REASON – Free Minds & Free Markets | This, That and The Other

Thanks to innovations in food science and agriculture, the world is producing more food than ever before. While this has significantly reduced global hunger since the 1970s, it has impacted the environment; in 2023, food production generated about 26 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Our World in Data. Now scientists at the Finnish startup Solar Foods are turning air and electricity into food. The result? A mustard-colored protein powder made from naturally occurring microbes that could reshape how the world is fed. Inside a bioreactor, a single microbe plucked from the Finnish dirt is fed a cocktail
of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium. Renewable electricity powers the process, which the company says is "20 times more efficient than photosynthesis," and accelerates the growth of the microorganism into a protein-rich slurry. After drying, what's left is Solein: a fine powder packed with all nine essential amino acids, unsaturated fats, dietary fiber, and vitamin B12. According to Food… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

From today's decision in Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., by Justice Lee Smalley Edmon, joined by Justice Anne Egerton and Riverside Superior Court Judge Kira Klatchko: [N]early all of the legal quotations in plaintiff's opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiff's reply brief, are fabricated. That is, the quotes plaintiff attributes to published cases do not appear in those cases or anywhere else. Further, many of the cases plaintiff cites do not discuss the topics for which they are cited, and a few of the cases do not exist at all. These fabricated legal authorities were created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that plaintiff's counsel used to draft his appellate briefs. The AI tools created fake legal authority—sometimes referred to as AI "hallucinations"—that were undetected by plaintiff's counsel because he did not read the cases the AI tools cited. Although the generation of fake legal… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

Authorities announced on Friday morning that they made progress in solving a mystery that has gripped the nation for two days: who murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk with a rifle during a crowded event at Utah Valley University. Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson had been turned in by his family after he "confessed to them or implied" his guilt in the assassination. A roommate also showed police Discord chat messages from Robinson about hiding a rifle, according to Cox, who said that Robinson acted alone. Without those tips, it's hard to know how long the manhunt would have gone on for. The night before, authorities had signaled that they were completely stumped. Officials pleaded with the public for information based on a few grainy surveillance stills on Thursday night, and Utah Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason told NBC News that authorities had "no idea"… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

A nice headline for a Free Press editorial, drawing the entirely accidental verbal connection to the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders. It also reminds me of a passage I mentioned after those murders, from Rebecca West, writing about the English in 1940 as they anticipated the German attack on England after the fall of France: Let nobody belittle them by pretending they were fearless. Not being as the ox and the ass, they were horribly afraid. But their pale lips did not part to say the words that would have given them security and dishonour. Perhaps this wasn't so with Hebdo, and the Charlie Hebdo editors really were fearless (see, e.g., this quote from Stephane Charbonnier). Perhaps Kirk hadn't really foreseen the risk to him (though it sounds like had faced serious threats before). But whenever I have occasion to think about true courage, it is West's words that come… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

In a video released on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump said "radical left" rhetoric "is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today," including this week's assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college in Utah, and "it must stop right now." Trump vowed that "my administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country." Trump also expressed devotion to "the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died," including "free speech." Yet that value seems inconsistent with Trump's claim that hateful rhetoric "directly" causes violence and his promise to "find" anyone who "contribute[s]" to that problem, apparently including "radical left" people who make… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.