Influencer notes

Influencers use four tactics to help people love what they hate:

1. Allow for choice.
2. Create direct experiences. Let people feel, see, and touch things for themselves.
3. Tell meaningful stories.
4. Make it a game.

Elements of an enjoyable game:

• Keeping score. This action produces clear, frequent feedback that can transform tasks into accomplishments that, in turn, can generate intense satisfaction.
• Competition. Am I doing better than before? Am I doing better than others?
• Constant improvement. Show the participants how they are progressing in their tasks.
• Control. Let the gamers see the impact of their work. For many, the impact if far more rewarding than the job itself. 

Source: Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition (2013) by Joseph Grenny.

Researchers say they’re closer to finding cure for HIV after using CRISPR technology to eliminate disease in live mice for the first time

From CNBC.com (July 2):

Researchers say they’re one step closer to finding a potential cure for HIV after successfully eliminating the virus in living mice for the first time.

Using a combination of CRISPR gene-editing technology and a therapeutic treatment called LASER ART, scientists at Temple University and the University of Nebraska Medical Center said they erased HIV DNA from the genomes of animals in what they call an unprecedented study that was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

“We think this study is a major breakthrough because it for the first time demonstrates after 40 years of the AIDS epidemic that the HIV disease is a curable disease,” said study co-author Dr. Kamel Khalili, chair of the department of neuroscience and director of the Center for Neurovirology and the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at Temple University. [read more]

Caution urged as scientists look to create human-monkey chimeras

From National Post.com (July 2):

The monkeys in Douglas Munoz’s Kingston lab look like other monkeys.

They socialize and move around and eat and drink in the same way. They don’t fall over or stagger around. In fact, the only thing separating the macaques from their unaltered lab mates is the elevated level of a specific human protein implanted inside their brains — proteins that accumulate in the brains of humans with Alzheimer’s disease.

The monkeys have been injected with beta-amyloid, a molecule that, in high-enough amounts, is toxic to human brain tissue.

Munoz and collaborators are studying the earliest changes in those monkey cerebrums. Normally it takes several decades for Alzheimer’s to unfold in human brains. The researchers don’t have that kind of time. The injections speed things up.

If left alone, eventually the monkeys will start to show signs of Alzheimer’s. They make more mistakes on memory tasks and their reaction time slows.

Alzheimer’s research relies heavily on rodents. Munoz is trying to develop a monkey model of Alzheimer’s, because one of the biggest reasons for the staggering string of flops in the search for an effective treatment for the brain-ravaging disease is the species gap. The rat brain is a long way away from the human brain. Not so much a monkey’s.

Munoz, Canada Research Chair in neuroscience at Queen’s University, has reported his work using brain molecules. Others are implanting monkeys with fragments of human brain tissue extracted from people who died with Alzheimer’s.

Now, however, some are going further, and proposing the creation of human-monkey chimeras — part-human beings with entire portions of the brain, like, say, the hippocampus, entirely human derived. [read more]

I think it is great the scientists are trying to cure the Alzheimer disease, but making a monkey chimera to do it? That I am not so sure. That’s unnatural.

Mike Lee’s New Bill Would Enforce ‘No Regulation Without Representation’

From The Daily Signal.com (June 19):

[Mike] Lee said he introduced the Take Care Act as the third part to a conservative legislative program that seeks to reduce the size and impact of administrative agencies, what he called the “headless fourth branch of the federal government.”

The Utah Republican officially introduced the bill June 12 with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

“We’ve given the modern administrative state 80 good years. That’s a nice long try,” Lee said. “It’s bad. We’ve got to undo it.”

Lee told his Heritage audience that regulatory rules written and enforced by unelected administrators violate Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, which declares that all laws must be passed through both chambers of Congress and be signed into law by the president.

The proposed Take Care Act, Lee said, would solve this problem by allowing the president to use his constitutional power to remove upper-level agency officers who aren’t “faithfully executing the law.”

Currently, Lee said, executive branch officials may be removed only for committing an act of misconduct such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and are protected against being removed for political reasons. 

He argued that this change would make the bureaucracy accountable to the people again. [read more]

Good idea. Hope it passes.

The Quantum Internet Is Emerging, One Experiment at a Time

From Scientific American.com (June 19):

Today’s internet is a playground for hackers. From insecure communication links to inadequately guarded data in the cloud, vulnerabilities are everywhere. But if quantum physicists have their way, such weaknesses will soon go the way of the dodo.

