Category: They Made a Movie About This

More than one, in fact

Unknown Species of Bacteria Discovered in China’s Space Station.

Swabs from China’s Tiangong space station reveal traces of a bacterium unseen on Earth, with characteristics that may help it function under stressful environmental conditions hundreds of kilometers above the planet’s surface.

Naming their discovery after the station, researchers from the Shenzhou Space Biotechnology Group and the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering say the study of Niallia tiangongensis and similar species could be “essential” in protecting astronaut health and spacecraft functionality over long missions.

The swabs were taken from a cabin on board the space station in May 2023 by the Shenzhou-15 crew as part of one of two surveys by the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Programme.

Follow-up studies have traced the growth of microbes that inhabit the space station environment, revealing a microbiome that differs in both composition and function from the one found on the International Space Station.
The new species appears to be a close cousin to a known strain called Niallia circulans – a rod-shaped, soil-dwelling bacterium that just a few years ago was reallocated to a new genus classification, having previously been regarded as a pathogenic form of Bacillus.

Like species of Bacillus, N. circulans and its space-faring relatives pack their essential chemistry into hardy spores to survive times of great stress. It’s not clear whether N. tiangongensis evolved on the station or arrived in spore form with at least a few of its distinguishing features in place.

According to the recently published analysis on its genes and functions, the new species has a unique ability to break down gelatin as a source of nitrogen and carbon, a knack that comes in handy when it needs to construct a protective coat of biofilm to bunker beneath when conditions get a little rough.

On the other hand, it seems to have lost the ability to utilize other energy-packed substances its cousins happily chow down on.

Not only does this reveal Niallia can be a diverse bunch of microorganisms, it demonstrates how readily some varieties of bacterium can make themselves right at home in our orbiting habitats.

There’s also not a great deal we can do about it. An examination of the ‘clean rooms’ NASA used to prepare the Mars Phoenix mission revealed dozens of microbe strains belonging to 26 novel species.

A recent study of these novel bacteria found their amazing ability to survive conditions we would assume to make the environment sterile came down to genes linked to DNA repair and resistance to levels of substances other microbes would find toxic.

Knowing thy enemy is clearly a significant step towards dealing with them. If we can’t prevent their existence or their ability to adapt, it is vital we can predict how microbes will adjust to living in space.

It’s yet to be determined whether Niallia tiangongensis poses any threat to the health of Tiangong’s astronauts, but given its cousin’s ability to cause sepsis in immunocompromised patients and its newfound ability to break down gelatin, the potential for health problems from this and other space microbes is a serious issue.

With eyes on launching missions to the Moon and beyond, it’s never been more important to know how the tiny passengers sharing our space may be suited to a life far from home.

Well, almost anything will be better than that Verhoeven trash

New ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie in the Works from ‘District 9’ Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp.

Sony is behind the new adaptation, which is not a remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film, but rather will go back to the 1959 novel as source material.

Johnny Rico is coming back to kill some more bugs.

Columbia Pictures is plotting a new Starship Troopers movie, setting District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp to write and direct an adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel story by Robert A. Heinlein.

Blomkamp will also produce the feature alongside Terri Tatchell, his partner and wife who co-wrote the South African filmmaker’s District 9 and 2015 outing, Chappie.

Published in 1959, Troopers ostensibly told of an interstellar war between Earth and a host of bug-like aliens, and focused on a rise of a military serviceman named Johnny Rico. But the story had other things on its minds, like exploring the strengths of life in a military society and such ideas as having to perform service in order to have voting rights.

While the book won a Hugo Award for best novel and has been quite influential in sci-fi literature, some quarters described the book as fascist. It was that tone that was satirized in the 1997 movie from Paul Verhoeven, the director of Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Verhoeven was over-the-top in his depiction of the military jingoism and propaganda, fetishized costumes, and highlighted Nazi influences.

Rico was played by squared jaw roughneck Casper Van Dien and the cast included Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside. While the movie was not initially a success, and some critics accused Verhoeven of putting a positive spin on fascism, the movie has since developed a reappraisal and a cult following.

Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material.

Blomkamp most recently directed Gran Turismo for Sony Pictures, a critical and commercial success that grossed over $122 million worldwide.

The filmmaker showed his ability to tackle deep themes while balancing human-versus-aliens conflicts with his splashy 2009 feature debut District 9. The movie was a hit at the box office and earned four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best adapted screenplay for Blomkamp and Tatchell.

Blomkamp followed that up with more sci-fi offerings, including Chappie and Elysium.

He is repped by CAA and Gendler Kelly.

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Healthcare CEO Killer Inscribed These Words on the Bullet Casings

Leah covered this story earlier today: Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed in what looks like a professional hit job. The targeted killing occurred around 6:45 AM, outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where an investors meeting was being held. In the video footage, the killer is seen shooting Mr. Thompson with a suppressed firearm in the leg and back before finishing him off.

There’s a new chilling clue regarding this premeditated killing: bullet casings were found at the scene, with “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” on them:

Mr. Thompson was the subject of a Justice Department investigation for insider trading (via NY Post):

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice when he was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday. 

Thompson — who was killed in what police called a targeted shooting outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown — exercised stock options and sold shares worth $15.1 million on Feb. 16, less than two weeks before news of the federal antitrust probe went public, according to a Crain’s New York Business report from April. 

The stock price dropped sharply after the revelation that the DOJ was investigating whether the company had made acquisitions that consolidated its market position in violation of antitrust laws, a source familiar with the probe told the outlet. 

Kissinger’s final warning: Prepare now for ‘superhuman’ people to control Earth

Humanity must begin preparations to no longer be in charge of Earth because of artificial intelligence, according to a new book from the late statesman Henry Kissinger and a pair of the country’s leading technologists.

The rise of AI creating “superhuman” people is a major topic of concern in “Genesis,” published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company. It’s the “last book” from Kissinger, according to the publisher’s parent company Hachette. Kissinger was a longtime U.S. diplomat and strategist who died last year at age 100.

Kissinger’s co-authors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and longtime Microsoft senior executive Craig Mundie, finished the combined work after Kissinger’s death, and The Washington Times has obtained an advance copy. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie wrote they were among the last people to speak with Kissinger and sought to honor his dying request to finish the manuscript.

The authors offer a bracing message, warning that AI tools have already started outpacing human capabilities so people might need to consider biologically engineering themselves to ensure they are not rendered inferior or wiped out by advanced machines.

In a section titled “Coevolution: Artificial Humans,” the three authors encourage people to think now about “trying to navigate our role when we will no longer be the only or even the principal actors on our planet.”

“Biological engineering efforts designed for tighter human fusion with machines are already underway,” they add.

Current efforts to integrate humans with machine include brain-computer interfaces, a technology that the U.S. military identified last year as of the utmost importance. Such interfaces allow for a direct link between the brain’s electrical signals and a device that processes them to accomplish a given task, such as controlling a battleship.

The authors also raise the prospect of a society that chooses to create a hereditary genetic line of people specifically designed to work better with forthcoming AI tools. The authors describe such redesigning as undesirable, with the potential to cause “the human race to split into multiple lines, some infinitely more powerful than others.”

“Altering the genetic code of some humans to become superhuman carries with it other moral and evolutionary risks,” the authors write. “If AI is responsible for the augmentation of human mental capacity, it could create in humanity a simultaneous biological and psychological reliance on ‘foreign’ intelligence.”

Such a physical and intellectual dependence may create new challenges to separate man from the machines, the authors warn. As a result, designers and engineers should try to make the machines more human, rather than make humans more like machines.

But that raises a new problem: choosing which humans to make the machines follow in a diverse and divided world.

“No single culture should expect to dictate to another the morality of the intellects on which it would be relying,” the authors wrote. “So, for each country, machines would have to learn different rules, formal and informal, moral, legal, and religious, as well as, ideally, different rules for each user and, within baseline constraints, for every conceivable inquiry, task, situation, and context.”

The authors say society can expect technical difficulties, but those difficulties will pale in comparison with designing machines to follow a moral code, as the authors said they do not believe good and evil are self-evident concepts.

Kissinger, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie urged greater attention to aligning machines with human values. The trio said they would prefer that no artificial general intelligence surpassing humanity’s intellect is allowed to emerge unless it is properly aligned with the human species.

