Science

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Disrupted gut microbiomes in male mice increase their offspring’s risk of low birth weight, stunted growth and premature death

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Everybody now knows about the issues at Columbia University, and that the NYPD has cleared the occupied building of protestors and arrested them, with the administration threatening to expel those who were arrested. As I predicted, violence is beginning to erupt around the encampments, but now in some places it’s spread from the pro-Palestinian side (which has already enacted violence by invading buildings, injuring workers, and so on) to the pro-Israeli side, and I can’t abide violence coming from the ideological side I identify with. More below:

But first, as the Hindustan Times reports, a Jewish woman at Penn was told “she was too ugly to be raped”.

A shocking video of a woman allegedly venting her anger against the Israel government in front of a Jewish woman has gone viral. In the insensitive video an old white woman, holding a Palestine flag walks up to girl and shouts on her face saying, “Jewish women are too ugly to be raped…maybe with a condom.” It’s then that she is pulled by other women and taken away.

Here’s the video of that.  And yes, this is about the sexual violence on October 7, which some people still deny.

Pro-Hamas "protester" at @PennState says:

"Jewish women are way too ugly to be raped," referring to Hamas' systematic sexual violence on Oct 7.

This is America in 2024.pic.twitter.com/DNC28x8Zgr

— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) April 30, 2024

That’s bad enough, but this is worse. The same article reports that a Jewish woman at UCLA was beaten up by “pro-Hamas students”:

In another video a young Jewish woman was beaten unconscious by pro-Hamas students at the UCLA campus in California today.

Video of her bleeding head after being hit has gone viral. She was hospitalized with a concussion after being ganged up on by at least five student protesters.

Here’s the tweet. There’s a shot of her bloody head at the end:

A young Jewish woman was beaten unconscious by pro-Hamas students at the UCLA campus in California today.

Will mainstream media tell their viewers and readers about it? Or do we have to do all the work here on X?

Via @mihaschw pic.twitter.com/IMRCbLnS9U

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 30, 2024

Perhaps in response, the Jewish students at UCLA attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, and that is not something I favor at all. Even someone getting beaten up like this should not promote a delayed and violent response.  The attack on the Jewish woman, which was reprehensible, should have been reported to both the cops and the university, and UCLA should expel or sanction the perpetrators and consider removing the illegal encampment if it’s promoting violence. But attack it or its residents? No.

Here’s a Twitter video of Jewish students attacking the protestors. I didn’t see anybody getting physically assaulted, but the report below implies that that happened later.

The group of around 100 young Californian Jews and their allies continues to tear down the encampment at UCLA.

The arrived on campus after a young Jewish girl was beaten unconscious by the pro-Hamas students and activists occupying campus grounds pic.twitter.com/2vxOJFA2iC

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 1, 2024

 

I’m afraid this kind of violence is going to happen on our campus as well. So far things have been relatively peaceful, but I fear that the demonstrators will get increasingly restive if their demands aren’t meant. Here I’m not worried about the Jewish students, whom I know; and I’ve not seen a sign of violence in them. Their actions have been peaceful.

Some of this is reported on Fox 59 News.

Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another.

The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

After a couple of hours of scuffles, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help.

UCLA campus police and medical personnel had showed up briefly at the scene before retreating, Nexstar’s KTLA reported.

The Jewish students also lobbed fireworks into the encampment; again, a terrible move. As my friend Rosemary said, “Jewish students need to find creative and non-violent ways to end the encampment.”  My view is that Jewish students should use violence only when it’s necessary to defend themselves against violence from others.

This is what happens when you let people occupy public spaces with no consequence: the occupation attracts agitators from both sides, tensions reach a breaking point, and violence erupts.

Anyone lobbing fireworks at protestors should be arrested and expelled, of course. https://t.co/UGas7Cx6Ci

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 1, 2024

Apparently the clashes continued until the police arrived:

LAPD riot police arrive UCLA where clashes have been taking place for hours between hundreds of young Californian Jews & their allies on one side side and the pro-Hamas activists occupying campus.

The Jewish side welcomed the police by chanting “USA, USA” pic.twitter.com/iwiOwntsXi

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 1, 2024

I can’t advise the protestors in illegal encampment on campus, but I would advise Jewish or pro-Israeli people to respond as Jews have responded historically to confrontation: use words all you want to defend yourself, but violence must be reserved only for when you are attacked by others.  The parallel with the Gaza/Hamas war is obvious.

h/t: Rosemary Alles

Working with teens, researchers designed RESeT: a snowy virtual world with six activities intended to improve mood. In a 3-week study of 44 teens, researchers found that most of the teens used the technology about twice a week without being prompted and reported lower stress levels after using the environment.

A research team using the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA's Curiosity rover discovered higher-than-usual amounts of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which indicates that the sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline of an ancient lake.

A couple of days ago, I posted an article describing how the size of a quantum object, such as a proton or electron, can be measured. This isn’t obvious. For example, scientists say that an electron spreads out and is wave-like, and yet that it has no size. This apparent contradiction needs resolution. While I addressed this puzzle in the book‘s chapter 17, I didn’t do so in detail, and so I wrote this article to fill in the gaps.

Now, in response to a reader’s question, I’ve added a section to the end of the article, entitled “Estimating the Object’s Size From Its Excited States”. There I explain in more detail how one goes from simple measurements, which confirm that a proton’s size isn’t zero, to an actual estimate of a proton’s size. The discussion is a little more technical than the rest of the article; you will probably need first-year physics to follow it. But I hope that some readers will find it useful!

Scientists have shown, through probabilistic calculations, that there is indeed, as had been hypothesized, a rule of 'entropy' for the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. This finding could help drive a better understanding of quantum entanglement, which is a key resource that underlies much of the power of future quantum computers.

The body clock has a significant impact on the performance of NBA players. Data shows vastly better win ratio for home teams from the Western Time Zone Area (PDT) when playing an EDT team, compared to vice versa.

A new computer model uses a better artificial intelligence process to measure snow and water availability more accurately across vast distances in the West, information that could someday be used to better predict water availability for farmers and others. The researchers predict water availability from areas in the West where snow amounts aren't being physically measured.

People who were asked to recall past events that made them angry experienced a change to their blood vessels that has been linked with heart attacks