I read the entire thing, and damn this part was bad. The rest of it was almost perfect… but this is decoupled from material reality. It ignores that the US people agree and ask for legalization. It also ignores that China itself didn’t ban cannabis until the 1985 when the UN and US asked them to. Ignoring the racist origin of the “Controlled substances act” was wrong. One of the architects of the law even admit it was a way to attack black Americans and other political opponents such as college kids. You don’t have to agree with drug legalization to know that objectively the start of the drug war with the passing of that law in 1970 was not about public health.
They totally mischaracterize the drug problem in the US by focusing on “marijuana” and ignoring that not a single drug death is due to marijuana, nearly all are from fentanyl, or stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine. There is absolutely no connection between states with legal weed and states with high drug overdoses. Legal weed does not cause drug overdoses to increase. Alcohol use has increased dramatically and goes ignored, despite its real health problems. I have a lot more to say about it but reading their whole report was enough phone time for me.
Here’s the section, thought y’all would agree it’s bad.
The U.S. government actively promotes the legalization of marijuana regardless of people's health. Marijuana is a controlled narcotic drug by the UN International Drug Control Conventions. In the 1970s, the United States promulgated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which classified marijuana as a federally controlled substance. The federal and state governments of the United States have failed to regulate drugs and substance abuse and even pushed for the legalization of marijuana under the influence of lobbyists groups, resulting in more and more young people becoming victims. In their book Can Legal Weed Win? The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics published in 2022, Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner, researchers with the University of California, Davis, underlined that one of the pipe dreams behind the legalization push is the intention to make legal cannabis a new cash cow for the government through tax. Marijuana sales in the United States have exceeded 30 billion dollars so far, and the U.S. marijuana market is expected to reach 65 billion dollars by 2030. According to the data released by Open Secrets, from 2018 to 2021, some marijuana and products-related enterprises and trade associations in the United States spent more than 16.6 million dollars on political lobbying, with an average annual expenditure of about 10 times that of 2016; In the first three quarters of 2022, more than 5.6 million dollars were spent on marijuana lobbying. Enterprises and organizations profiting from marijuana trade money for power, and form interest groups with politicians, thereby letting drugs and substance abuse going unchecked, a striking demonstration of Washington's failure in social governance.
Drugs and substance abuse endanger life and health. According to a survey released by U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 59.3 million Americans over 12 years of age abused drugs in 2020, of which 49.6 million smoked marijuana. According to public information on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 40 percent of American high school students use marijuana for a long time. According to a report released by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in August 2022, 43 percent of young Americans have smoked marijuana in a year, 8 percent have used hallucinogens, and 11 percent have smoked marijuana every day, the highest level in record. According to a study released by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Studies on August 4, 2022, the number of Americans dying from drugs and drug abuse has increased dramatically in recent years, by more than 100,000 per year. More than 107,000 cases involving deaths from drug overdose occurred in the 12-month period ending in August 2022, according to data from the U.S. CDC. Marta Sokolowska, the Deputy Center Director for Substance Use and Behavioral Health in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, pointed out that drug abuse has become one of the most devastating public health crises in the United States.
http://english.scio.gov.cn/scionews/2023-03/28/content_85196298.htm

I read the entire thing, and damn this part was bad. The rest of it was almost perfect… but this is decoupled from material reality. It ignores that the US people agree and ask for legalization. It also ignores that China itself didn’t ban cannabis until the 1985 when the UN and US asked them to. Ignoring the racist origin of the “Controlled substances act” was wrong. One of the architects of the law even admit it was a way to attack black Americans and other political opponents such as college kids. You don’t have to agree with drug legalization to know that objectively the start of the drug war with the passing of that law in 1970 was not about public health.
They totally mischaracterize the drug problem in the US by focusing on “marijuana” and ignoring that not a single drug death is due to marijuana, nearly all are from fentanyl, or stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine. There is absolutely no connection between states with legal weed and states with high drug overdoses. Legal weed does not cause drug overdoses to increase. Alcohol use has increased dramatically and goes ignored, despite its real health problems. I have a lot more to say about it but reading their whole report was enough phone time for me.
Here’s the section, thought y’all would agree it’s bad.
The U.S. government actively promotes the legalization of marijuana regardless of people's health. Marijuana is a controlled narcotic drug by the UN International Drug Control Conventions. In the 1970s, the United States promulgated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which classified marijuana as a federally controlled substance. The federal and state governments of the United States have failed to regulate drugs and substance abuse and even pushed for the legalization of marijuana under the influence of lobbyists groups, resulting in more and more young people becoming victims. In their book Can Legal Weed Win? The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics published in 2022, Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner, researchers with the University of California, Davis, underlined that one of the pipe dreams behind the legalization push is the intention to make legal cannabis a new cash cow for the government through tax. Marijuana sales in the United States have exceeded 30 billion dollars so far, and the U.S. marijuana market is expected to reach 65 billion dollars by 2030. According to the data released by Open Secrets, from 2018 to 2021, some marijuana and products-related enterprises and trade associations in the United States spent more than 16.6 million dollars on political lobbying, with an average annual expenditure of about 10 times that of 2016; In the first three quarters of 2022, more than 5.6 million dollars were spent on marijuana lobbying. Enterprises and organizations profiting from marijuana trade money for power, and form interest groups with politicians, thereby letting drugs and substance abuse going unchecked, a striking demonstration of Washington's failure in social governance.
Drugs and substance abuse endanger life and health. According to a survey released by U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 59.3 million Americans over 12 years of age abused drugs in 2020, of which 49.6 million smoked marijuana. According to public information on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 40 percent of American high school students use marijuana for a long time. According to a report released by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in August 2022, 43 percent of young Americans have smoked marijuana in a year, 8 percent have used hallucinogens, and 11 percent have smoked marijuana every day, the highest level in record. According to a study released by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Studies on August 4, 2022, the number of Americans dying from drugs and drug abuse has increased dramatically in recent years, by more than 100,000 per year. More than 107,000 cases involving deaths from drug overdose occurred in the 12-month period ending in August 2022, according to data from the U.S. CDC. Marta Sokolowska, the Deputy Center Director for Substance Use and Behavioral Health in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, pointed out that drug abuse has become one of the most devastating public health crises in the United States.
http://english.scio.gov.cn/scionews/2023-03/28/content_85196298.htm

Hello all! The Indonesian Student Association of University of Washington (ISAUW) is a student based organization that aims to spread the culture of Indonesia to the world.
To do so we will be hosting Keraton, ISAUW’s largest and most iconic event that is held annually every spring since 2002 at the University of Washington. We’re hoping to come back stronger than ever as we commit to leave an undeniable impressions to a crowd of over 3,000 international audiences, through in-depth and hands-on experience of Indonesian culture provided through Indonesian traditional performances and activities. Keraton has grown much since its start in 2002, from a small crowd of 70 attendees, it has developed to a staggering audience of over 3,000 visitors in its latest display, consisting of people from many various backgrounds. This event is the largest Indonesian Festival on the West Coast and the second largest in the United States!
Donate here to help raise funds!
100% of the money gained from thi will be used to fund Keraton. Keraton will be held in University of Washington's HUB Lawn on May 6, 2023. ADMISSION IS FREE!!!
For more information go to our instagram page @ isauwhuskies or our website at isauw.org.
Thank you for your generosity and help in spreading the rich and diverse culture of Indonesia to the world.
​
Sincerely,
The Indonesian Student Association at the University of Washington (ISAUW)

Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium radioactively decays by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of this decay varies between 159,200 and 4.5 billion years for different isotopes, making them useful for dating the age of the Earth. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99% of uranium on Earth) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.[6] Many contemporary uses of uranium exploit its unique nuclear properties. Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile isotope, which makes it widely used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. However, because of the tiny concentrations found in nature, uranium needs to undergo enrichment so that enough uranium-235 is present. Uranium-238 is fissionable by fast neutrons, and is fertile, meaning it can be transmuted to fissile plutonium-239 in a nuclear reactor. Another fissile isotope, uranium-233, can be produced from natural thorium and is studied for future industrial use in nuclear technology. Uranium-238 has a small probability for spontaneous fission or even induced fission with fast neutrons; uranium-235, and to a lesser degree uranium-233, have a much higher fission cross-section for slow neutrons. In sufficient concentration, these isotopes maintain a sustained nuclear chain reaction. This generates the heat in nuclear power reactors, and produces the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium (238U) is used in kinetic energy penetrators and armor plating.[7][8]
The 1789 discovery of uranium in the mineral pitchblende is credited to Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who named the new element after the recently discovered planet Uranus. Eugène-Melchior Péligot was the first person to isolate the metal and its radioactive properties were discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. Research by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, Enrico Fermi and others, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer starting in 1934 led to its use as a fuel in the nuclear power industry and in Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in war. An ensuing arms race during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union produced tens of thousands of nuclear weapons that used uranium metal and uranium-derived plutonium-239. Dismantling of these weapons and related nuclear facilities is carried out within various nuclear disarmament programs and costs billions of dollars. Weapon-grade uranium obtained from nuclear weapons is diluted with uranium-238 and reused as fuel for nuclear reactors. The development and deployment of these nuclear reactors continue on a global base as they are powerful sources of CO2-free energy. Spent nuclear fuel forms radioactive waste, which mostly consists of uranium-238 and poses significant health threat and environmental impact. Uranium is a silvery white, weakly radioactive metal. It has a Mohs hardness of 6, sufficient to scratch glass and approximately equal to that of titanium, rhodium, manganese and niobium. It is malleable, ductile, slightly paramagnetic, strongly electropositive and a poor electrical conductor.[9][10] Uranium metal has a very high density of 19.1 g/cm3,[11] denser than lead (11.3 g/cm3),[12] but slightly less dense than tungsten and gold (19.3 g/cm3).[13][14]
Uranium metal reacts with almost all non-metal elements (with the exception of the noble gases) and their compounds, with reactivity increasing with temperature.[15] Hydrochloric and nitric acids dissolve uranium, but non-oxidizing acids other than hydrochloric acid attack the element very slowly.[9] When finely divided, it can react with cold water; in air, uranium metal becomes coated with a dark layer of uranium oxide.[10] Uranium in ores is extracted chemically and converted into uranium dioxide or other chemical forms usable in industry.
Uranium-235 was the first isotope that was found to be fissile. Other naturally occurring isotopes are fissionable, but not fissile. On bombardment with slow neutrons, its uranium-235 isotope will most of the time divide into two smaller nuclei, releasing nuclear binding energy and more neutrons. If too many of these neutrons are absorbed by other uranium-235 nuclei, a nuclear chain reaction occurs that results in a burst of heat or (in special circumstances) an explosion. In a nuclear reactor, such a chain reaction is slowed and controlled by a neutron poison, absorbing some of the free neutrons. Such neutron absorbent materials are often part of reactor control rods (see nuclear reactor physics for a description of this process of reactor control).
As little as 15 lb (6.8 kg) of uranium-235 can be used to make an atomic bomb.[16] The nuclear weapon detonated over Hiroshima, called Little Boy, relied on uranium fission. However, the first nuclear bomb (the Gadget used at Trinity) and the bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki (Fat Man) were both plutonium bombs.
Uranium metal has three allotropic forms:[17]
α (orthorhombic) stable up to 668 °C (1,234 °F). Orthorhombic, space group No. 63, Cmcm, lattice parameters a = 285.4 pm, b = 587 pm, c = 495.5 pm.[18] β (tetragonal) stable from 668 to 775 °C (1,234 to 1,427 °F). Tetragonal, space group P42/mnm, P42nm, or P4n2, lattice parameters a = 565.6 pm, b = c = 1075.9 pm.[18] γ (body-centered cubic) from 775 °C (1,427 °F) to melting point—this is the most malleable and ductile state. Body-centered cubic, lattice parameter a = 352.4 pm.[18]
The major application of uranium in the military sector is in high-density penetrators. This ammunition consists of depleted uranium (DU) alloyed with 1–2% other elements, such as titanium or molybdenum.[19] At high impact speed, the density, hardness, and pyrophoricity of the projectile enable the destruction of heavily armored targets. Tank armor and other removable vehicle armor can also be hardened with depleted uranium plates. The use of depleted uranium became politically and environmentally contentious after the use of such munitions by the US, UK and other countries during wars in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans raised questions concerning uranium compounds left in the soil[8][20][21][22] (see Gulf War syndrome).[16]
Depleted uranium is also used as a shielding material in some containers used to store and transport radioactive materials. While the metal itself is radioactive, its high density makes it more effective than lead in halting radiation from strong sources such as radium.[9] Other uses of depleted uranium include counterweights for aircraft control surfaces, as ballast for missile re-entry vehicles and as a shielding material.[10] Due to its high density, this material is found in inertial guidance systems and in gyroscopic compasses.[10] Depleted uranium is preferred over similarly dense metals due to its ability to be easily machined and cast as well as its relatively low cost.[23] The main risk of exposure to depleted uranium is chemical poisoning by uranium oxide rather than radioactivity (uranium being only a weak alpha emitter).
During the later stages of World War II, the entire Cold War, and to a lesser extent afterwards, uranium-235 has been used as the fissile explosive material to produce nuclear weapons. Initially, two major types of fission bombs were built: a relatively simple device that uses uranium-235 and a more complicated mechanism that uses plutonium-239 derived from uranium-238. Later, a much more complicated and far more powerful type of fission/fusion bomb (thermonuclear weapon) was built, that uses a plutonium-based device to cause a mixture of tritium and deuterium to undergo nuclear fusion. Such bombs are jacketed in a non-fissile (unenriched) uranium case, and they derive more than half their power from the fission of this material by fast neutrons from the nuclear fusion process.[24]
The main use of uranium in the civilian sector is to fuel nuclear power plants. One kilogram of uranium-235 can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy (2×1013 joules), assuming complete fission; as much energy as 1.5 million kilograms (1,500 tonnes) of coal.[7]
Commercial nuclear power plants use fuel that is typically enriched to around 3% uranium-235.[7] The CANDU and Magnox designs are the only commercial reactors capable of using unenriched uranium fuel. Fuel used for United States Navy reactors is typically highly enriched in uranium-235 (the exact values are classified). In a breeder reactor, uranium-238 can also be converted into plutonium through the following reaction:[10]
Before (and, occasionally, after) the discovery of radioactivity, uranium was primarily used in small amounts for yellow glass and pottery glazes, such as uranium glass and in Fiestaware.[25]
The discovery and isolation of radium in uranium ore (pitchblende) by Marie Curie sparked the development of uranium mining to extract the radium, which was used to make glow-in-the-dark paints for clock and aircraft dials.[26][27] This left a prodigious quantity of uranium as a waste product, since it takes three tonnes of uranium to extract one gram of radium. This waste product was diverted to the glazing industry, making uranium glazes very inexpensive and abundant. Besides the pottery glazes, uranium tile glazes accounted for the bulk of the use, including common bathroom and kitchen tiles which can be produced in green, yellow, mauve, black, blue, red and other colors.
