Trump was informed most ‘allies’ won’t help with Hormoz. Says US doesn’t need help anyway investingLive
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05 Sci-Tech
The Islamic Republic has unveiled a new and dangerous weapon: the Sejjil missile. It can be set up and launched with minimal delay, making it harder to hit with preemptive strikes. Iran has only a few hundred, but they are produced indigenously. Fortunately, there is a simple way to stop production for good.
The Sejjil’s menace stems from its design for speed in deployment. Unlike Iran’s older liquid-fueled Shahab missiles, which take hours to prepare, leaving them vulnerable to preemptive strikes, the Sejjil runs on solid propellant. That means it is ready to be fired from road-mobile launchers in mere minutes, vanishing before countermeasures kick in.
Iranian state media claim it also has mid-descent maneuverability that allows it to dodge interceptors—they call it the “dancing missile”—but that has not been confirmed. There is no sign of side thrusters or similar features seen on other Iranian missiles that would make maneuvering possible.
An asteroid just exploded above Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT
Eyewitness accounts and videos taken from across the Midwest reveal the streak of a large fireball across the daytime sky
A flashy fireball streaked across the skies above the Midwest on Tuesday, falling to Earth near Lake Erie and Ohio at around 9:00 AM EDT. Some reported hearing a boom loud enough to shake their houses.
The object appears to have been a seven-ton asteroid that spanned nearly six feet in diameter, according to NASA. When it fell, it was traveling at around 40,000 miles per hour in a southeasterly direction before “fragmenting”—blowing up—over Valley City in Ohio. The explosion had the equivalent force of 250 tons of TNT, the agency said, and “may have also shook houses north of Medina.”
Iran regime hides in bunkers as civilians left exposed without adequate bomb shelters or sirens 930 WFMD Free Talk
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Legal Insurrection has been following news about the massive raw sewage spill caused by the Potomac Interceptor rupture.
This crisis illustrates the predictable consequences of neglected maintenance and questionable spending priorities by DC Water, resulting from political and managerial choices that prioritized image and amenities over core infrastructure, with downstream Maryland communities bearing the public‑health impacts.
We also took a look at DC Water’s 9,900% error in reporting E. coli levels after the spill, which reported 242,000 MPN/100 mL as 2,420 and may have ultimately been the result of the agency’s emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, rather than concentration on mission priorities (e.g., technical competence and accurate, safety‑critical testing procedures and interpretation).
Finally, we have some good news to share regarding this historic spill. DC Water has finally completed the emergency repair and restored flow to the Potomac Interceptor, and is now shifting to long‑term pipe rehabilitation and environmental cleanup.
After nearly two months of emergency repairs, D.C. Water says it has restored flow through the Potomac interceptor, the same pipe that collapsed in January and caused one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history.
Officials announced the milestone Saturday after crews spent 55 days working around the clock to repair the damaged sewer line along the Potomac River.
The collapse, which happened Jan. 19, caused roughly 250 million gallons of sewage to spill into the Potomac River.
The recent Iranian strike campaign against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has largely been viewed through images of drones striking skyscrapers and residential buildings. But it can also be understood through the dataset emerging from daily interception reports. Beginning on February 28, Iranian forces have launched nearly 1,800 drones and missiles towards the UAE, according to compiled data and interception timelines based on the daily releases shared by the UAE’s Ministry of Defence.
While interception rates remained high and protected key locations, a closer examination of the data reveals a structured operational campaign. The pattern suggests that Iran’s objective was not necessarily infrastructure destruction but imposing economic and operational strain on advanced air-defence networks.
Elon Musk’s Tesla set to supply electricity to UK households in major expansion UNILAD Tech
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A humanoid robot was detained by Chinese officers after it followed and terrorized an innocent woman on the street.
“You’re making my heart race!” the woman raged in Cantonese, per a report in the Macau Post. “You’ve got plenty to do, so what’s the point of messing around with this? Are you freaking crazy?”
According to the publication, the woman was walking along the street looking at her cellphone when she realized “something” was following closely behind her.
Startled, she turned to find the robot.
In the video, you see the robot raising its arm while the woman yelled at it in Cantonese. The clip then cuts to it being escorted away by officers.
This is not the first time a robot was apprehended by police, and it likely won’t be the last.
Pregnant mothers are facing a profound and troubling exception to the principle of bodily autonomy unfolding in their delivery rooms.
While competent adults in virtually every other medical context retain the absolute right to refuse treatment, pregnant women face a starkly different reality. In certain states, including Florida, courts have carved out a unique legal pathway allowing hospitals to seek emergency orders compelling cesarean sections against a woman’s clearly expressed wishes. These interventions transform what should be a collaborative medical decision into a state-enforced procedure in which the mother’s informed refusal is overridden.
