The US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments Monday in two cases that could dramatically reshape social media, weighing whether states such as Texas and Florida should have the power to control what posts platforms can remove from their services. From a report: The high-stakes battle gives the nation's highest court an enormous say in how millions of Americans get their news and information, as well as whether sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok should be able to make their own decisions about how to moderate spam, hate speech and election misinformation. At issue are laws passed by the two states that prohibit online platforms from removing or demoting user content that expresses viewpoints -- legislation both states say is necessary to prevent censorship of conservative users.

More than a dozen Republican attorneys general have argued to the court that social media should be treated like traditional utilities such as the landline telephone network. The tech industry, meanwhile, argues that social media companies have First Amendment rights to make editorial decisions about what to show. That makes them more akin to newspapers or cable companies, opponents of the states say. The case could lead to a significant rethinking of First Amendment principles, according to legal experts. A ruling in favor of the states could weaken or reverse decades of precedent against "compelled speech," which protects private individuals from government speech mandates, and have far-reaching consequences beyond social media. A defeat for social media companies seems unlikely, but it would instantly transform their business models, according to Blair Levin, an industry analyst at the market research firm New Street Research.

Florida lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that forces social media companies to keep most minors off their platforms. The Hill reports: The legislation, which passed the state House Thursday after earlier being approved by the Senate, now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) desk, though he says he's not quite ready to sign on. DeSantis told reporters Friday that he thinks there needs to be a "proper balance" between government regulations and parental input on the social media issue. "We'll be wrestling with that," he said. The governor said he'll be assessing the final version of the legislation likely through the weekend. "Federal law says 13 and under can't have social media accounts. That's not really enforced," he said.

The lawmakers who championed the proposed social media ban, which would require platforms check the ages of users through a third-party source, argue it will make the online landscape safer for youths. The legislation passed 108-7 in the state House and 23-14 in the Florida Senate within a matter of hours Thursday.

Andrew Feinberg, writing for Slate: If you wanted to design a financial channel that would cause investors to underperform the stock market, you'd create CNBC, NBC's financial counterpart that runs on cable news and ostensibly tries to make viewers better investors. You'd make it sober and rational (well, there is Jim Cramer, but we'll get to him later), no need to feature anyone foaming at the mouth about stocks that could triple in six months or worried Cassandras warning that it's time to sell everything and burrow underground. And yet, you'd ensure that viewers stay engaged by keeping them on edge, worried and confused about what might happen next. Anxiety, you'd discover, is your friend, viewer hypervigilance your bread and butter.

In other words, CNBC makes viewers nervous in a very specific way. Nervous that they're about to lose money in a market downturn. Nervous that they might miss a hot trend or stock. Or uncertain that they're in the right sectors. Then an "expert" comes on and says, "Hey, you're in the wrong sectors -- it's time to leave tech for industrials, financials, and health care." In its sober, rational way, the network creates a sense of urgency. Although its tone is never like that of an infomercial, sometimes the message is similar. Act now. The problem is, hypervigilance is probably the worst quality most investors can have. "Sit on your ass," the late Charlie Munger advised investors, emphasizing that when it comes to investing, less is more. Feeling nervous leads to excessive trading. And "all the evidence shows that individual investors do worse the more they trade," says Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business. "Buying and selling something based on what you see on CNBC is not likely to be a successful strategy."

"It appears that Apple Pay is down — particularly for Chase customers," reports the Verge: Verge staffers have had their cards declined while trying to pay with Chase cards using Apple Pay, while using the same physical card works just fine. Several people on Threads confirmed the same issue when I asked — although people with non-Chase banks like Citi appear to be using Apple Pay just fine...

For what it's worth, the Chase customer service line is currently up to 15-minute wait times, and agents are telling people that Apple Pay is "going through maintenance" to receive "an unexpected upgrade," which is a delightful euphemism. Sadly, no one seems to know when things will be fixed.
"Maintenance in progress," says Apple's system status page — saying their maintenance started five hours ago and is "ongoing." (It adds that some users may be "affected," and that some Maryland Users "may have issues.")

