Drugged Out; The Mushroom Tolls for Thee; Embassies in Turkey Brace; The Replaceable 6%; Photographing Robofish; and Lasered to Death

Drugs

The Number of Workers Flunking Drug Tests Is at a 10-Year High fortune

Pulling data from more than 9.5 million urine, 900,000 oral fluid, and 200,000 hair laboratory-based tests that were performed by Quest questdiagnostics for employers in 2015, the study found that usage rates of amphetamines, marijuana, and heroin have all increased in the past five years in the general workforce.

North Korea

A Coming Reckoning With North Korea time

This test marks one more step toward the day when no one will be able to believe that the problem can be managed with another round of sanctions. We’ve had five sets of those from the U.N. already, and Kim Jong Un’s scientists are still hard at work on making a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a ballistic missile. That would make it possible for North Korea to launch a nuclear attack on its neighbors–and perhaps on the U.S. There are conflicting estimates of when that day will come, but when it does, it will force the U.S. and China to choose among bad options.

Turkey

British, German embassies in Turkey closed over security concerns hurriyetdailynews

Germany has also temporarily closed its embassy, all other consular offices and a school in Turkey, reportedly due to fears of a possible terror attack.

Robots

Robots Are Coming For Your Job: New Report Predicts That 8.6 Million U.S. Workers Will Be Displaced By 2021 ibtimes v

“By 2021, AI within intelligent agents will evolve significantly beyond today's relatively simple machine learning and natural language processing (NLP)," reads the report. "Emerging applications will feature improved self-learning and more complex scenarios. As basic agents gain consumer adoption, next-generation AI will not power intelligent agents until 2020 or beyond."

Sidenote: I think it's funny that even when they KNOW the robots are created, they still gotta throw in the 'evolve' word :D

Robo-fish, Mimicking Nature Land Professor With U.s. Department of the Navy Research Grant newswise

The Volumetric Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) System, which resembles a high-tech laser camera, will help researchers at FAU fau.edu to measure and better understand how fluid dynamics interact with bio-inspired flexible propulsors in complex underwater environments. This system also will perform 2D PIV, stereo PIV, and micro-PIV synchronized with body kinematics. The research will promote and enhance interdisciplinary work at the intersection of engineering, robotics, biology, biomimetics and physical sciences.

Weapons

Navy Develops Laser Weapon Prototypes for Destroyers, Cruisers - maybe Carriers scout v

The Office of Naval Research onr.navy.mil is working on 12-month, $53-million deal with Northrop Grumman to develop a Laser Weapon System Demonstrator through three phases; the phases include an initial design phase, ground-testing phase and then weapons testing at sea aboard a Navy Self Defense test ship, a Northrop statement said.

Others...

Amelia Earhart didn’t die in a plane crash, investigator says. This is his theory. washingtonpost

Man Converted Old Fiat into Fully Electric Car interestingengineering

There's a tiny house on wheels in Burbank — and you'll definitely want to see it latimes