A new “low-yield” US warhead is less powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima but more capable of igniting a nuclear conflict than bigger nuclear weapons, analysts believe.
Dubbed W76-2, the weapon is now being produced by the Pantex plant in Texas, according to Donald Trump’s nuclear posture review which he signed last year. The Trump administration – whose boss has already shown a fixation on building up nukes – claims the new “low-yield” warhead would give the US a more “flexible” deterrent.

The new “mini-nuke” has less velocity than the Hiroshima bomb as it was designed by taking away one stage from the original two-stage W76 thermonuclear device usually mounted on Trident ballistic missile. The new warhead’s explosive power was reduced from 100 kilotons of TNT, to around five.

“What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.” ? Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

We all edit our selfies to capture our best side, and the Curiosity rover on Mars is no different, as shown in a new "selfie" NASA released to mark the rover's last days at Vera Rubin Ridge.

Curiosity's favorite selfie trick isn't a matter of choosing the most flattering filter; instead, the robotic explorer favors stitching together shots to build a composite image, creating the illusion that a companion took the picture. The rover has used this approach for "selfies" before to stunning effect.

In the case of this new image, captured Jan. 15, the final product is built from 57 different individual photographs snapped by the rover using its Mars Hand Lens Imager. That instrument is located on the end of Curiosity's arm. [The Top 10 Space Robot 'Selfies' of All Time!]

It’s not often that the reviews of a product on Amazon go viral. But that’s what happened with Haribo’s sugar-free gummy bears when people started calling them “Satan’s Hate Bears.”

Customers don’t object to the taste. “For taste I would rate these a 5,” one reviewer wrote. “I was a happy camper.”

No. The problem with the sugarless gummy bears is their unfortunate side effect of gastrointestinal distress. Or, to put it less delicately: extreme, debilitating diarrhea.

One reviewer compared the flatulence he experienced to “trumpets calling the demons back to Hell.” Another said digesting the gummy bears felt like a “violent hurricane… in my lower intestine.” A third suggested that the diarrhea-inducing gummy bears made an “ideal gift for your Congressional Representatives.” The product page has nearly 1,000 reviews like this.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is orbiting an asteroid closer than any spacecraft has ever orbited a body — and it shows in an incredible pair of photographs that the team released yesterday (Jan. 24).

The spacecraft slipped into orbit around the asteroid, called Bennu, on Dec. 31, after the team carefully mapped the object to design a safe path for the probe. That was a challenge, since Bennu is the smallest space rock that's ever been orbited.

But the dangerous maneuver has paid off. OSIRIS-REx is orbiting just about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) above Bennu's surface, giving its cameras an incredible view of the asteroid's rocky surface. Scientists believe that rugged shape is the result of Bennu having formed from a bunch of rubble loosely clumped together. [The Greatest Asteroid Encounters of All Time!]

State senator Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix wants to mandate that parents are told exactly which ingredients and chemicals are in vaccines before their children are inoculated. The bill he’s introduced will require health professionals to provide not just the positive effects of vaccinations “but also the full list of ingredients and side effects before a vaccine could be administered.”1

No more hiding the truth about vaccine injury. #hearthiswell

In an extremely worrying development, genes relating to one of the most antibiotic resistant superbugs known to mankind have been found in the soil of the high Arctic, a remote and largely inhospitable corner of the world.
The New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1 genes (blaNDM-1) were first identified when a Swedish patient of Indian origin, who traveled to India in 2008, presented at a Delhi hospital. The genes were then detected in surface water on Delhi streets in 2010.

In a shock development, they have now been unearthed in the soil in Svalbard, Norway, high up in the Arctic Circle, 12,870km away from the Indian city, and how they got there is a profound mystery.

According to the US Border Patrol, criminal organisations are smuggling migrants into the United States via the Mexico border despite risks to their lives. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for a wall on the US' southern border to prevent tackle the drug trade, human trafficking, and other crimes.

A migrant detained by US authorities near a border crossing with Mexico is reported to have been suffering from a "flesh-eating" bacterial infection.

More than 306 migrants, mostly from Central American countries, were taken into custody near the Antelope Wells port of entry in New Mexico on Thursday.

Researchers have genetically modified chickens that can lay eggs that contain drugs for arthritis and some cancers.

The drugs are 100 times cheaper to produce when laid than when manufactured in factories.

The researchers believe that in time production can be scaled up to produce medicines in commercial quantities.

The chickens do not suffer and are "pampered" compared to farm animals, according to Dr Lissa Herron, of Roslin Technologies in Edinburgh.

"They live in very large pens. They are fed and watered and looked after on a daily basis by highly trained technicians, and live quite a comfortable life.

"As far as the chicken knows, it's just laying a normal egg. It doesn't affect its health in any way, it's just chugging away, laying eggs as normal."

Critics are raving about the new documentary, Apollo 11, which features an unearthed treasure trove of behind-the-scenes footage of the moon landing, following the movie's premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

The movie, deemed a 'masterful work of archival research' by Vulture, was created using a cache of 65mm, behind-the-scenes footage of the 1969 moon landing, and thousands of hours of vintage audio recordings of NASA employees talking about the mission.

Unlike traditional documentaries, the 93-minute-long Apollo 11 is said to not include any voice-overs or cutaways to talking heads. Instead, director Todd Douglas Miller uses a series of short, wordless montages illustrating each of the famed Apollo 11 crew's key life moments.

As I have covered in previous articles for Children’s Health Defense, the fundamental assumptions underlying the recommendation of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that everyone aged six months and up should get an annual flu shot are unsupported by scientific evidence.

Examining a case study from the New York Times, we’ve seen how the corporate media manufacture consent for public vaccine policy by grossly misinforming their audiences about the science—and how, in doing so, the media are just following the CDC’s example. We’ve seen how the CDC uses deceptive fear marketing to increase demand for influenza vaccines, and how the CDC’s claims that flu vaccination significantly reduces deaths among the elderly have been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community.

The founder of Virgin Galactic says he now expects to fly on the company’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle around the middle of this year after a series of test flights starting in the next several weeks.

In an interview on the "CBS This Morning" television show Jan. 24 to announce a partnership with athletic apparel company Under Armour to provide clothing for Virgin Galactic customers and employees, Richard Branson reiterated his plans to fly into space later this year on the first commercial SpaceShipTwo flight.

In a massive move to expose the Food and Drug Administration’s loyalty to big pharma, a top official from within the agency has come forward with damning claims. The FDA has succumb to Big Pharma’s influence and is approving deadly drugs to benefit their industry backers.

Dr. Raeford Brown, who is chair of the FDA’s committee to review various opioid based drugs before approving them, blew the whistle in an interview with the Guardian this week.

Brown told the Guardian that there is a “war” inside the FDA in regard to approving opioids. Brown said the agency has “failed to learn the lessons” of the recent epidemic which now claims tens of thousands of lives each year—around 150 deaths every single day.

Brown’s interview comes on the heals of the FDA approving a horrifyingly strong drug that is 1,000 times stronger than morphine and 10 times stronger than the incredibly deadly drug fentanyl.

Forced Vaccinations Remember the Disneyland measles outbreak in California a couple of years ago? Well, even those who were vaccinated got the measles. This article is a heads up that freedom to choose is about to go down the tubes – all for the perceived benefit of vaccines. Follow the money – who makes out like a bandit? Of course, it’s BIG PHARMA stealing your money, destroying your health and lying through their teeth the whole while as they own the television stations (advertising dollars speak very loudly), and they own the politicians who make the laws that force you to use the vaccines for which Planned Parenthood provides fetal tissue in the production. Not only that, but BIG Pharma has been exempted from law suits for damages from vaccines. GET THE POINT?

Getting fuel to remote operating bases is a big problem for the U.S. military. In 2008, during the height of combat in Iraq, the Government Accountability Office estimated that more than 900,000 gallons of fuel went to bases for basic power needs like lighting and refrigeration (on top of the 6.7 million gallons the military burned that year in jets and ground vehicles.) The U.S. military’s Strategic Capabilities Office has put out a request for information about small nuclear reactors that could deploy to the sorts of hillside forward bases U.S. troops set up in places like Afghanistan.

MOUNT St Helens could erupt again as scientists closely monitor a lava dome rising at five metres a day, a bombshell documentary revealed.

