Heterostructure:

A heterojunction is the interface that occurs between two layers or regions of dissimilar crystalline semiconductors. These semiconducting materials have unequal band gaps as opposed to a homojunction. It is often advantageous to engineer the electronic energy bands in many solid-state device applications, including semiconductor lasers, solar cells and transistors (“heterotransistors“) to name a few. The combination of multiple heterojunctions together in a device is called a heterostructure, although the two terms are commonly used interchangeably. [Wikipedia]

Encountered in”Dawn of the 3Suns: Green technology firm takes over former Deer Lake Elementary building,” Joe Bowen, The Bemidji Pioneer:

One project, Bahr said, would use a “quantum dot Peltier Effect semiconductor heterostructure” to passively convert heat energy that might otherwise be wasted into electric energy.

“Suppose you had a bathtub that was coated with a Peltier Effect quantum dot thin film. While you’re sitting in there, you’ve filled up that bathtub with 40,000 BTUs of heat that came from your water heater,” Bahr said. “You’re just going to let it go down the drain and warm up the sewer, right? Maybe not.”

A reader is angry at me concerning voter fraud investigations:

You Are White arent you? You very seriously have no clue how illegitimate are their methods and what is really at stake, do you? Have you ever felt challenged as to your rights in your life? Legitimately?

Its an attack on voter registries intended to disenfranchise the brown people.

I’m an American independent. I ask my reader: Did you read point #2? Did you digest it? Do you realize how powerful this approach is to making YOUR point if no fraud is found? If no fraud is found, it makes YOUR position invincible. Right now, the vast majority of American citizens Just Don’t Know. But imagine – then they get the news that a major investigation has been conducted, and nothing beyond the current sparse GOP fraud is found. Now they know the GOP is blowing smoke.

And if there is fraud? That needs to be fixed.

CNN reports that President Trump still believes there was massive fraud during the last election – and he wants it investigated:

President Donald Trump called on Wednesday for “a major investigation” into voter fraud, following through with baseless claims he has made since November’s election alleging millions of illegal votes during the general election without citing any evidence.

“I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and … even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” Trump wrote in two consecutive tweets.

[Bold mine.] Steve Benen and others are disbelieving:

It’s worth pausing to appreciate the fact that Trump can apparently be baited into doing almost anything. He’s pushed this ridiculous ideas about voter fraud for months and never even hinted about the need for an investigation. Yesterday, however, journalists effectively said, “If Trump were serious, he’d be demanding a probe,” leading the president to quickly start tweeting – complete with unnecessary capitalization and exclamation points – about his newfound interest in an investigation, an interest he apparently discovered after watching some TV news.

But here’s the thing – speaking as an independent, if the investigation is conducted properly, only good things can come out of it. Here are the scenarios:

1. Rampant fraud is found. Great! I don’t care which way it leans, let’s clean it up. This improves our democracy.
2. Fraud is not found. Great! Trump shuts up and the numerous attempts by the States to to impose tighter controls on voting, often found to be discriminatory by the courts, lose all basis for their continuance in legal fact. This improves our democracy.

The hard part is conducting the investigation properly. It will require an impartial authority – which, sadly, the FBI has lost – and a transparent process so that reasonable partisans (which excludes anyone who thinks Breitbart News has any consistent validity) may be satisfied that the investigation methods were appropriate to the problem. A suggestions box might even be provided in case the investigating authority misses a bet.

But if I were directing these sites that have a liberal lean, I’d tell them to just advocate for a thorough investigation and drop the denigrative adjectives. If the investigation finds nothing, then there’ll be a far stronger moral authority over Trump – and another argument to use against him if he is chooses to run for a second term.

Readers find the Aetna report nauseating. One replies to my question about perjury:

I’m not sure that perjury charges would be effective. For better effect, I’d try for an anti-trust suit.

Perhaps a class action suit would make more sense. The rejection of their attempted merger with Humana might put a damper on an anti-trust suit. Another:

“The company [Aetna] said its overall profit leapt 38% in the final quarter of the year, as a key measure of spending on medical costs fell. The strong quarterly results were fueled largely by its government business, which includes Medicare and Medicaid.” http://www.wsj.com/articles/aetna-profit-rises-38-1454326988

In other words, they’re a bunch of greedy, whining bastards.

