Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalAmazing Images: The Best Science Photos of the Week
By Livescience.com 30 minutes ago
Each week we find the most interesting and informative articles we can and along the way we uncover amazing and cool images. Here you'll discover incredible photos and the stories behind them.
A Unique Cloud
(Image credit: David Peterson (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory))
A photographer on a NASA airplane captured a rare and spectacular shot when flying through a fire
cloud, a type of thunderhead that forms above a wildfire's smoke plume.
[Full Story: Eerie 'Fire Cloud' Floats Like Alien Structure Over Washington]
More:
https://www.livescience.com/50717-amazing-images.html
Greta Thunberg: Why are young climate activists facing so much hate?
By Joshua Nevett
BBC News
28 August 2019
From the first protest by a single student, the school climate strike movement has been a lightning rod for criticism.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who inspired the now-global movement, has become a primary target. On Wednesday, the 16-year-old arrived in New York after completing her voyage across the Atlantic aboard an environmentally friendly yacht.
She faced a barrage of attacks on the way.
"Freak yachting accidents do happen in August," Arron Banks, a businessman and prominent Brexit campaigner, tweeted. While Mr Banks said the tweet was a joke, many were outraged.
Ms Thunberg is not the only eco-activist under fire, though. Four young climate campaigners told the BBC of the abuse they have been subjected to. One was compared to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels while another said she had been racially abused.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49291464
Why is Bolsonaro wary of foreign Amazon aid? Ask Brazil's military
AUGUST 30, 2019 / 3:44 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
Gabriel Stargardter
6 MIN READ
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s furious reaction to foreign criticism of his handling of Amazon fires reflects the sacred place the vast region occupies in the minds of Brazil’s military, for whom the rainforest is almost a raison d’être.
While many around the world view the Amazon as a vital defence against climate change, within Brazil’s military the sparsely developed region represents a sprawling, resource-rich asset that they believe foreigners are desperate to control.
That helps explain why Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, reacted with fury to the world’s condemnation of his handling of the fires and initially slapped down many of its offers of help.
“There is foreign interest in the mineral wealth and biodiversity of the Amazon,” retired General Paulo Chagas, a friend of Bolsonaro’s, told Reuters. “When (foreigners) speak of protecting the Indians and the environment, that is just a cover to justify outside interference.”
“President Bolsonaro believes this totally. It comes from the cradle, the military academy.”
But the Amazon is not just a potent symbol of national sovereignty for the armed forces, officials, former soldiers and experts said.
More:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-environment-military/why-is-bolsonaro-wary-of-foreign-amazon-aid-ask-brazils-military-idUKKCN1VK2HM?rpc=401&
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016238402
Why is Bolsonaro wary of foreign Amazon aid? Ask Brazil's military
AUGUST 30, 2019 / 3:44 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
Gabriel Stargardter
6 MIN READ
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s furious reaction to foreign criticism of his handling of Amazon fires reflects the sacred place the vast region occupies in the minds of Brazil’s military, for whom the rainforest is almost a raison d’être.
While many around the world view the Amazon as a vital defence against climate change, within Brazil’s military the sparsely developed region represents a sprawling, resource-rich asset that they believe foreigners are desperate to control.
That helps explain why Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, reacted with fury to the world’s condemnation of his handling of the fires and initially slapped down many of its offers of help.
“There is foreign interest in the mineral wealth and biodiversity of the Amazon,” retired General Paulo Chagas, a friend of Bolsonaro’s, told Reuters. “When (foreigners) speak of protecting the Indians and the environment, that is just a cover to justify outside interference.”
“President Bolsonaro believes this totally. It comes from the cradle, the military academy.”
But the Amazon is not just a potent symbol of national sovereignty for the armed forces, officials, former soldiers and experts said.
More:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-environment-military/why-is-bolsonaro-wary-of-foreign-amazon-aid-ask-brazils-military-idUKKCN1VK2HM?rpc=401&
NASA's Tiny New Atomic Clock Could Let Spacecraft Drive Themselves in Deep Space
By Rafi Letzter 6 hours ago Space
It's about the size of a toaster
An illustration shows the Deep Space Atomic Clock aboard its orbital testbed.(Image: © NASA/JPL)
NASA has switched on a new, super-precise, space-based atomic clock that the agency hopes will one day help spacecraft drive themselves through deep space without relying on Earthbound clocks.
It's called the Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), and it works by measuring the behaviors of mercury ions trapped in its small frame. It's been in orbit since June, but it was first successfully activated on Aug. 23. It's not at all flashy — just a gray box about the size of a four-slice toaster and full of wires, Jill Seubert, an aerospace engineer and one of the leaders of the project at NASA, told Live Science. But that unassuming size is the point: Suebert and her colleagues are working to engineer a clock small enough to load onto any spacecraft and precise enough to guide complicated maneuvers in deep space without any input from its refrigerator-sized cousins on Earth.
You need a precise clock to find your way around space because it's big and empty. There are few landmarks by which to judge your position or velocity, and most are too far away to offer precise information. So every decision to turn a ship or fire its thrusters, Seubert said, begins with three questions: Where am I? How fast am I moving? And in what direction?
The best way to answer those questions is to look at objects for which the answers are already known, like radio transmitters on Earth, or GPS satellites following known orbital tracks through space. Send out a signal at light speed with the precise time at point A and measure how long it takes to get to point B. That tells you the distance between A and B. Send two more signals from two more locations, and you'll have enough information to figure out exactly where point B is in three-dimensional space. (This is how the GPS software on your phone works: by constantly checking the minute differences in time signatures broadcast by different orbiting satellites.)
