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Researchers have developed a method that can improve the performance of quantum resistance standards. It's based on a quantum phenomenon called Quantum Anomalous Hall effect.

Researchers have developed a method that can improve the performance of quantum resistance standards. It's based on a quantum phenomenon called Quantum Anomalous Hall effect.

Researchers have developed an AI application using cartoons from The New Yorker to help people be funnier.

Researchers have developed an AI application using cartoons from The New Yorker to help people be funnier.

The technology revolution and development of new renewable energy resources is driving demand for lithium to new heights, but it is not a common mineral. Scientists say they have found lithium in an unexpected place; fool's gold, or pyrite, deposits.

Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current age.

What do you suppose the U.S. would do if, say, Russia launched an attack on the West Coast with several hundred non-nuclear missiles, justifying that attack by saying that the U.S. had given weapons and money to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia?  Imagine further that U.S. planes and anti-missile defenses managed to fend off all the Russian missiles, and then the Russian attack stopped.

Would the U.S. then refrain from all further action, avoiding all retaliation by proclaiming that we had won a “great victory” over Russia? Would we listen to, say, Canada if they told us to avoid retaliating because Russia had stopped attacking and we’d only promote a “wider war”?  I doubt it.  We might not attack Russia with nukes, but you can bet that we would do something, even though we’ve put about as many sanctions on Russia as we can.

But, after Iran’s attack on Israel Saturday night, an attack to which Israel didn’t retaliate (but has contemplated doing so), and an attack in which Israel’s planes did not leave Israeli airspace, Biden has butted in,once again, preventing Israel from retaliating against an attack. It’s reported in this NYT piece (click to read, or find it archived here):

 

An excerpt:

President Biden and his team, hoping to avoid further escalation leading to a wider war in the Middle East, are advising Israel that its successful defense against Iranian airstrikes constituted a major strategic victory that might not require another round of retaliation, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

The interception of nearly all of the more than 300 drones and missiles fired against Israel on Saturday night demonstrated that Israel had come out ahead in its confrontation with Iran and proved to enemies its ability to protect itself along with its American allies, meaning it did not necessarily need to fire back, the officials said.

Whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his government will agree to leave it at that was not yet clear as the country’s war cabinet met for several hours on Sunday to make decisions about its next steps.

The leaders of the Group of 7 major industrial democracies echoed Mr. Biden’s message on Sunday morning, condemning Iran for the attack and warning that it could provoke what they called an “uncontrollable regional escalation” in the Middle East.

“This must be avoided,” the joint statement said. “We will continue to work to stabilize the situation and avoid further escalation.”

Although damage from the attack was relatively light, the scope of the strikes went well beyond the small-bore tit-for-tat shadow war between Iran and Israel in recent years, crossing a red line with the firing of weapons from Iranian territory into Israeli territory. Had defenses not held, scores or hundreds could have been killed.

American officials said it was clear to them that wide-scale death was Iran’s intent, despite the fact that its leadership telegraphed the attack well in advance, publicly and privately. Officials said that even as the attack was underway, Iran’s government sent word through Swiss intermediaries that it considered the matter closed.

As the Elder of Ziyon remarks acidly,

Saying that Israel should regard this as a victory is shortsighted. As others have pointed out, surviving someone shooting at you many times because of your bulletproof vest is not a victory. The shooter can reload and only needs one bullet to make it through. Israel cannot afford to remain in a purely defensive posture forever, especially as Iran has proven that it is now willing to directly attack Israel.

If Iran fired a lot more missiles and drones at once, and Hezbollah launched a gazillion Iranian missiles, which it has, it might overwhelm the Iron dome completely and destroy considerable parts of Israel.

Yes, wide-scale death was Iran’s intent, and if you think it’s going to stop with that one attack, I’d argue that you’re wrong. Iran continues to supply its proxies, including Hezbollah and Yemen, not to mention Hamas, with money, material, and rockets. And of course Iran is developing nuclear weapons, one of which can easily destroy nearly all of Israel. (For some reason the U.S. doesn’t worry about that, though Israel tried to stop the program earlier by bombing Iranian nuclear facilities or assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists.) And yet Biden tells Israel to keep its hands off Iran, which, if there’s such a thing as an “axis of evil” in the Middle East, surely qualifies for the title. Even many Iranians dislike their oppressive theocracy, and there was some celebrating in Iran when its attack on Israel failed.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to the U.S.—and to Britain, France, and Jordan—for defending Israel against the Iranian attack. And indeed, an Israeli retaliation could destabilize the Middle East and create a wider war—for now. But if I’m not wrong, that wider war is coming anyway. Iran will keep supplying countries who attack Israel, and if you think that its failure has deterred it from further attacks on Israel, all I can say is “I doubt it.” Someday, and it won’t be long now, Iran will have nuclear weapons and a delivery system. Further if war comes from Hezbollah in Lebanon, which might as well be an extension of Iran’s military, that can also be put on Iran. I guess I should add that I am not a big fan of Netanyahu and believe he needs to go as soon he can without his departure hurting Israel’s war effort.

What bothers me is not so much as America being a buttinski in this case, but its tendency to be a buttinski about everything that Israel does. And that includes the U.S.’s constant pressure on Israel not to go into Rafah. At best, Israel is told to evacuate its civilians (which it surely will) but then engage in targeted strikes rather than a big attack. (Is the U.S. an expert in that?) The U.S. doesn’t like any civilians being killed, despite the fact that the way Hamas operates is to ensure that Gazan civilians will be killed, for that gains them the world’s sympathy. Those who doubt that are dead wrong.  “Collateral” deaths of Gazan civilians are not on Israel but Hamas. Further, the ratio of Gazan civilians killed to Hamas terrorists killed is on the order of 1.5:1 or even 1:1, and no country has achieved that in modern warfare.  Does that placate the U.S.? Of course not, even though our own ratios are far worse than Israel’s. (Again, I am not by any means celebrating the tragedy of dead Gazan civilians, just noting who bears the responsibility.)

