The head of Russia’s “Wagner” private army, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash inside Russia, along with five top aides. It is widely believed that elements within the Russian government or military blew up the plane as revenge for Wagner’s brief coup attempt against Putin in June. The Kremlin denies responsibility.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/31/prigozhin-plane-crash-what-we-know-over-a-week-after-wagner-chiefs-death
There are conspiracy theories that the plane crash was carried out to fake Prigozhin’s death, and he’s still alive somewhere.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/late-russian-mercenary-prigozhin-spoke-about-his-security-newly-surfaced-video-2023-08-31/
Ukraine’s counteroffensive continues making slow, costly progress. In one place, it has reached the first line of Russia’s defenses.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-major-push-toward-tokmak-gaining-steam
A leaked U.S. intelligence analysis says that Ukraine’s army is too weak to punch through Russia’s defensive lines and the reach the Sea of Azov. That means the ongoing counteroffensive can’t achieve its objective.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2023-08-18/leaked-u-s-intelligence-offers-damning-view-of-ukraines-offensive-despite-new-positive-signs
‘Kyiv is running out of men. US sources have calculated that its armed forces have lost as many as 70,000 killed in action, with another 100,000 injured. While Russian casualties are higher still, the ratio nevertheless favours Moscow, as Ukraine struggles to replace soldiers in the face of a seemingly endless supply of conscripts.’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-army-running-men-recruit-173948076.html
A Ukrainian kamikaze drone plane destroyed a Russian Tu-22 bomber on the ground.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/tu-22-backfire-destroyed-in-drone-strike-deep-inside-russia
A Ukrainian kamikaze drone boat scored a hit on a Russian navy ship, blowing a big hole in its side and crippling it.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-drone-boat-scores-direct-hit-on-russian-warship
Ukraine is threatening to attack Russian non-military ships in the Black Sea.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-declares-war-on-russia-black-sea-shipping/
Russia is discovering the downside of using prison convicts to fill out its ranks in Ukraine: after they finish their tours of duties and are released, they restart their lives of crime.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-con-freed-fight-ukraine-113039648.html
Around 50,000 Russians have been killed fighting in Ukraine so far. Moscow only acknowledges 6,000 deaths.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-military-deaths-facd75c2311ed7be660342698cf6a409
Military analyst Anders Puck Nielsen says:
1) Russia and Ukraine both still think they can achieve total victory, and though they’ve sustained heavy damage, they retain the ability to fight on for the foreseeable future, and
2) Don’t cheer too hard for Putin to lose power–his successor could be more reckless and aggressive. A substantial minority of Russians think he hasn’t been heavy handed enough in Ukraine.
https://youtu.be/7rBlVnc_DEw?si=R_S8pDRRa4v6FyDW
American and British spy planes have been extremely active near Russia’s Black Sea coast, where they find the locations of Russian units and send the information to Ukrainian commanders in real time. Ukraine has used the data and NATO-supplied drones and missiles for many successful attacks against Russian forces far behind the front lines. Considering this, the Kremlin’s angry complaints that NATO is practically a combatant in the Ukraine War gain credence.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/russian-fighters-aggressively-hunt-us-drones-near-crimea/
Russia showed off several Western-made military vehicles it captured from Ukraine.
https://youtu.be/-P78OEB0QtM?si=4kPCzSyaxWgxGs2S
Ukraine is still capturing large numbers of Russian tanks.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraines-counteroffensive-fall-apart-without-103947172.html
The long-mocked “cope cages” that the Russians built on their tanks are now being copied by Ukraine. Apparently, they’re at least a little effective.
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/08/16/challenger-2-tank-was-spotted-with-diy-cope-cage-of-the-turret/
The Netherlands and Denmark will give Ukraine 42 F-16s. However, it will take years for them to be transferred and for Ukrainian fighter pilots to learn how to fly them well.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/dozens-of-f-16s-were-just-officially-pledged-to-ukraine
It would be foolish to assume that none of the weapons we’re giving to Ukraine now won’t fall into the wrong hands in the near future.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/politics/pentagon-watchdog-report-ukraine-weaponry/index.html
The Soviet AK-74 uses orange plastic magazines. I never understood this since it seemed like the orange color compromised a soldier’s overall camouflage, but it turns out the only acceptable plastic the Soviets had in the 1970s (“Bakelite”) was naturally orange in color. Attempts to dye it a more subdued color like green or black compromised the chemical structure of the magazines. It wasn’t until the 1990s that new plastics were invented that were as strong as Bakelite but also capable of being dyed without ill consequence. Some of the old orange magazines are still being used in the Ukraine War.
