Today is apparently the day when Twitter Blue is coming back. Reuters reported that subscriptions would be available sometime Friday for purchase in the Apple App Store for $11 and on the web for $7.

This was confirmed in an email sent to advertisers Thursday, which Reuters reviewed, announcing some new Twitter Blue security features and advertiser controls. The email informed advertisers that individuals would be able to purchase blue checkmarks, while verified businesses would be distinguished by gold checks and government accounts by gray checks.

The purpose of the email was partly to reassure advertisers that the Twitter Blue impersonation scandal is actually over and partly to announce new controls allowing advertisers to prevent branded ads from appearing “above or below tweets containing certain keywords,” Reuters reported.

Advertisers may not be so easily persuaded back to the platform, however. While Musk has been moving to convince advertisers that Twitter is a safe place to run ads, today three members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council—Eirliani Abdul Rahman, Anne Collier, and Lesley Podesta—resigned. Their letter said, “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.” They pointed to reported spikes in hate speech, Musk’s reinstatement of banned accounts, and the decline in content moderation staff as reasons to distance themselves from the platform.

“A Twitter ruled by diktat is not a place for us,” their letter states, while claiming that Musk has not acknowledged the council—which in 2019 included more than 40 experts and organizations—since he took over.

Twitter couldn't immediately be reached for comment. According to Reuters, Musk told advertisers that he might be addressing at least one of the exiting council members’ chief complaints: how content moderation teams are currently staffed.

A Twitter insider told Reuters that on Thursday, a Twitter representative told advertisers that “the platform was considering bringing its content moderators, many of whom are contracted through third-party vendors, in-house.”

Bringing content moderation completely in-house could help Twitter address the reported gaps in the platform’s child safety team following staff cuts abroad, by allowing the platform to “invest more in moderation for non-English languages,” a source told Reuters.

Twitter’s new trust and safety chief scrutinized

Twitter's new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, contradicted reports that staff cuts impacted Twitter’s child safety team in comments to Reuters. She also confirmed that Twitter would be relying more on automated content removal.

Irwin has been active on Twitter recently, responding to tweets from concerned Twitter users. She also got dragged into “Twitter Files” discourse when Twitter users noticed that the screenshots from Twitter’s internal tool shared in journalist Bari Weiss’ “secret blacklist” thread were watermarked with Irwin’s information.

Irwin tweeted to clarify that Weiss did not have access to the internal tool in the screenshots she shared, and thus had no access to direct messages or other personal identifiable information.

“For security purposes, the screenshots requested came from me so we could ensure no PII was exposed,” Irwin tweeted. “We did not give this access to reporters, and no, reporters were not accessing user DMs.”

Not every Twitter user was convinced that they could trust this messaging from Irwin, though. Tech reporter Tom McKay thanked Irwin for her transparency, but then Irwin stopped responding when he asked her what one “Twitter Files” journalist, Abigail Shrier, meant when she tweeted, “Our team was given extensive, unfiltered access to Twitter’s internal communications and systems.”

With the first two installments focused on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and blacklisted right-wing accounts, the "Twitter Files” release seems custom-designed to engage some of the right-wing influencers whose accounts Musk recently reinstated. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey seemed to criticize Musk for focusing on making Twitter’s past more transparent but being less transparent about Twitter decisions being made currently.

“If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves?” Dorsey tweeted. “Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now.”

Musk did say recently that one way he plans to make Twitter more transparent is to make it clear when the platform has limited the reach of an account’s tweets.

“Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal,” Musk tweeted.

While Musk is busy pushing Twitter engineers to go “hardcore,” installing potentially building code-violating bedrooms in the Twitter headquarters, bringing back Twitter Blue, and striking deals with advertisers, it will likely be Irwin’s job to deliver on Musk’s promises of even more transparency. Maybe she’ll even help follow through on Musk’s promise to publish weekly data on @TwitterSafety.

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In the short video which was shared a few days back, you can see him interviewing a specially-abled boy. The boy reveals that he had come to the city to buy a wheelchair; however, he couldn't get one. Now, his only wish was to go back to his village; but he lacked the funds to do so. After hearing this, the Instagrammer takes the boy to purchase a wheelchair, and then later, he also helps him to get on a bus and gives him extra money.

Take a look at the video here.

Since this video was shared, it has been liked more than nine lakh [900, 000] times and has thousands of comments. Even Bollywood actor Esha Gupta took notice of the video and wrote, "God bless you." A second person said, "Bro, maybe you are not god, but I think you are." "God bless you, dear tum jio hazaro sal [live for a thousand years], you are soo good person," said a third person.

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Shops and restaurants in Beijing are deserted as the country awaits a spike in infections following the decision to reduce the scope of mandatory testing, allow some positive cases to quarantine at home and end large-scale lockdowns.

Top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan told state media in an interview published Sunday that the Omicron strain of the virus prevalent in China was highly transmissible and could lead to a surge in cases.

"The (current) Omicron mutation... is very contagious... one person can transmit to 22 people," said Zhong—a leading advisor to the government throughout the pandemic.

"Currently, the epidemic in China is... spreading rapidly, and under such circumstances, no matter how strong the prevention and control is, it will be difficult to completely cut off the transmission chain."

The easing of China's so-called "zero-COVID" policy followed nationwide protests against harsh virus rules that had battered the economy and confined millions to their homes.

But the country is now facing a surge of cases it is ill-prepared to handle, with millions of elderly still not fully vaccinated and underfunded hospitals lacking the capacity to take on huge numbers of patients.

The country has one intensive care unit bed for 10,000 people, Jiao Yahui, director of the Department of Medical Affairs at the National Health Commission, warned Friday.

She said 106,000 doctors and 177,700 nurses will be redirected to intensive care units to cope with the spike in coronavirus patients, but did not offer details on how this would affect the health system's ability to treat other diseases.

'I'm afraid to step out'

Long lines sprung up outside pharmacies in Beijing on Sunday as residents rushed to stockpile cold and fever medicines and antigen test kits.

Some told AFP they were ordering drugs from pharmacies in nearby cities.

"I've asked my family in Shijiazhuang to courier fever medicine because nearby pharmacies don't have stocks," said Julie Jiang, a Beijing resident.

Dozens of restaurants and small businesses in Beijing put up signs saying they were "temporarily closed", without offering details.

Several major online grocery and food delivery platforms including Meituan, Fresh Hippo and Ding Dong were struggling to operate in Beijing without enough delivery drivers.

"I'm afraid to step out," said Liu Cheng, a mother of two young children living in central Beijing's Jianguomen area.

"Many of my friends with COVID symptoms have tested positive when self testing, but they haven't reported this to the authorities or gone to the hospital."

Official caseloads in China have dropped sharply in the wake of the government's decision to scrap routine mass testing, with only special groups including healthcare workers and delivery drivers exempt from the rules.

© 2022 AFP

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I make contact with Gladys (not her real name) late at night, after her employers from the Qatari elite have gone to bed.

In a brief online conversation she tells me she works from 8am to 11pm every day. She cleans, helps prepare food and looks after the children.

She eats what's left from the family's meals, and says she hasn't had a day off since she started 18 months ago.

"Madam is crazy," Gladys, a Filipina woman in her 40s, says about her employer. "She shouts at me every day."

Before Qatar won the competition to host the 2022 World Cup, foreign workers were unable to change jobs or leave the country without their employer's permission. It's still like this in most Gulf states.

Under scrutiny, Qatar began to introduce reforms, but Amnesty International says these have failed to end a pattern of abuses faced by domestic workers.

For example, Gladys's employer has held on to her passport, preventing her from leaving without his consent.

But Gladys still feels lucky. At least she has been allowed to keep her phone, she says, unlike some other foreign maids. Also, she is not physically abused. In Qatar, this happens all too often, she says.

There is another reason she wants to stay in her current job - she thinks it's unlikely at her age that she will get a better one. She earns 1,500 rials a month (just under £350) and is able to send it all home to support her family.

Domestic workers' rights

• There are an estimated 160,000 foreign domestic workers in Qatar, according to 2021 data from Qatar's Planning and Statistics Authority

• In 2017 Qatar introduced the Domestic Workers Law, which limits working hours to 10 hours a day, and requires daily breaks, a weekly day off and paid holidays

• In 2020 it also introduced a minimum wage and gave workers the right on paper to change jobs or leave the country without seeking permission

• However, Amnesty International says these laws have not been properly implemented or enforced and extreme overwork, lack of rest, and abusive and degrading treatment continue

Joanna Concepcion of Migrante International, a grassroots organisation supporting Filipino overseas workers, says that many keep quiet about bad working conditions because earning money for their families is their overriding priority.

But when those in Gulf states do feel confident enough to talk freely, she says, they often mention serious abuse. One woman said her employer would push her head into a toilet basin and deny her food and water when he was angry.

By contrast, a maid employed by the ruling royal Al Thani family, says she is treated well - but she has no day off, as all workers now should under the new rules.

Smiley and animated, Althea (not her real name) video calls the BBC from the basement of a royal residence. She explains that her employers have given her an iPhone, clothes, jewellery and shoes of a kind she couldn't afford back home in the Philippines.

As in Gladys's case, it's the difficulty of earning a living wage at home that has brought her here.