In the end, I can’t help but believe that a huge factor in Biden’s buttinski behavior about Israel involves boosting his own chances of re-election. The Muslim vote may be key in some states like Michigan, and younger Americans are more pro-Palestinian than older ones as well as far less approving about how Biden is dealing with the Israel/Hamas war. Biden needs those young voters.  It seems to me unethical—indeed, reprehensible— to interfere in other countries’ affairs of state so you can buttress your own chances of re-election.  If you imagine that America were in Israel’s shoes, as I tried to in my clumsy scenario above, I seriously doubt that we’d pay attention to other countries who tried to prevent us from defending ourselves.

To quote the learned Elder of Ziyon again:

After all, Iran has to defend its honor. And the US understands that – unlike Israelis, they are irrational Muslims who cannot live with themselves unless they project power and force millions of Israelis into shelters. Risking Israeli lives is a worthwhile bargain to let Iran feel victorious. Then, the bargain goes, the US will stop Israel from responding, because no one died (rumors that the Bedouin girl in the Negev hit with shrapnel died were not true) and Iran is happy.

Iran can announce that its operation is over, vengeance is theirs, they can return to their proxy war through Hezbollah and Syria and Iraq and  Yemen, and warn the US to do its part of the bargain and not allow Israel to do anything against them.

Iran is not deterred in the least.

Any self respecting nation would respond harshly to such an open attack on its territory. Israel should be striking at every drone factory and every missile site in Iran, at the very least, and those attacks should have started as soon as Iranian aircraft crossed Iran;s own borders towards Israel.

At the moment, with the US constraining Israel’s ability to respond, Iran pays no price at all for its blatant aggression. Which means it has a green light to do it again.

The entire Middle East sees that this is what the US means when it says its support for an ally is “ironclad.” Which strengthens Iran a lot more than its drones do.

I still plan to vote for Biden this fall, and of course there’s no way I’d ever vote for the narcissistic disordered personality embodied by Trump. But my enthusiasm for voting at all has waned quite a bit, not only because Biden seems old and out of it, but because of his self-aggrandizing behavior towards Israel. If I didn’t vote at all, Biden would still win this Democratic state and all its electoral votes, so I wouldn’t be helping Trump in the least. We shall see.

Although I’ve been slowly revising the Higgs FAQ 2.0, this seemed an appropriate time to bring the Higgs FAQ on this website fully into the 2020’s. You will find the Higgs FAQ 3.0 here; it explains the basics of the Higgs boson and Higgs field, along with some of the wider context.

For deeper explanations of the Higgs field:

• if you are comfortable with math, you can find this series of pages useful (but you will probably to read this series first.)
• if you would prefer to avoid the math, a full and accurate conceptual explanation of the Higgs field is given in my book.

Events: this week I am speaking Tuesday in Berkeley, CA; Wednesday in Seattle, WA (at Town Hall); and Thursday outside of Portland, OR (at the Powell’s bookstore in Cedar Hills). Click here for more details.

Generative AI applications seem to be on the steep part of the development curve – not only is the technology getting better, but people are finding more and more uses for it. It’s a new powerful tool with broad applicability, and so there are countless startups and researchers exploring its potential. The last time, I think, a new technology had this type of explosion was the smartphone and the rapid introduction of millions of apps.

Generative AI applications have been created to generate text, pictures, video, songs, and imitate specific voices. I have been using most of these apps extensively, and they are continually improving. Now we can add another application to the list – generating virtual environments. This is not a public use app, but was developed by engineers for a specific purpose – to train robots.

The application is called holodeck, after the Star Trek holodeck. You can use natural language to direct the application to build a specific type of virtual 3D space, such as “build me a three bedroom single floor apartment” or “build me a music studio”. The application uses generative AI technology to then build the space, with walls, floor, and ceiling, and then pull from a database of objects to fill the space with appropriate things. It also has a set of rules for where things go, so it doesn’t put a couch on the ceiling.

The purpose of the app is to be able to generate lots of realistic and complex environments in which to train robot navigation AI. Such robotic AIs need to be trained on virtual spaces so they can learn how to navigate out there is the real world. Like any AI training, the more data the better. This means the trainers need millions of virtual environments, and they just don’t exist. In an initial test, Holodeck was compared to an earlier application called ProcTHOR and performed significantly better. For example, when asked to find a piano in a music studio a ProcTHOR trained robot succeeded 6% of the time while a Holodeck trained robot succeeded 30% of the time.

That’s great, but let’s get to the fun stuff – how can we use this technology for entertainment? The ability to generate a 3D virtual space is a nice addition to the list above, all of which is contributing to a specific application that I have in mind – generative video games. Of course there are companies already working on this. It’s a no-brainer. But let’s talk about what this can mean.

In the short run generative AI can be used to improve the currently chumpy AI behind most video games. For avid gamers, it is a cliche that video game AI not very good, although some are better than others. Responses from NPCs are canned and often nonsensical, missing a lot of context about the evolution of the plot in the game. The reaction of NPCs and creatures in the world is also ultimately simplistic and predictable. This makes it possible for gamers to quickly learn how to hack the limitations of the game’s AI in order to exploit it.

