A pair of high schoolers invented a unique water filtration device that uses a wall of sound to hold back microplastic particles from running water. In lab tests, the acoustic force from the high-frequency sound waves removed between 84% and 94% of the suspended microplastic particles in a single pass, and they are using the […] The post Teens Invent Device that Removes Microplastics with Ultrasound Waves, Winning $50k appeared first on Good News Network.

News The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Galadriel Makes a New Friend in the Final Trailer for The Rings of Power’s Second Season Middle-earth gets dark and full of terrors. By Molly Templeton | Published on August 14, 2024 Screenshot: Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Prime Video In two weeks, the battle for Middle-earth continues. Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is really determined to have more fighting and more scheming and more characters you recognize if you’ve spent any time with J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and/or Peter Jackson’s epic films. The previous trailer for the second season seemed more focused on giving you a chance to go, “Hey! I know that guy!” than on offering a peek at what’s to come; the latest and final trailer would like you to know that there are very big-budget battles. Perhaps said battles ate up the wig budget, because our buddy Sauron (Charlie Vickers)—in disguise as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts—has some Targaryen-esque hair going on here. Meanwhile, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) has clearly heard that saying about how the enemy of one’s enemy is maybe one’s new best bud, and seems to be teaming up with Adar, the orc leader previously played by Joseph Mawle and now played by Sam Hazeldine, who is also no big fan of Sauron. With everything focused on war—on the “long-awaited” Siege of Eregion—there’s only a second to remind us that there are also Harfoots out there on an adventure with the Stranger (Daniel Weyman), and somehow, Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) is going to come into play. Along with some ents and a balrog and a big-ass spider, of course! Here’s season two’s summary: In Season Two of The Rings of Power, Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without an army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season One’s epic scope and ambition, the new season plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots—as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all… each other. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns with a three-episode premiere August 29th on Prime Video.[end-mark] The post Galadriel Makes a New Friend in the Final Trailer for <i>The Rings of Power</i>’s Second Season appeared first on Reactor.

Mike Schwartz returns to report on his visit to San Diego ComicCon 2024, then the hosts discuss a Last Man Standing battle between Iron Man and Kyle Rayner/Green Lantern, a Casting Call for Young Justice, CONTINUE READING... The post WIZARDS The Podcast Guide To Comics | Episode 96.5 appeared first on The Retro Network.

NYT: By Golly, Hunter Did Try to Sell Influence -- And White House Covered It Up!

Bright meteors are sometimes followed by two effects, known respectively as trails and trains. Trails are well understood, but trains are a different matter. Most trains disappear within seconds, but a rare few can last for up to an hour. Advances in photography have allowed scientists to study this phenomenon is much greater depth, proving persistent trains are much more common than previously thought, and are most often associated with debris left by one comet family. A bright meteor can lift the spirits of even the most experienced sky-gazer. We recommend Northern Hemisphere residents take the opportunity to witness the Perseid meteor shower that is currently raising meteor rates significantly if they can.What makes meteors so exciting is not just the blazing flash of light that always takes one by surprise, but the variation in brightness, speed and color. Bright meteors sometimes have the added feature of a train that stays in the sky after the original flash has gone. The International Astronomical Union defines a trains as “Light or ionization left along the trajectory of the meteor after the meteor has passed.”Most trains last tens of second at most. Persistent trains, however, can last up to an hour.Like the rare meteor sounds, persistent trains have proven hard for scientists to explain, but are thought to relate to iron from the meteor combining with ozone to produce iron oxide and oxygen. Other metals in the meteorite probably also play a part. The energy of the reaction can apparently sustain light long after the meteor has passed.The first scientific investigation of meteor trains was conducted more than a century ago, but interest in persistent trains shot up after the Leonid meteor storms of 1999-2002. Even among those events numerous awe-inspiring features, the persistence of some trains – reportedly more common than usual – aroused curiosity.Astronomers have established widefield cameras to try to track the trains of potential meteorites to the landing sites, with considerable success. University of New Mexico PhD student Logan Cordonnier and colleagues deployed similar technology in his home state in the form of the Widefield Persistent Train camera. These were checked against records in the Global Meteor Network database, which provides information about bright events, sometimes revealing the source and composition of the space dust responsible, and the train's altitude.      