Elon Musk Wins US Space Force Contract for Starshield

Accompanying reddit copium thread lol.

Greek agriculture devastated for five or more years

Storm Daniel wiped out a quarter of Greece’s annual farming production, as a result of deadly flash flooding that submerged fields and drowned livestock. The central region of Thessaly was especially hard hit. Thessaly produces a quarter of the country’s food.

Mud and silt from the flooding could make the region unproductive. Efthymios Lekkas, a disaster management expert, told Greek state television that it will take five or more years for the region to become fertile once more. “The agricultural production isn't destroyed just for this year. The thick coat of silt means it is no longer fertile," he said. “We've had the worst floods in our history,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis added after meeting the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg. “This is probably one of the most powerful storms to ever hit Europe,”

Deadly avian flu reaches Galápagos Islands

In a development that has alarmed conservation biologists, the avian flu strain that has devastated birds and marine mammals on five continents has reached Ecuador’s Galápagos National Park, home to species that are found nowhere else.

“It is extremely concerning from a conservation perspective,” says Marcela Uhart, a wildlife veterinarian at the University of California (UC), Davis. “Outbreaks could pose an acute threat to the future of these endemic species.”

So far only a few animals have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, which migratory birds can carry over long distances. But the highly contagious pathogen is likely to spread fast through the Galápagos Islands’ dense colonies of seabirds, seals, and sea lions. Warmer seas caused by an imminent El Niño climate pattern could make species even more vulnerable by depleting the ocean life that sustains them. Park authorities are already restricting access to some areas to prevent accidental spread of the virus, raising concerns among residents that outbreaks could depress the tourist economy.

Guatemala: New Raids at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal

President-elect Bernardo Arévalo has denounced on several occasions the persecution by the Guatemalan Attorney General's Office.

The Public Prosecutor's Office raided on Friday for the fourth time the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. A similar diligence, weeks ago, caused the president-elect to temporarily suspend the meetings for the transfer of power.

"The Public Ministry, through the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity develops diligence of search at the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal", informed the institution in the social network X.

According to the spokesperson of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the prosecutors requested information on the electoral records of the first and second round of elections.

This is the fourth raid carried out by the Prosecutor's Office to the headquarters of the electoral tribunal in the last two months for alleged anomalies in the electoral process, where Arevalo was elected.

The presiding magistrate of the Tribunal, Irma Palencia, expressed her rejection to the continuous raids and seizure of documentation. She denounced that "this violates the chain of custody of the electoral results, we can give copies, certify them, but they are the only documents that have the results."

Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche refused to give details of the case because it is under reserve, and denied that the raid is related to Arevalo or the leaders of his party, the center-left Sead Movement.

The Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity raided on September 12 the headquarters of the Registry of Citizens of the Court and of COPE, where it opened ballot boxes which were in custody, despite the fact that the Electoral and Political Parties Law prohibits it.

Persecution by the Public Prosecutor's Office

Arevalo, who won the Presidency of the country last August 20 with 2.5 million votes, has denounced on several occasions the persecution of the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor's Office, which is leading an attempt of "coup d'état" to prevent him from taking office on January 14.

Since the beginning of July, the Public Prosecutor's Office announced an investigation against the Seed Movement for alleged forgery, and tried on several occasions to revoke the legal status of said party.

After the temporary suspension of the meetings for the transfer of power, the president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, announced that he will accept the methodology proposed by Arevalo to resume the transition process, and guarantee the inauguration on January 14.

‘Get moving or you’ll miss the boat,’ Australian resources minister tells EU

Talking to journalists in Brussels on Tuesday (26 September), the Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King argued for more European investments into the Australian critical minerals sector, criticising the EU’s insistence on banning dual pricing in the free trade negotiations between the EU and Australia.

With China in a dominant position and Japan and the US increasing their investments in the Australian raw materials sector, European companies were behind the curve, King said. “I’ve met with them, and they are changing their mindset, but I think they just need to change it a bit quicker,” she said, arguing that American competitors were much faster in increasing their investments.

“I’m just here to tell you, you know, get moving, or you will miss the boat,” she told the Brussels journalists.

Australia has large deposits of lithium, nickel and other minerals crucial for the green transition. “We’re the largest producer of lithium,” King said, adding that 96% of the lithium spodumene produced in Australia was going to China for refining.

Asked whether it was even possible to de-risk to an extent that China would not have a strategic dominance in these sectors, the Australian minister said: “Probably not. They are two decades ahead of the rest of the world, they’ve invested in this capacity.”