But the Verge writes that "we've had reports in both New York and Los Angeles," while commenters on their article add that they've also experienced the same problem in Florida and in Colorado.

UPDATE (2/18/2024): An Apple spokesperson told the Verge Sunday this "was not an Apple Pay issue, and we saw no problems with our systems." (The Verge adds that "the not-so-subtle subtext there being that this was a Chase problem...") The spokesperson added that Apple's maintenance announcement on their system status page was unrelated.

Texas-based Intuitive Machines' inaugural moon mission began early Thursday morning, heading toward what could be the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years. From a report: Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander launched from Florida on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, beginning the IM-1 mission. "It is a profoundly humbling moment for all of us at Intuitive Machines. The opportunity to return the United States to the moon for the first time since 1972 is a feat of engineering that demands a hunger to explore," Intuitive Machines vice president of space systems Trent Martin said during a press conference.

The IM-1 lander, named "Odysseus" after the mythological Greek hero, is carrying 12 government and commercial payloads -- six of which are for NASA under an $118 million contract. NASA leadership emphasized before the launch that "IM-1 is an Intuitive Machines' mission, it's not a NASA mission." But it marks the second mission under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to deliver science projects and cargo to the moon with increasing regularity in support of the agency's Artemis crew program. The agency views CLPS missions as "a learning experience," NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration in the science mission directorate, Joel Kearns, told press before the launch.
UPDATE: See their first images transmitted from space....

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Our goal," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos explained in a Feb. 2021 Instagram post announcing the location of a second tuition-free @BezosAcademy preschool in Tacoma, WA, "is to unlock the potential in kids to become creative leaders, original thinkers, and lifelong learners -- regardless of their zip code."

Three years later, a new Amazon SEC filing reveals how much zip codes can matter, even to Bezos, the third richest person in the world. GeekWire reports: "A new Amazon [SEC] filing, detailing Jeff Bezos' plan to sell a slice of his stake in the company, sheds fresh light on his move from Seattle to Miami -- and his ability to avoid Washington state's capital gains tax [ironically, earmarked to be funneled into early-childhood education programs and school construction] in the process. The filing reveals that the Amazon founder and executive chairman adopted a trading plan Nov. 8 to sell up to 50 million Amazon shares during a period ending in January 2025. It would be the first time he has sold Amazon stock since 2021. The plan was adopted less than a week after Bezos announced on Instagram, on Nov. 2, that he was leaving his longtime home of Seattle for sunnier skies in Miami. In his Instagram post, Bezos said he wanted to be closer to his parents and Blue Origin space venture in Florida. He did not mention taxes."

"Given Bezos' recent move out of Washington -- where he founded and built Amazon into a global behemoth -- he will also be saving around $600 million in tax expense if he ends up selling the maximum of 50 million shares under the plan, based on the company's current stock price. That's around $600 million in what would have otherwise been tax revenue for his former home state, as The Center Square reported Monday. The capital gains tax, passed in 2021, imposes a 7% tax on any gains of more than $250,000 from the sale of stocks and bonds, with some exceptions. It was challenged in court but ultimately ruled constitutional by the state Supreme Court last year. The tax brought in nearly $900 million in its first year of collection. Revenue goes toward early education and childcare programs, as well as school construction projects."

It's of course no secret that Bezos is no fan of taxes -- he explored founding Amazon on an Indian reservation near San Francisco to avoid taxes, ponied up $100,000 to defeat a proposed WA state income tax aimed at improving WA state public education (joined in the fight by Microsoft and Steve Ballmer), characterized as unconstitutional attempts to make Amazon collect and pay sales taxes, and came under fire by ProPublica for paying no income tax in some years.

