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UCSC science writers examine the evidence for ghost hunting, chemtrails, cryptozoology and moreEach year, the graduate students of UCSC’s Science Communication Program research a different topic for the first GT issue of the new year. This year, with so much abuse and misuse of science floating around, especially on social media, we decided to take on the topic of pseudoscience. It’s a wildly varied list of subjects, and whether they’re fun and seemingly harmless, have implications for believers’ pocketbooks, or are the basis for sinister conspiracy theories, it’s edifying to know their scientific basis—or lack of one—and to consider...

HUMAN-animal hybrids could be used to grow lifesaving organs and replacement limbs - but some fear it may be scientists "playing God". History has been made as David Bennett, 57, from Maryland in the US, had a genetically-modified pig heart implanted into his chest. Bennett had terminal heart disease, and underwent the bizarre-sounding procedure as a last hope - and he is now doing well three days after the operation. And in the past scientists have used the techniques to splice human and monkey embryos together, transplant fetal organs into rats, and even grow human ears on mice. The idea...

Election officials in the Texas county that includes the state capital, Austin, have rejected about half of applications for mail-in ballots, following new voting restrictions brought in by Republicans. The voter identification rules have led to the rejection of about half of the 700 mail-in ballots requested in Travis county for primary elections in March, according to the county’s clerk. The denied ballots in Travis county follow a similar trend across Texas, with officials in Harris county, which includes the city of Houston, and Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, also turning down a substantial number of mail-in ballot applications....

Buried cash, extravagant watches are the latest seizures in an investigation that already revealed a massive cache of millions of dollars, drugs and ammoOne year ago, the suspected leader of a Sinaloa cartel cell was arrested at a private airport outside Boston, and a month later a massive cache of drugs, cash and ammunition was seized from an Otay Mesa trucking yard. The bust netted a high-profile suspect and a stash worth several million dollars. But perhaps the most valuable assets to come of the whole operation were the cellphones, nearly 40 of them. The seized phones have provided federal...

One of the largest news outlets in Denmark apologized to its readers for “hypnotically” trusting the government’s COVID narrative for the past two years.In a shocking admission of failure to uphold the standards journalistic integrity, Denmark’s Ekstra Bladet newspaper ran a story titled “We failed” on Tuesday, admitting that the paper was hoodwinked by the mainstream COVID narrative and complicit in misleading the public and fostering undue fear.For ALMOST two years, we — the press and the population — have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities’ daily coronavirus figures,” read the article’s introduction. “WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough...

A 24-year-old woman was stabbed to death Thursday afternoon while working at a Hancock Park furniture store by a man who is still on the loose. Brianna Kupfer of Pacific Palisades was working alone at the Croft House furniture store in the 300 block of La Brea Avenue, near Beverly Boulevard, when a man entered the store, attacked her and stabbed her to death with a knife, Los Angeles police said. The man was last seen exiting the store through the back and heading northbound in the alley, according to video surveillance footage.

Binging on TV shows like Squid Game and Love Island might leave you thinking humans are naturally duplicitous, but actually a little bit of social nous is a core part of human interaction.Emotional manipulation has been referred to as the dark side of emotional intelligence by psychological scientist Prof Elizabeth Austin at the University of Edinburgh. But what does that mean? Austin and her colleagues created the Emotional Manipulation Scale in 2007. According to the scale, people who are high on emotional manipulation say yes to behaving in ways that have obvious negative consequences such as ‘I know how...

Send the Marxist elements of the Democratic Party back to the ash heap of history. In the post-Trump era, the pundit class remains obsessed with the state of the Republican Party. Is it still in thrall to Donald Trump? Does it remain committed to “democracy,” as circumstantially defined by those clutching pearls as they whisper the question fretfully? Can it sustain a sufficiently broad coalition, ranging from economic libertarians to the “Let’s Go Brandon” contingent, in order to take what appear to be highly winnable elections in 2022 and 2024? Beneath this breathless focus on the Republican Party and its...

Cigarette smoke and even second-hand smoke somehow, all of a sudden, can trigger blood clots, heart attacks and strokes, according to cigarette manufacturers and distributors. This comes as a huge coincidence in its timing as millions of people around the world who have been injected with Fauci Flu shots are now suffering or have died from those exact “side effects.” What you are about to see is Big Tobacco covering for Big Pharma as cigarette warning labels now pretend that cigarettes will kill or maim you the same exact way that the Covid jabs do. One hand washes the other....