Over almost two years, 4,726 meteors were captured by both, of which 636 produced trains. Persistent trains were rarer, seen from one meteor in 19, but far more common than previously thought. Analysis revealed slower meteors are even more likely to produce persistent trains than fast ones, contradicting previous studies. The authors attribute this to the fact that slower meteors are more likely to survive low enough to reach an altitude below 93 kilometers (58 miles) above Earth's surface – the cutoff point they calculated – while faster ones break up first.More surprisingly, persistent trains are common among fainter meteors, although trains from brighter meteors do last longer. Of all the meteor showers the team observed, the little-known Andromedids had the highest proportion of trains produced. The Andromedids occur in late November and attract little attention because their meteors are rare and generally faint and slow, although some years in the late 19th century saw impressive numbers and 2021 marked a partial return to form.All meteor showers, bar one, are caused by debris from comets. The Andromedids are from the former comet 3D/Biela. Like the source of other showers with high train production this was a Jupiter Family Comet, meaning it has an orbit of less than 20 years, making it frequently influenced by Jupiter’s gravity.Why Jupiter Family Comets produce more trains remains unknown, but it's a good tip for astronomical train spotters. The authors also suspect that meteors from comets that broke up recently are more likely to have lasting trains.Trains start with an initial afterglow, whose colors reveal the presence of metals separated from the meteorite in passage through the atmosphere and heated until they emit light. As these elements cool, they recombine with electrons in the atmosphere, generating a recombination phase. Both processes are well understood, but they last tens of seconds at the most. It is the third phase, more seldom seen, that has been more puzzling.The authors of the new study acknowledge that the previous theories were based on observations of the Leonids. Since these are some of the fastest meteors we encounter, it's possible such explanations were accurate for that sample, but they are inconsistent with the slower examples seen here.Trains are affected by winds in the upper atmosphere and can be turned into spirals or even knots under the right circumstances.Persistent trains could provide a way to probe the ozone layer’s atmospheric chemistry. Cordonnier told Science News this area is frustrating: “It’s too high in the atmosphere for weather balloons, and it’s too low for satellites to take direct measurements. It’s a difficult region to probe.” Watching meteor trains could be the answer.Trails, by contrast are from smoke left behind as the meteor burned up being lit up by scattered sunlight, shortly after sunset or before sunrise.The study is open access in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics. 

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) just declared mpox a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS), a first in the agency’s history. The announcement comes as suspected cases of the disease across the continent in 2024 have risen past 17,000, a massive increase on the 2022 and 2023 figures.Mpox – previously known as monkeypox before it was renamed – is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV). The virus is a member of the Poxviridae family, which also includes the agents responsible for cowpox and smallpox. It was first discovered in 1958 in captive monkeys at a research facility in Denmark, and the first human case was reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1970.As with other poxviruses, mpox infection causes a rash that progresses into blisters that can be itchy or painful. The sores can appear anywhere on the body, and a person remains infectious until all the blisters are healed.Symptoms such as fever, muscle pains, and a sore throat typically appear before the rash, and the disease typically lasts for about a month. During that time, patients can experience serious complications that may even be fatal, such as secondary bacterial infections, pneumonia, and sepsis. While most people will recover, people with compromised immune systems or with HIV that is not under control are at greater risk of severe illness.Mpox burst onto the international stage in 2022 when a strain of the virus began to spread around the world, leading to local and global declarations of a public health emergency. However, experts