As we speak, other Filipino domestic workers, who share a large room in Althea's living quarters, say Hi and join the call.

They have their own bedrooms and a shared kitchen. This is important. The maids Althea sees on TikTok and Facebook begging for food, and pleading for someone to rescue them, are not as fortunate.

"I see those videos online all the time, which is why I feel so lucky," she says. "For me, every day feels like a fairy tale."

Nonetheless, it's hard work in these "Cinderella palaces" as she refers to them, with their high ceilings and chandeliers, antiques inlaid with gold, mother-of-pearl table tops, and freshly cut flowers.

The day generally begins at 6.30am, when staff prepare breakfast for the family. Althea eats once the family has finished. After clearing away, they clean the rooms and set places for lunch.

"It is light work because there are many of us," Althea says.

Maids rest in their flats between 3pm and 6pm, then prepare for dinner. Once dinner is over, Althea has finished work, and is free to leave the compound if she wants.

The royal family doesn't hold on to her passport. But Althea does work every day, including weekends. She doesn't get the day off that Qatari law is now supposed to guarantee. It's a price she pays for providing her family with vital financial support.

Mary Grace Morales, a recruiter in Manila who pairs Filipino staff with VIPs in the Gulf, says working for the palace is an "enviable" job.

"The family is generous," she says. And, in a comment reflecting the hardships the maids may have faced at home, she adds: "The girls get fatter while they are in the palace. The family feeds them well."

Mary Grace Morales: The palace wants "very pretty" staff no older than 35

But the royals have some very specific requirements, she reveals.

"The girls sent to work for the Qatari royal family are between 24 and 35 and very pretty," Ms Morales says.

She pauses to look at the screen where I stare back at her from the BBC headquarters in London.

"Prettier than you," she says, smiling.

She later sends a WhatsApp to apologise, as her children overheard and said she had been rude. I assure her I was not offended - and don't mention that hiring people on the basis of their looks would be illegal in many countries.

Joanna Concepcion, of Migrante International, says she hopes Althea's account of working as a royal maid is true, but adds: "It's unlikely that we can know that for certain while she is still in Qatar and working for such a powerful family."

Some royal staff have complained after leaving the country. In 2019 three British and American workers - a bodyguard, personal trainer and private tutor - sued the emir's sister, Sheikha al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and her husband, in New York, alleging that they had been made to work long hours without overtime. The couple denied the allegations and settled without any admission of liability.

"Reporting and addressing cases of violence and harassment, lack of occupational safety and health, and lack of decent accommodation can be challenging," says International Labour Organization (ILO) regional director for Arab states, Ruba Jaradat.

The ILO says it is working with Qatar to implement the new rules guaranteeing a minimum wage, a day off each week, sick leave and overtime payments, although this remains "a challenge".

Althea, in her royal palace, says she is happy despite the long hours.

When she goes to bed she will message one of her siblings or parents in the Philippines. She often feels homesick - a fairytale palace is not home.

However, it remains a crucial source of income.

"I could never support my family without this job," she says.

The BBC asked the Qatari royal family and the Qatari embassy in London to comment, but received no reply.

Illustrations by Marta Klawe Rzeczy

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Trashed lithium-ion batteries caused three garbage truck fires in California

“Those are kinds of things you don’t expect and it is just nice to know that that there are people who still care around here and just those simple acts of kindness really make somebody’s day and we just want to say thank you to her.” said Chelsey Nordman, Rhetton’s mother.

The random act of kindness impacted the Nordmans, as they said it was nice to see such a nice gesture made to their son. Unfortunately, they don’t know the identity of the ‘FedEx Lady’ and want to know so they can thank her.

“That was beyond ever what we were expecting.” said Nordman.

The hope for the Nordmans is to meet her one day to thank her.

Copyright 2022 KVLY. All rights reserved.

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A man was seen digging in the trash, then strapping boxes on his feet as makeshift shoes. (WCCO, BROOKLYN CENTER LIQUOR, CNN)

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (WCCO) - If customers step into Brooklyn Center Liquor Store, it’s not unusual to find Ta Leia Thomas, otherwise known as “Ace,” with a kind smile.

“I wish I could have a dozen Aces on staff,” says Tom Agnes, Brooklyn Center Liquor operations manager.

It was out of the ordinary to have that kindness captured on camera.

“I came back from lunch on Tuesday and Ace is helping customers and helping people out in her socks,” says Agnes.

It happened in a matter of seconds.

First, a man is seen digging in the trash, then strapping boxes on his feet as makeshift shoes.

But Thomas acts quickly.

“I see his feet and I just automatically took my shoes off,” Thomas says.

They were not just any shoes. They were Thomas’ favorite pair of purple retro Jordans representing her favorite Minnesota team.

“You know the old saying, ‘Give the shirt off your back?’ She literally gave the shoes off her feet,” Agnes says.

Thomas said it was an easy decision.

“He said nobody would ever have given me shoes like that. And I said, Well I’m not everybody.’ And he was like. ‘Thank you so much,’ and I see him walking away and he’s walking away with pride,” Thomas describes.

Thomas hopes her story inspires others to be kind in return.

“If my shoes can help make the world a better place, you can have them,” she says.

Thomas’ manager bought her a new pair of sneakers so she didn’t have to finish her shift in just socks.

Copyright 2022 WCCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.

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"This was special and I immediately knew I needed to capture it," said local Rachel Gordon.

The billowy phenomenon was visible on Tuesday above the crest of the Bighorn Mountains from the city of Sheridan.

Known as Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, they form when a faster stream of air moves above rising air below.

Ms Gordon, who told BBC News she took the images from her parents' back door before posting them to the Facebook page Wyoming through The Lens, said: "It was an awe-inspiring moment.

"I'm just glad others can enjoy the experience now, too."

BBC Weather's Matt Taylor says the pictures are one of the most stunning and epic examples of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds he has ever seen.

"Part of the beauty of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds is that they really show up the fluidity of the atmosphere," he said.

"How, like waves in the ocean, the atmosphere moves and responds to the environment around it. The air is effectively rising up and tumbling over on itself."

< view the video at the source page. >

The cloud formation is named after scientists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who studied the physics behind the phenomenon.

The UK-based Cloud Appreciation Society describes such formations as the crown jewel in many cloud spotters' collections.

Also known as fluctus clouds, they are seen as a possible inspiration for Van Gogh's painting Starry Night.

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NASA’s Orion spacecraft is about to face its final test—and it’s a big one

Chevy accidentally leaked the hybrid Corvette on its site

Rocket Report: Starship flight test slips to 2023; first methane launch is imminent

SOMETIMES WE MUST look to the heavens to understand our own planet. In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler’s insight that planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun led to a deeper understanding of gravity, the force that determines Earth’s tides. In the 19th century, scientists studied the color of sunlight, whose distinctive properties helped reveal the quantum structure of the atoms that make up the star—and all matter around us. In 2017, the detection of gravitational waves showed that much of the gold, platinum, and other heavy elements on our planet are forged in the collisions of neutron stars. 

Michael Murphy studies stars in this tradition. An astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, Murphy analyzes the color of the light emitted by stars similar to the sun in temperature, size, and elemental content—”solar twins,” as they are called. He wants to know what their properties reveal about the nature of the electromagnetic force, which attracts protons and electrons to form atoms—which then bind into molecules to form almost everything else. 

In particular, he wants to know if this force behaves consistently across the entire universe—or at least, among these stars. In a recent paper in Science, Murphy and his team used starlight to measure what’s known as the fine structure constant, a number that sets the strength of the electromagnetic force. “By comparing the stars to each other, we can learn if their fundamental physics is different,” says Murphy. If it is, that hints that something is wrong with the way we understand cosmology.

Standard physics theory, known as the Standard Model, assumes this constant should be the same everywhere—just as constants like the speed of light in a vacuum or the mass of the electron are. By measuring the fine structure constant in many settings, Murphy is challenging this assumption. If he finds discrepancies, it could help researchers amend the Standard Model. They already know the Standard Model is incomplete, as it does not explain the existence of dark matter.

To understand this constant, think of the electromagnetic force in analogy with the gravitational force, says Murphy. The strength of an object’s gravitational field depends on its mass. But it also depends on a number known as G, the gravitational constant, that remains the same regardless of the object. A similar mathematical law dictates the electromagnetic force between two charged objects. The two attract or repel each other based on their electric charge and their distance from each other. But that force also depends on a number—the fine structure constant—that stays the same regardless of the object. 

All experiments thus far have indicated that in our universe, that constant equals 0.0072973525693, with uncertainty less than one part per billion. But physicists have long considered this number a mystery because it seems totally random. No other part of physics theory explains why it is this value, and thus, why the electromagnetic field is the strength that it is. Despite the word “constant” in its name, physicists also don’t know if the fine structure constant has the same value everywhere in the universe for all time. Physicist Richard Feynman famously described it as “a magic number that comes to us with no understanding.” Murphy puts it this way: “We don't really understand where these numbers come from, even though they're in the back of textbooks.”