But from their viewpoint they’re just trying to maximize profit. That’s what they’re taught to do.

I wonder if this is what happens when the idol of free enterprise seeps out of the private sector into everything else.

The Lancet has published research on a correlation between dementia and living near major roads. It’s an article only available to subscribers in full, but this is from the Findings section:

Between 2001, and 2012, we identified 243 611 incident cases of dementia, 31 577 cases of Parkinson’s disease, and 9247 cases of multiple sclerosis. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of incident dementia was 1·07 for people living less than 50 m from a major traffic road (95% CI 1·06–1·08), 1·04 (1·02–1·05) for 50–100 m, 1·02 (1·01–1·03) for 101–200 m, and 1·00 (0·99–1·01) for 201–300 m versus further than 300 m (p for trend=0·0349). The associations were robust to sensitivity analyses and seemed stronger among urban residents, especially those who lived in major cities (HR 1·12, 95% CI 1·10–1·14 for people living <50 m from a major traffic road), and who never moved (1·12, 1·10–1·14 for people living <50 m from a major traffic road). No association was found with Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis.

Public Health Ontario gives the non-technical overview:

Led by PHO and ICES scientists, the study found that people who lived within 50 metres of high-traffic roads (like Ontario’s Hwy. 401) had a seven per cent higher likelihood of developing dementia compared to those who lived more than 300 metres away from busy roads. …

“Our study is the first in Canada to suggest that pollutants from heavy, day-to-day traffic are linked to dementia. We know from previous research that air pollutants can get into the blood stream and lead to inflammation, which is linked with cardiovascular disease and possibly other conditions such as diabetes. This study suggests air pollutants that can get into the brain via the blood stream can lead to neurological problems,” says Dr. Ray Copes, chief of environmental and occupational health at PHO and an author on the paper. …

The increase in the risk of developing dementia went down to four per cent if people lived 50-100 metres from major traffic, and to two per cent if they lived within 101-200 metres. At over 200 metres, there was no elevated risk of dementia.

And Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com gets the Sardonic Humor of the Week award:

It’s amusing that this study comes from the Province of Ontario, where they spend billions widening highways into cities, where light rail proposals are fought tooth and nail because they will block lanes that could carry cars, where the Mayor of Toronto is spending a billion bucks to fix up a highway that saves a few thousand people a few minutes a day, and then everybody wonders why the costs of health care are getting so high.

Spaceweather.com reports on a recent solar event:

Source: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

SOLAR PROMINENCE: A giant cloud of plasma is dancing over the sun’s western limb today. Shown here in a snapshot from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, the structure is more than 80,000 km tall and could swallow our planet more than 50 times with room to spare.

I really like that picture. It reminds me that all of our contretemps on this puny globe could be erased by the solar hiccup of a trivial little star on the edge of a mediocre galaxy.

Barycenter:

The barycenter (or barycentre; from the Ancient Greek βαρύς heavy + κέντρον centre^[1]) is the center of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other, or the point around which they both orbit. It is an important concept in fields such as astronomy and astrophysics. The distance from a body’s center of mass to the barycenter can be calculated as a simple two-body problem. [Wikipedia]

Barycenter came up during a work lunchtime conversation concerning high blood pressure. Yeah, the participant had the grace to look embarrassed as he “crossed my medical neurons with my astrophysics neurons.”

But I get to learn a new word, so all is well.

We now have more news on the Aetna withdrawal from the ACA, as a federal judge has made a ruling. BuzzFeed has the report:

America’s second-largest health insurance company stopped offering coverage to hundreds of thousands of people as part of a legal strategy to avoid government scrutiny of a planned merger, a federal judge said in a ruling today.

Aetna withdrew from health insurance exchanges in 17 counties in Florida, Georgia, and Missouri after the Department of Justice said competition in those markets would be harmed by the company’s $37 billion planned merger with rival Humana. The withdrawal was part of a wider move that saw Aetna pull coverage from almost 550 counties in 11 states.

