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The evolutionary importance of slime

The evolutionary importance of slime

Susanne Wedlich writes: The weather in Morro Bay, California is too good, the coastline too picturesque, and the wildlife seem to have waltzed straight out of a Disney film. Sea otters play in the waves with their young, herons bask on the beach, and seals stretch their plump bellies in the sun. And yet amid the tranquility of Morro Bay lurks a monster straight from H.P. Lovecraft’s playbook, as slimy as a creature from Sartre’s nightmares. It doesn’t get much…

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Pentagon blocks sharing evidence of possible Russian war crimes with Hague court

Pentagon blocks sharing evidence of possible Russian war crimes with Hague court

The New York Times reports: The Pentagon is blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence with the International Criminal Court in The Hague gathered by American intelligence agencies about Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter. American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans. The rest of the administration, including intelligence agencies and the State…

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Protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia hold more demonstrations over a ‘Kremlin-inspired’ law

Protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia hold more demonstrations over a ‘Kremlin-inspired’ law

The New York Times reports: Thousands of demonstrators marched toward Georgia’s Parliament on Wednesday, protesting a draft law on “foreign agents” that critics say highlights the country’s democratic backsliding and pushes it closer to Moscow. As the evening went on, a group of protesters tried to storm the government building, but were repelled by police officers who used water cannons, stun grenades and tear gas to deter the crowd. Later, riot police officers in helmets and with shields used all…

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Russia tried to influence U.S. elections in 2022 and will do it again, nation’s top intel agency says

Russia tried to influence U.S. elections in 2022 and will do it again, nation’s top intel agency says

CNBC News reports: Russia conducted malign influence operations in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections and is using increasingly clandestine means to “penetrate the Western information environment,” the U.S. intelligence community said in a new report Wednesday. Moscow will also work to “strengthen ties” to Americans in media and politics as it works to carry out “future influence operations,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the latest edition of its annual assessment of worldwide threats to U.S….

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Is the poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran a new front in the war against girls’ education?

Is the poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran a new front in the war against girls’ education?

Shutterstock By Shireen Daft, Macquarie University Recent media attention has drawn global focus on an escalating number of Iranian schoolgirls falling ill over the past few months because of suspected chemical attacks. Accounts differ, but many reports cite more than 1,000 cases of poisoning at schools across Iran. At least 58 schools in ten provinces across the country have been affected. The first known cases were reported in the city of Qom in November. There has been an escalation of…

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The Boogaloo Bois are plotting a bloody comeback: ‘We will go to war’

The Boogaloo Bois are plotting a bloody comeback: ‘We will go to war’

Vice News reports: With their trademark Hawaiian shirts, tactical gear, and AR-style rifles, the Boogaloo Bois burst onto the American protest scene in 2020, testing the limits of open-carry laws while rallying around shared fantasies of armed insurrection. At the center of their movement was Mike Dunn, then a 19-year-old baby-faced former marine, who’d built a name for himself organizing militia groups across Virginia. But it wasn’t just flashy displays of defiance and edgy memes that made the Boogaloo Bois…

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‘We’re all embarrassed’: Inside Fox News as Dominion revelations rattle the network

‘We’re all embarrassed’: Inside Fox News as Dominion revelations rattle the network

Brian Stelter writes: Last month Fox News producers in New York, Washington, and other bureaus were summoned for mandatory training sessions. The topic: libel law. With Fox facing down two defamation lawsuits that could cost the company billions of dollars, management decided to set up lengthy meetings about legal concepts like “actual malice.” That’s what Dominion Voting Systems and another voting technology company, Smartmatic, are trying to prove: that Fox aired lies about their firms while the people involved knew…

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Ancient proteins offer new clues about origin of life on Earth

Ancient proteins offer new clues about origin of life on Earth

Science Daily: By simulating early Earth conditions in the lab, researchers have found that without specific amino acids, ancient proteins would not have known how to evolve into everything alive on the planet today — including plants, animals, and humans. The findings, which detail how amino acids shaped the genetic code of ancient microorganisms, shed light on the mystery of how life began on Earth. “You see the same amino acids in every organism, from humans to bacteria to archaea,…

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Why life is not a thing but a restless manner of being

Why life is not a thing but a restless manner of being

Tim Requarth writes: Mike Russell found his moment of inspiration on a warm spring evening in Glasgow in 1983, when his 11-year-old son broke a new toy. The toy in question was a chemical garden, a small plastic tank in which stalagmite-like tendrils grew out of seed crystals placed in a mineral solution. Although the tendrils appeared solid from the outside, when shattered they revealed their true nature: each one was actually a network of hollow tubes, like bundles of…

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New intelligence suggests pro-Ukrainian saboteurs attacked pipelines, U.S. officials say

New intelligence suggests pro-Ukrainian saboteurs attacked pipelines, U.S. officials say

The New York Times reports: New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction…

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Western allies take note: If you want to beat Putin in Ukraine, target Lukashenko in Belarus

Western allies take note: If you want to beat Putin in Ukraine, target Lukashenko in Belarus

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya writes: Last week, residents of Machulishchy were intrigued as soldiers and police swarmed across their small town on the edge of Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Cordons and checkpoints were hastily erected for miles around the local airbase, which has played host to Russia’s forces during its abominable war against Ukraine. It was clear to anyone out and about on that frosty winter morning that Belarusian security services – known as the KGB – were panicking. The Belarusian…

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Clearly identified legal observer hit with domestic terrorism charges after mass ‘Cop City’ arrests

Clearly identified legal observer hit with domestic terrorism charges after mass ‘Cop City’ arrests

The Daily Beast reports: A legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism while monitoring a Sunday night demonstration against an Atlanta police training facility that opponents have dubbed “Cop City.” Thomas Jurgens is an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the civil-rights group confirmed on Monday. Jurgens also works with the National Lawyers Guild, which monitors protests. Jurgens was acting as a legal observer at the time of his arrest in…

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Tucker Carlson used selective January 6 video footage to try and gaslight America

Tucker Carlson used selective January 6 video footage to try and gaslight America

Eric Lutz writes: You know what happened on January 6, 2021. You probably watched it on television that day, when Donald Trump agitated a mob of angry, armed supporters to storm the Capitol. They battled officers, busted through windows, and roved through the halls of Congress, some of them chanting the names of Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. You saw terrified lawmakers, some of whom had helped fan the flames of the insurrection and would later side with it, seeking…

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Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems

Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems

Alexandre Antonelli writes: I grew up in Campinas, a city in southeast Brazil. The apples there, cultivated from European varieties since the 1960s, tasted sweet. But, given the choice, I would always pick papayas grown in our garden. My father, who knew that growing a temperate fruit tree in a tropical country seldom worked, instead filled our garden with tropical ones, including two varieties of papaya. Meanwhile, drawing on knowledge from her Indigenous roots, my mother grew all sorts of…

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