Researchers study the fine structure constant because it offers “a very clean shortcut” to new physics, says astrophysicist Luke Barnes of Western Sydney University, who was not involved with the work. For example, some hypothesized forms of dark matter lead to variations in its value. “The values of the fundamental constants are a mystery, and we also don't know much about dark matter,” says Murphy. “It's quite possible that these phenomena are both connected by one underlying theory that we don't know yet.”

Murphy’s team studied 17 stars within 160 light years of our solar system. These stars produce observable light of many colors by fusing atoms in their cores. That light travels through a star’s atmosphere as its atoms absorb certain colors, or wavelengths. Using telescope data, Murphy’s team identified the missing wavelengths, corresponding to light absorbed by sodium, calcium, iron, and other elements in each star’s atmosphere. The stars should be missing the exact same wavelengths of light. Any discrepancies could point to a variation in the fine structure constant, which could be an indication of dark matter or some other unknown physics. 

Murphy’s experiment shows that the constant is looking … pretty constant. Previous astronomical measurements, which focused on faraway galaxies, yielded precision in the parts per million. In Murphy’s study, the fine structure constant agreed with that value to about 50 parts per billion. Their result complements laboratory measurements of the constant using atomic clocks that achieve precision in the parts per quintillion (1018), but those are limited to earthly settings.

Given the limits of human-made tools, Murphy can’t say that the fine structure constant is definitively constant. Still, “it limits how big a variation can really be in the fine structure constant,” he says. “If you have ideas that are beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, then they have to obey this bound.”

Why measure this number so painstakingly? Because the existence of the universe seems to depend on it. The value of the fine structure constant dictates the attraction between a negatively charged electron and its positive atomic nucleus. Take the simplest atom, hydrogen, which is a single electron bound to a single proton. If the constant had a bigger value, the electron and proton would be closer together. If this value were smaller, the electron and proton would be further apart. Change the fine structure constant, and all the atoms that we know of would be different, or may not even form. 

Musk, in a separate tweet, also said that Twitter is developing a process that will inform users if their tweets have been suppressed through a practice known as "shadow banning." Users will be able to appeal the ban if they are notified that their tweets have been suppressed. He also mentioned that Twitter is working on a software update that will show users their true account status.

While on the subject of shadow banning, Elon Musk released the second iteration of the "Twitter Files," in which he made new allegations against the former CEO of Twitter and other members of the company.

According to a report from Reuters, Twitter also plans to roll out new controls for advertisers as early as next week. These controls will allow companies to prevent their ads from appearing above or below tweets that contain certain keywords.

Twitter is implementing new controls for advertisers as part of its effort to improve the transparency and accountability of its platform. This follows reports from civil rights groups that hate speech has risen on the platform since it was acquired by Elon Musk in October.

The new controls will allow companies to prevent their ads from appearing next to tweets that contain certain keywords. The move is intended to reassure and attract back advertisers who have pulled their ads from the platform.

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Thanks to new research, scientists see the impact of flushing the toilet in a whole new light—and now, the world can as well.

Engineers ran an experiment to reveal how tiny water droplets, invisible to the naked eye, are rapidly ejected into the air when a lid-less, public restroom toilet is flushed. The team of scientists, from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), used bright green lasers and camera equipment to capture the stunning videos. It is the first study to directly visualize the resulting aerosol plume and measure the speed and spread of particles within it. It was published on December 8 in the journal Scientific Reports.

These aerosolized particles are known to transport pathogens and could pose an exposure risk to public bathroom patrons. However, this vivid visualization of potential exposure to disease also provides a methodology to help reduce it.

A powerful green laser helps visualize the aerosol plumes from a toilet while it’s being flushed. Credit: John Crimaldi

 

“If it’s something you can’t see, it’s easy to pretend it doesn’t exist. But once you see these videos, you’re never going to think about a toilet flush the same way again,” said John Crimaldi, lead author on the study and professor of civil, environmental, and architectural engineering. “By making dramatic visual images of this process, our study can play an important role in public health messaging.”

Researchers have known for over 60 years that when a toilet is flushed, solids and liquids go down as designed, but tiny, invisible particles are also released into the air. Previous studies have used scientific instruments to detect the presence of these airborne particles above flushed toilets and shown that larger ones can land on surrounding surfaces, but until now, no one understood what these plumes looked like or how the particles got there.

On the left, nothing is visible to the naked eye. On the right, a powerful green laser helps visualize the aerosol plumes from a toilet while it’s being flushed. Credit: John Crimaldi

Understanding the trajectories and velocities of these particles—which can transport pathogens such as E. coli, C. difficile, noroviruses, and adenoviruses—is important for mitigating exposure risk through disinfection and ventilation strategies, or improved toilet and flush design. While the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is present in human waste, there is not currently conclusive evidence that it spreads efficiently through toilet aerosols.

“People have known that toilets emit aerosols, but they haven’t been able to see them,” said Crimaldi. “We show that this thing is a much more energetic and rapidly spreading plume than even the people who knew about this understood.”

A powerful green laser helps visualize the aerosol plumes from a toilet while it’s being flushed. Credit: Patrick Campbell / University of Colorado Boulder

 

The study found that these airborne particles shoot out quickly, at speeds of 6.6 feet (2 meters) per second, reaching 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above the toilet within 8 seconds. While the largest droplets tend to settle onto surfaces within seconds, the smaller particles (aerosols less than 5 microns, or one-millionth of a meter) can remain suspended in the air for minutes or longer.

It’s not only their own waste that bathroom patrons have to worry about. Many other studies have shown that pathogens can persist in the bowl for dozens of flushes, increasing potential exposure risk.

“The goal of the toilet is to effectively remove waste from the bowl, but it’s also doing the opposite, which is spraying a lot of contents upwards,” said Crimaldi. “Our lab has created a methodology that provides a foundation for improving and mitigating this problem.”

A powerful green laser helps visualize the aerosol plumes from a toilet while it’s being flushed. Credit: John Crimaldi

Not a waste of time

Crimaldi runs the Ecological Fluid Dynamics Lab at CU Boulder, which specializes in using laser-based instrumentation, dyes, and giant fluid tanks to study everything from how odors reach our nostrils to how chemicals move in turbulent bodies of water. The idea to use the lab’s technology to track what happens in the air after a toilet is flushed was one of convenience, curiosity, and circumstance.

During a free week last June, fellow professors Karl Linden and Mark Hernandez of the Environmental Engineering Program, and several graduate students from Crimaldi’s lab joined him to set up and run the experiment.

They used two lasers: One shone continuously on and above the toilet, while the other sent out fast pulses of light over the same area. The constant laser revealed where in space the airborne particles were, while the pulsing laser could measure their speed and direction. Meanwhile, two cameras took high-resolution images.

A powerful green laser helps visualize the aerosol plumes from a toilet while it’s being flushed. Credit: Patrick Campbell / University of Colorado Boulder

 

The toilet itself was the same kind commonly seen in North American public restrooms: a lid-less unit accompanied by a cylindrical flushing mechanism—whether manual or automatic—that sticks up from the back near the wall, known as a flushometer style valve. The brand-new, clean toilet was filled only with tap water.

They knew that this spur-of-the-moment experiment might be a waste of time, but instead, the research made a big splash.

“We had expected these aerosol particles would just sort of float up, but they came out like a rocket,” said Crimaldi.

The energetic, airborne water particles headed mostly upwards and backward towards the rear wall, but their movement was unpredictable. The plume also rose to the lab’s ceiling, and with nowhere else to go, moved outward from the wall and spread forward, into the room.

The experimental setup did not include any solid waste or toilet paper in the bowl, and there were no stalls or people moving around. These real-life variables could all exacerbate the problem, said Crimaldi.

Aaron True, Postdoctoral Researcher (left) and John Crimaldi pose for a photo with the equipment. Credit: Patrick Campbell / University of Colorado Boulder

 

They also measured the airborne particles with an optical particle counter, a device that sucks a sample of air in through a small tube and shines a light on it, allowing it to count and measure the particles. Smaller particles not only float in the air for longer, but can escape nose hairs and reach deeper into one’s lungs—making them more hazardous to human health—so knowing how many particles and what size they are was also important.

While these results may be disconcerting, the study provides experts in plumbing and public health with a consistent way to test improved plumbing design and disinfection and ventilation strategies, in order to reduce exposure risk to pathogens in public restrooms.

“None of those improvements can be done effectively without knowing how the aerosol plume develops and how it’s moving,” said Crimaldi. “Being able to see this invisible plume is a game-changer.”

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Longevity

Studies show drinking coffee can prolong lifespan. Over 10 years, researchers looked at the connection between coffee consumption and death risk. Scientists considered variables like the participants’ lifestyles, wellness, and coffee consumption.

The research revealed that people who drank over four cups of coffee daily enjoyed a 64% death risk reduction compared to non-coffee-drinking participants and those who drank only a little. In the follow-up period, coffee drinkers aged 45 or above benefitted from a 30% reduction in death risk.

Brain Function

Coffee contains a psychoactive substance that blocks the neurotransmitter adenosine in the brain. Consequently, other neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and dopamine increase along with neural firing. Cognitive functioning improves when you drink coffee, along with vigilance, memory, reaction speed, productivity, and motivation.

Various studies have demonstrated that drinking coffee can prolong lifespan.

