James Frey's Blog, page 84

“A frighteningly vast expanse of nothingness”

from BBC The weird space that lies outside our Solar System By Patchen Barss Voyager 1 crossed over into interstellar space in 2012 100 Astronomical Units from the Sun but it still has the vast Oort Cloud ahead of it (Credit: Nasa/JPL-Caltech) The mysterious dark vacuum of interstellar space is finally being revealed by two […]

The Gravity Hypothesis

from Science One of quantum physics’ greatest paradoxes may have lost its leading explanation  By George Musser It’s one of the oddest tenets of quantum theory: a particle can be in two places at once—yet we only ever see it here or there. Textbooks state that the act of observing the particle “collapses” it, such that it appears […]

Tundra Apocalypse

from LIVE SCIENCE Zombie wildfires are blazing through the Arctic, causing record burning By Stephanie Pappas “Zombie” wildfires that were smoldering beneath the Arctic ice all winter suddenly flared to life this summer when the snow and ice above it melted, new monitoring data reveals. And this year has been the worst for Arctic wildfires on record, since […]

Six Months In

from Slate The Terrifying, Liberating Lesson of the Coronavirus Lockdown Six months later in America, we’re learning how to live again—and to accept the unimaginable. By SUSAN MATTHEWS This is part of Six Months In, a Slate series reflecting on half a year of coronavirus lockdown in America. A little more than six months ago, I sent […]

Implants Impending

from The U.S. Sun Meet the super-rich ‘biohackers’ turning into cyborgs with in-built armour and injecting teenagers’ BLOOD to stay young by Alison Maloney WOULD you like to live forever? From daily sessions in sub-zero cryo-chambers to stem cell injection and transfusions of teenagers’ BLOOD, their bizarre attempts to become superhuman have fuelled a multi-million […]

DV 130

from AFP via Yahoo! News Scorching temperature in US’s Death Valley could be global high by Issam AHMED A temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) recorded in California’s Death Valley on Sunday by the US National Weather Service could be the hottest ever measured with modern instruments, officials say. The reading was registered […]

Robot Rice & Rinds

from AP Colombian fast food chain bets on automated restaurants By MANUEL RUEDA BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A Colombian fast food chain is planning to turn its branches into automated restaurants at a moment when the coronavirus pandemic has slammed the food service industry worldwide. MUY has more than 30 restaurants in Bogota, and four […]

Double Cheese is a $1.50 Extra

from CBS Los Angeles Business Booming At Local Pizzerias Even As Cheese, Pepperoni Harder To Come By By CBSLA Staff PASADENA (CBSLA) — In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been shortages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and coins, but now some pizza places are reporting a shortage of pepperoni and higher prices for cheese. “The […]

Paranoiac Pakula

from Inside Hook What the Paranoid ’70s Thrillers of Alan J. Pakula Can Teach Us About 2020 Revisiting the American director’s “Klute,” “All the President’s Men” and “The Parallax View” BY MONICA CASTILLO Early in The Parallax View, reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) chases after clues to a string of mysterious deaths in a remote fishing town. […]

Roaring 20 II

from The Wall Street Journal Coronavirus Lockdowns Usher In the New Roaring ’20s An underground social economy is growing to escape state prohibitions. By Allysia Finley States with strict coronavirus lockdowns seem to be reliving the Roaring ’20s. Alcohol is legal in the 21st century’s version of Prohibition, but with restaurants, bars and other social spaces […]