Submission + - Trump Dismantling National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado (pbs.org)

Submitted by echo123
echo123 writes: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, moving to dissolve a research lab that a top White House official described as “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.

White House budget director Russ Vought criticized the lab in a social media post Tuesday night and said a comprehensive review of the lab is underway. “Vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location, Vought said.

The research lab, which houses the largest federal research program on climate change, supports research to predict, prepare for and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters. The research lab is managed by a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities on behalf of the National Science Foundation.

A senior White House official cited two instances of the lab’s “woke direction” that wastes taxpayer funds on what the official called frivolous pursuits and ideologies. One funded an Indigenous and Earth Sciences center that aimed to “make the sciences more welcoming, inclusive, and justice-centered,” while another experiment traced air pollution to “demonize motor vehicles, oil and gas operations.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the administration’s actions.

Submission + - Monster of 2025: Endless Subscriptions (motherjones.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The Hatch Restore alarm clock, which retails for $169, can light up your bedroom in every hue, soothe you to sleep with audio meditation sessions, and keep you in a REM cycle with a full catalogue of white noise options. To utilize these features, though, you need to pay an additional $4.99 per month, in perpetuity.

Welcome to the age of subscription captivity, where an increasing share of the things you pay for actually own you.

Submission + - Humans Made a Space Barrier Around Earth that Is Saving Us...Whoops! (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: The mysterious zone of anthropogenic space weather is caused by specific kinds of radio waves that we’ve been blasting into the atmosphere for decades, but experts say the expanding band actually helps protect humankind from dangerous space radiation. NASA first observed this belt in 2012. The agency sends probes to explore different parts of our solar system, including the Van Allen Belts: a huge, torus-shaped area of radiation that surrounds Earth. The donut shape follows the equator, leaving the North and South Poles free.

The Van Allen Belts are related to and affected by the magnetosphere induced by the nonstop bombardment of the sun’s radiation. They affect benign-seeming magnetic effects like the Northern Lights, as well as more destructive ones like magnetic storms. People planning spaceflight through areas affected by the Van Allen Belts, for example, must develop radiation shielding to protect crew as well as equipment—and most spacecraft launch from as near to the equator as possible, right in the Van Allen zone.
So, what’s our new protective barrier? The same probes that launched in 2012 to help us understand the Belts better in the first place detected this phenomenon, and in 2017, the probes gave us the first evidence of the radio-wave barrier emanating from Earth.

Why is this? Well, the very low frequency (VLF) waves are exactly right to cancel out and repel the radiative advances of the Van Allen Belts as a matter of total coincidence. In fact, NASA initially considered this a true coincidence, saying that a radio wave area happened to match exactly with the edge of the Van Allen Belts.

Isn’t it interesting that VLF blankets the Earth without interfering with literally any other radio signal, for example, or the many other kinds of waves that flow around us all the time, but makes it into space far enough to push away harmful radiation?
This means that, for example, space programs could develop VLF technology to punch holes for spacecraft to travel through. As always, truth is stranger than fiction.

Maybe we won't have to worry about the Van Allen belt combusting and cooking all life on Earth as was suggested in the movie "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"...phew!

Slashdot Top Deals