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• Squawk 7601 was introduced under Europe’s SERA rules in May 2025 as a new special-purpose transponder code.
• It signals IFR radio failure with continuation in VMC to the nearest suitable airport.
• Not all European countries have adopted 7601.

Chances are you haven’t heard of it. But as of last summer, Europe officially has introduced a new special purpose squawk code. 7601 was introduced to allegedly remove a layer of uncertainty when communications have broken down. But not all European countries agree on its usefulness. //

A trio of codes carry a special, universal meaning and are recognized globally:

7700 — General emergency

7600 — Radio communication failure

7500 — Unlawful interference

Aircraft broadcasting these codes will be flagged on Flightradar24, usually drawing a lot of attention. You can learn the ins and outs of these in our blog post about squawk codes. As of May 2025, a fourth special code has joined the list in European airspace: 7601.

Each year the LHC produces 40,000 EBs of unfiltered sensor data alone, or about a fourth of the size of the entire Internet, Aarrestad estimated. CERN can't store all that data. As a result, "We have to reduce that data in real time to something we can afford to keep."

By "real time," she means extreme real time. The LHC detector systems process data at speeds up to hundreds of terabytes per second, far more than Google or Netflix, whose latency requirements are also far easier to hit as well.

Algorithms processing this data must be extremely fast," Aarrestad said. So fast that decisions must be burned into the chip design itself. //

At any given time, there are about 2,800 bunches of protons whizzing around the ring at nearly the speed of light, separated by 25-nanosecond intervals. Just before they reach one of the four underground detectors, specialized magnets squeeze these bunches together to increase the odds of an interaction. Nonetheless, a direct hit is incredibly rare: out of the billions of protons in each bunch, only about 60 pairs actually collide during a crossing.

When particles do collide, their energy is converted into a mass of new outgoing particles (E=MC2 in the house!). These new particles "shower" through CERN's detectors, making traces "which we try to reconstruct," she said, in order to identify any new particles produced in ensuing melee.

Each collision produces a few megabytes of data, and there are roughly a billion collisions per second, resulting in about a petabyte of data (about the size of the entire Netflix library).

Rather than try to transport all this data up to ground level, CERN found it more feasible to create a monster-sized edge compute system to sort out the interesting bits at the detector-level instead.

The A-10 Warthog never tried to impress anyone with looks. Good thing, because it couldn't; the plane looks as though it was assembled in a scrapyard during a bar fight.

And when things get serious, it's still one of the first aircraft anybody wants covering them overhead. Operation Epic Fury just drove the point home again, this time over the Red Sea. //

Built by Fairchild Republic, the A-10 exists for one purpose: to kill enemy threats close to American forces.

That mission hasn't changed since the 1970s, and no amount of PowerPoint presentation has replaced it. The aircraft was designed around the GAU-8 Avenger cannon, a 30 mm monster that roars like a lion and leaves fire in its wake like a dragon. Everything else on the plane exists to support that weapon and keep the pilot alive long enough to use it. //

The Warthog didn't just show up; it stayed, loitered, and delivered precise firepower where it mattered, when it mattered. Fast jets hit and leave, while the Warthog sticks around to make sure the job's finished. //

The operation also highlights a critical limitation in the current U.S. force structure. While fifth generation aircraft excel in penetrating defended airspace and striking fixed high value targets, they are not optimized for sustained engagement of numerous low value but operationally decisive targets such as fast attack craft or mobile launch teams. Epic Fury exposes this gap under real combat conditions and reinforces the need for platforms capable of persistent close engagement.

