science rhetoric..

[...] You may wonder how religious fundamentalism could so effectively creep into the curriculum in a progressive place like British Columbia. The answer is simple. The religious nonsense being inserted into the curriculum has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism; rather, it is Indigenous religious nonsense. And in the current climate, Indigenous “knowledge” is held to a different standard from scientific knowledge—or, rather, to no standard at all.

[...] To be clear: This postmodern perspective isn’t science. It is, at best, anti-science. Cultural and intuitive beliefs are—and should be—irrelevant to our understanding of the cosmos. Science has taught us to conform our beliefs to the reality of nature, as determined by falsifiable evidence, not the other way around. It is fine to teach Indigenous mythological storytelling in a social science or history class but it is not appropriate to teach it as if it is science... (MORE - details)
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Of course, Krauss has a presence in the Epstein Files (eerie "dah-doo-doo-doo-doo" whistling theme in the background). So postcolonial morality and justice quickly get this privileged crusader and his complaints and Western bias cancelled just from that alone. Adios, Lawrence!

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: The end of prosperity in Europe!

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SURVIVAL LILLY
https://youtu.be/pRSQOzdutCU

VIDEO EXCERPTS: I'm reporting here from uh Austria again. So, right now the diesel price is at €21 per liter. It's pretty expensive. I think if you convert it to gallons, that's around $10 US or something. So, it's about double the price in Europe than it is in the US. So, it's really crazy.

There's another news story that I want to tell you which I read yesterday in the news. One company was hiring new employees and some people wanted to start to work in this company, but then because the fuel prices are so high people said that they don't want to come anymore. Because it's too expensive to commute to the working place.

So then they called employer and said they won't come to work, instead they will stay in unemployment because it's more profitable to stay unemployed. So now the company owner was super furious that he won't get any workers because of the higher fuel prices.

[...] More and more people are venting their frustrations on social media. It's no longer worth working. So, they quit and live off the state. For a lot of people, the commute to work simply isn't worth it anymore.

[...] Germany wants to build nuclear reactors again, but this time they want to build smaller reactors. So not just one big one but a lot of small ones. That's the plan. The problem is we are now in a climate crisis and until you complete building those nuclear power plants it will take 5 to 15 years.

They were discussing the pros and cons of nuclear power plants and in one talk show a Green Party politician was saying that nuclear power plants are wonderful targets for attack. So the Greens do not want to build nuclear power plants because they are saying it could be attacked by a rocket or something. Yeah. But then you cannot have anything anymore, right? So this is the argument that the Greens are now bringing in Germany which is against nuclear power plants.

[...] Now in the south of Germany, they want to build 2,000 wind turbines. The problem is that in this region, there's not a lot of wind. So those wind turbines, they will not make a lot of profit. But still the government wants to give out subsidies to companies who are building them. And of course um this money is paid for by the German taxpayer.

Also, here they are saying that German's economy is at the point of no return. If anyone still needed a concrete figure to illustrate the dramatic state of the German economy, the Federal Statistical Office has now delivered it. The country's investment ratio is negative as depreciation exceeds nominal investments.

Slowly but truly, the lights are going out. Private sector engagement is being crowded out by the NGO complex, green subsidy entrepreneurs, and all the incentive hunters who offer no real products or service on the market, but are very adept at exploiting public funding.

Meanwhile, the real economy, the free private sector, is packing its bags. Whether it's mechanical, engineering, automotive, or chemical, companies are retreating and increasingly investing abroad. In 2024, over 60 billion in net direct investment was withdrawn from Germany.

Germany's infrastructure, building stock and industrial capital are eroding over time and are not being maintained. It is clear that an economy unable to renew its capital stock in a market form. Competitive way is falling behind. People are impoverished and society risks severe social upheavals.

It is baffling and evidence of deep-seated cognitive dissonance, not to recognize the collapse of the German industry for what it is, the dismantling of our prosperity. Our prosperity and wealth is being dismantled...

Germany at the point of no return ... https://youtu.be/pRSQOzdutCU
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/pRSQOzdutCU

You can't clone a clone forever: the mutations are eventually fatal
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien...45888.html

INTRO: A two-decade study into cloning has revealed a fundamental flaw in the technology, demonstrating that repeated duplication leads to an accumulation of fatal genetic mutations. Researchers in Japan generated 1,206 cloned laboratory mice from a single female donor between 2005 and 2025.

Initially, no outward signs of trouble were observed across the first 25 generations. However, genetic mutations subsequently began to pile up, ultimately proving fatal. The 58th generation of clones, despite appearing physically normal, died within days of birth due to these accumulated genetic mutations.

This extensive research directly contradicts the long-held notion that clones are identical copies of their original donor and disproves the idea that current cloning technology could be sustained indefinitely without adverse effects.