The health insurance giant said it exited the exchanges purely for business reasons, having lost a total of $420 million due to plans sold through the marketplaces. But in a ruling blocking its merger with Humana today, DC District Court judge John Bates said it was also done as a legal maneuver. …

“Aetna was willing to offer to expand its participation in the exchanges if DOJ did not block the merger, or conversely, was willing to threaten to limit its participation in the exchanges if DOJ did,” Judge Bates said Monday.

I suppose the execs just think they’re playing hardball, but I wonder if perjury charges could appear. It’s almost as if the execs are just daring the justice system to discover the truth, with no penalties to them either way.

I was originally going to post this to this thread, concerning the massing of the herd of RINOs, but thinking about, it A Big Game of Chicken just seems better. WaPo reports on the hiring of Julia Hahn, a Breitbart writer, by the Trump Administration. Why is this interesting?

When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s redbrick Georgian revival house in Janesville, Wis., was surrounded last July by women whose children were murdered by undocumented immigrants, conservative writer Julia Hahn published a scathing report and a blurry snapshot of Ryan’s departing SUV.

The headline: “Paul Ryan flees grieving moms trying to show him photos of their children killed by his open borders agenda.”

Three months later, Hahn wrote a 2,800-word story alleging that Ryan (R-Wis.) was the ringmaster for a “months-long campaign to elect Hillary Clinton.” It was just one of a torrent of posts over the past year that cast Ryan as a “globalist” who is cozy with corporations and an enemy of Donald Trump-style populism.

As noted in the previously mentioned link, Speaker Ryan is easily one of the most conservative members of the House, and certainly the most conservative Speaker in its history, so trying to RINO-ize him out of power is a little ludicrous. Yet, a leader in that RINO effort is now in the Trump Administration.

Privately, a number of House Republicans told The Washington Post that Hahn’s involvement signaled Bannon’s plans to possibly put her to use against them, writing searing commentaries about elected Republican leaders to ram through Trump’s legislative priorities and agitate the party’s base if necessary.

In other words, this is a bullying move, and so long as the GOP base believes in Trump, she may be a big club to use on GOPers reluctant to follow Trump’s lead.

Image: Foreign Policy Association

But Ryan may carry the doomsday weapon in this battle – he can begin the impeachment process, which would tar Trump with dishonor and even possibly boost him out, in favor of the more savory (to Ryan) Pence. We already have a report of Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a professor of Constitutional law, readying articles of impeachment, with the cause being the conflicts of interest caused by failure to divest from Trump’s business interests – but Raskin may be wise to wait a bit until the House leadership is fully unhappy with Trump.

Of course, while the House initiates the process, it’s the Senate that makes the final decision, and they are, in general, not so quick to come to judgment, as seen in the Clinton impeachment debacle. However, if there are more Russian revelations, they may not be so hesitant.

So this may just be an old-fashioned game of chicken. Will Ryan meekly follow Trump’s lead? Will Trump rein in his foaming at the mouth hired gun?

Or will we be treated to the popcorn event of an impeachment?

In any event, I think we’re continuing to see the disintegration of the GOP as the purists and power-mongers swarm. It’s just like a train wreck.

I’d like to know the nature of the evolutionary tradeoff, if known.

The nominee for HHS Secretary, Rep Tom Price (R-GA), has turned out to have quite a few questionable ethical decisions in his wake. As Steve Benen on MaddowBlog notes:

The Wall Street Journal recently reported, for example, that Price “traded more than $300,000 in shares of health-related companies over the past four years while sponsoring and advocating legislation that potentially could affect those companies’ stocks.” Kaiser Health New added soon after that Price got “a sweetheart deal” on an investment opportunity from a foreign biotech firm. CNN then reported that the congressman bought stock in a medical company, introduced legislation that would benefit that company, and then received a campaign contribution from the company’s PAC.

And there’s more beyond that – go read Steve’s post. But while Steve is bemoaning the fact that this doesn’t seem to be derailing Price’s nomination like it should – and I agree – I prefer to make lemonade.