……………

Although a fully realized quantum network is still a far-off vision, recent breakthroughs in transmitting, storing and manipulating quantum information have convinced some physicists that a simple proof-of-principle is imminent.

From defects in diamonds and crystals that help photons change color, to drones that serve as spooky network nodes, researchers are using a smorgasbord of exotic materials and techniques in this quantum quest. The first stage, many say, would be a quantum network using standard optical fiber to connect at least three small quantum devices about 50 to 100 kilometers apart.

Such a network may be built in the next five years, according to Ben Lanyon of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Innsbruck, Austria. Lanyon’s team is part of Europe’s Quantum Internet Alliance, coordinated by Stephanie Wehner at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, which is tasked with creating a quantum network. Europe is competing with similar national efforts in China—which in 2016 launched Micius, a quantum communications satellite—as well as in the United States. Last December, the U.S. government enacted the National Quantum Initiative Act, which will lavishly fund a number of research hubs dedicated to quantum technologies, including quantum computers and networks. “The main feature of a quantum network is that you are sending quantum information instead of classical information,” says Delft University’s Ronald Hanson. Classical information deals in bits that have values of either 0 or 1. Quantum information, however, uses quantum bits, or qubits, which can be in a superposition of both 0 and 1 at the same time. Qubits can be encoded, for example, in the polarization states of a photon or in the spin states of electrons and atomic nuclei. [read more]

Congress: How It Worked and Why It Doesn’t Course notes

• The Founders believed that separating the powers of government into three branches would help prevent tyranny.
• For the Founders, it is essential that a law be guided by reason.
• The natural law is the part of God's law that man can access through his reason alone. According
  to the Founders, it is the standard for measuring all human law.
• The Founders believed that the quintessential virtue of a good legislator is deliberation.
• The Progressives argued that government should be understood as a living organism.
• The Progressives thought that the Founders' system of separation of powers made government inefficient.
• The Progressives sought to turn Congress into a body that issued general policy goals and vision statements.
• The Progressives viewed the President as a potential "chief legislator," because he was in a unique position to form and shape public opinion, offer the American people a vision for the future, and use the force of his personality to thrust the Congress into action.
• According to the doctrine of non-delegation, Congress may not transfer its legislative power to any other entity of the government.
• The intelligible principle standard gradually became the constitutional justification for the enormous transfer of legislative power from Congress to administrative entities.
• In his dissent in the Mistrettai case, Justice Scalia argued that the reliance on the "intelligible principle test" had allowed Congress to make "junior varsity" legislatures.
• It was during the era of the New Deal that it became common for Congress to delegate broad powers to regulatory agencies.
• The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) placed almost no restrictions on the power of the President to fix the economy.
• Woodrow Wilson described Congress as "secretive, unaccountable, and uninteresting".
• Many Progressives, such as Woodrow Wilson, viewed the British style of government as a model for their reform efforts.
• Initially, the Progressives put their faith in the Speaker of the House as the political figure who could become a kind of "prime minister" in American government.
• After 1910, Progressives thought that taking away the power of the Speaker to control committee appointments and implementing a seniority system would move Congress in a progressive direction.
• Regulatory capture theory argues that administrative agencies begin to serve the interests of corporations.
• Liberals lost their faith in the president as the leader of the administrative state during the Nixon years.
• The typical congressman is uninterested in conducting substantive oversight because there is little incentive to do so.
• By issuing vague policy goals to agencies, the typical congressman can avoid making hard policy choices that might be unpopular and therefore hurt his or her chances of getting re-elected.
• In 1957, the total number of personal staff members of all U.S. Senators was approximately 1,100. Today, that number stands at 4,000.
• Dr. Portteus argues that the primary reason for the lack of compromise in Congress is because the two parties are committed to fundamentally different views of justice.
• Lincoln argued that a common understanding of justice and the purposes of the American Founding is especially important because America is based on idea.
• The root cause of Congress' dysfunction is its transformation from a legislative institution into a component of the administrative state.
• With the creation of the administrative state, we now have a situation in Congress where there is a disconnect between a congressman's constitutional duty and his personal interest.
• The federal bureaucracy no longer fears Congress, primarily because Congress has relinquished its control over the budget process.
• If Congress ever does transform itself back into the legislative institution that the Framers designed it to be, it will be because public opinion on the issue shifts dramatically.

