Free Republic

So much for the idea that the Trump administration hurt the U.S. economy through its response to the pandemic. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit research organization that tracks the beginnings and endings of U.S. recessions, said the coronavirus-induced contraction began in February 2020 and ended in April 2020. That makes it the shortest recession ever recorded in U.S. history. A recession occurs when there’s a decline in gross domestic product over consecutive months. The NBER said that although U.S. GDP declined by a dramatic 31% in the second quarter of 2020, government stimulus policies helped stabilize...

To measure small differences in time, you need a really tiny clock, and researchers in Germany have discovered the smallest known clock: a single hydrogen molecule. Using the travel of light across the length of that molecule, those scientists have measured the smallest interval of time ever: 247 zeptoseconds. Don’t know what a “zepto” is? Read on… When a bit of light, called a photon, hits an atom with enough energy, it can kick the electron out of that atom and send it flying. When we carefully set up this situation in a laboratory, we can measure the electron shooting...

(Video link below) PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. - One woman's pregnancy could come close to breaking a state record. Expectant mother Cristianne Ray may soon set the bar, and it's all because she falls much shorter than average. Cristianne's already made it to week 35 of her pregnancy, making weekly trips from Puyallup to Seattle to see specialists. "I don't know, it's been different. I've grown a lot," she said. "My doctor, every time I see her she says, 'oh my gosh, your stomach's so big.'" Any pregnant woman may feel that way, but Cristianne gained almost 40 percent of her...

Zimbabweans have 'shortest lives' Zimbabwean women are more likely than men to be infected by HIV Life in Zimbabwe is shorter than anywhere else in the world, with neither men nor women expected to live until 40, a new UN report says. Zimbabwe's women have an average life expectancy of 34 years and men on average do not live past 37, it said. The World Health Organisation report said women's life expectancy had fallen by two years in the last 12 months.Correspondents say poverty because of the crumbling economy and deaths from Aids are responsible for the decline. Zimbabwean women...

<p>SACRAMENTO - During his speech at the California Chamber of Commerce inaugural luncheon last Monday, newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger assured the crowd that he knew what he was up against. "If you thought that the campaign was tough and that we were in the trenches and we were fighting it out, there is something much more to come because those guys are not going to roll over," he said.</p>