Research reveals stellar kinematics of the galactic disc

By using a sample of 118945 red giant branch (RGB) stars from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and Gaia, Dr. Wu Yaqian from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) investigated the stellar kinematics of the galactic disc in 7 Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-reveals-stellar-kinematics-galactic-disc.html…

Ghana Scientist Tries Gene Editing To Create Healthier Sweet Potatoes

The Cornell Alliance for Science seeks to build “a significant international alliance of partners” to “correct misinformation and counter conspiracy theories” slowing progress on climate change, synthetic biology, agricultural innovations, and other issues. Slashdot reader wooloohoo shares their article about research on Ghana’s first gene-edited crop — a high-yielding sweet potato with increased beta carotone content. “For sweet potatoes, we want…

Biden To Order Review of US Reliance on Overseas Supply Chains For Semiconductors, Rare Earths

President Joe Biden will direct his administration to conduct a review of key U.S. supply chains including semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, medical supplies and rare earth metals. From a report: The assessment, which will be led by members of both Biden’s economic and national security teams, will analyze the “resiliency and capacity of the American manufacturing supply chains and defense industrial base…

How Oracle Sells Repression in China

In its bid for TikTok, Oracle was supposed to prevent data from being passed to Chinese police. Instead, it’s been marketing its own software for their surveillance work. From a report: Police in China’s Liaoning province were sitting on mounds of data collected through invasive means: financial records, travel information, vehicle registrations, social media, and surveillance camera footage. To make sense…

Signals in optical band can be used as probe to detect atmosphere escape of hot Jupiters

YAN Dongdong, GUO Jianheng and Xing Lei from Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborating with Huang Chenliang from University of Arizona, deduced that there is an expanding and escaping thermal neutral hydrogen atmosphere around hot Jupiter WASP-121b by simulating the optical transmission spectrum (Hα) of this exoplanet. The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-optical-band-probe-atmosphere-hot.html…

After Researchers Raise Spying Concerns, Clubhouse Promises Blocks on Transmitting to Chinese Servers

“The developers of audio chat room app Clubhouse plan to add additional encryption to prevent it from transmitting pings to servers in China,” reports The Verge, “after Stanford researchers said they found vulnerabilities in its infrastructure.” In a new report, the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) said it confirmed that Shanghai-based company Agora Inc., which makes real-time engagement software, “supplies back-end infrastructure…

WHO Team Member to New York Times: What We Learned in China

Peter Daszak is part of the World Health Organization’s 14-member team investigating the origins of the coronavirus. This weekend on Twitter he described “explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China” to journalists — only to see team members “selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began.” Daszak was responding to a New York…

Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn’t Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation

Friday the New York Times (following up on reports from the Wall Street Journal) wrote that China had “refused to hand over” important raw data to a 14-member World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus, reporting that “their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team’s persistent questioning and demands for data.” But Saturday two of those 14 team…

WHO Investigators Now Believe Cornavirus was ‘Circulating Widely’ in Wuhan in December

“Investigators from the World Health Organization (WHO) looking into the origins of coronavirus in China have discovered signs the outbreak was much wider in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought,” reports CNN, “and are urgently seeking access to hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city that China has not so far let them examine.” The lead investigator for…

WHO Investigators Now Believe Coronavirus was ‘Circulating Widely’ in Wuhan in December

“Investigators from the World Health Organization (WHO) looking into the origins of coronavirus in China have discovered signs the outbreak was much wider in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought,” reports CNN, “and are urgently seeking access to hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city that China has not so far let them examine.” The lead investigator for…