North Korea
North Korea 'will test missiles weekly', senior official tells BBC bbc
"We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis," Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol told the BBC's John Sudworth. He said that an "all-out war" would result if the US took military action.
[OPINION] America Can’t Do Much About North Korea theatlantic
Holocaust
Trump fails to mention Jews in Holocaust remembrance statement usatoday
In a departure from predecessors on both sides of the political aisle, President Trump’s statement Friday marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day ushmm.org did not mention the deaths of six million Jews — a lapse the head of the Anti-Defamation League adl.org called “puzzling and troubling.”
Also see Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day whitehouse.gov
Abortion
Obama Bars States From Denying Federal Money to Planned Parenthood nytimes
Mindful of the clock ticking down to a Trump presidency, the Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other health clinics that provide abortions. The measure takes effect two days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
According to the department, repealing the rule would require a new rule-making process, or a joint resolution of disapproval by the House and Senate, with concurrence by the new president.
Science
It's official: Your Periodic Table is now obsolete sciencealert
Get ready to ring in 2017 with a brand new Periodic Table iupac.org, because four more elements have officially been added to the seventh row: nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts), and oganesson (Og).
Also see Periodic table expands with elements named after Japan, Moscow, Tennessee phys.org
Russia-Japan
Japan pledges response to 'serious' Russian missile deployment on disputed islands independent.co.uk
The countries are trying to arrange a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next month to settle a 70-year dispute over the islands, which were claimed by the Soviets after Second World War and lie just north of Japan.
Also see Military build-up in the Kuril Islands: Bad timing or a signal from Moscow? rbth
CRISPR
Chinese scientists use gene-editing techniques in humans for first time cnn
On October 28, genetically modified cells were injected into a patient at the West China Hospital in Chengdu with aggressive lung cancer, according to the scientific journal Nature.
Liao Zhilin, who handles communications for the team, told CNN "everything is going as planned," but would not go into details.
Creation
Giant Volcano Appears to Be Filled With Water gizmodo
Investigating a strange electrical anomaly, geologists have discovered an enormous water reservoir beneath the now-dormant Uturunco volcano in the Bolivian Andes. It’s a remarkable find that speaks to the vast amounts of water stored in Earth’s deep interior, possibly since our planet was formed.
“It’s probably somewhere between Lake Superior and Lake Huron,” Jon Blundy, a geologist at the University of Bristol and co-author on the new discovery published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, told New Scientist. “It’s a staggeringly large amount.”
Society
[Ireland] 'Gay cake' appeal: Christian bakers Ashers lose appeal bbc v
Reacting to the ruling, Daniel McArthur from Ashers said he was "extremely disappointed" adding that it undermined "democratic freedom, religious freedom and free speech".
Russia
Putin shuns Paris visit after France offers talks only on Syria in.reuters
"I made it known to Mr Putin that if he came to Paris, I would not accompany him to any ceremonies, but that I was ready to continue the dialogue on Syria. He decided to postpone the visit," Hollande said at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
Also see Putin Cancels France Trip After President Hollande Accuses Russia of War Crimes in Syria time
Privacy
Yahoo 'secretly monitored emails on behalf of the US government' theguardian
The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA nsa.gov) or FBI fbi.gov, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters.
Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency’s demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.
Society
'Modern Family' to feature transgender child actor usatoday
Wednesday's episode will feature transgender actor Jackson Millarker. The 8-year-old Atlanta native will play Tom, a friend of Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) who comes over for a playdate.
Banking
Wells Fargo’s Scandal Is a Harbinger of Doom time v
In the financial sector, scandal is the gift that keeps on giving. Publicly shamed by Senator Elizabeth Warren senate.gov after his bank opened as many as 2 million unauthorized accounts to goose profits, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who had been reluctant to part with any of his own compensation following revelations of the scandal, has finally agreed to give up unvested equity worth about $41 million, and forgo his $2.8 million salary while the bank is being investigated. Warren called the act “a small step in the right direction, but nowhere near real accountability,” and said he should return every dime he’s made during the period where fraud was happening.
Also see California's Sanctions Against Wells Fargo theatlantic and Wells Fargo may not be the end: Clawbacks expected to become a bigger issue usatoday
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.
Refugees
Calais migrants: Work to start on UK-funded wall bbc
Ms Rudd told the Home Affairs Committee the wall was "not a new initiative", but what mattered was making sure the French had the right amount of security to prevent "illegals" trying to get to the UK.
Also see Austria Threatens Hungary With Court Action Over Migrants abcnews.go
History
Two Decades after His Death, Richard Nixon Is Still Setting Precedents politico
Forty-two years after the 37th president resigned in disgrace, and 22 years after he died, there really is a “new Nixon” at last—a new Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, that is, with radically reimagined interactive exhibits telling the story of his life and presidency in the first comprehensive overhaul since it opened in 1990.
...library officials say the new exhibits will move beyond the blatant hagiography that characterized the old Nixon library...to tell history whole. That means a forthright look at Watergate, the bombing of Cambodia and other negative aspects of the Nixon legacy, amounting to an important victory for professional historians who have long battled the band of Nixon loyalists who built the library as a private institution.
Big Data
Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You nytimes
You may think you are discreet about your political views. But Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, has come up with its own determination of your political leanings, based on your activity on the site.
Society
Compromise Reached in Bill to Criminalize Undercover Filming at Abortion Facilities christiannews.net
Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Echo Park) proposed the measure earlier this year in light of the undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress exposing Planned Parenthood’s provision of baby bodily organs to procurement companies.
Archeology
King Solomon-era Palace Found in Biblical Gezer haaretz
The monumental building dates to the 10th century BCE, the era associated with King Solomon, who is famed for bringing wealth and stability to the newly-united kingdom of Israel and Judah. The American archaeological team also found a layer featuring Philistine pottery, lending credence to the biblical account of them living in the city until being vanquished by King David.
Space
SpaceX Signs First Customer for Launch of Refurbished Rocket wsj
Scheduled to occur before the end of the year, the mission announced on Tuesday will be the first one to use the lower stage and nine main engines of a Falcon 9 rocket that experienced the rigors of a blastoff and acceleration through the atmosphere on a previous launch. No other commercial space company or military contractor has achieved such a landmark by recovering and reusing the entire lower stage intact, after an initial orbital flight.
Egypt
Egypt blames EU-Turkey deal for refugee spike euobserver
"You see what has happened as a result of the deal with Turkey. The closing of the Balkan route and the deal in north Africa, the pressure has increased on Egypt," [foreign minister ambassador Hisham Badr] told MEPs in the European parliament's foreign affairs committee.
Robots
Researchers discover machines can learn by simply observing, without being told what to look for sheffield.ac.uk
The discovery, published in the journal Swarm Intelligence springer, takes inspiration from the work of pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, who proposed a test, which a machine could pass if it behaved indistinguishably from a human. In this test, an interrogator exchanges messages with two players in a different room: one human, the other a machine.
AI
Kawasaki Developing Artificial Intelligence For Motorcycles motorcycle
The AI wouldn’t just allow a motorcycle to talk to a rider; Kawasaki kawasaki says the AI will use a technology called an “Emotion Engine” to interpret a rider’s emotions and perhaps even develop its own personality. Cue the “Knight Rider” theme now.
DNA
How DNA could store all the world’s data nature
“We sat down in the bar with napkins and biros,” says Goldman, and started scribbling ideas: “What would you have to do to make that work?” The researchers' biggest worry was that DNA synthesis and sequencing made mistakes as often as 1 in every 100 nucleotides. This would render large-scale data storage hopelessly unreliable — unless they could find a workable error-correction scheme. Could they encode bits into base pairs in a way that would allow them to detect and undo the mistakes? “Within the course of an evening,” says Goldman, “we knew that you could.”
Variation in 'junk' DNA leads to trouble medicalxpress
Although variants are scattered throughout the genome, scientists have largely ignored the stretches of repetitive genetic code once dismissively known as "junk" DNA in their search for differences that influence human health and disease.
A new study shows that variation in these overlooked repetitive regions may also affect human health. These regions can affect the stability of the genome and the proper function of the chromosomes that package genetic material, leading to an increased risk of cancer, birth defects and infertility. The results appear online in the journal Genome Research. genome.cshlp.org
Medical
Contacts May One Day Be Used to Deliver Glaucoma Medication drugs
The new study showed that the drug-dispensing lenses were able to effectively lower the eye pressure in monkeys with glaucoma at least as much as the standard eye drops used to treat the disease.
Reconstructing the 6th century plague from a victim scienmag
Before the infamous Black Death, the first great plague epidemic was the Justinian plague, which, over the course of two centuries, wiped out up to an estimated 50 million (15 percent) of the world's population throughout the Byzantine Empire—-and may have helped speed the decline of the eastern Roman Empire.
No one knows why it disappeared.
Other...
View smart nanotechnology glass is in 250 commercial buildings nextbigfuture v
Interesting, though this is mostly a commercial for the product...
Religious Liberty
We Have Been Warned theamericanconservative
Last year, the Baptist ethicist David Gushee david-gushee.squarespace was quoted by gay New York Times columnist Frank Bruni as saying that “Conservative Christian religion is the last bulwark against full acceptance of L.G.B.T. people.” Gushee has fully embraced gay rights, and doesn’t simply tolerate gay relationships, but affirms their goodness. Now he has written an extraordinarily important column laying out the future for Christians who reject the Sexual Revolution in its latest form.
Censorship
The slow creep and chilling effect of China's censorship dailydot
In the era of smartphones, instantaneous communication, and social media, you would’ve expected this news [Sonam Tso's act of self-immolation] to quickly spread around the world. It didn't. In fact, it was not until early May that civil society groups outside of Tibet were able to verify what had happened to Sonam Tso and alert the world. That was more than six weeks after the event has taken place—an eternity in the digital age.
Society
Princeton begins to remove 'man' from official school material foxnews
As first reported Thursday by the conservative campus news outfit The College Fix, Princeton’s Human Resources and Office of Communications issued a four-page memo princeton.edu filled with examples of gender-neutral terminology that must now be used in official school documents...
Turkey-EU
Give us EU visa freedom in October or abandon migrant deal, Turkey says whbl
[Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] comments in Bild's Monday edition coincide with rising tensions between Ankara and the West that have been exacerbated by the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15. Turkey is incensed by what it sees as an insensitive response from Western allies to the failed putsch, in which 240 people were killed.
Also see Greek Migration Minister: Refugee Flows from Turkey Manageable greece.greekreporter