NASA's nearly $1 billion PACE mission launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early this morning, successfully making it to polar orbit -- a first for NASA since 1960. "When it's up and running, PACE will make key observations of Earth's atmosphere and climate and allow scientists to assess the health of our oceans like never before," notes Space.com. From the report: PACE, by the way, is the first U.S. government mission to launch to a polar orbit from Florida since Nov. 30, 1960. On that day, a Thor Able Star rocket took off on such a trajectory but failed, raining debris down on Cuba, some of which apparently killed a cow. Rather than risk further incidents, the U.S. decided to conduct all of its subsequent polar launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base (now Vandenberg Space Force Base) in California -- until now. That said, PACE wasn't the first mission of any type to launch to polar orbit from Florida's Space Coast in six decades: SpaceX had completed 11 such commercial missions before sending PACE on its way.

PACE's handlers will now work to get the 10.5-foot-long (3.2 meters) spacecraft and its various subsystems up to speed. After this checkout period, the satellite can begin its science work. That work will be done by three instruments. One of them, a spectrometer called the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), will map out the ocean's many hues in great detail and an unprecedented range, from near-infrared wavelengths all way to the ultraviolet. These colors are determined by the interaction of sunlight with particles in seawater, such as the chlorophyll produced by photosynthetic plankton, the base of the marine food web. So OCI will reveal quite a bit about the health and status of ocean ecosystems, according to PACE team members.

"PACE's unprecedented spectral coverage will provide the first-ever global measurements designed to identify phytoplankton community composition," NASA officials wrote in a PACE mission description. "This will significantly improve our ability to understand Earth's changing marine ecosystems, manage natural resources such as fisheries and identify harmful algal blooms." The satellite's other two instruments are polarimeters. They'll measure how the oscillation of light in a plane, known as its polarization, is affected by passage through the ocean, clouds and aerosols (particles suspended in the atmosphere). "Measuring polarization states of UV-to-shortwave light at various angles provides detailed information on the atmosphere and ocean, such as particle size and composition," NASA officials wrote in the mission description.

The "technology building blocks" for space solar are already available, reports Clean Technica. "It's just a matter of scaling, systems integration, and adjustments for space-hardiness."

And several groups are looking at it — including the U.S. Space Force To help push costs down, the California Institute of Technology has proposed a sandwich-type solar module that integrates solar harvesting along with conversion to a radio frequency into one compact package, accompanied by a built-in antenna. Last month researchers at the school wrapped up a months-long, in-space test of different types of solar cells. Another approach is illustrated by the Michigan startup Virtus Solis, an industry partner of the University of Bristol. Last June the company and the school received £3.3 million in funding from the UK Net Zero Innovation program, for developing an open-source model for testing the performance of large, centralized antennas in space. "The concept depends upon the use of gigascale antenna arrays capable of delivering over 2GW of power from space onto similar gigascale antenna arrays either at sea or on the ground," the school explained.

As for how such a thing would be launched into space, that's where the U.S. Space Force comes in. Last August, the Space Force awarded a small business contract to the U.S. startup Orbital Composites. The company is tasked with the mission of developing its patented "quantum antenna" and in-space fabrication tools for secure communications in space applications, including space-to-space as well as space-to-Earth and vice versa. The basic idea is to let 3D printing doing much of the work in space. According to Orbital, in-space fabrication would save more than 100 times the cost of applying conventional fabrication methods to large-scale orbiting antennas. "By harnessing the potential of In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM), the company eyes the prospect of creating significantly larger space antennas," Orbital Composites explains. "By fabricating antennas in space, larger and more complex designs are possible that eliminate the constraints of launch and rocket fairings...."

If you're guessing that a hookup between Virtus and Orbital is in the works, that's a good guess. On February 1, at the SpaceCOM conference in Orlando, Florida, Virtus Solis let slip that it is working with Orbital Composites on a space solar pilot project. If all goes according to plan, the project will be up and running in 2027, deploying Virtus's robot-enabled fabrication system with Orbital's 3D printing. As of this writing the two companies have not posted details, but Space News picked up the thread. "The 2027 mission is designed to showcase critical power-generation technologies including in-space assembly of solar panels and transmission of more than one kilowatt to Earth," Space News explained. "The news release calls the 2027 mission "a precursor to large-scale commercial megawatt-class solar installations in space by 2030...."

To be clear, Orbital's press release about its new Space Force quantum antenna contract does not mention anything in particular about space solar. However, the pieces of the puzzle fit. Along with the Virtus and Grumman connections, in October of 2022 Orbital won a small business contract through SpaceWERX, the Space Force's innovative technologies funding arm, to explore the capabilities of ISAM systems.
"SpaceWERX comes under the umbrella of the U.S. Air Force's AFWERX innovation branch, which has developed a program called SSPIDR, short for Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research Project," the article points out. (While Virtus believes most space-based solar power systems could deliver megawatt hours of electricity at prices comparable to today's market.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A California teenager prosecutors say is responsible for hundreds of swatting attacks around the United States was exposed after law enforcement pieced together a digital trail left on some of the internet's largest platforms, according to court records released this week. Alan Winston Filion, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, California, faces four felony charges in Florida's Seminole County related to swatting, or fake threats called into the police to provoke a forceful response, according to Florida state prosecutors. Police arrested Filion on January 18, and he was extradited to Seminole County this week.

Filion's arrest, first reported by WIRED on January 26, marks the culmination of a multi-agency manhunt for the person police claim is responsible for swatting attacks on high schools, historically black colleges and universities, mosques, and federal agents, and for threats to bomb the Pentagon, members of the United States Senate, and the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, a YouTube channel, Discord chats, and usernames related to The Lord of the Rings helped lead authorities to Filion's doorstep.

Florida prosecutors charged Filion with four felony counts, including three related to allegedly making false reports to law enforcement and one for unlawful use of a two-way radio for "facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism" that authorities say targeted people based on race, religion, or other protected classes. While prosecutors alleged that Filion "is responsible for hundreds of swatting and bomb threat incidents throughout the United States," the charges Filion faces relate to a single May 12, 2023, swatting attack against the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. [...] At 2 pm EST on Wednesday, Filion shuffled into a Seminole County courtroom and stood quietly as the judge read the charges against him. He is currently being held without bond.

"According to one study, homeowners are three times more likely than renters to own an electric vehicle," writes the Washington Post. But others still have options: Drivers who park on the street have found novel ways to charge their vehicles, using extension cords running over the sidewalk or even into the branches of a nearby tree... [S]ome municipalities explicitly allow over-the-sidewalk charging as part of a broader strategy to cut transportation emissions... In some areas, homeowners can also hire an electrician to run power under the sidewalk to a curbside charging port. But homeowners should check local rules and permitting requirements for curbside charging. In some highly EV-friendly cities, local governments will cover the costs. In Seattle, a pilot program is installing faster curbside charging to residents who opt in to the program...

If home charging simply isn't an option, some drivers rely on public charging — either using workplace chargers or charging occasionally on DC fast chargers, which can bring an EV battery from 0 to 80 percent in around 20 minutes. The problem is that public charging is more expensive than charging at home — although in most places, still less expensive than gas... For drivers who have access to Tesla superchargers, public charging might still be a solid option — but for non-Tesla drivers, it's still a challenge. Many fast chargers can be broken for days or weeks on end, or can be crowded with other drivers. The popular charging app PlugShare can help EV owners find available charging ports, but relying on public fast charging can quickly become a pain for drivers used to quickly filling up on gas. In those situations, a plug-in hybrid or regular hybrid car might be a better option.
And beyond that, "experts say that there are a key few steps that renters or condo owners can take to access charging," according to the article: The first is looking up local "right-to-charge" laws — regulations that require homeowners' associations or landlords to allow residents to install Level 1 or Level 2 charging. Ten states have "right-to-charge" laws on the books. In California and Colorado, for example, renters or homeowners have the right to install charging at their private parking space or, in some cases, in a public area at their apartment building. Other states, including Florida, Hawaii and New Jersey, have similar but limited laws. Residents can also reach out to landlords or property owners directly and make the case for installing charging infrastructure. All of this "puts a fair amount of onus on the driver," said Ben Prochazka, the executive director of the Electrification Coalition. But, he added, many EV advocacy groups are working on changing building codes in cities and states so that all multifamily homes with parking have to be "EV-ready."
Ingrid Malmgren, policy director at the EV advocacy group Plug In America, tells the newspaper that "communities all over the country are coming up with creative solutions. And it's just going to get easier and easier."

