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Physicists at the University of Oxford have set a new global benchmark for the accuracy of controlling a single quantum bit, achieving the lowest-ever error rate for a quantum logic operation--just 0.000015%, or one error in 6.7 million operations. This record-breaking result represents nearly an order of magnitude improvement over the previous benchmark, set by the same research group a decade ago.

A violent solar eruption on May 31 launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) hurtling toward Earth, triggering a rare G4-level geomagnetic storm alert. Captured in real-time by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory instruments, this cosmic blast has the potential to disrupt satellites, communications, and military systems.

The company has unveiled new innovations in quantum hardware and software that researchers hope will make quantum computing both error-proof and useful before the end of the decade

Since psychic abilities do not exist outside the delusions of true believers, involving psychics in searches for missing persons is worse than useless.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Introduction

The words you’re about to read were spoken by President Carter nearly 50 years ago. They echo through time with eerie relevance. Was it foresight—or have we simply not changed?

Each generation perceives its challenges as unprecedented, and today’s turbulence may seem unparalleled. Yet history teaches us otherwise. The anxieties of one era often echo those of another, revealing patterns of uncertainty, resilience, and continuity that transcend time.

We do not present this speech as an endorsement of any political figure or ideology. Rather, we recognize the wisdom and the historical perspective it provides. The concerns that shape our world—economic instability, global unrest, and the burden of leadership—transcend partisan divides.

Read carefully. You may find that what feels like a crisis of today is, in many ways, a recurrence of the past.

♦ ♦ ♦

JULY 15, 1979

I promised you a president who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.

During the past three years I’ve spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the government, our nation’s economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you’ve heard more and more about what the government thinks or what the government should be doing and less and less about our nation’s hopes, our dreams, and our vision of the future.

It’s clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper—deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages.

Ten days ago, I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject—energy. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?

It’s clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper—deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as president I need your help. So I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.

I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society—business and labor, teachers and preachers, governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you.

It has been an extraordinary ten days, and I want to share with you what I’ve heard.

“Some of your Cabinet members don’t seem loyal. There is not enough discipline among your disciples.”

“Don’t talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but about an understanding of our common good.”

“Mr. President, we’re in trouble. Talk to us about blood and sweat and tears.”

Many people talked about themselves and about the condition of our nation.

This from a young woman in Pennsylvania: “I feel so far from government. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political power.”

And this from a young Chicano: “Some of us have suffered from recession all our lives.”

This kind of summarized a lot of other statements: “Mr. President, we are confronted with a moral and a spiritual crisis.”

Several of our discussions were on energy, and I have a notebook full of comments and advice. I’ll read just a few.

“We can’t go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment.”

“We’ve got to use what we have. The Middle East has only five percent of the world’s energy, but the United States has 24 percent.”

And this is one of the most vivid statements: “Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife.”

“There will be other cartels and other shortages. American wisdom and courage right now can set a path to follow in the future.”

This was a good one: “Be bold, Mr. President. We may make mistakes, but we are ready to experiment.”

These ten days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my long-standing concerns about our nation’s underlying problems.

Woman in graffiti-marked subway car, New York, May 1973 (Photo by Erik Calonius, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That’s why I’ve worked hard to put my campaign promises into law—and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.

It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else—public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We’ve always believed in something called progress. We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.

Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

Pamphlet cover published in New York City, June 1975. Part of a propaganda campaign by the Council for Public Safety, a labor union representing police officers.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They’ve come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate. We remember when the phrase “sound as a dollar” was an expression of absolute dependability, until ten years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We believed that our nation’s resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil.

These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation’s life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.

We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation.

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.

Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don’t like it, and neither do I. What can we do?

First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

Passengers ride spray-painted car in New York City, May 1973 (Photo by Erik Calonius, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose.

We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

In little more than two decades we’ve gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It’s a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

You know we can do it. We have the natural resources. We have more oil in our shale alone than several Saudi Arabias. We have more coal than any nation on Earth. We have the world’s highest level of technology. We have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly believe that we have the national will to win this war.