Source: Congress: How It Worked and Why It Doesn’t.

What’s Lost in College

Commentary from Dennis Prager on The Daily Signal.com (June 18):

When assessing America’s or any of the Western world’s universities—wondering whether you should send your child to one; whether you should pay for a child to attend one; whether you should go into great debt to attend one; whether you should donate money to one; and related questions—it would seem that the single most important question to be answered is this: What type of person does the university produce?

It’s hard to imagine any parent—left, right, liberal, conservative, or apolitical—who would disagree with asking that question.

They would disagree about what constituted a desirable outcome. Obviously, left-wing parents would want their child’s college to send home a child with left-wing views, and a parent on the right would not be happy if his or her child returned home with left-wing views, but every parent would agree that the question “What type of person did college produce?” is an important one.

My belief is that, most of the time, colleges today produce a worse human being or, at the very least, a person who is no better, wiser, or more mature than when he or she graduated high school.

Let’s begin with behavioral issues.

There’s a good chance your son or daughter will have spent much of his or her free time at college partying, which often means getting drunk, smoking marijuana, and hooking up with someone for casual sex.

…………….

Then there is depression and mental illness at college. In the words of clinical psychologist Gregg Henriques in Psychology Today, “It is neither an exaggeration, nor is it alarmist to claim that there is a mental health crisis today facing America’s college students.

“Evidence suggests that this group has greater levels of stress and psychopathology than any time in the nation’s history.”

Now, let’s move on to values and character.

Did your son or daughter (or niece or nephew, grandson or granddaughter) return home from college more, less, or equally kind a person?

More, less, or equally respectful of you, his or her parent(s)?

More, less, or equally grateful to you for the monetary sacrifice you made to enable him or her to attend college?

More, less, or equally proud to be an American?

More, less, or equally respectful of religion?

More, less, or equally wise?

More, less, or equally committed to free speech?

More, less, or equally open to hearing views he or she disagrees with?

I think I know the answers to those questions, in most instances. But far more important than what I assume is what you will find out. Please ask not only the college students and recent college graduates, but also their parents and other relatives these questions. [read more]

Other articles on college education:

• This Is How Colleges Become Nannies
• Smart Ways to Make College Cheaper and Better
• Common Sense in Free Fall on College Campuses

Estimated 10,000 people in DC are spies

From Wtop.com (June 17):

Every day, in the predawn hours, long before official Washington, D.C. stirs from its slumber, the quiet rumble of transit begins deep beneath the city, in the streets, on its waterways and in the skies. It grows, hour by hour, to a full-blown symphony of organized chaos, punctuated by voices, horns, sirens and motorcades, as the city of 700,000 swells to more than one million.

Waves of civil servants, military and law enforcement officers, business people, students, diplomats and tourists saturate the city.

That is the scene on a typical weekday in the world’s most powerful city — whose business revolves around secret meetings, information and documents. Woven into that orderly bedlam are sophisticated networks of foreign nationals whose sole purpose is to steal secrets.

They are spies.

According to the International Spy Museum in D.C., an educational and historical center of U.S. intelligence documentation and artifacts, there are “more than 10,000 spies in Washington.”

While there may be some quibbling about the actual numbers, the FBI agrees with the premise.

“It’s unprecedented — the threat from our foreign adversaries, specifically China on the economic espionage and the espionage front,” said Brian Dugan, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Counterintelligence with the FBI’s Washington Field Office. [read more]

That’s discerning.

Upgrade Your Memory With a Surgically Implanted Chip

From TI Chronicles.com (June 10):

In a grainy black-and-white video shot at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, a patient sits in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in a bandage. He’s trying to recall 12 words for a memory test but can only conjure three: whale, pit, zoo. After a pause, he gives up, sinking his head into his hands.

In a second video, he recites all 12 words without hesitation. “No kidding, you got all of them!” a researcher says. This time the patient had help, a prosthetic memory aid inserted into his brain.

Over the past five years, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has invested $77 million to develop devices intended to restore the memory-generation capacity of people with traumatic brain injuries. Last year two groups conducting tests on humans published compelling results.

