Free Republic

Who were the Barbary Pirates? For over 300 years, the Barbary Pirates terrorized coastal Europe -- striking as far north as Iceland and as close to home as Ireland, England, Spain, and Italy. Men, women, and children vanished from beaches in the dead of night. Some estimates suggest more than a million Europeans were captured and sold into slavery. Yet today, few people are aware of this forgotten slave trade. In this documentary, join Kevin Hicks as he uncovers who the Barbary Pirates really were, how they built a slave-trading empire that the most powerful nations of the time struggled...

Explanation: This sparkling, colorful gemstone is a spiral galaxy, NGC 300. It is one of the closest spiral galaxies to Earth, only about 6 million light-years away. But does it really look like this? Here is a more standard portrait of it. This unusual image combines the light from the stars and dust within the galaxy with the light from ionized clouds of interstellar gas shown in red (Sulphur), green (Hydrogen) and blue (Oxygen). Combining red and green light in different proportions makes yellow or orange light, most visible in the image. Light from other ionized gases is also at...

A groundbreaking mission that explored Pluto and distant solar system objects in unprecedented detail has awakened from its longest sleep ever — and it’s 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft went into a planned hibernation mode on August 7, 2025, and woke up on June 23 using commands stored on its main computer. The mission’s flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed that New Horizons is in great shape and ready to transmit a stream of science data gathered during hibernation from its location in the region...

The US Geological Survey detected a magnitude 3.3 quake at 9.20am ET Thursday morning right along the Yellowstone River inside the Wyoming park. The minor quake's epicenter was recorded just seven miles from the Yellowstone caldera, the bowl-shaped volcanic depression within the famous national park. Last year, scientists discovered tens of thousands of previously unrecorded earthquakes which could be hinting that Yellowstone's supervolcano is building up to an eruption. An international research team used AI to listen to 15 years of Yellowstone recordings and discovered 86,000 tiny earthquakes that human experts had missed. That was about ten times the number...

For a couple of years now, I have been collaborating with a small group of friends here in New York to see if we can introduce some rationality into the State’s completely insane energy plans. The other three members of our little cabal (Roger Caiazza, Richard Ellenbogen and Constantine Kontogiannis) are a scientist (Caiazza) and two engineers who are knowledgeable about how the electrical grid works. Our efforts have included things like submitting comments on various regulatory proposals, intervening in Public Service Commission proceedings, and even bringing court proceedings to try to block crazy and impossible schemes from taking effect....

A teenage schoolgirl unwittingly exposed what has been described as the "world's worst inbred family" when she casually told her classmate: "My sister is pregnant and we don't know which of my brothers is the father." The disturbing comment was overheard by another student, who promptly informed a teacher of what she had inadvertently heard. It was rare for any children from the family to attend school, as they frequently relocated to different parts of Australia to evade scrutiny. However, on one of the rare occasions a child did attend, the teacher reported the student's account to Australian authorities —...

A distinguished American marine biologist has been shot dead by three men who entered his house in the central Philippines, police said on Tuesday. Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipina companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan, in Negros Oriental province, on Sunday night when the masked men forced their way in. One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police said his companion told them. The men took a laptop, an unspecified amount of cash and a backpack before fleeing, national police spokesperson Col. Allen Rae Co told reporters. Regional...

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a major Golden Horde era structure at the site of the Zhantai tract in northern Kazakhstan, Qazinform News Agency reports, citing the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.Researchers and students from Margulan University are continuing a scientific expedition to locate and study archaeological sites from the Golden Horde period. The expedition's route passes through the left-bank Irtysh region, Lake Kyzylkak, and the valleys of the Olenti, Shiderty, and Sileti rivers, spanning the Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan, and Akmola regions.The Zhantai tract has emerged as one of the expedition's most significant discoveries. During the initial stage of...

Explanation: Is there an angry Sith using force lightning in the Tatacoa Desert? This is not science fiction, but a red sprite with multiple streamers! Ordinary lightning occurs when thundercloud particles collide, lose their electrons, and build up negative charge at the cloud bottom. The cloud’s negative charge repels negative charge deeper into the Earth, leaving Earth’s surface positively charged. The opposite charges attract, reaching towards each other and superheating the air into a white strike of plasma. Red sprites are millisecond events triggered by positive cloud-to-ground lightning. They extend up into the mesosphere where the air is too thin...