 

Physical functioning

The caffeine in coffee prepares your body for intense exertion, releasing fat cells for activity and increasing adrenaline, and it can boost physical performance by 12%.

Ramp up metabolism

Caffeine helps people burn fat and is often a key ingredient in weight loss products. Studies show it can increase fat loss by 29% and boost metabolism by 11% in trim people and 10% in obese individuals.

Nutrients

Coffee contains vital nutrients, including riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, potassium, manganese, and pantothenic acid. The amounts are small, but your intake increases with each cup of coffee.

Studies have shown that people who drink coffee are less likely to suffer from senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Brain protection

Coffee drinking may help you avoid age-related cognitive decline. No cure exists for getting old, but you can consider your coffee habit helpful for brain maintenance. Researchers conclude coffee drinkers are 65% less likely to suffer from senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than non-coffee drinkers.

Liver health

Four mugs of coffee can potentially reduce cirrhosis of the liver risk by 80%. Cirrhosis causes scar tissue to build, replacing part of the liver, and is associated with hepatitis and fatty liver disease.

Lower risk of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes

Research shows you are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes as a coffee drinker. Each cup lowers the risk by 7%. Frequent caffeinated coffee consumption can lessen the risk of liver and colorectal cancer. It also reduces the risk of Parkinson’s disease by up to 60%.

Now you know your daily cups of coffee have more to offer than their terrific taste. You could see improved physical and mental wellness and lower chances of developing diseases if you continue your habit.

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One of them told the BBC a member of Elon Musk's team had said their jobs would be replaced by robots.

A California state senator said Mr Musk was treating the former staff "like garbage".

San Francisco's city attorney, David Chiu, said he's investigating if Mr Musk broke the law. Twitter has not responded to a BBC request for comment.

"Elon Musk has had a long history of flouting labour laws," Mr Chiu told the BBC.

"While I'm not surprised this happened, I feel for these workers. We will be looking into this further."

Juana Laura Chavero Ramirez says she might not be able to afford her diabetic medication

The BBC spoke to four cleaners who say they were fired from Twitter on Monday - their interviews were conducted in Spanish.

Adrianna Villarreal, who worked for Twitter for four years, said she's now worried she won't have enough money to feed her family over Christmas.

"It's a sad and frustrating thing for our families and children," she said.

The cleaners were working at Twitter last week until they were told their jobs were under threat.

Olga Miranda, president of the cleaners' union, said they organised a strike on Monday to protest. The cleaners were then told they had been laid off effective immediately, she says.

"They did this three weeks before Christmas," she said. "I think we were fired because we're a union."

Adrianna Villarreal says she's worried about how to buy Christmas gifts for her children

ulio Alvarado had been a cleaner for 10 years at Twitter. He says the environment was always friendly during his time there.

But he says things changed when Elon Musk took over Twitter in October.

"People worked without worries," he told the BBC. "Now we are afraid."

Since Mr Musk acquired the company, Mr Alvarado says he was escorted by private security while cleaning parts of the office.

He also says he was told by someone from Mr Musk's team that his job would be obsolete soon anyway because robots would eventually replace human cleaners.

Without his job, Mr Alvarado says he's worried about paying his bills. He also says he's supporting his family back in Mexico.

"I can only tell you, I don't have money to pay the rent," he says. "I'm not going to have medical insurance. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Juana Laura Chavero Ramirez said she had worked for five years at Twitter. A diabetic, she's concerned she won't be able to get her medication.

"It's just horrible," she said. "We're not only losing our job, we're losing our income."

Adrianna Villarreal, who had worked at Twitter since 2018, said she was worried she would not be able to afford Christmas gifts.

"We are supposed to have Christmas presents for our children," she said, "a plate of food on our table and overnight we don't have anything."

The cleaners say they do not know what to do - as there are few available cleaning vacancies in San Francisco at the moment.

A small group of cleaners have protested outside San Francisco's Twitter headquarters since Monday.

California state senator Scott Wiener told the BBC the cleaners had been treated "horribly".

"In the short term, I'd like to see him [Elon Musk] treat his janitors like human beings," said Mr Wiener, "and get them back working - not just throw them out right before Christmas."

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One of the oldest quotes dates back to the philosopher Confucius who lived in China between the 6th and 7th century BC. “Is there any one maxim which ought to be action upon throughout one’s whole life? Surely the maxim of lovingkindness is such — Do not do unto others what you would not they should do unto you.”

Artist Eric Bess reflects on the significance of Norman Rockwell’s painting saying, “It serves as not only a call to action, a directive, but also a reminder of what we deeply desire irrespective of our differences: kindness. What else is there to practice other than what we wish for ourselves?”

Kindness is selfless, compassionate and merciful, a main topic of the Bible and many philosophies.

Christianity “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Judaism “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow-man.”

Baha’i “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do unto others.”

Buddhism “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.”

Sikhism “As thou deemest thyself so deem others.”

Islam “You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness.”

The Golden Rule is the basis for the concept of human rights, that people have the right to just treatment, and in turn, a responsibility to ensure justice for all. “The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” — Jane Addams, Noble Peace Prize recipient in 1931

In 1923 Arthur Nash published The Golden Rule in Business, the story of a tiny business becoming the world’s largest garment manufacturer by the constant application of the Golden Rule. J.C. Penney believed “the Golden Rule was meant for business as much as for other human relationships” and opened the Golden Rule Store in Wyoming in 1902.

Inclusion, which is kindness in action, is considered a universal human right. It provides equal access and opportunities without discrimination and intolerance. The goal is to embrace all people irrespective of race, gender, disability, economic situation or geographic zone. Inclusive designs such as traffic lights that help the blind and accessible sidewalks for disabled people affirm the right to be included in public life. Third-grader Sammie Vance, one of People's Girls Changing the World in 2021, founded the Buddy Bench as a way to promote inclusion when she realized so many people were lonely and some of her fellow students were being excluded.

The Golden Rule incorporates the rights that all people hope for and deserve — to be born free and to live and be treated equally with dignity and basic human rights. Learning about each other makes it easier to be understanding. Being understanding spreads love and peace through the multicultural words, music, traditions, and celebrations we hear echoed throughout the month of December.

The Boundary County Human Rights Task Force encourages all people to honor their traditions, express gratitude, work for peace and to remember the Golden Rule.

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One of the more unsettling discoveries in the past half a century is that the universe is not locally real. In this context, “real” means that objects have definite properties independent of observation—an apple can be red even when no one is looking. “Local” means that objects can be influenced only by their surroundings and that any influence cannot travel faster than light. Investigations at the frontiers of quantum physics have found that these things cannot both be true. Instead the evidence shows that objects are not influenced solely by their surroundings, and they may also lack definite properties prior to measurement.

This is, of course, deeply contrary to our everyday experiences. As Albert Einstein once bemoaned to a friend, “Do you really believe the moon is not there when you are not looking at it?” To adapt a phrase from author Douglas Adams, the demise of local realism has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Blame for this achievement has now been laid squarely on the shoulders of three physicists: John Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger. They equally split the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” (“Bell inequalities” refers to the pioneering work of Northern Ireland physicist John Stewart Bell, who laid the foundations for the 2022 Physics Nobel in the early 1960s.) Colleagues agreed that the trio had it coming, deserving this reckoning for overthrowing reality as we know it. “It was long overdue,” says Sandu Popescu, a quantum physicist at the University of Bristol in England. “Without any doubt, the prize is well deserved.”

“The experiments beginning with the earliest one of Clauser and continuing along show that this stuff isn’t just philosophical, it’s real—and like other real things, potentially useful,” says Charles Bennett, an eminent quantum researcher at IBM. “Each year I thought, ‘Oh, maybe this is the year,’” says David Kaiser, a physicist and historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This year it really was. It was very emotional—and very thrilling.”

The journey from fringe to favor was a long one. From about 1940 until as late as 1990, studies of so-called quantum foundations were often treated as philosophy at best and crackpottery at worst. Many scientific journals refused to publish papers on the topic, and academic positions indulging such investigations were nearly impossible to come by. In 1985 Popescu’s adviser warned him against a Ph.D. in the subject. “He said, ‘Look, if you do that, you will have fun for five years, and then you will be jobless,’” Popescu says.

Today quantum information science is among the most vibrant subfields in all of physics. It links Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics via the still mysterious behavior of black holes. It dictates the design and function of quantum sensors, which are increasingly being used to study everything from earthquakes to dark matter. And it clarifies the often confusing nature of quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that is pivotal to modern materials science and that lies at the heart of quantum computing. “What even makes a quantum computer ‘quantum?’” Nicole Yunger Halpern, a National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist, asks rhetorically. “One of the most popular answers is entanglement, and the main reason why we understand entanglement is the grand work participated in by Bell and these Nobel Prize winners. Without that understanding of entanglement, we probably wouldn’t be able to realize quantum computers.”

John Stewart Bell (1928–1990), the Northern Irish physicist whose work sparked a quiet revolution in quantum physics.