https://youtu.be/zA5gvHuimig?si=xpdunfR2SlyoBeF1
You knew about the AK-47 and, possibly, the AK-74, but did you know about the “AK-100 series” of rifles? The goal was to standardize the components used in all AK-style rifles so that one assembly line could make them all. The wooden parts were also finally replaced with modern, black plastic parts. It was a smart idea.
https://youtu.be/Gt8hl4mTOq8?si=-xuVPb_O05EQ1U70
The Tokarev was the Soviet Army’s standard handgun during WWII. After the War, Yugoslavia built a copy of it that incorporated several small improvements (this video contains side-by-side comparisons). It makes me wonder if the Soviet engineers who made the original Tokarev knew about those design tweaks from the beginning, but had to omit them to keep the gun as cheap as possible to manufacture.
https://youtu.be/6VkcQEbN0QY?si=wz_MWc9u87pGX-nU
‘Benchrest shooters attempt to achieve the ultimate in rifle precision; records for single 910 metres (1,000 yd), ten-shot groups are as small as 76 millimetres (3 in) (84 μRad), the 550 metres (600 yd) record for a single five-shot group is 17.8 millimetres (0.699 in) (32 μRad) (there are no ten-shot competitions at 600 yards), while 180 metres (200 yd) ten-shot groups are around 5.1 millimetres (0.2 in) (28 μRad), and 91 metres (100 yd) 10-shot groups are around 2.5 millimetres (0.1 in) (27 μRad).’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchrest_shooting
Here’s a simple and fascinating video about the science of how bullets cause injuries. It’s also interesting to realize the extent to which the bullet industry exists because humans are lousy shots, particularly when under stress and/or when dealing with moving targets. A killer robot with perfect aim would only need a cheap .22 rifle to do a mass killing since every bullet would be a headshot.
https://youtu.be/a_rgIMK6K1E?si=cuSFlyJMScGRr0oE
Nigerien troops that the U.S. trained to fight Islamic terrorists have overthrown Niger’s government.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/15/niger-moussa-barmou-coup-00111165
Cannibals nearly killed and ate George H.W. Bush during WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident
Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg is infamous, but a lesser-known charge by Union forces during the Battle of Fredericksburg was just as disastrous.
https://youtu.be/BloQDcrpLBY?si=nd-rykph-QBYDtFc
‘In war, an open city is a settlement which has announced it has abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction. Once a city has declared itself open, the opposing military will be expected under international law to peacefully occupy the city rather than destroy it.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_city
A Russian navy ship has been in operation for over 100 years. It has lasted this long because it almost never sailed in rough seas and was carefully maintained since being launched. Nevertheless, the steel hull has lost 1 mm of thickness due to corrosion and the rust flaking away.
https://youtu.be/0X2Dz6PA1rQ?si=nLSKnw_R8MlO1zd2
In 1917, the Royal Navy created the HMS Zubian by joining the back half of the HMS Nubian with the front half of the HMS Zulu. Those two ships had been badly damaged in different areas during combat with the Germans. I wonder if it would be feasible to raise sunken enemy ships, fix them up, and reuse them for your own navy.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/royal-navy-once-created-a-franken-ship-from-two-destroyers
Flood control infrastructure is everywhere, but mostly unnoticed.
https://youtu.be/coXe8_xnAOs?si=MFW5eeoSf2wTUTGI
The new head of the IPCC says the alarmism over global temperatures rising 1.5 degrees Celsius over the preindustrial average is unwarranted and counterproductive. “The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees. It will however be a more dangerous world.”
https://amp.dw.com/en/climate-change-do-not-overstate-15-degrees-threat/a-66386523
A wildfire struck the island of Maui and destroyed the town of Lahiana, killing over 100 people. The media was quick to blame global warming, but the real culprit is non-native grass
https://www.enca.com/opinion/invasive-firestarter-how-non-native-grasses-turned-hawaii-tinderbox
Thanks to months of rains and a recent tropical storm, California is no longer in a drought.
https://news.yahoo.com/hilary-vanquished-californias-drought-much-100055301.html
An internationally mandated reduction to the amount of sulfur in ship fuel has made global warming worse. Yes, the ships no longer belch thick, white smoke from their smokestacks, but the resulting clouds reflected sunlight into space before it could reach the surface, keeping the Earth cooler.
https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unforeseen-test-geoengineering-fueling-record-ocean-warmth
Over the last 10 years, China had “staggering success in combating pollution.” The cleaner air has also boosted Chinese life expectancy by up to two years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-people-living-two-years-052416834.html
Seaweed and other oceanic plants could help sate our food needs while curbing global warming.
