Short Takes – 11-10-22

Wireless power from space. ESA.int article. Old idea being investigated. Pull quote: “Achieving this vision would require technical advancements in areas such as in-space manufacturing and robotic assembly, low-cost high-efficiency photovoltaics, high power electronics and radio frequency beam forming. Further research to confirm benign effects of low-power microwaves on human and animal health and compatibility with aircraft and satellites would also be undertaken.”

GOP Inches Closer to Expected Narrow House Majority, With Senate Still a Tossup. WSJ.com article. Explanation of delays in vote counting. Pull quote: “A new-member orientation and the House Republican leadership election were set to begin next week, but it is unlikely all races will be resolved by then. In California, where five races were ranked as tossups by the Cook Political Report, results could be days or weeks away. Competitive House races in Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona haven’t been called and results could take days.”

Path to 218: Tracking the Remaining House Races. NYTimes.com analysis. Look at 37 outstanding House races. Pull quote: “We’re tracking the remaining uncalled House races — and showing when they are called — as states continue to count the outstanding votes from the midterm elections. The tallies below are based on the reported vote so far, and the margin in many races will continue to change as more ballots are counted in the coming days.”

We Need to Intercept Our Next Interstellar Visitor to See If It's Artificial, Astronomers Say in New Study. Vice.com article. Pull quote: “Whereas past studies have mapped out the feasibility of the concept, Siraj and his co-authors, including Loeb, investigated the “requirements for a rendezvous mission with the primary objective of producing a resolved image of an interstellar object” and discuss “the characterization from close range of interstellar objects that, like ‘Oumuamua, don’t have an unequivocally identified nature,” according to a forthcoming study in the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation that was posted on Sunday to the preprint server arXiv.” Actual link to paper - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.02120.pdf