On May 18, 1980, Mount St Helens erupted in the US state of Washington. The blast, which measured 5 on the Volcanic Explosively Index, has been declared as the most disastrous volcanic eruption in modern US history. An huge column rose 80,000 feet into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 states, killing at least 57 people and causing more than $1billion (£770million) in damage.

Scientists are now closely watching the volcano to make sure they are prepared in case the same happens again.

For those who’ve participated in the market for recreational and medical cannabis, it hasn’t always been easy to purchase products.

Whether it’s on the street or at a legal dispensary, there’s been a risk of falling afoul of the law, dealing with inconsistent or disappearing suppliers, having to travel far to reach the closest dispensary, or spending excessive time in line or in a waiting room before finding your product. Have you or your friends ever wondered what it would be like to buy a disposable vape or a blunt as easily as you would buy a bottle of water from an office building vending machine?

Well now, a Southern California company has pioneered a new and innovative way of acquiring your buds, edibles, extracts, CBD products and accessories.

Welcome to the age of the automated smart cannabis kiosk, or “greenbox.”

RT has released the first-ever 360-degree footage shot by man in outer space, putting viewers in the shoes of two Russian cosmonauts launching nanosatellites from outside the International Space Station (ISS).

The video, which shows out-of-this-world views of Planet Earth, is the first time that the so-called extravehicular activity (EVA) has been filmed in 360. The immersive new format previously helped viewers explore the ISS modules as part of the Space 360 project.

Cosmonauts Sergey Ryazansky and Fedor Yurchikhin captured the breathtaking scenery while doing their 7.5-hour spacewalk in August, which included maintenance tasks and the launch of five miniature satellites.

IMAGINE a place far from here, deep in the emptiness of space. This point is light years from Earth, vastly distant from any nebula, star or lonely atom. We have many words for what you would find in such a place: a void, a vacuum, a lacuna. In fact, this nothingness is a sea of activity.

According to quantum theory, empty space is filled with virtual particles. They are always there, keeping reality ticking over smoothly. They are also completely undetectable – unless, that is, you have an incredibly powerful searchlight. “Usually when people talk about a vacuum, they mean something that’s empty,” says theorist Mattias Marklund at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. “But a laser can show you the vacuum’s secrets.”

The Food and Drug Administration is succumbing to Big Pharma's influence to keep approving lucrative opioids despite the toll they're taking on American lives, a top official at the agency claims.

Dr Raeford Brown, chair of the FDA's committee for reviewing opioid approvals, told the Guardian the agency is having a 'direct impact on the mortality rate from opioids in this country' by continuing to approve new high-risk drugs.

His words come after the FDA approved a controversial new opioid, Dsuvia, despite its own board of physicians warning the drug is easy to abuse and could cause more deaths.

Dr Brown was one of a number of committee members who, he claims, we deliberately barred from voting on Dsuvia because the in-person vote was scheduled for the same day as a conference that most of them were attending.

Are things any different today in terms of idolatry? It has taken on a different form, but it is in essence the same thing it has always been – trust in idols rather than God to supply our needs and desires. Modern-day culture has changed dramatically since the theory of Darwinian evolution came on the scene and dominated academics in western culture, so that today the physical world is exalted above all other realities. The spiritual world is either denied or ignored. Hence, creation of physical idols out of basic elements such as wood or metals is very uncommon, because current culture ignores the unseen world that could be represented by such physical manifestations.

Following the cyber-attack in June 2017, for the first time in a very long time, researchers have the ability to view in plain sight, a natural experiment whereby one vaccine was abruptly swapped out for another – replacing the very adjuvant many critics are concerned about, AAHS – with an aluminum hydroxide adjuvant contained in Engerix-B. Neither has a published independent safety profile but AAHS is suspected to be more problematic due to its immunogenicity profile.

We now have more than a year’s worth of data to examine since the attack in 2017 when Engerix-B was introduced. On average there were 29 deaths reported annually for fifteen years prior to the attack (2003 to 2017). In 2018 there were only 6 reported (to end of November 2018). Two of those deaths followed Recombivax. Assuming the same death rate to the end of the year, at most there will be 7 deaths recorded, resulting in roughly 75% less deaths since Recombivax was discontinued as a pediatric vaccine.

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.