Now let’s imagine our favorite video games powered by generative AI. We could have a more natural conversation with a major NPC in the game. The world can remember the previous actions of the player and adapt accordingly. AI combat can be more adaptive and therefore unpredictable and challenging.

But there is another layer here – generative AI can be used to generate the video game itself, or at least parts of it. This was referenced in the Black Mirror episode, the USS Callister. The world of the game was an infinite generated space. In many ways this is an easier task than real-world applications, at least potentially. Think of a major title, like Fallout. The number of objects in the game, including every item, weapon, monster, and character, is finite. It’s much less than a real-world environment. The same is true for the elements of the environment itself. A generative AI could therefore use the database of objects that already exists for the game an generate new locations. The game could become literally infinite.

Of course, generative AI could be used to create the game in the first place, decreasing the development time, which is years for major titles. Such games famously use a limited set of recorded voices for the characters, which means you hear the same canned phrases over and over again. Now you don’t have to get actors into studios to record script (although you still might want to do this for major characters), you can just generate voices as needed.

This means that video game production can focus on creating the objects, the artistic feel, the backbone plot, the rules and physics for the world, and then let generative AI create infinite iterations of it. This can be done as part of game development. Or it can be done on a server that is hosting one instance of the game (which is how massive multiplayer games work), or eventually it can be done for one player’s individual instance of the game, just like using ChatGPT on your personal computer.

This could further mean that each player’s experience of a game can be unique, and will depend greatly on the actions of the player. In fact, players may be able to generate their own gaming environments. What I mean is, for example (sticking with Fallout), you could sign into a Bethesda Fallout website, choose the game you want, enter in the variables you want, and generate some additional content to add to your game. There could be lots of variables – how developed the area is, how densely populated, how dangerous are the people, how dangerous are the monsters, how challenging is the environment itself, what is the resource availability, etc. This already exists for the game Minecraft, which generates new unique environments as you go and allows players to tweak lots of variables, but the game is extremely graphically limited.

Also, I am just thinking of using AI to recreate the current style of video games but faster, better, and with unlimited content. Game developers, however, may think of ways to leverage generative AI to create new genres of video games – doing new things that are not possible without generative AI.

It seems inevitable that this is where we are headed. I am just curious how long it will take. I think the first crop of generative video games will come in the form of new content for existing games. Then we will see entirely new games developed with and for generative AI. This may also give a boost to VR gaming, with the ability to generate 3D virtual spaces.

And of course gaming is only one of many entertainment possibilities for generative AI. How long will it be before we have fully generated video, with music, voices, and a storyline? All the elements are there, now it’s just a matter of putting them all together with sufficient quality.

I am focusing on the entertainment applications, because it’s fun, but there are many practical applications as well, such as the original purpose of Holodeck, to train navigation AI for robots. But often technology is driven by entertainment applications, because that is where the money is. More serious applications then benefit.

The post Using AI To Create Virtual Environments first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A recent presentation at AACR found a link between markers of accelerated aging and an increased risk of cancer. Then antivaxxers got a hold of it to blame COVID-19 vaccines not just for cancer, but for "accelerated aging" causing it.

The post There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are causing cancers associated with “accelerated aging” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Natasha Hausdorff is a British barrister (lawyer) specializing in international law, and also the legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel. She’s also smart as hell, eloquent, and never loses her cool. I see her as the female equivalent of Douglas Murray: what a team they’d make in a debate over the war in Gaza!  Treat yourself to an hour or so of perusing her videos on YouTube, especially when she’s engaged in a debate and gets heckled because she’s pro-Israel and Jewish.

Here is a ten-minute video on Sky News in which Hausdorff discusses why she refused to sign a letter from UK lawyers, academics, and judges (there are now  1101 signers) asking, among other things, for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The moderator, as she should, asks tough questions, but Hausdorff answers them cooly and accurately. The material about aid trucks, as far as I know, is spot on.

Well, here’s a surprise: the Wall Street Journal reporting on a kerfuffle at the New York Times! You may have heard of the kerfuffle, as it involves an NYT article that’s one of the few to give a sympathetic hearing to Israel in its war with Hamas: an article about how Hamas weaponized sexual violence against Israeli women in its October 7 attack. As far as I know, the data in that article have been confirmed, even by the UN itself, which pronounced that Hamas did that in at least three separate locations.

But apparently the report of sexual violence inflicted on Israeli women didn’t go down well with some Times staffers, and someone leaked the contents of the article to the staff before those contents were going to be made into a podcast. The podcast was canceled, and the staff (which of course doesn’t like article sympathetic to Israel) rebelled.  I’m not sure about all the details, for not even the WSJ makes them clear.

Click to read, or, if paywalled, you can find it archived here.

I’ll be short here. First, let’s review the two other instances in which Times machers got fired because of staff revolts (all quotes from the WSJ)

The current dynamics at the Times stretch back to 2020, when a seed of employee activism took root in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing. In June of that year, the staff staged a rebellion after the publication of an op-ed piece by Republican senator Tom Cotton, “Send In The Troops,” that suggested the U.S. military should quell riots. Some staffers said it made them feel unsafe.

Within days the Times had parted ways with Editorial Page Editor James Bennet. In a recent account of those events in the Economist, Bennet said Sulzberger supported the decision to publish it, and said he was forced to resign. Sulzberger has said he disputes Bennet’s narrative.

The company said it conducted a review after publishing the op-ed and found “the piece itself and the series of decisions that led to its publication did not hold up to scrutiny,” said a Times spokeswoman.

