Thursday, December 31, 2020

Rep. Louie Gohmert’s Lawsuit Explained; What Will Happen on Jan. 6?—Rick Green on the 2020 Election

Very recommendable! Mr. Green explains what could happen next very well!
Does the vice president the power to decide the election? Presumably, the vice president can when alternative slates of electors are submitted and the election integrity is dubious. 
Why are the Republican state legislators not stepping up in the battle ground states?
The U.S. Supreme Court could even after the inauguration step in and declare the election integrity to be compromised.
A possible scenario: If the seven states, who submitted alternative electors, are thrown out, President Trump wins.
The next president may not be known for the next several months.
Democracy is mobocracy that fis why the U.S. is a constitutional republic!

Pharma Looks to Outer Space to Boost Drug R&D

Recommendable!

"Scientific research in space has thrived over the past decade, but it’s only recently that the pharmaceutical and biotech sector has started getting in on the action, pursuing new ways to study drugs and other medical treatments. Pharma giants including Merck, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi, along with dozens of smaller companies, have all sent experiments to the ISS [International Space Station] to reap the unique benefits of microgravity. Of the 150 or so life science research projects supported in the 2019-2020 fiscal year by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS)—a nonprofit that collaborates with NASA to manage the US National Laboratory on the ISS—more than a third have been led by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies ..."

Pharma Looks to Outer Space to Boost Drug R&D | The Scientist Magazine® There are benefits of studying certain biological processes under microgravity, but whether those advantages outweigh the costs of getting experiments off Earth remains to be seen.

Minnesota legislators say COVID-19 death totals have been inflated in their state, call for an audit

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics! More fiction than fact! I am also of the opinion that the death totals for Covid-19 are totally inflated! In many cases it is not death because of Covid-19, but death with Covid-19 especially when very old deceased persons are concerned.

Take for example this newly elected U.S. Representative Luke Letlow (41 years old) from Louisiana, who was reported to have died of Covid-19 on 12/29/2020. "He did not have any underlying conditions that would have increased his chances of dying from Covid-19". However, "Every few weeks since his initial five-day hospitalization, his lungs begin filling, he starts coughing uncontrollably and runs a low fever. Roughly 18 days later, he spews up greenish-yellow fluid, signaling yet another bout of pneumonia.". "Louisiana Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, who died while battling COVID-19, suffered a heart attack following a procedure, a hospital official said." (Source). It appears Mr. Letlow did not take his Covid-19 infection seriously enough. Why did this 41 year old man have a heart attack? What procedure was it?

Minnesota legislators say COVID-19 death totals have been inflated in their state, call for an audit - TheBlaze

The immense potential and challenges of multimodal AI

Recommendable! One of the latest trends in AI: Combining text, video, audio, and images etc.

"... While systems capable of making these multimodal inferences remain beyond reach, there’s been progress. New research over the past year has advanced the state-of-the-art in multimodal learning, particularly in the subfield of visual question answering (VQA), a computer vision task where a system is given a text-based question about an image and must infer the answer. As it turns out, multimodal learning can carry complementary information or trends, which often only become evident when they’re all included in the learning process. ...
In multimodal systems, computer vision and natural language processing models are trained together on datasets to learn a combined embedding space, or a space occupied by variables representing specific features of the images, text, and other media. ..."

The immense potential and challenges of multimodal AI | VentureBeat

As an infant, she was airlifted to safety. Today she's bringing Ethiopian culture alive in Tel Aviv

Melting pot Israel!

"Born on a roadside during Operation Solomon, which airlifted over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991, Ashager Araro’s start to life was far from conventional. Her name, meaning “going forward” in Amharic, is fitting, given the nature of her birth en route from her family’s small village of Gondar in Ethiopia to the capital of Addis Ababa in hopes of rescue.
One of approximately 160,000 Ethiopian Jews now residing in Israel, Ashager is part of an integral thread in the Jewish state’s historically rich fabric. ...
Graduating at the top of her class as a lieutenant paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces, much of Ashager’s tenacity springs from time spent in a male-dominated unit. ..."

As an infant, she was airlifted to safety. Today she's bringing Ethiopian culture alive in Tel Aviv. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency Ashager Araro says "owning and narrating our own stories has the power to educate, inspire and fend off discrimination — often born from ignorance.”



Wirtschaftsweise Veronika Grimm: Industrie hat Klimaschutz aufgehalten

Wie kann jemand der an den Global Warming hoax oder and die Climate Change Religion glaubt, wirtschaftsweise sein. Ein Unding! 

Zur Erinnerung: Klimaschutz ist ein deutsches Unwort!

Ist Prof. Grimm vielleicht eine Quotenfrau seit April 2020? Natürlich kommt die Frage auf, der Rat der Wirtschaftsweisen ist ja bereits fast paritätisch besetzt (3 Männer, 2 Frauen). Was auch auffällt, sie hat wenig Auslandserfahrung!

Menschlicher Einfallsreichtum wird das Problem lösen. Freie Marktwirtschaft wird die Lösung verkaufen und das "wirtschaftliche Potenzial" ausnutzen! Der Ruf nach mehr Staat ist gänzlich verfehlt! Weniger wäre besser!

"... „Das Geld, das auf dem Tisch liegt, müssen wir jetzt nutzen, um den Wandel hin zu klimaneutralen Technologien stark zu beschleunigen und insbesondere privates Kapital zu mobilisieren“, sagte die Wirtschaftswissenschaftlerin."
Weiss oder versteht diese Wirtschaftsweise nicht, dass es kein Free Lunch gibt! Was für ein Narr ist diese sog. Wirtschaftsweise?

Wirtschaftsweise: Industrie hat Klimaschutz aufgehalten (FAZ) Die Wirtschaftsweise Veronika Grimm macht der deutschen Industrie beim Thema Klimaschutz schwere Vorwürfe. Auch die Politik habe ihren Anteil – das könne sich nun rächen.

Wirtschaftsweise: Industrie hat Klimaschutz aufgehalten (Wirtschaftswoche) In der Nutzung zukunftsfähiger Energietechnologien steckt viel wirtschaftliches Potenzial. Ökonomin Veronika Grimm findet, dass Deutschland das nutzen sollte.