Credit: Peter Menzel/Science Source

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The trouble with quantum mechanics was never that it made the wrong predictions—in fact, the theory described the microscopic world splendidly right from the start when physicists devised it in the opening decades of the 20th century. What Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen took issue with, as they explained in their iconic 1935 paper, was the theory’s uncomfortable implications for reality. Their analysis, known by their initials EPR, centered on a thought experiment meant to illustrate the absurdity of quantum mechanics. The goal was to show how under certain conditions the theory can break—or at least deliver nonsensical results that conflict with our deepest assumptions about reality.

A simplified and modernized version of EPR goes something like this: Pairs of particles are sent off in different directions from a common source, targeted for two observers, Alice and Bob, each stationed at opposite ends of the solar system. Quantum mechanics dictates that it is impossible to know the spin, a quantum property of individual particles, prior to measurement. Once Alice measures one of her particles, she finds its spin to be either “up” or “down.” Her results are random, and yet when she measures up, she instantly knows that Bob’s corresponding particle—which had a random, indefinite spin—must now be down. At first glance, this is not so odd. Maybe the particles are like a pair of socks—if Alice gets the right sock, Bob must have the left.

But under quantum mechanics, particles are not like socks, and only when measured do they settle on a spin of up or down. This is EPR’s key conundrum: If Alice’s particles lack a spin until measurement, then how (as they whiz past Neptune) do they know what Bob’s particles will do as they fly out of the solar system in the other direction? Each time Alice measures, she quizzes her particle on what Bob will get if he flips a coin: up or down? The odds of correctly predicting this even 200 times in a row are one in 1060—a number greater than all the atoms in the solar system. Yet despite the billions of kilometers that separate the particle pairs, quantum mechanics says Alice’s particles can keep correctly predicting, as though they were telepathically connected to Bob’s particles.

Designed to reveal the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, EPR eventually led to experimental results that instead reinforce the theory’s most mind-boggling tenets. Under quantum mechanics, nature is not locally real: particles may lack properties such as spin up or spin down prior to measurement, and they seem to talk to one another no matter the distance. (Because the outcomes of measurements are random, these correlations cannot be used for faster-than-light communication.)

Physicists skeptical of quantum mechanics proposed that this puzzle could be explained by hidden variables, factors that existed in some imperceptible level of reality, beneath the subatomic realm, that contained information about a particle’s future state. They hoped that in hidden variable theories, nature could recover the local realism denied it by quantum mechanics. “One would have thought that the arguments of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen would produce a revolution at that moment, and everybody would have started working on hidden variables,” Popescu says.

Einstein’s “attack” on quantum mechanics, however, did not catch on among physicists, who by and large accepted quantum mechanics as is. This was less a thoughtful embrace of nonlocal reality than a desire not to think too hard—a head-in-the-sand sentiment later summarized by American physicist N. David Mermin as a demand to “shut up and calculate.” The lack of interest was driven in part because John von Neumann, a highly regarded scientist, had in 1932 published a mathematical proof ruling out hidden variable theories. Von Neumann’s proof, it must be said, was refuted just three years later by a young female mathematician, Grete Hermann, but at the time no one seemed to notice.

The problem of nonlocal realism would languish for another three decades before being shattered by Bell. From the start of his career, Bell was bothered by quantum orthodoxy and sympathetic toward hidden variable theories. Inspiration struck him in 1952, when he learned that American physicist David Bohm had formulated a viable nonlocal hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics—something von Neumann had claimed was impossible.

Bell mulled the ideas for years, as a side project to his job working as a particle physicist at CERN near Geneva. In 1964 he rediscovered the same flaws in von Neumann’s argument that Hermann had. And then, in a triumph of rigorous thinking, Bell concocted a theorem that dragged the question of local hidden variables from its metaphysical quagmire onto the concrete ground of experiment.

Typically local hidden variable theories and quantum mechanics predict indistinguishable experimental outcomes. What Bell realized is that under precise circumstances, an empirical discrepancy between the two can emerge. In the eponymous Bell test (an evolution of the EPR thought experiment), Alice and Bob receive the same paired particles, but now they each have two different detector settings—A and a, B and b. These detector settings are an additional trick to throw off Alice and Bob’s apparent telepathy. In local hidden variable theories, one particle cannot know which question the other is asked. Their correlation is secretly set ahead of time and is not sensitive to updated detector settings. But according to quantum mechanics, when Alice and Bob use the same settings (both uppercase or both lowercase), each particle is aware of the question the other is posed, and the two will correlate perfectly—in sync in a way no local theory can account for. They are, in a word, entangled.

Measuring the correlation multiple times for many particle pairs, therefore, could prove which theory was correct. If the correlation remained below a limit derived from Bell’s theorem, this would suggest hidden variables were real; if it exceeded Bell’s limit, then the mind-boggling tenets of quantum mechanics would reign supreme. And yet, in spite of its potential to help determine the nature of reality, Bell’s theorem languished unnoticed in a relatively obscure journal for years.

The Bell Tolls for Thee

In 1967, a graduate student at Columbia University named John Clauser accidentally stumbled across a library copy of Bell’s paper and became enthralled by the possibility of proving hidden variable theories correct. When Clauser wrote to Bell two years later, asking if anyone had performed the test, it was among the first feedback Bell had received.

Three years after that, with Bell’s encouragement, Clauser and his graduate student Stuart Freedman performed the first Bell test. Clauser had secured permission from his supervisors but little in the way of funds, so he became, as he said in a later interview, adept at “dumpster diving” to secure equipment—some of which he and Freedman then duct-taped together. In Clauser’s setup—a kayak-sized apparatus requiring careful tuning by hand—pairs of photons were sent in opposite directions toward detectors that could measure their state, or polarization.

Unfortunately for Clauser and his infatuation with hidden variables, once he and Freedman completed their analysis, they had to conclude that they had found strong evidence against them. Still, the result was hardly conclusive because of various “loopholes” in the experiment that conceivably could allow the influence of hidden variables to slip through undetected. The most concerning of these was the locality loophole: if either the photon source or the detectors could have somehow shared information (which was plausible within an object the size of a kayak), the resulting measured correlations could still emerge from hidden variables. As David Kaiser explained, if Alice tweets at Bob to tell him her detector setting, that interference makes ruling out hidden variables impossible.

Closing the locality loophole is easier said than done. The detector setting must be quickly changed while photons are on the fly—“quickly” meaning in a matter of mere nanoseconds. In 1976 a young French expert in optics, Alain Aspect, proposed a way for doing this ultra-speedy switch. His group’s experimental results, published in 1982, only bolstered Clauser’s results: local hidden variables looked extremely unlikely. “Perhaps Nature is not so queer as quantum mechanics,” Bell wrote in response to Aspect’s test. “But the experimental situation is not very encouraging from this point of view.”

Other loopholes remained, however, and Bell died in 1990 without witnessing their closure. Even Aspect’s experiment hadn’t fully ruled out local effects, because it took place over too small a distance. Similarly, as Clauser and others had realized, if Alice and Bob detected an unrepresentative sample of particles—like a survey that contacted only right-handed people—their experiments could reach the wrong conclusions.

No one pounced to close these loopholes with more gusto than Anton Zeilinger, an ambitious, gregarious Austrian physicist. In 1997 he and his team improved on Aspect’s earlier work by conducting a Bell test over a then unprecedented distance of nearly half a kilometer. The era of divining reality’s nonlocality from kayak-sized experiments had drawn to a close. Finally, in 2013, Zeilinger’s group took the next logical step, tackling multiple loopholes at the same time.

“Before quantum mechanics, I actually was interested in engineering. I like building things with my hands,” says Marissa Giustina, a quantum researcher at Google who worked with Zeilinger. “In retrospect, a loophole-free Bell experiment is a giant systems-engineering project.” One requirement for creating an experiment closing multiple loopholes was finding a perfectly straight, unoccupied 60-meter tunnel with access to fiber-optic cables. As it turned out, the dungeon of Vienna’s Hofburg palace was an almost ideal setting—aside from being caked with a century’s worth of dust. Their results, published in 2015, coincided with similar tests from two other groups that also found quantum mechanics as flawless as ever.

Bell’s Test Reaches the Stars

One great final loophole remained to be closed—or at least narrowed. Any prior physical connection between components, no matter how distant in the past, has the possibility of interfering with the validity of a Bell test’s results. If Alice shakes Bob’s hand prior to departing on a spaceship, they share a past. It is seemingly implausible that a local hidden variable theory would exploit these loopholes, but it was still possible.

In 2016 a team that included Kaiser and Zeilinger performed a cosmic Bell test. Using telescopes in the Canary Islands, the researchers sourced its random decisions for detector settings from stars sufficiently far apart in the sky that light from one would not reach the other for hundreds of years, ensuring a centuries-spanning gap in their shared cosmic past. Yet even then, quantum mechanics again proved triumphant.

One of the principal difficulties in explaining the importance of Bell tests to the public—as well as to skeptical physicists—is the perception that the veracity of quantum mechanics was a foregone conclusion. After all, researchers have measured many key aspects of quantum mechanics to a precision of greater than 10 parts in a billion. “I actually didn’t want to work on it,” Giustina says. “I thought, like, ‘Come on, this is old physics. We all know what’s going to happen.’” But the accuracy of quantum mechanics could not rule out the possibility of local hidden variables; only Bell tests could do that.

“What drew each of these Nobel recipients to the topic, and what drew John Bell himself to the topic, was indeed [the question], ‘Can the world work that way?’” Kaiser says. “And how do we really know with confidence?” What Bell tests allow physicists to do is remove the bias of anthropocentric aesthetic judgments from the equation. They purge from their work the parts of human cognition that recoil at the possibility of eerily inexplicable entanglement or that scoff at hidden variable theories as just more debates over how many angels may dance on the head of a pin.

The award honors Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger, but it is testament to all the researchers who were unsatisfied with superficial explanations about quantum mechanics and who asked their questions even when doing so was unpopular. “Bell tests,” Giustina concludes, “are a very useful way of looking at reality.”

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The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or two to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time here.

I was recently reading an old article by string theorist Robbert Dijkgraaf in Quanta Magazine entitled “There are no laws of physics”. You might think it a bit odd for a physicist to argue that there are no laws of physics but I agree with him. In fact, not only do I agree with him, I think that my field is all the better for it. And I hope to convince you of this too.

First things first. What we often call laws of physics are really just consistent mathematical theories that seem to match some parts of nature. This is as true for Newton’s laws of motion as it is for Einstein’s theories of relativity, Schrödinger’s and Dirac’s equations in quantum physics or even string theory. So these aren’t really laws as such, but instead precise and consistent ways of describing the reality we see. This should be obvious from the fact that these laws are not static; they evolve as our empirical knowledge of the universe improves.

Here’s the thing. Despite many scientists viewing their role as uncovering these ultimate laws, I just don’t believe they exist.

A hundred years ago, an opinion like this would not have been controversial. Before then, most so-called laws of physics were all directly connected to concrete aspects of the natural world, like Hooke’s law that describes how much force is needed to stretch a spring or Boyle’s law about the relationship between the pressure, temperature and volume of a gas. But this started to change in the early 20th century when people like Albert Einstein took up the quest to find the ultimate theory of everything. He spent the last 30 years of his life searching for one to no avail. Dirac too believed in this view, having apparently said that all of chemistry can be derived just from his equation – though I think that particular remark is probably apocryphal.

There are around 86 billion neurons in the human brain. This is less than the number of stars in the Milky Way which is just a miniscule part of the known universe. The universe seems almost infinite in comparison to the finite capacity of the human brain, leaving us perhaps little chance of figuring out ultimate laws. What is amazing is that we can make sense of some aspects of the universe through the laws of physics. It may have been Richard Feynman who first said that the issue is not how clever we humans are in figuring out how nature works, it is how clever nature is in following our laws!

As we discover more about nature, we can hone our descriptions of it, but it is never-ending – like peeling an infinite onion, the more we peel, the more there is to peel.

Take string theory as an example. It is a theory that is very mathematically tight and rather magical in the way that it treats gravity and quantum mechanics equivalently, matching many of our observations of the universe. It holds a lot of promise, but so far has struggled to provide any testable concrete predictions beyond our current understanding.

It also has a rather thorny stumbling block known as the landscape problem, where literally zillions of universes (around 10^500, the number is so large that it seems obscene) are acceptable solutions of the theory. If string theory is correct one can declare victory as one of those zillions of universes must be our universe, and all one needs to do is to somehow find that particular solution to figure out what the laws of physics are for us. Of course, this is an impossible task because of the exceptionally large number of possible universes existing in the landscape, and all with their own distinct laws.

This scenario is often called the multiverse. All possible laws, conceivable and inconceivable, are allowed in some possible universe, and laws of physics are no longer meaningful or unique from a fundamental sense, since they depend entirely on where in the multiverse landscape one is looking. It is ironic that the theory of everything turned out to imply an everything which is exponentially larger than any everything anybody could have imagined before.

One possible conclusion from this is that the conventional reductionist approach of particle physics, where natural laws are increasingly focused on smaller and smaller building blocks (like molecules, atoms and particles) and fundamental forces (like gravity and electromagnetism) acting between them, is no longer a fruitful way of looking at the physical world. There are no fundamental building blocks and no fundamental forces and, as such, there are no laws because thinking about ultimate reductionist laws rigorously has led to the possible existence of 10500  universes, with only one of them perhaps obeying the laws needed to accommodate Homo sapiens.

The only thing we are left with is the landscape, where the “laws” depend on the specific universe one is dealing with. This is so mind-bogglingly complex that the whole idea of natural laws must be modified. It’s an apparently strange end to a worthy journey that started with atoms as hypothetical indivisible constituents of matter 2500 years ago and witnessed a great recent triumph in the experimental discovery of the Higgs particle in 2012. In the end, our physical laws are not intrinsic at all, depending entirely on where in the landscape we happen to be.

As a theoretical condensed matter physicist I do not find this scenario discouraging at all – quite the opposite. The fact that there is an essentially infinite number of possible laws only makes doing science more exhilarating because exploring the landscape will remain an active and creative activity forever. Theoretical physics can never end because the landscape is simply too vast.

I know from my 40 years of experience in working on real-life physical phenomena that the whole idea of an ultimate law based on an equation using just the building blocks and fundamental forces is unworkable and essentially a fantasy. We never know precisely which equation describes a particular laboratory situation. Instead, we always have to build models and approximations to describe each phenomenon even when we know that the equation controlling it is ultimately some form of the Schrödinger equation!

“What about quantum mechanics?” you might ask. It has been hugely successful for close to 100 years at matching all our experiments at the quantum scale. But quantum mechanics is actually more like a set of rules that we use to express our laws rather than being an ultimate law itself. For example, the standard model of particle physics, the theory of superconductivity and the theory of atomic spectra are all built using the rules of quantum mechanics, but they have little to do with each other. In addition, space and time are variables that have to be put in by hand into the theory, when space and time should come out naturally from any ultimate law of physics. This has remained perhaps the greatest mystery in fundamental physics with no solution in sight.

It is difficult to imagine that a thousand years from now physicists will still use quantum mechanics as the fundamental description of nature. Something else should replace quantum mechanics by that time just as quantum mechanics itself replaced Newtonian mechanics. I have no idea what that something else might be, but I see no particular reason that our description of how the physical universe seems to work should reach the pinnacle suddenly in the beginning of the 21st century and become stuck forever at quantum mechanics. That would be a truly depressing thought!

Newton’s laws were extraordinarily successful for 300 years, but we had to go beyond them as we learned more about the universe, and the same should happen with quantum laws some day in the future.

Any such unknown new theory of the future must build on and incorporate the physics of quantum mechanics, just as quantum mechanics built on and incorporated classical mechanics. Our understanding of the physical world must continue indefinitely, unimpeded by the search for ultimate laws. Laws of physics continuously evolve – they will never be ultimate.

Sankar Das Sarma is a theoretical physicist based at the University of Maryland, College Park. His interests are diverse, spanning the strange properties of matter to how information should be understood in the quantum realm.

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Boosting its allure is another anything-but-hot trend, the practice of cold therapy, based on the belief that exposing the body to cold water and air may strengthen the immune system and improve cardiovascular health. Actor Chris Hemsworth of "Thor" fame helped promote the idea when he took an Arctic swim without a wetsuit as part of National Geographic's "Limitless" television series.

But evidence supporting the health benefits of cold therapy remains scant. Experts caution that for some people, shocking the body with cold water could do more harm than good, even at less-than-frigid temperatures. The National Center for Cold Water Safety warns that sudden immersion in water under 60 degrees Fahrenheit can kill a person in less than a minute.

"That cold shock can be dangerous," said Dr. Jorge Plutzky, director of preventive cardiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "Whether there are health benefits or not is not clear and has not been established."

Plunging the body into cold water triggers a sudden, rapid increase in breathing, heart rate and blood pressure known as the cold shock response. That can cause a person to drown within seconds if they involuntarily gasp while their head is submerged. The shock also places stress on the heart and makes it work harder.

Within minutes, the loss of heat begins causing other problems.

Blood rushes away from the extremities to the body's core to protect vital organs, Plutzky said. That leaves the arms and legs without good circulation, which can lead to a loss of strength and coordination. The rapid loss of heat also can lead to hypothermia, making it harder to think clearly or move well. Being immersed in cold water triggers hypothermia faster than just being out in the cold, because water takes heat away from the body 25 times faster than air.

Some studies suggest that people who adapt to cold water immersion through routine ice bathing or winter swimming may reduce inflammation and other cardiovascular risks. But others have found evidence of higher levels of troponin in people who compete in winter swims, suggesting that prolonged cold water immersion could lead to heart muscle damage.

"I would caution against it for anyone with a cardiac history," said Plutzky, who noted that little research on the health effects of cold water immersion included people with heart conditions.

People with heart conditions also may take medications, such as beta blockers, that lower blood pressure and reduce the heart rate, which could make it harder for the body to adapt to the shock of a sudden temperature drop, Plutzky said.

The shock response can be lessened by acclimating the body to increasingly colder water over time, said Lee Hill, an exercise scientist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Quebec, Canada. Hill was a cold water swim coach in South Africa before moving to Canada, where he continues to practice winter swimming.

Hill said people who routinely swim in cold water follow a series of safety measures to get their bodies prepared.

