Ruth Bader Ginsburg has two malignant growths removed from lung…
December 21, 2018
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent a pulmonary lobectomy in Manhattan on Friday and two malignant nodules were removed from her lung, the court announced.
The 85-year-old underwent the procedure at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after the nodules were discovered in the lower lobe of her left lung, the court announced.
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Dr. Valerie Rusch, a thoracic surgeon, said both nodules were found to be malignant after preliminary tests, but there was no evidence of any remaining disease after the surgery.WOW: Researchers create new software to animate characters in photographs…
December 21, 2018
...they wave, smile, or sometimes disappear altogether to attend to other business.
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These folks have created a piece of software called Photo Wake-Up that can animate the central character in a photograph while leaving the rest of the image untouched.
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This begins with a 2D cutout of a human body and superimposes a 3D skeleton onto the shape. The skeleton can then be animated to create the sense of movement. That solves the problem of pose estimation, albeit for a limited set of circumstances.World’s fastest camera snaps electrons on the move…
December 21, 2018
The special feature of the Kiel system is its extremely high temporal resolution of 13 femtoseconds. This makes it one of the fastest electron cameras in the world. "Thanks to the extremely short duration of the light pulses used, we are able to film ultrafast processes live. Our investigations have shown that there is a surprising amount of stuff happening here," explained Michael Bauer, professor of ultrafast dynamics at the CAU.
Daimler Trucks North America delivers its first battery-electric commercial truck…
December 21, 2018
The Freightliner eM2 106 is intended for local distribution operations in the food sector and last-mile delivery services. The batteries of the new electric version provide 325 KWh for up to 480 hp. The range of the eM2 is around 370 km (230 miles). The batteries can be recharged to around 80% within 60 minutes, sufficient for a range of around 300 km (184 miles).
Google Unveils a 3-Decade Time-Lapse of the Earth…
December 21, 2018
US Moon landing conspiracy: Faking it more difficult than doing, Russian scientist says…
December 21, 2018
Fabricating a lunar landing would probably be technologically impossible and anyway economically unnecessary, told RIA Novosti Yury Kostitsyn.
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“Falsifying moon soil is impossible. The Americans brought back to Earth about 300 kilos of it, most of it basalt,” he explained.“We have basalts on Earth too, but they are significantly different from the lunar ones in their chemical composition, properties, and structure. There are no rock formations older than 3.7 billion years, and what the Americans brought is over 4 billion years old, comparable to the age of the solar system.”
With Trump’s signature on the Farm Bill, hemp & CBD are now legal in the U.S…
Statement from FDA Commissioner...
December 21, 2018
President Donald Trump signed the 2018 farm bill on Thursday afternoon, which legalized hemp — a variety of cannabis that does not produce the psychoactive component of marijuana — paving the way to legitimacy for an agricultural sector that has been operating on the fringe of the law. Industrial hemp has made investors and executives swoon because of the potential multibillion-dollar market for cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive compound that has started to turn up in beverages, health products and pet snacks, among other products.
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Luke Zigovits, chief executive of Wisconsin-based Hemp Science, said, “We can finally relax. Because now we can source seed, now we can sell our product across state lines. Prohibition is over. It broadens horizons, allowing universities to do research, for example.” Beyond moving the industry into legitimacy, Zigovits said there are opportunities for tobacco farmers in Wisconsin and elsewhere to start growing industrial hemp crops as well.Industrial hemp is a great plant for phytoremediation, which is cleaning the air and soil through uptake into plants. The plants can then be harvested and used for a litany of fiber related products. Remediation of superfund sites is a billion dollar business. Whats more efficient? Planting a cash crop that rehabilitates the soil, or sifting tonnes of dirt and injecting designer chemicals? Hemp is great for paper, textiles, biofuel, oil, and fucking everything else. Legalizing hemp is so underrated. This man just gave the green light for potentially entire new businesses to sprout up.
Also, this federal law just makes the marijuana CBD legal (at the federal level) as well.
4 dead after small plane crash in NW Atlanta; Memphis CEO among victims…
December 21, 2018
A The aircraft, described by the Federal Aviation Administration as a Cessna 560, went down at 12:10 p.m. in English Park, near I-285 at Bolton Road and about two miles from the Fulton County Airport, Atlanta fire spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford told reporters during a news conference at the scene.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office and National Transportation Safety Board confirmed four people were aboard the plane when it crashed with no survivors. The plane was bound for the Millington-Memphis Airport, airport Executive Director Roy Remington told AJC.com.