remained concerned that another strain of the virus – which has been responsible for regular outbreaks in the DRC for several decades – might also get a foothold in other countries, with potentially more lethal consequences.The first mpox public health emergency officially ended in July 2023. We do have a vaccine against the disease, which can be given as a preventative or post-exposure prophylaxis, as well as some antiviral drugs that were originally developed to treat smallpox. The most recent guidance in the US suggests that people who are deemed at higher risk of infection, primarily through sexual contact, get two doses of the vaccine.But just because a vaccine exists, it doesn’t mean it is always available where it is most needed.In a statement, Africa CDC highlighted the fact that during the response to the global mpox outbreak, African nations were neglected. “We urge our international partners to seize this moment to act differently and collaborate closely with Africa CDC to provide the necessary support to our Member States,” said Director General Dr Jean Kaseya.This year, 13 African nations – including ones that had previously not been affected by the disease, like Burundi and Rwanda – have reported mpox outbreaks. There have been 2,863 confirmed cases and 517 deaths, mostly in the DRC, although suspected cases have soared above 17,000. For context, in 2023, there were 14,957 cases, and 7,146 in 2022. Many cases have been put down to the more lethal strain that has, until now, mostly been confined to small outbreaks in Central Africa.Africa CDC points to infrastructure issues affecting lab testing and surveillance, meaning that the confirmed cases are likely “just the tip of the iceberg”. Combined with the at-best patchy availability of vaccines and treatments, it’s a concerning picture.“The number of cases has significantly increased compared to 2022 when WHO [the World Health Organization] declared Mpox a public health emergency. It’s clear that we’re facing a different scenario with far more cases, resulting in a higher burden of illness,” said Professor Salim Abdool Karim, head of a South Africa-based AIDS research program called CAPRISA.“Our concern is that we may be seeing more fatalities in Africa due to the association with HIV.”The fact that mpox is now spreading across borders to new nations is another major cause for concern. Africa CDC has set up an Incident Management Team to coordinate the ongoing response and has secured a partnership with European authorities that should see 215,000 doses of the vaccine arriving on the continent.Meanwhile, the WHO says it too is working to increase vaccine availability in Africa. An emergency meeting has been convened today to discuss the ongoing outbreaks – it remains to be seen whether mpox will once again be declared a global public health emergency.

The discovery of a rare Neanderthal rock shelter from the period before Homo sapiens arrived in Western Europe has provided some surprising new insights into how these extinct humans lived when they were the only hominids in town. Located in the Spanish Pyrenees, the site contains a wealth of animal bones and stone tools, revealing an extraordinary level of flexibility and adaptability for a species once considered dull and uninspired.Known as Abric Pizarro, the camp is one of the very few Neanderthal spots dated to the marine isotope stage 4 (MIS 4) period, which lasted from around 100,000 to 65,000 years ago. Our own species didn’t make it to the Iberian peninsula until MIS 3, with Neanderthals becoming extinct within a very short time of our arrival.“This is one of the most interesting things about this site, to have this unique information about when Neanderthals were alone and living in harsh conditions and how they thrived before modern humans appeared,” explained study author Dr Sofia Samper Carro in a statement.A typical excavation day at Abric Pizarro.Image credit: Sofia Samper CarroAccording to the researchers, the Pyrenees region had previously been “considered unsuitable for stable and continuous Neanderthal presence during MIS 4 due to millennial-scale climatic shifts, which would have translated into extreme arid conditions with sharp temperature falls.” However, the discoveries at Abric Pizarro paint a very different picture, indicating that the Neanderthals’ ingenuity enabled them to blossom before modern humans came along.For instance, because most MIS 3 Neanderthal sites predominantly contain the bones of larger carnivores like horses and rhinoceros, it had been assumed that the species lacked the ability to hunt smaller creatures. However, much of the faunal assemblage found at Abric Pizarro belongs to small mammals, suggesting that they were capable of adapting their hunting strategies according to the types of prey available in the region at the time.