“And in some respects, I think the Western world has outsourced its mining and mineral processing to China because they’ve chosen not to do it,” King said.

lmao

Plans for doubling Azerbaijan's gas flows to Europe on hold

Plans agreed last year by Azerbaijan and the European Union for Baku to double the volume of gas it sends to Europe to 20 billion cubic metres a year are on hold as European gas buyers have yet to confirm they'll take the gas.

...

But he added that, as far as he was aware, as yet neither the operators of Azerbaijan's main gas fields nor the operators of the three pipelines which carry the gas from Azerbaijan to European markets had received confirmation that the gas actually has a market in Europe.

"On the European side, I don't think they are giving a full-fledged long-term commitment for the off-taking of this additional gas. Without this commitment, I don't think the expansion is possible,"

real fucking comedy of errors going on in Europe these past two years

posted cringe comrades

https://abc7news.com/senator-dianne-feinstein-dead-obituary-san-francisco-mayor-cable-car/13635510/

Autoworkers in the United States expanded its two-week strike against Detroit automakers on Friday. The representatives of the workers' union said that at least seven thousand workers from plants such as ford in Chicago and General Motors in Michigan, joined the eighteen thousand six hundred who were already on strike.

so how is this going to work? Newsom appoints Pelosi's choice Schiff to replace Feinstein and the DNC tries to clear the field for a Newsom presidential run in 2028? or some smaller concession, but he definitely wants to run. not that it matters but what's your speculation

Central Greece Battered by Storm Elias

On Wednesday, central Greece faced severe weather conditions as it was struck by a storm known as "Elias," which has led to extensive flooding in parts of the region.

Some affected areas had already endured the consequences of the recent storm "Daniel" just three weeks ago, which resulted in 17 casualties and significant damage to infrastructure, residential areas, and agriculture.

Residents in the port city of Volos were requested to stay indoors on Wednesday afternoon due to floods from heavy rainfall, Greek national news agency AMNA reported. Meanwhile, residents of three villages near the cities of Larissa, Karditsa and Lamia were alerted by authorities to prepare for possible evacuations given rising river waters.

An interesting article on China's chipbuilding efforts, including a proposal for a giant chip factory with a particle accelerator 100-150 meters in circumference, and a discussion of the physics behind it (which I get the gist of, I think).

ASML is the only company that owns the technology and therefore dominates the market. As of the end of 2022, ASML had delivered 180 EUV systems. It also plans to ship 60 EUVs this year, according to a Bloomberg report published in April.

While there are many researchers chasing the technology, the Chinese scientists have been exploring a different path. It is a project that has been running since 2017, but due to Huawei’s breakthroughs in chip manufacturing, it was recently catapulted into public view.

“One of the potential applications of our research is as a light source for future EUV lithography machines. I think this is why the international community is paying close attention,” said project leader Professor Tang Chuanxiang from Tsinghua University in a report on the university’s website.

The theory behind the team’s research is a new luminescence mechanism called steady-state microbunching (SSMB). It was first proposed by Professor Zhao Wu at Stanford University and his student Daniel Ratner in 2010. Zhao is a former student of the famous physicist Yang Zhenning.

In short, SSMB theory uses the energy released by charged particles during acceleration to act as a light source. The result is a narrow bandwidth, small scattering angle and continuous pure EUV light. Charged particles emit light when they are accelerated, and accelerators that use this phenomenon are among the brightest artificial sources of light available.

“The main challenge lies in guiding the distribution of electrons within the storage ring of the accelerator, causing them to achieve collective synchronous radiation. The device could produce high-quality radiations from terahertz waves at a wavelength of 0.3mm to EUV waves at wavelengths of 13.5nm,” Zhao said in an academic report at Tsinghua in October 2022.

“Unlike free-electron lasers, which produce pulsed lasers with high peak power, SSMB sources produce continuous light with high average power,” he said. This characteristic has led to the broad application prospects of SSMB.

Compared with current ASML EUV technology, SSMB is a more ideal light source. It has a higher average power and higher chip production output with lower unit cost.

ASML creates an EUV source from laser-produced plasma, where strong laser pulses are projected to liquid microdroplets of tin. The laser crushes the droplets and produces EUV pulse light during the impact. After complex filtering and focusing, an EUV light source with a power of about 250W is produced.

Before reaching the chip, the EUV beam undergoes reflection from 11 mirrors, each causing about a 30 per cent energy loss. As a result, the power of the beam is less than 5W when reaching the wafer. This can become an issue when manufacturing turns to 3nm or 2nm. SSMB technology avoids such concerns. SSMB beams achieve a higher output power of 1000W, and due to its narrow bandwidth, fewer reflecting mirrors are needed, which naturally generates higher terminal power.