Tag: science

Devastating US Report Lays Bare The Abuses Of ‘Settled’ Climate Science And Its Role In Net Zero

Net Zero is dead in the United States and the last rites have been administered in the devastating official report from the Department of Energy. Released earlier this week, the report cancels the decades-long censorship imposed by so-called ‘settled’ climate science. It is compiled by five eminent scientists and is a systematic take-down of the claims, methodologies and motivations driving activist scientists, politicians and opinion formers promoting the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Despite its ground-breaking importance, to date it has been largely ignored by mainstream media including the BBC and Guardian.

Computer models are said to offer “little guidance” on how much of the climate responds to higher levels of carbon dioxide, most extreme weather events are not increasing, sea levels in North America show no increasing trend while weather attribution claims are challenged by natural climate variation along with an admission that they were originally designed with ‘lawfare’ in mind. For Anthony Watts, who has spent decades challenging the ‘settled’ politicised science, the most important consideration is that the report, “directly confronts the exaggerated and politicised rhetoric that has dominated headlines for decades”.

Watts, who runs the Watts Up With That? (WUWT?) site that was responsible for publicising the infamous Climategate scandal, argues that the new report is unique in that it has both official status and author independence. It is not a think tank paper or an article in a ‘dissenting’ journal.

“It’s rare to see scientists of this calibre (with backgrounds at NASA, IPCC and major universities) allowed to directly challenge prevailing policy narratives with government resources behind them”, he notes.

The work is a “comprehensive critique” quoting extensively from peer-reviewed literature with clear explanations of scientific uncertainties and climate model error. 

For regular readers of WUWT? and other inquiring publications such as the Daily Sceptic, many of the issues discussed in the report will be familiar. In the last four years, your correspondent has written nearly 500 articles on climate science and Net Zero in an attempt to fill in the significant reporting gaps left by the narrative-driven mainstream media. Many of the papers quoted are familiar, not least in the section that deals with the sensational ‘greening’ of the planet caused by higher levels of CO2. 

The report quotes from recent work that shows extensive plant and crop growth due to the atmospheric fertilisation that has enhanced photosynthesis and improved water use efficiency. Over the past 60+ years, the authors observe that there have been thousands of studies on the response of plants to rising CO2 levels, and the overwhelming theme is that they benefit from the extra gas. In 2016, Zhu et al detected greening over 25%–50% of the planet. But there is a near official news blackout on the subject. A few mentions can be found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports but overall, observe the authors, “the Policymakers Summaries, Technical Summaries and [IPCC] Synthesis reports of AR5 and ASR6 do not discuss the topic”.

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Something Massive Could Still Be Hiding in The Shadows of Our Solar System

Is there a massive undiscovered planet on the outer reaches of the Solar System? The idea has been around since before the discovery of Pluto in the 1930s.

Labelled as planet X, prominent astronomers had put it forward as an explanation for Uranus‘s orbit, which drifts from the path of orbital motion that physics would expect it to follow. The gravitational pull of an undiscovered planet, several times larger than Earth, was seen as a possible reason for the discrepancy.

That mystery was ultimately explained by a recalculation of Neptune’s mass in the 1990s, but then a new theory of a potential planet nine was put forward in 2016 by astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown at Caltech (the California Institute of Technology).

Their theory relates to the Kuiper Belt, a giant belt of dwarf planets, asteroids and other matter that lies beyond Neptune (and includes Pluto). Many Kuiper Belt objects – also referred to as trans-Neptunian objects – have been discovered orbiting the Sun, but like Uranus they don’t do so in a continuous expected direction.

Batygin and Brown argued that something with a large gravitational pull must be affecting their orbit, and proposed planet nine as a potential explanation.

This would be comparable to what happens with our own Moon. It orbits the Sun every 365.25 days, in line with what you would expect in view of their distance apart.

However, the Earth’s gravitational pull is such that the Moon also orbits the planet every 27 days. From the point of view of an outside observer, the Moon moves in a spiralling motion as a result. Similarly, many objects in the Kuiper Belt show signs of their orbits being affected by more than just the Sun’s gravity.

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Three new studies challenge decades-old climate dogmas on sea level rise

For years, climate reports have relentlessly painted a bleak picture: the ice caps are melting, the oceans are rising, and humanity is on the brink of catastrophic flooding.