The Mayo Clinic device was created by Michael Kahana, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and the medical technology company Medtronic Plc. Connected to the left temporal cortex, it monitors the brain’s electrical activity and forecasts whether a lasting memory will be created. “Just like meteorologists predict the weather by putting sensors in the environment that measure humidity and wind speed and temperature, we put sensors in the brain and measure electrical signals,” Kahana says. If brain activity is suboptimal, the device provides a small zap, undetectable to the patient, to strengthen the signal and increase the chance of memory formation. In two separate studies, researchers found the prototype consistently boosted memory 15% to 18%. [read more]

4 Key Lessons from Latest Social Security Trustees’ Report

By Charles Blahous on CNS News.com (June 11):

The Social Security trustees issued their annual report on the program’s financial condition earlier this year, along with their companion report on Medicare. As in previous years, these reports contain sobering news that lawmakers and the public need to know. The trustees who authored these reports are Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and then-acting Social Security Commissioner Nancy Berryhill. Two other trustee positions, those of the independent, bipartisan public trustees, have remained vacant since Robert Reischauer and I last served in those capacities in 2015. This article summarizes four key lessons of the Social Security report.

#1: Social Security faces a huge financing shortfall. Social Security is designed to pay old-age, survivors and disability benefits from special trust funds financed by worker payroll tax contributions, interest earnings on those contributions, and (to a lesser extent) the taxation of benefits.

………..

#2: The shortfall is certain. For many years, those who felt an interest in delaying action to avert Social Security’s insolvency promoted a myth that much of the projected shortfall might go away by itself, depicting it as a byproduct of overly pessimistic assumptions.

………….

#3: We are running out of time to save Social Security, if we haven’t already. For years I have been asked how much more time we have to save Social Security. For years, I have replied that the window of opportunity is already closing, and that while one can’t know precisely when it closes altogether, it is closing fast. My updated and blunter appraisal is that it might be too late already. Clearly, it becomes too late well before Social Security’s trust funds run out.

………

#4: We need public trustees. Since Robert Reischauer and I last served, the public trustee positions have remained vacant. This has deprived the trustees’ reports of critical bipartisan, independent oversight necessary to safeguard public confidence in the information they contain. Just as importantly, it has deprived lawmakers and the public of frank, bipartisan appraisals of Social Security’s financial realities, of the kind the public trustees had long provided, independent of the ex officio trustees who simultaneously serve in the president’s cabinet.  [read more]

Just as I thought—social security is going bust. The Millennials better start saving now for their future. Schools don’t teach saving (parents should stress this to their children too) because it makes people less dependent on Big Gov.

Myths about Science Part 2

1. That “Social Darwinism” has had a profound influence on social thought and policy, especially in America. Despite all the talk about social Darwinism in the 20th century, 19th century Americans paid relatively little attention to the social implications of Darwinism. This was true of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) himself. Most American scientists either remained silent on the topic or denounced attempts to apply Darwinian principles to human society.
2. That the Soviet launch of Sputnik caused the revamping of American science education. The retooling of science teaching was well under way prior to the hysteria of Sputnik. The most concrete efforts were the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored curriculum projects of the 1950s in the common high school subjects of physics,  chemistry, and biology. The first of these was the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), a high school physics project organized by Jerrold Zacharias (1905-1986) at MIT. PSSC got its start with a grant from the NSF in 1956.
3. That religion has typically impeded the progress of science. In Galileo’s time, the Catholic Church was the major sponsor of astronomical research. Moreover, the relevant science was by no means clear-cut, with scientific authorities divided on the relative merits of competing cosmological systems. Although, there was, undoubtedly, religious resistance to the idea of evolution by natural selection, Darwinism had both significant religious supporters and influential scientific detractors. The medical universities, which were the chief sites of scientific activity in the later middle ages, were founded and supported by the Catholic Church. Key 17th century figures—such as Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), Isaac Newton, and John Ray (1627-1705)—were clearly motivated by religious considerations and said as much.
4. That science has been largely a solitary enterprise. Isaac Newton was wired into a vast global network of numerical data on tidal levels, the length of pendulums, and the position of comets, on which he drew to support empirically his theory of universal gravitation. This info could only have reached the shores of England through connections established by trading companies, Jesuit missionaries, astronomers, and the correspondence network of scholars known as the Republic of Letters. Natural philosophers, astronomers, mariners, dockyard workers, and traders shipped their local data to Newton, or Newton sent his emissaries to distant ports and sites to gather the quantitative info that he needed. Similarly, Charles Darwin’s evidence of biological evolution came from sources embedded in Britain’s imperial network.
5. That the “Scientific Method” accurately reflects what scientists actually do. Timing is a crucial factor in understanding the scientific method. Discussion of the best methodology with which to approach the study of nature goes back to the ancient Greeks. The “scientific method” was rarely used before the mid-nineteenth century among English speakers, and only grew to widespread public prominence from the late nineteenth to the early 20th centuries, peaking somewhere between the 1920s and the 1940s. In short, the scientific method is a relatively recent invention.
6. That a clear line of demarcation has separated science from pseudoscience. One essential characteristic of all those doctrines, labeled as “pseudosciences,” is that they very much resemble sciences, and so superficial characteristics fail to identify them. We also cannot define “pseudoscience” as incorrect doctrines, because many theories that we now consider wrong—either physics, arguments from design—were at one point unquestionably part of science, which implies that many of the things we now consider to be correct science will eventually be discarded as incorrect. Are advocates of those ideas today pseudoscientific?