“Our surprising findings at Abric Pizarro show how adaptable Neanderthals were,” said Samper Carro. “The animal bones we have recovered indicate that they were successfully exploiting the surrounding fauna, hunting red deer, horses and bison, but also eating freshwater turtles and rabbits, which imply a degree of planning rarely considered for Neanderthals.”Based on the varied remains found at the site, the authors conclude that the local “Neanderthal groups were adept hunters, with a broad knowledge of the surrounding landscape, which they exploited efficiently.” At the same time, the stone tools recovered from Abric Pizarro display a variety of different knapping techniques, providing yet more evidence for the hominids’ expert ability to utilize the resources in their environment.“They clearly knew what they were doing,” says Samper Carro. “They knew the area and how to survive for a long time.”And while these findings don’t tell us how or why Neanderthals bit the dust so soon after modern humans made their debut, they do at least fill in some of the gaps in the narrative by revealing the health of Neanderthal communities in the period before they encountered us. “Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago,” says Samper Carro. “Suddenly, we modern humans appear in this region of the Pyrenees, and the Neanderthals disappear. But before that, Neanderthals had been living in Europe for almost 300,000 years.”The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

ABC in particular has had a track record of not only salivating over whatever the Biden administration spoonfeeds them on a daily basis with pure propaganda pieces, so it wasn’t a shock when they used Tuesday’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight to trumpet President Biden’s visit to Tulane University to hype his Cancer Moonshot initiative. “Now to President Biden's mission to reduce the cancer death rate. And a new initiative from the White House this morning,” proclaimed GMA co-host Robin Roberts. Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang took a break to hype this from her other task of repeatedly denigrating 2024 GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s military service (claiming he never saw “active fighting” in Iraq) in order to defend Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s embellishment of his own military record. Wang came off like someone from state-run media in one of those authoritarian countries:     After sharing the details of the grants and what they’re aimed at helping to research in the fight against cancer, Wang laid it on thick by fawning over how “this issue is very personal” since “[h]e lost his son Beau to cancer in 2015.” “And President Biden, for his legacy, this is very important to him. He has vowed to keep on fighting for this cancer moon shot for the rest of his term,” she concluded. Wang returned for World News Tonight to deliver even more debasing stenography. She was cued up by anchor David Muir proclaiming in a tease of a “major move tonight by President Biden” then a lead in emphasizing “his very personal mission to cut cancer deaths in the U.S. in half within 25 years.” “Tonight, President Biden awarding $150 million in research funds as part of his Cancer Moonshot — an initiative that’s deeply personal, and one he hopes will be a lasting part of his legacy,” Wang began, as though it were penned by the Biden press office. After a Biden soundbite, she again invoked Beau and highlighted Biden’s desire to decrease cancer death rates in half by 2047. This story on ABC's 'World News Tonight' about Joe Biden is the kind of stenography Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin could only dream of pic.twitter.com/Udw47pXt1O — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 13, 2024 “The President traveling to New Orleans with the First Lady today, announcing funding for eight research groups across the country, all working to help surgeons more precisely remove tumors from those with cancer,” she added. The segment was mercifully brought to an end after another Biden soundbite and Wang with this nauseating close: In the final months of his presidency, Biden is prioritizing issues that are near and dear to his heart. That also includes lowering costs for Americans. That will be the focus of his event with Vice President Harris later this week, their first event together since Biden dropped out of this race.  Tuesday’s CBS Evening News also promoted the Cancer Moonshot, but at least they had the decency to cut it down to a 36-second news brief (click “expand”): GARRETT: President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited New Orleans today promoting the so-called Cancer Moonshot program following the death of his son, Beau, from cancer. The President announced $150 million of new cancer researching funding for eight research teams across the country, including one from Tulane University, where this event was held. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We believe anything is possible in America. [SCREEN WIPE] There’s nothing — nothing — we — beyond our capacity when we work together. GARRETT: The President has set a goal of cutting American cancer deaths in half by the year 2047.  To see the relevant transcripts from August 13, click here (for ABC’s Good Morning America), here (for ABC’s World News Tonight), and here (for CBS).