A ProPublica/CNN investigation into court-ordered C-sections in Florida detailed how Cherise Doyley, a seasoned birthing doula with three prior children, found herself in labor at University of Florida Health in Jacksonville in September 2024. What should have been a moment of joy turned into a nightmare when hospital staff, deeming her desire for a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) too risky, initiated an emergency court hearing in her delivery room.
“It’s a real judge in there?” Doyley asked the nurse at the beginning of what would be a three-hour hearing. “Now this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
A Planned Parenthood official falsely asserted that the abortion pill is “safer than many over-the-counter medications — including Tylenol.”
Never mind that that claim has been repeatedly refuted.
a fundraising email responding to legislation introduced by pro-life Senator Josh Hawley and his bill to take the dangerous abortion drug off the market, Sarah Taylor-Nanista, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado, defended the drug’s safety.
“This bill is built on false claims that the medication is ‘inherently dangerous,’ despite decades of scientific evidence showing that mifepristone is safer than many over-the-counter medications — including Tylenol,” Taylor-Nanista wrote.
Ukraine Deploys US-Made Phantom MK-1 Humanoid Robot on the Battlefield — The Future of War Has Arrived Dainik Jagran MP CG
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The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us. And as technology companies try to meet the skyrocketing demand for AI-specialized computing capacity, they are dotting the country with data centers – to the dismay of some, but the delight of others. As is all too often the case, many of these companies are coming to states and cities and receiving taxpayer-supported subsidies or tax exemptions.
Suicide pods now have a “double dutch” option, where couples can die together in Switzerland. These 3D-printed death pods are designed for two people to climb inside, press a single button at the same time, and pass away within minutes.
Suicide pods were created by Philip Nitschke, often nicknamed “Dr. Death,” and were first introduced in 2024 for single-person use. The individual must meet with a psychiatrist for a mental capacity assessment to determine whether he or she is considered “fit” to proceed.
With the push of a button, the chamber fills with nitrogen, causing the person to lose consciousness within seconds, followed shortly by death. What is being marketed as innovation is, in reality, a modernized gas chamber. Now that same concept has been redesigned to end not one life, but two at once.
UK lawmakers scrap under-16 social-media ban but back wider child safety powers MLex
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The Trump administration is being urged to tackle imported generic pharmaceuticals, most of which are made in China, due to national security implications.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, wants the Commerce Department to consider using Section 232 national security tariffs on imported generic medicines and their ingredients. Such a move would frame the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain as a national security vulnerability rather than a purely economic issue.
The push comes as policymakers recognize the United States relies heavily on China for key pharmaceutical materials, particularly the raw components of many antibiotics, while producing a small share domestically, China specialist Gordon Chang said.
“Healthcare, as evident in country after country, is best left to the market, but as China weaponizes trade—and continually threatens war—it’s clear that Washington has to temporarily implement non-market solutions to ensure that Americans have access to the medicines they need,” he wrote in a paper published on Conservative Political Action Conference’s website titled “China’s ‘Pharma Death Grip’ on America.”
Hezbollah, Iran unleash coordinated cluster bomb strikes on Israel in major escalation 930 WFMD Free Talk
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US Army Adopts First New Offensive Hand Grenade in Over 50 Years Overt Defense –
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Speaking with FRANCE 24’s Sharon Gaffney, Elke Schwarz, Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University of London, says that there’s “a radical acceleration” in the speed of acquisition of military targets through the use of AI and how quickly action is taken on these targets, which raises concerns about the lack of human oversight, especially considering that AI models have “25 to 50% reliability, which means they are wrong very often”.
from www.france24.com
YouTube on Wednesday said it would expand access to its artificial intelligence (AI) detection tool to politicians and journalists. The company will allow a pilot group of lawmakers and reporters to use its likeness detection feature, which flags AI-generated content that uses a person’s likeness and allows them to request removal if it violates YouTube…
from thehill.com
Advanced violence is democratizing. AI, in conjunction with dramatic improvements in robotics, energy production, and sensors, will increasingly enable ever-smaller groups of people to use targeted violence more effectively, and from a distance. Over time, this shift will dramatically impact all varieties of force projection: state-on-state war, various forms of low-intensity conflict, and how states enforce internal order.
Perhaps understandably, however, national security discourse about the AI revolution has generally focused on more earth-shattering scenarios: superintelligence, state-to-state conflict, and the prospect of unleashing new biological weapons. These are all critical questions that deserve extensive scrutiny. But super-empowering small groups of people will shift security dynamics in crucial, if less dramatic, ways as well. Non-state actors will use AI-backed tools to conduct relatively simple attacks using increasingly autonomous weapons. In this scenario, it will be the ability of AI-empowered weapons to deliver destruction discriminately, rather than at a catastrophic scale, that will be critical.
To house the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build an AI data center, developers are increasingly relying on temporary villages known as man camps.
