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Small drones are giving Ukraine an unprecedented advantage

Small drones are giving Ukraine an unprecedented advantage

Wired reports: In the snowy streets of the north Ukrainian town of Trostyanets, the Russian missile system fires rockets every second. Tanks and military vehicles are parked on either side of the blasting artillery system, positioned among houses and near the town’s railway system. The weapon is not working alone, though. Hovering tens of meters above it and recording the assault is a Ukrainian drone. The drone isn’t a sophisticated military system, but a small, commercial machine that anyone can…

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The impact of cheap speech on American democracy

The impact of cheap speech on American democracy

Jeff Kosseff writes: In 1995, Eugene Volokh published a law review article in which he predicted that the rapidly growing internet would “dramatically reduce the costs of distributing speech” and that “the new media order that these technologies will bring will be much more democratic and diverse than the environment we see now.” The concept, which Volokh dubbed “cheap speech,” would mean that “far more speakers—rich and poor, popular and not, banal and avant garde—will be able to make their…

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The race to produce green steel

The race to produce green steel

May 11, 2022 by Marcello Rossi In the city of Woburn, Massachusetts, a suburb just north of Boston, a cadre of engineers and scientists in white coats inspected an orderly stack of brick-sized, gunmetal-gray steel ingots on a desk inside a neon-illuminated lab space. What they were looking at was a batch of steel created using an innovative manufacturing method, one that Boston Metal, a company that spun out a decade ago from MIT, hopes will dramatically reshape the way…

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The best sources on the war are the Ukrainians on the ground

The best sources on the war are the Ukrainians on the ground

Mart Kuldkepp writes: Much of the West’s commentary on Russia’s war against Ukraine has fallen victim to critical blind spots or inherent biases—an approach often claimed as “realism” but which has little to do with academic international relations theories. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion continues, it’s time to consider what a better approach to punditry on Russia’s war against Ukraine would look like. To be sure, I am not a neutral observer—in fact, I couldn’t possibly be more pro-Ukraine….

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Ukrainian women face harsh reality of Poland’s abortion laws

Ukrainian women face harsh reality of Poland’s abortion laws

The Guardian reports: When the first Russian bombs fell on Ukraine, Myroslava Marchenko was a gynaecologist at a private clinic in Kyiv. The next day, one of her patients was due to have an abortion after prenatal tests showed a high chance of Down’s syndrome. Instead, like millions across the country, Marchenko and her patient fled to safety, crossing the border into Poland where abortions due to foetal abnormalities – or “on eugenic grounds” in the language of the country’s…

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Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

The Guardian reports: The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows. The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global…

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How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

Science News reports: The food we eat is responsible for an astounding one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities, according to two comprehensive studies published in 2021. “When people talk about food systems, they always think about the cow in the field,” says statistician Francesco Tubiello, lead author of one of the reports, appearing in last June’s Environmental Research Letters. True, cows are a major source of methane, which, like other greenhouse gases, traps heat in the…

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Sinn Féin’s victory won’t bring a united Ireland right away – but it’s getting closer

Sinn Féin’s victory won’t bring a united Ireland right away – but it’s getting closer

Fintan O’Toole writes: In 2021, a hundred years after the creation of Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson tweeted: “Let me underline that, now & in the future, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK will be protected and strengthened.” Since the word “not” has to be inserted automatically into every positive statement Johnson makes, unionists ought to have taken this as fair warning: Year 101 of Northern Ireland’s existence would be its equivalent of George Orwell’s Room 101, where you are confronted…

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Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago

Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago

BBC Future reports: Your ancestors had bigger brains than you. Several thousand years ago, humans reached a milestone in their history – the first known complex civilisations began to emerge. The people walking around and meeting in the world’s earliest cities would have been familiar in many ways to modern urbanites today. But since then, human brains have actually shrunk slightly. The lost volume, on average, would be roughly equivalent to that of four ping pong balls, says Jeremy DeSilva,…

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Tiny channels discovered inside the human skull could be vital for the brain

Tiny channels discovered inside the human skull could be vital for the brain

Science Alert reports: A shortcut between the skull and the brain could be a possible way for the human immune system to bypass the blood-brain barrier. Researchers recently discovered a series of tiny channels in mice and human skulls, and in mice at least, these little pathways represent an unexpected source of brain immunity. Previously, scientists assumed that the immune system connects with the brain by slipping through a kind of neurological customs gate – a barrier separating blood channels…

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Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them

Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them

The Washington Post reports: The mere sight of a child here — wearing sunglasses, pulling a scooter, bugging his mother to buy him candy — was enough to impress Petro Trotsenko, a stall owner at a market in Bucha that reopened this past week. Just over a month ago, the market lay bare, looted of all its wares, cut up by shrapnel. The nearby glass factory where Trotsenko, 74, worked in his younger years was being used as a torture…

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For Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that’s left

For Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that’s left

Kirill Martynov writes: Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of the second world war, and raised on the Brezhnev-era myth of the great victory. A man of no great education, he loved to quote Soviet films and old stories. The history books portrayed the “great patriotic war” as a magical fable in which the hero – the Russian people – vanquishes a monster, to the envy of the whole world. In this myth there was no room…

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Biden signs Ukraine lend-lease act into law, expediting military aid

Biden signs Ukraine lend-lease act into law, expediting military aid

The Washington Post reports: President Biden signed into law Monday afternoon a bill that will expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine, as the Eastern European country presses into its third month of fighting off a Russian invasion. Flanked by Vice President Harris and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Biden vowed the United States would continue to support Ukraine “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…

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What would Finland bring to the table for NATO?

What would Finland bring to the table for NATO?

Heljä Ossa and Tommi Koivula write: Finland doesn’t often make it into international headlines. When it does, it is usually because of the country’s world-renowned education system or for yet again being named the happiest country in the world. Even rarer are international discussions over Finnish security issues. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine (again) and Europe’s security landscape transformed overnight. Suddenly, Finland and its possible NATO membership is a hot topic around the world. Finland will likely make a…

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