1. This is exposing, to the people of Georgia, the quality of their Representative. They may not care, but if not, then we know that the people of Georgia do not demand high ethical standards from their Representatives. Does it matter? Well … consider what happened to Indiana following the passing of a regressive religion-oriented bill.
2. If he’s confirmed, then he’s removed from Congress. Think about it. No longer can he do damage in that particular environment. Now, he may find ways to damage the nation while self-dealing in his new job, but that’s only theoretical; we know that as a powerful Representative he was misbehaving. One in the hand.
3. And if he’s confirmed as HHS Secretary, then that should be a message to the American citizen concerning the ethical standards now embraced by the GOP. The only problem with this point? That information may not make it to the citizens. It must be properly advertised.

Consider this to be my part in getting the word out: Representative Tom Price of Georgia does not appear to have the ethical make-up to represent Georgia. Georgians, send him packing.

In Gaza, autistic children are being taught the ancient Japanese art of Origami, as Tasneem Zayyan reports in AL Monitor:

Dardah al-Shaer, a psychology and sociology lecturer at Al-Aqsa University, underlined the importance origami can have to helping children with autism. He said, “Special schools must be established to invest in autistic kids’ mental capacities and release the stress inside by creating shapes from paper.”

Katherine Martinko at Treehugger.com displays a proper concern about liquifying shoes from Adidas:

Source: Adidas

Adidas has invented a running shoe that will decompose in the sink. Once you’ve worn it out (the company recommends two years of use), you can immerse the shoes in water, add a digestion enzyme called proteinase, and let it work for 36 hours. It will cause the protein-based yarn to break down, and you’ll be able to drain the liquefied shoes down the sink – everything except the foam sole, which will still require disposal. …

The Futurecraft Biofabric shoe is a very interesting idea, but I’d want to know more about the safety of the liquid-shoe form after it’s drained down the sink. Does the synthetic fabric actually melt completely, or does it break down into microscopic pieces that are small enough to drain away? What effect does that have in our water supply? Just because something ‘breaks down’, changes form, or disappears from view does not mean it goes away. Nor does facilitating disposal really mean ‘closed-loop production.’

I wonder about the long term stability of the material as well – if a pair were left alone for ten years, does it turn into something else? Is that form innocuous? This has implications not only for the environment, but for museums which may wish to display these shoes in the future. We saw just such a display at the museum we visited in Atlanta – that is, of various basketball shoes.

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare gets a taste of the new Administration in his teeth:

Here’s what [White House spokesman Sean Spicer] said:

As you know, the President was at the Central Intelligence Agency today, and was greeted by a raucous overflowing crowd of some 400-plus CIA employees. There were over a thousand requests to attend, prompting the President to note that he would have to come back to greet the rest. The employees were ecstatic to see the Commander-in-Chief, and he delivered them a powerful and important message. He told them he has their back and they were grateful for that. They gave him a five-minute standing ovation at the end in a display of their patriotism and their enthusiasm for his presidency (emphasis added).

Let’s leave aside certain factual, uh, issues in Spicer’s claims—like the bald-faced lie that there was a five-minute standing ovation at the end of Trump’s speech. (As you can see from the video, the agency’s brass is clapping politely, and relatively briefly, and with butts firmly planted in chairs). I want to focus here on the bizarre decision, more characteristic of totalitarian dictators with cults of personality than of the White House press office, to describe the emotional state of government workers on meeting their fearless leader. I simply cannot remember a time when the White House declared that a group of civil servants were “ecstatic” to be graced by the presence of the president, were “grateful” for what he said, much less that they went through the ceremony of hosting him in a display of “enthusiasm for his presidency.”

The video link is here, which appears to be a Sean Spicer announcement – I didn’t actually see a video of the CIA meeting, which I may have simply missed in the longer report.

But here’s the thing: There are two sources of information here: Mr. Wittes, who reportedly has many years of experience as a lawyer in this area, working with NSA, CIA, etc.; and the Trump Administration.