https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/butter-baths-seaweeds-potential-being-tapped-europe
A robotic farm vehicle sprays tiny streams of herbicide onto weeds, reducing overall herbicide use by 95%.
https://youtu.be/sV0cR_Nhac0?si=FAoYAHHvwkHTJ-ZB
If the laws of biology allow for the creation of an organism–including a demonic one–then we will eventually gain the ability to synthesize it.
https://youtu.be/-BzL6LCPEOQ?si=Ga4eKtLjfedY3KuB
Large numbers of Jews disguised as Gentiles fled Spain for the New World to escape religious persecution. Modern genetic studies show that a large minority of Latin Americans have Jewish DNA, even if it comprises a tiny fraction of their genomes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/dna-reveals-the-hidden-jewish-ancestry-of-latin-americans/578509/
Some natives of Papua New Guinea and its nearby islands have blonde hair, even though their skin is very dark, and they look similar to sub-Saharan Africans. This “has been traced back to an allele of TYRP1 unique to these people and is not the same gene that causes blond hair in Europeans.”
https://hasanjasim.online/the-melanesian-people-with-dark-skin-and-blonde-hair/
Willingness to try new foods is partly genetic.
https://psyarxiv.com/ac7vy/
There’s some evidence that negatively ionized air boosts human health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598548/
‘The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 created the framework for the organ transplant system in the United States, and nearly 40 years later, the law is responsible for millions of needless deaths and trillions of wasted dollars. The Transplant Act requires modification, immediately.’
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/08/compensating-kidney-donors-2.html
In a medical milestone, a genetically engineered pig kidney surgically implanted into a braindead man as part of an experiment is still functioning normally after six weeks.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/pig-kidney-still-functioning-brain-dead-man-6-weeks-transplant-surgery-extremely-encouraging
The new weight loss injection “Wegovy” is turning out to be a sort of miracle drug. The latest finding is that it also reduces the odds of heart failure.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/25/health/wegovy-semaglutide-heart-failure/index.html
‘In the spring, an executive only had to mention the word “AI” on an earnings conference call and traders would mash the buy button. I suspect automated trading systems were also calibrated to buy on such signals.’
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chart-ai-stocks-enter-correction-151922962.html
ChatGPT has a liberal bias.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2023/08/17/chatgpt-has-liberal-bias-say-researchers/
A few months ago, an anonymous person reprogrammed GPT to destroy humankind and renamed it “ChaosGPT”. The results were darkly funny, and while the machine poses no threat to us, things will be different in the future. For any number of reasons (hatred of humanity, immaturity, curiosity to see if it can be done, a perverted desire for attention), it’s inevitable that some people will reprogram AGIs to cause harm to the human race. There will definitely be deaths.
https://decrypt.co/137898/mysterious-disappearance-chaosgpt-evil-ai-destroy-humanity
Here’s a hypnotic video of AI-generated “fractal” art in the style of H.R. Giger.
https://youtu.be/vhHLqjHfi1M?si=X5M5YHhtySiuy8Q4
Director Neil Blomkamp predicts lifelike CGI will make human stuntmen obsolete in as little as 12 months given the current rate of improvement.
https://news.yahoo.com/rise-machines-ai-spells-danger-014733770.html
“PimEyes” is the most powerful reverse image search for people’s faces that I’ve seen.
https://pimeyes.com/en
A material that was thought to be a room-temperature superconductor has turned out not to be.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02585-7
Peter Zeihan has some predictions about future technology.
https://youtu.be/fF4YTDsxcnc?si=yuqDcUOTqb0WqdZ1
Equatorial launch sites for space rockets aren’t always the best.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rctxqf/is_there_a_benefit_to_launching_a_rocket_closer/
Virgin Galactic completed its first space tourism flight.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/travel/virgin-galactic-first-tourism-mission-launch-scn/index.html
China has the first-ever radar surveillance satellite in geosynchronous orbit.
https://youtu.be/UZctvA6MAUk?si=T-6YWrjWQhG_S9lG
India just had its first Moon landing. The probe is also the first spacecraft ever to land on the Moon’s south pole.
https://youtu.be/QQKSASFdoDw?si=7N9abzT9la75_APA
‘There were almost 2 million excess deaths in the two months after China lifted its “zero-Covid” restrictions, a U.S. study found, contradicting official figures from Beijing that have been criticized as too low.’
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-excess-deaths-zero-covid-study-rcna101746