The authors said they are rooting for humanity’s survival and hope people will figure it out, but that the task will not be easy.

We wish success to our species’ gigantic project, but just as we cannot count on tactical human control in the longer-term project of coevolution, we also cannot rely solely on the supposition that machines will tame themselves,” the authors wrote. “Training an AI to understand us and then sitting back and hoping that it respects us is not a strategy that seems either safe or likely to succeed.”

Sedition, Insubordination, Conduct Unbecoming. In a time of war; Treason.
This sort of thing must be rooted out and the bureaucraps fired, those on active duty who took part relieved, and those who may not have been on active duty (retired), recalled and face courts martial. The military must be completely subordinate to the elected constitutional national command authority and follow their legal orders or what we’ll wind up with is a military hunta akin to the praetorian guard of the roman empire who decided who the next emperor would be after disposing of the last one.

Sorry, We Can Only View This Secret Pentagon Meeting as a Plot to Foment an Insurrection

John Frankenheimer directed a movie called Seven Days in May in the 1960s, starring Kirk Douglas as a military officer who uncovers a coup against the president of the United States by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who signed a deeply unpopular nuclear disarmament treaty. That’s a movie. In 2024, the Pentagon brass plotted to countermand President-elect Donald J. Trump’s orders. If we’re going by the Left’s rules here, this is an insurrection. It’s a military coup. What’s worse is that these anti-Trump meetings were held in secret and then got leaked to the media (via CNN):

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

[…]

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

CNN’s Scott Jennings tore apart these unelected bureaucrats yesterday. We’re back to the same Deep State games, but this time, Trump, with no re-election ahead of him, can go hard and fast to rid the Pentagon and any agency of troublesome government workers who think they’re above the law and not accountable to the will of the people. The illegal orders narrative is also ridiculous, soaked in the anti-Trump hysterics that have engulfed the Left.

Secret meetings on thwarting a duly elected president are not a good look.

Oracle Founder Larry Ellison Imagines a Dystopian Future of Constant AI-Powered Surveillance to Enforce “Best Behavior”

Larry Ellison, co-founder, chairman of the board, and chief technical officer of Oracle, has revealed where he sees the world going in one particular aspect – continuous, real-time control of people.

It is a dark place of “AI” (machine learning, ML) mass surveillance, which Ellison wants to make sure is served by his company by way of providing the fundamental infrastructure. It isn’t irrelevant to this story that Oracle’s portfolio also includes multi-decade contacts with the US government.

Oracle is not often mentioned when Big Tech is talked about, but it is one of the biggest in the industry. The reason for staying out of the limelight is that, unlike its peers with big stakes in the social media space, Oracle’s business is database software and cloud computing.

This is the reason Ellison sees the opportunity to place his company, already involved in building AI models, at the center of producing the tools to make this nightmarish scenario of real-time ML-powered surveillance a reality.

Ellison spoke during the Oracle financial analyst gathering to suggest that the company’s databases will become indispensable for the AI infrastructure, and that proof for that is in companies like X and Microsoft having already picked Oracle to provide this service.

“Maximizing AI’s public security capabilities” is what’s on Ellison’s mind, and he decided to sell this by giving police accountability as an example.

The system would prevent police abuse, he said – but the way “AI” combined with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure arrives there is perplexing, to say the least. It involves police body cameras that are always recording (including in bathrooms, and during meals), always transmitting back to Oracle – and with no option to stop this feed.

“Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times” – that’s another way of putting it, and Ellison did.

But who would build such an expensive and elaborate surveillance system just to use it in law enforcement? Not Ellison.

The cops will be on their best behavior, but so will (the rest) of the citizens, he promised. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting,” Ellison added.

Remember ‘Marooned‘ ?

Boeing Starliner astronauts might not return to Earth until next year

Aug. 7 (UPI) — Boeing Starliner astronauts, stranded at the International Space Station after a weeklong test flight turned into a two-month stay due to thruster problems, may be forced to fly home on SpaceX in 2025, NASA has admitted.

NASA updated reporters Wednesday at a news conference, which Boeing did not attend, on the timeline for crew members Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The astronauts have been in space for 63 days with no return date in sight.

