Free Republic

Miners in Myanmar have discovered a rare ruby of enormous size, considered to be the second-largest by weight ever found in the conflict-battered Southeast Asian nation, state media reported Friday. The ruby, measuring 11,000 carats (2.2 kilograms, or 4.8 pounds), was unearthed near the town of Mogok, in the upper Mandalay region, the heartland of the lucrative gem-mining industry that has recently experienced intense fighting in the country’s wide-ranging civil war. According to a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the newly found rough ruby was discovered in mid-April, just after the traditional New Year festival. While...

The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-0 to advance restrictions on police traffic stops rooted in one dangerous idea: That cops enforcing traffic laws are somehow the real threat on the streets of LA. Not the drunk driver. Not the gang member carrying an illegal gun. Not the reckless driver blowing through intersections at 90 miles per hour. The cops. Only in LA could elected officials look at street disorder and decide the problem is still too much policing. Read the motion that passed and the message is obvious: Los Angeles is now governed by people who start with suspicion...

A wearable gas sensor called “Smart Underwear” attached to the inside of people’s underwear monitors hydrogen gas emissions to track digestive health in real time. Image credit:© iStock.com, Nadezhda Kurbatova Just one bite of ice cream or a sip of a milkshake can’t hurt too much, right? Anyone with lactose intolerance knows that this bargaining usually results in some uncomfortable gut sensations and stinky side effects about 30 minutes to a couple of hours later. People with lactose intolerance cannot breakdown lactose, the natural sugar in dairy products. When gut microbes encounter this unabsorbed lactose, they ferment it and release...

A Minnesota state lawmaker is asking a powerful House committee to subpoena US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into her possible ties to Somali fraudsters who bilked Twin Cities taxpayers out of $250 million. State Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-Maple Grove), who is chairing a fraud oversight investigation in Minnesota’s legislature, wrote to US House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) on Thursday requesting that his panel compel Omar to hand over “her staff’s communications with defendants” implicated in the fraud. “As you may be aware, Rep. Ilhan Omar has documented ties to criminals convicted...

A reported boat explosion in Miami sent 15 people to the hospital Saturday afternoon, as over 25 fire rescue units were dispatched to the scene. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to calls about a reported explosion around 12:50 p.m. at Haulover Sandbar near North Miami, The Miami Herald reported.

In a new physics milestone, scientists report that a time crystal and an external system have been successfully linked for the first time. The achievement, made by researchers at Aalto University’s Department of Applied Physics, marks the first demonstration of converting a time crystal—an unusual quantum system in which particles are in constant, repetitive motion in its ground state—into an optomechanical system. A range of potential technological applications, including new high-precision sensors, quantum storage systems, and other innovative capabilities, could result from the research, led by Jere Mäkinen and detailed in a new paper appearing in Nature Communications. A New...

Ukraine is testing an AI-assisted laser system designed to destroy Shahed drones and protect key infrastructure. Image of the Ukrainian Tryzub laser system. Military NYI Ukraine’s Celebra Tech is edging closer to deploying its Tryzub anti-drone laser weapon in Ukraine, the company reports. According to Celebra, the system is now entering its final testing phase before battlefield deployment. Colloquially called “Trident,” the system has been designed to give Ukrainian forces a cheap and rapid deployable counter to massed Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations. This could be game-changing, as Russia has made use of large...

Explanation: Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon. Standouts in the dark, smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or Mare Fecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8 and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively. Their elongated shapes are explained by the extremely shallow-angle trajectory followed by an impactor, moving left to right, that gouged out the craters. The shallow impact also resulted in two...

Excavations from 2015 to 2021 on the ancient site of Motza, just west of Jerusalem, revealed a sprawling settlement with some surprisingly advanced technology. The site dates back to 7100–6700 BCE during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period...There is evidence of the use of calcitic lime plaster, or calcium carbonate-based plaster, in construction as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It later became a dominant, durable building material used by civilizations like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The earliest evidence of its use appeared in the Fertile Crescent, or modern day Jordan and Turkey. The material is produced...

The US government is moving to evacuate American passengers from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with plans to transport them to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring, federal health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the American public remains extremely low as officials move forward with a medical repatriation flight for passengers aboard the M/V Hondius. President Trump said earlier Friday that the situation appears to be under control, pointing to the virus being difficult to transmit. “We have very good people looking at it....

The beams are an in-kind contribution from CERN. Matthew Kapust / SURF The US has begun lowering 10 million pounds of steel nearly a mile underground to build the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), widely regarded as one of the world’s most ambitious particle physics experiments. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the premier US national lab for high-energy particle physics announced the start of the underground detector assembly for the massive neutrino project in South Dakota on May 7. It is carried out along with the Sanford Underground Research Facility and CERN. Transported deep underground, the steel beams will...