Fußnote: Interessant, dass FAZ und Wirtschaftswoche die gleiche Schlagzeile für diese Artikel gewählt haben!






Latest YouTube censorship of U.S. President Trump

 Here is the what I saw today (12/30/2020) in my daily YouTube notifications of channels I am subscribed to:


Then I clicked on the link of this notification and voila:





Is TURKEY planning the INVASION of GREEK territory in the AEGEAN Sea?

Recommendable! 

What China's Space Ambitions mean to the US with Gordon Chang

Recommendable and concerning! Space dominance sought by China via the moon!

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Boston Dynamics Dancing Robots: Do You Love Me?

Amazing stuff! Well done! This is just the beginning!

U.S. and Western countries biggest foreign policy challenge: Irredentism by Michael Rubin

Recommendable! Good overview article of recent U.S. foreign policy challenges. Rubin covers Turkey, Russia, China, Azerbaijan, Venezuela. Unfortunately, Rubin has solely pointed at U.S. foreign policy challenges while in reality these are challenges to all Western countries!

So, I disagree with Rubin on his remark:
"There is a fine line, however, between restraint and abandonment of global leadership. Trump sprinted across that line, and global security may pay the price."
Au contraire, President has opened the eyes of other Western countries to these challenges. All Western countries have to step up!

"... The problem is irredentism, countries laying claim to former territories and willing to enforce such claims with military force. ..."

Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy challenge: Irredentism | American Enterprise Institute - AEI The United States was never the catalyst for conflict but rather was the lid on the pressure cooker. America’s retreat opens the door to dictators and despots to pursue their own revanchist ideologies.

Want cheaper nuclear energy? Turn the design process into a game

Recommendable! More nuclear power is a very rational and common sense solution to meet world energy demands and reduce carbon emissions!

"... Researchers at MIT and Exelon show that by turning the design process into a game, an AI system can be trained to generate dozens of optimal configurations that can make each rod last about 5 percent longer, saving a typical power plant an estimated $3 million a year, the researchers report. The AI system can also find optimal solutions faster than a human, and quickly modify designs in a safe, simulated environment. ...
Exelon is now testing a beta version of the AI system in a virtual environment that mimics an assembly within a boiling water reactor, and about 200 assemblies within a pressurized water reactor, which is globally the most common type of reactor. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Exelon owns and operates 21 nuclear reactors across the United States. It could be ready to implement the system in a year or two, a company spokesperson says."

"... The methodology is applied on two boiling water reactor assemblies of low-dimensional ( combinations) and high-dimensional ( combinations) natures. The results demonstrate that RL is more effective than SO [stochastic optimization] in solving high dimensional problems, i.e., 10 × 10 assembly, through embedding expert knowledge in form of game rules and effectively exploring the search space. ..."

Want cheaper nuclear energy? Turn the design process into a game | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Researchers show that deep reinforcement learning can be used to design more efficient nuclear reactors.

Here is the link to the respective research paper:

Germany ranks only 8th in per capita Covid-19 vaccinations

Life in the banana republic with SED chancellor Merkel!

How is it possible that Israel, Bahrain, Denmark, Portugal, Canada are all in front of Germany? Not to mention the UK and the U.S.



Israel has given most Covid-19 vaccines per capita

Good news! Bravo Israel! And what is going on in the Banana Republic Germany?

"... As of December 22, Israel had administered the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to 83 citizens out of every 10,000. In second place was the United Kingdom, at 74 out of 10,000. The United States was a distant third, with 30 out of every 10,000 people vaccinated.

On December 23, Bahrain had overtaken Israel in the top spot, with 294 per 10,000, while Israel came in second at 162.

Israel regained the No. 1 spot by December 27, with 4.37 people vaccinated out of 100. Bahrain was second with 3.23, and the UK third with 1.18. By December 28, Israel increased it lead, with 5.68 people per capita getting their first shot. ..."

Israel has given most Covid-19 vaccines per capita - ISRAEL21c



Meet Joe, the drone that herds cattle (or camels)

Is there something a drone cannot do? 😄 Expect more to come!

"... Azran’s company, BeeFree Agro, is developing “Joe,” an autonomous drone system Azran has dubbed the world’s first “click and herd” solution – or, if you will, “Cowboy as a Service.” ...
“They have a problem of camels crossing the highway [in Dubai] and people crashing into them,” ... “With a few adjustments, we found that our system can herd camels, too.” ..."

Meet Joe, the drone that herds cattle (or camels) - ISRAEL21c Two Israeli cowboys introduce drone technology to save time and manpower in the rugged business of cattle (or camel) ranching.

Left-Handed DNA Has a Biological Role Within a Dynamic Genetic Code

Very recommendable! Nice overview article! Left-handed DNA was only discovered in 1970 and appears for a long time was treated more like a curiosity.

"... Whether this bizarre form of DNA existed in cells and had any function, and what that might be, was hotly debated for nearly half a century. But research has recently confirmed its biological relevance. ...
So-called Z-DNA is now thought to play roles in cancer and autoimmune diseases, and last year scientists confirmed its link to three inherited neurological disorders. ..."

Left-Handed DNA Has a Biological Role Within a Dynamic Genetic Code | The Scientist Magazine®

DeepMind's big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab

Recommendable! State of the art AI research is not cheap! And apparently its commercialization is not covering its costs! At least it is Alphabet/Google's contribution to major advances in AI and machine learning.

"... According to its annual report filed with the U.K.’s Companies House register, DeepMind has more than doubled its revenue, raking in £266 million in 2019, up from £103 million in 2018. But the company’s expenses continue to grow as well, increasing from £568 million in 2018 to £717 million in 2019. The company’s overall losses grew from £470 million in 2018 to £477 million in 2019. ..."

DeepMind's big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab | VentureBeat

In a first, a person’s immune system fought HIV — and won

Amazing stuff!

"... Twice, people infected with HIV have had levels of the virus in their bodies drop to undetectable levels after bone marrow transplants, never to return. Now it appears that a person may have cleared functional HIV with no outside help. If true, it would be the first known instance of a spontaneous cure. ...
Analysis of more than 1.5 billion cells taken from a patient known as EC2 showed no functional HIV copies in any of them, researchers report August 26 in Nature. The person still had some nonfunctional copies of the virus. ...
A second person, EC1, had just one functional copy of HIV in more than 1 billion blood cells analyzed. And that copy of HIV was [entrapped] in what is essentially a genetic supermax prison. That genetic lockup may be key to being able to naturally control the virus. ...
Those two people are part of a rare group of people known as elite controllers, meaning they are able to maintain very low or undetectable levels of HIV without antiretroviral drugs. These people have no symptoms or clear signs of damage from the virus. ..."