The “unsafe” complaint, one frequently made as a synonym for offended, makes me laugh. If staffers clearly thought that Cotton’s article made them feel unsafe, they need therapy. And you’ll remember this one:

In 2019, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a star science and health reporter, was investigated internally over allegations he had used racist language during a Times-sponsored trip to Peru for high-school students. Two years later, in a Medium post recalling the events, McNeil said he repeated the N-word while speaking to a student about a classmate’s use of the slur. Then-editor Dean Baquet told the staff that while McNeil “showed extremely poor judgment” he was given a second chance because “it did not appear to me that his intentions were hateful or malicious.” After 150 staffers protested, the Times and McNeil ultimately parted ways.

“Donald was reprimanded in 2019 and his eventual departure involved more than one issue,” said a Times spokeswoman.

That, too, was risible. McNeil did nothing wrong, as his use of the n-word was in a discussion of whether it was used on a previous occasion.

This takes us to the main point: Times staffers are starting, by the account of editors, to let their personal views dominate their reporting. A few quotes:

Employees were making their voice felt at the Times. At the same time, some editors and reporters were growing concerned that some Times journalists were letting their personal views dictate which stories to pursue—or not pursue.

One way to counter that trend was with the creation of a new beat for reporter Michael Powell to cover issues around free speech and expression. Powell created the beat in coordination with then-Deputy Managing Editor Carolyn Ryan, who had been tasked with safeguarding independence in the newsroom.

One thing Powell noticed, he said, was that coverage that challenged popular political and cultural beliefs was being neglected. Powell’s work includes a story on MIT’s canceling of a lecture by an academic who had criticized affirmative action, and another examining whether the ACLU is more willing to defend the First Amendment rights of progressives than far-right groups. [That lecturer at MIT was my Chicago colleague Dorian Abbot, who was radicalized by this experience into becoming a hard-core free speecher. The lecture he was scheduled to give had nothing to do with the “sin” for which he was deplatformed, which was to put up a couple of videos questioning DEI.]

“We kind of both had a nagging sense that we needed to write in a much more systematic way about these third-rail issues, of identity, gender, speech,” said Powell of his early conversations with Ryan. “The fact that I had all this territory was not a good sign.”

and this:

The publisher of the Times, 43-year-old A.G. Sulzberger, says readers’ trust is at risk, however. Some journalists, including at the Times, are criticizing journalistic traditions like impartiality, while embracing “a different model of journalism, one guided by personal perspective and animated by personal conviction,” Sulzberger wrote in a 12,000-word essay last year in Columbia Journalism Review.

I’m not keen on that “different model of journalism”, as it’s a direct outgrowth of the woke “lived experience.”  That cannot be allowed to trump “impartiality”.  But it’s because the Times is hiring young reporters who have suckled at the teat of wokeness in college and journalism school. If you don’t think professors propagandize students, even at my own university, you need to do some investigation. But I digress; let’s proceed.

But these tensions have particular resonance at the Times, which has long prided itself as a standard-setter in American journalism. Newsroom leaders, concerned that some Times journalists are compromising their neutrality and applying ideological purity tests to coverage decisions, are seeking to draw a line.

[Executive editor Joe] Kahn noted that the organization has added a lot of digital-savvy workers who are skilled in areas like data analytics, design and product engineering but who weren’t trained in independent journalism. He also suggested that colleges aren’t preparing new hires to be tolerant of dissenting views.

“Young adults who are coming up through the education system are less accustomed to this sort of open debate, this sort of robust exchange of views around issues they feel strongly about than may have been the case in the past,” he said, adding that the onus is on the Times to instill values like independence in its employees.

And this is why FIRE detracts points from a college’s free-speech rating when a large number of students say that they feel inhibited about discussing their views on “hot button” issues with others. (This is why my own school dropped from the top four to #13—a tepid “above average” in just a year or so.) If you think only one kind of opinion is tolerable, then that’s the opinion you’ll keep expressing when you go to work for a place like the NYT.  It works regardless of which side you’re on:

Coverage of the Israel-Hamas war has become particularly fraught at the Times, with some reporters saying the Times’s work is tilting in favor of Israel and others pushing back forcefully, say people familiar with the situation. That has led to dueling charges of bias and journalistic malpractice among reporters and editors, forcing management to referee disputes.

“Just like our readers at the moment, there are really really strong passions about that issue and not that much willingness to really explore the perspectives of people who are on the other side of that divide,” Kahn said, adding that it’s hard work for staffers “to put their commitment to the journalism often ahead of their own personal views.”

The lesson: colleges should encourage students to not only learn about free speech from their first year in school, but also to apply what they’ve learned.

But I was amazed to learn that a paper rife with internal dissent and so flagrant in its reportorial biases is doing well:

The Times is the envy of much of the news-publishing world, with more than 10 million paying subscribers and a growing portfolio of products like cooking and games apps. But while its business hums along, the Times’s culture has been under strain.

In many ways, it is a story familiar to companies big and small across America, as bosses struggle to integrate a new generation of workers with different expectations of how their jobs and personal lives should mesh—and whose evolving social values can sow discord in the workplace.

I subscribe because, overall, I still think it’s the best (or at least the most readable) paper, but I find myself drawing more on the WSJ’s own news (not their reliably right-wing op-eds), or on the Free Press, which publishes stuff that the NYT would see as “heterodox,” and, for honest news about the war between Hamas and Israel, on the Times of Israel, which is a reliable source for what’s going on.