The Air Force keeps trying to retire it in favor of fifth-generation fighters. It sounds like a modern and efficient argument, but in reality, it keeps running into the same problem. The A-10 does a job no other aircraft on the planet handles as well as the Warthog does. //

AnonymousinIL
13 hours ago
It’s not pretty. It’s not ugly. It’s pretty ugly but very well suited for ground support. Fast movers say “my plane has a gun.” Hog drivers say “my gun has a plane.” //

anon-xzx7
13 hours ago
It would be a better plan to identify the generals who want to retire this magnificent aircraft and retire the generals. //

Dawgly One
14 hours ago
The Air Force wants to retire it SOOOOOO bad. You know who doesn’t want it retired? The Army and the Marines. The Army has begged the Air Force to give it to them, but they won’t, because it has jet engines and carries weapons. Clowns. Just give it up, and go do your fast mover stuff. //

David Lang
13 hours ago
Everyone over-estimates how many targets a fighter can take out, a F15 has ~900 rounds, a F 15, F18 has ~500 rounds, a F-25 has 180 rounds, an A-10 has 1150 rounds (and much more powerful rounds than any of the others). The Apache helicopter has a similar number of rounds as the A-10 (same caliber but less powerful)

The A-10 also has more weapons pylons to hang bombs/rockets/etc off of (and flying slower, it can use cheaper rockets rather than guided missiles and smart bombs)

so a single A-10 can take out more targets, armored or not (and many ships would count as armored, not because they specifically have armor, but just the amount of steel needed to hold the ship together in the face of an angry sea is what land vehicles would call armored)

The Air Force has been trying to get rid of them for decades, claiming that the new jets can do the job, but war after war the A-10s show they do a better job, and for less money.

Nowadays they are exclusively flown by National Guard units, so when you hear about them in a war zone, remember those pilots are taking time away from their job to do this. Their jobs are protected by law, but that doesn't get work projects done or earn promotions.

The war on Iran revealed how dependent Israel’s Arab neighbours are on its gas exports, a dependency that could extend to Syria and Lebanon. //

Last year, Cairo signed a $35bn deal to import Israeli gas from Israel until 2040, boosting its previous supplies by another 2bcm (70.6 billion cubic feet) per year. //

Unlike Egypt, Jordan is not a major gas-producing country. Local production accounts for less than 5 percent of gas (PDF) needs. It imports the rest, about 3.6bcm (127 billion cubic feet) per year, mostly from Israel, but also Egypt and some LNG sources. //

The Arab Gas Pipeline—once a symbol of joint Arab development projects—has become the primary conduit for exporting Israeli gas to both Jordan and Egypt. Pipelines carrying gas from the Leviathan field off the coast of Haifa connect to the pipeline network in northern Jordan’s Mafraq governorate, from which gas flows southward towards the Egyptian border. //

Even when Israel is not the immediate supplier in a given transaction, the system itself depends structurally on Israeli gas. Once Israeli exports stop, the entire network falters. //

This is a clear example of how the Zionist settler-colonial project is expanding not only through military aggression but also through economic power and energy networks.

It advances through an infrastructure that appears mundane and technical, yet ultimately grips societies by the throat. Once embedded, disengaging from such systems becomes extraordinarily difficult, because they govern the essentials of everyday life: electricity, water and energy. //

Today, Syrian and Lebanese political leaders may be lured by the promise of quick and easy economic security and reliable living conditions. But such security would be illusory. Ultimate control would rest in the hands of a state whose capacity to cut supply – and to use that interruption as a tool of destruction, political coercion and colonial expansion – is already visible for all to see.

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When this rumor referenced Al Gore back in 1999, it was readily spread by conservative commentators. (Paul Harvey, for example, mentioned it during his noontime broadcast on 6 July 1999.) Oddly enough, conservative columnist Cal Thomas maintained that the story was indeed true, only it had to do with President George H. W. Bush (father of George W. Bush):

Bush said it in my presence at a religious broadcasters convention about 1990, and I wrote about it in my book, Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America. But somehow it got twisted around and stuck on the Internet and put in Al Gore's mouth. He's got a lot of stuff that he has to defend, but that's not one of them.

Lovell was the first person to fly to the Moon twice.

