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NASA s CODEX experiment aboard the International Space Station is revealing the Sun like never before. Using advanced filters and a specialized coronagraph, CODEX has captured images showing that the solar wind streams of charged particles from the Sun is not a smooth, uniform flow but rather a turbulent, gusty outpouring of hot plasma. These groundbreaking observations will allow scientists to measure the speed and temperature of the solar wind with unprecedented detail, providing critical insights for space weather forecasting and understanding how solar activity impacts Earth and space technology.

Astronomers have discovered the site of a newly forming exoplanet, probably with several times the mass of Jupiter. The image was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope, seeing the young star system 2MASS 1612 in infrared light. The disk extends about 130 astronomical units from the star, but you can see a bright ring followed by a gap at about 50 AU. It's believed there's a new planet forming in that gap, pulling in material from the disk of gas and dust around it.

As worldwide temperatures continue to rise and conventional solutions aren't working fast enough, governments may turn to geoengineering solutions. One idea is to place a giant sunshade somewhat like an umbrella between the Earth and the Sun to block some of the sunlight that reaches our planet. A new mission proposes sending an 81 m² sail to Earth-Sun L1 to measure the effect of blocking a tiny fraction of solar energy.

When the Sun rages and storms in Earth's direction, it changes our planet's atmosphere. The atmosphere puffs up, meaning satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) meet more resistance. This resistance creates orbital decay, dragging satellites to lower altitudes. One researcher says we can change the design of satellites to decrease their susceptibility.

Gas clouds in the Milky Way's Galactic Center contain copious amounts of star-forming gas. But for some reason, few massive stars form there, even though similar gas clouds elsewhere in the galaxy easily form massive stars. The clouds also form fewer stars overall. Are they a new type of molecular cloud?

Two huge movie studios are suing Midjourney, claiming the firm’s AI has been trained on their copyrighted material – the entrance of the Hollywood giants into this legal fight could be a watershed moment for AI and copyright

One of the sad parts about having lived through the best era of rock music is watching the musicians drop away, one by one, mown down by the Grim Reaper. The latest musician to go, and a great one, was Brian Wilson, who just died at 82 (the date and cause of death wasn’t revealed).

His family announced the death on Instagram but did not say where or when he died, or state a cause. In early 2024, after the death of his wife, Melinda Wilson, business representatives for Mr. Wilson were granted a conservatorship by a California state judge, after they asserted that he had “a major neurocognitive disorder” and had been diagnosed with dementia.

I have to run, but I do want to list and put up versions of what I think are his best songs. The guy was a fricking musical genius. I’ll post five, but I haven’t had time to ponder, so this is a gut reaction.  Feel free to add your own choices.

Caroline No (1966), performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England.

Don’t Worry Baby (1964), performed below in Japan in 2012. I think this is the best of the “early” Beach Boys songs, though it preceded God Only Knows by just two years.

Darlin’ (1967). This live version is from 1980:

Wouldn’t it Be Nice? (1966). This version was performed in 2012.

And his best song, the one Paul McCartney called his favorite song: God Only Knows (1966).  This is a fantastic and complex song that took days to record (you can find takes on YouTube). What amazes me is that Wilson had it all in his head to begin with.

There are so many more good songs, but no time to write about them.  RIP, Brian.

Lagniappe: George Martin, a big fan, meets Wilson, who talks about how he writes his songs. I’ve watched this video a gazillion times.

In Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, a young woman must help a naval commander snatched from death in 1847 adapt to the 21st century. Time travel thriller meets romance in this excellent novel

Images from a jellyfish-breeding facility in Germany showcase the luminous invertebrates' environmental challenges and medical promise

The story of the birth and growth of nuclear science is rebalanced in Destroyer of Worlds, which gives due prominence to the role of women

The universe will still be there to marvel at, despite brutal cuts set to hit NASA and the National Science Foundation's budgets. But the damage to future research will be long-lasting, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Feedback is tickled by a marketing email touting a new range of tents, which promises revolutionary waterproofing technology

From Fallopian tubes to the G-spot, long-dead men have left their mark on women's anatomy. It's time to turf them out, says Adam Taor

How did we lose the sense that some parts of life should be off-limits rather than open to commodification? Tiffany Jenkins's thoughtful new book Strangers and Intimates explores

With rising cancer rates, we need more good news, and the latest finding that cancer interacts with the nervous system means cheap and readily available drugs could help

Implants that monitor the neural activity of frog embryos as they grow into tadpoles and then adults could offer a window into the developing brain

A brain-computer interface has enabled a man with paralysis to have real-time conversations, without the usual delay in speech

From geoengineering to anti-methane cow vaccines and green aviation fuel, meet the former nuclear physicist deciding which climate change technologies hold the most promise

Nobody wants the death of innocent civilians in Gaza, but nobody seems to realize that this carnage can be laid on the doorstep of Hamas, who explicitly and admittedly use civilians as human shields. Hamas officials have in fact said that the terror tunnels are not for protecting civilians, but for protecting Hamas itself.  Hamas has sequestered billions of dollars it could have used to improve the lot of Gaza and its people, but they use the money to build tunnels and rockets, and to sequester food and goods for themselves.