UPDATE: I forgot one argument of which readers reminded me: the “slippery slope argument.”  To wit:

5. Assisted suicide laws could lead to a “slippery slope” condition whereby shady doctors allow people to be medically euthanized for curable conditions, or even to allow relatives to kill their grandmothers.  Yes, this is a danger, though one that can be ameliorated with sufficient stringent vetting laws.  The “kill your grandmother” argument can be prevented completely, and certifying certain doctors and shrinks for their objectivity in vetting would be another good step. But when weighed against the suffering eliminated by assisted dying laws, I think the slippery-slope argument, while surely worth considering, is outweighed.

________________________

Assisted suicide for people who have severe and incurable mental illness has always seemed a no-brainer to me, but I’m surprised at the number of people who push back when I bring this up.  But, if the procedure is implemented properly, the objections to it don’t seem tenable, and in the end seem to resemble arguments against abortion.  That is, the pusher-backers say that people in tough spots shouldn’t have control over their bodies, that the procedure might spread if it’s allowed, and, underneath the objections of many, we find religious feelings—in this case feelings like “God will take you when He’s ready, not when you’re ready.”

Yet it seems to me undeniable that some cases of mental illness, like the main one documented in the Free Press article below, are so severe that they resemble terminal illnesses—illnesses for which enlightened people would favor assisted suicide (I might use the term “euthanasia”) in this post.  If you’re terminally depressed, in horrible mental pain all the time, constantly thinking about suicide, and have tried every possible remedy without any success, then why aren’t you in a position similar to that of a cancer patient who, having tried all remedies, now faces a finite term of horrible pain ending certain death? (I presume you’re aware that even in states not permitting assisted suicide, doctors often mercifully end the lives of such patients by giving them an overdose of morphine.)

The difference with mental illness is that death is not certain and the pain will last a lifetime. Sure, maybe researchers will come up with a cure for an intractable mental illness, but that also holds for terminal physical illnesses. People with bad prognoses often hope that a cure will be discovered before they die.

Now for the state to effect euthanasia, there must of course be restrictions.  Beyond that, anybody has, in my view, the right to kill themselves by other means, like hanging, shooting, or jumping in front of a train. That kind of suicide is illegal, though I think the illegality is nuts. But for the government to help you die, it’s not proper to provide anybody with the means of euthanasia. There are many reasons, but I won’t enumerate them.

Naturally, in places where euthanasia is officially legal (see the map below), there are such restrictions for the physically ill:

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in some countries, under certain circumstances, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, parts of the United States and all six states of Australia. The constitutional courts of Colombia, Germany and Italy legalized assisted suicide, but their governments have not legislated or regulated the practice yet.

In most of those states or countries, to qualify for legal assistance, individuals who seek a physician-assisted suicide must meet certain criteria, including: they are of sound mind, voluntarily and repeatedly expressing their wish to die, and taking the specified, lethal dose by their own hand. The laws vary in scope from place to place. In the United States, PAS [physician-assisted suicide] is limited to those who have a prognosis of six months or less to live. In other countries such as Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, a terminal diagnosis is not a requirement and voluntary euthanasia is additionally allowed.

Below is a map of where assisted suicide is legal throughout the world, and there aren’t many places. The states in the U.S. where it’s legal include Maine, Hawaii, Washington D.C., Washington State, Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont, and Oregon. But in no state is assisted suicide permitted for those with mental illness. For physical illnesses or other conditions that are likely to kill you in a few months, here are the general criteria in the U.S.:

• an adult as defined by the state
• a resident of the state where the law is in effect
• capable of using the prescribed medications without assistance
• able to make your own healthcare decisions and communicate them
• living with a terminal illness that is expected to cause death within 6 months as verified by qualified healthcare professionals

Places where assisted dying is legal (see the key for variations):

Vgonzalez630, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Places that permit euthanasia for those with mental illnesses include only the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and—perhaps after 2027—Canada. I haven’t looked up the criteria for state assistance for euthanasia for the mentally ill in all four countries, but here are the criteria for the Netherlands given in the Free Press article below by writer Rupa Subramanya.

Dutch law requires those seeking assisted suicide to show they are in great pain, have no alternative, and are acting of their own volition. They also must get sign-off from at least two doctors, including a psychiatrist. The process can take a few years, culminating with a doctor giving the patient a fatal medication or, if done by oneself, a cup filled with poison to drink. When it’s over, a government panel reviews the case to ensure everything was above board.

Click below to read the article. The woman pictured, Zoraya ter Beek, suffered her whole short life from depression, autism, and borderline personality disorder, and said she was in constant pain. Nothing helped, and eventually the doctors and shrinks said there was nothing more that they could do for her. Tired of living, she applied for and qualified for assisted suicide. She is still alive but scheduled to die in May. (That isn’t final, of course, for I’ve read of such patients who change their minds at the last minute, willing to go on but heartened by the fact that at any time they could choose to die.) Her boyfriend loves her, but agrees with her decision.

Here are some of the objections to assisted suicide for mental illness, and my responses (all text is mine).

1.) The patient could get better but, by taking their life, are depriving themselves of a livable and perhaps enjoyable future. Yes, but that’s true of even physical illnesses. Besides, the prognosis must be confirmed by several doctors and examined post facto by the state.  And I would ask those who make this argument, “Who are you to tell someone that they must go on living when they’re in intractable pain?”  For those of us who have been severely depressed, it’s hard to convey to others that this kind of severe and prolonged mental pain is fully capable of making you wish to die.