This style of camp was popularized as housing for men working in remote oil fields. For example, as a Bitcoin mining facility in rural Dickens County, Texas is converted into a 1.6 gigawatt data center, Bloomberg reports its workers are living in gray housing units with access to a gym, a laundromat, game rooms, and a cafeteria that grills steaks on-demand.
A company called Target Hospitality has signed multiple contracts worth a total of $132 million to build and operate the Dickens County camp, which could eventually house more than 1,000 workers.
The author of that post on X was referring to an online intelligence dashboard following the US-Israel strikes against Iran in real time. Built by two people from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, it combines open-source data like satellite imagery and ship tracking with a chat function, news feeds, and links to prediction markets, where people can bet on things like who Iran’s next “supreme leader” will be (the recent selection of Mojtaba Khamenei left some bettors with a payout).
I’ve reviewed over a dozen other dashboards like this in the last week. Many were apparently “vibe-coded” in a couple of days with the help of AI tools, including one that got the attention of a founder of the intelligence giant Palantir, the platform through which the US military is accessing AI models like Claude during the war. Some were built before the conflict in Iran, but nearly all of them are being advertised by their creators as a way to beat the slow and ineffective media by getting straight to the truth of what’s happening on the ground. “Just learned more in 30 seconds watching this map than reading or watching any major news network,” one commenter wrote on LinkedIn, responding to a visualization of Iran’s airspace being shut down before the strikes.
New Tennessee bill aims to restrict landlords from banning tenant gun ownership WBIR
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Today, the world is fighting against pollution. Many kinds of NGOs in the whole world are working tirelessly to minimise the problem of pollution. Data from the Global Environmental Organisation Index (2024), highlighted by the Varanasi Diocese Community Network, tells that over 120,000+ officially registered environmental NGOs are worldwide. Plastic pollution is one of the major issues currently that is rapidly growing, and to tackle this, researchers from Flinders University in South Australia have taken a step ahead to solve the problem. They have worked on creating a material (plastic) that can be decomposed under normal soil conditions.
On January 8th, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT for Healthcare, a generative AI (GAI) platform designed to be embedded within medical systems platforms and daily workflows. This technology suite is advertised as a solution to clinicians overburdened by administrative work through offloading cognitively taxing tasks, including the choice of diagnostic tests, supporting differential diagnosis, treatment planning, documenting session notes, creating aftercare plans for patients, and generating referral notes and discharge summaries for external providers. In other words, GAI is being implemented at every level of patient care. According to the American Medical Association’s report from their summit on AI, “disruption” of the status quo in healthcare delivery due to GAI technologies “seems inevitable.”
But why does it seem inevitable? An evidenced-based approach to evaluating new technologies would call for careful consideration of benefits and risks for technology implementation on individual use cases — not a rapid systems overhaul. Here, we must recognize that GAI technologies are products — and these products are being actively promoted to healthcare industries and healthcare professionals across the medical space, including in mental health care. Rather than investing billions of dollars into curtailing a failing system of private medical care — which has led to widespread clinician burnout and poor client outcomes — Silicon Valley companies have begun attempting to mud over these fault lines with a quick-drying GAI compound. Even the most well-meaning and justice-oriented clinician is not immune to the tidal wave of billion-dollar marketing strategies bent on creating the illusion of inevitability.
The Pentagon rarely labels an American technology company a “supply chain risk.” The designation is typically reserved for firms tied to foreign adversaries or companies that could expose sensitive government systems to compromise.
But in late February, the Trump administration applied that label to one of the most prominent artificial intelligence developers in the United States.
On Monday, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI system, turned up the heat on the fight by filing a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon and several government agencies after the administration ordered agencies to stop using its technology across the federal system.
“Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies on Monday over the Trump administration’s move to designate it a supply chain risk and eliminate its use across the government,” the report explains. “The company said the effort was ‘unprecedented and unlawful.’”
Two dimensional materials have drawn intense interest because their electronic and magnetic properties could power future technologies. Scientists have traditionally treated these two behaviors as separate. Engineers at Illinois Grainger Engineering have now shown that they are connected by the same underlying mathematics.
In a study published in Physical Review X, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign demonstrated how specially designed two dimensional magnetic systems can follow the same equations that describe mobile electrons in graphene. This mathematical connection could influence the design of radiofrequency devices and also provide researchers with a powerful new way to analyze and engineer these materials.
“It’s not at all obvious that there is an analogy between 2D electronics and 2D magnetic behaviors, and we’re still amazed at how well this analogy works,” said Bobby Kaman, the study’s lead author. “2D electronics are very well studied thanks to the discovery of graphene, and now we’ve shown that a not-so-well-studied class of materials obeys the same fundamental physics.”
Ukraine Deploys Armed Ground Robots as Drones Intensify Attacks mezha.net
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