In a first, a person’s immune system fought HIV — and won | Science News Analysis of 1.5 billion cells from this rare case found no trace of the virus

Here is the link to the respective research article:
Distinct viral reservoirs in individuals with spontaneous control of HIV-1 (The abstract is tough reading for layman like me)

Die Inflation ist nicht tot, sie schläft nur

Das viele westliche Länder viele Jahre/einige Jahrzehnte ohne bemerkenswerte offizielle Inflation heraus gekommen sind ist fast ein Wunder. In den USA wurden zweistellige monatliche Inflationsraten zuletzt in 1981 beobachtet.

Oder ist die Geldentwertung etwa schleichend und weniger bemerkbar? Könnten z.B. steigende Immobilienpreise ein Vorbote sein? 

Die Inflation ist nicht tot, sie schläft nur (Der Kommentar ist behind paywall) Momentan wird die Inflation wie ein Relikt aus längst vergangenen Zeiten betrachtet. Kaum jemand rechnet noch mit dieser Gefahr. Solche Unbekümmertheit ist geschichtsvergessen und gefährlich.

The first room-temperature superconductor has finally been found since 1911

Great news! Notice that the superconductor was made of everyday materials!

Some implications: Human ingenuity trumps Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion!

"Now, scientists have found the first superconductor that operates at room temperature — at least given a fairly chilly room. The material is superconducting below temperatures of about 15° Celsius  ...
[researchers] formed the superconductor by squeezing carbon, hydrogen and sulfur between the tips of two diamonds [diamond anvil cell] and hitting the material with laser light to induce chemical reactions. At a pressure about 2.6 million times that of Earth’s atmosphere [267 ± 10 gigapascals
], and temperatures below about 15° C, the electrical resistance vanished. ...
The scientists were not able to determine the exact composition of the material or how its atoms are arranged, making it difficult to explain how it can be superconducting at such relatively high temperatures. Future work will focus on describing the material more completely ...
If a room-temperature superconductor could be used at atmospheric pressure, it could save vast amounts of energy lost to resistance in the electrical grid. ..."

The first room-temperature superconductor has finally been found | Science News The compound conducts electricity without resistance up to 15° C, but only under high pressure

Here is the link to the respective research paper:
Room-temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfur hydride (public access to full article here)

A peek into the diamond anvil cell


Kostenlose Tampons für alle? Debatte um Hygieneartikel

Warum nicht kostenlose Rasierapparate für Männer! Viele Männer sind nicht begeistert von Bartstoppeln und dem Zwang sich täglich or sehr oft rasieren zu müssen.

"Kostenlos" lachhaft! Welch eine Verdummung!

Was können wir alles "kostenlos" vom Staat bekommen? Ein Staat der dir alles geben kann, kann dir auch alles nehmen (siehe z.B. hier, hier)! So viel Naivität und Einfalt!

Another wake up call to all men of the world! Beware the battle of the sexes! Women's empowerment is men's subjugation! Gone are the days of unreflective chivalry!

Kostenlose Tampons für alle? Debatte um Hygieneartikel Frei zugängliche Tampons für alle? Manche finden das nicht gut. Andere regen sich darüber auf. Dabei sollte die Antwort klar sein. Und den wichtigsten Punkt streift die Debatte gar nicht erst.

Ronald Reagan's Remarks "The Myth of the Great Society" 1966

Very recommendable! Great early speech! President Reagan was one of the best U.S. presidents of the 20th century and beyond. "We have been sucker Republicans!" and many other memorable remarks! Will the Republicans still or again be sucker Republicans when the Dimocrats stole the 2020 presidential election?

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

About 400,000 Arizonans or 6% of Arizona's Population are naturally immune to Covid-19 as of 12/29/2020

Good news! Or about every 17th person in Arizona is naturally immunized by now. Thus, natural immunity has already reached a high level in Arizona and probably in many other parts of the world! Let's not forget SARS-CoV-2 is overall a fairly harmless virus!

I did a very rough back of the envelope calculation. Why is the general public not provided with similar and much better model projections about the trajectory of Covid-19? Why this public misinformation!

Main presumptions:

  1. An infected person is infectious for 10 days
  2. On average there are about 6,000 new confirmed cases per day that translates into 60,000 infected people in Arizona on any given day
  3. I assumed for this calculation, there would be 100,000 total infected persons in Arizona on 12/29/2020

Population7,400,000
Confirmed Cases507,000
Active Cases100,000
Recovered407,000
Recovered/Pop6%

‘Last Jewish cowboy’ of Arizona passed away

Unfortunately, the last Jewish cowboy of Arizona Harvey Dietrich just passed away! May he rest in peace! In Memoriam: Harvey Dietrich, 1934-2020

"Harvey Dietrich discusses how he got started in the meat packing and cattle industry in Los Angeles during the 1950s. He talks about some of the companies he has worked for, including the Globe Packing Company in Los Angeles and Highland and Highland Meat Packing Company in Arizona.  ..."

‘Last Jewish cowboy’ couple honored with newly named award | Honors | jewishaz.com

Here is some captured oral history about this cowboy:

Statue of freed slave kneeling before Lincoln is removed in Boston

The iconoclasm and damnatio memoriae of our time continues! It is medieval ages or totalitarianism of the 20th century all over again! And this is happening repeatedly in America in the 21st century! Very appalling!
This ridiculous iconoclasm in the U.S. needs to stop!

The mayor of Boston Marty Walsh, what a wimp! Hope, he never runs for president!

Unfortunately, the Boston Herald article does not say what will happen to the statue after removal.

