News and Links Digest (publ. 2024-11-22)

Fascinating silica structures in plants

More photos available on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolith

Psychiatrist says liberals should not visit conservative family members during holidays

If your liberal minded relatives seem a little standoff-ish this Thanksgiving, like refusing to eat with you, this may be the reason...

Yale psychiatrist urges MSNBC viewers to shun Trump-voting family members over the holidays

MOND advocate points out JWST observation problem for standard model

Astronomers' theory of how galaxies formed may be upended

JWST observations continue to trouble the standard model of Big Bang cosmology. The researcher here is not arguing for a creation-based model, only for Modified Newtonian dynamics vs. dark matter, but the reference seems worth noting.

Pennsylvania democrats boldly admit counting illegal ballots

Democrats in Pennsylvania admit to counting illegal ballots in close Casey-McCormick Senate race

How Clintons sold us out to Russia on Uranium

Guess which of these two nuclear powers is the source of Uranium for the other...

Obama-Biden-Clinton nuclear giveaway to Russia a decade ago comes back to bite America

Star dimming faster than expected

Astronomers take the first close-up picture of a star outside our galaxy

I don't want to make too much of this, but it is generally interesting when observations, including time scales, are surprising to secular astronomers.

Netanyahu response to ICC warrant

English Reponse Statement

Netanyahu: 'The court that was founded to defend humanity is now its enemy'

Concerns about viral contamination in COVID vaccine

Operation Warp Speed official questions COVID vaccine purity, worries 'they may ingrate' into DNA

Dust disk around Vega is too smooth

Famous disk around Vega shows no planets?!

Another case of observations not fitting in with secular cosmology expectations. Researchers expected the disk to be clumpy and to be forming planets.