New analysis suggests human ancestors nearly died out

New analysis suggests human ancestors nearly died out

Ars Technica reports: Multiple lines of evidence indicate that modern humans evolved within the last 200,000 years and spread out of Africa starting about 60,000 years ago. Before that, however, the details get a bit complicated. We’re still arguing about which ancestral population might have given rise to our lineage. Somewhere about 600,000 years ago, that lineage split off Neanderthals and Denisovans, and both of those lineages later interbred with modern humans after some of them left Africa. Figuring out…

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The GOP’s populist wing poses a threat to the North Atlantic alliance and the defense of Ukraine

The GOP’s populist wing poses a threat to the North Atlantic alliance and the defense of Ukraine

Phillips Payson O’Brien writes: Europe and the United States are on the verge of the most momentous conscious uncoupling in international relations in decades. Since 1949, NATO has been the one constant in world security. Initially an alliance among the United States, Canada, and 10 countries in Western Europe, NATO won the Cold War and has since expanded to include almost all of Europe. It has been the single most successful security grouping in modern global history. It also might…

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The alleged election office breach in ‘crooked’ Coffee County was part of a years-long pattern, some locals say

The alleged election office breach in ‘crooked’ Coffee County was part of a years-long pattern, some locals say

CNN reports: The breach of the Coffee County elections office can seem almost out of place in the 97-page Georgia indictment of former President Donald Trump and associates. The sprawling racketeering allegations spread from centers of power with pressure on the vice president to ignore the Constitution, reported calls to secretaries of state to change vote counts, and the creation of slates of fake electors for Congress. They also include the invitation of a tech team to a non-public area…

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Why Biden just can’t shake Trump in the polls

Why Biden just can’t shake Trump in the polls

Ronald Brownstein writes: Like so many bands of wind and rain, hurricane-strength squalls of bad news have battered former President Donald Trump all year. Since April, he’s been indicted four times, on 91 separate felony charges, compared with zero counts for all of his White House predecessors. Trump often likes to claim that anything associated with him is the most spectacular, even when it’s not, but when it comes to accumulating criminal charges, he’s the undisputed champ of former presidents….

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The sleeper legal fight that could define 2024: Is Trump even eligible to run?

The sleeper legal fight that could define 2024: Is Trump even eligible to run?

Politico reports: If Donald Trump wants to be on the ballot next year in all 50 states, he might first have to win an unprecedented courtroom battle over the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment. Under a legal theory that’s gaining traction among Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, that seldom-used clause arguably disqualifies Trump from ever holding office again due to his attempts to undermine the 2020 election and his role in stoking the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6,…

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Why do we dream?

Why do we dream?

Amanda Gefter writes: In the late nineteen-nineties, a neuroscientist named Mark Blumberg stood in a lab at the University of Iowa watching a litter of sleeping rats. Blumberg was then on the cusp of forty; the rats were newborns, and jerked and spasmed as they slept. Blumberg knew that the animals were fine. He had often seen his dogs twitch their paws while asleep. People, he knew, also twitch during sleep: our muscles contract to make small, sharp movements, and…

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Is there a crisis in cosmology?

Is there a crisis in cosmology?

Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser write: Not long after the James Webb Space Telescope began beaming back from outer space its stunning images of planets and nebulae last year, astronomers, though dazzled, had to admit that something was amiss. Eight months later, based in part on what the telescope has revealed, it’s beginning to look as if we may need to rethink key features of the origin and development of the universe. Launched at the end of 2021 as a…

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Quantum ‘yin-yang’ shows two photons being entangled in real-time

Quantum ‘yin-yang’ shows two photons being entangled in real-time

Live Science reports: Scientists have used a first-of-its-kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time — making them appear as a stunning quantum “yin-yang” symbol. The new method, called biphoton digital holography, uses an ultra high-precision camera and could be used to massively speed up future quantum measurements. The researchers published their findings Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Photonics. Quantum entanglement — the weird connection between two far-apart particles that Albert Einstein objected to as “spooky…

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Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, the U.S. government says

Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, the U.S. government says

The Associated Press reports: More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote. Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and…

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A new Rudy scandal: FBI agent says Giuliani was co-opted by Russian intelligence

A new Rudy scandal: FBI agent says Giuliani was co-opted by Russian intelligence

Mother Jones reports: It was big news when Rudy Giuliani, once hailed as America’s Mayor, was indicted last month by a district attorney in Atlanta for allegedly being part of a criminal enterprise led by Donald Trump that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani was back in headlines this week when he lost a defamation suit filed against him by two Georgia election workers whom he had falsely accused of ballot stuffing. Giuliani’s apparent impoverishment, caused by his…

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State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

ABC News reports: Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy. The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if…

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‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills

‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills

CNN reports: Some of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the sprawling election subversion case in Georgia are trying all sorts of ways to fund their mounting legal bills – yet the costs of the 2020 election fallout may quickly exceed their abilities to pay. At least four have turned to crowdfunding online, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for defense lawyers. One now has a political action committee to help with legal fees. Another has an ally in Congress…

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Mitch McConnell may be experiencing focal seizures, doctors suggest

Mitch McConnell may be experiencing focal seizures, doctors suggest

The New York Times reports: A four-line letter, signed by the attending physician of Congress and released by Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday, suggested that his recent spells of speechlessness were linked to “occasional lightheadedness” perhaps brought on by his recovery from a concussion last winter or “dehydration.” But seven neurologists, relying on what they described as unusually revealing video of Mr. McConnell freezing up in public twice recently, said in interviews Thursday and Friday that the episodes captured in…

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All lifeforms, from worms to corals, transform the planet

All lifeforms, from worms to corals, transform the planet

Olivia Judson writes: I want to start with a proposition: if Earth had never come alive, it would be a profoundly different world. Conversely: the planet of today has, to a remarkable extent, been made what it is by the activities of lifeforms. Over the course of the planet’s long history, a history that extends back more than 4.5 billion years, lifeforms have shaped the rocks, the water, the air, even the colour of the sky. A Never-Life Earth would not even…

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