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS on June 6 on what was the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The mission was supposed to be the final step before NASA certified Boeing to fly crews to and from the space station, before faulty thrusters stranded the pair in June.

“We’re in kind of a new situation here, in that we’ve got multiple options,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate and a former agency astronaut, told reporters Wednesday.

“I would say that our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return have increased a little bit on where things have gone over the last week or two,” Bowersox said. “But again, new data coming in, new analysis, different discussion — we could find ourselves shift in another way.”

“We don’t just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle,” Bowersox added. The space agency is expected to make a final decision as early as next week.

“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program said. “However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open, and so we have been working with SpaceX to ensure that they’re ready to respond.”

NASA said it is now considering sending only two astronauts, instead of four, on September’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to leave space for Wilmore and Williams to return to Earth on SpaceX Dragon in February 2025. SpaceX has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.

“We’re not ready to share specific crew names for the contingency plan,” ISS program manager Dana Weigel told Space.com. “We’ll go look at future manifests and just see what makes sense for the overall crew compliments going forward.”

On Tuesday, NASA announced SpaceX would delay the Aug. 18 launch of its Crew-9 mission, more than a month, to Sept. 24. The delay will give NASA and Boeing more time to repair Starliner’s five of 28 reaction control thrusters which misfired during docking at ISS on June 6.

While NASA said Starliner can safely undock from ISS, there is still uncertainty over how its thrusters would operate during the ride back to Earth.

“Starliner ground teams are taking their time to analyze the results of recent docked hot-fire testing, finalize flight rationale for the spacecraft’s integrated propulsion system and confirm system reliability ahead of Starliner’s return to Earth,” NASA said in a statement Tuesday.

Stich told reporters Wednesday that tests on the ground revealed that a small Teflon seal swells under high temperatures, which could be to blame for Starliner’s thruster problems.

“That gives us a lot of confidence in the thrusters, but we can’t totally prove with certainty what we’re seeing on orbit is exactly what’s been replicated on the ground,” Stich added.

Despite not attending Wednesday’s briefing, Boeing has maintained its confidence “in Starliner’s return with crew.”

“We still believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale,” the company said in a statement Wednesday, as it also admitted the possibility that a different vehicle could bring the astronauts home.

“If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return.”

Remember the Bond movie reboot Casino Royale back in 2006?

Court Holds Federal Ban on Home-Distilling Exceeds Congress’ Enumerated Powers.

Yesterday, in Hobby Distillers Association v. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, a federal district court in Texas held that federal laws banning distilled spirits plants (aka “stills”) in homes or dwellings exceed the scope of Congress’ enumerated powers. Specifically, the court concluded that the prohibitions exceed the scope of the federal taxing power and the Interstate Commerce Clause, even as supplemented by the Necessary and Proper Clause. The court further entered a permanent injunction barring enforcement of these provisions against those plaintiffs found to have standing (one individual and members of the Hobby Distillers Association.) The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and background on the case (and the various filings) can be found on CEI’s website here.

Hobby Distillers Association has the potential to be a significant post-NFIB challenge to the expansive of use of federal power. A few excerpts from the decision are below the jump.

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What Is This ‘Team’ Karine Jean-Pierre Is Referring To?

Tuesday’s White House press briefing wasn’t much better than the one from the day before, though at this most recent briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did make a telling and concerning point beyond those specifically to do with President Joe Biden’s health. As she and other Biden allies have been claiming, we don’t need to worry about concerns with the president, because he has a “team.”

As Fox News’ Peter Doocy pointed out that “we know the president says that his health is fine, but it’s just his brain, and that he’s sharpest before 8:00,” Jean-Pierre cut him off to insist the president “was joking,” deciding to emphasize “I just want to make sure that that’s out there.”

Before Doocy could get to the heart of his question, he and Jean-Pierre ended up getting into a back-and-forth about “what’s the joke,” with the press secretary offering “he was speaking off the cuff, and he was making a joke, arguing “you know the president, he likes to joke a lot.”

After Jean-Pierre insisted several more times that “it’s a joke” when Biden himself makes comments about his age, Doocy finally was able to get to his original question.