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources—America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence.

I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy secure nation.

In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God’s help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.

Thank you and good night.

A team of international astronomers has uncovered what may be a gas giant planet forming around a distant young star. Using the powerful Very Large Telescope in Chile, they captured dazzling near-infrared images of a spiral-armed disk, matching theoretical predictions of how young planets shape their environment. With structures extending beyond the scale of our solar system and evidence of planet-driven disturbances, the system could provide vital clues to how planetary systems, including our own, emerge.

Whilst NASA funding has been slashed by the Trump administration with no allocation for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion or and Nuclear Electric Propulsion, scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have been studying nuclear propulsion.

The COSMOS scientific collaboration has released the largest map of the Universe ever created. It contains almost 800,000 galaxies, some from the Universe's earliest times. The map challenges some of our ideas about the early Universe.

Reader Kevin sent me this 4.5-minute video about two species of insects, earwigs and rove beetles, and how they fold their wings. It’s amazing, and I knew nothing about this. To quote Kevin:

Yesterday I saw this remarkable video on wing complexity in beetles and it really astonished me. Perhaps you’ve already seen it, but wanted to share it in case you haven’t. They guy has loads more great videos on his channel, too.

I sent the video to reader Robert Lang, among the very best origami experts in the world, thinking that he’d be interested in the folding. But of course he knew all about this (and more), for his folding knowledge and interests are wide, including designing a lens for a space telescope that can be folded up inside a rocket.

This all demonstrates Orgel’s Second Rule: “Evolution is cleverer than you are.” Natural selection sculpted these folds, presumably to allow a flying insect to scuttle through the leaf litter.

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Our ability to study faint radio signals from when the first stars began to form is being threatened by SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which seem to be unintentionally leaking radio signals that overpower astronomers' telescopes

What we have now just…isn't going to cut it. Right now if you want power in space you essentially have two options: solar panels, and a kind of nuclear power called radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

Planets may begin forming much earlier than scientists once believed during the final stages of a star s birth, not afterward. This bold new model, backed by simulations from researchers at SwRI, could solve a long-standing mystery: why so many exoplanet systems have tight clusters of similarly sized planets orbiting close to their stars. These compact systems seem to emerge naturally if planets start forming amid the swirling chaos of gas and dust still feeding the star.

A new understanding of how tumours exploit our nervous system is leading to new ways to treat cancer using familiar drugs like Botox and beta blockers

A sauropod dinosaur fossil has been found with preserved stomach contents for the first time, providing insights into what they ate and how

Inspired by yesterday’s post of Dylan and Johnny Cash singing “Girl from the North Country”, I got juiced up to make a list of the Dylan songs I love most.

I could have called this post (which will be a pleasure to write), “The best Bob Dylan songs,” but of course music is a matter of taste. After all, I hear that some people even like the music of Taylor Swift.  I originally intended to post my favorite 20 Bob Dylan songs, but I whittled it down to thirteen and, reviewing all his albums, I can’t find any other song that is par with these. But of course readers might find some that I’ve missed, and at any rate feel free to comment below. Since this is a subjective matter, also feel free to criticize my choices.

All these songs were written by Dylan, and I’ve put in clips for every one, though some show performances with other people, and two don’t show Dylan at all.  That said, here we go. These are given in no particular order: they are just a selection I culled from reviewing his output. Links to the Wikipedia entries of each song are provided, and I’ve shown live performances when possible:

Positively 4th Street  (1965).  These are multiple takes from the studio recording:

My Back Pages (1964).  This is from the Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992, and there’s more rock talent onstage at this concert than I’ve seen in any other performance.  I won’t name all the singers and players as you should be able to recognize the stars, but I have to say that the guitar solo is stellar.

All Along the Watchtower (1967). The classic version by Hendrix, which Dylan liked better than his own. This is a live version from the Isle of Wight concert:

Mr. Tambourine Man (1965). From the Newport Folk Festival, introduced by Pete Seeger:

The Times They are A-Changin’ (1964). The caption gives the time and place: “Starlight Ballroom, Belleview Hotel, Clearwater, Florida, 22nd April 1976.”

