Goldman Sachs is in the White House

The guy who created the 2008 financial crisis is now the top White House financial advisor. What does that tell you?

It's time to change the name of the White House to Camp Swampy.

Gary Cohn Is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever ... At Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn nearly wrecked the economy. As Trump's top economic adviser, he's dismantling the rules put in place after the financial crisis. theintercept.com

Alzheimer's News

It might eventually be possible to prevent the disease altogether.

Newly ID'd role of major Alzheimer's gene suggests possible therapeutic target: Blocking ApoE4 in brain may prevent nerve cell death, inflammation A new role has been identified for the major Alzheimer's risk factor ApoE4, suggesting that targeting the protein may help treat the disease. Researchers show that ApoE4 exacerbates the brain damage caused by toxic tangles of a different Alzheimer's-associated protein: tau. In the absence of ApoE, tau tangles did very little harm to brain cells. www.sciencedaily.com

Quantum Gravity?

Could this be a start in unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity?

Gravity may be created by strange flashes in the quantum realm A model of how wave forms of quantum systems collapse reveals a way they could create gravitational fields, and perhaps even reconcile two pillars of physics www.newscientist.com

One Immigration Model

Those who are genuinely serious about effective and just immigration reform can start by looking at what other countries are doing.

Canada Should Be Trump's Model for Immigration Reform ... The U.S. immigration system needs reform, and President-elect Donald Trump might be just the man to do it. Although research shows that low-skilled ... www.bloomberg.com

Hope in Multiple Sclerosis Research

Someday we are going to be able to cure this thing.

Unique gene therapy prevents, reverses multiple sclerosis in animal model Multiple sclerosis can be inhibited or reversed using a novel gene therapy technique that stops the disease's immune response in mouse models, researchers have found. www.sciencedaily.com

SSTO is Coming

Single stage to orbit. It's going to be a new age for orbital access.

ARCA's revolutionary aerospike engine completed and ready for testing ARCA Space Corporation has announced its linear aerospike engine is ready to start ground tests. ​Designed to power the world's first operational Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) satellite launcher, the engine took only 60 days to complete from when fabrication began.​ newatlas.com

More Emoluments

The gift that keeps on giving.

New Documents Show the National Security Council Spent Taxpayer Money at Trump's Mar-a-Lago John Kelly happened to be visiting at the same time. www.slate.com

Alzheimer's Screening

Detecting Alzheimer's from a  simple MRI scan. Interesting.

AI spots Alzheimer's brain changes years before symptoms emerge A machine-learning algorithm that examines MRI scans can identify alterations in how different regions of the brain are connected that indicate future disease www.newscientist.com

Detecting Alzheimer's

With a new type of sensor, Alzheimer's can be diagnosed before symptoms are apparent from a blood sample.

Breakthrough: Diagnosing Alzheimer's with diamonds One of the most confounding aspects of Alzheimer's Disease is our inability to diagnose the condition with certainty until after death. Now, researchers are claiming a breakthrough in identifying the disease, even in its early stages, using a sensor embedded with a diamond. newatlas.com

Barnyard Mud

This is why Republicans have a long way to go to convince me that they have a clue of what it means to be decent human beings.

The Day Nothing Changed Why 9/11 wasn't another Pearl Harbor. krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Satanists To The Rescue

Credit Missouri Satanists for using the religious freedom argument to protect access to abortion. This could be a template for the protection of abortion rights in other states.

As a Satanist, Mary said, she believes her body is “inviolable”—thus, a mandatory waiting period with no medical justification that hampers her bodily autonomy inflicts a “substantial burden” on her “sincerely held religious beliefs,” as does the law that requires she be informed that “abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

History of Zero

Lest Western civilization get all high and mighty with its perceived accomplishments, India had the zero first.

History of zero pushed back 500 years by ancient Indian text Carbon dating has revealed that the Bakshali manuscript housed in Oxford contains the earliest known version of our modern zero symbol -- and it is nearly 2000 years old www.newscientist.com

Chilling water with "solar" panels

At the proper frequency, heat energy can be shot directly into space.

Electricity-free Stanford system cuts cooling costs by beaming heat into space Over the last few years a Stanford team has been developing a roof-mounted system that cools a building by reflecting heat into space, and the latest test has managed to use solar panel-like devices to cool water without needing any other energy source. newatlas.com

Steele Dossier

TL;DR
A large part of it predicted things that actually happened. Most of the things that have yet to be proven are completely consistent with how Russia operates. Despite the opportunity to discredit it by being more fully transparent, the administration has chosen to behave as if the allegations are indeed true and that coverup is the mission of highest priority.

A Second Look at the Steele Dossier—Knowing What We Know Now Fmr top CIA official reviews Steele Dossier against newer information. Bottom line: it's generally credible. 5,500-word analysis www.justsecurity.org

D&P Steel

A new form of steel has been discovered that is both more ductile and stronger than any current steel. Look for it in all kinds of products in a few years.