"It's the third all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station," writes NASA — and they're expected to start boarding within the next hour!

Watch it all on the official stream of NASA TV.

More details from Ars Technica: The four-man team lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday, kicking off a 36-hour pursuit of the orbiting research laboratory. Docking is scheduled for Saturday morning. This two-week mission is managed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which is conducting private astronaut missions to the ISS as a stepping stone toward building a fully commercial space station in low-Earth orbit by the end of this decade.

Axiom's third mission, called Ax-3, launched at 4:49 pm EST (21:49 UTC) Thursday. The four astronauts were strapped into their seats inside SpaceX's Dragon Freedom spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 rocket. This is the 12th time SpaceX has launched a human spaceflight mission, and could be the first of five Dragon crew missions this year.
NASA reports that the crew "will spend about two weeks conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities aboard the space station." NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said "During their time aboard the International Space Station, the Ax-3 astronauts will carry out more than 30 scientific experiments that will help advance research in low-Earth orbit. As the first all-European commercial astronaut mission to the space station, the Ax-3 crew is proof that the possibility of space unites us all...."

The Dragon spacecraft will dock autonomously to the forward port of the station's Harmony module as early as 4:19 a.m. [EST] Saturday. Hatches between Dragon and the station are expected to open after 6 a.m. [EST], allowing the Axiom crew to enter the complex for a welcoming ceremony and start their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.... The Ax-3 astronauts are expected to depart the space station Saturday, February 3, pending weather, for a return to Earth and splashdown at a landing site off the coast of Florida.

The White House has convened a last-minute meeting to discuss a private lunar mission, Peregrine Mission One, after the Navajo Nation requested a delay due to cultural concerns over the transport of human ashes for burial on the moon. "The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology," said Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren in a statement. "The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations."

If successful, the commercial mission scheduled to launch Monday "will be the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972," notes CNN. Longtime Slashdot reader garyisabusyguy shares the report: The private companies providing these lunar burial services, Celestis and Elysium Space, are just two of several paying customers hitching a ride to the moon on Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine lunar lander. The uncrewed spacecraft is expected to lift off on the inaugural flight of the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Celestis' payload, called Tranquility Flight, includes 66 "memorial capsules" containing "cremated remains and DNA," which will remain on the lunar surface "as a permanent tribute to the intrepid souls who never stopped reaching for the stars," according to the company's website.

"We are aware of the concerns expressed by Mr. Nygren, but do not find them substantive," Celestis CEO Charles Chafer told CNN. "We reject the assertion that our memorial spaceflight mission desecrates the moon," Chafer said. "Just as permanent memorials for deceased are present all over planet Earth and not considered desecration, our memorial on the moon is handled with care and reverence, is a permanent monument that does not intentionally eject flight capsules on the moon. It is a touching and fitting celebration for our participants -- the exact opposite of desecration, it is a celebration." Elysium Space has not responded to CNN's request for a comment, but the company's website describes its "Lunar Memorial" as delivering "a symbolic portion of remains to the surface of the Moon, helping to create the quintessential commemoration." "I've been disappointed that this conversation came up so late in the game," John Thornton, Astrobotic Technology CEO, said. "I would have liked to have had this conversation a long time ago. We announced the first payload manifest of this nature to our mission back in 2015. A second in 2020. We really are trying to do the right thing and I hope we can find a good path forward with Navajo Nation." [...]

