Free Republic

In 2019, The Economist examined China’s potential to become a scientific superpower. Today, it is clear that China has achieved this status. Chinese scientists have gained prominence in high-quality science measures, surpassing both the United States and the European Union in producing high-impact papers,,. China leads the world in physical sciences, chemistry, and Earth and environmental sciences. It dominates publications on advanced technologies such as perovskite solar panels and hydrogen extraction from seawater. China also excels in quantum computing, with research teams achieving significant breakthroughs, such as setting a record for the number of entangled quantum bits... China’s patent production...

Scientists have found evidence of a cosmic airburst event around 1650 BCE that devastated the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley, causing extreme temperatures and depositing high concentrations of salt. This event, potentially inspiring the biblical tales of Sodom and Jericho’s destruction, might have also led to a mass abandonment of cities in the region during the “Late Bronze Age Gap.”In the Middle Bronze Age (about 3,600 years ago or roughly 1650 BCE), the city of Tall el-Hammam was ascendant. Located on high ground in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea, the settlement...

I awoke from fitful sleep troubled by the thought that there is a God who is just. My unease had begun the previous evening as I tried to find an explanation for Donald Trump’s rise in the polls. None of the oracles I consulted—Nate Silver, Real Clear Politics, Upshot, Vox—could explain how a man with such offensive political views and even more offensive hair could become the Republican frontrunner. A terrifying thought kept pressing itself against me: Could Donald Trump be an agent of divine wrath, sent by God to punish a nation of haters and losers? I got...