Yet the damnation you hear is directed not at Hamas, but at Israel, because the Jewish state isn’t allowed to win a war.

But there’s another Big Lie promulgated by nearly all the mainstream media, and by Westerners and NGOs: the strife in the Middle East could be ended if there were just a cease-fire in Gaza.  My beef is that people don’t realize that any such solution would be temporary, and would certainly not end the hatred of Israel and Jews on the part of Hamas.  The best way to begin ending the war, at least for the nonce, is for Hamas to surrender and turn over the hostages.

They won’t, of course, but the US and other countries are not powerless to effect that solution. There’s a big and important airbase in Qatar, Al Udeid Air Base, that houses the forces not only of the U.S., but also of the UK’s Royal Air Force. That base is not essential to the US or UK, but is essential to the government of Qatar, for without it Qatar would quickly be invaded by countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Why is Qatar afraid of invasion by other Arab countries? Because those countries realize that Qatar is a major supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which includes Hamas. Much of the Arab world has outlawed the MB.  Qatar houses many of the leaders of Hamas, some of whom are multibillionaires, funnels money to Hamas, and supports Al-Jazeera, which broadcasts MB propagands.  All the US and UK would have to do is threaten to remove the air base, which could be relocated in countries like Saudi Arabia (where we already have a base) or the UAE, and Qatar would bend.  That would be accompanied by a demand that Qatar arrest Hamas members and put the clamps on Al-Jazeera.  This seems to me likely to end Hamas in Gaza, and it’s surely worth a try.

Qatar’s involvement in supporting Hamas is no secret: it’s a fact the whole world knows. So why isn’t the world putting pressure on Qatar to quash Hamas? Why isn’t the world demanding a UN resolution against Qatar like it does, repeatedly, with Israel?

Well, you know the answer.  Qatar is not a Jewish state. This kind of pressure seems to me to be the most effective way to bring peace to Gaza. Hamas, of course would have to surrender unconditionally and release all the hostages, and that’s dicey. But if they don’t, they should suffer the world’s opprobrium, which has been directed at Israel instead. We hear a lot about Israel’s “war crimes” (this is wrong), but nothing about Hamas from activists like Greta Thunberg, who wouldn’t even look at the Hamas brutality that started the war on October 7, 2023.

But I digress.  What I am trying to say is that a simple cease-fire, in which Israel stops attacking Gaza and withdraws from the territory, is not any kind of solution to the problem. The main reason is that it leaves Hamas in power, and Hamas has sworn (in its initial charter) not only to wipe out Israel and kill Jews, but to repeat Oct 7 over and over again. Why on earth would people think that leaving Hamas in power is any kind of solution to the war? It would simply start the war all over again. (Hamas is still firing rockets into Israel.)

One of the brainless and useful idiots for terrorism happens to be the NYT’s Tom Friedman. His “solution” to the war is given in this NYT op-ed (archived here). His thesis is that Israel’s conduct in the war is so shameful that it endangers Jews throughout the world.  I don’t think the conduct has been shameful, but yes, the ignorance of the West—its belief in the Big Lies like “genocide” and “apartheid” and “two-state solutions”—is what endangers Jews, for this ignorance breeds a lassitude about the hatred of Jews.

Here, indented, is Friedman’s “solution”. He admits that Hamas is horrible, but, as with many like Greta, he claims that Israel’s response has been “disproportionate,” without understanding what “disproportionality” means in the international law of war. (See Natasha Hausdorff for an explanation.)

Israel months ago destroyed Hamas as an existential military threat. [JAC: I don’t believe that.] Given that, the Netanyahu government should be telling the Trump administration and Arab mediators that it’s ready to withdraw from Gaza in a phased manner and be replaced by an international/Arab/Palestinian Authority [PA] peacekeeping force — provided that the Hamas leadership agrees to return all remaining living and dead hostages and leave the strip.

That is ridiculous, for Hamas will never accept an “international/Arab/Palestinian Authority peacekeeping force. Hamas hates the PA and killed many of them when Hamas narrowly won the Gaza elections in 2006.  Further, the PA is also a terrorist organization (they maintain, after all, the “pay for slay” program that pays terrorists to attack Jews).  If you think they can rule Gaza without having designs on Israel, you’re misguided. Now if they could find decent, moderate, leaders in the international and Arab community to run Gaza, that’s another matter, but nobody thinks this is feasible.

No, a cease-fire will not work until Hamas lays down its arms, lets all the hostages go, and disbands. That is the only kind of cease-fire that has a chance of working, and is about as likely as asserting that, at the moment, a “two state solution” will end strife in the Middle East.  It won’t—not right now.  The first thing to do is get Qatar to do what it should to get rid of Hamas. And those actions involve not violence, but political and financial pressure.

As Malgorzata commented when I sent her this article, “Tom Friedman seems to be on the same intellectual level as Greta Thunberg.”

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and NASA, is the first to venture into a tilted orbit around the sun, letting it take some unusual pictures