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (1973). I think the recorded version (written for the movie “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, is the best take (the echoes improve it a lot), but I’ve put up a good live version performed along with Tom Petty (and the Heartbreakers).

Love Minus Zero/No Limit (1965), from the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh in New York:

I Shall Be Released (1967). This is one of my very favorites.  And there’s never been better covers than those by Joan Baez (she was of course involved with Dylan). What a voice! This performance was at Woodstock, but you can see a duet with Dylan here.

It’s all Over Now, Baby Blue (1965).  This performance is from Manchester, England in 1965:

Tonight I’ll be Staying Here with You (1969). This may be a bit of a ringer, but I do love it. The best version is the recorded one:

Blowin’ in the Wind (1963). This is without doubt Dylan’s best protest song, and it’s a work of genius. Here’s a version from the Live Aid Concert in 1985, performed with Keith Richards and Ron Wood:

Girl from the North Country (1963). This version was performed with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (though I hear nobody but Dylan) in Australia in 1986:

Like a Rolling Stone (1965). This is surely on everyone’s list of favorite Dylan songs, and there’s no version like the recorded one. I must have heard it a gazillion times, but when the opening chords sound, I know I have to listen to the whole thing.  Al Kooper is on the organ.

It’s clear that I favor the early Dylan over the later one. Note that all of these songs, with the exception of “Heaven’s Door,” were released between 1963 and 1969.

Go here to see a list of Dylan’s favorite songs written other people. He considers Glenn Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman“, written by Jimmy Webb, to be “the greatest song ever written.” I can understand that, for it mirrors Dylan’s own style when he sings about love rather than politics.

Today we have two photographs from crack bird photographer and retired medical entomologist Scott Ritchie, who lives in Cairns, Australia. His captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Note: the bower is not a nest, though many people think it is. In fact it is simply a structure designed to attract female bowerbirds—an “extended phenotype” of sexual display, as Richard Dawkins might call it. As Scott notes below, the nest is built separately—by the female.

Here’s another couple of photos that might interest your readers. Picture one. The bower of the Golden Bowerbird [Prionodura newtoniana].  Photographed in the tropical rainforest in the Atherton Tablelands southwest of Cairns, Queensland Australia, this bower is a bachelor’s pad where he swoons females. The male builds this extravagant stick structure, decorating it with lichens and flowers. Females come and inspect the bower and give it (or not) her seal of approval. He always displays for her at the bower, and makes the most unusual metallic calls. If she likes it enough, the good old boy gets lucky. A brief cloacal kiss at the bower and off she goes. The male of course, keeps tidying up his bower, putting more extravagant displays up to an almost Mar-a-Lago structure. They last for years.  The female, of course, is left to do the heavy lifting of building the proper nest and raising the chicks.

Picture number two entitled.” Are you free for dinner tonight?”  Here the male Golden Bowerbird brings an inflorescence  of the Melicope tree to decorate his bower.  This “flower” is highly valued by Golden Bowerbirds, and this fellow hopes these red roses will win the day—or rather the night—for him.

Citrus greening (also called Huanglongbing or HLB) is an infectious disease affecting citrus trees in Florida. It is a bacterium, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, and spread by an invasive fly, the Asian citrus psyllid. Since 2004 it has caused a reduction in the Florida citrus industry by 90% and doubled production costs. It is close to completely wiping out the Florida citrus industry. Various methods have been tried to keep it under control, but they have all failed.

There is good news, however. The University of Florida in collaboration with the company Soilcea, has developed a GMO orange that is highly resistant to citrus greening. They expect to have commercial trees available by the Spring of 2027. The limiting factor is that it takes years to grow test trees to see that they remain resistant and produce viable fruit. So far the test trees are doing well.