2.) It’s up to God to determine when you die, not you.  As an atheist, or even as a rationalist, I find this argument bogus. Here it’s similar to the religious argument against abortion, assisted suicide for physical illnesses, or, as Peter Singer discusses, euthanasia for newborn babies who have a condition that will cause them to suffer and, ultimately, kill them with certainty in a short time. Besides, are you going to base medical decisions on assuming that there’s a god for which we have no good empirical evidence? Isn’t medical treatment supposed to be based on empirical criteria?  Do you tell a dying atheist that you can’t increase the morphine drip because God doesn’t want that?

Here’s a quote from the article:

All this pointed to a “dystopian view of the future,” said Theo Boer, the healthcare ethics professor.

“Whether or not you’re religious, killing yourself, taking your own life, saying that I’m done with life before life is done with me, I think that reflects a poverty of spirit,” Boer told me.

. . . . Theo Boer, the bioethicist, acknowledged that none of the suicides in the Bible is condemned, but he added that they are not lionized or commemorated either.

“Suicide in the Bible belongs in the realm of the tragic, and the tragic should not be condemned—nor should it be regulated or celebrated,” he said.

This palaver, including the phrases “Life is done with me” and “poverty of spirit” seems to reflect religious belief, but it’s already clear from opposition to euthanasia in many places (especially the U.S.) that we shouldn’t cut short what is up to God to determine. But if God is omnipotent, wouldn’t He be behind a mentally ill person’s decision to have assisted euthanasia?

3.) It’s contagious.  There are several statistics given in the article about assisted dying increasing over time. Most are for physical conditions, with only one for mental illness (my bolding)

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to make euthanasia legal. Since then, the number of people who increasingly choose to die is startling.

In 2022, the most recent year for which there is data, Dutch officials recorded 8,720 cases of euthanasia, a 13.7 percent increase from 2021, when there were 7,666 cases. To put this in perspective, there were a total of 170,100 deaths in the Netherlands in 2022—meaning euthanasia cases comprised more than 5 percent.

“This upward trend, in both the absolute and relative numbers, has been visible for a number of years,” the country’s Regional Euthanasia Review Committee’s 2022 Annual Report states. What’s more, the number of euthanized people between the ages of 18 and 40 jumped from 77 in 2021 to 86 in 2022. And the number of people with psychiatric disorders who choose euthanasia is rising: In 2011, there were just 13 cases; in 2013, there were 42; and by 2021, there were 115. 

This trend is not limited to the Netherlands. From 2018 to 2021, countries where euthanasia or assisted suicide is most popular saw sizable increases in the number of people signing up to die: In the United States, where ten states and the District of Columbia have physician-assisted suicide, there was a 53 percent jump; in Canada, 125 percent.

But why wouldn’t you expect the numbers to rise as people become aware that they have this alternative? It’s not written about very often, so you have to see articles like this to find out about it.  But even so, this is a question of ethics, not of statistics.  If the regulations are sufficiently rational and stringent that they prohibit spur-of-the-moment suicides or mental conditions for which every possible cure hasn’t been tried, why should we care about the increase? And wouldn’t you want the ability to die a peaceful and painless death if you had a condition that could be terminated in a peaceful way, at a time and place of your choosing, and when you are surrounded by loved ones? (This is, as I’ve learned, the way it usually occurs.)

4.) It hurts those who are left behind.  I’ve heard this argument used often against those who discuss self-inflicted suicide. “If you kill yourself, think of all the people who will miss you and be in pain.” But this seems eminently selfish to me.  Everybody who dies before their friends, relatives, and loved ones (and that means all of us) faces that as a certainty.  If someone’s in intractable physical pain and dying of cancer, would you tell them to hang on for your sake? Of course not! The same holds for incurable mental illnesses. It’s selfish and boorish to ask someone to stay alive for the sake of your—or other people’s—feelings.

For #5, see the update at top. 

For some people, suicide is simply a no-go zone, which is why suicide hotlines exist to talk those who wish to die out of that wish. But that’s different, for someone who calls a hotline has a good chance that they’re simply emitting a cry for help, and want to be talked out of it. (However, some do kill themselves.) That’s why I think those hotlines are great things. But assisted dying with stringent criteria needed to qualify, and the use of drugs that assure a painless death, are not equivalent to a suicide hotline.

I’m sure that ethical philosophers have discussed this issue before, and feel free to cite articles below if you know of them (I don’t).  These are of course tentative ideas that I’ve thought about for a long time (note: I’m NOT a candidate!), and were given shape by the article above, but I’m willing to listen to other points of view. If you have them, or if you agree with what I’ve said, weigh in below. But do read the Free Press piece.

Trying to limit pediatric COVID was literally the pandemic's worst sin for pro-infection doctors, warranting severe punishment. This is how desperately they wanted them infected.

The post Dr. Vinay Prasad: It’s “Good” That Parents Who Want To Vaccinate Their Kids Against COVID Get Reported To Child Protective Services first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

An international research team led by the University of Vienna has made a major breakthrough. In a study recently published in Nature Astronomy, they describe how they conducted the first direct measurements of stellar wind in three Sun-like star systems. Using X-ray emission data obtained by the ESA’s X-ray Multi-Mirror-Newton (XMM-Newton) of these stars’ “astrospheres,” they measured the mass loss rate of these stars via stellar winds. The study of how stars and planets co-evolve could assist in the search for life while also helping astronomers predict the future evolution of our Solar System.

The research was led by Kristina G. Kislyakova, a Senior Scientist with the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna, the deputy head of the Star and Planet Formation group, and the lead coordinator of the ERASMUS+ program. She was joined by other astrophysicists from the University of Vienna, the Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LAMOS) at the Sorbonne University, the University of Leicester, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL).