Source: Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science.

There are 27 myths in all. That’s quite a few.

Watchdog says FBI has access to about 640 million photographs

From Fox News.com (June 5):

A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs — including from driver’s licenses, passports and mugshots — that can be searched using facial recognition technology.

The figure reflects how the technology is becoming an increasingly powerful law enforcement tool, but is also stirring fears about the potential for authorities to intrude on the lives of Americans. It was reported by the Government Accountability Office at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans raised questions about the use of the technology.

The FBI maintains a database known as the Interstate Photo System of mugshots that can help federal, state and local law enforcement officials. It contains about 36 million photographs, according to Gretta Goodwin of the GAO.

But taking into account the bureau contracts providing access to driver’s licenses in 21 states, and its use of photos and other databases, the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs, Goodwin told lawmakers at the House oversight committee hearing. [read more]

Army's 'Google Earth On Steroids' Can Look Inside Buildings

From Zero Hedge.com (May 28):

New mapping technology that is expected to transform training and simulation exercises for America's warfighters was unveiled at the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC) 2019 conference on May 15 in Stockholm, Sweden, reported National Defense Magazine.

Jason Knowles, director of geospatial science and technology at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, an Army affiliated research center, spoke at ITEC about the new terrain capture and reconstruction software that recreates complex environments including cities for simulation exercises and war planning. The institute is part of a cross-functional team working on the mapping software (called One World Terrain (OWT) project).

Knowles described the new software as "Google Earth on steroid."

At a briefing during ITEC, Knowles showed the audience a picture of an enemy base that was captured and digitally re-created in about an hour using commercial software and a small drone. "We were able to throw that UAS up, capture that in an hour, put it on the laptop, process it, and push it out," he said.

"The ability to have an individual or a squad go out, collect their own organic 3D model for ingesting into their modeling and simulation is huge for us," he said.

"The interior of buildings are now being fused and snapped inside of that 3D model," Knowles said. The software can "strip the outside of a building level by level and see what's inside the building. That's obviously very useful for operators." [read more]

What Drives Gas Prices Up, and How We Can Steer Them Down

From The Daily Signal.com (May 28):

Nationally, gas prices have risen steadily since the beginning of the year, though they dropped recently to $2.86 per gallon. Snow and unseasonably cold weather in the Midwest and Western U.S. kept Americans at home in recent weeks, decreasing demand and lowering prices a few cents per gallon. The current national average is nearly identical to what gas prices were a year ago.

Weather, though, is just one component that affects the price at the pump. The price of crude oil is the single largest factor.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, crude oil prices make up 57% of the price of retail gas. Federal and state taxes, refining and distributing, and marketing accounts for the rest. A number of factors both in the U.S and around the world affect the supply of and demand for oil, which consequently influences the price we pay.

……………..

There’s a lot at play here, which is why forecasting where gas prices will be in the next six months is as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball. And let’s not forget public policy. Clearly, a number of variables that are out of policymakers’ control (such as weather) affect gas prices.

Yet, many federal government policies artificially inflate gas prices and here is one area where Congress and the Trump administration can and should do something.

The first order of business for Congress is to do no harm.

For example, several lawmakers have floated the idea of increasing the federal gas tax to pay for a massive infrastructure bill.

