210915SciDig
Space Junk and Solar Flares’ Threats
University of Warwick (UK) is looking at ways to protect our critical satellites that provide our communication, navigation and weather from space junk and solar flares.
New ways of tackling the threat that space junk in our skies poses are being explored by Uni- versity of Warwick scientists, as they pioneer new research that could help the UK fulfill its am- bition to become a responsible spacefaring nation.
Scientists at a new Center for Space Domain Awareness are to focus attention on threats to the technology filling the skies above our heads in anticipation of a huge expansion in the number of satellites that provide vital services such as communications, navigation and defense.
The University of Warwick is launching the Center for Space Domain Awareness to create a critical mass of research that tackles the growing threats to technology in Earth orbit.
From the space junk that could collide with orbiting satellites, to the solar winds that could inter- fere with their electronics, the researchers at the new Center will pioneer new work to understand and characterize the near-Earth environment to support scientific, commercial, governmental and military applications.
Info: shpr.fyi/spacejunk
We are always very vulnerable to a once-per- century solar storm
The sun is always showering Earth with a mist of magnetized particles known as solar wind. For the most part, our planet’s magnetic shield blocks this electric wind from doing any real damage to Earth or its inhabitants, instead sending those particles skittering toward the poles and leaving behind a pleasant aurorain their wake.
But sometimes, every century or so, that wind escalates into a full-blown solar storm — and, as new research presented at the SIGCOMM 2021 data communication conference warns, the re- sults of such extreme space weather could be catastrophic to our modern way of life.
In short, a severe solar storm could plunge the world into an “internet apocalypse” that keeps large swaths of society including food and fuel delivery offline for weeks or months at a time.
Info: shpr.fyi/solarstorm
World Security Items:
• Al Qaeda leader al-Zawa- hiri appeared in a Sept. 11 video commemorating 20 years since the 9-11 attacks. He was thought to have been killed months ago.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelendsky on Sept. 12 warned Russia of a ‘full scale war’ indirectly while speaking at the Yalta security forum in Kyiv.
• UK in March, 2021, decided to increase their nuclear warheads from 160 to 240, the first increase by a major western nation since the cold war.
• Japanese military on Sept. 13 spotted a Chinese submarine North of Okinawa in Japan’s con- tiguous zone.
• Both Erbil and Harir airports in Iraq, which have US air bases, have reportedly been attacked by two explosive drones.
• North Korea carried out successful tests of a new long- range nuclear-capable cruise missile over the weekend.
• China is using social media to convince the world that COVID was originated in the US by U.S. military.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke for the first time since February last week with reports of the call from both mentioning “confrontation.”
• Havana Syndrome is the worst challenge ever for US military intelligence. Agents’ fear of it is obstructing US foreign diplomacy and intelligence.
• A third of Washington State Patrol officers polled say they will accept termination instead of vaccination.
Will COVID end?
Almost 90 percent of immunologists, infectious-disease researchers, and virologists working on the coronavirus surveyed by Nature in February concluded the virus that causes COVID-19 was “likely” to become endemic, permanently infecting us.
This does not mean we are destined for a grim future of continually crowded hospitals, quar- antines, restrictions, social-distancing, masks, and avoiding crowds. According to Nature, “Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds are also endemic but a combination of annual vaccines and acquired immunity means that societies tolerate the sea- sonal deaths and illnesses they bring.”
The only “end” of COVID will happen when we reach herd immunity with somewhere near 80% immune. Essentially all the increase from 50% of Americans immune now to 80% must occur among the unvaccinated.
If SARS-CoV-2 becomes like other coronaviruses, it will become a virus that most future children will encounter early on in life, fight off, and develop a lasting ability to fight off with minimal symptoms.
In other words, someday, COVID won’t end but will become a public-health nuisance.
Info: shpr.fyi/covidnoend
Governments partly to blame for deepening of anti-vaxers’ resolve
On Sept. 9 Biden said, “Based on available data from the summer, only one of out of every 160,000 fully vaccinated Americans was hospitalized for COVID per day,” he said. “Recent data indicates there is only one confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated Americans per day.”
Yet he says vaccinated people continue to be at high risk from the unvaccinated.
The vaccinated are not at much risk from COVID.
The high risk is to the unvaccinated.
Many ask, “If I’ll still be at risk after vaccination, why should I get vaccinated?”
He said, “The bottom line: We’re going to protect you vaccinated workers from the enemy, unvaccinated co-workers.”
Info: shpr.fyi/govttoblame
Biden is framing the unvaccinated as the enemy.
The progressives have built such “power (??)” as they have by demonizing us Republicans (“deplorables”) for the last four- plus years.
We are not deplorable.
We proved in the 2020 election that we were then half of Americans. Biden’s shameful debacle in Afghanistan, his opposition to the rule of law and his dictatorial mandating of vaccinations have turned most Americans against him so we are now the majority. As the majority we can’t be demonized and executed as was done infamously to a minority during WWII.
Now he is continuing to galvanize his supporters by demonizing the 80 million unvaccinated as the terrorist enemy.
Dave Personal re: vaccinations:
I believe in the vaccinations and have been vaccinated.
We MUST slow the new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths which are almost entirely among the unvaccinated. COVID hospitalizations are overwhelming our hospitals. Lewis County COVID infections rate is three times the Washington State average.
But governments’ dictatorial vaccination and masking mandates are very hard for me and all free Americans to accept.
All of us veterans continue to be depressed after the shameful Afghanistan debacle and our remembrance of 9-11.
One veteran says he is, “…troubled with the nation I have fought for and profoundly angry with its leaders.”
All of us– be kind to our veterans!
Dave Bunting, Sept. 13, 2021
See my blog: daverant.com