Short Takes – 10-28-23

‘Technology surprise’: Are China, Russia ahead of us in UFO retrieval, research? TheHill.com article. Bit of a click-bait headline. Pull quote: “While the exact details of foreign UFO retrieval and reverse engineering efforts remain murky, Grusch has described a “publicly unknown Cold War over recovered and exploited physical material — a competition with near-peer adversaries over the years to identify UAP crashes/landings and retrieve the material for exploitation/reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.””

Putin says first segment of ISS replacement to orbit by 2027. Phys.org article. Pull quote: “The president also asked those overseeing the sector to resolve problems with salaries that are too low in Russia's space industry and to try to attract foreign specialists as well as increase private business involvement.”

Johnson’s speakership win fails to end House GOP infighting. Politico.com article. Pull quote: “And on the policy front, it’s not just the stopgap spending bill that could serve to deepen animosity. Republicans are predicting intraparty headaches on passing some of the full-year funding bills, including legislation to fund the Department of Justice and FBI. Johnson will also face an early test on abortion as Republicans try to revive a funding bill that includes provisions on the topic.”

With the House back to legislating, several floor votes showed the limits of a tactic to single out individual federal employees. Politico.com article. Pull quote: “But, the caution here: None of these House measures will become law as written — and must still be meshed together with Senate versions. The failure of some of these amendment votes, however, suggests broader GOP discomfort with singling out particular federal officials, even those with whom they have significant policy agreements.”

Long COVID brain fog may originate in a surprising place, say scientists. NPR.org article. Pull quote: “Because much of this work was done on mice, there are limitations to what conclusions can be drawn about humans. Levy points out that their data can't prove a viral reservoir is causing these events in humans and that a lack of good mouse models of long COVID still hampers research.”

Scientists develop new method to create stable, efficient next-gen solar cells. Phys.org article. Pull quote: “The researchers said the dual deposition technique could pave the way for the development of additional solar cells based on all inorganic perovskites or other halide perovskite compositions. In addition to extending the technique to different compositions, future work will involve making the current phase-heterojunction cells more durable in real-world conditions and scaling them to the size of traditional solar panels, the researchers said.”