The company licensed the finding of Nian Wang, a professor at the University of Florida, who found that the bacterium is dependent upon interactions with the host that can be traced to several genes. The company used CRISPR to silence those genes, making it more difficult for the bacterium to infect plants and thereby making the plants resistant to infection. This approach has apparently worked, although again we won’t be sure until the first test trees reach maturity.

Also, the USDA has determined that these genetically altered cultivars do not qualify as subject to regulation under Federal rules, which removes a significant barrier to commercialization. This is a bit of a controversy. The USDA in 2020 decided to exempt certain kinds of genetic engineering from requiring USDA approval. For example, if you are simply silencing existing genes that was no longer considered a “GMO”, because no new genes were being introduced. However a court later struck down that ruling saying that the USDA still has to review and approve those cultivars. This makes the current USDA decision interesting – they are essentially saying that this cultivar does not fall within their regulatory sphere.

“APHIS did not identify any plausible pathway by which your modified sweet orange, or any sexually compatible relatives, would pose an increased plant pest risk relative to comparator sweet orange plants,” the agency said in the regulatory determination.

The EPA also has to determine there is no environmental risk. The FDA has to determine that the resulting oranges are substantially similar to existing varieties and therefore pose no health risk. Give the nature of these modifications, these should not be significant barriers.

At this point it is very possible that these CRISPR modified oranges that are substantially resistant to HLB will save and revitalize the Florida citrus industry. This is exactly what has already happened in the Hawaiian papaya industry. The industry was almost wiped out by the ring spot virus. A GMO papaya was introduced which saved the industry. Like these oranges, the GMO papayas were created through silencing an existing gene rather than introducing a new gene. Hawaii culturally remains anti-GMO, but the state quietly carved out an exception for the GMO papaya.

We are also seeing the same thing with the American chestnut. This tree was mostly wiped out by an Asian fungus. A GMO variety resistant to the fungus has been created, although there is a question about how well they are performing in the field. Researchers may need to do some more genetic tweaking before they get a variety that is worth planting widespread.

Last year a GMO variety of banana resistant to the Tropical Race-4 fungus which is currently wiping out the commercial Cavendish banana industry, was approved for human consumption in Australia and New Zealand. This genetic variety makes the banana plants almost immune to the fungus. While it is currently considered a backup plan if other attempts at fighting the fungus fail, this variety will very likely be necessary to save the banana industry.

It is now a simple fact of life that in order to grow enough food to feed the world, we need massive agriculture. Growing a lot of the same plants invites pests, and so like it or not we are now in an arms race with pests. There are lots of things we can do to mitigate pests, and most experts recommend integrated pest management which uses a variety of methods together. But even still, in many cases we are simply losing this battle.

The only technology that is fast and powerful enough to keep up with evolving pests, and the spread of pests caused by globalization, is genetic engineering. We are fortunate that genetic technology has advanced so much so quickly over the last 20 years. Without it agricultural industries would be toppling one-by-one in the face of evolving pests. So far the anti-GMO propaganda industry has either opposed these crop-saving cultivars, usually by saying they are not necessary, or they quietly ignore them and focus their attention elsewhere. What they never do is admit that GMO technology has saved entire crop industries and will be necessary to save more in the future.

 

The post GMOs May Save Florida Citrus first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Extreme weather, pest outbreaks and overharvesting are turning forest carbon sinks into carbon sources across Europe, undermining a crucial part of countries’ net-zero plans

Last Thursday during a roundtable on stem cell therapies, new FDA Commissioner Marty Makary referred to EBM levels of evidence as an artificial and dogmatic construct. Apparently Dr. David Katz's "more fluid concept of evidence" now reigns at the FDA—selectively.

The post Drs. Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad embrace a “more fluid concept of evidence” at the FDA first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A team of researchers has shown that even small-scale quantum computers can enhance machine learning performance, using a novel photonic quantum circuit. Their findings suggest that today s quantum technology isn t just experimental it can already outperform classical systems in specific tasks. Notably, this photonic approach could also drastically reduce energy consumption, offering a sustainable path forward as machine learning s power needs soar.