Now in our 12th year on KPFT!

Going forward, new shows will post for Thursday at 6PM (CT) broadcast and re-run on Sundays at 1PM and Wednesdays at 11AM.

AUDIO:

TOPICS:

1. Humble City Council limits use of fire pumps to 1 per building;
2. The biggest threats to Texas power grid: Cold weather, renewables, and preparedness;
3. Capital One sued by feds for allegedly cheating customers out of billions in interest payments;
4. Regarding the release of the first volume of the Jack Smith report,
5. When Disaster Hits, Trump Is the Blamer in Chief;
6. Firefighting planes are dumping ocean water on the Los Angeles fires − why using saltwater is typically a last resort;
7. Baltic Sea undersea ‘sabotage’ sets stage for escalating NATO-Russia contest;
8. UK stalls Chagos Islands deal until Trump administration can ‘consider detail’;
9. What we just found out about the possible tie between microplastics and cancer;
10. Dark energy ‘doesn’t exist’ so can’t be pushing ‘lumpy’ universe apart, physicists say;

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. 

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
2. Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
3. Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville at 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community Media. On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar.

1. Humble City Council limits use of fire pumps to 1 per building; By Wesley Gardner | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 2:48 PM Jan 14, 2025 CST/Updated 2:48 PM Jan 14, 2025 CST. TAGS: Humble (TX), Humble City Council, Fire Pumps,
   1. Humble City Council members approved an update to the city’s fire code that will limit the number of fire pumps allowed for use to one per individual building.
   2. … At the board’s Jan. 9 meeting, City Manager Jason Stuebe said the update is coming at the request of the city’s fire marshal.
   3. Stuebe said the change will help assure individual fire pumps are properly maintained by the owners of the buildings in which they’re installed.
   4. According to the city’s website, fire pumps are used to increase and regulate water pressure to pipelines, fire hose connections, fire department connections and sprinkler systems within a structure.
   5. Stuebe noted the update will also prevent potential issues regarding the ownership of fire pumps in situations where the owner of multiple buildings sells buildings separately.
   6. … According to the new requirements, any property owners who knowingly employ the use of more than one fire pump in a single building will be subject to a fine of up to $2,000 for each day of the violation.
   7. MIKE: I didn’t entirely understand this story. I felt it was incomplete, but decided to share it with you to point out where reporting can be improved.
   8. MIKE: I realize that this is essentially reporting on the actions of the city council, but I feel that the story might have gone into greater depth.
   9. MIKE: What kinds of buildings are covered by this new ordinance? Why are extra water pumps a problem? Is one water pump per building a limit or a requirement? What are the issues being solved here?
   10. MIKE: I was left wondering, and this story actually left me a little frustrated.
   11. MIKE: Reporting without in-depth analysis can be an empty enterprise.
2. Our next story is mis-headlined from CLICK2HOUSTON[dot]COM. You’ll see what I mean when I read it.— The biggest threats to Texas power grid: Cold weather, renewables, and preparedness; By Brittany Taylor, Senior Digital Content Producer | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: January 14, 2025 at 12:18 PM. Tags: Houston, Texas, Texas Power Grid, ERCOT, Winter, Renewable Energy,
   1. As Texas prepares for potential cold weather this winter, experts are highlighting the state’s progress in renewable energy and identifying areas where challenges remain.
   2. Doug Lewin, host of the Energy Capital Podcast, shared insights on how solar panels, battery storage, and natural gas supply impact grid reliability during extreme weather events.
   3. [There are] Game changers for [the] Texas power grid — Texas has significantly increased its capacity for renewable energy, particularly in solar power and battery storage since the deadly winter storm in 2021.
   4. [Lewin said,] “We have five to six times as much solar now as we did a few years ago. This is one reason why, even if we faced outages, they wouldn’t last as long as they once did.”
   5. Battery storage has also seen a dramatic increase. According to Lewin, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) now manages over 10,000 megawatts of battery storage capacity. These advancements allow renewable energy to play a larger role in meeting demand during extreme weather events, reducing the likelihood of prolonged outages.
   6. … ERCOT and energy experts remain vigilant about weather patterns that can strain the grid. Extreme cold can lead to exponential increases in demand due to the inefficiency of resistance heating systems, which are used in 30-40% of Texas homes.
   7. [Lewin explained,] “When temperatures drop significantly, energy demand spikes. This is due to millions of homes using inefficient heating systems simultaneously.”
   8. ERCOT is particularly concerned about scenarios where demand exceeds 90,000 megawatts, a level that could challenge grid reliability.
   9. … Despite improvements in renewable energy, the state’s natural gas supply remains a critical vulnerability. Lewin noted that during previous winter storms, gas production in the Permian Basin dropped by 20-40%, limiting the availability of fuel for gas-powered plants.
   10. [Said Lewin,] “Building new gas plants doesn’t solve the problem if there’s no gas to fuel them. Natural gas supply continues to be an Achilles’ heel for our system.”
   11. How can Texas stay prepared? Lewin emphasized the importance of both individual and systemic preparedness. He recommended Texans follow the “four P’s” of winter readiness: protecting People, Pets, Pipes, And Plants. On a broader scale, he urged policymakers to focus on reducing energy waste and improving efficiency.
   12. [Lewin said,] “ERCOT is in a better position than it was a few years ago. But there’s still much work to be done to reduce the probability of outages.”
   13. As Texas enters the colder months, Lewin advised residents to stay informed and prepare for sudden changes in weather. While current forecasts do not indicate a crisis, he underscored the importance of readiness.
   14. “Prepare now, but don’t panic,” Lewin said. “The most likely scenarios are manageable, but it’s always wise to be ready for unexpected changes.”
   15. MIKE: The headline of this story is an excellent example of why you should scan articles and not just headlines.
   16. MIKE: The headline makes it sound like renewables are part of Texas’s energy problem, when renewables plus battery storage actually make an important contribution to the resilience of the state’s energy supply and demand buffer, and the story actually says that.