Developmental biologist Teruhiko Wakayama of the University of Yamanashi, senior author of the research published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, stated: "No one has ever continued re-cloning for this long before. As a result, this is the first time we've discovered that repeated re-cloning eventually reaches its limits." (MORE - details)

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Implantable ‘living pharmacy’ produces multiple drugs inside the body
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1121202

INTRO: A multi-institutional team of scientists, co-led by Northwestern University, has taken a crucial step toward implantable “living pharmacies” — tiny devices containing engineered cells that continuously produce medicines inside the body.

In a new study, the team engineered cells to simultaneously produce three different biologics — an anti-HIV antibody, a GLP-1-like peptide used to treat type 2 diabetes and leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and metabolism. When implanted under the skin of a small animal model, the device kept drug-producing cells alive and stably delivered all three therapies at once.

Called HOBIT (short for hybrid oxygenation bioelectronics system for implanted therapy), the new system integrates the engineered cells with oxygen-producing bioelectronics. Roughly the size of a folded stick of gum, the design shields cells from the body’s immune system while also providing cells with oxygen and nutrients to keep them alive and producing biologic drugs for several weeks.

With more work, living pharmacies hold the potential to treat chronic conditions with a single, long-lasting therapy — bypassing the need for patients to carry, inject or remember to take medications... (MORE - details, no ads)

The inner life we're trading away
https://bigthink.com/philosophy/the-inne...ding-away/

KEY POINTS: Neuroscientist Christof Koch argues that our culture’s obsession with “doing” over “being” has left us unable to distinguish between intelligence and consciousness — a confusion that helps explain why so many people mistake sophisticated AI for something with an inner life. Machines can perform the same tasks as intelligent humans without experiencing anything at all. Koch suggests that a future dominated by brilliant yet unconscious machines could steadily drain human existence of meaning. The antidote, Koch argues, is to cultivate reflective self-consciousness: the practice of pausing, looking inward, and examining your own thoughts and feelings. It’s a capacity no machine can develop for you.

EXCERPTS: For Koch, the surge of people attributing consciousness to their chatbots is no amusing matter. The trend erodes more complex and demanding human relationships and, at a deeper level, “massively devalues the human experience.” He has watched the mirage form from its earliest days, when Google engineer Blake Lemoine claimed in 2022 that the company’s large language model was sentient and deserved recognition as a person. Today, Koch notes, there is “every day a conference somewhere in machine consciousness and sentience.”

[...] For Koch, the confusion begins in a deeper bias built into modern culture: We reward doing far more readily than we value being, or experience. “Particularly nowadays, and over the last 200 years,” he says, “in these capitalist societies we value work that relates to intelligence, whether physical or intellectual — first blue-collar work and now white-collar work. What matters is not what you think, dream, or imagine; it’s what you do. That’s how we pay you. That’s how we value your contribution to society for the most part.”

[...] A culture organized around doing struggles to tell the difference between intelligence and consciousness — between being “dumb” or “smart” and being “less” or “more” conscious. This is why Koch keeps returning to that distinction. “Many people assume,” he says, “that artificial general intelligence would of course imply consciousness: ‘Isn’t consciousness intelligence?’ I think that’s wrong. Intelligence and consciousness are two distinct aspects of life.” Even brain mapping reflects this divide: Activity linked to conscious experience gathers toward the back of the cortex, while the systems that support intelligent behavior sit farther toward the front. Intelligence and experience can come apart.

[...] Psychedelic states offer another example. “When you’re tripping — if you’ve ever done ayahuasca or mescaline or mushrooms — you’re experiencing visions of heaven or hell, yet you’re not doing much. Likewise, when you’re dreaming in REM sleep, you may be flying, fighting, making love. Again, there’s no behavior there. Yet you’re conscious.”

[...] For Koch, conscious experience — what he calls “the feeling of life itself” — comes first. “What truly exists is consciousness. That’s the only thing I am directly acquainted with. I don’t know about atoms, galaxies, and neurons; all of that is inferred. The only thing I know is seeing, hearing, feeling.” Even as a scientist, it begins there. Every act of science unfolds within awareness: studying the trace on an oscilloscope, following tracks in a cloud chamber, listening to colleagues present their findings, or picturing Einstein running his famous thought experiments on special and general relativity.

[...] Even if machines can never be what we are, they will steadily grow more like us in performance. “Ultimately, it’s about doing things in the marketplace or on the battlefield,” Koch says. “And there, they’re going to become better and eventually displace us.” Evolution, he observes, crowned humans the dominant species for our intelligence and aggression. Now we are seeking to build creatures that will surpass us on both. “They will become smarter than us and, of course, more aggressive than us. Is that really going to end well?” (MORE - missing details)