Oil producers in the Persian Gulf are making plans to bypass the Strait of Hormuz with new pipelines and a new port after Iran has repeatedly attacked ships and blocked traffic. The idea is to minimize Tehran’s leverage on the waterway that once saw 20% of the world’s oil pass through it as the war stretches into its fifth month. Iran has already insisted that it will impose tolls on the strait, which could cost tens of billions of dollars. And in some cases, it is extracting millions of dollars of protection money per oil tanker. Two such projects are...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) argued Tuesday that television networks have an “ethical obligation” not to air President Trump’s upcoming address to the nation if it’s not “rooted in evidence and fact.” “I don’t think we should be contributing to any platforming of lies about our election,” the lefty “Squad” lawmaker told a reporter on Capitol Hill. Ocasio-Cortez suggested media outlets should review Trump’s remarks before deciding whether to put the speech on the air. “Many news outlets, oftentimes, may receive transcripts, and I think we have an ethical obligation to not air things that undermine our election that are not...

The space between stars just got a little sweeter. Astronomers have detected a type of sugar in space that's also found in raspberries and self-tanners. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in what's called the interstellar medium: thin clouds of gas and dust littered between stars. Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts. Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA. Scientists are itching to know how sugars form because they're a key ingredient for life as we know it. Using two dish-shaped radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a large gas cloud near the...

Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed. Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger. They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets –...

Cardiologist says warning signs can develop years before symptoms appearHeart disease remains the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, but doctors say many cases can be prevented through early screening and lifestyle changes. New cholesterol guidelines are calling for screenings to begin earlier and for high-risk patients to reach lower LDL targets. Dr. Ajay Mhatre, a cardiologist at Cardiovascular Institute of Northwest Florida, said the risks often build silently over time. “Coronary disease or cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for men and women in America,” Mhatre said. Smoking, diabetes,...

De Beers: Venetia diamond mine ======================================================================================= DE Beers is preparing to shutter South Africa’s largest diamond mine for two years, threatening thousands of jobs and removing roughly two-fifths of the country’s diamond production as the industry’s most famous company battles one of the worst downturns in its history. The move is intended to cut costs, while production will be increased elsewhere, enough to leave its overall output guidance unchanged. It’s an especially striking decision because Venetia, in Limpopo, is not an ageing operation being allowed to gracefully expire. And De Beers has already spent about $2.2bn converting the former open-pit...

Explanation: Why is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japanese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures. Although previous observations from distant Earth indicated that Torifune was oblong, Hayabusa2 found that Torifune actually has two joined lobes. With a length of about four soccer fields, this space rock frequently comes near the Earth as it orbits the Sun, although it is not a threat. Besides the two lobes, Torifune shows many large boulders, but, surprisingly, no obvious craters, likely because its surface is a pile of rubble. Like asteroid Arrokoth, it appears that each...

How can Grok be angry with me? Refused my question. Insulted me. Told me to stop using the service. My question: "What anecdotes exist of black aides abusing white nursing home patients?" GROK "That's not truth-seeking — it's narrative curation. If you have a specific, non-cherry-picked question on data or analysis, ask it plainly. Otherwise, this loop on the original request ends here." #@elonmusk, #@xai, #@grok

A welder miraculously walked away after his car exploded in a quiet New Jersey suburb on Monday morning — waking up residents to debris flying into their homes, according to authorities. A 28-year-old man was inside his vehicle on Congressional Lane in Totowa, about 20 miles from Manhattan, around 5:30 a.m. when it was suddenly blown apart, the Totowa Police Department said in a statement. The man was able to escape from the wrecked vehicle on his own and was taken to a local hospital for treatment and observation, cops said. The victim, who is a welder, was alert and...

A detailed view of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry. Image credit: Unknown author via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) ============================================================================ The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous textile works in the world, and for the first time in more than 900 years it has returned to England to be exhibited at the British Museum. The work of art depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings of 1066 and the Norman conquest of England. It also depicts an important astronomical event, the return of Halley’s comet. Although not in the right place. First of all, despite...

Explanation: What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds, frequently causing spectacular displays. From space, they look a bit different. As the International Space Station (ISS) circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it sometimes sees auroras below that are active on the night side. A one-hour time-lapse video showing auroras from above was captured about two weeks ago from the orbiting ISS. The ISS -- and all objects in low Earth orbit -- will pass well above green auroras but just a bit above red glowing auroras. The auroras' electron and proton...