Inquring Minds: Allen Frances – A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump. “We talk to renowned psychiatrist Allen Frances about his latest book Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump.” The Podcast (42:19min) was first aired October 17, 2017 and is available for download, on iTunes etc.
Yes, I’m a little behind on my podcasts, but I’m catching up during the winter holidays.
The Washington Post: Trump shrinks two huge national monuments in Utah, drawing praise and protests.
“Trump’s move to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by more than 1.1 million acres and more than 800,000 acres, respectively, immediately sparked an outpouring of praise from conservative lawmakers as well as activists’ protests outside the White House and in Utah. It also plunges the Trump administration into uncharted legal territory since no president has sought to modify monuments established under the 1906 Antiquities Act in more than half a century.
His decision removes about 85 percent of the designation of Bears Ears and nearly 46 percent of that for Grand Staircase-Escalante, land that potentially could now be leased for energy exploration or opened for specific activities such as motorized vehicle use.
Trump told a rally in Salt Lake City that he came to “reverse federal overreach“ and took dramatic action “because some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington. And guess what? They’re wrong.“
“They don’t know your land, and truly, they don’t care for your land like you do,“ he added. “But from now on, that won’t matter.“ “
Read Garret’s opinion on the matter over at dangerousmeta: Ignore the Administration. Ignore the media.
JPL CalTech: Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years
“Voyager 1, NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs,” lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.
“With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.”
Link via MetaFilter.
Some eye candy: Voyager Images from the Odysseys (NASA Space Photos) (YouTube, 2:48min)
NPR Here and Now: 75 Years Ago, Scientists Conducted An Unprecedented Nuclear Experiment.
“Seventy-five years ago this week, scientists from the University of Chicago created the first controlled, self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, a feat that was essential in the development of an atomic bomb during World War II.
Enrico Fermi and his team of physicists secretly conducted the Chicago Pile 1 experiment on a squash court under the stands of a football stadium on Dec. 2, 1942. The anniversary of this unprecedented achievement comes as tensions escalate between the U.S. and North Korea, which launched a new ballistic missile on Tuesday.”
The New York Times: Laptops Are Great. But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting.. By Susan Dynarski.
“In a series of experiments at Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles, students were randomly assigned either laptops or pen and paper for note-taking at a lecture. Those who had used laptops had substantially worse understanding of the lecture, as measured by a standardized test, than those who did not.
[…]
Most college students are legal adults who can serve in the armed forces, vote and own property. Why shouldn’t they decide themselves whether to use a laptop?The strongest argument against allowing that choice is that one student’s use of a laptop harms the learning of students around them.
[…]
The best evidence available now suggests that students should avoid laptops during lectures and just pick up their pens. It’s not a leap to think that the same holds for middle and high school classrooms, as well as for workplace meetings.”
Link via MetaFilter.
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