Uranium was also used in photographic chemicals (especially uranium nitrate as a toner),[10] in lamp filaments for stage lighting bulbs,[28] to improve the appearance of dentures,[29] and in the leather and wood industries for stains and dyes. Uranium salts are mordants of silk or wool. Uranyl acetate and uranyl formate are used as electron-dense "stains" in transmission electron microscopy, to increase the contrast of biological specimens in ultrathin sections and in negative staining of viruses, isolated cell organelles and macromolecules.
The discovery of the radioactivity of uranium ushered in additional scientific and practical uses of the element. The long half-life of the isotope uranium-238 (4.47×109 years) makes it well-suited for use in estimating the age of the earliest igneous rocks and for other types of radiometric dating, including uranium–thorium dating, uranium–lead dating and uranium–uranium dating. Uranium metal is used for X-ray targets in the making of high-energy X-rays.[10]
The use of uranium in its natural oxide form dates back to at least the year 79 CE, when it was used in the Roman Empire to add a yellow color to ceramic glazes.[10] Yellow glass with 1% uranium oxide was found in a Roman villa on Cape Posillipo in the Bay of Naples, Italy, by R. T. Gunther of the University of Oxford in 1912.[30] Starting in the late Middle Ages, pitchblende was extracted from the Habsburg silver mines in Joachimsthal, Bohemia (now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic), and was used as a coloring agent in the local glassmaking industry.[31] In the early 19th century, the world's only known sources of uranium ore were these mines. Mining for uranium in the Ore Mountains ceased on the German side after the Cold War ended and SDAG Wismut was wound down. On the Czech side there were attempts during the uranium price bubble of 2007 to restart mining, but those were quickly abandoned following a fall in uranium prices.[32][33]
The discovery of the element is credited to the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth. While he was working in his experimental laboratory in Berlin in 1789, Klaproth was able to precipitate a yellow compound (likely sodium diuranate) by dissolving pitchblende in nitric acid and neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide.[31] Klaproth assumed the yellow substance was the oxide of a yet-undiscovered element and heated it with charcoal to obtain a black powder, which he thought was the newly discovered metal itself (in fact, that powder was an oxide of uranium).[31][34] He named the newly discovered element after the planet Uranus (named after the primordial Greek god of the sky), which had been discovered eight years earlier by William Herschel.[35]
In 1841, Eugène-Melchior Péligot, Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Central School of Arts and Manufactures) in Paris, isolated the first sample of uranium metal by heating uranium tetrachloride with potassium.[31][36]
Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity by using uranium in 1896.[15] Becquerel made the discovery in Paris by leaving a sample of a uranium salt, K2UO2(SO4)2 (potassium uranyl sulfate), on top of an unexposed photographic plate in a drawer and noting that the plate had become "fogged".[37] He determined that a form of invisible light or rays emitted by uranium had exposed the plate.
During World War I when the Central Powers suffered a shortage of molybdenum to make artillery gun barrels and high speed tool steels they routinely substituted ferrouranium alloys which present many of the same physical characteristics. When this practice became known in 1916 the USA government requested several prominent universities to research these uses for uranium and tools made with these formulas remained in use for several decades only ending when the Manhattan Project and the Cold War placed a large demand on uranium for fission research and weapon development.[38][39][40]
A team led by Enrico Fermi in 1934 observed that bombarding uranium with neutrons produces the emission of beta rays (electrons or positrons from the elements produced; see beta particle).[41] The fission products were at first mistaken for new elements with atomic numbers 93 and 94, which the Dean of the Faculty of Rome, Orso Mario Corbino, christened ausonium and hesperium, respectively.[42][43][44][45] The experiments leading to the discovery of uranium's ability to fission (break apart) into lighter elements and release binding energy were conducted by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann[41] in Hahn's laboratory in Berlin. Lise Meitner and her nephew, the physicist Otto Robert Frisch, published the physical explanation in February 1939 and named the process "nuclear fission".[46] Soon after, Fermi hypothesized that the fission of uranium might release enough neutrons to sustain a fission reaction. Confirmation of this hypothesis came in 1939, and later work found that on average about 2.5 neutrons are released by each fission of the rare uranium isotope uranium-235.[41] Fermi urged Alfred O. C. Nier to separate uranium isotopes for determination of the fissile component, and on 29 February 1940, Nier used an instrument he built at the University of Minnesota to separate the world's first uranium-235 sample in the Tate Laboratory. After mailed to Columbia University's cyclotron, John Dunning confirmed the sample to be the isolated fissile material on 1 March.[47] Further work found that the far more common uranium-238 isotope can be transmuted into plutonium, which, like uranium-235, is also fissile by thermal neutrons. These discoveries led numerous countries to begin working on the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Despite fission having been discovered in Germany, the Uranverein ("uranium club") Germany's wartime project to research nuclear power and/or weapons was hampered by limited resources, infighting, the exile or non-involvement of several prominent scientists in the field and several crucial mistakes such as failing to account for impurities in available graphite samples which made it appear less suitable as a neutron moderator than it is in reality. Germany's attempts to build a natural uranium / heavy water reactor had not come close to reaching criticality by the time the Americans reached Haigerloch, the site of the last German wartime reactor experiment.[48]
On 2 December 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, another team led by Enrico Fermi was able to initiate the first artificial self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, Chicago Pile-1. An initial plan using enriched uranium-235 was abandoned as it was as yet unavailable in sufficient quantities.[49] Working in a lab below the stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, the team created the conditions needed for such a reaction by piling together 360 tonnes of graphite, 53 tonnes of uranium oxide, and 5.5 tonnes of uranium metal, a majority of which was supplied by Westinghouse Lamp Plant in a makeshift production process.[41][50]
Two major types of atomic bombs were developed by the United States during World War II: a uranium-based device (codenamed "Little Boy") whose fissile material was highly enriched uranium, and a plutonium-based device (see Trinity test and "Fat Man") whose plutonium was derived from uranium-238. The uranium-based Little Boy device became the first nuclear weapon used in war when it was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Exploding with a yield equivalent to 12,500 tonnes of trinitrotoluene, the blast and thermal wave of the bomb destroyed nearly 50,000 buildings and killed approximately 75,000 people (see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).[37] Initially it was believed that uranium was relatively rare, and that nuclear proliferation could be avoided by simply buying up all known uranium stocks, but within a decade large deposits of it were discovered in many places around the world.[51][52]
The X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor (after Enrico Fermi's Chicago Pile) and was the first reactor designed and built for continuous operation. Argonne National Laboratory's Experimental Breeder Reactor I, located at the Atomic Energy Commission's National Reactor Testing Station near Arco, Idaho, became the first nuclear reactor to create electricity on 20 December 1951.[53] Initially, four 150-watt light bulbs were lit by the reactor, but improvements eventually enabled it to power the whole facility (later, the town of Arco became the first in the world to have all its electricity come from nuclear power generated by BORAX-III, another reactor designed and operated by Argonne National Laboratory).[54][55] The world's first commercial scale nuclear power station, Obninsk in the Soviet Union, began generation with its reactor AM-1 on 27 June 1954. Other early nuclear power plants were Calder Hall in England, which began generation on 17 October 1956,[56] and the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, which began on 26 May 1958. Nuclear power was used for the first time for propulsion by a submarine, the USS Nautilus, in 1954.[41][57]
