The Grand Finale; Sally Salad; 30k Robot Hum; Chatty Warehouse Bots; Easter Egg; and UN Abortion Cuts

Space

NASA spacecraft's fiery finale will give us glimpse of Saturn's rings usatoday

Seasoned NASA spaceship Cassini will dive into the gap later this month for an unparalleled research campaign nicknamed the Grand Finale. The name is not hyperbole: Once it has fulfilled its mission, Cassini will plunge into the heart of Saturn, ending 13 years of unprecedented scientific discoveries.

On April 22, the craft, which launched in 1997, will whip by Saturn’s biggest moon Titan, an encounter that will nudge Cassini onto a path so audacious that prominent planetary-science commentator Emily Lakdawalla once said it seemed “totally crazy.” Cassini will hop over Saturn’s rings, which form a gauzy collar of dust and ice around the giant planet, and begin threading the needle between Saturn’s atmosphere and the D ring, which begins only 1,200 miles from the planet itself.

Charged Activists; Stripping Funds from PP; Misc Person; Reused Landing; Puddle Shark; Octopus Bot; Tailing Eye; Unparalyzing Thought; and Printed Interior

Abortion

Activists who filmed Planned Parenthood workers charged in California npr.org w!

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt on Tuesday, saying the state "will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations."

Paganland; Genderless; Data Vault; Reused in Orbit; Biocomputer; Another Engine; and 50 Away

Paganism

Iceland's pagans enjoy dramatic rise bbc

National Statistics Bureau figures show that followers of the Asatru Association still lag far behind the established Lutheran Church, which accounts for 237,938 or almost 70% of the population and has remained stable for decades. But the total of Icelanders who revere Odin, Thor and the Goddess Freyja has leapt 50% since 2014 to 3,583, with more than twice as many male as female faithful...

'Beware of Jews' Retraction; Growing China; Stretching Philippines; AI Audit; Finding Recalled Cars; Brain 10x Faster Than Before; Google Filtering Hate; Sunscope; Third Arm Support; Defending Against the Hurtful; and Texan Bathrooms

Antisemitism

Artist behind 'beware of Jews' sign apologises for causing offence theguardian

Franck Allais, a freelance photographer, said the contentious sign was part of an artistic project, which includes depictions of a woman pulling a shopping trolley, a man pushing his wheelchair and a cat.

Allais said he intended the project to be a comment on identity and that the sign in Stamford Hill, one of the largest Hasidic communities in Europe, was not an antisemitic statement. He said he was left shaken by the offence he had caused.

I posted the original story of this 'antisemetic' act yesterday on the previous blog, but appears that I (as well as several others) jumped to conclusions about the intent. I appologize for my part in passing the original story around.

Trump's Confusing Silence; Bible Class; Defunding Gets the Fed Vote; CA's Continuing Socialist Strain; Mamephant or Elemoth?; Hornless; Bulletproof Origami; Paper Airplane Aid; and Juno Stays Put

Anti-Semitism

Jewish groups ask: Why won’t Trump denounce anti-Semitic attacks? mcclatchydc v

Not only did Trump not condemn the attacks, he also largely ignored the issue and at least once responded as if the accusations were directed at him, which they weren’t. The reaction has left Jewish groups confused and frustrated, especially following the visit this week of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.

Also see Jewish reporter who clashed with Trump is 'hopeful' for White House outreach in fighting anti-Semitism washingtonexaminer v

Depravity's Religious Tipping Point; MS Firing Squad; Free School for Non-Taxpayers; Snowden Russidout; Missiled Christians; The Amazon in Iran; Hamas Watch; Netanyahu Nears Indictment; Erdogan Forever; Hardy Crop Hope; Pollinating Drones; Medicine Maker; World's Daily Cheese; and Maybe Possibly a Picture of a Secret

Society

Most American Religious Groups Support Same-sex Marriage, Oppose Religiously Based Service Refusals prri.org

Overall, a majority (58 percent) of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Among religious groups, Unitarian/Universalists (94 percent), Buddhists (85 percent), Jews (73 percent), Hindus (67 percent), white mainline Protestants (63 percent), white Catholics (63 percent), Hispanic Catholics (62 percent), and Orthodox Christians (59 percent) all have majorities supporting same-sex marriage. Black Protestants (45 percent), Muslims (44 percent), and Hispanic Protestants (41 percent) are somewhat divided. Only three religious groups–Mormons (37 percent favor, 55 percent oppose), white evangelical Protestants (31 percent favor, 61 percent oppose), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (25 percent favor, 53 percent oppose)–show majority opposition for same-sex marriage. Combined, these three religious groups comprise only 19 percent of the general population.

