Short Takes – 10-10-23

Lasers and lithium team up for ammonia production at ambient conditions. ChemistryWorld.com article. Pull quote: “The team generated metallic lithium from lithium oxide, thanks to an infrared laser that provides enough energy to dissociate the lithium–oxygen bonds. When exposed to air, metallic lithium spontaneously binds nitrogen breaking the nitrogen–nitrogen triple covalent bond and generating lithium nitride. ‘[We then] hydrolyse this laser-generated lithium nitride to obtain ammonia gas and lithium hydroxide,’ explains Wang. Moreover, this approach offers the opportunity for chemical cycling. ‘A laser [can] induce the conversion of lithium hydroxide back into lithium nitride, effectively closing the lithium cycle,’ he adds. ‘This [is] also another novel concept – the conversion from hydroxide to nitride.’”

The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation. Wired.com article. Pull quote: ““It’s getting incredibly hard to find people that actually live in Palestine or in southern Israel,” Peden tells WIRED. “It’s been incredibly hard to find their preliminary information and share their videos and photos. You have this perfect storm where on the ground, preliminary sources are not being amplified, especially those that maybe don’t speak English, which is a large majority of users in that area.””

Speaker race has no clear favorite as GOP tensions rise. TheHill.com article. Pull quote: “But it still remains a wide open question as to when the House GOP will finally get a Speaker in place, with members openly wondering how long it will take. Womack said that it “could” be resolved by Wednesday, but indicated it is likely a tall task.”

Space: Starlink Satellites Burning Up. StrategyPage.com article. A little bit of clickbait.  Pull quote: “Starshield also aims to provide users with a dominant position in space-based sensing. Starshield is meant to be cheaper and more responsive than any existing competitor in providing a wider array of earth sensing capabilities. SpaceX has not revealed the schedule for lifting Starshield satellites into orbit, and some may already be there testing the services Starshield will provide. Starshield activities will be less public than Starlink, which is how intelligence agencies like it.”

‘Rudderless and leaderless’: House GOP lurches forward after Israel attacks. Politico.com article. Pull quote: “— The House could vote to give McHenry full speaker pro tempore authority. That would require the support of a majority of members present and voting — a tall order given the divisions in the chamber, but an option nonetheless. Some House Republicans have encouraged McHenry to consider it, or even run for speaker permanently.”

Cleaning product residues may be driving a deadly superbug's antibiotic resistance. LiveScience.com article. Pull quote: “"Our finding suggests that biocides at low concentration can compromise antibiotic potency and lead to the development of antibiotic resistance," Liping Li, lead study author and research fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Live Science in an email. "We propose that further investigation and survey about the side effects of residual biocides in real world scenarios are necessary to warrant that we are using these precious chemicals wisely and safely," he added.”

George Santos Faces New Charges Over Alleged Lies and Credit Card Fraud. NYTimes.com article. Pull quote: “The new accusations were made in a 23-count superseding indictment that laid out how Mr. Santos had charged his donors’ credit cards “repeatedly, without their authorization,” distributing the money to his and other candidates’ campaigns and to his own bank account.”

Inside effective altruism, where the far future counts a lot more than the present. In depth, lengthy article. TechnologyReview.com article. Pull quote: “Money can move mountains, and as EA takes on larger platforms with larger amounts of funding from billionaires and tech industry insiders, the wealth of a few billionaires will likely continue to elevate pet EA causes and candidates. But if the movement aims to conquer the political landscape, EA leaders may find that whatever its political strategies, its messages don’t connect with the people who are living with local and present-day challenges like insufficient housing and food insecurity. EA’s academic and tech industry origins as a heady philosophical plan for distributing inherited and institutional wealth may have gotten the movement this far, but those same roots likely can’t support its hopes for expanding its influence.”

How Hamas duped Israel as it planned devastating attack. Reuters.com article. Pull quote: “A second Israeli security source said there was a period when Israel believed the movement's leader in Gaza, Yahya Al-Sinwar, was preoccupied with managing Gaza "rather than killing Jews". At the same time, Israel turned its focus away from Hamas as it pushed for a deal to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, he added.”

Pentagon: US aid to Israel and Ukraine depends on Congressional action. DefenseOne.com article. Pull quote: ““One thing that is really important in terms of the munitions in particular and our ability to support both potentially the Israelis and the Ukrainians simultaneously, is additional funding from Congress, to be able to increase our capacity…to expand production and then to also pay for the munitions themselves. We need additional support from Congress,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters at the AUSA annual conference in Washington.”