SpaceX Starship Launch Ends with Explosion
Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft Thursday enjoyed a clean liftoff before exploding minutes later. The rocket made it just 23 miles into the air.
The unpiloted flight of the most powerful rocket ever built lasted more than two minutes before it experienced what a SpaceX engineer called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly, or a RUD, during ascent.”
On Monday, SpaceX had postponed the Starship launch minutes before it was scheduled for liftoff because of what Musk called a problem with a "pressurant valve."
Narrative A
This was an amazing accomplishment by SpaceX, even with the explosion. No one was expecting perfection this time around, but the company’s plans are still on track. With numerous Starship vehicles in production, we could see another test flight soon, and in a few years, we might see manned flights. If anyone’s going to get humans to Mars, it’s Musk and SpaceX.
Narrative B
This launch might be a cause to celebrate, but it’s also a reason not to rush to the next launch without first assessing what went wrong and what needs to be done to continue to assure public safety is protected. That might even mean some form of federal regulation of commercial spaceflight programs.
Nerd narrative
There’s a 70% chance SpaceX will land anything on Mars before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Yemen: Stampede at Ramadan Event Kills at Least 85
On Wednesday, a stampede at a charity event in Yemen’s capital Sana’a killed at least 85 and left over 300 critically injured [with numbers in flux].
Videos shared on social media showed bodies piled up on the streets, bloodstains, shoes, and victims’ clothing scattered on the ground, and people screaming for help as emergency services tried to rescue survivors.
Eyewitnesses claim armed Houthis fired into the air to control the swelling crowd; however, the bullet struck an electrical wire and caused an explosion, sparking panic that sent the people — including women and children — running for their lives.
Establishment-critical narrative
The chaotic stampede — sadly coming just days before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr — could have been avoided if the organizers had coordinated with local authorities about their plan to distribute aid to hundreds of people ahead of time. This latest tragedy simply highlights the suffering of the Yemeni people being exacerbated by US-Saudi aggression.
Pro-establishment narrative
It was ultimately Houthi gunfire that sparked the chaos, and only they can be blamed for this latest tragedy compounding Yemen's already extraordinary humanitarian crisis. This accident must, however, be viewed in its full geopolitical context, and shows why conflict resolution continues to be so challenging in this intractable conflict.
Mysterious Flash Over Kyiv Triggers Speculation
A bright flash briefly lit up the Kyiv sky on Wednesday night, triggering speculation as to whether a satellite or a meteorite was hurtling towards the surface of the Ukrainian capital.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, hinted that the incident was due to a NASA space satellite dropping to Earth. Earlier in the week, the US space agency announced that a retired satellite — the RHESSI spacecraft — would re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday. However, when asked to comment, an agency spokesperson said the satellite was still in orbit at the time the flash was observed.
Elsewhere, in the case of 21-year-old Jack Teixeira — the member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard accused of leaking dozens of Pentagon documents — a federal judge on Wednesday delayed his pre-trial detention hearing by two weeks. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy granted permission for the extension after lawyers for Teixeira asked for more time to review the government's request for detention.
Pro-establishment narrative
US national security agencies are doing everything they can to minimize the damage from the Pentagon leaks and prevent such a disclosure from happening again, including further restricting access to sensitive documents in the future. A disclosure of this type is unlikely to reoccur.
Establishment-critical narrative
It was time for a review of security policies and procedures long before this incident occurred. The damage has now been done, and the episode only serves to highlight how the government has fallen short of protecting its most sensitive secrets.
Nerd narrative
There's a 12% chance that there will be a war between Russia and one or more NATO countries, but not the US, by 2035, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
UNICEF: Drop in Childhood Vaccinations Amid COVID Disruption
According to the UN children agency's (UNICEF) annual State of the World's Children report, some 67M children globally either partially or completely missed routine vaccinations from 2019 to 2021 due to COVID lockdowns and the subsequent disruption of healthcare.
UNICEF also said that, during that same period, the public perception of vaccines for children declined in 52 of the 55 countries surveyed. The organization called it a "worrying warning signal" of rising vaccine hesitancy that had come amid misinformation, dwindling trust in governments, and political polarization.
Besides China, India, and Mexico, where vaccine approval remained steady or improved, the rest of the nations surveyed saw confidence in routine childhood vaccines, for diseases such as measles or diphtheria, decline by as much as 44%.