Bio-Hacking Regulators; Communicating Thoughts; Computing Cataracts; I Spy with My Little AI; Free Russian Land; and Detailed Rings

Genetics

The FDA Is Cracking Down On Rogue Genetic Engineers gizmodo

Since the DIY bio community first developed in the early aughts, it has largely avoided government regulation. But in 2017, cheaper equipment and simpler genetic engineering technologies mean that garage scientists can dream much bigger than simply turning yellow yeast red. We now live in a world where anyone can order custom DNA sequences on the internet to tinker with in their home. And the rules that govern genetic engineering today were not written with the foresight that it would one day be possible for 30-year-old hobbyists in Mississippi to try their hand at genetically engineering dogs.

Boy Guides; Polygamy Unheard; TPP Down; The Gospel Preserved; Missile Accident; F25 AI; Hard Mining; Bendable Screens; and Memory Block

Society

Boys who think they are girls allowed to join [UK] Guides for first time telegraph.co.uk

Adult men who also identify their gender as female could become leaders too under radical new proposals to the traditional single-sex policy of girlguiding girlguiding.org.uk.

U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear ‘Sister Wives’ polygamy case fox13now

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes' office had no comment Monday. Polygamists that FOX 13 spoke with were disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision, but vowed to push the Utah State Legislature for decriminalization.

Unifying Away from the Reformation; Disappearing Pastors; Adopting Russia; Superbug Spread; Growing Neurons; The Date Your Heart will Fail; Robot Street; Smiling Venus; Galileo's Time; and 10,000 Quadrillion Asteroid

False Unity

'Unity' call on Reformation anniversary bbc

A statement from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York has said the split caused "lasting damage" to the unity of the Church - something that contradicted the teaching of Jesus and left a "legacy of mistrust and competition".

Down Home Persecution; Dealing With Trump; The 6 Million Dollar Protest; Hope in Bitcoin; Ad Denied for Pricking Consciences; Home, Far Far Away; and Stronger Than Steel and Superman

Christianity

U.S. on List of Christian-Persecuting Nations wnd

The United States, Mexico and Russia were listed as “new and noteworthy” nations in the 2016 “Hall of Shame Report” published by the Washington, D.C., based human rights group International Christian Concern persecution.org, or ICC.

While ICC notes “there is no comparison between the life of a Christian in the U.S. with persecuted believers overseas,” the group noted a number of “worrying trends as an alarming indication of a decline in religious liberty in the United States.”

Here's the ICC report: Hall of Shame pdf

Jordan's Red Line; Signing Off; Self-Balancing Motorcycle; Holo Cube; Testing Your Future; Law Breaking Pollution; Texas Takes on Bathrooms; The Distressing Cross; When Human Remains Aren't People; Zuckerberg for Office; and Where to Stand to Be Left in the Dark

Israel

Jordanian official: Moving US embassy to Jerusalem would be ‘catastrophic’ jta.org

An embassy move would be a “red line” for Jordan, would “inflame the Islamic and Arab streets” and serve as a “gift to extremists,” [Jordanian minister Momani] said, adding that Jordan would use all possible political and diplomatic means to try and prevent such a decision.

Decapitation Speed Up; Greeced Out; UK's Laser Gun; Super Batteries; Light Rack; Handheld Car Lot; More Sight to the Seeing; Nano-Chimney; Magnetic Drug Delivery; The 103 Satellite Launch; Comet in Sight; and Planned Parenthood vs. the Activist

North Korea

South Korea speeds up creation of Kim Jong Un 'decapitation unit' cnn v

The country is speeding up plans to set up what some call a "decapitation unit," a brigade specifically tasked with targeting North Korea's "wartime command," including leader Kim Jong Un, according to a South Korea Defense Ministry official.

The brigade was initially supposed to be ready in 2019, but the Defense Ministry now says it'll be established "by this year."

Trump's False Gospel; Sporting Pronoun Pins; The White People Problem; Life Programmer Wanted; Under the Sea; Lasering Plankton from Space; China's EmDrive; Robot Shopper; Amazon's Force; Kim Jung Un's 300+ Political Fears; and Fragments in a Cave

False Religion

Televangelist Paula White Joins Trump Inauguration Day Plans hollywoodreporter

Prosperity gospel preachers Paula White, a friend of Trump's, and Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, whose Detroit church hosted the Republican in September, will be among six faith leaders selected to participate in the Jan. 20 inauguration. It will be the first time preachers who spread the prosperity gospel will be included in the ceremony.

While the faith movement is widely popular, many Christians consider it heretical. Ministers in the tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence their teachings work. Trump had campaigned in part on his record as a wealthy real estate developer and businessman.

For more on the heretical teachings of people like Paula White, see: The Devilish Puppet Master of the Word-Faith Movement (Justin Peters) gty.org

Oldest Alphabet; Metal Attack; The Law of Heatbeats; Unborn Test Extension; Robotic Galago; Light Energy; Predicting Materials; Robot Glove; Shortening Giraffe; Saturn Dive Images; Robo Cop; Hype Over Mind; Unstaffed Bank; Sappy AI Music; and Forcing the Peace Issue

Archeaology

Expert claims inscriptions from Egyptian exodus proves Hebrew is world’s oldest alphabet jpost

While critics argue that the original alphabet likely derived from a grouping of Afro-Asiatic languages – including Akkadian, Aramaic, Phoenician, Ethiopic and Hebrew – [professor] Petrovich claims that an inscription discovered on an ancient Egyptian stone slab in 2012 proves his case.