Friday's meeting convened by the White House is scheduled to feature representatives from NASA, the FAA, the US Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce. But Navajo Nation officials have little hope that they will be able to stop Monday's launch. "Based off of what we're seeing, and NASA are already having their pre-launch briefing, it doesn't look like they have any intention of stopping the launch or removing the remains," Ahasteen said.

The Food and Drug Administration has allowed Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from Canada at far lower prices than in the United States, overriding fierce decades-long objections from the pharmaceutical industry. From a report: The approval, issued in a letter to Florida Friday, is a major policy shift for the United States, and supporters hope it will be a significant step forward in the long and largely unsuccessful effort to rein in drug prices. Individuals in the United States are allowed to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies, but states have long wanted to be able to purchase medicines in bulk for their Medicaid programs, government clinics and prisons from Canadian wholesalers.

Florida has estimated that it could save up to $150 million in its first year of the program, importing medicines that treat H.I.V., AIDS, diabetes, hepatitis C and psychiatric conditions. Other states have applied to the F.D.A. to set up similar programs. But significant hurdles remain. The pharmaceutical industry's major lobbying organization, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which has sued over previous importation efforts, is expected to file suit to prevent the Florida plan from going into effect. Some drug manufacturers have agreements with Canadian wholesalers not to export their medicines, and the Canadian government has already taken steps to block the export of prescription drugs that are in short supply.

This summer 80 million Americans were experiencing 105-degree heat. And tonight the Washington Post identifies what was unique about 2023's weather: "the heat's all-consuming relentlessness.

"It went day by day, continent by continent, until people all over the map, whether in the Amazon or the Pacific islands or rural Greece, had glimpsed a climate future for which they are not prepared..." Even if its extremes are ultimately eclipsed, as seems inevitable, 2023 will mark a point when humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of "global boiling," as United Nations Secretary General António Guterres called it. The year included the hottest single day on record (July 6) and the hottest ever month (July), not to mention the hottest June, the hottest August, the hottest September, the hottest October, the hottest November, and probably the hottest December. It included a day, November 17, when global temperatures, for the first time ever, reached 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial levels.

Discomfort, destruction, and death are the legacy of those records.

In Phoenix, a heat wave went on for so long, with 31 consecutive days above 110 Fahrenheit, that one NASA atmospheric scientist called it "mind-boggling." The surrounding county recorded a record number of heat deaths, nearly 600. In Brazil, drought sapped the normally lush Amazon, causing towns to ration drinking water, contributing to the deaths of endangered pink dolphins, and choking off the river-based system of travel and commerce... At one point the coastal Florida Keys waters reached 100 degrees, comparable to a hot tub...

One explanation for 2023's extreme heat is El Niño — a recurring oceanic phenomenon that warms the waters in the Pacific and causes a global ripple of consequences. But the scale of this year's heat — amplified by human-caused factors and the burning of fossil fuels — is still well beyond what most scientists had thought possible. Some have theorized that planetary warming may be accelerating. Others have said there's not enough evidence. What they agree upon, though, is that the earth is trending toward more extreme heat. That means that the experiences of 2023 can seem astonishing in the short-term but will one day look tame.

This year, then, will wind up as the first — and almost surely not the last — in which temperatures were at or near 1.5 Celsius above preindustrial levels, a threshold the Paris agreement has aimed to avoid.
The article includes two more sobering statistics:

• "The University of Maine's Climate Change Institute logs daily global temperatures going back to 1940. From this July on, almost without fail, every daily temperature in 2023 topped the daily temperature from the same date in any of the prior 83 years."