"A statue of Abraham Lincoln with a freed slave appearing to kneel at his feet — optics that drew objections amid a national reckoning with racial injustice — has been removed from its perch in downtown Boston.
Workers removed the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Emancipation Group and the Freedman’s Memorial, early Tuesday from a park just off Boston Common where it had stood since 1879.
City officials had agreed in late June to take down the memorial after complaints and a bitter debate over the design. Mayor Marty Walsh acknowledged at the time that the statue made residents and visitors alike “uncomfortable.” ...
Freed Black donors paid for the original in Washington; white politician and circus showman Moses Kimball financed the copy in Boston. The inscription on both reads: “A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors.” ..."

Statue of freed slave kneeling before Lincoln is removed in Boston



Ideological and political indoctrination by Node.js

Today, I looked into downloading the open source Node.js, a major Javascript runtime environment, for my current Google Apps Script programming tasks! To my horror, I was confronted with following ideological indoctrination (see roughly center of screenshot below)! Node.js is sponsored by many well known corporations! Among the Open JS Foundation (Node.JS is a project of this foundation) Platinum Members are Google, Microsoft, IBM ...

I blogged here about a Black Lives Matter retort!



Nutella, Ferreros wichtigstes Produkt, wird 75 Jahre alt

Als Nutella Gourmet/Gourmand feiere ich natürlich diesen besonderen Geburtstag! Costco sells two 750 gram jars for about $13, great deal!

Nutella, Ferreros wichtigstes Produkt, wird 75 Jahre alt Vor 75 Jahren verkaufte der italienische Konditor Pietro Ferrero sein erstes Brot mit Nougatcreme. Eine Erfindung mit Folgen.

Altenheime als Hotspots - „Die Verordnung über Schnelltests für Mitarbeiter kam viel zu spät“

Leben in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland mit der SED Kanzlerin Merkel! Warum wurden Altenheime oder Entwicklung von Impfstoffen oder contact tracing usw. erheblich vernachlässigt?

Altenheime als Hotspots - „Die Verordnung über Schnelltests für Mitarbeiter kam viel zu spät“ | Cicero Online Noch immer hat sich jeder zweite Corona-Tote zuvor in einem Alten-und Pflegeheim infiziert. Dabei hat die Regierung die Alten längst im Visier. Im Interview erzählt die Leiterin eines Altenheims in Berlin, warum sie der Politik nicht mehr vertraut und auf ihr eigenes Krisenmanagement setzt.

Video: Pelosi's Bizarre Meltdown on CNN

When will the Dimocratic Party finally get rid of this weird woman, i.e. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi!

Video: Pelosi's Bizarre Meltdown on CNN | Frontpagemag House Speaker goes full lunatic on Wolf Blitzer.

ConocoPhillips makes Norway oil discovery of up to 200 million barrels

So much for the peak oil hoax! The Norwegian Sea oil fields have been heavily explored and drilled since 1851. It is thus a great surprise that new oil reservoirs were discovered in those fields!

"... It was the second petroleum discovery made by ConocoPhillips in the Norwegian Sea in two months. In November, the U.S. firm found natural gas southwest of the Skarv field."

ConocoPhillips makes Norway oil discovery of up to 200 million barrels | Reuters ConocoPhillips made an oil discovery in the Norwegian Sea north of the Heidrun field, the country’s Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Tuesday.

AfD-Chef Tino Chrupalla: «Der Staat bezahlt Spitzel, die die Opposition ausspähen, das erinnert mich an die DDR»

Die Bananenrepublik Deutschland macht Schlagzeilen in der Schweiz!

AfD-Chef Tino Chrupalla: «Das erinnert mich an die DDR» (behind paywall) Der Malermeister Tino Chrupalla ist seit einem Jahr Co-Vorsitzender der AfD. Im Interview spricht er über die Flügelkämpfe seiner Partei, die drohende Beobachtung durch den Inlandsgeheimdienst und sein Treffen mit dem russischen Aussenminister in Moskau.

Our Upside-Down Postelection World by Victor Davis Hanson

Recommendable! A typical VDH acerbic critique! Yes, you have to wonder what happened in America! The Common sense like that of Thomas Paine is out of the window! Enjoy and behold!

Our Upside-Down Postelection World Why ask a [presumed next] president [Biden] whether he is a traitor or a crook when you can focus on his favorite flavor of milkshake or compliment him on his socks?

New data reveals Russia's COVID death toll is actually 3 times higher than what Moscow has reported

What goes on in the land of Putin the Terrible?

New data reveals Russia's COVID death toll is actually 3 times higher than what Moscow has reported - TheBlaze

Vote Manipulation Michigan Style-8: Election Workers Testimony 3

Recommendable! This November 2020 election is far from being over!

Prager University: What Is Big Green?

Very recommendable! What a concise eye opener! Yes, environmentalism in its many manifestations is a form of totalitarianism! It is a Big Government ideology like communism or socialism!

Donald Trump - Mainstream Media Nightmare

Very recommendable! President Trump's constant fight against the pompous, relentless fake news media for four years! So many journalists have turned out to be fools and ideological activists! We owe President Trump great debt for having exposed this like no other president in recent memory! News media will never be the same again! Main stream media is passe! New news media are emerging ...

Pardoned By Trump, Former Border Patrol Agent Speaks Out: 'I'd Do It Again, Exactly The Same Way'

Recommendable! You will not believe some of what this former border patrol agent Gary Brugman is telling! E.g. that a prosecutors used testimony from a career criminal against him, while the prosecutor overlooked new crimes committed by same so called witness. Deeply troubling if true! Such prosecutors need to go to jail!

Monday, December 28, 2020

Taking our country back | Grant Stinchfield

Very recommendable! It is 1776 again!

The 1657 Religious Magna Carta of the New World by Lawrence Reed

Very recommendable! Another example why religious freedom is so important even in the 21st century!

"... With those words, Edward Hart, the town clerk of what is now the Queens neighborhood of Flushing, New York, began a powerful 650-word document known as the Flushing Remonstrance. It was December 27, 1657. Hart wrote on behalf of the 30 inhabitants of the village who also boldly signed their name below his.
This was a defiant shot across the bow of the state, personified by Governor Stuyvesant. It was an act of resistance and an early declaration in favor of the freedom of peaceful worship. Moreover, it was not a self-serving stand for the freedom of those who signed it (none of them were Quakers), but rather a defense of the freedom of others. ...
If you are inclined to stop reading because freedom of peaceful worship is not important to you—perhaps you are not of any faith or you believe your faith is not threatened—think again. Freedom in one sense is indivisible; a successful attack on one of its elements invites assaults on the others. Allow the state to breach one wall of freedom’s fortress and you have invited it inside, where its agents will work to bring down the remaining walls. ..."

