It was slated for Antarctica, because to see microwaves from the ground you need to be high and dry. That's cheaper than space (REALLY high and dry), but still not actually cheap. Chile was option #2 (and still not cheap, because remote high and dry) when the Antarctic infrastructure developed problems. Which still exist, and will need a lot of time and money to get right: there's still lots of stuff that needs done down there.

To be fair, CMB-S4 had been on hold and in serious trouble long before the current bunch of people took over the government. Had the election gone the other way, this was still a rather likely result for this particular project. Sucks, but this one's the least of the things we should be outraged about.

I'm curious what the fingerprints are, and if they have a recipe one can feed a paper to to see what gets flagged. For example, I've not used AI in any of my paper writing (not counting data analysis: ML has been a thing for decades, but that's probably not what they're talking about...), so my own set of papers would be a good control case for false positives.

This is pretty much the plot of The Three Body Problem.

This is a concern. However, when using SNIa as standard candles, you already have to compare their light curves to templates to calibrate out the fact that different white dwarfs are made of different stuff. A double-bang probably has a light curve very different than normal, as well as being rare: so I'd be surprised if they mess up the overall fit of thousands of SNe. That said: more fun stuff to figure out!

57% of NSF's budget has been cut. If you think that 57% of what NSF does is "DEI", then there's no use arguing with you.

NSF grants generally run for three years. So, another way of looking at this is that funding no new awards this year at all saves you 33% of the budget. And whack half of last year's awards before they finish. Then let the ones on their final year finish up to get results.

Also note that NSF has been kicked out of its offices (HUD's taking the building over), so they're going to have a hard time managing whatever's left anyway.

Because Bondi is also in charge of investigating and prosecuting federal law violations. So, nothing will happen. A good idea to move the justice dept into the control of the judicial branch, maybe?

It's called "dynamical friction". Not actual rubbing on things, but if you take an object moving along past a bunch of other objects, and they're all attacting each other via gravity, you get a net force opposite the direction of movement by the combination of all the "slingshot effects" from all the other bodies.

Wikipedia doesn't have a cartoon of this, if I only had a blackboard. Let's see if I can google up a cartoon.... Aha! This is 2025, of course there's a good youtube talk

about it.

My wife has a PHEV. From a usability standpoint, a nice compromise, driving around town for daily use remains the "almost free" electrical, and road trips are the same "don't have to think about it because gas stations are every exit" thing. From a maintenance standpoint, you've now got two sets of complexities in the car, but if everything works right, it's just extra oil change money. Less power and torque than a BEV, because the electric motors are smaller, but more get up and go than the non-PHEV hybrid, because the motors have to be big enough to rely on.

Here's my two big reasons, neither of which you list.

• It drives great: super acceleration, super smooth, quiet, fast. Roomier inside than it would be if it were carrying around all the ICE baggage (for the same sized body shell).
• Save money. Not from the feds, mine didn't qualify for that protectionist rebate. Charges up for $5-$10 a "tank" overnight in my garage. Don't have to spend any time at gas stations, unless on a roadtrip (in which case it costs the same as gas and takes a little longer, accounting for food and bathroom). Nearly free of maintenance costs.

But wait, you say, you paid more in the first place! Isn't there at least a break-even time? I suppose. I did pay more than the median US car price. But see the first point: I wasn't in the market for an econobox. I couldn't have gotten an ICE car that performs that well without spending a lot more than I did (that would take at least 2x the median price), so saved money up front in addition to gas and maintenance long term. And, I really like the looks of this one (an EV6). Sorry you don't like any of them, but that's a totally subjective criterion.

There exists satellite data to track methane and CO2 concentrations on the map: the Finns don't have to trust the CCP.

For now. Till the head-in-the-sand people in charge of things in DC notice that there's one more dataset they're involved with that contradicts the party line and must be taken offline.

Yes, this is standard hiring practice at my university.

B-52s are still in service at 60, so sure, why not?

Physics prof in the US here. I do give tests in person with pencil and paper.

Students have homework and in class work to learn how to solve the problems. Some fraction of them cheat their way through these practice assignments to farm the ~10% of their grade they're worth.

Those that cheat then get mulched on the test. And then bitterly complain on their student evaluations that they're being tested on stuff that wasn't in the class: because they have no idea what was in the class bits they cut-n-paste or looked up and copied down.

College and testing still works that way in much of the world.