“He’s sharpest before 8:00p.m.,” Doocy pointed out once more. “So, say that the Pentagon at some point picks up an incoming nuke; it’s 11:00 p.m. Who do you call? The First Lady?”

Jean-Pierre’s answer was that Biden “has a team.”

“He has a team that lets him know of any–of any news that is pertinent and important to the American people. He has someone–or–that is decided, obviously, with his National Security Council on who gets to tell him that news,” she offered.

Comments from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his experiences with Biden have been frequently coming back up. Doocy quoted him saying how First Lady Jill Biden “was there as well” for their meetings.

“When the First Lady is in these meetings, is she making decisions, or is she just,” Doocy started to ask, also asking if she’s “advising the president.” Jean-Pierre cut him off, though, to insist “no,” that “the president is the president of the United States” and “he makes decisions.”

Jean-Pierre became even more testy when Doocy asked about First Son Hunter Biden, who is now a “gatekeeper.” Like the first lady, Hunter has been instrumental in keeping Biden in the race for reelection.

“President Biden has told me before he and his son don’t have any business dealings together,” Doocy reminded as he asked a key question. “So, what is Hunter Biden doing in White House meetings?”

Jean-Pierre stuck to Biden being “very close to his family, as you know” and the timing of the 4th of July holiday for Hunter’s presence, despite how “there is a report that aides were struck by [Hunter’s] presence during their discussions,” as Doocy reminded. Earlier this month, NBC News reported on Hunter being at meetings, and how that presence concerned aides.

“Look, I can’t — I’m — I’m certainly not going to get into private conversations that o- — that occur,” Jean-Pierre also insisted.

When Doocy asked “can you say if Hunter Biden has access to classified information,” Jean-Pierre responded with a “no.”

Jean-Pierre is hardly the only one to reference that Biden “has a team.” Immediately following that disastrous debate almost two weeks ago now, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a surrogate of the president, offered “we have a great team of people that will help govern. That is what I’m going to continue to make the case for.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who on that same day as Khanna’s remarks filed a resolution calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to make use of the 25th Amendment, pointed to such remarks as further reason why the cabinet needs to be convened.

Roy also brought up concerns with “a team” with Fox News recently, specifically this idea of “hav[ing] a president by committee” making clear “that is unacceptable, our founders rejected it, it is deeply offensive and unconstitutional.”

We continue to see such examples as the reason why a president coming off as increasingly unfit is supposedly fit to serve another four-year term.

Skynet smiles…….

Boston Dynamics New Fully Electric Humanoid Robot

Boston Dynamics has released a video unveiling their next generation humanoid robot. It is a fully electric Atlas robot designed for real-world applications.

Atlas demonstrates efforts to develop the next generation of robots with the mobility, perception, and intelligence needed to be commonplace in our lives.

The electric Atlas has been developed with advanced control systems and state-of-the-art hardware that allow it to demonstrate impressive athletic abilities and agility. The previous Atlas had some hydraulic systems. It uses models of its own dynamics to predict how its movements will evolve over time, allowing it to adjust and respond accordingly. It is built using a combination of titanium and aluminum 3D printed parts, giving it the necessary strength-to-weight ratio for tasks such as leaps and somersaults.

Boston Dynamics will work with the Hyundai team to build the next generation of automotive manufacturing capabilities.

Boston Dynamics is talking about years to show humanoid robot doing things in the lab, in the factory, and in people’s lives.

Combine a small apocalyptic sect with one of its major prophecies being fulfilled, as they saw it, by a law enforcement agency who it is said were looking for headlines to bolster its reputation for an increased budget, and what you wind up with is this.

The Waco Siege: What Happened When the Feds Laid Siege to the Branch Davidian Compound

“The record of the Waco incident documents mistakes. What the record from Waco does not evidence, however, is any improper motive or intent on the part of law enforcement.”

The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, is an important event in American history because it directly led to one of the biggest terrorist attacks on American soil – the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. It’s not necessary to defend this act of terrorism to understand why the entire freedom movement of the time was so incensed by it. Indeed, it stood as a symbol of federal overreach and the corruption of the Clinton Administration.

It’s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the siege of Ruby Ridge or the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.

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