Politics

This week in science: ring around the rosy

I got that image form Bad Astronomy over at the Sy-Fi Wire and thought it was so cool, it had to be shared! While there, I noticed an excellent post wherein the Bad Astronomer takes down Trump’s anti-science-y budget in precise, fisky detail. Short version, the WFIRST telescope is sacrificed, but the ambitious Europa and the Mars 2020 Lander are spared, for now. Eric Berger, at Ars Technica, has some more on the lunar return budget:

Perhaps the most significant thing about this budget proposal is that, although the White House has made a big show about returning humans to the surface of the Moon, there are no giant leaps toward that goal in this plan. Rather there are incremental steps that, if followed over the next decade, may allow astronauts to eventually set foot on the lunar surface again.

Whew, we barely dodged a witch being elected president in 2016!
See how this clever researcher managed to image a single atom using relatively ordinary equipment.
The weird mystery of what is afflicting high-level foreigners in Cuba is getting weirder and weirder.
Lost in the Porter scandal and subsequent tragedy in Florida, this week, our head intel honcho flatly contradicted Trump et al on climate change:

The impacts of the long-term trends toward a warming climate, more air pollution, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity are likely to fuel economic and social discontent — and possibly upheaval — through 2018,” said Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence.