News and Links Digest (publ. 2024-11-22)

Fascinating silica structures in plants

More photos available on Wikipedia:

Psychiatrist says liberals should not visit conservative family members during holidays

If your liberal minded relatives seem a little standoff-ish this Thanksgiving, like refusing to eat with you, this may be the reason...

MOND advocate points out JWST observation problem for standard model

JWST observations continue to trouble the standard model of Big Bang cosmology. The researcher here is not arguing for a creation-based model, only for Modified Newtonian dynamics vs. dark matter, but the reference seems worth noting.

Pennsylvania democrats boldly admit counting illegal ballots

How Clintons sold us out to Russia on Uranium

Guess which of these two nuclear powers is the source of Uranium for the other...

Star dimming faster than expected

I don't want to make too much of this, but it is generally interesting when observations, including time scales, are surprising to secular astronomers.

Netanyahu response to ICC warrant

Concerns about viral contamination in COVID vaccine

Dust disk around Vega is too smooth

Another case of observations not fitting in with secular cosmology expectations. Researchers expected the disk to be clumpy and to be forming planets.