Pro-establishment narrative
Despite the historic development of COVID vaccines that have saved countless lives, pandemic lockdowns and the subsequent disinformation spread by conspiracy theorists have sent the world backwards. As doctors and scientists are achieving unprecedented amounts of vaccine success, it is important for government leaders and purveyors of public information to provide the most accurate and safe data so that vulnerable children are not harmed by those attempting to disrupt the medical industry's progress.
Establishment-critical narrative
Vaccine hesitancy wasn't on the rise until the US — alongside its global sidekick institutions — began enforcing COVID vaccine mandates for those who clearly didn't need them. It was the government, not fringe conspiracy theorists, who lied about the efficacy of the vaccines, and now they're gaslighting the population into thinking this corrupt scheme never occurred. If the medical establishment wants people to trust it, it shouldn't censor leading scientists who happen to disagree with the Food and Drug Administration.
Nerd narrative
There's a 53% chance that the FDA will authorize a new vaccine targeting COVID-19 in 2023, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Climate Scientists: El Niño Could Bring Record Temperatures in 2023
On Thursday, scientists from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service warned that, with the expected arrival of El Niño later this year, it's possible that Earth could reach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, surpassing the previous hottest year recorded in 2016.
The El Niño weather pattern — which sees winds traveling west near the equator slow and push warm water east, creating higher surface ocean temperatures — is set to follow three years of its counterpart La Niña in the Pacific Ocean, which typically cools global temperatures.
The prediction echoed scientists across the globe, with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology last week claiming that seven different predictive models show sea temperatures will cross the El Niño threshold by August this year, with a 50% chance of the event occurring in 2023.
Narrative A
The record 2016 temperatures from El Niño caused horrific draughts in Ethiopia, cyclones in Fiji, record rain and snowfall in the US, and history's worst coral reef die-off. Some scientists say it's already too late to stop global warming, however, there must be a concerted effort to try to prevent this brief spike from becoming a permanent reality.
Narrative B
While climate change is an urgent issue, journalists and activists have an obligation to separate the facts from fiction and describe environmental problems honestly and accurately. The catastrophic framing of climate change does far more harm than good, not only by impacting the mental health of our youth, but by alienating and polarizing large portions of the population and distracting from other important issues. Climate alarmism must be taken with a grain of salt.
Nerd narrative
There's an 85% chance there will be at least 2˚C of global warming by 2100, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Scientists Discover Why Hair Turns Gray
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, scientists have discovered that “the loss of chameleon-like function" in melanocyte stem cells, or "McSCs," could be contributing to hair losing its color and turning gray during aging.
Scientists found that as hair ages, sheds, and then grows back, such McSCs get stuck in the bulge region of the hair follicles and lose their ability to regenerate into pigment cells and maintain hair color.
Led by scientists from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, the study focused on McSCs in mice and discovered the number of hair follicles with stuck melanocyte stem cells increased from 15% in young hair to over half in aging hair.
Narrative A
This study fills some gaps in the theories surrounding our understanding of how human hair gets and loses its color. The newfound mechanism for hair turning gray raises the possibility of developing a treatment to prevent graying. It might also help with alopecia areata, a medical condition where the immune system attacks the hair and causes it to fall out.
Narrative B
The study's findings must be taken with a grain of salt since hair is a relatively new area of focus for stem cell research, and we still need to understand whether we can replicate these results in humans. Moreover, while scientists may develop new stem cell therapies to restore our hair color in later life, such treatments can be abused by the multi-billion-dollar global cosmetic industry.
US Watchdog ‘Cannot Assure’ Afghanistan Aid Not Going to Taliban
John Sopko, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told the House Oversight Committee presiding over the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan on Wednesday that US aid to the country may, at least partially, be funding the Taliban.
Sopko also criticized the Dept. of State for "obfuscation and delay" regarding access to information in probing the more than $8B in US funding made available to the Afghan people since the 2021 withdrawal, which is supposed to bypass the Taliban.
He also warned that the Taliban is likely diverting funds meant for assistance, which includes aid for food provision, health care, agriculture, civil society, and human rights, away from their intended recipients via customs charges on imports and taxes and fees on nongovernmental organizations.
Republican narrative
The evidence continues to mount that the Biden admin.'s rushed and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan directly led to the fall of Kabul and the Taliban returning to power. There's no excuse for the unjust suffering the Afghan people have endured since then, all because Biden wanted to score some cheap political points, and now it seems he is indirectly supporting the Taliban. This admin. must be held accountable for its continued foreign policy failures.
Democratic narrative
The US' disastrous invasion and occupation of Afghanistan under George W. Bush and hasty Trump-era policies, not Biden's withdrawal, are to blame for the fall of Kabul and the current humanitarian crisis. The fact that Afghan security forces crashed immediately following the US withdrawal indicates that the security situation was simply unsustainable, and the collapse was inevitable. There are, of course, valid criticisms of the withdrawal, but most have been unnecessary partisan attacks against Biden.
Nerd narrative
There's a 25% chance that the United States will recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Launches 2024 Presidential Bid
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — nephew of former US Pres. John F. Kennedy and son of former attorney general and 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, both killed in high-profile assassinations — launched his 2024 presidential bid in Boston on Wednesday.
The 69-year-old environmental lawyer rose to prominence in some circles as a critic of the COVID vaccinations. However, others, including social media firms, allege he and his charity — Children's Health Defense — spread vaccine misinformation.
Taking the stage at the Park Plaza Hotel, Kennedy outlined his goal to "end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country."
Narrative A
Kennedy's chances may be outside odds, however, the power of his family's name is undisputed. He has spent his life fighting for clean air and energy against corporate greed, and with many Americans preferring Biden to step aside, Kennedy's political ambition may have legs.
Narrative B
Kennedy has been publicly denounced by public health experts and even members of his own family as promulgating dangerously misleading — and offensive — information. This isn't a man that should become the Democratic nominee for president. In fact, his ties to right-wing operatives and power brokers must be closely scrutinized.
Nerd narrative
There's a 71% chance that Joe Biden will become the Democratic nominee for the 2024 US Presidential Election, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Schumacher’s Family to Sue Over Fake AI Interview
On Wednesday, the family of Michael Schumacher said they would file suit against the publisher of Die Aktuelle, a German magazine, for running a fake interview with the seven-time F1 champion that was created by artificial intelligence (AI).
Schumacher hasn't been seen publicly since he suffered a near-fatal brain injury in December 2013 while skiing. His medical condition has been kept confidential with his wife, Corinna, focused on protecting his privacy.
The April 15 edition of the magazine featured a picture of a smiling Schumacher on its front cover and a headline promoting “Michael Schumacher, the first interview.”
Narrative A
While this was an undeniably tone-deaf stunt, there’s no reason for legal action. Schumacher is a public figure, and the magazine — fully transparent about the origin of the "interview" — had the right to attract attention by using his name. It seems the family wants privacy except when they agree to sit for interviews for their own documentary, as they did in 2022.
Narrative B
This was a disgusting, self-promoting tactic by Die Aktuelle, and the Schumacher family deserves any damages it can get from the magazine. But beyond the Schumacher family’s predicament, this incident shows how AI can be used for nefarious purposes, and the world must prepare for the blurring of the line between true and fake information.
Nerd narrative
There's an 80% chance that there will be an event precipitated by AI that causes at least 100 deaths and/or at least $1B in economic damage by 2032, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
House Passes Bill Banning Transgender Athletes from Women's Teams
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban transgender athletes who were born male from competing on girls' or women’s sports teams at federally supported schools and colleges.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) sponsored the Protection of Women and Girls Sports Act, which would amend Title IX to prohibit schools from allowing people “whose sex is male” from participating in sports designated for females.
The bill defines a person’s sex based solely on his reproductive biology and genetics at birth. However, transgender students would still be able to practice or train with a program designated for girls and women.
Republican narrative
The GOP is on the side of fairness and sanity as it passes the Protection of Women and Girls Sports Act. The biological differences between men and women are apparent, and we see these differences so starkly when a biological male competes against a woman. This legislation is a victory not only for women but also for science and decency.
Democratic narrative
This act is just the GOP’s latest attack on the rights of transgender people. The GOP is not concerned with fairness to women; it's only concerned with promoting a political agenda. Transgender students don't harm their cisgender counterparts in any way, but this legislation strips this demographic of their rights to play on teams that align with who they are.