The Religious Magna Carta of the New World - Foundation for Economic Education A governor [Peter Stuyvesant] demanded religious persecution of the Quakers. The citizens of Flushing refused.

China Sentences Citizen-Journalist Zhang Zhan For Years in Prions For Challenging China’s State COVID-19 Narrative

This is what happens in the country of the totalitarian dictator for life Xi Jinpeng!
Support Zhang Zhan! May God have mercy on her!

China Sentences Citizen-Journalist For Challenging China’s State COVID-19 Narrative | The Daily Caller

Why is Dr. Fauci getting a Covid-19 shot for himself as one of the first?

It is incredible! He was one of the first to receive a Covid-19 shot on December 22, 2020! Given that he is 80 years old, but why him? This life-long director man has been such an embarrassment, such a clown since the outbreak of Covid-19! Of course, it had to be the chief of the NIH Occupational Medical Service to administer this shot to him!


"... The shot, which Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received in the left arm, was administered at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, by Dr. Heike Bailin, chief of the NIH Occupational Medical Services. ..."

Hamas feuert Raketen auf Israel - was macht die deutsche Presse daraus?

Empfehlenswert!

"... Das Recht auf Selbstverteidigung, das jedem souveränen Staat selbstverständlich zugestanden wird, stellt für deutsche Journalisten im Falle von Israel offenbar eine offensiv-aggressive Kampfhandlung dar. Diese Täter-Opfer-Umkehr passt einfach zu gut ins Weltbild: Israel als großer, brutaler Aggressor und die Palästinenser als armes Volk, dass nach Lust und Laune der israelischen Armee willkürlich beschossen wird. ..."

Hamas feuert Raketen auf Israel - was macht die deutsche Presse daraus? Wenn durch geschicktes Weglassen eine Abwehrreaktion zu einer Attacke umgedeutet wird, offenbaren deutsche Medien ihr verqueres antiisraelisches Denken.

Oddities in the high level statistical analysis of the 2020 U.S. presidential elections

There are indeed some significant oddities that make you wonder about election integrity and whether Joseph Biden indeed won fair and square! It is strongly advisable to fully investigate the November 2020 elections!

I am not sure that the impromptu and massive switch to mail-in voting due to Covid-19 excuse can easily explain all these oddities. Or was it the Covid-19 pandemic. Or were there so many GOP voters frustrated with President Trump that they split their votes ...

The only other period since 1960, where we observe comparable dramatic voting results were the 1964 (assassination of John F. Kennedy), 1968 (Vietnam war, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.), and the 1972 election (Nixon, who faced a then quite extreme and negative news suffering  Democratic opponent whose name barely anyone remembers).

My limited scope high level statistical analysis is based on following data:

  1. Total votes for the entire country for the Republican and the Democratic candidate
  2. Voting age population as a rough proxy for the total number of eligible voters (As a footnote: actual data of eligible voters (citizens) for the entire U.S. is hard to come by, which surprised me)
  3. All presidential elections since 1960 or the 16 most recent elections were included in the study
Some general facts about the 2020 U.S. general elections:
  1. The voting age population turnout rate was very high at 61%. Very high in historical context. Only the three 1960s elections reached >= 60%. For comparison, the Obama 2008 election achieved just under 60% turnout
  2. Both presidential candidates had excellent results in 2020. Trump achieved the 4th best voting result relative to voting age population of any Republican candidate since 1960 with 29.1%. However, for Biden it was the 2nd best for any Democratic candidate since 1960 with 31.8% (Johnson with 37.9% was the best in 1964, third best was Kennedy with 31.6% in 1960).
  3. About 26.5 million more votes were cast in 2020 compared to 2016. That is equivalent to about 10.4% of voting age population. This is by far the largest difference between two elections ever observed since 1960. The 2nd largest change was only 8.9% in 2004. The average is 4.2% since 1960.
  4. Biden won with about 81.3 million votes total and by about 15.4 million more votes (or about 6% of the voting age population) than the winner by popular vote of the 2016 election. This is another historically astonishing result. The last time a candidate reached 6% or higher was Reagan's reelection in 1984 with 6.1%. The average over the 16 elections since 1960 is only 4.3%. There were only three other elections over 5%, i.e. 1964 with 7.8%, 1968 with 9.4% and 1972 with 11%.
Further analysis shows:
  1. Comparing the ranking of both candidates by political party in terms of total votes received relative to voting age population, one discovers that they were only 2 apart (Trump's 4th best result compared to Biden's 2nd best result, see above). When one of the candidates has an exceptional voting result, the other one usually does not. When you look at the four best results for any candidate since 1960, then you get in 1960 a difference of 1 (i.e. Kennedy ranked 3rd, Nixon ranked 2nd), in 1964 the difference was 13 (Johnson ranked 1st, Goldwater ranked 14th), in 1972 it was 15 (Nixon ranked 1st, McGovern ranked 14th), in 1984 it was 12 (Reagan 3rd, Mondale 15th) and in 2008 it was 6 (Obama 4th, McCain 10th)
  2. Biden won 15,4 million more votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 equivalent to about 6% of voting age population. Only two other Democratic candidates since 1960 pulled off a better result: Johnson (1960 with 7.8%) and Carter (1976 with 7.8%). 
I intend to add a spreadsheet later to document and in support of my statistical analysis. Here it is a link to my table:

History's Forgotten Impressionists with Waldemar Januszczak

Very recommendable! Degas, Gauguin, one lesser known male impressionist, and three female impressionists. Plenty of lesser known paintings and other artifacts ...

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Video shows officials can change votes; Election witnesses alarmed by irregularities

More examples of voting irregularities during the November 2020 elections!

English for trippers: Old soul, new sole

 


Steigende Kosten: Bundeswehr gibt weiteres Drohnen-Projekt auf

Deutschland hatte einmal eine weltführende Rüstungsindustrie! Warum hat Deutschland keine selbst entwickelten Verteidigungs- und Kampfdrohnen? Stattdessen ist das kleine Israel ein Weltklasse Hersteller von Drohnen.
Baut weiter Windmühlen in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland! 

"... Dazu war der Kauf von bis zu vier Drohnen der größten Klasse HALE vorgesehen; basierend auf dem amerikanischen System Global Hawk. Entsprechende Planungen wurden 2012 bekannt. Die Militärplaner rechneten mit 566 Millionen Euro für die Umsetzung. Dieses Vorhaben hat die Bundeswehr nun aufgegeben. ..."

Steigende Kosten: Bundeswehr gibt weiteres Drohnen-Projekt auf Die Bundesregierung hat das Vorhaben aufgegeben, bis zu vier hochfliegende IMINT-Drohnen zur optischen Aufklärung zu beschaffen.

Trump Urges GOP Senators to ‘Step Up and Fight for the Presidency’

Very recommendable! 

Yes, were are the GOP U.S. Senators when you need them. What are they waiting for! So far it appears only U.S. Representatives have come out openly to declare they will oppose the electoral college votes!

"President Donald Trump on Saturday called on Republican senators to “step up and fight for the presidency” as they continue to distance themselves from efforts to challenge electoral college votes on Jan. 6.

“Time for Republican Senators to step up and fight for the Presidency, like the Democrats would do if they had actually won,” Trump wrote in a series of Twitter posts.

“The proof is irrefutable! Massive late night mail-in ballot drops in swing states, stuffing the ballot boxes (on video), double voters, dead voters, fake signatures, illegal immigrant voters, banned Republican vote watchers, MORE VOTES THAN ACTUAL VOTERS (check out Detroit & Philadelphia), and much more. ...

Courts are bad, the FBI and ‘Justice’ didn’t do their job, and the United States Election System looks like that of a third world country. Freedom of the press has been gone for a long time, it is Fake News, and now we have Big Tech (with Section 230) to deal with. ..."

Trump Urges GOP Senators to ‘Step Up and Fight for the Presidency’

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Tucker Carlson: The Most Brilliant Prediction of 2020

Very recommendable! Good summary of the year of 2020 as far as the November elections are concerned!

Brain Co-Processors: Using AI to Restore and Augment Brain Function

I did not have the time to read the 38 page pre-print research paper, but the abstract sounds interesting! This research was done at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. According to the authors it will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming Handbook of Neuroengineering.

"... Brain co-processors can be used for a range of applications, from inducing Hebbian plasticity for rehabilitation after brain injury to reanimating paralyzed limbs and enhancing memory. A key challenge is simultaneous multi-channel neural decoding and encoding for optimization of external behavioral or task-related goals. We describe a new framework for developing brain co-processors based on artificial neural networks, deep learning and reinforcement learning. These "neural co-processors" allow joint optimization of cost functions with the nervous system to achieve desired behaviors. ..."

[2012.03378] Brain Co-Processors: Using AI to Restore and Augment Brain Function

Verband der Stahlverarbeiter warnt: Der Stahl ist knapp

Was ist aus der Stahlproduktion in Deutschland geworden? Z.B. in vergangenen Jahrzehnten haben Indische Geschäftsleute deutsche Firmen aufgekauft (Mittal) usw.

"Die deutschen Stahlverarbeiter klagen über Nachschubprobleme. Nicht nur bei zusätzlich bestellten Stahlmengen gebe es Lieferzeiten von mehreren Monaten, berichtete der Wirtschaftsverband Stahl- und Metallverarbeitung (WSM) am Montag. Auch bei schon geschlossenen Verträgen komme es zu Verzögerungen und verringerten Zuteilungen. Die Beschaffungskosten seien deshalb zuletzt stark gestiegen. Während zunächst vor allem Flachstahl betroffen gewesen sei, breite sich das Problem nun auch auf Produkte wie Walzdraht und auf Spezialstähle aus. ...
Aus Sicht der Stahlverarbeiter wird die Lage für sie dadurch erschwert, dass die Einfuhr von Stahl aus Drittländern begrenzt beziehungsweise mit Einfuhrzöllen belegt wurde. Das heize die Situation zusätzlich an. „Stahl ist weltweit in kürzester Zeit zum knappen Gut geworden“, sagte Vietmeyer. Einen so starken Umschwung habe es zuletzt nach der Finanzkrise 2009 gegeben."

Verband warnt: Der Stahl ist knapp Die Stahlerzeugung kommt nicht hinterher, klagen die Stahlverarbeiter. Die Beschaffungskosten steigen. Einfuhrzölle erschweren die Lage. Doch die Engpässe gibt es offenbar nicht nur in Deutschland.

ISS: Beim 3D-Druck im Weltraum passiert Erstaunliches

Good news! The last frontier: Manufacturing in space!

"... Mit dem Ceramic Manufacturing Module (CMM) stellten Astronauten auf der Internationalen Raumstation ISS mittels Stereolithographie und vorkeramischen Harzen einen einteiligen Keramik-Turbinen-Blisk im Orbit her, zusammen mit einer Reihe von Materialtest-Abschnitten. ...
Turbinenteile, die auf diese Weise hergestellt werden, dürften eine höhere Festigkeit und geringere Eigenspannungen aufweisen, weil durch die Schwerkraft verursachte Defekte wie Ablagerungen und Zusammensetzungsgradienten beseitigt werden."

ISS: Beim 3D-Druck im Weltraum passiert Erstaunliches - ingenieur.de Erstmals wurden Keramikteile mit einem 3D-Drucker im All hergestellt. Das könnte die Industrie maßgeblich verändern: Denn die Komponenten aus dem All sind ganz anders als die von der Erde.

Distinct Microbiome and Metabolites Linked with Depression

Amazing stuff! Do you have the guts? The microbiome is one of the wonders of human life!

"... Over the past decade, researchers have linked disturbances within this complicated microbial society to a variety of diseases. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one such condition, but the studies have been small and the findings imprecise. A study published December 2 in Science Advances changes all that with its vivid description of a distinct microbiome associated with major depressive disorder, as well as the profile of molecules these organisms produce. The researchers were able to use this microbial “fingerprint” to distinguish between individuals with MDD and healthy controls, solely on the composition of a few microbes and compounds in their fecal matter. ..."

"... Here, using whole-genome shotgun metagenomic and untargeted metabolomic methods, we identified 3 bacteriophages, 47 bacterial species, and 50 fecal metabolites showing notable differences in abundance between MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs). ...
Furthermore, we identified a combinatorial marker panel that robustly discriminated MDD from HC individuals in both the discovery and validation sets."

Distinct Microbiome and Metabolites Linked with Depression | The Scientist Magazine® The gastrointestinal tracts of people with major depressive disorder harbor a signature composition of viruses, bacteria, and their metabolic products, according to the most comprehensive genomic and metabolomic analysis in depression to date.

Here is a link to the respective research paper:

Friday, December 25, 2020

Coffee and the Maya in Guatemala

Recommendable! Perhaps after watching this documentary your coffee will taste even better! Germans were apparently running coffee growing in Guatemala before World War II. A Swiss man has spent 30 years of his life to help to establish viable coffee cooperatives.

Machine learning and big data are unlocking Europe’s archives of handwritten documents

Good news! Looking forward to the many discoveries this work will surely reveal! 

The first 500 pages of transcriptions are free, however, you may have to train the model on up to several hundred pages first.

"... Transkribus is the result of the READ project’s work to develop new technology to better recognise and automatically transcribe handwritten documents. These transcriptions can then help researchers better search for words or phrases among the billions of pages stored across the continent’s archives.  ..."

"... Transkribus launched in 2015 as a collaboration between 17 archives, universities, and research groups across Europe. Some 45,000 users have trained 7,700 models so far.
Why it matters: Most optical character recognition approaches perform poorly on the millions of handwriting styles represented in historical archives. By transcribing and making these documents searchable and sortable, machine learning is helping to deepen our understanding of past people and events. ...
This platform could also be a gift to amateur historians with shoeboxes full of their forebears’ diaries, documents, and love letters."

Machine learning and big data are unlocking Europe’s archives | Horizon: the EU Research & Innovation magazine | European Commission

Credits to Andrew Ng's newsletter The Batch!

Insects Pass Antiviral Immunity to Offspring

Amazing stuff! Something to learn from insects!

"Transgenerational immune priming (TGIP) allows memory-like immune responses to be transmitted from parents to offspring in many invertebrates. ...
Here, we show that Drosophila melanogaster and Aedes aegypti transmit antiviral immunological memory to their progeny that lasts throughout generations. We observe that TGIP, which is virus and sequence specific but RNAi independent, is initiated by a single exposure to disparate RNA viruses and also by inoculation of a fragment of viral double-stranded RNA. The progeny, which inherit a viral DNA that is only a fragment of the viral RNA used to infect the parents, display enriched expression of genes related to chromatin and DNA binding. ..."

Insects Pass Antiviral Immunity to Offspring | The Scientist Magazine® In both Drosophila and mosquitoes, protection lasts for generations following a single maternal exposure to positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses.

Here is the respective research article:

Israel on the verge of 4th election in 2 years

When is too many, too many? What will be the impact on democracy in Israel?

Are these repeated attempts with the "goal of unseating Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has managed to hold on to power despite being in the middle of a corruption trial." not too much and not too damaging?

"... The lack of a deal, or a delayed deadline, means the country appears to be headed toward its fourth election in two years. The new election would likely take place on March 23, 2021. ..."

It's (almost) official: As key deadline approaches, Israel on verge of 4th elections in 2 years - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New Protocol Advances Toward Lab-Made Universal Red Blood Cells

Good news! This research apparently originated in Singapore. One of the researchers involved in this study "... has patents for the techniques used in this study, and is the founder of Zenzic Labs and SingCell, two Singapore-based biotechnology companies working with stem cells."
It appears, humanity will soon be able to produce as much universal red blood cells as needed!

"Universal red blood cells (RBCs) differentiated from O-negative human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) could find applications in transfusion medicine. ...
We have developed a scalable suspension agitation culture platform for differentiating hiPSC-microcarrier aggregates into functional RBCs and have demonstrated scalability of the process starting with 6 well plates and finally demonstrating in 500 mL spinner flasks. ..."

New Protocol Advances Toward Lab-Made Universal Red Blood Cells | The Scientist Magazine® Researchers report a new way of generating the cells from induced pluripotent stem cells in hopes they will one day be used in blood transfusions.

Here is the respective research paper:

Wie MacKenzie Scott ihre Amazon Milliarden einsetzen will

Empfehlenswert! Wie das Vermögen von Jeff Bezos (Amazon) freiwillig verteilt wird!

Was ist hier etwas schockierend ist die folgende, nicht representative Umfrage der FAZ, die den Artikel begleitet:
Angeblich sind 62% der Antwortenden dafür privates Eigentum zu missachten! Das ist Raubrittertum oder schlicht Meinungsmanipulation (steckt China, Russland, Iran, Nordkorea etc. etwa dahinter?)


Wie MacKenzie Scott ihre Milliarden einsetzen will MÄZENATIN. Die frühere Frau von Amazon-Chef Jeff Bezos hat sich in kurzer Zeit als einflussreiche Wohltäterin profiliert. Sie verfolgt dabei einen ganz anderen Ansatz als Stifter wie Bill und Melinda Gates.

A new iron-based catalyst converts carbon dioxide into jet fuel

Problem solved thanks to human ingenuity! Other, alternative solutions have already been developed or will emerge! 

Perhaps, one day we have planes that convert carbon dioxide into fuel as they fly! How about that!

Will the Global Warming hoax and the Climate Change religion finally end up in the dustbin of history, where it belongs!

"... Past attempts to convert carbon dioxide into fuel have relied on catalysts made of relatively expensive materials, like cobalt, and required multiple chemical processing steps. The new catalyst powder is made of inexpensive ingredients, including iron, and transforms CO2 in a single step. ..."

"... We report here a synthetic protocol to the fixation of carbon dioxide by converting it directly into aviation jet fuel using novel, inexpensive iron-based catalysts. We prepare the Fe-Mn-K catalyst by the so-called Organic Combustion Method, and the catalyst shows a carbon dioxide conversion through hydrogenation to hydrocarbons in the aviation jet fuel range of 38.2%, with a yield of 17.2%, and a selectivity of 47.8%, and with an attendant low carbon monoxide (5.6%) and methane selectivity (10.4%). The conversion reaction also produces light olefins ethylene, propylene, and butenes, totalling a yield of 8.7%, which are important raw materials for the petrochemical industry and are presently also only obtained from fossil crude oil. ..."

A new iron-based catalyst converts carbon dioxide into jet fuel | Science News Such technology could one day cut greenhouse gas emissions from air travel

Here is the respective research paper:

The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go (1964)

Enjoy! Not sure whether Diana Ross is in this video!

The Supremes "Someday We'll Be Together" My Extended Version!

Enjoy! Nicely done video montage! Yes, we will!  To kiss your sweet lips ...



The Three Degrees - When will I see you again

Enjoy! When will our hearts beat together ...  Precious moment ... When will we share precious moments ... Are we in love or just friends ... Sweet, sweet love of mine ...

Tavares: It Only Takes A Minute on Soul Train

Enjoy! Does it take more time? :-)

Tulsi Gabbard slams COVID relief bill as a 'slap in the face' to Americans

There are a few Democratic politicians who actually make sense! According to Wikipedia, she is the first Hindu American member of the U.S. Congress!

CO's Lauren Boebert: 2nd Amendment Not for Hunting — Maybe for "Hunting Tyrants"

Lauren Boebert is one of the new incoming U.S. Representatives to watch! "Get rid of the career politicians!" She runs the safest restaurant in Colorado! :-) Hope, she will defend President Trump!

Thursday, December 24, 2020

This only happens when no one is watching | Rod Blagojevich

Recommendable! Listen to how Blagojevich defends President Trump's pardons (hint: lawfare, coup attempts)!

Phill Kline: New Amistad Project Election Lawsuit; $500 Mil to Increase Votes in Dem Strongholds?

Very recommendable! Very shocking! This interview covers much more than just the over $400 million Mark Zuckerberg spent on this November election.

MuZero: Mastering Go, chess, shogi and Atari without rules

Very recommendable! This could well be another milestone achievement by Google!

"Now, in a paper in the journal Nature, we describe MuZero, a significant step forward in the pursuit of general-purpose algorithms. MuZero masters Go, chess, shogi and Atari without needing to be told the rules, thanks to its ability to plan winning strategies in unknown environments. ...
MuZero ... by learning a model that focuses only on the most important aspects of the environment for planning. By combining this model with AlphaZero’s powerful lookahead tree search, MuZero set a new state of the art result on the Atari benchmark, while simultaneously matching the performance of AlphaZero in the classic planning challenges of Go, chess and shogi. In doing so, MuZero demonstrates a significant leap forward in the capabilities of reinforcement learning algorithms. ..."

"... In this work we present the MuZero algorithm which, by combining a tree-based search with a learned model, achieves superhuman performance in a range of challenging and visually complex domains, without any knowledge of their underlying dynamics. ..."

MuZero: Mastering Go, chess, shogi and Atari without rules | DeepMind (This blog post contains references to the respective research papers)

Credits to this article from which I learnt about this latest research by Google: DeepMind's MuZero picks up the rules of games as it plays

President Trump pardons fake news

 There at least two main stream media articles about the latest presidential pardons, which claim something like following:

"An analysis by Harvard Law professor and former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith found that 60 of the 65 pardons Mr. Trump granted before Wednesday went to individuals with personal or political connections to the president. Mr. Trump has bypassed the normal Justice Department process for reviewing pardons, frequently hearing appeals for clemency directly from celebrities or other friends, business associates or political allies." (Wall Street Journal)

"A tabulation by the Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith found that of Mr. Trump’s 45 pardons or commutations before Tuesday, 88 percent went to people with personal ties to the president or to people who furthered his political aims. The pardons “continue Trump’s unprecedented pattern of issuing self-serving pardons and commutations that advance his personal interests, reward friends, seek retribution against enemies, or gratify political constituencies,” Mr. Goldsmith said Tuesday. “Like his past pardons, most if not all of them appear to be based on insider recommendations rather than normal Justice Department vetting process.”"

Unfortunately, neither of these articles contain a link to the so called "analysis" or "tabulations"! When you Google it you will not find it (as of 12/24/2020).

"Jack Goldsmith is a professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was an assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration." (Source) From his list of publications you could get the impression he is a never Trumper!
As a contributor to the Lawfare website, it is more than astonishing and a contradiction that Goldsmith criticizes President Trump's pardons in such a way! Perhaps, Goldsmith does not even understand how much lawfare was applied against President Trump!

If indeed President Trump pardoned so far many that were connected to him, then this is a just reaction to the egregious, relentless, and unprecedented 4 years long coup attempts against a U.S. president by the swamp! Entrapment and coerced statements from people close to President Trump were means of the these coup attempts!

Physicists fine tune chemical reaction rates for ultracold molecules

Amazing stuff!

"A new technique to cool reactive molecules to temperatures low enough [close to absolute zero Kelvin] to achieve quantum degeneracy – something not generally possible before – has been created by researchers in the US. In this temperature regime, the dominance of quantum effects over thermal fluctuations should allow researchers to study new quantum properties of molecules. As a first example, the researchers demonstrated how a slight change in applied electric field can alter the reaction rate between molecules by three orders of magnitude. ...
This has led to some fascinating discoveries. In ultracold quantum bosonic or fermion-pair quantum gases, for example, all the atoms in a trap can simultaneously occupy the quantum ground state, resulting in a wavefunction that is macroscopic. ...
Cooling and trapping molecules is much trickier because they are inherently more complex than atoms. Whereas atoms can only contain quanta of energy in electronic excitations, the chemical bonds in molecules can stretch, rotate and bend – and cooling molecules involves removing energy from all of these degrees of freedom. ...
they applied an electric field to compress potassium and rubidium atoms in a 3D optical trap, inducing the atoms to pair up and thereby forming a 2D cloud of polarized potassium-rubidium molecules. Side-to-side collisions were elastic, whereas the head-to-tail ones were inelastic. As the molecules were polarized and confined to two dimensions, they were much more likely to collide side-to-side than head-to-tail. This allowed the researchers to achieve about 200 elastic collisions for every inelastic one, driving out the hotter molecules and cooling their sample to quantum degeneracy. ..."

"... It could also be used for creating long-lived quantum molecular gases of other polar molecules under strong electric fields"

Physicists fine tune chemical reaction rates for ultracold molecules – Physics World

Here are the respective research papers: