Parler Users Breached Deep Inside Capitol Building ; Idaho Company to Block Facebook, Twitter for Censorship ; and More Picks 1/13
Parler Users Breached Deep Inside US Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows (Dana)
The author writes, “At least several users of the far-right social network Parler appear to be among the horde of rioters that managed to penetrate deep inside the U.S. Capitol building and into areas normally restricted to the public, according to GPS metadata linked to videos posted to the platform the day of the insurrection in Washington. The data, obtained by a computer hacker through legal means ahead of Parler’s shutdown on Monday, offers a bird’s eye view of its users swarming the Capitol grounds after receiving encouragement from President Trump — and during a violent breach that sent lawmakers and Capitol Hill visitors scrambling amid gunshots and calls for their death.”
Idaho Company to Block Facebook and Twitter for Censorship (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “An internet provider based in northern Idaho, says it will block Facebook and Twitter from its WIFI service for some customers due to claims of censorship. KREM-TV reports that the decision by Your T1 WIFI came after Twitter and Facebook banned President Trump from their platforms due to incitement of violence and undermining the transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden. … The company said Monday it decided to block Facebook and Twitter for customers who request that starting next Wednesday after the company received several calls from customers about both websites.”
Lesbian Teen Who Got Kicked Out by Family Turns Them in as Possible MAGA Rioters (Russ)
From LGBTQ Nation: “An 18-year-old lesbian who says she has been kicked out of her home outed her Trump-loving family members who participated in a violent altercation in D.C. on the even of the MAGA riots at the Capitol last week after she saw pictures of them being shared on social media and people were trying to identify them.”
‘Our History Is Contained There’: Loss of Archives Threatens Native American Tribes (Dan)
The author writes, “The archive, which sits on a 10-acre site at the edge of Lake Washington, is under threat. It is among a dozen federal properties across the US expected to be put up for sale next year after being identified as ‘high value assets,’ a move that could deprive the Native American community in the Pacific north-west of access to critical resources. The archive contains nearly 58,000 cubic feet – or roughly 174m pages – of permanent records generated by federal agencies and courts between the 1860s and 2000s. It is a vast collection that contains key pieces of information about indigenous people in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and even Alaska, after the National Archives in Alaska closed in 2014.”
CRISPR and the Splice to Survive (Bethany)
From the New Yorker: “In the past decade or so, genetic engineering has undergone its own transformation, thanks to CRISPR — shorthand for a suite of techniques, mostly borrowed from bacteria, that make it vastly easier for biohackers and researchers to manipulate DNA. (The acronym stands for ‘clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.’) CRISPR allows its users to snip a stretch of DNA and then either disable the affected sequence or replace it with a new one. … With CRISPR, biologists have already created — among many, many other living things — ants that can’t smell, beagles that put on superhero-like brawn, pigs that resist swine fever, macaques that suffer from sleep disorders, coffee beans that contain no caffeine, salmon that don’t lay eggs, mice that don’t get fat, and bacteria whose genes contain, in code, Eadweard Muybridge’s famous series of photographs showing a horse in motion.”
Malaysian Team Turns Pineapple Waste into Disposable Drone Parts (Dana)
The author writes, “Malaysian researchers have developed a method to transform the fibre found in normally discarded pineapple leaves to make a strong material that can be used to build the frames for unmanned aircraft, or drones. The project, headed by Professor Mohamed Thariq Hameed Sultan at Malaysia’s Putra University, has been trying to find sustainable uses for pineapple waste generated by farmers in Hulu Langat, an area about 65 km (40 miles) from Kuala Lumpur.”