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One of the victims was identified by the Memphis Commercial Appeal as Wei Chen, an avid flier who became the first Chinese citizen to fly a single-engine airplane around the world. He was the founder and CEO of the Memphis-based company Sunshine Enterprise, Inc., and Mike McAnnally, president of a subsidiary of Chen's company, Stepup Scaffold, confirmed Chen's death to the newspaper. He said he’s notified Chen’s family.Ford recalling 874,000 pickup trucks in North America…
December 21, 2018
The recall includes certain F-150 models from 2015 through 2019, in addition to the F-250, 350, 450 and 550 from 2017 through 2019.
Ford said that water and contaminants can enter the heater cable and cause corrosion, which can then cause electrical shorts and possible fires. An engine block heater helps the engine start and ensures the vehicle warms up quicker than it normally would otherwise in very cold weather.
Great Pacific garbage patch $20m cleanup fails to collect plastic…
December 21, 2018
Article says they collected it and then it escaped their collector, so needs some more rethinking and redesign. Which is basically expected, since they were trying something completely new and it was always going to need to be incrementally improved as they went along and learned new things.
Dataset Search: Google launches new search engine to help scientists find datasets…
December 21, 2018
The service, called Dataset Search, launches today, and will be a companion of sorts to Google Scholar, the company’s popular search engine for academic studies and reports. Institutions that publish their data online, like universities and governments, will need to include metadata tags in their webpages that describe their data, including who created it, when it was published, how it was collected, and so on. This information will then be indexed by Dataset Search and combined with input from Google’s Knowledge Graph.
Pakistani man sentenced for role in human smuggling conspiracy…
December 21, 2018
HSI New York identified Sharafat Ali Khan, 33, as the Brazilian-based facilitator of the alien smuggling organization.
In March of 2014, HSI New York and FBI special agents initiated an investigation into an alien smuggling organization operating in South and Central America, focusing on the movement of illegal aliens from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, through South and Central America to the United States. From 2014 to 2016, upwards of 100 people arrested by HSI and the FBI identified Khan as their smuggler. The investigation revealed that Khan and his co-conspirators charged each alien between $3,000 and $15,000 to facilitate their travel to the United States. Several of the individuals smuggled by Khan’s organization had suspected ties to terrorist organizations.
306 Central Americans surrendered to Arizona Border Patrol agents…
December 21, 2018
On Wednesday, agents from the Ajo Border Patrol Station patrolling on the border 15 miles west of Lukeville found 242 migrants. On Thursday morning, agents from the Casa Grande Station patrolling the border on the Tohono O’odham Nation encountered a group of 64 migrants who gave themselves up.
Both groups were comprised of family units, to include juveniles and pregnant women, largely from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Border Patrol agents conducted an initial screening on site, which consisted of an interview and observation of the detainees to identify any health or safety issues requiring emergency evacuation. The initial screening identified one pregnant woman and four children requiring immediate care.
The five subjects were transported to a hospital in Goodyear, treated and released to Ajo Border Patrol Station agents for further processing. Subjects not requiring emergency medical attention were transported to Tucson for further processing and medical evaluation by Border Patrol paramedics.
US, allies slam China for economic espionage, spies indicted…
December 21, 2018
The United States and 3 allies condemned China for economic espionage on Thursday as American prosecutors charged 2 Chinese nationals tied to a spy agency in a wide-ranging cyber campaign that stole confidential data from US government agencies and businesses, fanning tensions with Beijing.
US authorities unveiled indictments charging Zhu Hua and Zhang Jianguo in hacking attacks against the US Navy, the space agency NASA and the Energy Department as well as companies in numerous sectors. The operation targeted intellectual property and confidential business and technological data to give Chinese companies an unfair competitive advantage, they added.
FBI kicks some of the worst ‘DDoS for hire’ sites off the internet…
December 21, 2018
The FBI has seized the domains of 15 high-profile distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) websites after a coordinated effort by law enforcement and several tech companies.
Several seizure warrants granted by a California federal judge went into effect Thursday, removing several of these “booter” or “stresser” sites off the internet “as part of coordinated law enforcement action taken against illegal DDoS-for-hire services.” The orders were granted under federal seizure laws, and the domains were replaced with a federal notice.
Not Even Close!…
December 21, 2018
I’ve done more damage to ISIS than all recent presidents....not even close!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018
Trump names acting director for Fannie, Freddie oversight agency…
December 21, 2018
Joseph Otting, a former business associate of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who already serves in a key banking policy position, will act as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency effective Jan. 6.
Otting is the current comptroller of the currency, meaning he oversees and regulates banks chartered by the federal government. He will take over for outgoing FHFA Director Mel Watt, whose term is due to expire on the day Otting replaces him.
As acting FHFA director, Otting will oversee the $5.4 trillion mortgage portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which FHFA has held in conservatorship since the 2007-2008 housing market collapse and ensuing global financial crisis.