Free Republic

A U.S. drug company did not openly share or perform further studies on a successful rheumatoid arthritis medicine that internal researchers suggested was reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease by 64 percent, according to Washington Post article published Tuesday. Researchers at Pfizer reportedly urged the firm to conduct a clinical trial after finding the potential hidden benefit of the anti-inflammatory drug Enbrel while analyzing insurance claims. It was estimated to cost $80 million to conduct the trial, and Pfizer decided to pass. Pfizer told the Post it did not pursue the clinical trial because its success rate would likely be...

One recent study, one of the latest demonstrations of hacking that exploits acoustics, found that the microphones in Android devices can be used to pick up the vibrations that are produced when you use the virtual keyboard on your phone or tablet. The sound waves that are recorded can then be interpreted to discern where on the screen you tapped and which keys you struck. ... For example, in 10 attempts, the researchers, using a machine-learning algorithm that classified each vibration, cracked seven out of 27 passwords on a smartphone and 19 out of 27 passwords on a tablet. ...the...

NameThe name, which was DeLorean's idea, was inspired by the Ferrari 250 GTO, the successful race car. It is an Italian abbreviation for Gran Turismo Omologato ("grand tourer homologated"), which means officially certified for racing in the grand tourer class. But in reality, the Pontiac GTO was never really a certified Grand Tourer race car. Internally, it was initially called the "Grand Tempest Option", one of many automobiles in the Pontiac line up with a 'Grand' in it. Despite these things, the GTO is one of the fastest cars ever manufactured by Pontiac. First generation: 1964-67 Second generation: 1968-72 Third...

The U.K. Ministry of Defense has unveiled new plans for a new stealth fighter jet called Tempest at the biennial Farnborough Airshow. The announcement coincides with the release of a new Combat Air Strategy, which focuses heavily on sustaining and expanding the United Kingdom’s domestic defense industrial base and international cooperation in that sector, but there are already questions about the project’s viability given the country’s increasingly uncertain political and economic future. Underscoring the emphasis on engagement with the private sector, U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson offered details about Tempest and the country’s new aerial warfare strategy in front...

A model of the Tempest jet fighter, unveiled by the defence secretary, Gavin Wiliamson, at the Farnborough airshow. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has unveiled plans for a new RAF fighter jet, the Tempest, which will eventually replace the Eurofighter Typhoon. Speaking at the Farnborough airshow, Williamson unveiled a model of the sixth-generation fighter jet the Ministry of Defence (MoD) expects to emerge from its new combat air strategy, designed to maintain the UK’s status as a so-called “tier one” military power after Brexit. “This is a strategy to keep control of the air, both at...

Today we saw another Met Live in HD opera presentation. It was Thomas Ades's The Tempest, based on the Shakespeare play of the same name. The music is very modernist and the libretto has been modernized, with but a few of The Bard's most famous lines surviving. ("Those are pearls that were his eyes.") One character observes that "fortune, 'tis said, favors the bold." Certainly, as tomorrow is Veterans Day, we honor the boldest among us, a boldness motivated by love. The Tempest is an odd story of revenge, forgiveness and release. Prospero, a magician of fading powers, was Duke...

Audible gasps, shock, outrage and support for a congressional investigation were the responses by law-enforcement officers, elected officials and attorneys to a presentation by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse of evidence that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent. Arpaio’s lead investigator, Mike Zullo, made a public presentation Saturday at the annual convention of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in St. Charles, Mo., then held a closed-door session for police officers, elected officials and others. “Sheriff Arpaio wants this in Congress. That’s where we intend to take it,” Zullo said in an interview with Carl Gallups of PPSimmons...

httm://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/voicesea.htm "Yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly."—Isaiah 29:5. "The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea."—Jonah 1:4. About four o'clock in the afternoon of Lord's-day, March 24th, the inhabitants of London were startled by a sudden hurricane which all at once brought with it darkening clouds of dust, and for a short season raged furiously. Sitting in our study in quiet meditation we were aroused and alarmed by the noise of doors and windows, and the terrible howling of the blast as it swept upon its headlong course. Unhappy were travelers across heath and moor who...

(Excerpt)So, who won the tempest in Tempe? The candidate with the painting of a west Texas dawn in his office. The one who declares with an unrestrained ebullience that "God wants everybody to be free." Read more...Arizona Republic

'This goes no further...'By Brian Wheeler BBC News Online Magazine Following revelations about bugging at the United Nations, is there any way of ensuring that your private conversations stay that way? News that Kofi Annan and other senior UN figures may have been routinely bugged by US or British security services has caused a huge political row around the world. But it will also have caused alarm among other people in the public eye who deal with sensitive information - or anyone, indeed, who values their privacy. If the secretary general of the United Nations cannot prevent his private conversations...