>DOUGH
The US Supreme Court has ruled that Trump can run for president of the United States. States can no longer remove him from ballots.
"People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act," Harris said. "The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses."
https://twitter.com/iamyesyouareno/status/1764359445612568957
They opened a Six Flags outside Atlanta and it went as expected.
Massive brawls, multiple people shot.
https://www.newsweek.com/six-flags-over-georgia-stormed-unruly-crowd-police-shooting-opening-1875339
Six Flags Over Georgia Stormed by 'Unruly' Crowd, Police Shooting Outside
Europe is experiencing a shortage of gunpowder
Haitian Gangs announce a coalition after PM Ariel Henry signed a reciprocal agreement with Kenya allowing the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan Police Officers. Clear aim is to overthrow the Haitian PM and his government…
Haiti is a truly insane situation right now, a gang leader named Barbecue is actively trying to overthrow the government and now has an alliance of gangs backing him. Kenya is sending police forces
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Line%2C_Saudi_Arabia
https://www.reuters.com/article/saudi-city-surveillance-idAFL8N2ZL0CM/
Saudi 'surveillance city': Would you sell your data to The Line?
Mexico wants to join BRICS in 2024
naturally-occurring bacteria converts road salt and an organic compound called urea into biocement, a hardened surface that may be able to take the weight of a landing or taxiing aircraft
>naturally-occurring bacteria converts road salt and an organic compound called urea into biocement, a hardened surface that may be able to take the weight of a landing or taxiing aircraft
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/biocement-air-force-runway-pacific/
Can Biocement Help the Air Force Build New Runways in the Pacific?
The bricks were not made in a cement mixer. Instead, they were made with a biomanufacturing process where naturally-occurring bacteria converts road salt and an organic compound called urea into biocement, a hardened surface that may be able to take the weight of a landing or taxiing aircraft or a heavy ground vehicle. Using biocement to build a runway or road in a remote location could shave months of prep time and tons of equipment off the traditional methods.
“We’re trying to reduce or completely eliminate the need to bring in the heavy machinery, the concrete mixers, the literal boatloads of things that go into traditional construction, and being able to build it in a relatively quick timeframe,” Mitch Meade, an analytical chemist and deputy branch and program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
Biocement is a promising technology at a time when the Air Force is pursuing the concept of Agile Combat Employment, where small teams launch and recover from remote or austere locations and can move quickly to new airfields. Part of the challenge of operating from smaller airfields is that there is not much space to land or park an aircraft.
“Some of them are pretty bare,” then-head of Pacific Air Forces Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said in 2020. “And so what you might expect is, it’s a runway with a ramp. And that’s it.”
Wilsbach later said in 2023 that PACAF wants to clear jungles from overgrown World War II-era airfields to get at the concrete and asphalt buried beneath.
“We’re not making super bases anywhere,” he said. “We’re looking for a place to get some fuel and some weapons, maybe get a bite to eat and take a nap and then get airborne again.”
>cement
If the Air Force needs to expand runways, ramps, or roads, the usual process of making a paved surface may not be fast or lightweight enough to work in a Pacific conflict, where military airlift and sealift will likely be overburdened moving the rest of the force across the ocean.
“You almost have to build a cement factory and then all the infrastructure to lay down however much asphalt or concrete on top of that,” Meade explained. The process can take months.
Private companies have explored biocement for decades as a way to cut down on the carbon dioxide emitted by traditional cement production. It starts with S. pasteurii, a naturally-occurring bacteria that can be flown in or grown on site and is then sprayed onto the soil. Once it seeps into the ground, crews add calcium chloride and the organic compound urea. The S. pasteurii converts those ingredients into calcium carbonate, which binds the soil particles together into a hardened surface. The entire process takes less than 96 hours, though it can happen faster or slower depending on the soil and how often the bacteria is “fed.”
“Time is definitely the key factor,” Meade said. “We’re trying to build something as quickly as possible.”
The Air Force has been researching biocement since at least 2019. In the years since, landing pads made of biocement held up under CV-22s and a Navy MH-60S helicopter.
“Basically, you need an agricultural sprayer and some water tanks, so there is very little in materials you need to bring to the site,” Maj. MacKenzie Birchenough, a developmental engineer, said in 2019 about building a 2,500 square-foot prototype site with biocement.
Tests with larger aircraft are still to come as AFRL works to “turn this from a biochemistry experiment into something an Airman could use,” Meade said. Researchers need to find out what kinds of soils, climate, and applications where biocement works best. Future tests will likely involve load carts, which can simulate the weight of an aircraft.
“This might be a great solution for one environment, but would something else work better in another environment?” the chemist asked. “Understanding where these things work best is a big part of the research we’re doing now.”
The goal is to answer those questions sooner rather than later, since military leaders are keenly interested in the technology.
“Any time you talk to a senior leader, their first question is ‘when are we going to see this in the field?’” Meade said. “Everyone we talk to, their imagination goes wild.”
Biocement is not meant to support a permanent airfield, but another advantage is that it does not require much clean-up. While calcium chloride does not dissolve, tillers can be used to turn the biocement back into native soil, which eliminates the need to dig up old concrete and ship it out. But could introducing a biocement-making bacteria have wide-reaching consequences?
“One question I get asked a lot is, when you put this stuff on the ground, will it turn the whole island into cement? Will it take over the world?” Meade said. “No, it will not take over the world.”
https://www.twz.com/air/b-52-armed-with-hypersonic-missile-makes-appearance-in-guam
B-52 Armed With Hypersonic Missile Makes Appearance In Guam
The public appearance of a live AGM-183A on Guam raises questions about the Air Force’s previously stated plans to axe the missile.
https://archive.ph/CX6pj
Macron stands by remarks about sending troops to Ukraine
French president has faced a barrage of criticism, but said his comments were “weighed, thought through and measured.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-f-16-fighter-jets-war-russia-base-runway/
“If you ever walked up and put your hands on a MiG-29 at an air show and then walked right over and put your hands on an F-16, you can feel just from the outside how the F-16 is highly engineered. It is a prima donna, and it is very sensitive and needs high maintenance,” said Richter, who used the call sign T-Bone. The Soviet planes are more “rough and tumble” and can fly off poorly maintained airfields, and need less maintenance.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/03/01/finland-approves-construction-of-patrias-f-35-assembly-facility/
Finland approves construction of Patria’s F-35 assembly facility
In 2019, Tony Podesta was investigated by the Southern District of New York for potential violations of foreign lobbying rules. Back in 2021, the same Podesta brother pocketed a cool $1 million by lobbying Biden in favor of Chinese telecommunications. Instead of tapping the brakes on this questionable influence, Joe Biden picked John Podesta to replace John Kerry and then put him in charge of the largest green slush fund in American history.
Scientist claims ‘smoking gun’ evidence COVID-19 intentionally created by researchers in Chinese lab
Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, believes the virus that killed millions around the world may actually have been manmade in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.