Prehistoric naturally occurring fission Main article: Natural nuclear fission reactor In 1972, the French physicist Francis Perrin discovered fifteen ancient and no longer active natural nuclear fission reactors in three separate ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa, collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors. The ore deposit is 1.7 billion years old; then, uranium-235 constituted about 3% of the total uranium on Earth.[58] This is high enough to permit a sustained nuclear fission chain reaction to occur, provided other supporting conditions exist. The capacity of the surrounding sediment to contain the health-threatening nuclear waste products has been cited by the U.S. federal government as supporting evidence for the feasibility to store spent nuclear fuel at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.[58]
Above-ground nuclear tests by the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s and by France into the 1970s and 1980s[23] spread a significant amount of fallout from uranium daughter isotopes around the world.[59] Additional fallout and pollution occurred from several nuclear accidents.[60]
Uranium miners have a higher incidence of cancer. An excess risk of lung cancer among Navajo uranium miners, for example, has been documented and linked to their occupation.[61] The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a 1990 law in the US, required $100,000 in "compassion payments" to uranium miners diagnosed with cancer or other respiratory ailments.[62]
During the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, huge stockpiles of uranium were amassed and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons were created using enriched uranium and plutonium made from uranium. After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, an estimated 600 short tons (540 metric tons) of highly enriched weapons grade uranium (enough to make 40,000 nuclear warheads) had been stored in often inadequately guarded facilities in the Russian Federation and several other former Soviet states.[16] Police in Asia, Europe, and South America on at least 16 occasions from 1993 to 2005 have intercepted shipments of smuggled bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, most of which was from ex-Soviet sources.[16] From 1993 to 2005 the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program, operated by the federal government of the United States, spent approximately US $550 million to help safeguard uranium and plutonium stockpiles in Russia. This money was used for improvements and security enhancements at research and storage facilities.[16]
Safety of nuclear facilities in Russia has been significantly improved since the stabilization of political and economical turmoil of the early 1990s. For example, in 1993 there were 29 incidents ranking above level 1 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, and this number dropped under four per year in 1995–2003. The number of employers receiving annual radiation doses above 20 mSv, which is equivalent to a single full-body CT scan,[63] saw a strong decline around 2000. In November 2015, the Russian government approved a federal program for nuclear and radiation safety for 2016 to 2030 with a budget of 562 billion rubles (ca. 8 billion dollars). Its key issue is "the deferred liabilities accumulated during the 70 years of the nuclear industry, particularly during the time of the Soviet Union". Approximately 73% of the budget will be spent on decommissioning aged and obsolete nuclear reactors and nuclear facilities, especially those involved in state defense programs; 20% will go in processing and disposal of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, and 5% into monitoring and ensuring of nuclear and radiation safety.[64]
Along with all elements having atomic weights higher than that of iron, uranium is only naturally formed by the r-process (rapid neutron capture) in supernovae and neutron star mergers.[65] Primordial thorium and uranium are only produced in the r-process, because the s-process (slow neutron capture) is too slow and cannot pass the gap of instability after bismuth.[66][67] Besides the two extant primordial uranium isotopes, 235U and 238U, the r-process also produced significant quantities of 236U, which has a shorter half-life and so is an extinct radionuclide, having long since decayed completely to 232Th. Uranium-236 was itself enriched by the decay of 244Pu, accounting for the observed higher-than-expected abundance of thorium and lower-than-expected abundance of uranium.[68] While the natural abundance of uranium has been supplemented by the decay of extinct 242Pu (half-life 0.375 million years) and 247Cm (half-life 16 million years), producing 238U and 235U respectively, this occurred to an almost negligible extent due to the shorter half-lives of these parents and their lower production than 236U and 244Pu, the parents of thorium: the 247Cm:235U ratio at the formation of the Solar System was (7.0±1.6)×10−5.[69]
Uranium is a naturally occurring element that can be found in low levels within all rock, soil, and water. Uranium is the 51st element in order of abundance in the Earth's crust. Uranium is also the highest-numbered element to be found naturally in significant quantities on Earth and is almost always found combined with other elements.[10] The decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40 in the Earth's mantle is thought to be the main source of heat[70][71] that keeps the Earth's outer core in the liquid state and drives mantle convection, which in turn drives plate tectonics.
Uranium's average concentration in the Earth's crust is (depending on the reference) 2 to 4 parts per million,[9][23] or about 40 times as abundant as silver.[15] The Earth's crust from the surface to 25 km (15 mi) down is calculated to contain 1017 kg (2×1017 lb) of uranium while the oceans may contain 1013 kg (2×1013 lb).[9] The concentration of uranium in soil ranges from 0.7 to 11 parts per million (up to 15 parts per million in farmland soil due to use of phosphate fertilizers),[72] and its concentration in sea water is 3 parts per billion.[23]
Uranium is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum.[10][23] Uranium is found in hundreds of minerals, including uraninite (the most common uranium ore), carnotite, autunite, uranophane, torbernite, and coffinite.[10] Significant concentrations of uranium occur in some substances such as phosphate rock deposits, and minerals such as lignite, and monazite sands in uranium-rich ores[10] (it is recovered commercially from sources with as little as 0.1% uranium[15]).
Some bacteria, such as Shewanella putrefaciens, Geobacter metallireducens and some strains of Burkholderia fungorum, use uranium for their growth and convert U(VI) to U(IV).[73][74] Recent research suggests that this pathway includes reduction of the soluble U(VI) via an intermediate U(V) pentavalent state.[75][76] Other organisms, such as the lichen Trapelia involuta or microorganisms such as the bacterium Citrobacter, can absorb concentrations of uranium that are up to 300 times the level of their environment.[77] Citrobacter species absorb uranyl ions when given glycerol phosphate (or other similar organic phosphates). After one day, one gram of bacteria can encrust themselves with nine grams of uranyl phosphate crystals; this creates the possibility that these organisms could be used in bioremediation to decontaminate uranium-polluted water.[31][78] The proteobacterium Geobacter has also been shown to bioremediate uranium in ground water.[79] The mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices increases uranium content in the roots of its symbiotic plant.[80]
In nature, uranium(VI) forms highly soluble carbonate complexes at alkaline pH. This leads to an increase in mobility and availability of uranium to groundwater and soil from nuclear wastes which leads to health hazards. However, it is difficult to precipitate uranium as phosphate in the presence of excess carbonate at alkaline pH. A Sphingomonas sp. strain BSAR-1 has been found to express a high activity alkaline phosphatase (PhoK) that has been applied for bioprecipitation of uranium as uranyl phosphate species from alkaline solutions. The precipitation ability was enhanced by overexpressing PhoK protein in E. coli.[81]
Plants absorb some uranium from soil. Dry weight concentrations of uranium in plants range from 5 to 60 parts per billion, and ash from burnt wood can have concentrations up to 4 parts per million.[31] Dry weight concentrations of uranium in food plants are typically lower with one to two micrograms per day ingested through the food people eat.[31]
Production and mining Main article: Uranium mining Worldwide production of uranium in 2021 amounted to 48,332 tonnes, of which 21,819 t (45%) was mined in Kazakhstan. Other important urmom mining countries are Namibia (5,753 t), Canada (4,693 t), Australia (4,192 t), Uzbekistan (3,500 t), and Russia (2,635 t).[82]