Which signal has more power behind it? The White House is a bonfire the size of a city, while Lawfare is a blog with a very limited, specialized readership – a little match in the darkness. For those who follow politics, who’ve seen the factual analyses of Trump’s statements, who are aware of how Trump’s team also indulges in misstatements of fact, and the Trumpian blame of the intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, for the Iraq War, well, it’s easy enough to put Benjamin’s report together with everything else and shake our heads in dismay.

But, again, that’s a relatively small group. Most of us folks don’t have the time, the patience, the opportunity to seek out information such as Benjamin’s. Instead, if the Trump Administration version shows up on the news, hey, it becomes fact. It becomes fact for the couple who just finished a ten hour day of work and just wants to go bowling and drink their beer.

Something new for this non-astronomer: a red nova is predicted to occur in the next 4-5 years, as noted on the D-brief blog by Nathaniel Scharping:

Contact Binary System
Image: ESO/L. Calçada

It seems that the stars [making up KIC 9832227]’ rate of rotation, as measured by periodic dips in brightness, has been speeding up noticeably in the few years it has been observed. Based on models of contact binary star behavior, the two should meet in an incandescent bear hug in 2022, give or take a year or so. This kind of event, called a luminous red nova, has only been observed a few times, and for a few months should shine brightly in the heavens, even to the naked eye.

A contact binary is a binary system in which the atmospheres of the two stars are shared. This will be seen near Cygnus. I do not know my constellations, but perhaps I should learn.

Last night my Arts Editor and I were watching the WCCO news, one of the local news stations, on their nightly broadcast, and one of the two co-anchors, Frank Vascellaro, covered yesterday’s little controversy with Trump’s advisor Conway concerning alternative facts. (Here’s CNN’s coverage – I haven’t found a clip of Frank.)

Frankie V – my hero!

And then, as they went to the next story, Frank started coughing. First into the live mic, and then, when they turned that one off, I could hear it echoing throughout the studio. His co-anchor covered for him for about 3 minutes, and when he did return, he looked a little glassy-eyed.

Seems to me the media is really finding it hard to swallow the Trump Administration so far.

I hope Frank continues to gag. An honest reaction to extremism is an important part of the news casting process.

In The Cheaters (1945) is a weird collage of a movie, with characters ranging from interesting to repulsive. A family thought to be well-off is in trouble, but only the arrogant father knows about it; his wife is an insipid refugee from The Wizard of Oz (think of the munchkins), one daughter a narcissistic brat, the other desperate to impress the well-off family of her fiancee’, who in turn never has to comb his hair as the cardboard he’s constructed of has a permanent part; the son is a young predatory shark; and the ridiculously large staff marches about with the traditional clothespin on their collective noses.

Why? Oh, not just the usual. This is a family of appearances, and so even as the financial tide threatens to drag them out to sea, daughter #2 (the one with a fiancee’ to impress) decides they should take in a “charity case” for Christmas, calling it a tradition of the family. Who it might be is unimportant, only that he be listed in the paper and appear under the random finger of the daughter, and thus “Mr. M”, aka Mr. Marchand, a crippled former actor who must meet his fortunes with an upper lip stiffened with spirits, is taken, temporarily, into the family.

But the riptide is coming. A lifeline appears – Uncle Henry has died, and with $5 million to will to them – if his lawyer cannot find Florence Watson, a child actor whom old Uncle Henry admired and, briefly, corresponded with. A quick call from the arrogant father, an unscrupulous but wary barrister, and perhaps their future is secured – if Miss Watson does not appear to claim her fortune within a week, it’s all to the family’s account. But, like money-grubbers, they worry, and scheme….

And find Miss Watson. Through the charm of Mr. Marchand, who offers minor diversions, observations, and a mystery or two of his own, Miss Watson becomes a cousin of the family, welcomed for the Christmas season.

And it goes on, keeping news of her imminent good fortune from her. Mr. Marchand’s spirit hobby grows, the family finds dueling with Miss Watson to be a chore, and suddenly –

They’re in the country! The Ghost of Marley stalks the hills and valleys of the snowy, bucolic country side, and now we can all see where this is going. Not that it’s not admirable, but it feels a bit forced, if you know what I mean. Mr. Marchand continues his stint as the most interesting of the characters, and if his burden is nothing more than the rejection of directors, producers, and audiences, perhaps this is understandable.