• "In Brazil, the Rio Negro, one of the Amazon's main tributaries, fell to its lowest level since record keeping began more than a century earlier."

"Since the 1960s engineers around the world have been fiddling with a novel type of jet called a rotating detonation engine (RDE), but it has never got beyond the experimental stage," reports the Economist.

"That could be about to change." GE Aerospace, one of the world's biggest producers of jet engines, recently announced it was developing a working version. Earlier this year America's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded a $29m contract to Raytheon, part of RTX, another big aerospace group, to develop an RDE called Gambit.

Both engines would be used to propel missiles, overcoming the range and speed limitations of current propulsion systems, including rockets and existing types of jet engines. However, if the companies are successful in getting them to work, RDEs might have a much broader role in aviation — including the possibility of helping revive supersonic air travel.

In a nutshell, an RDE "replaces fire with a controlled explosion", explains Kareem Ahmed, an expert in advanced aerospace engines at the University of Central Florida. In technical terms, this is because a jet engine relies on the combustion of oxygen and fuel, which is a subsonic reaction that scientists call deflagration. Detonation, by comparison, is a high-energy explosion that takes place at supersonic speeds. As a result it is a more powerful and potentially a more efficient way of producing thrust, the force that drives an aircraft forward...

By modifying an aircraft's fuselage and wings, engineers believe they can reduce the boom's impact on the ground below. Such work will help to determine whether or not future supersonic passenger planes will, like Concorde, be restricted to flying beyond the speed of sound only over oceans.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SpzToid for sharing the article.

SpaceX on Thursday launched two rockets into orbit, only three hours apart, bringing its total number of launches to 98 in 2023. Space.com reports: The first SpaceX mission to take to the skies Thursday (Dec. 28) was a Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the U.S. military's secretive X-37B space plane, designed mission USSF-52. That blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 p.m. EST (0107 GMT on Dec. 29). This marked the second Falcon Heavy flight of 2023. Second up on the launch docket for Thursday, hours later, was a Falcon 9 liftoff carrying 23 SpaceX Starlink units to low Earth orbit from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This launch took place at 11:01 p.m. EST (0401 GMT on Dec. 29). This was SpaceX's 98th and final launch of 2023, and the 96th flight for a Falcon 9 rocket this year.

SpaceX's 97th launch overall for this year marked the seventh flight for X-37B, but the first time the space plane hitched a lift atop a Falcon Heavy rocket. The X-37B/Falcon Heavy launch had been scrubbed several times previously due to bad weather and an issue with ground equipment. The launch of 23 Starlink broadband satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida that capped off 2023 was also the 96th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket during this year. SpaceX's next launch is targeted for Jan. 2, 2024 and will see a further 21 Starlink satellites lift to orbit to join the over 5,500 internet supplying units currently orbiting Earth.

Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser's Incognito mode. From a report: Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to "track, collect, and identify [users'] browsing data in real time" even when they had opened a new Incognito window. The lawsuit, filed by Florida resident William Byatt and California residents Chasom Brown and Maria Nguyen, accused Google of violating wiretap laws.

It also alleged that sites using Google Analytics or Ad Manager collected information from browsers in Incognito mode, including web page content, device data, and IP address. The plaintiffs also accused Google of taking Chrome users' private browsing activity and then associating it with their already-existing user profiles. Google initially attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed by pointing to the message displayed when users turned on Chrome's incognito mode. That warning tells users that their activity "might still be visible to websites you visit."

The number of people living in California fell below 39 million this year, according to new census estimates, the lowest count since 2015. From a report: California's population dipped by about 75,000 from 2022 to 2023, estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau shows, with about 38,965,000 million people in the state this year. The state's population has fallen since its 2019 peak of 39.5 million, though the annual loss has also slowed each year. Between 2021 and 2022, California lost a net of about 104,000 people, or 0.3%, higher than the dip of 0.2% between 2022 and 2023.