The Trump = Hitler analogy is getting old. We've been in desperate need of some fresh material! How jejune.  Unsurprisingly, Trump-loathing journalist David Frum appeared on CNN This Morning today to supply it.  Frum dug up, and approvingly quoted, this line from Republican consultant Mike Murphy -- or to be completely up to date, "Republican Voters Against Trump" consultant Mike Murphy.  "Asking Donald Trump to talk about policy, it's like teaching Charles Manson to foxtrot. He can manage a step or two, but then he's going to put a pencil in your eye, because he's Charles Manson. And Donald Trump is Donald Trump." Frum went on to call Trump an "insult comic" who "knows how to abuse and denigrate and humiliate and demean." The irony was apparently lost on Frum that whereas he trashed Trump for denigrating people, he himself had just analogized Trump to Charles Manson—the personification of pure evil. Maybe Frum could serve as the warm-up act for Trump's next insult-comic appearance. CNN host Kasie Hunt quoted from Frum's latest diatribe in The Atlantic, where he mocked Trump's "Kamala's a dummy" spin: "For all his jibes at her intellect, Harris is managing the mystery appeal effectively." This is what Frummy calls avoiding the press? "Managing the mystery appeal?" If Frum wanted to employ an analogy to suggest that Trump can't resist his worst impulses, he might have used the fable of The Scorpion and the Frog. But Frum couldn't resist going for the real-life mass murderer comparison. Note: While praising JD Vance for staying more on message than Trump, Kasie Hunt claimed that Vance had criticized Tim Walz "for leaving the military after 24 years to run for Congress." Wrong. Vance criticized Vance for lying about serving in a war zone and leaving the military knowing that his unit was soon to be deployed to Iraq.  Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 8/14/24 6:00 am EDT KASIE HUNT: Trump vice presential pick JD Vance has criticized Walz for leaving the military after 24 years to run for Congress. Vance replying on social media, quote, Hi Tim. I thank you for your service, but you shouldn't have lied about it. You shouldn't have said you went to war when you didn't, nor should you have said you didn't know your unit was going to Iraq. Happy to discuss more in a debate. Vance does seem to be a bit more on message than the top of the ticket that he's running on. In an interview with Univision, Donald Trump continuing his personal attacks against Kamala Harris. DONALD TRUMP: We're going to get rid of inflation. Inflation has hurt the Hispanic population so badly, but it's hurt everybody. She's never going to do anything about inflation. She has no idea. She doesn't even know what it means, the word means.  And she is, she's forced to go with my policies. You know, I came out a long time ago with no taxes on tips, and two days ago she said no taxes on tips. She doesn't even know what it means. HUNT: Doesn't even know what it means. It's that piece of the approach that many Republicans want, to not want to see Trump take in this reset race that has clearly moved in Kamala Harris's favor. NIKKI HALEY: And the one thing Republicans have to stop doing, quit whining about her. We knew it was going to be her. But the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes, not what race Kamala Harris is. It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb. It's not, you can't win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they're smart.  . . .  HUNT: David Frum, you capture it this way in your latest piece in The Atlantic, you say that Trump's campaign, you call it the Trump campaign's please shut up phase. You write this. This is Trump's problem. For all his jibes at her intellect, Harris is managing the mystery appeal effectively, whereas Trump, who endlessly congratulates himself on his MIT professor uncle's brains, is fast arriving at the, will you please shut up phase of his political descent. DAVID FRUM: Mike Murphy, the Republican campaign consultant, a decade ago or nearly a decade ago, said that asking Donald Trump to talk about policy is like teaching Charles Manson to foxtrot. He can manage a step or two, but then he's going to put a pencil in your eye, because he's Charles Manson.  And Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And as you just said a minute ago, I mean, it's astonishing. Of course, he's an insult comic. That's what he is. He doesn't know, he knows less about policy than anybody probably ever run for high office ever.  But what he does know is how to abuse and denigrate and humiliate and demean. That's what he does. If you don't like that, he's not your guy. And if he is your guy, don't pretend he's not like that—because he's like that.