But if households spend more on gas, they have less disposable income to save or to spend, whether on entertainment, on clothes, or on health care. Businesses will face higher costs for transporting their goods and will pass those costs on to consumers. Low-income families who spend a higher percentage of their budget on energy bills will be hardest hit.

…………..

Alternatively, Congress should empower state governments and local governments, which are better connected to the true infrastructure needs of their communities.

Furthermore, Congress should implement reforms that will open access to energy markets and drive down prices at the pump. When it comes to oil and natural gas production, Americans are fat and happy. As the world’s largest oil and gas producer, the U.S. is an undisputed energy powerhouse. But that is no excuse for policy complacency.

Opening access to America’s abundance of resources now will ensure that businesses can respond more effectively to changes in prices, rather than waiting for Congress to react after prices become politically uncomfortable. Congress should:

• Streamline infrastructure permitting to ensure that more oil gets out of the ground and to market while maintaining high environmental standards.
• Jettison federal policy mandates that refiners blend ethanol into our fuel supply, which drives up fuel and food prices for households.
• Eliminate century-old laws (such as the Jones Act) that limit which ships can carry oil from coast to coast, forcing prices higher and protecting special interests.

These are the policy reforms necessary for American energy producers to capitalize on our wealth of natural resources, which will drive the economy and the prices at the pump in the right direction. [read more]

Another article on gas: How Natural Gas Exports Are Giving America a Key Edge

500 Years Later: Celebrating Leonardo da Vinci's Life and Inventions

From Popular Mechanics.com:

Half a millennium after Leonardo da Vinci's death, his influence is alive and well in many of the modern machines we see and use every day. An inventor, engineer, scientist, and artist, da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance Man, and one of history's brightest minds. Not only did he have the vision to create early versions of game-changing modern gadgets, but he was also the extremely gifted painter who birthed the world's most famous work of art, the Mona Lisa, and the equally iconic Last Supper.

"He was the first to insist that mechanical devices should be designed in keeping with the laws of nature," says Martin Kemp, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Oxford University and a leading expert on da Vinci. "He was also the first to design separate components, which could be deployed in various machines," Kemp tells Popular Mechanics.

da Vinci's genius lies in the fact that each of his inventions is a direct predecessor to the common tools and machines we use today. As we mark exactly 500 years after his death, we celebrate da Vinci's most influential creations and the impact they made.

Perpetual Motion Models

da Vinci's life was dedicated to studying the machinations of the world around him. He observed nature and studied art and science to gain insight about function, physiology, and motion.

His quest for knowledge led him to discover what would become Newton's Third Law (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction) nearly 200 years before Newton was even born—a prime example showing how far ahead of his time da Vinci was.

Because of Newton's Third Law, da Vinci realized none of his motion models would work and did not pursue building them.

Gear Systems

da Vinci is credited as being the first person to take an in-depth look at the machinations of gears. He drew designs for gear wheels and even created a sketch of a landing gear for an aircraft.

He left many unfinished projects behind and missed out on bringing some of his sketches to life. Luckily, public interest in his work is alive and well and over time, many of his machines have been executed by curious minds.

Many of da Vinci's inventions contained and depended on gears to function, including his giant crossbow and self-propelled cart.

Self-Propelled Cart

da Vinci created what some consider to be the world's first "car." The cart moved with the help of springs and had the capability for steering (although it was limited) and braking.

This was yet another invention that da Vinci never got to test out. In 2004, Paolo Galluzzi, Director of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, and a team set to bring da Vinci's drawing to life.

Their efforts were a success and showed that the cart operated similarly to wind-up toys, which require their wheels to be rotated in order for the springs to jump into action.

The Giant Crossbow

da Vinci was a go-big-or-go-home kind of guy, as evidenced by the gigantic crossbow he sketched in the mid 1480s. As you can see by the figure standing next to the crossbow, it was huge.

The crossbow featured a crank and gear system that could be launched by using a mallet to hammer at a pin that would set the bow off.

da Vinci's ballista was designed for large projectiles like boulders and explosives and to frighten the enemy (due to the sheer size of the thing).

The Ornithopter

'Ornithopter' comes from the Greek 'ornithos' (bird) and 'pteron' (wing). It describes a machine that's able to achieve flight by flapping wing-like structures.