Astrospheres are the analogs of our Solar System’s heliosphere, the outermost atmospheric layer of our Sun, composed of hot plasma pushed by solar winds into the interstellar medium (ISM). These winds drive many processes that cause planetary atmospheres to be lost to space (aka. atmospheric mass loss). Assuming a planet’s atmosphere is regularly replenished and/or has a protective magnetosphere, these winds can be the deciding factor between a planet becoming habitable or a lifeless ball of rock.

Logarithmic scale of the Solar System, Heliosphere, and Interstellar Medium (ISM). Credit: NASA-JPL

While stellar winds mainly comprise protons, electrons, and alpha particles, they also contain trace amounts of heavy ions and atomic nuclei, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, and even iron. Despite their importance to stellar and planetary evolution, the winds of Sun-like stars are notoriously difficult to constrain. However, these heavier ions are known to capture electrons from neutral hydrogen that permeates the ISM, resulting in X-ray emissions. Using data from the XXM-Newton mission, Kislyakova and her team detected these emissions from other stars.

These were 70 Ophiuchi, Epsilon Eridani, and 61 Cygni, three main sequence Sun-like stars located 16.6, 10.475, and 11.4 light-years from Earth (respectively). Whereas 70 Ophiuchi and 61 Cygni are binary systems of two K-type (orange dwarf) stars, Epsilon Eridani is a single K-type star. By observing the spectral lines of oxygen ions, they could directly quantify the total mass of stellar wind emitted by all three stars. For the three stars surveyed, they estimated the mass loss rates to be 66.5±11.1, 15.6±4.4, and 9.6±4.1 times the solar mass loss rate, respectively.

In short, this means that the winds from these stars are much stronger than our Sun’s, which could result from the stronger magnetic activity of these stars. As Kislyakova related in a University of Vienna news release:

“In the solar system, solar wind charge exchange emission has been observed from planets, comets, and the heliosphere and provides a natural laboratory to study the solar wind’s composition. Observing this emission from distant stars is much more tricky due to the faintness of the signal. In addition to that, the distance to the stars makes it very difficult to disentangle the signal emitted by the astrosphere from the actual X-ray emission of the star itself, part of which is “spread” over the field-of-view of the telescope due to instrumental effects.”

XMM-Newton X-ray image of the star 70 Ophiuchi (left) and the X-ray emission from the region (“Annulus”) surrounding the star represented in a spectrum over the energy of the X-ray photons (right). Credit: C: Kislyakova et al. (2024)

For their study, Kislyakova and her team also developed a new algorithm to disentangle the contributions made by the stars and their astrospheres to the emission spectra. This allowed them to detect charge exchange signals from the stellar wind oxygen ions and the neutral hydrogen in the surrounding ISM. This constitutes the first time X-ray charge exchange emissions from the extrasolar astrospheres have been directly detected. Moreover, the mass loss rate estimates they derived could be used by astronomers as a benchmark for stellar wind models, expanding on what little observational evidence there is for the winds of Sun-like stars. As co-author Manuel Güdel, also of the University of Vienna, indicated:

“There have been world-wide efforts over three decades to substantiate the presence of winds around Sun-like stars and measure their strengths, but so far only indirect evidence based on their secondary effects on the star or its environment alluded to the existence of such winds; our group previously tried to detect radio emission from the winds but could only place upper limits to the wind strengths while not detecting the winds themselves. Our new X-ray based results pave the way to finding and even imaging these winds directly and studying their interactions with surrounding planets.”

In the future, this method of direct detection of stellar winds will be facilitated by next-generation missions like the European Athena mission. This mission will include a high-resolution X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) spectrometer, which Athena will use to resolve the finer structure and ratio of faint emission lines that are difficult to distinguish using XMM-Newton’s instruments. This will provide a more detailed picture of the stellar winds and astrospheres of distant stars, helping astronomers constrain their potential habitability while also improving solar evolution models.

Further Reading: University of Vienna, Nature Astronomy

The post Stellar Winds Coming From Other Stars Measured for the First Time appeared first on Universe Today.

I felt remarkably well when I awoke despite the previous night’s beer. I was a little thirsty, and my mouth felt like I brushed my teeth with a toilet brush. I took a long shower and took my time getting ready for work. I bought a scone and tea on my way to the trolley and picked up a newspaper. For the […]

The post Skeptics in the Pub. Cholera. Epilogue first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

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When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today’s space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passages to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more. Zubrin’s Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales—homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government—of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights—that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent.

With all of this in place, Zubrin’s Red Planet will become a pressure cooker for invention in bioengineering, synthetic biology, robotics, medicine, nuclear energy, and more, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. We can create this magnificent future, making life better, less fatalistic. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces and limited resources when, together, we can create planets.

Robert Zubrin is former president of the aerospace R&D company Pioneer Astronautics, which performs advanced space research for NASA, the US Air Force, the US Department of Energy, and private companies. He is the founder and president of the Mars Society, an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars, leading the Society’s successful effort to build the first simulated human Mars exploration base in the Canadian Arctic and growing the organization to include 7,000 members in 40 countries. A nuclear and astronautical engineer, Zubrin began his career with Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin) as a Senior Engineer involved in the design of advanced interplanetary missions. His “Mars Direct” plan for near-term human exploration of Mars was commended by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and covered in The Economist, Fortune, Air and Space Smithsonian, Newsweek (cover story), Time, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, as well as on BBC, PBS TV, CNN, the Discovery Channel, and National Public Radio. Zubrin is also the author of twelve books, including The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, with more than 100,000 copies in print in America alone and now in its 25th Anniversary Edition. He lives with his wife, Hope, a science teacher, in Golden, Colorado. His latest book is: The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet. The next big Mars Society conference in Seattle August 8-11.