   17. MIKE: Despite the Texas government’s constant insistence, however, you’ll note that this story does single out natural gas as an Achilles heel in our state’s energy robustness. What Texas really needs to focus on is increasing access to the state’s energy grid for renewables of all kinds, especially west Texas wind energy, which is limited mainly by inadequate transmission infrastructure.
   18. MIKE: There’s also a good observation that while global warming makes transitioning away from fossil fuels an important policy objective, there are often better ways to use electricity that are much more efficient and put less strain on the grid.
   19. MIKE: Electric resistance furnaces are probably the least efficient way to heat a home with electricity. It’s almost the same as trying to heat a room with lots of incandescent light bulbs, which no one would seriously consider, and yet that’s what it’s like.
   20. When it’s time to replace that electric furnace or air conditioner, seriously consider getting a heat pump, which replaces both.
   21. A heat pump system is more expensive to buy and install, but if you’re replacing an old air conditioner, it will be much more energy efficient and will save lots of money during hot weather. Similarly, a heat pump is not only more efficient and cheaper to run than an electric furnace, but it also makes a house more comfortable. Here’s why.
   22. MIKE: A gas or electric furnace turns on and off. When it’s on, hot air blows out of your room vents at about 120^o to 140^o That can heat up a room pretty fast, but it can also make being near a heating vent pretty uncomfortable. Then, when the furnace shuts off, there is a perceptible chill that settles over a room almost immediately.
   23. MIKE: Heat pumps provide a very different experience. The hot air blowing from a room vent from a heat pump is more like 85^o to 92^oF, and it runs for longer periods of time. So what does this mean in practice?
   24. MIKE: First of all, your house doesn’t tend to cycle from cold to hot and back again. Instead, room temperatures feel stable and comfortable. Further, you don’t get that alternation between blistering hot air while the heat is on and a sudden chill when the heat stops blowing, and room air temperatures immediately start to stratify.
   25. MIKE: It also means that you don’t need to turn down the heat while you’re away from home. In fact, it’s recommended that you don’t. Because heat pump hot air is so much cooler, reheating a house left that’s to chill is impractical because it takes much longer, so it’s even undesirable to make drastic temperature changes from one part of the day to another.
   26. MIKE: That means you not only save money on heating compared to an electric resistance furnace. You also have a house that stays more comfortable when it’s cold outside and is still toasty when you get home.
   27. MIKE: What I’m telling you isn’t just green energy propaganda. In my first house, I replaced the old electric resistance furnace with a heat pump, and it made that house the most comfortable that it ever was, and it saved money. So, this is first-hand experience, and you can trust what I’m saying.
   28. MIKE: And finally, on “the four P’s” of People, Pets, Pipes, And Plants. Do remember to look after your pets during cold weather. And not only yours. If you know of “community cats” or “community dogs” that you and your neighbors tend to look after, try to make provisions for them as well, even if it’s just leaving a garage door open a crack so they can take shelter, and maybe leaving a safety-featured infrared space heater turned on for them.
   29. MIKE: Think of it as earning some good karma.
3. Next, from Reuters, on the topic of keeping an eye on the bankers — Capital One sued by feds for allegedly cheating customers out of billions in interest payments; By REUTERS | NYPOST.COM | Published Jan. 14, 2025, 1:34 p.m. ET. TAGS: Banks, Capital One, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Lawsuits,
   1. Capital One was sued on Tuesday by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which accused the bank of illegally cheating customers who held its flagship “high interest” savings account out of more than $2 billion in interest payments.
   2. In a complaint filed in the Alexandria, Va., federal court, the CFPB said Capital One promised depositors that their 360 Savings account provided one of the nation’s “top,” “best” and “highest” interest rates, but froze their rate at just 0.30% even as deposit rates rose nationwide.
   3. The CFPB also said Capital One kept 360 Savings depositors in the dark when in 2019 it launched the 360 Performance Savings account, which was identical except for carrying a substantially higher interest rate that reached 4.35% in January 2024.
   4. Capital One allegedly told branch employees not to proactively tell depositors they could switch accounts, or send depositors to the bank’s account conversion unit unless they asked whether conversions were allowed.
   5. “Banks should not be baiting people with promises they can’t live up to,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.
   6. The CFPB said Capital One stopped offering 360 Savings to new customers when it introduced 360 Performance Savings, which now yields 3.8% annually, according to the bank’s website.
   7. Tuesday’s lawsuit seeks civil fines, restitution and other remedies for violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 and Truth in Savings Act.
   8. “We are deeply disappointed to see the CFPB continue its recent pattern of filing eleventh-hour lawsuits ahead of a change in administration,” Capital One said in a statement. “We strongly disagree with their claims and will vigorously defend ourselves in court.”
   9. The McLean, Va.-based bank added that it marketed the 360 Performance Savings account widely including on national television, “with the simplest and most transparent terms in the industry,” and that its 360 accounts all offer great rates.
   10. Capital One is one of the largest US banks and credit-card companies, with $353.6 billion of deposits and $486.4 billion of assets as of Sept. 30, 2024.
   11. A July 2025 trial in private nationwide litigation over the 360 Savings accounts has been scheduled in the Alexandria court.
   12. In a research note, TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg said the CFPB lawsuit should not affect Capital One’s proposed $35.3-billion purchase of credit-card rival Discover Financial Services.
   13. The case is CFPB v. Capital One Financial Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Case No. 25-00061.
   14. MIKE: I remember this very clearly, because I bank at Capital One 360. I learned about Capital One’s “Performance Accounts” entirely by accident while looking for some unrelated account information. I remember being very upset and immediately called their customer service department.
   15. MIKE: I asked the person when this change had taken place and why I, as a long-time depositor, hadn’t been told about it. I also asked how long I had been denied extra interest. I don’t recall the answer, but it hadn’t been recent, and according to this story, it occurred sometime in 2019. I also asked if I could get the extra interest I had lost, and was told no.
   16. MIKE: This conversation must have occurred on or about September 15, 2020, because that’s when I switched all my savings funds over to “Performance Accounts”.
   17. MIKE: I will be contacting the CFPB to add my complaint to their suit. If you’re affected, you might do the same.
   18. MIKE: You really have to watch bankers like a hawk! And as a side note, I’m sure that Trump’s CFPB will pursue this case rigorously. (SARCASM ALERT)
4. Regarding the release of the first volume of the Jack Smith report, I’m not going to dwell on it, but I want to make these comments.
   1. The 2026 Congressional elections are less than two years away. That will give the country another chance to change direction from Republican control of the federal government.
   2. I realize that what I’m about to say falls into the categories of “hope springs eternal” and “dream on”, but I will put these ideas forward.
   3. If the Democrats gain control of Congress in 2027, and if that control is decisive enough, there are two things that could profoundly affect US government and history going forward.
   4. The first and most important thing would be re-introducing and passing the No Kings Act that was put forward by over 30 senators during the 118^th This act, if it becomes law, would void the Supreme Court’s highly questionable ruling on immunity from prosecution for crimes committed under presidential authority.
   5. The second possibility, albeit remote, would be impeaching Trump for a third time based on the specifics cited in the Smith report. A Democratically controlled House with a Democratic Speaker could pass articles of impeachment. If Trump were convicted and removed from office, JD Vance would be elevated to president, but his nominee for the new vice president would need to be ratified by both houses of Congress. This could put Democrats effectively in control of choosing the next vice president, one possibility for which would be that Democratic House Speaker.
   6. Also, with the No Kings Act passed into law, Trump could be criminally tried for his attempts to overthrow the US government.
   7. All of this is certainly a pipe dream at this point, but stranger things have happened, including Trump being re-elected. So, all things are possible.
5. Next, from the NY Times — When Disaster Hits, Trump Is the Blamer in Chief; As Los Angeles burned, the president-elect seemed to spy a political opportunity. TAGS: Los Angeles Fires, President-elect Donald Trump, S. Politics, Karen Bass, Carmen Yulin Cruz, Kevin McCarthy, Governor Gavin Newsom,
   1. When enormous wildfires began to menace Los Angeles, the incoming president did not use his social media site to pledge support to emergency responders or offer words of compassion to a city where thousands of people have lost everything.
   2. Instead, President-elect Donald Trump used his megaphone to tell the world who was at fault.
   3. It wasn’t the Santa Ana winds, nor was it the rising temperatures that have dried out vegetation and made fires harder to extinguish.
   4. The culprit, he wrote, was “Gavin Newscum.”
   5. The Los Angeles fires have killed at least 11 people, reduced thousands of structures to ash and burned more than 36,000 acres, an area larger than the footprint of San Francisco. It’s the kind of devastation that, in a bygone era, might have prompted at least a temporary political cease-fire and pledges to work across the aisle to rebuild, even as the authorities face legitimate questions about their handling of the crisis.
   6. Instead, with 10 days [at the time of this writing] until Trump’s second inauguration, he offered a reminder of how he has long used disasters to damage political opponents like Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California — even when they’re still going on. …
   7. But it’s not just about hurting his political foes. Trump has always been a master of tapping into people’s angst and projecting it far and wide for his benefit — and there is a lot of angst in Los Angeles right now.
   8. … Residents in Los Angeles are angry that water systems never designed to fight so many threatening fires have run dry. They are mystified that Karen Bass, the Democratic mayor, wasn’t in the city when the blazes began. They are scared for their lives and fearful that the institutions they have come to rely on, like insurance, won’t make them whole on the other side of this.
   9. This week, Trump has called for Newsom to resign, blamed other Democrats like President Biden and Mayor Bass and said incorrectly that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had no money to respond to the disaster because of the “Green New Scam.”
   10. It’s a revival of a tendency he displayed during his first presidency, when he injected his personal politics into once-sacrosanct concepts like providing federal disaster aid to areas no matter whether they were blue or red. He told aides he wanted to stop money from reaching Puerto Rico after Maria, claiming that the island’s leadership was corrupt, and publicly insulted [the governor]. …
   11. He also fought extensively with California. After the state’s devastating wildfire season of 2018, he tweeted that he had ordered FEMA to “send no more money” unless the state changed its approach to forest management. He has clashed on and off with Newsom over issues like water management and federal aid ever since.
   12. In a text message last fall, Newsom told [this reporter’s] colleagues that Trump often seemed to expect personal treatment before the state could receive aid, saying he was “publicly threatening, playing his politics — looking tough … forcing a call, a ‘transaction’ in his mind — reminding you in [the] process who’s in control, why he matters.”
   13. Beyond withholding aid, Trump has used disasters as political ammunition on the campaign trail. After a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, in early 2023, he used the site as a backdrop to hammer the Biden administration, helping his presidential campaign pick up steam.
   14. And last fall, when Hurricane Helene slammed into Georgia and North Carolina, he made a series of false claims about the federal disaster response as he sought to depict the Biden administration as hapless and even biased against Republicans who were in harm’s way.
   15. … Trump’s defenders say there is no reason he shouldn’t bring up politics in a moment irrevocably shaped by them.
   16. [Said former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, referring to the Democratic leadership of the city and the state,] “We will have a fire, and there will be winds to blow the fire, but what determines the flow of the fire and the infrastructure capability of the fire department to fight, it is on them,”.
   17. He added: “In a time of crisis, people look at their electeds for leadership. How do you think they’re doing? They’re blaming somebody else. They say you can’t ask these questions. They’re not in town — they can’t answer why something happened.”
   18. James Gallagher, who serves as the Republican leader in the State Assembly and represents Paradise, a Northern California community that was devastated by the Camp Fire in 2018, said there was deep frustration that more hadn’t been done to reduce wildfire fuel in the state.
   19. Climate change exacerbates conditions that can lead to wildfires, [Gallagher] said, but he blamed Democrats’ leadership for inadequate management of the dry brush that can fuel fires. (Trump has discussed this in the past, although his recent posts have focused more on his dispute with Newsom over water management, which California officials say would not have changed the circumstances around the fires.)
   20. “The politics are wrapped up in some very substantive policy,” [Assemblyman] Gallagher said. …
   21. MIKE: Funny how these same arguments about political responsibility and the legitimacy of complaining about a party’s leadership during a crisis don’t apply to school shootings, mass shootings, and other gun violence, or don’t apply under Republican leadership generally.
   22. MIKE: Republicans are very good at casting blame onto others, but refuse to accept it onto themselves.
   23. MIKE: But let’s just stipulate that Trump is a truly horrible person, and no one should expect him to show empathy, compassion, or any real leadership qualities. So, let’s move on to something tangentially related to this story.
   24. MIKE: In the course of doing some research for my comments, I found a web page from the Mayo Clinic that says that the propensity to constantly complain and quickly become annoyed, impatient, or angry are symptoms of persistent depressive disorder. According to Medical News [dot] com, irritability may be a sign of a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression.
   25. MIKE: I have often observed on this show that Republicans in general seem to be motivated by anger, fear and resentment. That kind of tracks with the symptoms of a depressive disorder.
   26. MIKE: I think it’s fair to say that these days, both Liberals and Conservatives suffer from frequent anxiety for equal but opposite reasons. But as a lay person with no actual education in psychology, the constant whining, complaining, and feelings of persecution by Conservatives, really feels like a psychological disorder. And of course, there’s the chronic lying, but I digress.
   27. MIKE: Psychiatric diagnosis at a distance is always tricky, but I think that most objective observers agree with the general consensus that Trump is a malignant narcissist with some other personality pathologies. But what about Conservatives generally?
   28. MIKE: The Mayo Clinic web page further suggests that, “If these feelings have been going on for a long time, you may think they’ll always be part of your life. But if you have any symptoms of persistent depressive disorder, seek medical help. Talk to your health care provider about your symptoms or seek help from a mental health professional. Or you can reach out to someone else who may be able to help guide you to treatment. This could be a friend or loved one, a teacher, a faith leader, or another person you trust.”
   29. MIKE: Maybe we could go a-ways toward healing the political divide in this country if more Conservatives had medical coverage for psychiatric disorders and took advantage of that coverage. Maybe if Serotonin Selective Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs, such as Prozac) were more widely prescribed upon diagnosis, at least some Conservatives would be more inclined to chill and become more like old moderate Conservatives.
   30. MIKE: Anyway, that’s my opinion from the cheap seats.
6. Firefighting planes are dumping ocean water on the Los Angeles fires − why using saltwater is typically a last resort; By Patrick Megonigal | COM | 13 January 2025. TAGS: Climate change, Oceans, Forests, Seawater , Sea level rise , Coastal , Wildfires , Gardening , Ghost forests,
   1. Firefighters battling the deadly wildfires that raced through the Los Angeles area in January 2025 have been hampered by a limited supply of freshwater.
   2. So, when the winds are calm enough, skilled pilots flying planes aptly named Super Scoopers are skimming off 1,500 gallons of seawater at a time and dumping it with high precision on the fires.
   3. Using seawater to fight fires can sound like a simple solution – the Pacific Ocean has a seemingly endless supply of water. In emergencies like Southern California is facing, it’s often the only quick solution, though the operation can be risky amid ocean swells.
   4. But seawater also has downsides.
   5. Saltwater corrodes firefighting equipment and may harm ecosystems, especially those like the chaparral shrublands around Los Angeles that aren’t normally exposed to seawater. Gardeners know that small amounts of salt – added, say, as fertilizer – does not harm plants, but excessive salts can stress and kill plants.
   6. While the consequences of adding seawater to ecosystems are not yet well understood, we can gain insights on what to expect by considering the effects of sea-level rise.
   7. … As an ecosystem ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, [the author leads] a novel experiment called TEMPEST that was designed to understand how and why historically salt-free coastal forests react to their first exposures to salty water.
   8. Sea-level rise has increased by an average of about 8 inches globally over the past century, and that water has pushed salty water into US forests, farms and neighborhoods that had previously known only freshwater.
   9. As the rate of sea-level rise accelerates, storms push seawater ever farther onto the dry land, eventually killing trees and creating ghost forests, a result of climate change that is widespread in the U.S. and globally.
   10. In [the] TEMPEST test plots, [salty water is pumped] from the nearby Chesapeake Bay into tanks, then [sprinkled] on the forest soil surface fast enough to saturate the soil for about 10 hours at a time. This simulates a surge of salty water during a big storm.
   11. [The] coastal forest showed little effect from the first 10-hour exposure to salty water in June 2022 and grew normally for the rest of the year. [They] increased the exposure to 20 hours in June 2023, and the forest still appeared mostly unfazed, although the tulip poplar trees were drawing water from the soil more slowly, which may be an early warning signal.
   12. Things changed after a 30-hour exposure in June 2024. The leaves of tulip poplar in the forests started to brown in mid-August, several weeks earlier than normal.
   13. By mid-September the forest canopy was bare, as if winter had set in. These changes did not occur in a nearby plot that we treated the same way, but with freshwater rather than seawater.
   14. The initial resilience of our forest can be explained in part by the relatively low amount of salt in the water in this estuary, where water from freshwater rivers and a salty ocean mix. Rain that fell after the experiments in 2022 and 2023 washed salts out of the soil.
   15. But a major drought followed the 2024 experiment, so salts lingered in the soil then. The trees’ longer exposure to salty soils after [the] 2024 experiment may have exceeded their ability to tolerate these conditions.
   16. Seawater being dumped on the Southern California fires is full-strength, salty ocean water. And conditions there have been very dry, particularly compared with [the] East Coast forest plot.
   17. … [The] research group is still trying to understand all the factors that limit the forest’s tolerance to salty water, and how [the] results apply to other ecosystems such as those in the Los Angeles area.
   18. Tree leaves turning from green to brown well before fall was a surprise, but there were other surprises hidden in the soil below our feet.
   19. Rainwater percolating through the soil is normally clear, but about a month after the first and only 10-hour exposure to salty water in 2022, the soil water turned brown and stayed that way for two years. The brown color comes from carbon-based compounds leached from dead plant material. It’s a process similar to making tea.
   20. [L]ab experiments suggest that salt was causing clay and other particles to disperse and move about in the soil. Such changes in soil chemistry and structure can persist for many years.
   21. … While ocean water can help fight fires, there are reasons fire officials prefer freshwater sources – provided freshwater is available.
   22. US coastlines, meanwhile, are facing more extensive and frequent saltwater exposure as rising global temperatures accelerate sea-level rise that drowns forests, fields and farms, with unknown risks for coastal landscapes.
   23. MIKE: From literally the moment I first heard that they were using seawater to help extinguish the Los Angeles fires, I had questions about the potential future effects of this decision, so this article grabbed my attention.
   24. MIKE: Los Angeles is actually a desert that is brought to life, and kept alive, mainly by water brought from other places.
   25. MIKE: It’s not hard to accept that fighting these massive, county-wide fires is the first order of business, but there will be long-term consequences to using seawater for this purpose. This is an experiment that no one wanted, that will be studied for years, and that may impact the LA County water and ecosystems for a long time.
   26. MIKE: As an aside, it’s really important to note that efforts to fight the Los Angeles fires are not suffering from a lack of water supplies. It’s a problem created by pumping stations being disabled by the fires, and trying to draw water to hydrants across the city all at the same time. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
7. In international news — Baltic Sea undersea ‘sabotage’ sets stage for escalating NATO-Russia contest; A spate of alleged underwater incidents has allied leaders on alert. By David Brennan | ABCNEWS.GO.COM | January 13, 2025, 4:09 AM. TAGS: Russia Investigation, Undersea Infrastructure, China, Baltic States, Baltic Sea, NATO,
   1. A spate of alleged sabotage operations against undersea cables in the Baltic Sea has raised the prospect of a dangerous 2025 in NATO’s northern theater, with allied leaders vowing closer surveillance of, and tougher action against, Russian- and Chinese-linked, and other ships accused of nefarious efforts there.
   2. “NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea,” alliance chief Mark Rutte said in late December, after the last such instance of suspected sabotage, condemning “any attacks on critical infrastructure.”
   3. Rutte’s commitment came after the most recent of three alleged sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea — the damaging of the Estlink 2 power cable and four internet cables on Christmas Day. The Estlink 2 cable — along with the Estlink 1 cable — transfers electricity from Finland to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland.
   4. Finnish authorities quickly seized control of the ship suspected of the damage to the Estlink 2 cable — the Eagle S. Though flagged in the Cook Islands, Finnish and European Union authorities said the Eagle S is part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers.
   5. On Jan. 3, Finnish authorities said repair work on the cable had begun and forensic samples would be taken as part of the investigation. Eight sailors were still under a travel ban as the probe continued, they added.
   6. NATO accuses Moscow of using tankers and other vessels to evade an international sanctions campaign on its fossil fuel exports prompted by the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Atlantic Council described this “shadow fleet” as made up of ageing vessels often sailing without Western insurance, under opaque ownership and with regularly changing names and national registrations.
   7. Allied officials say some of the ailing ships are doubling as low-tech saboteur vessels.
   8. There may be as many as 1,400 ships in Russia’s shadow fleet, according to the Windward maritime risk management firm. In December 2023, the energy cargo tracking company Vortexa calculated that 1,649 vessels had operated in what the Atlantic Council called the “opaque market” since January 2021, among them 1,089 carrying Russian crude oil.
   9. … December’s round of suspected sabotage prompted the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force — a defensive regional bloc also including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden — to launch an advanced AI-assisted reaction system to “track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the Russian shadow fleet.”
   10. A Jan. 14 meeting of NATO’s Baltic states in Helsinki, meanwhile, will focus on “measures required to secure the critical underwater infrastructure,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said, and the “strengthening of NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea and responding to the threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet.”
   11. But allies face a major challenge in surveilling some 145,560 square miles of sea crisscrossed by as many as 4,000 ships per day.
   12. NATO tracking efforts are complicated by “the sheer scale of the global commercial shipping sector and the fact that ownership structures are often quite opaque and complex,” Sidharth Kaushal — the sea power senior research fellow at the British Royal United Services Institute think tank — told ABC News.
   13. [He explained,] “A vessel may have multiple beneficial owners, its owners may not necessarily be from the state where it’s registered, and so actually attributing its activity to a given state becomes very difficult.”
   14. Russian- and Chinese-linked vessels could play a role, but so could ships seemingly unconnected to Moscow or Beijing. …
   15. The Baltic Sea is also relatively shallow. Its average depth is around 180 feet, compared to 312 feet in the North Sea and 4,900 feet in the Mediterranean Sea.
   16. Reaching cables or pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic is far easier than in the world’s largest bodies of water, like the Atlantic Ocean with its average depth of 10,932 feet or the Pacific Ocean at 13,000 feet. …
   17. … Guarding specific sites appears more realistic than identifying and surveilling all potential saboteurs. After the damage to Estlink 2 was reported, for example, Estonia said it dispatched naval vessels to protect Estlink 1.
   18. November’s Bold Machina 2024 naval exercise in Italy also saw special forces divers test underwater sensors that NATO said could one day be used to protect underwater infrastructure. …
   19. But NATO ships will still be limited in what action they can take to stop damage occurring. “International freedom of navigation limits what navies can do on international waters, or even within their own exclusive economic zone,” Kaushal said.
   20. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does note that freedom of navigation may be challenged if a ship’s passage “is prejudicial to the peace, good order or security” of coastal states.
   21. Historic agreements — like the 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables — might also offer allies some latitude to act against suspect vessels.
   22. But challenging the passage of civilian shipping might have unwelcome consequences elsewhere. More muscular policing by NATO in the Baltic might encourage more assertive Chinese naval activity in the South China Sea, for example, or encourage more Iranian interdictions in the Persian Gulf. …
   23. Local allied leaders, at least, appear to be clamoring for action. December’s alleged attack is only the most recent of a spate of suspected sabotage incidents in the Baltic.