In all, a movie that suffers from a cast mostly too large and too undefined, it has a certain charm, but is best watched when one can barely bestir oneself from the chair to fetch the eggnog. True, there’s a lesson here, and perhaps it benefits from a retelling, a reminder to those who chase material wealth with an avidity repulsive to more spiritual people (whatever that phrase may mean), but the journey is long and hard, the attention may waver, and if you have mail to sort through – do it while watching this.

A reader expresses doubt about a future impeachment:

The GOP probably thinks Don is their patsy, and their gateway to passing all the radical and crazy laws they want.

I don’t think so, his expressed views on some subjects have been at variance with their own – and his behaviors must make them as uncomfortable as Hastert’s and Gingrich’s.

Pence is respectable, predictable, and quite possibly radical. Businessmen like predictability. This mob may prefer Pence over Trump.

The hypotheses concerning Tabby’s Star, aka KIC 8462852, continue to accumulate. This one, reported by NewScientist (14 January 2017), sounds plausible:

If Tabby’s star devoured a planet in the past, the planet’s energy would have made the star temporarily brighten, then gradually dim to its original state. Depending on the size of the planet, this event could have happened anywhere between 200 and 10,000 years ago.

As the planet fell into its star, it could have been ripped apart or had its moons stripped away, leaving debris orbiting the star in eccentric orbits. Every time the debris passes between us and the star, it would block some light, making it seem as if the star is blinking (arxiv.org/abs/1612.07332).

A good, physics-based explanation for the behavior is always preferable to alien intelligences, if not quite so much fun.

On the Dead Things blog at Discover Magazine, Gemma Tarlach talks about an interesting new finding in connection with fossilized dinosaur eggs (Protoceratops and Hypacrosaurus) that may indicate why most dinosaurs went extinct during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction:

Paleontologists have long thought that the incubation period for dinosaur eggs was similar to that of modern birds which are, after all, the only dinosaurs still around. Modern bird incubation periods range from a little more than a week to just under three months. Based on the von Ebner lines revealed in the new study, however, dinosaur eggs appear to have incubation periods of three to six months — a lot longer.

So what, you might be saying, because you’re a callous person who only reads dinosaur stories in hopes of hearing someone has managed to clone one (dream on, buddy!).

Well, the more time you’re sitting in an egg waiting to be born, and the more time one of your parents is sitting on you and your siblings keeping you warm, that’s time both adult and embyro [sic] are vulnerable to predation and nasty environmental surprises such as floods wiping out the nest. It’s also time lost for the parents that could have been spent rearing other young and/or prepping for the next batch o’ babies if you know what I mean.

I dunno. Without more discussion of the causation series, I don’t see how this would be a critical attribute of the extinct lines of dinosaurs; also, this is only two out of dozens and dozens of species. A great deal of speculation, so far as I can see. From the academic paper’s abstract, title of “Dinosaur incubation periods directly determined from growth-line counts in embryonic teeth show reptilian-grade development“:

Birds stand out from other egg-laying amniotes by producing relatively small numbers of large eggs with very short incubation periods (average 11–85 d). This aspect promotes high survivorship by limiting exposure to predation and environmental perturbation, allows for larger more fit young, and facilitates rapid attainment of adult size.

The vulnerability of elected judges has been demonstrated in Texas, where Supreme Court justices are elected to six year terms – and were faced with politically powerful men who wanted a do-over. From myStatesman:

In a rare reversal, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court accepted a gay marriage case Friday after pressure from state GOP leaders and grass-roots activists.

The state’s highest civil court had rejected the case in September with only one of nine justices dissenting, prompting a backlash from opponents of gay marriage who saw an opportunity to strip away same-sex spousal benefits offered to employees of state and local governments.

Three leading Republicans — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton — joined the effort, filing a brief that urged the high court to reconsider because the case offered an opportunity to limit the impact of the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage.

Especially telling:

Spurred by religious and social conservative leaders, opponents of same-sex marriage also barraged justices with emails making it clear that some GOP voters saw the case as a litmus test for party loyalty and Christian values.