More:
https://www.livescience.com/atomic-clock-in-space-is-on.html
'Full-scale emergency': musician burned in his tent highlights LA's homeless crisis
Sam Levin in Los Angeles
@SamTLevin Email
Fri 30 Aug 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 30 Aug 2019 01.12 EDT
Musician Darrell Fields, 62, was well-known in downtown LA. Photograph: Courtesy of LA Can
Darrell Fields, 62, who was known as Mr Guitar, was often seen playing music on the street and at neighborhood events
Los Angeles homeless advocates and Skid Row residents are mourning the death of a beloved guitarist who was killed when his tent was set ablaze in what authorities say was an “intentional” act.
The gruesome death of Darrell Fields, a 62-year-old musician who was well-known in downtown LA and worked extensively with a local advocacy group, was a particularly brutal representation of a severe and worsening homeless crisis in the region. The deadly fire Monday night came the same week that a scathing government audit found that LA’s top homeless outreach agency had dramatically failed in its goals to place people into housing.
“We are in a full-scale emergency,” said Kayo Anderson, a Skid Row advocate who was friends with Fields for years and played with him in a band. “We no longer have the luxury of walking at a snail’s pace to get this done. If Darrell was a housed person, he would still be with us. That’s an indictment of us all.”
Anderson, 42, has stored Fields’ guitars and keyboards inside his office at the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA Can). “I can’t even express to you how genius he was,” Anderson said about Fields. “He was just brilliant and uniquely gifted … He was also a big-hearted human who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/29/los-angeles-homeless-tent-murder-darrell-fields
Uribe calls to revoke FARC peace deal and is met with fierce resistance
by Stephen Gill August 29, 2019
Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe called to revoke the 2016 peace deal with FARC guerrillas on Thursday, spurring fierce reactions from opinion leaders who support the peace process.
Uribe, who has been a bitter opponent of the peace process since before talks began, used the call to arms of the FARC’s former peace negotiator, “Ivan Marquez,” to claim “there was no peace, but pardon for those responsible for heinous crimes at a high institutional cost.”
The political patron of President Ivan Duque himself has been accused of war crimes and is expected in court in October for the alleged tampering of witnesses who have testified he formed a death squad.
At a campaign rally of an ally taking part in the October 27 local elections, Uribe went as far as calling to revoke the 2016 peace agreement.
“We must remove those agreements from the constitution, capture those bandits wherever they may be, recover the economy and strengthen our social policies. A firm hand against those bandits is what the country needs,” he said at the rally.
Opposition Senator Gustavo Bolivar responded on Twitter, claiming that Uribe and his far-right allies “pushed a part of the FARC into war” by obstructing the implementation of the peace deal.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/uribe-calls-to-revoke-farc-peace-deal-and-is-met-with-fierce-resistance/
Ilhan Omar reveals racist threat to shoot her at state fair
Source: BBC News
29 August 2019
A US Democratic lawmaker has publicised a racist threat that she would be killed at the state fair by "a very capable person with a very big 'Gun'".
Ilhan Omar, a Muslim representative from Minnesota, said such anonymous messages are why she now has security guards.
She spoke as US Senate candidate Roy Moore tweeted: "President Trump was right, she should go back to Somalia".
Alabama Republicans have called for Ms Omar's expulsion from Congress.
"I hate that we live in a world where you have to be protected from fellow humans," Ms Omar, who came to the US as a Somali refugee aged 12, wrote on Wednesday.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49513194
Endangered bats: The manicure helping to save a species
By Helen Briggs
BBC News
2 hours ago
The Cuban greater funnel-eared bat (Natalus primus) has only one known home in the world
One of the world's rarest bats is now confined to a single cave in Western Cuba with less than 750 remaining, according to a population survey.
Scientists are highlighting the plight of the animal, saying its last home is vulnerable to collapse.
The Cuban greater funnel-eared bat was rediscovered in 1992 after being declared extinct.
Fossils of the species have been found across Cuba and neighbouring islands, suggesting it was once widespread.
On an expedition to the cave, researchers used different colours of nail varnish to mark the bats' "nails" so they could tell each one apart and count them.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49496760
~ ~ ~
15 Astonishing Facts About Bats
BY ROSEMARY MOSCO OCTOBER 19, 2016
http://mentalfloss.com/article/87618/15-astonishing-facts-about-bats
Supreme Court Overrules Car Wash Operation Conviction Imposed by Moro
STF ruling could overturn almost all Lava Jato sentences, task force says
Aug.28.2019 2:06PM
The Supreme Court (Supreme Court) overturned--for the first time--a conviction made by former judge Sergio Moro.
By three votes to 1, the Second Panel dismissed the conviction of Aldemir Bendine, former president of Petrobras and Banco do Brasil, for corruption and money laundering in a case linked to Operation Lava Jato.
Ministers Ricardo Lewandowski, Gilmar Mendes, and Cármen Lúcia voted for the annulment. Lava Jato's court rapporteur, Minister Edson Fachin, was defeated. The fifth member of the board, Celso de Mello, did not attend the session on Tuesday (27).
The decision was due to a technical issue linked to curbing the possibility of defense and is considered a significant Car Wash Operation defeat.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/08/supreme-court-overrules-car-wash-operation-conviction-imposed-by-moro.shtml
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