Mixed rice

The lights are back on and the drinking water restored in most of Texas . Plumbers are fixing the pipes that burst in frigid, blacked out homes. Our state’s leaders will need years to fix what went wrong in our epic failure, which featured 500 times as many forced blackouts as California’s wildfires last summer. But national attention will fade if other Americans misinterpret last week’s blackouts as a uniquely Texan failure. In some ways, they were. Only Texas runs its power grid as an island , isolated from the two larger grids that cover most of the United States and Canada. That left Texas stranded when the Arctic blast slammed through. Other states restored power with imports from their neighbors. Our isolated grid also shielded Texas companies from federal regulators who may have forced them to better prepare for storms. ADVERTISEMENT Although these uniquely Texan traits exacerbated our crisis, the blackouts revealed a broader vulnerability of power systems … [Read more...] about The broader vulnerabilities revealed by the Texas blackouts

The U.S. military hit facilities used by Iran-backed militants in eastern Syria on Thursday in retaliation for recent rocket attacks in Iraq targeting U.S. interests, the first known military action ordered by President Biden Joe Biden Biden 'disappointed' in Senate parliamentarian ruling but 'respects' decision Taylor Swift celebrates House passage of Equality Act Donald Trump Jr. calls Bruce Springsteen's dropped charges 'liberal privilege' MORE . “At President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement. “These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel,” he added. “Specifically, the strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of … [Read more...] about Biden orders US strikes on Iranian-backed militia facilities in Syria

When America seeks to address a crisis or achieve preeminence, it looks to science. This is true whether the issue is the economy , climate change , national security or even a pandemic . And yet, today, Americans spend more on potato chips than on energy research . For President Biden and the new Congress, the time is now for new thinking about how we prioritize and fund science, as well as public primary and secondary education. In 2019 we spent one tenth of one percent of the GDP on biomedical basic research but nearly 18 percent of the GDP on health care . And what of overall competitiveness? Mainland China is increasing research and development investment by double digit percentages each year while U.S. investment, as a percentage of GDP, has remained stagnant for nearly half a century. China is close to passing the United States in total R&D investment based on purchasing power parity. China’s entire GDP is … [Read more...] about Chinese innovation is surging — we must fund science to compete