The devices—developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX—have a warming feature to prevent snow built up from disrupting the signal “Starlink works great until the cats find out that the dish gives off a little heat on cold days,” For those concerned about cats outside in cold weather, Taylor clarifies they do have access to heated cat house. But even when temperatures reached minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, the kitties still used the satellite dish as a $500 cat bed. “When the sun goes down, they head back to their house,”

Police employ them and scientists study them, but what is life like for the rare few who can never forget a face? Super-recogniser Yenny Seo didn’t think it was anything special As a child, Yenny Seo often surprised her mother by pointing out a stranger in the grocery store, remarking it was the same person they passed on the street a few weeks earlier. Likewise, when they watched a movie together, Seo would often recognise “extras” who’d appeared fleetingly in other films. Once, while working at a part-time job at a clothing store when she was at uni, Seo had...

About $7 million worth of surplus personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, purchased by a Northern California county earlier in the pandemic, was damaged in recent rainstorms after it was left outside for months, officials said Friday. San Mateo County officials acknowledged the disaster following a KGO news report, published Thursday, that showed video of scores of sodden boxes outside the San Mateo Event Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Mateo County, south of San Francisco, is among the wealthiest counties in the nation. Workers are inspecting the damaged boxes to see if the items inside — many...

Nicola Madden, aged 43, was taking part in an online meeting when she suffered a suspected heart attack on January 11.A beloved mum tragically died during an online meeting after her birthday. Nicola Madden, aged 43, was taking part in an online meeting when she suffered a suspected heart attack on January 11. Her daughter Charlotte, aged nine, acted quickly and called her dad Stuart McDougall, but Nicola tragically passed away, Liverpool Echo reports. Friends and family of the civil servant from Waterloo have now set up a GoFundMe page in memory of Nicola, who they describe as a sociable...

Now his devastated family have been left in shock by his death and are paying tribute to the 'legend'.A Scots family have been left heartbroken after their 'friendly giant' dad suddenly died in his sleep. Billy Muir, from Glasgow, went to bed feeling 'peaky' around January 7th and sadly never woke up. The Rangers daft 54-year-old grandfather had taken a covid test shortly before which turned up negative last week. Now his devastated family have been left in shock by his death and are paying tribute to the 'legend'. Daughter Kate Muir Daily Record: "He was a big 6ft 6...

Just two weeks into the new year, the U.S. has already seen more than a million new COVID cases on multiple days. The Omicron variant has created a dangerous surge, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating that this version of the virus currently accounts for more than 98 percent of cases in the country. Omicron is spreading even faster than the previously dominant Delta variant, and pushing case counts higher than ever before. Health officials across the country have started to update existing policies in response to the surge, with some places introducing vaccine mandates for...

Woke Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon is embroiled in yet another scandal after his own cops went over his head to ask federal prosecutors to charge the alleged killers of an off-duty LAPD officer. LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva sought out the federal prosecution for the four gang members accused of killing Officer Fernando Arroyos, 27, on January 10 over fears pursing them through Gascon could lead to lighter sentencing. Last year, Gascon axed sentencing enhancements

Thinking of starting a weekly Sat night Film Noir thread. Please give a thumbs up/down.

Only the foolish will get vaccinated and wear a mask now. The New Year is here! It’s time for an Omicron party! Everyone get sick and save your community with herd immunity! What’s a few days feeling under the weather when you can protect your children’s future? Now it’s time for accountability.

Harry wants to have police protection rather than private security when he and his family are in the UK because they do not feel it is safe here, and in a statement by a legal representative he said he was prepared to pay for it. Harry is arguing his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed keep the Sussex family safe. “The UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in,” the legal representative for...

An Arizona woman has accused Delta Air Lines of discrimination after she was unable to buy a gender “X” ticket for her nonbinary child due to the company’s booking tools. Dawn Henry, 52, slammed Delta in a lengthy series of tweets last week, saying she wanted to buy her 21-year-old a surprise ticket for Christmas when she discovered the carrier only provides male or female options. But her child identifies as neither exclusively male nor female — and has an “X” marker on their birth certificate and Washington state driver’s license. Delta “is discriminating against #nonbinary individuals and not...