About 338,000 more people left California for other states than vice versa from July 2022 to July 2023, the Census Bureau data shows. That's slightly greater than the 333,000 from 2021 to 2022, and the most of any state. California historically loses more people to the rest of the country than it gains. The state partially offset its domestic loss via international migration, with a net of 151,000 people moving to California from outside the United States. That was the second-highest number of any state, behind Florida, and a 19% increase from 2021-22. And it was the highest total for California since 2015.

In 2005, the reclassification of pseudoephedrine to behind-the-counter status led to widespread use of oral phenylephrine in OTC decongestants, despite evidence of its ineffectiveness. Randy Hatton, a clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida, and his colleague worked to bring this issue to the FDA's attention, revealing loopholes in the regulatory process for older OTC drugs. Hatton writes in an opinion piece for Scientific American: Before the FDA required that drugs had to be proven effective, it determined whether OTC drugs were effective through expert panels that reviewed existing data. These OTC monographs establish what older OTC ingredients can be marketed without FDA approval. The oral decongestant monograph panel reviewed a few published studies and multiple unpublished studies for phenylephrine. Of the unpublished studies, only four studies showed oral phenylephrine was effective, while seven showed it was no better than placebo. We requested copies of all evidence used by the nasal decongestant review panel via a Freedom of Information Act request and performed a systematic review and meta-analysis ourselves. [...]

The FDA has multiple regulatory processes for different types of medicinal compounds. People are perhaps most familiar with the New Drug Application process, which leads to clinical trials for prescription drug approvals. However, many OTC or nonprescription drugs are regulated differently. In fact, a law passed in 1951, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, created the categories of prescription and nonprescription drugs. In 1962, the act was amended again so that drugs had to be shown to be effective, hence the requirement for well-done clinical trials. But what about the drugs that were approved before 1962? This is the loophole that some OTC drugs fall through. For prescription drugs, FDA tried to address pre-1962 approvals through a review of over 3,000 prescription drugs. Most of those drugs have now been reviewed and addressed, but there are still unapproved prescription drugs on the market today, such as an extended-release form of oral nitroglycerin. For nonprescription drugs, FDA established the OTC monograph process 10 years after the 1962 amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which required products not proven effective to be reconsidered. FDA formed advisory panels grouping hundreds of ingredients into 26 categories based on the products' uses. After gathering all available information, both published and unpublished, from manufacturers, the advisory panels issued final reports to FDA about whether these ingredients were GRASE (generally recognized as safe and effective), not GRASE, or inconclusive. GRASE ingredients can be used in nonprescription drugs without FDA approval if the use matches the monograph. "The oral phenylephrine example shows that FDA needs more funding to look at these old drugs," concludes Hatton. "We need public funds to support independent researchers who want to examine these products objectively. The government should be able to spend millions to save consumers billions on ineffective products. Companies that market these products have no incentive to prove they don't work. Nonprescription drugs must be effective -- not just safe."

Bird Global, the company that pioneered on-street electric scooter rentals, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection [Editor's note: the link is paywalled; alternative source] in Florida, five years after becoming the fastest start-up ever to reach a so-called "unicorn" valuation above $1bn. From a report: In September, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in Bird, which went public via a blank-cheque company in 2021, after its market capitalisation fell below a $15mn threshold. "We are making progress towards profitability and aim to accelerate that progress by right-sizing our capital structure through this restructuring," Bird interim chief executive Michael Washinushi said on Wednesday.

Bird said it would operate as normal during the restructuring process and that its lenders had entered into a "stalking horse" sale agreement. The company aims to complete a sale process within 120 days. Its European and Canadian businesses are not part of the bankruptcy filing. Founded by former Uber and Lyft executive Travis VanderZanden in Los Angeles in 2017, Bird spawned dozens of copycat companies around the world. But e-scooter rentals have struggled to reach consistent profitability, amid regulatory strictures, safety concerns, and high capital and operating costs.