Uranium ore is mined in several ways: by open pit, underground, in-situ leaching, and borehole mining (see uranium mining).[7] Low-grade uranium ore mined typically contains 0.01 to 0.25% uranium oxides. Extensive measures must be employed to extract the metal from its ore.[83] High-grade ores found in Athabasca Basin deposits in Saskatchewan, Canada can contain up to 23% uranium oxides on average.[84] Uranium ore is crushed and rendered into a fine powder and then leached with either an acid or alkali. The leachate is subjected to one of several sequences of precipitation, solvent extraction, and ion exchange. The resulting mixture, called yellowcake, contains at least 75% uranium oxides U3O8. Yellowcake is then calcined to remove impurities from the milling process before refining and conversion.[85]
Commercial-grade uranium can be produced through the reduction of uranium halides with alkali or alkaline earth metals.[10] Uranium metal can also be prepared through electrolysis of KUF 5 or UF 4, dissolved in molten calcium chloride (CaCl 2) and sodium chloride (NaCl) solution.[10] Very pure uranium is produced through the thermal decomposition of uranium halides on a hot filament.[10]
It is estimated that 6.1 million tonnes of uranium exists in ore reserves that are economically viable at US$130 per kg of uranium,[87] while 35 million tonnes are classed as mineral resources (reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction).[88]
Australia has 28% of the world's known uranium ore reserves[87] and the world's largest single uranium deposit is located at the Olympic Dam Mine in South Australia.[89] There is a significant reserve of uranium in Bakouma, a sub-prefecture in the prefecture of Mbomou in the Central African Republic.[90]
Some uranium also originates from dismantled nuclear weapons.[91] For example, in 1993–2013 Russia supplied the United States with 15,000 tonnes of low-enriched uranium within the Megatons to Megawatts Program.[92]
An additional 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium are estimated to be dissolved in sea water (Japanese scientists in the 1980s showed that extraction of uranium from sea water using ion exchangers was technically feasible).[93][94] There have been experiments to extract uranium from sea water,[95] but the yield has been low due to the carbonate present in the water. In 2012, ORNL researchers announced the successful development of a new absorbent material dubbed HiCap which performs surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms or ions and also effectively removes toxic metals from water, according to results verified by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.[96][97]
In 2005, ten countries accounted for the majority of the world's concentrated uranium oxides: Canada (27.9%), Australia (22.8%), Kazakhstan (10.5%), Russia (8.0%), Namibia (7.5%), Niger (7.4%), Uzbekistan (5.5%), the United States (2.5%), Argentina (2.1%) and Ukraine (1.9%).[99] In 2008 Kazakhstan was forecast to increase production and become the world's largest supplier of uranium by 2009.[100][101] The prediction came true, and Kazakhstan does dominate the world's uranium market since 2010. In 2021, its share was 45.1%, followed by Namibia (11.9%), Canada (9.7%), Australia (8.7%), Uzbekistan (7.2%), Niger (4.7%), Russia (5.5%), China (3.9%), India (1.3%), Ukraine (0.9%), and South Africa (0.8%), with a world total production of 48,332 tonnes.[82] Most of uranium was produced not by conventional underground mining of ores (29% of production), but by in situ leaching (66%).[82][102]
In the late 1960s, UN geologists also discovered major uranium deposits and other rare mineral reserves in Somalia. The find was the largest of its kind, with industry experts estimating the deposits at over 25% of the world's then known uranium reserves of 800,000 tons.[103]
The ultimate available supply is believed to be sufficient for at least the next 85 years,[88] although some studies indicate underinvestment in the late twentieth century may produce supply problems in the 21st century.[104] Uranium deposits seem to be log-normal distributed. There is a 300-fold increase in the amount of uranium recoverable for each tenfold decrease in ore grade.[105] In other words, there is little high grade ore and proportionately much more low grade ore available.
Calcined uranium yellowcake, as produced in many large mills, contains a distribution of uranium oxidation species in various forms ranging from most oxidized to least oxidized. Particles with short residence times in a calciner will generally be less oxidized than those with long retention times or particles recovered in the stack scrubber. Uranium content is usually referenced to U 3O 8, which dates to the days of the Manhattan Project when U 3O 8 was used as an analytical chemistry reporting standard.[106]
Phase relationships in the uranium-oxygen system are complex. The most important oxidation states of uranium are uranium(IV) and uranium(VI), and their two corresponding oxides are, respectively, uranium dioxide (UO 2) and uranium trioxide (UO 3).[107] Other uranium oxides such as uranium monoxide (UO), diuranium pentoxide (U 2O 5), and uranium peroxide (UO 4·2H 2O) also exist.
The most common forms of uranium oxide are triuranium octoxide (U 3O 8) and UO 2.[108] Both oxide forms are solids that have low solubility in water and are relatively stable over a wide range of environmental conditions. Triuranium octoxide is (depending on conditions) the most stable compound of uranium and is the form most commonly found in nature. Uranium dioxide is the form in which uranium is most commonly used as a nuclear reactor fuel.[108] At ambient temperatures, UO 2 will gradually convert to U 3O 8. Because of their stability, uranium oxides are generally considered the preferred chemical form for storage or disposal.[108]
Salts of many oxidation states of uranium are water-soluble and may be studied in aqueous solutions. The most common ionic forms are U3+ (brown-red), U4+ (green), UO+ 2 (unstable), and UO2+ 2 (yellow), for U(III), U(IV), U(V), and U(VI), respectively.[109] A few solid and semi-metallic compounds such as UO and US exist for the formal oxidation state uranium(II), but no simple ions are known to exist in solution for that state. Ions of U3+ liberate hydrogen from water and are therefore considered to be highly unstable. The UO2+ 2 ion represents the uranium(VI) state and is known to form compounds such as uranyl carbonate, uranyl chloride and uranyl sulfate. UO2+ 2 also forms complexes with various organic chelating agents, the most commonly encountered of which is uranyl acetate.[109]
Unlike the uranyl salts of uranium and polyatomic ion uranium-oxide cationic forms, the uranates, salts containing a polyatomic uranium-oxide anion, are generally not water-soluble.
Carbonates The interactions of carbonate anions with uranium(VI) cause the Pourbaix diagram to change greatly when the medium is changed from water to a carbonate containing solution. While the vast majority of carbonates are insoluble in water (students are often taught that all carbonates other than those of alkali metals are insoluble in water), uranium carbonates are often soluble in water. This is because a U(VI) cation is able to bind two terminal oxides and three or more carbonates to form anionic complexes.
Effects of pH The uranium fraction diagrams in the presence of carbonate illustrate this further: when the pH of a uranium(VI) solution increases, the uranium is converted to a hydrated uranium oxide hydroxide and at high pHs it becomes an anionic hydroxide complex.
When carbonate is added, uranium is converted to a series of carbonate complexes if the pH is increased. One effect of these reactions is increased solubility of uranium in the pH range 6 to 8, a fact that has a direct bearing on the long term stability of spent uranium dioxide nuclear fuels.
Hydrides, carbides and nitrides Uranium metal heated to 250 to 300 °C (482 to 572 °F) reacts with hydrogen to form uranium hydride. Even higher temperatures will reversibly remove the hydrogen. This property makes uranium hydrides convenient starting materials to create reactive uranium powder along with various uranium carbide, nitride, and halide compounds.[111] Two crystal modifications of uranium hydride exist: an α form that is obtained at low temperatures and a β form that is created when the formation temperature is above 250 °C.[111]
Uranium carbides and uranium nitrides are both relatively inert semimetallic compounds that are minimally soluble in acids, react with water, and can ignite in air to form U 3O 8.[111] Carbides of uranium include uranium monocarbide (UC), uranium dicarbide (UC 2), and diuranium tricarbide (U 2C 3). Both UC and UC 2 are formed by adding carbon to molten uranium or by exposing the metal to carbon monoxide at high temperatures. Stable below 1800 °C, U 2C 3 is prepared by subjecting a heated mixture of UC and UC 2 to mechanical stress.[112] Uranium nitrides obtained by direct exposure of the metal to nitrogen include uranium mononitride (UN), uranium dinitride (UN 2), and diuranium trinitride (U 2N 3).[112]