   24. In November, two intersecting submarine cables — the BCS East-West Interlink connecting Lithuania to Sweden and the C-Lion1 fiber-optic cable connecting Germany to Finland — were damaged in the Baltic Sea.
   25. Authorities suspected the Chinese-flagged cargo ship Yi Peng 3 of causing the damage. German, Swedish, Finnish and Danish officials boarded the ship off the Danish coast to inspect the vessel and question the crew. The Yi Peng 3 later set sail for Egypt.
   26. The first notable alleged cable sabotage incident in the Baltic Sea occurred in October 2023, when the Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear vessel dragged its anchor across and damaged the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Estonia and Finland. The nearby EE-S1 telecoms cable was also damaged.
   27. Investigators recovered a damaged ship’s anchor from the seabed close to the damaged cables, with gouge marks on either side of the cables indicating its trajectory. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said the Newnew Polar Bear was missing one of its anchors.
   28. In August, the Chinese government admitted that the vessel damaged the underwater infrastructure “by accident,” citing “a strong storm.”
   29. … Even before ships began damaging cables in the Baltic region, the strategic sea — referred to by some allied leaders as the “NATO lake” after the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance — played host to covert operations apparently linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
   30. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were bombed in September 2022, marking the first notable incident of alleged sabotage in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
   31. The pipelines had long been fiercely criticized by those in North America and Europe skeptical of Berlin’s business dealings with Moscow, particularly leaders in Ukraine and the Baltic region who saw the pipelines as a plank of Russian hybrid warfare.
   32. Investigators are yet to establish who was responsible for the apparent sabotage to the pipelines, with a series of unconfirmed reports variously accusing Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine for the blasts. All have denied involvement.
   33. The Baltic, then, is already an important theater in the wider showdown between Russia and the West.
   34. The potential value for Russia is clear. With a handful of tankers, Moscow can force its NATO rivals to commit significant time and resources to guarding undersea infrastructure. When sabotage does occur, the Baltic’s relative ease of access and the energy needs of regional nations might amplify its impact. …
   35. European nations are highly sensitive to gas outages given the knock-on economic — and thus [political] — effects. Energy insecurity has been one of the major themes undermining the continent’s response to Russia’s war. Moscow has been keen to exploit this weak spot.
   36. But undersea escapades in the Baltic are not necessarily a free hit for Russia.
   37. Moscow’s shadow operators have “thus far enjoyed the freedom of navigation and the ability to move Russian oil at above price cap rates quite freely through NATO controlled waters,” Kashaul said.
   38. If NATO nations can demonstrate that sanctions-busting vessels are involved in sabotage, the ghost ships might yet face more tangible retaliation.
   39. But that too could prompt escalation. A Danish intelligence report cited by Bloomberg, for example, noted that Russia may begin attaching military escorts to tankers transiting the Baltics.
   40. Such a development is “quite plausible,” Kashaul said, though [he] noted the intensity of regular convoy operations may be beyond Russia’s relatively small Baltic Fleet.
   41. A more militarized approach, he added, may also unsettle the non-Russian nationals crewing the vessels.
   42. [Said Sidharth Kaushal, the sea power senior research fellow,] “Whether the people on those ships want to take the risk, even if the Russians are offering escorts and convoys, is another factor.”
   43. MIKE: If there are potential flashpoints between Russia and NATO, these sorts of “grey warfare” activities in the Baltic are certainly among them.
   44. MIKE: In the final extremity, blockading Russian Baltic Sea ports is an option which NATO’s superior navies could probably pull off, but a blockade is an act of war. It’s what made the US blockade of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis such a major and controversial political and military decision.
   45. MIKE: Cheap surveillance drones will provide some other options here, and current Ukrainian drone expertise could be helpful to NATO in this situation. By maintaining remote surveillance of ships going to and from Russian ports, a sudden service interruption of a Baltic cable or pipeline might then be attributable to a specific vessel by virtue of location and time, and it would doubtless be easier and cheaper than tailing commercial vessels with allied ships.
   46. MIKE: These instances of infrastructure sabotage are serious, and steps and precautions will have to be taken.
   47. REFERENCE: NATO to deploy drones, aircraft to counter wave of Baltic Sea cable attacks; By Sam Clark | POLITICO.EU | January 14, 2025 1:03 pm CET
8. UK stalls Chagos Islands deal until Trump administration can ‘consider detail’; By Pippa Crerar and Peter Walker | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Wed 15 Jan 2025 10.24 EST. TAGS: Chagos Islands, Mauritius, Donald Trump, US politics, Africa, Colonialism, Diego Garcia,
   1. The UK government will not sign off a deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius until Donald Trump’s administration has had a chance to consider the future of the joint military base, Downing Street has confirmed.
   2. Allies of the US president-elect have been critical of the deal because of the implications for the strategically important Diego Garcia base, with concerns that it could bolster Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean.
   3. Ministers had previously been hoping to secure an agreement with Mauritius over the islands’ future before Trump is sworn into office next Monday.
   4. However, when asked about reports the Mauritian government was seeking further talks, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said: “We will only agree to a deal that is in the UK’s best interests and protect our national security. It is obviously now right that the new US administration has the chance to consider this and discuss this once they are in office … It’s perfectly reasonable for the new US administration to have a chance to consider the detail.”
   5. The spokesperson dismissed suggestions Trump would have a “veto” on the deal, after the Mauritian government was reported to have hosted a special cabinet meeting to discuss the latest proposals. The Mauritian government is seeking further concessions, and rather than signing the deal off, has sent a delegation back to London for more negotiations.
   6. The UK plans to hand over its final African colony to Mauritius while leasing back the Diego Garcia base, which is used by the US, at a reported cost of £90m a year for 99 years. The UK government argues that international court rulings in favour of Mauritian sovereignty mean a treaty settling the future of the archipelago is the only way to guarantee the continued operation of the base.