“When I voted for you, I thought that you would uphold the Republican platform to protect the family unit for my children. Obviously, that was a correctable mistake on my part,” one email said.

(Because you’re so under threat right now how?) The point here is the folding of a critical pillar of society because it’s been permitted to be politically vulnerable – whether the issue is liberal or conservative.

And politics like this is not always about justice.

Seen on Quartz:

Six years ago, Domino’s admitted it made terrible pizza. Now its stock returns have outpaced Google’s

Just say it with me: so what? Stock performance has nothing to do with the value of the company, it only reflects how the investors view the potential of the company relative to its current position. The headline is awful. Or perhaps they were hoping it’d act as a hook, since it seems ridiculous. But only for the naive investor; the rest of the investing world would have just shrugged its shoulders and not bothered to read it.

At the end of the article they admit as much:

Some of [Charlie] Bilello’s [director of Research at Pension Partners] Twitter followers pointed out that the two companies have radically different market caps—Domino’s is $8 billion, and Google’s over $560 billion—which puts the finding in perspective.

Although even that doesn’t really do the situation justice. Six years ago, Domino’s was well known to be substandard, and then they improved. Google lead the industry then, and still does. It’s harder for them to improve their stock situation, although certainly possible.

NewScientist (14 January 2017) reports on the use of RNA interference to control pests, improve yields, even change the colors of your favorite rose. But how is the RNA delivered to the pests and plants?

Not actually produced by this process.
Source: Wikipedia

In experiments with tobacco plants, [University of Queensland team member Neena Mitter’s] group has shown that its spray’s protective effect can last at least 20 days. This was achieved by combining the RNA with clay nanoparticles developed by Mitter’s colleague Gordon Xu.

The positively charged clay nanoparticles, made of stacked sheets of common minerals such as magnesium chloride, bind to the negatively charged RNA. Over time, the clay particles react with carbon dioxide and break down, slowly releasing the RNA (Nature Plants, doi.org/bwxq).

Plant viruses are a huge problem for farmers around the world and no existing treatments target them directly. Farmers must either grow resistant crop varieties, if they exist, or try to kill the organisms that spread plant viruses, such as aphids. So if the antiviral spray works well in field tests on crops there could be huge demand. “We do believe it will be commercially viable,” Mitter says.

An interesting development. As it’s RNA, there should be zero worry about horizontal DNA transfer; the clay particles should be mostly harmless, although I wonder how many applications are possible before the buildup of clay in the soil leads to significant degradation of the soil – or if it just washes away.

Egypt’s iconic historical relic is the pyramid, but there’s much more, such as mosques – but bits and pieces are disappearing, as Khalid Hassan reports for AL Monitor:

In a bid to preserve old mosques and protect them from being looted, the Standing Committee of Islamic and Coptic Monuments, affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, decided Jan. 4 to move old mosque artifacts to the ministry’s warehouses. Smaller items, such as niches, carpets and chairs, are taking priority as they are easier to steal.

The decision comes after six niches were stolen recently from Al-Rifai Mosque in Cairo’s Citadel Square. On Jan. 1, the Ministry of Antiquities announced the disappearance of six out of 15 niches from the burial chamber of King Fuad I and Princess Ferial, the descendants of the Muhammad Ali dynasty. The niches, which date back to 1911, are made of sanded glass emblazoned with the seal of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II. They also bear a Quranic verse in Mamluk characters.

Even more interesting, beyond the reported drugging of guards?

On Jan. 2, Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anani decided to form a commission to inventory the content of Al-Rifai Mosque and compare the findings with the ministry’s records to check whether any original artifacts have been replaced by fake pieces.

Not an overwhelming problem in the United States. I wonder how it affects society, knowing there are millennia of history to protect, meanwhile we’re facing power and water shortages, not to mention a sometimes restive population.

Some pictures of missing glass from King Fuad I are here. I wondered about a referenced Ministry of Endowments, which, on further research, appears to regulate institutions such as hospitals and other such that aid the community. In Wikipedia it’s called Ministry of Awqaf.