This is one instance where someone else thought to make a winged-machine before da Vinci. Eilmer of Malmesbury, a monk, created his own ornithopter and was even able to test it way back in 1010 at Malmesbury Abbey. It's believed that Eilmer covered a distance of approximately 650 feet before crashing and reportedly breaking both legs.

da Vinci's ornithopter was designed to function similarly to a bird's anatomy, but it remains unknown if he was ever able to test his idea. [read more]

One of my favorite inventors.

The other inventions listed in the article:

• Mobile Bridge
• Rudimentary Machine Gun
• Armored Vehicle
• Helical Air Screw
• Prelude to the Modern Parachute

Myths about Science Part 1

1. That there was no scientific activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution. Contrary to the myth propagators, the late-antique/early-medieval figure Boethius (ca. 480-524 or 525), a high official from an old Roman family, had planned a large-scale translation of Greek natural philosophical and mathematical works into Latin.
2. That before Columbus geographers and other educated people thought the Earth was flat. Every major Greek geographical thinker, including Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BCE), Eratosthenes (273-ca. 192 BCE), and Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 90-ca. 168), based his geographical and astronomical work on the theory that the earth was a sphere. Likewise, all of the major Roman commentators—including Pliny the Elder (23-79)—agreed that the earth must be round.
3. That the Copernican Revolution demoted the status of the earth. Copernicus, a canon in the Catholic Church, considered his heliocentric (sun-centered) astronomy to be compatible with Christianity, declaring on one occasion that God had “framed” the cosmos “for our sake.”
4. That alchemy and astrology were superstitious pursuits that did not contribute to science and scientific understanding. Although the exact mechanism and extent of action remained debated, there were no doubts about the reality of celestial effects. Astrology endeavored to gain useful knowledge and to prognosticate about weather, natural and human events, and especially human health. Many of the greatest names in astronomy were also involved in (or even inspired by) astrology.
5. That the apple fell and Newton invented the law of gravity, thus removing God from the cosmos. Those who promulgate the no-God fallacy fail to appreciate that Newton’s original version of Newtonian physics is not the same as the one that prevails now. Newton’s God did not create the universe and then retire; instead, he permeated his creation and intervened from time to time in its operation—which why critical contemporaries accused Newton of supposing God to be a sloppy clockmaker.

Source: Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science (2015) by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis [editors].

The NSA Lost Control Of A Cyberweapon. Now It’s Being Used Against American Cities.

From The Daily Wire.com (May 27):

In 2017, the National Security Agency (NSA) lost control of some of the hacking tools it used “to spy on other countries,” The New York Times reported. The NSA, it appeared, had itself been hacked — or infiltrated:

Fifteen months into a wide-ranging investigation by the agency’s counterintelligence arm, known as Q Group, and the F.B.I., officials still do not know whether the N.S.A. is the victim of a brilliantly executed hack, with Russia as the most likely perpetrator, an insider’s leak, or both. Three employees have been arrested since 2015 for taking classified files, but there is fear that one or more leakers may still be in place. And there is broad agreement that the damage from the Shadow Brokers already far exceeds the harm to American intelligence done by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who fled with four laptops of classified material in 2013.

Some of the tools appeared to have been obtained by a group called the Shadow Brokers, who went on to taunt the agency while disclosing information about highly classified operations.

Fast forward to today, and one of the stolen tools, known as EternalBlue, is being used to commit cyberattacks against major U.S. cities.

The Times reported Saturday that Baltimore and other cities have been targeted by “state hackers in North Korea, Russia and, more recently, China.” In Baltimore, hackers had “frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services.”

The computer screens of city workers would suddenly lock, the Times reported, and a message would appear demanding $100,000 in Bitcoin to unlock the screens. The message appeared in broken English, just like the messages from Shadow Brokers two years earlier. [read more]

Another article on cybersecurity:

• Our Adversaries Are Using Cyberwarfare. We Must Be Prepared.
• Hacking security alert issued for small planes, DHS warns modern flight systems are 'exploitable'
• Hackers could use self-driving cars to cause mayhem, study warns
• Could hackers steal your passwords just by LISTENING to you type? Security flaw in handsets lets hackers access your microphone

Solid, low-mass planets have best chance to survive parent star's death

From Fox News.com (May 20):

When stars about the sun's size swell into red giants and finally dwindle into white dwarfs, their planets may be kicked out of the system or consumed. New work suggests that planets that are solid all the way through and have low masses may have the best chance of surviving the surge of tugs produced by their parent stars' deaths.

