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The family of a nuclear physicist who died by suicide in a Virginia jail is suing the U.S. government after his psychotropic medicine was discontinued and he was denied admission to a federal medical prison. The lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court on behalf of Christopher Lapp's 16-year-old daughter alleges that a series of errors by prison officials, federal marshals, prosecutors and physicians contributed to Lapp's 2021 death. Lapp, who was 62 when he died, was being held at the Alexandria jail awaiting sentencing on a federal bank robbery charge. Prosecutors allege Lapp stole the money for his Playboy lover....

After a stint at the Obama Energy Department, Steven Koonin reclaims the science of a warming planet from the propaganda peddlers. For the record, Mr. Koonin agrees that the world has warmed by 1 degree Celsius since 1900 and will warm by another degree this century, placing him near the middle of the consensus. Neither he nor most economic studies have seen anything in the offing that would justify the rapid and wholesale abandoning of fossil fuels, even if China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and others could be dissuaded from pursuing prosperity. Any reader would benefit from its deft, lucid tour...

Remarkable detail of the plot to kill an Iranian nuclear scientist emerged on Saturday, a day after the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh reverberated around the world. Sixty two people were involved in the scheme, according to Mohamad Ahwaze, an Iranian journalist who exposed the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic in his country. Ahwaze said he had obtained leaked Iranian information.

Mohsen Fahrizade, Iran's chief military nuclear scientist, has been assassinated, according to Iranian media outlets. He led the "Amad" military program which Israel alleged was researching how to build a nuclear weapon. The program reportedly ended in the early 2000s. BREAKING: Mohsen Fahrizade the architect of Iran's military nuclear program was assassinated in Tehran, Iranian media reports— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) November 27, 2020An Iranian scientist that Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic's military nuclear program before it was disbanded has been killed in a shootout, Iranian state television said.https://t.co/uCgiGMcEN0— The Associated Press (@AP) November 27, 2020As the AP reports:The semiofficial...

Murray Gell-Mann, the Nobel-winning physicist who brought order to the universe by helping discover and classify subatomic particles, has died. He was 89. Gell-Mann died on Friday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His death was confirmed by the Santa Fe Institute, where he held the title of distinguished fellow, and the California Institute of Technology, where he taught for decades. The cause was not disclosed. Gell-Mann transformed physics by devising a method for sorting subatomic particles into simple groups of eight, based on electric charge, spin and other characteristics. He called his method the “eightfold way” after...

Bill Nye, known for his 1990’s science kid’s show who has since become an outspoken advocate on “climate change,” accused CNN of doing a “disservice” to its audience on Saturday by having a real scientist on their network to discuss climate change. The CNN “New Day Saturday” panel, which included Nye and William Happer, a physicist at Princeton University,” became heated after Happer said the climate change that Nye talks about is a “myth.” “There’s this myth that’s developed around carbon dioxide that it’s a pollutant, but you and I both exhale carbon dioxide with every breath. Each of...

Princeton Physics Professor Discredits Anthropogenic Climate Change Theory  

What a grouch!

Israeli physicist Dr. Haim Harari, former president of Israel’s world-renowned Weizmann Institute of Science, recently laid forth an analysis of the Arab Spring and its aftermath that is a must-read as Egyptians elect a new government this week. Harari points out that the only stable and powerful political forces in most Arab countries are the military and the Islamist movements, with some tribal forces playing a role in certain Arab states. The outlook for true liberal democracy–with individual rights, respect for opposition, and checks and balances of power–is therefore grim, Harari concludes. In addition, Harari offers an analysis of the...

Modern cosmology theory holds that our universe may be just one in a vast collection of universes known as the multiverse. MIT physicist Alan Guth has suggested that new universes (known as “pocket universes”) are constantly being created, but they cannot be seen from our universe. In this view, “nature gets a lot of tries — the universe is an experiment that’s repeated over and over again, each time with slightly different physical laws, or even vastly different physical laws,” says Jaffe. Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others, the forces between particles would be so...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2010) — Centuries ago, scientists began reducing the physics of the universe into a few, key laws described by a handful of parameters. Such simple descriptions have remained elusive for complex biological systems -- until now.Emory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools, by simplifying the research models.

TORONTO - There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for......

NOTE: Photo included. SNIPPET: "On Jan. 18, Lachlan Cranswick left the Chalk River nuclear facility, where he worked, and took a bus to Deep River, the small town on the Ottawa River where he lived. The 41-year-old physicist, whose job entailed running experiments for the National Research Council, had just finished some work for a researcher overseas and left his findings on his desk, to be mailed later. Sometime that night or the next morning, he took his garbage bins outside for pickup. Then, he vanished without a trace. When he didn't show up for work for several days and...

An Iranian nuclear physics professor has been killed in a bomb attack in the capital Tehran, Iranian media say. They say that Masoud Mohammadi died after a remotely controlled bomb exploded near his home. Iranian media describe him as a "devoted revolutionary professor" killed by "anti-revolutionary" groups. It comes at a time of heightened tension in Iran, following June's disputed presidential election and mass protests against the government. Prof Mohammadi of Tehran University "was killed in a booby-trapped motorbike blast" in the city's northern Qeytariyeh district, Press TV said. It showed pictures from the scene of the blast, saying windows...

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran today. The victim was identified as Professor Massoud Mohammadi, who worked at Tehran University. He was killed near his home in a northern part of the capital by a booby-trapped motorcycle. A senior Interior Ministry official, Mehdi Mohammadifar, said the motive for the bombing was under investigation. "Apparently this man was a university professor who was killed close to his home this morning in an explosion," Mr Mohammadifar said. The official IRNA news agency said it was not yet clear how many people were killed in the blast,...

A nuclear physics professor at Tehran University was killed Tuesday by a bomb-rigged motorcycle parked outside his home in Iran's capital, state media reported.

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre near Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge last night after investigators said that he offered to work with the North African branch of al-Qaeda. Adlène Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged internet contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The physicist, who works at the giant atomic collider at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which straddles Swiss and French territory, told the Islamic group that he was interested in committing an...

A prize-winning quantum physicist says a spiritual reality is veiled from us, and science offers a glimpse behind that veil. So how do scientists investigating the fundamental nature of the universe assess any role of God, asks Mark Vernon. The Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to "affirming life's spiritual dimension", has been won by French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science....D'Espagnat worked with Wheeler, though he himself reckons quantum theory suggests something different. For him, quantum physics shows us that reality is ultimately "veiled" from us. The...

A Chinese-born physicist Monday pleaded guilty before a US court to illegally exporting American military space know-how to China, US officials said. Naturalized US citizen Shu Quan-Sheng, admitted handing over to Beijing information on the design and development of a fueling system for space launch vehicles between 2003 and 2007, the Justice Department said. Shu, 68, pleaded guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act by helping Chinese officials based at the space facility on southern Hainan island to develop manned space flight and future missions to the Moon. He also acknowledged he had sent them in December 2003 a...

Shy Japanese Nobel laureate has no passport: wife Wed Oct 8, 3:06 AM ET Japanese Nobel Physics laureate Toshihide Maskawa, an introvert devoted to thinking about the universe, has no passport to go to Stockholm to accept the prize, his wife revealed on Wednesday. Maskawa, 68, was one of three physicists to share the prestigious award announced Tuesday for his groundbreaking work on fundamental particles. But his wife, Akiko, said that Maskawa does not travel overseas and feels "quite allergic to trying to speak English." "And if he needs to go to the award ceremony, he'll need first to apply...