Free Republic

New York health officials are advising people to wear masks when in crowded public areas, as coronavirus cases are expected to spike following Labor Day weekend. While no official social distancing or mask restrictions were set in place, New York City health commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan told the Daily Mail that people should follow precautions when celebrating the end of summer, as the city’s hospitalization rate for the coronavirus rose by five percent this week compared to the previous week; 502 patients infected with the virus were admitted to hospitals.

The results of a local election in a major Georgia county have been reversed after officials discovered a memory card with hundreds of uncounted votes on it. Madelyn Orochena was originally declared the victor of a race for a seat on the Kennesaw City Council in Cobb County, "Looking forward to me being sworn in on Monday," she said at the time, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. Yet 24 hours later, Orochena got a call from the county's Board of Elections about a memory card from one of the precincts had not been uploaded, the network reported. The results were...

A 170-carat pink diamond – dubbed The Lulo Rose – was discovered at the Lulo mine in the country’s diamond-rich northeast and is among the largest pink diamonds ever found, the Lucapa Diamond Company said in a statement to investors. The “historic” find of the Type IIa diamond, one of the rarest and purest forms of natural stones, was welcomed by the Angolan government, which is also a partner in the mine. The diamond will be sold at international tender, likely at a dazzling price. Although The Lulo Rose would have to be cut and polished to realize its true...

The wreck of one of the most famous ships of the 17th century—which sank 340 years ago while carrying the future King of England James Stuart—has been discovered off the coast of Norfolk in the UK, it can be revealed today. Since running aground on a sandbank on May 6, 1682, the wreck of the warship the Gloucester has lain half-buried on the seabed, its exact whereabouts unknown until brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell, with their friend James Little, found it after a four-year search. Due to the age and prestige of the ship, the condition of the wreck, the...

A body has been recovered in the Wyoming forest where authorities have been searching for days for missing Long Island native Gabby Petito, according to a report Sunday. Police have not confirmed if the body is that of the 22-year-old or if it is somehow tied to the case, but said authorities are working to confirm the identity, Fox news reported.

Just an accident or mistake? In the most divisive, contested, Presidential election in American history, the public is being told of voter irregularities happening in Detroit. But even in supposedly safe Republican areas, votes for President Trump are appearing to be suppressed, with an alleged 600 discovered today in just one Michigan precinct.Jay Deboyer is the County Clerk for St. Clair County, which is currently 2-1 in favor of Trump, and blames hitting the “wrong button” for causing President Trump’s totals to be a significant number of votes off. This mistake is critical in Michigan where its critical 16 electoral...

A new Einstein cross is discovered March 18, 2019, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias The newly discovered Einstein Cross J2211-3050. An elliptical galaxy (the yellow object)  is acting as a lens, producing the four blue objects (marked ABCD) that are the images of a galaxy about 3 times more distant. With GTC it was possible to isolate and disperse the light of objects ABC, demonstrating that they belong to the same light source. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Credit: Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias This study, which has combined images from the Hubble Space Telescope with spectroscopic observations from the GTC,...

Scientists say they’ve discovered a new organ — possibly the human body’s largest — and it was hiding in plain sight, according to a new study. The so-called interstitium is an interconnected system of tiny fluid-filled cavities throughout the entire body that acts as a “highway” for our internal water supply, study co-author Dr. Neil Theise told LiveScience.com. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports Tuesday. The human body is 60 percent water, and while two-thirds of that liquid remains inside cells, the remaining water — called interstitial fluid — is free to move throughout cavities inside the...

Astronomers find evidence of enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun in a gas cloud near the galaxy’s centre If confirmed, the black hole will rank as the second largest black hole ever seen in the Milky Way after the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*. An enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun has been found hiding in a toxic gas cloud wafting around near the heart of the Milky Way. If the discovery is confirmed, the invisible behemoth will rank as the second largest black hole ever...

The tunnel was found under the Pyramid of the Moon, the second-largest structure in the ancient city (the largest is the Pyramid of the Sun), according to the International Business Times. The archaeologists who discovered it believe that it mirrors the Teotihuacans’ great monuments and may represent the underworld in the belief system of the pre-Colombian, 2,000-year-old civilization that built it (a civilization thought to pre-date the Aztecs, who later occupied the site). The tunnel is long, extending from the central square known as the Plaza de la Luna to the nearby pyramid. It is about 33 feet (10 meters)...

Over the past few weeks, we've written frequently about allegations of voter fraud from around the country. The key swing state of Virginia, in particular, seems to be a hotbed of potential corruption as evidenced by the actions of 19 year old "Young Virginia Democrat", Andrew Spieles, who allegedly acted alone to re-register a bunch of dead voters in his home state (see our post here). Then there were the efforts of Virginia's governor, and long-time Clinton confidant, Terry McAuliffe to register 200,000 felons to vote. But Virginia, isn't the only state with questionable voter registration practices. Fraudulent voter registrations...

Using a telescope at the top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, scientists have discovered a new dwarf planet in our solar system, a body about 435 miles across that lacks a name and that researchers still know little about. The new dwarf planet, dubbed 2015 RR245, has such a huge, highly elliptical orbit that it takes an astonishing 700 Earth years to complete one trip around the sun, and it ventures over 120 times further away from the sun than our planet does. "The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the Sun....

WASHINGTON DC – As officials of the Obama administration announced that millions of sensitive records associated with current and past federal employees and contractors had been exposed by a long-running infiltration of the networks and systems of the Office of Personnel Management on June 4, they claimed the breach had been found during a government effort to correct problems with OPM’s security. An OPM statement on the attack said that the agency discovered the breach as it had “undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture.” And a DHS spokesperson told Ars that “interagency partners” were helping the OPM...

vid at link

(Reuters) - A tiny fish characterized by a disproportionately large head and previously unknown to scientists has been found in mountain rivers of Idaho and Montana in what biologists said on Thursday marked a rare discovery. The new aquatic species is a type of freshwater sculpin, a class of fish that dwell at the bottom of cold, swiftly flowing streams throughout North America and are known for their oversized head and shoulder structure. "The discovery of a new fish is something I never thought would happen in my career because it's very rare in the United States," said Michael Young,...

Mathematics has been called the language of the universe. Scientists and engineers often speak of the elegance of mathematics when describing physical reality, citing examples such as π, E=mc2, and even something as simple as using abstract integers to count real-world objects. Yet while these examples demonstrate how useful math can be for us, does it mean that the physical world naturally follows the rules of mathematics as its "mother tongue," and that this mathematics has its own existence that is out there waiting to be discovered? This point of view on the nature of the relationship between mathematics and...

It’s a miracle on 42nd Street. The long-unseen Christmas episode of WPIX/Ch. 11’s beloved “Magic Garden” children series has magically reappeared and will air Christmas Day at 6 p.m. “We’re beyond excited,” says Rolando Pujol, executive producer of digital, who along with licensing producer Joan De Jesus discovered the show in a forgotten sub-basement at the station’s East 42nd St. offices earlier this year. The show originally aired on Dec. 13, 1981. It may have had a re-airing a year or two later, but then it disappeared. It turned up among several hundred vintage WPIX tapes in a long-ignored room,...

I was prompted to post this asteroid database with over 600,000 asteroids that are plotted on this amazing visualization program in response to viewing sunkenciv's repost of the article originally posted February, 26, 2011 by LibWhacker. Record number of Near Earth asteroids discovered Urban Astronomer ^ | 2/26/11 | Allen Versfeld Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 4:59:15 PM by LibWhacker Reposted by Sunkenciv October 27, 2013 Free Republic:October 27, 2013:Record number of Near Earth Asteroids DiscoveredAsterank is a scientific and economic database of over 600,000 asteroids. We've collected, computed, or inferred important data such as asteroid mass and composition...

For decades, the names given to newly discovered planets have almost always failed to live up to the excitement these celestial finds represent. (Take for example forgettable monikers such as CFBDSIR2149, HD 189733b, 55 Cancri e, and Kepler-69c.) The organization that oversee's the naming of new planets, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), knows that these titles are the opposite of cool and catchy. And thankfully, something is being done about it — the IAU is moving away from leaving selective working groups to name planets and opening up the process to the public. Unsurprisingly, there are a few rules that...