"For those not habituated, I would suggest starting slowly," he said. Hill recommends spending time in lakes or other outdoor water sources before temperatures drop and continuing to do so as the weather gets colder. If there's no place to swim outdoors, he suggests taking increasingly cooler showers or baths at home, as well as exercising outside.

"Get your lungs exposed to the cold air," he said. "Put cold water on the back of your neck. Prime your neurological system that a cold shock is coming."

The most dangerous time is the first 10 seconds to a minute, when people try to get their breath under control, Hill said. "You can survive for up to an hour moving around but for those who are not accustomed to that cold water shock, it can be incredibly risky."

The risk for hypothermia continues when you get out of the water, he said. "You should immediately get out of cold, wet clothes and into warm ones. Get near a space heater and drink a warm beverage."

Hill cautioned against doing a cold water swim without medical personnel on hand and access to supplies that allow immediate rewarming.

"Never, ever do a cold water swim on your own," he said. "That is a recipe for disaster."

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Covid-19 border closures disrupted Singapore’s connectivity with global trading and business networks. Foreign professionals who had been integrated into Singapore society for years returned to their home countries.

The political push to limit the number of foreign workers is also growing, especially in the services sector. The sector’s Dependency Ratio Ceiling — which determines the ratio of foreign to local workers in any company — had been reduced from 38% to 35% in January 2021.

Before the pandemic, Singapore’s strong economic fundamentals and strategic location at the heart of Southeast Asia proved attractive to big tech firms. During the US-China “tech cold war” Singapore has continued to pursue a strategy of openness and innovation.

But a survey by the human resources firm GlobalManpower ranked Singapore as the third most talent-starved among 40 countries, with 84% of companies in Singapore reporting talent shortages. Singapore’s “hubbing” strategy to lure multinational companies has come under threat as a result.

Eighty of the world’s top 100 tech firms are present in Singapore, increasing the pressure on a shrinking pool of workers. Traditional tech firms such as Google, IBM and Microsoft have been present in Singapore for several years, while newer ones like Zoom, Twitter, Paypal, Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance have established operations in the city-state since the pandemic.

The minister in charge of the government’s Smart Nation Initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan, highlighted that the information and communication technology (ICT) sector will need another 60,000 workers by 2023. But Singapore’s education system only produces 2,800 ICT graduates per year — and only a third of Singapore’s tech workforce is local.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services estimates that Singapore will need 1.2 million additional digital workers by 2025. This mismatch of supply and demand indicates that vacancies will continue to be mostly filled by foreigners.

Visitors take pictures of an installation at the ArtScience Museum, in Singapore on September 21, 2021.

Photo: AFP / Roslan Rahman

Acknowledging that competition in the digital economy space will intensify, Singapore introduced a new Tech Pass in January 2021 that allowed established foreign tech entrepreneurs, leaders and experts to work in Singapore.

Yet Singapore must balance its need for foreign talent with local unease about the rate of hiring from abroad, especially in the professional services positions that are sought after by locals.

Responding to voters’ concerns, the Singaporean government has introduced several initiatives to nurture local talent, such as the Singapore Global Executive Program (SGEP) in its Budget 2022. One way in which the SGEP supports local companies is by curating a career development journey for their local staff.

In August 2022, the Minister of Manpower Tan See Leng introduced several policy initiatives to strengthen Singapore’s position as a talent hub. One of these is the Overseas Networks & Expertise (ONE) Pass, a 5-year work permit to be implemented in January 2023. It also allows eligible applicants to work for multiple companies in Singapore simultaneously.

The ONE Pass is available for employees earning at least S$30,000 (US$ 21,000) per month or those with outstanding achievements in arts and culture, sports, science and technology, or research and academia. For new overseas candidates, the previous or prospective employer must have a market capitalization of US$500 million or annual revenue of at least US$200 million.

Unlike the Tech Pass which is meant exclusively for the tech sector, the ONE Pass is applicable across industries. This was a response to requests from other business sectors – such as sports and arts – for global talent.

This proactive recruitment strategy is meant to create a virtuous cycle of economic development. The Singaporean government highlights that the core of its economic development rests on the skills, knowledge and creativity of its human capital. The ONE Pass is a key policy lever for this offensive.

But global talent is in great demand, and Singapore’s own skilled professionals are also leaving for greener pastures.

In the 2022 Global Talent Competitiveness Index Report, compiled by the INSEAD business school, Singapore ranked sixth among 175 cities in attracting and developing talent. Singapore had fallen behind San Francisco, Boston, Zurich, Seattle and Lausanne.

Singapore’s outlook could grow dimmer without more foreign tech talent. Image: Facebook

The ONE Pass could help Singapore regain competitiveness in several ways. Few locals would be competing in the employment categories it covers, lessening scrutiny from voters. At the same time, the government will engage the global talent recruited via the Pass as much as possible while they remain in Singapore.

The ONE Pass is targeted towards recruiting global talent or “rainmakers” across all sectors and forms a key component of Singapore’s talent recruitment strategy. These highly mobile professionals possess the networks, deep skills, and expertise that will be essential ingredients in the innovative economy that Singapore aspires to become.

Businesses go where the talent is, and talent goes where the businesses are. When a core of global talent are embedded in its economy, Singapore will be able to attract the best of both.

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Elon Musk's “extremely hardcore” vision for Twitter seems to have manifested itself in sad little conference-room sleeping quarters at the company's recently depopulated headquarters.

On Monday, employees returning to work at the company’s San Francisco location were greeted by modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors — a significant upgrade over the Therm-a-Rest+sleeping bag situation showcased by one Twitter employee in November. One room even has a plant.

A photo of one converted bedroom shared with Forbes showed bright orange carpeting, a wooden bedside table and what appears to be a queen bed, replete with a table lamp and two office armchairs just begging for convivial workplace collaboration.

One source said that no announcement or context was provided to employees, and presumed that the beds are for remaining “hardcore” staffers to be able to stay overnight at the office. “It’s not a good look,” they said. “It’s yet another unspoken sign of disrespect. There is no discussion. Just like, beds showed up.”

Last month, CEO Elon Musk gave the thousands of employees that remained with the company the opportunity to leave or remain on the condition that they work intensely under the so-called “Twitter 2.0.” Since he took over as owner and CEO, Musk has fired at least half of Twitter’s employees, and more have left of their own volition.

It is not clear how many such bedroom pods exist, but the source, whose identity Forbes is withholding over fear of reprisal, speculated that there were maybe “four to eight per floor,” adding “they look comfortable.”

Another source who was similarly granted anonymity added that several of the rooms were on a floor that is largely empty. They noted that there was trash in one room’s trash can, which made it seem like someone had stayed there. “People are already putting in late nights, so it makes sense to an extent,” the source said.

Meanwhile, several ex-employees, upset over what they say is the company going back on agreements surrounding severance packages, have begun bringing multiple lawsuits and arbitration claims against Twitter. Contract workers are also frustrated with Musk: On Monday, a group of janitors whose contract with Twitter was not renewed went on strike and demonstrated outside the office.

In mid-November, Musk tweeted that he would be working and sleeping at the corporate offices along Market Street “until the org is fixed.” However, that tweet has since been deleted.

Musk has previously claimed to have slept at company properties before – he once tweeted about “sleeping at factory” in 2018, referring to the Tesla factory in nearby Fremont, Calif.

Twitter’s CEO did not respond to a request for comment, nor did its communications department, which appears to have been completely disbanded since Musk’s takeover.

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The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the proposed $69 billion merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. By a 3–1 vote, the regulatory commissioners approved the filing of an "administrative complaint" showing they have "reason to believe" antitrust law is being violated and will argue as much in front of an administrative law judge.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business," according to an FTC statement.

The FTC's lawsuit specifically calls out Microsoft's previous acquisition of Bethesda Softworks parent company Zenimax, saying it's part of a "record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles." The decision to make Bethesda's upcoming Starfield and Redfall exclusive to Microsoft platforms came "despite assurances [Microsoft] had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles."

Microsoft has taken pains to suggest that the Activision Blizzard acquisition would be different on this score, promising to ship Activision's bestselling Call of Duty franchise on competing PlayStation platforms "as long as there's a PlayStation to ship to." And just yesterday, Microsoft announced it reached deals with Nintendo and Valve to guarantee Call of Duty on those companies' platforms for at least 10 years.

Those promises haven't seemed to allay the FTC's antitrust concerns, though. "With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers," the government regulator wrote.

Ready for a fight

Microsoft has said that it is fully prepared to defend its acquisition in court. "We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC," Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith tweeted in the wake of the lawsuit news. "While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court."

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published this week, Smith stressed that it is currently in third place behind Sony and Nintendo in the game console business and has "no meaningful presence in the mobile game industry." Sony's loud objections to the deal are akin to Blockbuster complaining about "the rise of Netflix," as Smith put it.

In a message sent to Activision Blizzard employees and shared with Ars Technica, CEO Bobby Kotick acknowledged that the lawsuit "sounds alarming" but expressed "confidenc

e that this deal will close. The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn't align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge... despite a regulatory environment focused on ideology and misconceptions about the tech industry."

Microsoft's acquisition still faces potential headwinds from overseas governments as well. Last month, the European Commission said it was moving on to an "in-depth investigation" of the deal. And in the UK, a similar "Phase 2" investigation by the country's Competition and Markets Authority has scheduled a hearing this month. Those international investigations are expected to wrap up in March, when those bodies will decide whether to file their own attempts to stop the deal.