Petrovich said he subsequently translated 16 more Hebrew inscriptions from four other ancient slabs discovered in Egypt and Sinai, including one from 1446 BCE, which describes Moses as a figure heralded by the ancient Jews shortly before he led the exodus from Egypt.

Thought Monitor; Gilead Balm; Cleansing in South Sudan; Gambia's Defeat; Fly Me to Moon; and the Gig Economy

Brain

Fast fMRI tracks brain activity during human thought for first time medicalxpress t

By significantly increasing the speed of functional MRI (fMRI), researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) nibib.nih.gov have been able to image rapidly fluctuating brain activity during human thought. fMRI measures changes in blood oxygenation, which were previously thought to be too slow to detect the subtle neuronal activity associated with higher order brain functions. The new discovery that fast fMRI can detect rapid brain oscillations is a significant step towards realizing a central goal of neuroscience research: mapping the brain networks responsible for human cognitive functions such as perception, attention, and awareness.

...standard fMRI can only detect the blood flow coming to replenish an area of the brain several seconds after it has performed a function. It was generally accepted that this was the limit of what could be detected by fMRI—identification of a region in the brain that had responded to a large stimulus, such as a continuous 30 second "blast" of bright light.

Jimmied Peace; Rising Hate; EPA Confusion; Marines Sign Up; Touching Sense; 3D Printing Ward; Heating to the Freezing Point; Thin Chip; Long Live the Vaccine; X-Ray Network; Uncanny Assistant; Mastercard's AI; Long Web History; Sanctions for NK; Space War; Cassini of the Rings; and Crushing Crabs

Peace

Jimmy Carter to Obama: Before you leave office, recognize Palestinian state cnn

"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."

Also see Carter's Op-Ed piece: Jimmy Carter: America Must Recognize Palestine nytimes

Aleppo Crush; Castro Canadian Friend; Holocaust on Ice; Cashless Modi; Uncomfortable Abortion Reality; Computer Programmer; ALVINN; BosTonomy; Photon Converter; and Trash Man...IN SPAAAAAACE

Syria

Syrian forces make sweeping gains in eastern Aleppo cnn v

Government forces and armed paramilitary groups loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began a renewed push toward eastern Aleppo on November 15, backed by airstrikes following a three-week lull.

Taking the city would mark a turning point in a civil war that has raged in Syria for more than five years.

Also see Syrian rebel forces in Aleppo suffer 'biggest defeat since 2012' theguardian

Born Criminal; Frozen and Lost; Leader Angela; The Philippine Bow; NATO-Russian Missile Dance; Light AI; Electa-Aid; and Weather Chasing Satellite

Society

Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features theintercept

The bankrupt attempt to infer moral qualities from physiology was a popular pursuit for millennia, particularly among those who wanted to justify the supremacy of one racial group over another. But phrenology britannica, which involved studying the cranium to determine someone’s character and intelligence, was debunked around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and few outside of the pseudo-scientific fringe would still claim that the shape of your mouth or size of your eyelids might predict whether you’ll become a rapist or thief.

Not so in the modern age of Artificial Intelligence, apparently: In a paper titled “Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,” two Shanghai Jiao Tong University sjtu.edu.cn researchers say they fed “facial images of 1,856 real persons” into computers and found “some discriminating structural features for predicting criminality, such as lip curvature, eye inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle.” They conclude that “all four classifiers perform consistently well and produce evidence for the validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding the topic.”

Christmas Unity; Globalization Rally Cry; The Failing Justice League; EU's Grip; RT Swipe; Red Square Drill; Bomb Rain; Settling Outposts; New Order in Town; Programming Required; Alt-Right All Twittered Out; Big Gas; Animals See Again; Satellite Palooza; Smart Men Hit Asteroid; Space Engine; Faster Than Concorde; and Plant Robots Dreams

False Unity

Amazon Christmas advert 2016: Imam and priest push festive message of friendship independent.co.uk v

A spokesman for Amazon told The Independent: "Our casting reflects this: the gentleman playing the vicar is a practising vicar in London, the gentleman playing the imam is a devout Muslim and the principal of a Muslim school. We used an actual church and mosque for our scenes within the places of worship."

Oh, Amazon...

Raising Temple Hopes; Mount Lobby; Jewish Tipping Point; Going Dutch with Russia; The No Good Rupee; Taiwan Falls Next; 100 Transgender Salute; Password, Hackedword; Monkeys Walk Again; Removing Old Cells; Swarms of Satellites; and Fast Flier

Israel

Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem breakingisraelnews

Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin jewishvirtuallibrary.org, contacted Breaking Israel News to announce that the election of Trump, who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, coupled with Putin’s expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt, prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.