Read Zubrin’s discussion of his paper on panspermia for seeding like on Earth.

Shermer and Zubrin discuss:

• Why not start with the moon?
• What’s it like on Mars? Like the top of Mt. Everest?
• Was Mars ever like Earth? Water, life, etc.?
• How much will it cost to go to Mars?
• How to get people to Mars: food, water, radiation, boredom?
• Where on Mars should people settle?
• What are “natural resources”?
• Resources on Mars already there vs. need to be produced
• Analogies with Europeans colonizing North America
• Public vs. private enterprise for space exploration
• Economics on Mars
• Politics on Mars
• Lessons from the Red Planet for the Blue Planet
• Ingersoll’s insight: free speech & thought > science & technology > machines as our slaves > moon landing. “This is something that free people can do.”
• Liberty in space: won’t the most powerful people on Mars threaten to shut off your air if you don’t obey?
• Independent City-States on Mars
• Direct vs. representative democracy
• America as a model for what we can create on Mars
• Are new frontiers needed for civilization to continue?
• The worst idea ever: that the total amount of potential resources is fixed.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

One of the big mysteries about dark matter particles is whether they interact with each other. We still don’t know the exact nature of what dark matter is. Some models argue that dark matter only interacts gravitationally, but many more posit that dark matter particles can collide with each other, clump together, and even decay into particles we can see. If that’s the case, then objects with particularly strong gravitational fields such as black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs might capture and concentrate dark matter. This could in turn affect how these objects appear. As a case in point, a recent study looks at the interplay between dark matter and neutron stars.

Neutron stars are made of the most dense matter in the cosmos. Their powerful gravitational fields could trap dark matter and unlike black holes, any radiation from dark matter won’t be trapped behind an event horizon. So neutron stars are a perfect candidate for studying dark matter models. For this study, the team looked at how much dark matter a neutron star could capture, and how the decay of interacting dark matter particles would affect its temperature.

The details depend on which specific dark matter model you use. Rather than addressing variant models, the team looked at broad properties. Specifically, they focused on how dark matter and baryons (protons and neutrons) might interact, and whether that would cause dark matter to be trapped. Sure enough, for the range of possible baryon-dark matter interactions, neutron stars can capture dark matter.

The team then went on to look at how dark matter thermalization could occur. In other words, as dark matter is captured it should release heat energy into the neutron star through collisions and dark matter annihilation. Over time the dark matter and neutron star should reach a thermal equilibrium. The rate at which this occurs depends on how strongly particles interact, the so-called scattering cross-section. The team found that thermal equilibrium is reached fairly quickly. For simple scalar models of dark matter, equilibrium can be reached within 10,000 years. For vector models of dark matter, equilibrium can happen in just a year. Regardless of the model, neutron stars can reach thermal equilibrium in a cosmic blink of an eye.

If this model is correct, then dark matter could play a measurable role in the evolution of neutron stars. We could, for example, identify the presence of dark matter by observing neutron stars that are warmer than expected. Or perhaps even distinguish different dark matter models by the overall spectrum of neutron stars.

Reference: Bell, Nicole F., et al. “Thermalization and annihilation of dark matter in neutron stars.” Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2024.04 (2024): 006.

The post Neutron Stars Could be Heating Up From Dark Matter Annihilation appeared first on Universe Today.

Two readers came through with batches of photos, so I think we’re good until Wednesday. If you have good one, well, I can always use them. Thanks!

Today’s photos of fungi come from reader Rik Gern from Austin, Texas.. His notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

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A few weeks ago I sent you some pictures of mushrooms from Copper Falls State Park in Morse, Wisconsin. Here are the rest of the species I observed on that hike.

This lone sentry was at the very beginning of the trail. I wasn’t able to identify it precisely, but it may be from the Rhizopogon family, or maybe not; I had a hard time finding any information that could confirm its identity. On a walk of several miles, this was the only mushroom of it’s kind that I saw.

It would be easy to mistake this fungal cluster for an order of fries abandoned by a careless hiker, but in reality it is Clavariadelphus americanus. I couldn’t find a common name for them, so for now I’ll cal them French fry mushrooms.

They weren’t all grouped so tightly together though; there were a few open patches of pine needles bursting with these odd looking mushrooms:

Late in the hike, as the sun was getting low, these Golden trumpets (Xeromphalina campanella) came into view. According to Wikipedia, “The genus name Xeromphalina means “little dry navel” and campanella means “bell-shaped”, respectively describing the mature and young shapes of the pileus, or cap”. You can see an example of that here with the two smaller mushrooms sporting convex caps while those on the larger mushrooms are starting to go concave.

Golden trumpets like to grow on logs and all of these pictures are from the same fallen tree:

Here is a view of their brownish red stalks.

The black and white picture gives the effect of some large plants growing in an underwater cavern. The lower right hand part of the image has a number of little white dots that look like dust spots on the picture, but when you look closely you can see that they are tiny insects trapped and wrapped up in a spider’s web.

The nearly horizontal rays of the setting sun did a nice job of highlighting the gills of these mushrooms and giving them a majestic look. Once again we can see the downward facing caps on the presumably younger mushrooms on the bottom and the upward arching caps on the older mushrooms on the top.

Links:

Rhizopogon.

Clavariadelphus americanus

Golden trumpet (Xeromphalina campanella)

Conservationists think tweaking pandas’ diets might shift their gut microbiomes in a way that could encourage them to mate