‘The US Navy’s brand new $4 billion warship is an incredible technological feat. The futuristic DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer is equipped with two guns that can hit targets from a stunning 80 miles away. The only problem? Rounds for the guns cost over $800,000 each. And the Navy has now decided that it can’t justify spending that much…’

Source: Gizmodo

‘On Sunday, the New York Times published a seemingly routine report about Obama’s cyber offensive strategy. Hiding halfway down the page, however, there are some fascinating details about the decision-making process behind a potential US cyber retaliation against Russia…’

Source: Gizmodo

‘A commercial diver working near Haida Gwaii off Canada’s west coast has spotted a strange object on the seafloor that bears a striking resemblance to a nuclear device lost from a US B-36 bomber that crashed in the area 66 years ago. The Canadian government is sending naval ships to investigate.

Sean Smyrichinsky was diving for sea cucumbers when he noticed an object that looked like a flying saucer. “I came up telling all my buddies on the boat ‘Hey, I found a UFO. It’s really bizarre.’ And I drew a picture of it, because I didn’t have a camera,” he is quoted as saying in the Vancouver Sun. He recounted the story a few days later to some fisherman, prompting one of them to say, “Oh, you might have found that bomb.”

That “bomb” could very well be a lost nuclear device from a US B-36 bomber that crashed near the Haida Gwaii archipelago on February 13, 1950. The plane was traveling from Alaska to Carswell Air Force Base in Texas during a military exercise to simulate a nuclear strike on the city of San Francisco. For added realism, the plane was equipped with a real Mark IV nuclear bomb, but instead of being packed with plutonium, the bomb was loaded with lead and TNT (to be clear, the bomb did not contain any nuclear material)…’

Source: ‘Gizmodo

“Now, you may have heard that — this was just announced, I just read it, so I can’t confirm it’s true, but — this campaign has taken away [Trump’s] Twitter. In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self-control, they said ‘We’re just gonna take away your Twitter.’ Now, if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes. If somebody starts tweeting at 3 in the morning because SNL made fun of you, you can’t handle the nuclear codes.”

Source: Vox

‘…[W]e are wasting a lot of time just looking for something to watch…’

Source: Gizmodo

During this election season, we have something very much in common with woodpeckers. Many of us want to bang our heads against the wall. But the birds fare better; they have some clever adaptations to keep their noggins safe.

Source: National Geographic

‘The full moon on November 14 will look like an extra-bright spotlight in the sky— that’s because it will be a notable “supermoon” that won’t be this close to Earth again for another 18 years. In fact, the last time it looked this big was 1948, according to Space.com.

…[S]ince the moon’s orbit has an elliptical shape, sometimes it is closer to Earth than other times. Astronomers call the closest-to-the-Earth moment the perigee. What makes November 14 special is that the moon “becomes full within about two hours of perigee—arguably making it an extra-super moon,” NASA explained.This year actually has three supermoons. Besides November’s, there was one on October 16 and will be another on December 14, although neither are as close as this

This year actually has three supermoons. Besides November’s, there was one on October 16 and will be another on December 14, although neither are as close as this month’s.The November 14 supermoon is not only the closest full moon of the century so far, it won’t be matched until 2034. So if you miss this one, mark your calendar for November 25 of that year.

The November 14 supermoon is not only the closest full moon of the century so far, it won’t be matched until 2034. So if you miss this one, mark your calendar for November 25 of that year…’

Source: BGR

‘In a new Fan Theories clip posted on its official channel, Netflix explained that Walter White’s Blue Sky meth may be the chemical component that turned the first humans into zombies.

The video shows various elements and references that appear in both TV series, which is how this fan theory was born. Fans looked at various Easter Eggs in Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead and made several plausible connections. And some of them are extremely interesting.

For example, Daryl’s stash of drugs contains something that looks just like Blue Sky. He even made a reference to a “janky little white guy,” who sold drugs to his brother Merle. At one point, that dealer said “I’m gonna kill you, bitch.” Do you know anyone who speaks like that?Moreover, Glenn might be the car dealer who had to deal with Walter’s tantrum when returning a particularly red Dodge Challenger. The same car was then seen in The Walking Dead, and Glenn was driving it.

Check out Netflix’s entire explanation below, complete with a detail about the Breaking Bad person who could be one of the first Blue Sky-enabled walkers…’

Source: BGR

‘Mattthew Luckhurst, a 5-year veteran of San Antionio Police Department, was fired after feeding shit to a homeless person. Josh Baugh reports that he “placed fecal matter between two pieces of bread” and placed it in a styrofoam container next to his victim. It’s not clear if they ate it…’

Source: Boing Boing

‘Misogyny, racism and bigotry won’t go away if Donald Trump loses next week’s election; it was already here before he drew it out into the mainstream…’

Source: Jessica Valenti, The Guardian

Was Trump being prophetic — and menacing — when he insisted that the election was rigged?

‘These last-minute false leaks come after decades of animosity toward both Clintons from inside the bureau.’

Source: The Daily Beast

Why We Should All Fear the Rot Within the FBI

‘What James Comey did was bad enough, but now he’s clearly at the mercy of a right-wing faction of his own agents. Who can stop them?’

Source: The Daily Beast

‘This week, an HIV epidemic has been officially declared in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, where the health department estimates 1 out of every 50 residents is a carrier of the virus. The government has been hesitant to recognize that Russia is experiencing one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In May, the head of the state AIDS center said that the country hit a tragic milestone of one million diagnosed HIV cases; it’s estimated that three million people will be infected by 2020.

In Yekaterinburg, and elsewhere in the country, an estimated half of HIV infections were contracted through intravenous drug use. And yet, no one seems to be prepared to deal with heroin dependency effectively or ethically. There are few addiction treatment centers, harm-reduction services are virtually non-existent, and methadone therapy is illegal. The alternatives are very grim.

“The public attitude is very hostile and the government doesn’t want to seem too humane towards drug users,” HIV activist Anya Sarang tells me. Sarang is the director of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice, a grassroots organization for HIV and overdose prevention. It is the only group offering free needle exchanges in Moscow. The government’s primary strategy for dealing with people struggling with addiction is “making them feel miserable,” Sarang says. “As if the social pressure will make them stop using drugs.”

…According to the World Health Organization, opioid substitution therapy (OST), albeit imperfect, is still the most promising method of reducing heroin dependence. By being prescribed orally administrated medicine such as methadone or buprenorphine, patients can substitute illicit intravenous drug use with withdrawal relief in a supervised clinical setting. In developed countries, OST is recognized to counter overdoses, criminal behavior and public health risks such as HIV. But among Russian authorities, it’s a despised “narcoliberal” idea.

In a country with the largest population of injection drug users, methadone therapy is illegal. Methadone distribution is punishable with up to 20 years in prison. Heroin addicts— “anti-social elements,” as they’re called—are expected to quit cold-turkey, perhaps in one of the jail-like “treatment” centers…’

Source: Gizmodo

‘Former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden, now a private security consultant and George Mason University professor, writes in the Washington Post that a Trump presidency would be tantamount to handing America over to Russian power interests:

• “We have really never seen anything like this. Former acting CIA director Michael Morell says that Putin has cleverly recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.I’d prefer another term drawn from the arcana of the Soviet era: polezni durak. That’s the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.That’s a pretty harsh term, and Trump supporters will no doubt be offended. But, frankly, it’s the most benign interpretation of all this that I can come up with right now.” …’

Source: Boing Boing

‘Amyloid beta plaques are gooey globs that clump together, stick to neurons inside the brain and kill them off, outright. The slow but steady accumulation of these plaques leads to Alzheimer’s disease. Tau protein tangles aid them by cutting off the brain’s supply lines, as the plaques march across white and gray matter, taking out the memory and cognitive ability, and wreaking havoc on the patient and their family. No treatment can halt this invasion once it occurs. But now, a small trial for an experimental drug is lending patients and loved ones hope.This drug inhibits the production of these plaques, according to a small study. Scientists at Merck Research Laboratories have announced the drug Verubecestat. In a small, phase I trial it “switched off” the production of the amyloid proteins that form these plaques. This in turn slowed the progression of the disease…’

Source: Big Think

‘The US Centers for Disease Control has released a report in which it identifies over a dozen cases of a deadly, antibiotic-resistant fungus called Candida auris. It’s the first time this super-strain has been found in the US, and disturbingly, four of the first seven patients infected with it have died…’

Source: Gizmodo

‘Understanding what is happening in the brain during hallucinations reveals how we’re having them all the time and how they shape our perception of reality…’

Source: New Scientist

‘…[T]he metadata indicat[es] something that appears to be a highly secretive dialog between a politically connected Russian bank and the Trump organization…’

Source: Boing Boing

‘Pain is a fundamental fact of life for many organisms on our planet; a crucial mechanism for identifying what kinds of actions pose serious threats to our physical and mental health. As robots become more sophisticated and interactive, should they also be programmed to experience pain to prevent injuries to themselves or others, and if so, to what extent? …’

Source: Motherboard

‘Two Deep Brain scientists, Martín Abadi and David Andersen, recently tasked two neural nets with keeping a secret from a third. What they found was that “neural networks can learn to protect the confidentiality of their data from other neural networks: they discover forms of encryption and decryption, without being taught specific algorithms for these purposes.” Neural nets — artificial-neuron-based systems — aren’t designed for cryptography, so Abadi and Andersen had been curious to see if neural nets could teach themselves to master it…’

Source: Big Think