Scientists refer to the difference in gravitational strength between two points, like a star and a planet, or the Earth and the moon, as a tidal force. When this tidal force shifts because of changes in one body's gravitational influence, some companions hold up okay — but others fall apart.

Astrophysicist Dimitri Veras at the University of Warwick led a team to outline a procedure for computing the tidal forces between a near-spherical solid planet and a white dwarf, the type of stellar corpse leftover by the smaller stars in the universe, like the sun. The Royal Astronomical Society recently published a statement about the new work. [read more]

More planetary news:

• A new algorithm finds nearby stars that could host hidden worlds
• Voracious Black Holes Could Feed Alien Life on Rogue Worlds
• No Signs of Aliens in the Closest 1,300 Stars, Hunt Funded by Russian Billionaire Reveals

Secretary Ben Carson Protects Poor Americans and Enforces the Law

From Gingrich 360:

In a bold move, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is both helping poor Americans and enforcing the law.

…………….

Helping poor American families is a core mission of the HUD. One lifeline HUD extends to vulnerable families is housing assistance.

Yet, 75 percent of Americans eligible for housing assistance – many of whom are children, seniors, or persons living with a disability – are prevented from receiving the financial aid to which they are legally entitled.

In fact, millions of qualified American families are stuck on waiting lists that have unending queues – the average of which stretch on for years.

………………

HUD Secretary Ben Carson has investigated this injustice and discovered that HUD has long been prohibited from granting federal funds to people in the country illegally. That prohibition – which Congress enacted, and Congress has the power to change – includes a mandate to end assistance whenever a leaseholder knowingly allows a person in the country illegally to reside in HUD-supported housing.

These rules constitute more than a mere functional necessity for law and order; they are a moral necessity for any nation that takes care of its own vulnerable citizens. After all, public assistance is paid for and subsidized by taxpayer dollars. [read more]

It’s about time the gov’t agency enforce the law. Which all gov’t agencies should do.

Trump May Save Your Air Conditioner From the Deep State

From The Daily Signal.com (May 15):

It happens every spring—on the first hot day, homeowners switch on their air conditioners that have sat idle since September, cross their fingers, and pray they get cold air.

For those that don’t work, the owners know they’ll soon be on the hook for a repair costing hundreds of dollars or a replacement costing thousands.

But what most don’t know is that bureaucrats in Washington have been targeting home air conditioners for decades, and that their regulations are partly responsible for the high cost of cooling off.

Thankfully, the Trump administration is holding the line against any more such measures, but the deep state continues to quietly work on several of them.

Even the regulations that are supposed to save consumers money can end up costing them. For example, the Department of Energy sets efficiency standards for both central air systems and window units, which in theory will reduce electric bills.

But over the last 30 years, the agency has set multiple rounds of successively tighter standards with diminishing marginal returns, and the last several raised the up-front cost of equipment more than many owners will ever earn back in the form of energy savings.

The worst of them, finalized during the Clinton administration and taking effect in 2006, not only resulted in a sharply higher price tag for central air conditioners—likely much higher than the Energy Department-predicted $335—but also resulted in much larger components, and thus higher installation costs as more homeowners had to have walls knocked out to accommodate them.

……………..

The Trump Energy Department chose not to reverse these Obama-era air conditioner efficiency standards*—which is a difficult task—but it is raising the bar on any further ones. The Energy Department is proposing that new standards can be set only if they deliver significant consumer benefits—a refreshing return to common sense.

But the legions of bureaucrats and lobbyists and activists who make their living off an endless stream of efficiency regulations are waiting for the next sympathetic president to roll out more pain for homeowners.

Beyond efficiency, Washington has also found fault with the refrigerants used in these air conditioners.

Starting in the late 1980s, the most effective refrigerants were scheduled for gradual phase-out on the grounds that they deplete the Earth’s ozone layer. The best refrigerant for cooling homes, HCFC-22, was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency for new equipment starting in 2010. [read more]

*It’s too bad he can’t. Oh, well. I guess removing a regulation is harder than creating one—like putting toothpaste back into the tube. Insanity has a momentum all its own.

A Blessing of Solitude

by John O’Donohue

May you recognize in your life the presence, power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you
intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
that behind the façade of your life there is something
beautiful, good, and eternal happening.
May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride,
and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1997) by John O'Donohue.