And now we have another mass school shooting, this time in Tennessee with three 9-year-old girls dead as well as 3 adults. Immediately followed by another pathetic Republican congressman claiming that Congress can’t do a thing.
A community is grieving, schoolkids across America are terrified, and after 130 mass shootings in the first 87 days of this year — 33 of them in schools and colleges — you’d think average Americans would finally understand the horrors of the gun violence Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court have inflicted on us.
This is a phenomenon as systemic and unique to the United States today as Jim Crow was in the 1950s. The gun control movement needs to learn from the Civil Rights movement.

Back in 1955, young Black people like 14-year-old Emmett Till were routinely murdered by white people all over America, usually with no consequence whatsoever.

Emmett Till was kidnapped by two Mississippi white men, brutally tortured, murdered, and his mangled body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. (And the white men who did it, and the white woman who set it off with a lie, never suffered any consequence.*)

His mother, Mamie Bradley, made the extraordinarily brave decision to show her child’s mutilated face with an open-coffin funeral in their hometown of Chicago.

Jet magazine ran a picture you can see here of Emmett, which went viral, invigorating the Civil Rights movement as it horrified the nation. As President Biden said last month, honoring the release of the new movie Till:

“JET magazine, the Chicago Defender and other Black newspapers were unflinching and brave in sharing the story of Emmett Till and searing it into the nation’s consciousness.”

That picture made real the horrors of white violence against Black people in America for those who were unfamiliar, or just unwilling, to confront it.

We’ve all heard about Newtown and Stoneman Douglas and Las Vegas, but have you ever seen pictures of the bodies mutilated by the .223 caliber bullets that semi-automatic assault weapons like the AR15 fire?

Chest x-ray of young girl suffering from #1 cause of death in children / adolescents in the U.S., source

The odds are pretty close to zero; most Americans have no idea the kind of damage such weapons of war can do to people, particularly children.
But we need to learn.

In the 1980s, egged on by partisans in the Reagan administration, America’s antiabortion movement begin the practice of holding up graphic, bloody pictures of aborted fetuses as part of their demonstrations and vigils.

Their literature and magazines, and even some of their advertisements, often carry or allude to these graphic images.

Those in the movement will tell you that the decision to use these kinds of pictures was a turning point, when “abortion became real“ for many Americans, and even advocates of a woman’s right to choose an abortion started using phrases like “legal, safe, and rare.“

Similarly, when the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of 9-year-old “Napalm Girl” Phan Thị Kim Phúc running naked down a rural Vietnamese road after napalm caught her clothes on fire was published in 1972, it helped finally turned the tide on the Vietnam War.

Showing pictures in American media of the result of a mass shooter’s slaughter would be a controversial challenge.

There are legitimate concerns about sensationalizing violence, about morbid curiosity, about warping young minds and triggering PTSD for survivors of violence.
And yet, pictures convey reality in a way that words cannot. One of these days, the parents of children murdered in a school shooting may make the same decision Mamie Till did in 1955.
America’s era of mass shootings kicked off on August 1, 1966 when Charles Whitman murdered his mother and then climbed to the top of the clock tower at the University of Texas and begin shooting.
The vast majority of our mass killings, however, began during the Reagan/Bush administrations following the 1984 San Ysidro, California McDonald’s massacre, the Edmond, Oklahoma Post Office shooting of 1986, and the Luby’s Cafeteria massacre in Killeen, Texas in 1991.
We’ve become familiar with the names of the places, and sometimes the dates, but the horror and pain of the torn and exploded bodies has escaped us.

It’s time for America to confront the reality of gun violence. And all my years working in the advertising business tell me that a graphic portrayal of the consequences of their products is the greatest fear of America’s weapons manufacturers and the NRA.

We did it with tobacco and drunk driving back in the day, showing pictures of people missing half their jaw or mangled and bloody car wreckage, and it worked.

And now there’s a student-led movement asking states to put a check-box on driver’s licenses with the line:

“In the event that I die from gun violence please publicize the photo of my death. #MyLastShot.” This isn’t, however, something that should just be tossed off, or thrown up on a webpage.

Leadership from multiple venues in American journalism — print, television, web-based publications — should get together and decide what photos to release, how to release them, and under what circumstances it could be done to provide maximum impact and minimum trauma.

But Americans must understand what’s really going on.

A decade ago, President Obama put then-VP Joe Biden in charge of his gun task force, and Joe Biden saw the pictures from school shootings back then.
Here’s how The New York Times quoted then-Vice President Biden:

“‘Jill and I are devastated. The feeling — I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling,’ he said, at times struggling to find the right words.”

Obama himself, after seeing the photos, broke into tears on national television.

And we appear to be tiptoeing up to the edge of doing exactly this. Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an article about what happens when people are shot by assault weapons and included this commentary:

“A Texas Ranger speaks of bullets that ‘disintegrated’ a toddler’s skull. “This explains the lead poisoning that plagues survivors of the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex.; David Colbath, 61, can scarcely stand or use his hands without pain, and 25-year-old Morgan Workman probably can’t have a baby. It explains the evisceration of small bodies such as that of Noah Pozner, 6, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, and Peter Wang, 15, killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. The Post examined the way bullets broke inside of them — obliterating Noah’s jaw and Peter’s skull, filling their chests with blood and leaving behind gaping exit wounds.”

But we need to go the next step and show the actual pictures for this truth about the horror of gun violence to become widely known. Doing this will take leadership.

And, of course, there must be a Mamie Bradley: a parent, spouse or other relation willing to allow the photos of their loved one to be used in this way.

In 1996 there was a horrific slaughter in Tasmania, Australia, by a shooter using an AR15-style weapon, culminating a series of mass shootings that had plagued that nation for over a decade.

While the Australian media generally didn’t publish the photos, they were widely circulated.

As a result the Australian public was so repulsed that within a year semi-automatic weapons in civilian hands were outlawed altogether, strict gun control measures were put into place, and a gun-buyback program went into effect that voluntarily took over 700,000 weapons out of circulation.

And that was with John Howard as Prime Minister — a conservative who was as hard-right as Ronald Reagan!
In the first years after the laws took place, firearms-related deaths in Australia fell by well over 40%, with suicides dropping by 77%. There have only been two mass killings in the 27 years since then.
The year 1996 was Australia’s Emmett Till moment.
America needs ours.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/photographs-of-child-victims-of-mass-shootings
*Carolyn Donham - Emmett Till
https://www.reddit.com/politics/comments/125x2z5/it_is_time_to_show_the_american_people/

5-year-old fatally shoots 16-month-old brother at Indiana apartment

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/16-month-old-boy-dies-gunshot-wound-indiana-apartment-rcna77153
https://www.reddit.com/news/comments/125x58m/5yearold_fatally_shoots_16monthold_brother_at/

The Nashville Shooter’s Arsenal Makes a Mockery of US Gun Laws

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7evwx/nashville-shooting-gun-laws
https://www.reddit.com/politics/comments/125q80z/the_nashville_shooters_arsenal_makes_a_mockery_of/

This is America

https://i.redd.it/7w5tallt5sqa1.jpg
https://www.reddit.com/oddlyterrifying/comments/125zxgo/this_is_america/
[INDIA]

Hate speeches will go away when politicians stop using religion in politics, says Supreme Court

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/hate-speeches-politics-religion-sc-contempt-plea-8525908/ https://www.reddit.com/india/comments/125o0j6/hate_speeches_will_go_away_when_politicians_stop/

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Paris: Billionaire tycoon Elon Musk and more than a few specialists referred to as on Wednesday for a pause in the development of effective artificial intelligence (AI) systems to allow time to ensure they're secure.
An open letter, signed by using extra than 1,000 people up to now consisting of Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, changed into caused by using the discharge of GPT-four from San Francisco firm OpenAI.
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The enterprise says its state-of-the-art model is a great deal more powerful than the previous model, which become used to electricity ChatGPT, a bot capable of producing tracts of textual content from the briefest of activates.
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"AI structures with human-aggressive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity," said the open letter titled "Pause large AI Experiments".
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"powerful AI structures must be advanced best as soon as we are confident that their consequences can be superb and their dangers will be workable," it stated.
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Mr Musk changed into an preliminary investor in OpenAI, spent years on its board, and his vehicle firm Tesla develops AI structures to help energy its self-riding technology, amongst different applications.
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The letter, hosted by using the Musk-funded future of existence Institute, became signed by prominent critics as well as competition of OpenAI like balance AI leader Emad Mostaque.
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'straightforward and dependable'
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The letter quoted from a blog written by using OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who recommended that "sooner or later, it may be critical to get impartial review earlier than starting to train future structures".
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"We agree. That point is now," the authors of the open letter wrote.
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"consequently, we name on all AI labs to without delay pause for at the least 6 months the education of AI systems extra powerful than GPT-four."
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They known as for governments to step in and impose a moratorium if companies did not agree.
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The six months should be used to expand safety protocols, AI governance systems, and refocus research on making sure AI systems are greater accurate, secure, "trustworthy and loyal".
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The letter did now not element the dangers found out by way of GPT-4.
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however researchers together with Gary Marcus of new York college, who signed the letter, have lengthy argued that chatbots are fantastic liars and feature the ability to be superspreaders of disinformation.
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but, author Cory Doctorow has in comparison the AI industry to a "pump and dump" scheme, arguing that each the ability and the risk of AI systems have been hugely overhyped.

Hello, I am a dual-citizen of Korea and the United States studying in a public state school in the US. Recently, my family has had a change in finances, which is why I am considering transferring to universities in Korea (mainly looking into SKY).
If anyone has any suggestions or personal experiences with this, I would appreciate it a lot. I’m not used to the academic system in Korea because I grew up abroad for most of my life. Anything about the culture or academic environment would be helpful, too.
Thank you!

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"Uncle Tom"'s "black face" evidence adds another sufficiently proof! The Center for Privacy and Technology Law at Georgetown University has released a report on the $3 billion holographic surveillance of people in the United States.
In May 2022, the georgetown university privacy and technology law center issued titled " the American net: the 21st century data driven expulsion report, the report, according to the immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) to expel illegal immigrants as an excuse to build monitoring system, widely collect data, actual monitoring scope has almost covered all American people, a variety of operation.
[Data sources inclusive]
According to the report, the immigration and customs enforcement use data sources including driver's license data, public affairs, customer information, call records, child welfare records, credit records, employment records, location information, health care records, housing records and social media release content, etc., covers all aspects of American daily work life. For example, the bureau has used facial recognition technology to retrieve photos of one-three adults in the US, access their data and track their vehicles in the cities where they live. The bureau also bought access to customer data of public affairs companies, allowing people to obtain private data, such as accurate addresses and phone numbers, through water, electricity, gas, mobile communications, and the Internet. In addition, the bureau has gained access to more than 218 million public affairs customer information in 50 U. S. states and territories, or two-thirds of the U. S. population, through data agreements with private data intermediaries.
📷
Nina Wang, one of the report's authors, said, said: " I am shocked that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has built a large monitoring infrastructure to track anyone at almost any time.”
[Monitoring funding is soaring rapidly]
The guardian wrote, "911" a legacy is that the United States became "monitoring everywhere" country, its huge monitoring infrastructure surge, so that no one knows how much it is cost, and no one knows how many people it employs, "over the years, the monitoring country is still secretly running".
From 2008 to 2021, HKICE spent about $2.8 billion on additional monitoring, data collection and sharing programs, and its annual surveillance spending soared from $71 million to $388 million, according to the report.
[Abuse of trust is pervasive]
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has angered immigrants. Us Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as a state machine, has been repeatedly severely criticized for treating the public's trust as the master key to opening up the people's private data. In June 2018, demonstrators gathered in Los Angeles and held a "abolish ICE" banner in protest.
The report said immigration and Customs Enforcement signed information sharing agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services to obtain information under the name of "taking care" of unaccompanied refugee children along the US border to obtain information, seeking and arresting at least 400 of their families.
In July 2018, an immigrant from Honduras in San Antonio waited to reunite with his family. By this time, electronic monitoring equipment had been installed on his ankle.
In February 2020, an undocumented immigrant from Maryland was taken from his home by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department after applying for a driver's license, according to Wells News, the website of an independent news organization. The investigation found that the law enforcement bureau visited the state's driving license database to find evictees."The United States promises government trust to immigrants, but the facts show that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is abusing that trust.”
📷
The annual report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that in the past year alone, the FBI checked 3.4 million electronic data without a warrant.
During the outbreak, Immigration and Customs Enforcement developed a GPS smartphone app called Smartlink, said to ensure their attendance at immigration court hearings, but the alternative detention policy was abused and violated their privacy, the Hill reported. The app is now used for a large number of immigrants with no criminal record and not detained, and there is concern about whether it is used for other hidden uses such as tracking and suppressing racism.

This woman tied for fifth place with a trans athlete and is using it as an opportunity to complain all over the US… why is SFSU giving this sore loser a platform? Email the dean of students and tell them we don’t want her here

I wrote this after an asthma attack earlier this week, dreading the flare-up that was coming. For the past few years it means weeks of getting back to normal. I'm currently in grad school, and bike mentioned is an ebike, fyi. Always gotta be accessible. It meant a lot to write this, and thought some here would appreciate it too. It's rough, but from the heart.
The parallel world of severe asthma
As my asthma has worsened, I more and more feel like I’m living parallel to the people around me. In Tokyo, with my unusual hours and outsider status as a foreigner, I already felt set apart from society, so the feeling wasn’t so intense. Yes, I might have missed the occasional book club meeting or invitation from a friend, but I didn’t have daily reminders of how my life had to be considered so differently from those surrounding me. Before Tokyo, while asthma was a consideration in my life, it only came up around hikes or when I pulled my inhaler out after running too fast for too long. It set me apart, but only sometimes.
Now, the time I feel most separate is when I open my school email. Today alone I got invitations to:
• The grad student sports day, which I immediately deleted. I haven’t been able to run across the street without thinking for 3 years. There’s no way in hell I could participate.
• A round table with a CEO. I RSVP’d, but with the knowledge that I’ll likely have to email a cancellation to the event coordinator when a flareup extends or starts or I get an asthma attack.
• A Q&A before an event I’m attending. I RSVP’d, but later realized it’s held at a separate venue from the event, about a three-minute walk away. If I’m feeling bad, I won’t be able to go, and if I’m mobile but not great, I’ll have to ride my bike to both locations in order to minimize walking and be able to attend.
• A meeting with a prof today. I had to ask to meet virtually due to an asthma attack around 11am. He said we could reschedule if I wasn’t feeling well, and I had to go into a brief health history so he would know there was a high chance I’d have to cancel a rescheduled appointment as well, so we just went virtual.
• A school event on Saturday where we paint a map of the United States at an elementary school. Yesterday I ran into a classmate promoting it, and had to tell him I can’t RSVP because I have no idea what my health status will be by Saturday, and lo and behold today I had an asthma attack that will likely take a week or more to resolve.
• Employer visits. I haven’t been to one in months because I’ve had to save all my energy for attending classes, or I wouldn’t even be able to do that.
• So many various interesting talks that I don’t even think about attending anymore because I always seem to be sick whenever there’s something I actually want to do.
After my attack, I immediately emailed both the prof I was scheduled to meet and my prof for tomorrow’s class. It’s a public speaking class (I didn’t realize that when I signed up, I thought it was for writing, my effin’ bad), and we’re exchanging speeches with another person before class, so I need to give my prof warning. In addition, the class is held in a building where it takes me three times as long to walk to the class area as anyone else because it’s in the far back. The bathrooms, of course, are by the exit, so I had to hold it for an entire class a couple weeks ago because I wouldn’t be able to make it there, back, present, and still be at all functioning.
I texted some friends about watching a basketball game at a bar on Friday, and then immediately regretted it, realizing that due to the attack today, I’ll probably be housebound until Monday, unless I’m lucky and things improve quickly. Checking the forecast, which is showing turbulent weather, rain, and general changes, there’s probably not a chance in hell. I still haven’t texted them that, actually, I probably can’t do it, because I just don’t want to yet, and it doesn’t matter too much, since we’re already planning on coming to my house to watch a movie anyway, thank God.
I also texted my friend in a student organization to let her know I wasn’t coming to the meeting tonight after all. We’d talked yesterday, with her asking after me, and I told her I’d finally be able to come today after more than a month of absences due to my health. Welp, never mind. I then had to text another friend I’m supposed to meet for dinner tomorrow, and see if she can come to my house for dinner instead. We’re not very close, so it’s a little awkward, but it’d be nice if she’d be down.
Other things I got to experience today:
• Sitting, teeth gritted, fingers dug into my palm for 30 seconds as I got a very painful shot (Tezspire) that will hopefully make this situation a little fucking better. Oh God, I really hope so. I’ll get to keep getting that once a month for who knows how long. (Talking from a week later, it seems like the second dose has made a big difference. My attack recovery took just two days instead of two weeks!)
• Not get napkins at a restaurant because it wasn’t a good idea to add some extra walking as I realized that I really was asthmatic.
• Regret going downstairs to work on homework because going up to the stairs to the bathroom meant that I needed to rest for a good fifteen minutes.
• Struggle through brain fog to be able to do my coursework.
• Feel tight chested just from getting up to pour myself tea.
• Ask my roommate to go pick up a package at the front door because I couldn’t handle it.
I’m sure there’s more I’m just not thinking of. I’ve been trying to be clearer about how severe my illness is. Instead of telling people I have asthma, I’ve been saying “I have severe asthma/I have severe uncontrolled asthma,” and I put some weight on it. It’s been helping. I’ve been extending conversations a little longer when people ask about it. I’m not trying to create pity, but help people understand that it seriously effects my life, and that when I have to be noncommittal, or haven’t been to school, it’s because of a chronic condition that won’t get better quickly.
All of this adds up to feeling like I’m existing parallel to the people around me. They RSVP to events, knowing they’ll attend unless they just don’t want to. They organize sports days without thinking about all the people that don’t have a chance in hell of being able to participate. They don’t think a thing of it when I don’t come to class or am walking slowly in the hall. They feel buoyant to me almost, walking around not thinking if they can make it down the hall without a rest. I understand they have complexities to their lives that I don’t understand, but hearing “feel better” when I know I’m not going to for a week or two, then maybe have a week of feeling ok-ish before another flare-up makes me feel like an alien.
I’ve been able-bodied before. I know how little conception I had of the mental burden disability brings. I know how blithely they take advantage of their bodies. I love my body. It feels like a partner in a war with me, constantly battling against the evils of dust mites and cat hair. We’re united in this journey, but holy fuck are we exhausted. I make it to class, work in hand (or not), and feel so tired knowing I’m going to have to balance caring for myself with my commitments for another week. My conception doesn’t really stretch much further than that, except to hope that in six months, when I’m finally done ramping up with allergy shots, maybe I won’t feel like this. The time between then and now draws out in front of me, joyful and terrifying. Perhaps I’ll start improving? I know I’ll have good times with friends, whether they’re in my house or elsewhere when I’m feeling ok. I know I’ll learn a lot. I also know I’ll face walks up a flight of stairs that will take three minutes. I know that I’ll face classes or meetings or lectures where I have to concentrate to be able to sit up straight, barely able to pay attention while it feels like my scalp is shrinking around my skull and my chest is like a cloud crushed in a vice grip.
That after that class I’ll have to make a thousand little journeys: from seat to door, from door to that tile, to the end of that bench, to that next door, to that little tree, to that fence, to my bike, all with a little rest in between, letting everybody outpace me as they move, unthinking about the miracle of their body’s wellness, forward past me. I’ll probably listen to music –nothing too exciting or my body will try to dance without permission, every extraneous movement a danger beyond the capacity of my lungs – and let myself flow along to the melody in my head, while my feet shuffle ever so slowly along, not lifting them too high so as not to exert any extra energy. Every moment of this is defined by a colossal effort not to panic. My body wants to; IT CAN’T GET AIR! But I have to force my breath to calm, even if it’s shallow, and focus all my concentration on the next small goal. Occasionally, a flash of the daunting journey to bike, to home, to up to my room, and to lying face down in my bed, sparks in my mind, and a strong current of fear and dread runs through me before I tamp it down and keep moving at my snail’s pace, or stand in place, eyes closed, fingers flexing and curling, shoulders tensed, calves tensed, toes curled, as I squeeze the big scary emotions back into a small ball in my core and continue the difficult journey to safety and rest.
Is this a world I knew existed before? No.
Am I happy I know it now? With the tiniest, most empathetic sliver of my heart. This parallel world is mine, and it’s an anguished one. I’ve gotten some good out of it. I’ve gained empathy. I truly understand my own grit and determination and sisu after this. I told my doctor about an asthma attack I remember having in Tokyo: I went too fast up some stairs, took my inhaler and sat, and felt better 30 minutes later. He said, “That must have been scary.” No! I remember that asthma attack so fondly that it has almost a nostalgic golden glow about it. The scary asthma attacks: the panicked gasps while stuck in a door I’m not capable of opening fully, being exhausted in a coffee shop from walking 3 steps to a bathroom, laying back on a hotel bed and my vision blurring to black around the edges, those scare me. Having to walk out of the ER, alone in a foreign country, to flag down a cab, shaky from IV steroids and unsure if I can make the 30 meters, that scares me. Barely being able to walk or talk as soon as the first drop of rain falls, at a zoo, at a temple, teaching class, those times scare me.
Sometimes I realize that the people around me would call an ambulance or have their family rush them to the hospital if they felt the way I do right now. It feels like we’re walking in two worlds. Mine is weighty with the distress I’m currently feeling, or haunted by the specters of disturbing possibilities: a flight of stairs, a sharp hill, a quick run to make the bus, a note held too long in choir, all things that have kept me housebound for days to weeks. Theirs is what I had before: full of joys and worries (just as mine is) but without that constant central dread and weight and worrying and calculation that comes along with my illness. I don’t know whether to envy or hate them.
What I do know is that we exist together and apart. They don’t understand, and I don’t really want them to. They shouldn’t have to. I wouldn’t wish these dark experiences on them, as much as I wish that I didn’t feel so alone in all of it. Perhaps one day I’ll once again be able to blithely join a game of badminton without worrying about whether I have my rescue inhaler in my bag. Maybe I’ll even just be able to RSVP to a lecture without worrying whether I’ll be able to make it there without severe distress. I yearn for that future, which the doctor tells me is possible, but I yearn in tiny, quick jolts. Just an eighth of a second, then back to accepting the reality I’m in at the moment, knowing that it’s too painful to dwell on in case I don’t get better.
In reality, I regretted reading this out loud after writing it because I was worried I’d pushed the limits of what I can handle right now. And cried after getting an email from my prof for tomorrow’s class because she was so kind with her accommodations. This parallel, murky, dark world that makes me so damn appreciate of the people around me, even if they can’t understand.
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edits: just some formatting