   7. The Labour administration reached an agreement with Mauritius, but a change of government there and Trump’s election in the US have stalled progress. Discussions about the deal originally began under the Conservatives.
   8. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, have both been critical of the plan and are understood to be following the issue closely. Joe Biden, however, was supportive.
   9. Starmer defended the deal during Commons clashes with the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch. “We inherited a situation where the long-term operation of a vital military base was under threat because of legal challenge,” he said.
   10. “The negotiations were started under the last government. The then-foreign secretary came to this house to say why he was starting negotiations and what he wanted to achieve. He said the aim was to ‘ensure the continued effective operation of the base’. That is precisely what this deal has delivered.”
   11. Badenoch said the prime minister was “negotiating a secret deal to surrender British territory, and taxpayers in this country will pay for the humiliation”.
   12. Asked whether her party, which started the talks, were “part of the problem”, Badenoch’s spokesperson later said: “Starting the negotiations is not the error, it is the current status of the negotiations. She knew when to walk away from a bad deal, and clearly what Labour are currently negotiating is a bad deal. There is an ongoing issue, which is why the previous government started the talks, but the current deal is not fit for purpose.”
   13. MIKE: There is a clear conflict here between what is considered post-colonial justice and geopolitical strategic necessity.
   14. MIKE: I’m sure that an incoming Trump administration, already claiming strategic necessity for owning Greenland, the Panama Canal, and maybe even Canada, will not be keen on any agreement returning Diego Garcia to Mauritian sovereignty.
   15. MIKE: And while the UK government is claiming that the Trump administration will not have a veto power over this treaty, I suspect that they’re actually hoping that Trump will raise a big stink, and therefore at least postpone an agreement between the UK and Mauritius.
   16. MIKE: There’s a maxim in sales: Make sure that you are presenting to the decision maker so that you can close the sale. In this case, I think the Starmer government is hoping that the Trump administration takes that role so that the UK can then turn back to Mauritius and say that they’ll have to go back to the drawing board, and they can put the blame for that elsewhere.
   17. MIKE: As for what might be a final settlement that’s in the interests of all parties? Well, maybe a treaty that gives actual sovereignty to Mauritius, but allows unlimited lease rights with rent being paid and, perhaps, periodically adjusted upon lease renewals.
   18. MIKE: That preserves the monetary value to Mauritius that Mauritius’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean earns them as essentially a natural resource, while also protecting the strategic interests of the UK and the US.
   19. MIKE: But we’ll see.
9. In health and environmental news — What we just found out about the possible tie between microplastics and cancer; The new research gathers evidence that microplastics are already causing health problems. By Shannon Osaka | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | December 18, 2024 at 2:06 p.m. EST/Updated yesterday at 2:06 p.m. EST. TAGS: Microplastics, Health Problems, Cancer, Reproduction,
   1. When a car rolls down a freeway, a fine spray of microplastics spews out from its tires. When you wash your clothes, millions of tiny synthetic microfibers spill into waterways.
   2. And those tiny pieces of plastic may be harming our health, a new study shows.
   3. In a paper published on [December 18] in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco evaluated dozens of studies in mice and humans to learn how microplastics may be harming digestive, respiratory, and reproductive health. They found that these shards — which are now virtually everywhere in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat — are suspected of links to colon cancer and lung cancer.
   4. [Said Luís Fernando Amato-Lourenço, a postdoctoral researcher at the Free University of Berlin who studies microplastics in the body and was not involved in the study,] “This systematic review is one of the most up-to-date assessments available right now.”
   5. Scientists are racing to understand the health impacts of microplastics, which have been found in the testicles, placenta, lungs, and numerous other organs in the last few years. Production of plastics is also rapidly increasing — supply of the materials, which are mostly made from fossil fuels, has doubled since the early 2000s and is expected to triple by 2060.
   6. Still, there are few studies that look at how microplastics have harmed people’s Research this year found that patients with more microplastics in a key artery were more likely to suffer heart attack, stroke, or death from any cause.
   7. To assess the risks to humans, the researchers examined thousands of studies, largely in mice, that evaluated microplastic exposure and its impacts on three bodily systems. They looked for evidence of changes in the colon and lungs, as well as signs that the microplastics were having carcinogenic, or cancerous, effects. Those [changes] included chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, which is an imbalance of antioxidants in the body.
   8. [Said Tracey Woodruff, professor and director of the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health and the Environment, and one of the paper’s authors,] “These are basically biological mechanisms that have already been shown to be part of the link between chemical exposure and cancer.”
   9. The scientists concluded that there is evidence linking microplastics to lung cancer and colon cancer, as well as some reproductive problems.
   10. The study is just one step in a long process to establish what, exactly, microplastics do to human health. It’s a knotty problem — there are dozens of types of plastic, which can break into different shapes when exposed to the sun and wind. At the same time, those plastics can include thousands of chemical additives — each of which could also have an effect on health.
   11. Still, scientists are suspicious that microplastics may be linked to some diseases that have been increasing in recent decades. Double the number of adults under age 55 are being diagnosed with colon cancer today compared with a decade ago. The rate of lung cancer among non-smokers is also rising.
   12. “It’s important to focus on health effects that we see increasing in the population,” Woodruff said.
   13. There are limitations to the current Most of the studies included in the review looked at a particular type of microplastic — spherical beads that are easier for researchers to test and use in the lab. But experts know that most microplastics in the environment are shards or fragments that have sloughed off of plastic items over time. Studies in mice also tend to use higher doses than humans may be exposed to, although it is difficult to create an exact 1-to-1 ratio.
   14. Some researchers not involved in the new study praised it as a significant advance. ‘[Said Amato-Lourenço,] “The conclusion about microplastic exposure being a ‘suspected’ hazard to human digestive, reproductive, and respiratory systems represents a stronger stance than many previous reviews in my opinion.”
   15. But others worried that its findings were [In an email, Matthew Campen, a professor and toxicologist at the University of New Mexico, said,] “We are still learning about the nature of the plastics in the human body and there is a lot of published research based on shaky assumptions. I am not really critical of those papers, because we have to start somewhere, but using data from those studies to assess human health is just too soon.”