The motivation for the recently published opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was justified, among other things, by the dangers to islands and coastal areas. ” Rising temperatures are leading to the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, resulting in a rise in sea levels and threatening coastal communities with unprecedented flooding.” These unprecedented floods, by the way, have been predicted for 40 or more years, each five years in a row. But let’s look at the scientific evidence on this. Personally, I’m going to Venice to see if the islands there have finally sunk under water since their founding in 421.

We have heard it again and again from politicians, activists and the media who want to dramatize every rise in global temperatures as an unprecedented catastrophe.

We know that the Holocene Temperature Maximum, during the ongoing interglacial period, was warmer in Greenland than today, at about 4–8.5°C. Amazingly, despite this warmth, global sea level was lower than today. How is this possible if models predicting catastrophic sea level rise are correct? If the Greenland ice cap survived such warming without flooding the coasts, how does this fit with claims that the current moderate warming will do so?

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Japan Creates Frankenstein Bird Flu Virus With New Immunological Traits

According to a new study published last week in NPJ Vaccines, Japanese researchers engineered an entirely new strain of bird flu, combining the genetic material of two separate wild viruses to create what they call Vac-3: a pathogen that is “a reassortant virus between A/duck/Hokkaido/101/2004 (H5N3) and A/duck/Hokkaido/262/2004 (H6N1).”

This lab-built virus—A/duck/Hokkaido/Vac-3/2007 (H5N1)—was never observed in nature.

It was artificially assembled, grown in eggs, concentrated, and inactivated with formalin to become the whole-particle vaccine used in long-term testing on nonhuman primates.

The new study comes after NIH-funded researchers at the University of Georgia, Mount Sinai, and Texas Biomed were caught engineering lab-made H5N1 bird flu viruses—one of which killed 100% of exposed mammals—using synthetic DNA constructs and then deliberately infecting live dairy cows, all under the same $59 million federal contract that has also been tied to mammal-adapted, drug-resistant strain development.

Japan is also working with U.S. scientists on other projects to build lab-made horse-human influenza hybrids that replicate 100 times faster than natural strains using aborted fetal cells engineered with the cancer-linked SV40 virus, also under the banner of vaccine development.

All of these developments raise fears that another man-made pandemic is on the horizon, as Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, and the CIA have acknowledged that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is most likely the origin of COVID-19.

An Engineered Virus with New Properties

The new Japanese paper highlights that this bird flu Frankenvirus triggered significantly stronger immune responses than existing flu vaccines.

It did so by retaining its full genetic structure, including viral RNA, which stimulated toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) and a cascade of innate immune activation.

“WPVs contain single-stranded viral RNAs that stimulate innate immune receptors such as toll-like receptor 7,” the authors write.

This means the lab-built virus was left fully intact so it could shock the immune system into overdrive, triggering a much stronger reaction than normal flu shots.

Unlike conventional “split” vaccines, which separate viral proteins from RNA, Japan’s whole-particle vaccine (WPV) preserved the virus’s full anatomy.

This allowed it to activate dendritic cells, induce interferon-producing T cells, and stimulate somatic hypermutation—a powerful, but risky, rewiring of the immune system.

In short, the new virus didn’t just train the immune system—it reprogrammed it.

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Justin Goodman Exposes Abuse Committed in the Name of «Science»

As President Donald J. Trump’s administration continues restoring order, transparency, and common sense across federal institutions, new allegations have emerged exposing the scale of abuse carried out for years by unchecked scientific bureaucracies, all funded by taxpayers.

In a revealing conversation with journalist Lara Logan, activist Justin Goodman—a leading voice for ethical science in the United States—shed light on the extreme and morally questionable experiments conducted in federally funded labs over the past decades, often with no oversight and little to no public awareness.

“People who were deported for doing horrible things to animals—things any civilized society would condemn—are no different than the scientists who were promoted and rewarded for doing the same things in government labs, all paid with our tax dollars,” Goodman said.

Among the most shocking examples, Goodman highlighted experiments involving cannibalism among kittens, mutilation of puppies, and live dissection of primates, conducted not only in U.S. labs, including the NIH headquarters, but also in labs funded in China, Iran, Russia, and other nations lacking ethical regulations.

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Fascinating new neuroscience study shows the brain emits light through the skull

A new study published in iScience provides evidence that the human brain emits extremely faint light signals that not only pass through the skull but also appear to change in response to mental states. Researchers found that these ultraweak light emissions could be recorded in complete darkness, and they appeared to shift in response to simple tasks like closing the eyes or listening to sound. The findings suggest that this faint brain light may carry information about brain activity—possibly opening the door to a new way of studying the brain (photoencephalography).

All living tissues release tiny amounts of light during normal metabolism, known as ultraweak photon emissions. This happens when excited molecules return to a lower energy state and emit a photon in the process. The light is incredibly faint—about a million times weaker than what we can see—and falls within the visible to near-infrared range. In contrast to bioluminescence, which involves specific chemical reactions like those used by fireflies, ultraweak photon emissions happen constantly in all tissues, without special enzymes or glowing compounds.

The brain emits more of this faint light than most other organs because of its high energy use and dense concentration of photoactive molecules. These include compounds like flavins, serotonin, and proteins that can absorb and emit light. Photon emission rates also seem to rise during oxidative stress and aging and may reflect changes in cell health or communication.

The research team, led by Hayley Casey, Nirosha Murugan, and colleagues at Algoma University, Tufts University, and Wilfrid Laurier University, wanted to know if these faint light emissions could be used to monitor brain activity. Unlike other imaging methods that require stimulation—such as strong magnetic fields or infrared light—measuring UPEs is entirely passive. That means it doesn’t introduce anything new to the brain.

The researchers proposed that UPEs might offer a new way to monitor brain function safely and without interference, similar to how EEG tracks electrical brain waves without applying energy. They also wanted to test whether UPEs reflect mental states like resting with eyes closed or responding to sound, and whether these signals match known changes in electrical brain rhythms.

The researchers recruited 20 healthy adult participants and measured both UPEs and brain electrical activity while the participants sat in a dark room. The setup included photomultiplier tubes placed near the occipital and temporal regions of the head, where the brain processes visual and auditory information. A third sensor recorded background light. At the same time, participants wore a cap with electroencephalography sensors to record electrical brain rhythms.

Participants went through a ten-minute recording session that included five conditions. First, they sat with eyes open and then with eyes closed. Next, they listened to a simple repeating auditory stimulus, followed by another eyes-closed period, and finally another eyes-open period. The aim was to see whether brain UPEs responded to known manipulations of brain activity, particularly the shift in alpha rhythms that occurs when people close their eyes.

Photon emissions were recorded in short time intervals and analyzed for variability, frequency content, and stability over time. The team compared the results to background signals and examined correlations with electrical brain rhythms recorded at the same time.

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A science journal pulled a controversial study about a bizarre life form against the authors’ wishes

A microscopic discovery in a California lake sparked buzz and controversy more than a decade ago when it was first revealed.

Scientists said they’d discovered bacteria that used the element arsenic — poisonous to life as we know it — to grow. If true, it expanded the possibilities for where life could exist on Earth — or on other worlds.

Several research groups failed to replicate the results, and argue it’s not possible for a living thing to use something so toxic to make DNA and proteins. Some scientists have suggested the results of the original experiments may have been skewed by undetected contaminants.

On Thursday, the journal Science, which first published the research, retracted it, though not because of misconduct on the researchers’ part.

“If the editors determine that a paper’s reported experiments do not support its key conclusions, even if no fraud or manipulation occurred, a retraction is considered appropriate,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Holden Thorp wrote in the statement announcing the retraction.

The researchers disagree with the journal’s decision and stand by their data. It’s reasonable to pull a paper for major errors or suspected misconduct — but debates and disagreements over the findings are part of the scientific process, said study co-author Ariel Anbar of Arizona State University.

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Scientists in Maryland Are Developing Artificial Blood

Scientists in Maryland believe they are on the verge of creating artificial blood that could save thousands of lives.

Researchers and scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore are creating artificial blood by extracting hemoglobin from expired blood and then enclosing the protein in a bubble of fat, which replicates red blood cells.

Dr. Allan Doctor shared that the artificial blood is “designed so that at the moment it’s needed, a medic can mix it with water, and within a minute, you have blood.”