Over 100 people were affected by a norovirus outbreak aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released Thursday. According to the report, 102 of 3,116 passengers (3.3%) and 13 of 1,131 crew members (1.2%) were reported ill, with symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting. The outbreak was reported to the CDC on May 7. The cruise voyage took place from April 28 to May 11, according to the CDC. Princess Cruises said a limited number of individuals reported mild gastrointestinal illness during the voyage. "Princess Cruises can confirm that a limited number...

For 4,200 years, the Y chromosome of a Yakutian warrior has quietly echoed in Siberia's Arctic peoples. His extraordinary Stone Age grave was discovered in Russia's far northeast near Yakutsk in 2004 by scientists. The middle-aged hunter's skeleton was found on its back with arms at its side. Dozens of elk-bone plates were laid as a shield over the chest. Analysis of the radiocarbon data hints that the person died nearly 4,000 years ago. The person is presumed to be from the Ymyyakhtakh cultural horizon. This cultural horizon contains the nomadic hunter-gatherers who used more sophisticated bone and antler weapons......

Beneath a section of Chicago, there is a hidden several mile wide impact crater. This might initially seem like a crazy claim but it is true, existing underneath the city of Des Plaines. The only reason it isn't highly visible today is due to sediments emplaced during extensive glaciers during the last 2 million years. It is for this reason that I will discuss when this crater formed, what evidence we have, and what immediate effects its formation had. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border,...

The neurotransmitter serotonin, best known for its role in regulating mood, may also influence the severity of tinnitus, new research has found. According to a mouse study by scientists in the US and China, increasing serotonin signaling in a specific brain circuit increased behaviors associated with the neurological disorder. Since serotonin is often targeted to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety, this finding could help guide the development of treatments that relieve these conditions without exacerbating tinnitus. "We've suspected that serotonin was involved in tinnitus, but we didn't really understand how. Now, using mice, we've found a specific brain circuit...

Explanation: Which way is Comet R3 PanSTARRS going? Not towards the star at the top of the image, because that is Rigel, which, being far in the background, is unrelated to the comet. Not through the nebula in the image middle, because that is the Witch Head Nebula and it, too, is far in the distance -- but not far from Rigel. Not into northern skies because over the past week Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has moved into southern skies and is now best visible in Earth's Southern Hemisphere toward the west after sunset. Angularly, Comet R3 PanSTARRS is slowly...

A man went out on a morning walk in southwest Norway and stumbled upon a surprise: an elite warrior's sword scabbard that was purposefully buried 1,500 years ago. The rare gold object, which was richly decorated with serpentine animals, was probably an offering to the gods at a time of famine and societal turmoil, researchers say...The sixth-century gold artifact, which is about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) long and weighs 1.2 ounces (33 grams), once adorned the scabbard of an elite warrior's sword. Only 17 others have been discovered to date in Northern Europe, and most were found in hoards with...

Manned Circumnavigation of the Inner Solar System Posted on April 27, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen In 1969, a Bellcomm engineer named A. A. VanderVeen published a paper describing a family of trajectories so elegant they seem almost accidental. Fifty-five years later, the most attractive instance of that trajectory family departs Earth in August 2034. This post is about what it would mean to fly it. Back in February 2009, I opened a thread on the NASASpaceFlight.com forum with what I thought was a simple thought experiment: what interplanetary mission might be within reach of an extremely wealthy private individual —...

During the 4th-century, a remarkable artifact was produced by Roman artisans that exhibits optical qualities so unique they have baffled scholars for centuries. Known as the Lycurgus Cup, it is one of the most unusual examples of glassworking ever produced by the Roman Empire, as it is made from dichroic glass—a material that appears to exhibit an entirely different coloration when light passes through it—causing it to look green when illuminated from the front but appearing a striking amber-red when illuminated from behind. The artifact’s unique name refers to its depiction of King Lycurgus, who, according to mythology, attempted to...

…Most other nations dutifully adopted SI, changing road signs and packaging and teaching the metric system in schools. Even the United Kingdom, which had lagged for years, mostly embraced the system in an effort to keep pace with other European Union nations. (Since the U.K. left the EU, metric opponents there have argued the nation should stop using metric units, a controversial proposition that has yet to be adopted.) Despite international adoption and increasing federal policy encouraging the use of metric units, the U.S. continued to drag its feet. Resistance was fueled in part by industrialists who argued the system...