   16. [Said Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Chemistry Council, a plastics industry group,] “Scientists agree microplastics are a complex issue and work to establish protocols to appropriately characterize the microplastics they are testing. Unfortunately, this rapid review does not appear to include these considerations, calling into question the validity and quality of the conclusions.”
   17. There are few laws around the world that protect consumers from microplastics in food, water and air. A growing number of scientists have been pushing for action from policymakers, urging governments to treat plastics as potentially harmful.
   18. But progress has stalled; last month, negotiations for a global plastics treaty that might have curbed production collapsed in Busan, South Korea.
   19. “The government waits,” Woodruff said. “And while we’re waiting, exposures are not only continuing, but are projected to increase.”
   20. MIKE: I agree that this is an important step in assessing whether and how much danger micro- and nano-plastics may present to both human health, as well as animal and environmental health.
   21. MIKE: I think that at the very least, it’s time to require that any new or novel chemical or material be tested for safety before it is released into the environment as a product. This should include testing of the chemicals, by-products, and waste products involved in its manufacture, as well as testing ways that a product or chemical may change form or chemical composition in the natural or consumer environment. Circumstances such as exposure to sunlight, heat, cold, and the results of natural decomposition should be studied.
   22. MIKE: If these sorts of tests had been conducted before the widespread manufacture and use of so-called “forever chemicals” like PFAS, many lives and livelihoods might have been saved.
10. And in a cosmology-related story — Dark energy ‘doesn’t exist’ so can’t be pushing ‘lumpy’ universe apart, physicists say; by Royal Astronomical Society | PHYS.ORG | December 20, 2024. TAGS: Dark Energy, Hubble Tension, Hubble Constant, Universe Expansion,
    1. One of the biggest mysteries in science — dark energy — doesn’t actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the universe is expanding.
    2. Their analysis has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.
    3. For the past 100 years, physicists have generally assumed that the cosmos is growing equally in all directions. They employed the concept of dark energy as a placeholder to explain unknown physics they couldn’t understand, but the contentious theory has always had its problems.
    4. Now a team of physicists and astronomers at the university of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand are challenging the status quo, using improved analysis of supernovae light curves to show that the universe is expanding in a more varied, “lumpier” way.
    5. The new evidence supports the “timescape” model of cosmic expansion, which doesn’t have a need for dark energy because the differences in stretching light aren’t the result of an accelerating universe but instead a consequence of how we calibrate time and distance.
    6. It takes into account that gravity slows time, so an ideal clock in empty space ticks faster than inside a galaxy.
    7. The model suggests that a clock in the Milky Way would be about 35 percent slower than the same one at an average position in large cosmic voids, meaning billions more years would have passed in voids. This would in turn allow more expansion of space, making it seem like the expansion is getting faster when such vast empty voids grow to dominate the universe.
    8. Professor David Wiltshire, who led the study, said, “Our findings show that we do not need dark energy to explain why the universe appears to expand at an accelerating rate.
    9. “Dark energy is a misidentification of variations in the kinetic energy of expansion, which is not uniform in a universe as lumpy as the one we actually live in.”
    10. He added, “The research provides compelling evidence that may resolve some of the key questions around the quirks of our expanding cosmos.
    11. “With new data, the universe’s biggest mystery could be settled by the end of the decade.”
    12. Dark energy is commonly thought to be a weak anti-gravity force which acts independently of matter and makes up around two thirds of the mass-energy density of the universe.
    13. The standard Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model of the universe requires dark energy to explain the observed acceleration in the rate at which the cosmos is expanding.
    14. Scientists base this conclusion on measurements of the distances to supernova explosions in distant galaxies, which appear to be farther away than they should be if the universe’s expansion were not accelerating.
    15. However, the present expansion rate of the universe is increasingly being challenged by new observations.
    16. Firstly, evidence from the afterglow of the Big Bang — known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) — shows the expansion of the early universe is at odds with current expansion, an anomaly known as the “Hubble tension.”
    17. In addition, recent analysis of new high precision data by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has found that the [Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM)] model does not fit as well as models in which dark energy is “evolving” over time, rather than remaining constant.
    18. Both the Hubble tension and the surprises revealed by DESI are difficult to resolve in models which use a simplified 100-year-old cosmic expansion law — Friedmann’s equation.
    19. This assumes that, on average, the universe expands uniformly — as if all cosmic structures could be put through a blender to make a featureless soup, with no complicating structure. However, the present universe actually contains a complex cosmic web of galaxy clusters in sheets and filaments that surround and thread vast empty voids.
    20. Professor Wiltshire added, “We now have so much data that in the 21st century we can finally answer the question — how and why does a simple average expansion law emerge from complexity?
    21. “A simple expansion law consistent with Einstein’s general relativity does not have to obey Friedmann’s equation.”
    22. The researchers say that the European Space Agency’s Euclid satellite, which was launched in July 2023, has the power to test and distinguish the Friedmann equation from the timescape alternative. However, this will require at least 1,000 independent high quality supernovae observations. …
    23. They say the new data now provides “very strong evidence” for timescape. It may also point to a compelling resolution of the Hubble tension and other anomalies related to the expansion of the universe.
    24. Further observations from Euclid and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope are needed to bolster support for the timescape model, the researchers say, with the race now on to use this wealth of new data to reveal the true nature of cosmic expansion and dark energy.
    25. MIKE: This is a fascinating bit of theoretical work, as I understand the lay version.
    26. MIKE: I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of a dark energy “anti-gravity” force accelerating the speed of Universal expansion.
    27. MIKE: This notion of lumpy expansion caused by gravity’s Einsteinian effects on localized rates of space-time expansion because of various degrees of local time dilation sits better with my sense of the universe.
    28. More information: Antonia Seifert et al, Supernovae evidence for foundational change to cosmological models, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slae112
    29. Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters
    30. Provided by Royal Astronomical Society
    31. Explore further — Einstein predicted how gravity should work at the largest scales. And he was right, suggests new research

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