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New Powder That Captures Carbon Could Be ‘Quantum Leap’ for Industry: Chemist (Maria)
The author writes, “An innocuous yellow powder, created in a lab, could be a new way to combat the climate crisis by absorbing carbon from the air. Just half a pound of the stuff may remove as much carbon dioxide as a tree can, according to early tests. … ‘This really addresses a major problem in the tech field, and it gives an opportunity now for us to scale it up and start using it,’ says Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s not the first material to absorb carbon, but ‘it’s a quantum leap ahead [of other compounds] in terms of the durability of the material.’ The powder is known as a covalent organic framework, with strong chemical bonds that pull gases out of the air. [It] is both durable and porous, and can be used hundreds of times.”
Trump’s Decision To Tap Kash Patel for FBI Director Sends Shockwaves Through Washington (Reader Jim)
The author writes, “President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Saturday that he intends to nominate Kash Patel as FBI director sent shockwaves through Washington over the weekend, prompting outrage from Democrats and even some former Trump officials, while some loyalists insisted they believed Patel would be confirmed by the Senate. Patel, a 44-year-old who served in intelligence and defense roles in Trump’s first term, is a controversial figure even within Trump’s world, and a former U.S. official described him as ‘by far the most dangerous pick’ Trump has made.”
The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump (Russ)
From The Atlantic: “Kash Patel was dangerous. On this both Trump appointees and career officials could agree. A … lawyer with little government experience, he joined the administration in 2019 and rose rapidly. Each new title set off new alarms.”
How Trump’s War on the Media Is Expected to Ramp up in His Second Term (Laura)
From The Conversation: “Donald Trump’s second term promises to deliver historic threats to US press freedom — directly from the Oval Office. The president-elect made it clear during the campaign that he had the press in his sights. He told a rally on the eve of the election that he ‘wouldn’t mind’ if an assassin shot the journalists standing in front of him. Ahead of the election, he also signalled his desire to jail journalists, hunt down their confidential sources, cancel the broadcast licences of major networks and criminalise work to counter disinformation.”
Defending International Law in 2024 (Sean)
The author writes, “Because no state can afford isolation, all states experience the existential necessity to be perceived as orderly participants in international relations, as reliable partners. The broader a state’s disregard for the international order — and thereby for the order-upholding participants — is displayed, the greater the ensuing isolation and loss of legitimacy will be.”
A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments. (DonkeyHotey)
From ProPublica: “Thirty-five-year-old Porsha Ngumezi’s case raises questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to avoid standard care even in straightforward miscarriages.”
Astronomers Discover a ‘Newborn’ World, the Youngest Known Transiting Exoplanet (Dana)
The author writes, “A recent discovery of a ‘newborn’ exoplanet could help scientists explain how our own home world came to be. In a study published [last month] in the journal Nature, astronomers describe the youngest transiting planet ever found. It’s about three million years old — a baby, in cosmic terms. If you imagine Earth as a 50-year-old adult, this world would be a two-week-old infant, in comparison.”