The filing of the FTC lawsuit was widely expected, with reports from insiders describing its filing as "likely" as recently as last month. A group of four US Senators wrote an open letter strongly urging the FTC to take a close look at the deal back in April, three months after Microsoft's plans were formally announced.

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In photos taken before and after Twitter’s mass layoffs, it appeared to many that Musk’s widespread staff cuts severely reduced the number of women on Twitter staff. Now, women laid off by Twitter have filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging that Musk violated employment laws by discharging significantly more women than men.

“Women at Twitter never had a decent shot at being treated fairly once Elon Musk decided to buy the company,” the attorney representing women suing, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said in a press statement provided to Ars. “Instead, they had targets on their backs and regardless of their talent and contributions, they were at greater risk of losing their jobs than men.”

Lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit are Miami-based Carolina Bernal Strifling, who worked at Twitter for seven years, and California-based Willow Wren Turkal, an engineer who joined Twitter in 2021 after four years at Facebook and LinkedIn.

They’re suing Twitter “on their own behalf and on behalf of other female Twitter employees across the country who have been discharged or constructively discharged from their jobs during the chaotic weeks since multi-billionaire Elon Musk purchased the company.”

Their complaint cites calculations provided by Mark Killingsworth, an economics professor at Rutgers University, to allege that, overall, “57 percent of female employees were laid off on November 4, 2022, while 47 percent of male employees were laid off.”

This disparity, the complaint alleges, “cannot be explained based upon a justification that Musk intended to retain more employees in engineering-related roles.” Killingsworth estimated that Musk terminated 63 percent of female employees in engineering-related roles, compared to 48 percent of male employees in engineering-related roles.

Musk’s own tweets are cited in the complaint as evidence of alleged sexism at Twitter. The complaint points to one tweet Musk deleted, naming a school using the acronym “TITS,” as well as a more recent tweet, where the billionaire said, “Testosterone rocks ngl.” The complaint also links to media reports from PC Mag and Futurism discussing the impact of Musk’s alleged misogyny on women who work for him.

Alleging that Musk’s layoffs violated Title VII protections prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, women suing have requested a jury trial. They are seeking “lost back pay, front pay, lost benefits, bonuses, and equity, as well as emotional distress damages, punitive damages, interest, and any other appropriate relief.” They also want the court to require Twitter to reinstate female employees who wish to return to work.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Other discrimination allegations

On top of allegedly laying off more women than men, the class-action lawsuit alleges that Musk has discriminated against female employees in other ways.

The complaint alleges that when Musk asked employees to agree to work in the office 24/7 or else voluntarily leave their jobs, “Musk would certainly have known that these policy changes and expectations would have a disproportionate impact on women, who are more often caregivers for children and other family members, and thus not able to comply with such demands.”

On the same day the women filed their class-action lawsuit, disabled employees and employees taking family or medical leave hit by layoffs also filed a class-action suit, represented by Liss-Riordan. Their complaint alleges that Twitter violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

Lead plaintiffs in that complaint are California-based Dmitry Borodaenko, who joined Twitter in 2021 after four years at Facebook, and Abhijit Mehta, a Twitter engineer since 2017 who, according to their LinkedIn profile, was the founding engineer lead for Twitter Blue. They’re suing “on behalf of employees who have taken or planned soon to take a family or medical leave, as well as disabled employees who can perform their jobs with or without reasonable accommodation but who were not permitted to continue their jobs, either through termination or forced resignation after being required to accept working under unreasonable circumstances for an employee with a disability.”

Borodaenko has a disability that puts him at extra risk of health complications if he contracts COVID-19. The complaint says he was assured when he was hired in 2021 that “he would always have the option to work remotely,” but Musk’s takeover changed those terms. After Musk required all employees to return to the office, Borodaenko sent an email to his manager, explaining, "In case I didn't mention it before, as [a] cancer survivor I'm at extra risk from Covid (it also counts as a disability), so I'm definitely not working from [the] office until the pandemic is over."

Shortly after sending that email, Twitter human resources notified Borodaenko that he was laid off, with allegedly no explanation other than: “Your recent behavior has violated company policy.”

In Mehta’s case, after his wife became pregnant, he had previously gotten family leave approved by Twitter management, set to start this upcoming December 28 until next May. Instead, Mehta was laid off, which shocked him.

“He was very surprised to hear this news, as he was a very high performer at the company, had recently received a promotion, and was working on an important project for Twitter,” the complaint says.

The complaint estimates that Twitter laid off “approximately 60 percent of employees who were on leave” at the time of the November 4 layoffs.

In this case, employees have also requested a jury trial. They’re asking the court to award damages and require Twitter to “reinstate disabled employees who wish to return to their jobs with reasonable accommodations” and “employees who have taken or plan to take family or medical leave who wish to return to their jobs.”

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NATO sources as well as Russian military sources reject US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s claim Tuesday that the United States had nothing to do with Ukraine’s missile strike against Russian air force bases December 5 and 6.

“We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” Blinken told reporters during a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Australian officials.

Multiple military sources in NATO countries as well as Russia contradict him, reporting that the reconditioned Russian Tu-141 drones that Ukraine launched at Russian air bases downlinked US satellite GPS data to hit their targets.

The 1970s-vintage Russian recon drones were converted into cruise missiles, fitted with new guidance systems and directed by American satellites, the sources said. Ukraine does not have the capability to guide missiles on its own, they added.

Russia’s Defense Ministry identified one of the weapons as the Tu-141 in a December 6 statement. According to Russian military sources, the Russians identified the Tu-141 from fragments recovered after the missiles struck Russia’s Dyagilevo and Engels air force bases.

If, contrary to Blinken’s denial, the United States provided guidance for the missile attack, then Washington must be well aware that this brings NATO forces to the brink of direct involvement in the Ukraine war and the Biden administration must be prepared to run that risk.

The damage that Ukraine inflicted on Russian planes at the two Russian bases is trivial compared with the strategic risk that the United States has introduced into the conflict.

As Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley warned on November 9, there is no military victory in sight for the Ukraine War.

Russia analyst James Davis writing in the December 7 edition of the Global Polarity Monitor, a strategic report published in cooperation with Asia Times, described a military stalemate:

Russia continues to pursue a defensive strategy in Ukraine to solidify defensive lines and to raise the costs of Ukrainian military operations…. Moscow also remains confident that the growing expenditures of the West to sustain Ukraine will motivate Western leaders including President Biden to explore the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Russia believes that holding the defensive lines will demonstrate that the cost of supporting Ukraine to achieve a complete reversal of the Russian position in Ukraine, including Crimea, is simply too high.

Milley’s mention of a “window” for peace talks during the winter pause in fighting provoked consternation among US officials who want victory at all costs. While Milley and US military leaders believe that the only way out of the war is negotiation with Russia, the US State Department and National Security Council are determined to achieve a military victory over Russia by any means necessary.

NATO is divided on how to resolve the Ukraine conflict. French President Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have revived the idea of offering security guarantees to Russia, including Ukrainian neutrality.

US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland visited Kyiv December 3 to reassure the Ukrainians that the US believes that “Putin is not sincere” in proposing negotiations “and not ready for this.”

Ukraine doesn’t have the forces to mount an effective counteroffensive against the Russians, so a military solution presupposes NATO troops on the ground.

The attack on the Russian bases might be intended to provoke a Russian response that would, in turn, justify the deployment of NATO ground troops in Ukraine.

American satellites used to guide missiles into Russian territory, might be considered legitimate military targets, Russian foreign ministry official Vladimir Yermakov said November 30. A Russian attack on US satellites could draw the US into a war with Russia.

A prominent Chinese military columnist, Chen Feng of guancha.cn (“Observer”), wrote December 7 that “It is an open secret that Western satellites are being used to support the Ukrainian army in operations, but it is also a matter of mortal danger.” Chen offered a stern warning to Moscow:

Unless Russia can accurately identify a small satellite that is supporting the Ukrainian war and release credible evidence, destroying a small satellite of the United States or a NATO country is equivalent to launching a war against the United States or a NATO country. As far as the existing technology is concerned, it is impossible that Russia would have the ability to accurately identify the suspected satellite. Taking the initiative to draw the United States or NATO into the Ukraine war may not be a consequence that Russia can afford.

Yermakov “should not have made such a statement,” Chen concluded.

Guancha.cn frequently raises issues of importance to China’s leadership, and Chen’s widely-followed column suggests that Beijing has serious worries about the possible widening of the Ukraine conflict into a world war.

A Russian source with access to the thinking of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle said that Russia would not retaliate against US satellites. “That would be a casus belli for the United States,” the source said.

NATO military analysts worry that Russia might launch an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a conventional rather than a nuclear payload at a major Ukrainian target, as a warning to the West about the consequences of escalating the conflict. IRBMs travel roughly ten times faster than cruise missiles like the TU-141 and are practically impossible to shoot down.

A Russian military analyst, though, told Asia Times that this tactic was discussed and rejected by the Russian military. Reconfiguration of missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads would be difficult and time-consuming, the analyst said.

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