Currently, the team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine is using artificial blood in tests with rabbits.

Per NPR:

Tens of thousands of people bleed to death each year in the United States before they can get to a hospital. That’s because ambulances, medical helicopters and military medics can’t routinely carry blood, which would go bad too fast without adequate refrigeration.

So scientists have been on a quest to develop artificial blood that could be stored in powdered form and reconstituted by medics on the spot to save lives.

At the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where some of this research is being conducted, a white rabbit lies on the floor of a cage. It’s in a “special intensive care unit that we’ve created for our rabbit resuscitation,” says Dr. Allan Doctor, a scientist at the school.

Doctor’s team just drained blood from the animal to simulate what happens to a person who’s hemorrhaging from an injury, such as from a car crash or battlefield wound. “This rabbit is still in shock. You can see he’s lying very still. It’s as if he was at the scene of an accident,” says Doctor. “If we didn’t do anything, it would die.”

But Doctor and his team are going to save this rabbit today. They’re going to fill his veins with something they hope will finally enable them to achieve a goal that has stymied researchers for decades: developing safe and effective artificial blood. “Good bunny,” says Danielle Waters, a technician on Doctor’s team, as she gently lifts the rabbit and starts infusing him with three big syringes of artificial blood.

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NIH Director Details Crackdown on Fees Monopoly Publishers Charge

In an exclusive interview with The DisInformation Chronicle, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya explains his latest policy to control monopoly science publishers now raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers, while sometimes playing partisan politics and pushing fake narratives. The NIH announced yesterday that they will soon cap the “article processing fees” that publishers can charge NIH-funded researchers to make their studies public and available to American taxpayers.

NIH funds much of the planet’s biomedical science, but this research has remained locked up by pricey science journals that charge Americans expensive fees to read the results of the very studies they funded. The publishers of Science Magazine, for example, demand $30 to read a single study.

However, this changed recently when Dr. Bhattacharya demanded that journals make NIH-funded studies public as soon as they publish them. However, taxpayers are still on the hook, paying the “open access fee” that journals charge scientists.

In the case of the esteemed Nature Magazine, this means a $12,600 fee. Of course, scientists don’t have thousands of dollars lying around for publishing fees, so NIH-funded researchers simply charge that cost back to the American taxpayer as part of their NIH grants. In effect, taxpayers get charged twice: first when they fund an NIH grant for a university professor, and second when they pay that professor’s publishing fee to a science journal.

And this money quickly adds up.

The six largest science publishers charge researchers $1.8 billion in publishing fees every year, with American taxpayers soaking up a large portion of that money. NIH’s latest policy will control these costs in the future, ensuring more NIH money goes to scientists and their research.

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Giant, flightless bird is next target for de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences


A species of huge, flightless bird that once inhabited New Zealand disappeared around 600 years ago, shortly after human settlers first arrived on the country’s two main islands. Now, a Texas-based biotech company says it has a plan to bring it back.

Genetic engineering startup Colossal Biosciences has added the South Island giant moa — a powerful, long-necked species that stood 10 feet (3 meters) tall and may have kicked in self-defense — to a fast-expanding list of animals it wants to resurrect by genetically modifying their closest living relatives.

The company stirred widespread excitement, as well as controversy, when it announced the birth of what it described as three dire wolf pups in April. Colossal scientists said they had resurrected the canine predator last seen 10,000 years ago by using ancient DNA, cloning and gene-editing technology to alter the genetic make-up of the gray wolf, in a process the company calls de-extinction. Similar efforts to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, are also underway.

To restore the moa, Colossal Biosciences announced Tuesday it would collaborate with New Zealand’s Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, an institution based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, that was founded to support the Ngāi Tahu, the main Māori tribe of the southern region of New Zealand.

The project would initially involve recovering and analyzing ancient DNA from nine moa species to understand how the giant moa (Dinornis robustus) differed from living and extinct relatives in order to decode its unique genetic makeup, according to a company statement.

“There is so much knowledge that will be unlocked and shared on the journey to bring back the iconic moa,” Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, said in the statement. For example, the company said, researching the genomes of all moa species would be “valuable for informing conservation efforts and understanding the role of climate change and human activity in biodiversity loss.”

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