Robert Pearlman – Aug 8, 2025 9:28 PM | 85

Exclusive: The 'mythical superhero' picks his favorites from Parade magazine's recent list of 101

Researchers from Mass General Brigham tracked more than 130,000 people for over four decades and found that those who regularly consumed moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee or tea had an 18 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared to those who rarely touched the stuff. //

the apparent benefits weren't tied to heroic levels of caffeine intake, just to steady, mid-range consumption – roughly two to three cups a day – suggesting that consistency matters more than turning yourself into a walking coffee bean. //

The researchers are careful to point out that the findings are observational, meaning that they can spot patterns but can't prove cause and effect. //

Even so, the sheer length of the study – 43 years – gives it a bit more weight than the usual "scientists watched 12 undergrads for a fortnight" variety. Tracking habits over that kind of timespan is no small feat, and it offers a rare glimpse into how everyday behaviors play out over the long haul.

The film adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary hits general release today, March 20, and it’s great—go see it! Though a little light on the science, the movie goes hard on the relationship between schoolteacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and an extraterrestrial named Rocky, and it’s a ride well worth taking.

But as good as it is, the movie shares a small flaw with the book: Despite having very few things in common, Grace and Rocky learn to communicate with each other extremely quickly. In fact, Grace and Rocky begin conversing in abstracts (concepts like “I like this” and “friendship”) in even less time than it takes in the book. Obviously, there are practical narrative reasons for this choice—you can’t have a good buddy movie if your buddies can’t talk to each other. It’s therefore critical to the flow of the story to get that talking happening as soon as possible, but it can still be a little jarring for the technically minded viewer who was hoping for the acquisition of language to be treated with a little more complexity.

And because this is Ars Technica, we’re doing the same thing we did when the book came out: talking with Dr. Betty Birner, a former professor of linguistics at NIU (now retired), to pick her brain about cognition, pragmatics, cooperation, and what it would actually take for two divergently evolved sapient beings not just to gesture and pantomime but to truly communicate. And this time, we’ll hear from Andy Weir, too. So buckle up, dear readers—things are gonna get nerdy.

Damage to a critical Qatari facility is threatening to keep energy prices high around the world even if the war in Iran ends soon in what some analysts are calling an “Armageddon” situation.

Qatar’s Las Raffan plant supplies a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, which is used for electricity, heating and cooking – but Iranian strikes have damaged the facility, worsening what is already the largest-ever energy supply disruption. //

Qatar’s Las Raffan site is almost three times the size of Paris. It took three decades to build, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and chills enough gas to meet the annual demand of the UK and Italy combined.

Venezuela did exactly as "Professor Jiang" suggested and printed money until the cows came home, and well after that, too. Its currency is so worthless now that it could easily become the most used waste paper product in Venezuela. In fact, the bolivar became so useless that an online video game's currency became worth more in real life.

Thomas van Linge @ThomasVLinge
·
Only in #Venezuela soldiers are rewarded for the loyal service to the regime with toilet paper rolls
4:41 PM · Jul 24, 2017

This is called inflation. It's not a new concept, yet Jiang seems not to have heard about it or grasped the concept. Odd thing too, because they were teaching children about this back in 1967.

Ladies and gentlemen, Scrooge McDuck.
https://youtu.be/SK8lpxsg8qQ?si=T9HuxQTFxbTyHMZt

The North Carolina Association of Broadcasters (NCAB) has partnered with Wake Tech to develop the NCAB Broadcast Technology Academy to prepare individuals who are technically minded, mechanically inclined or electrically inclined for careers as broadcast technicians in the broadcasting industry.

A rigorous mix of classroom and hands-on learning in a specially designed lab during the 14-week academy provides students the technical skills and theoretical knowledge required for success in the broadcasting industry. Students learn about AM, FM, HD and HDTV transmission systems, including transmitters, antennas, transmission lines, remote control systems and program delivery systems.

Upon completion, students will be able to troubleshoot and repair both legacy and modern radio transmission systems. They also will be prepared to challenge the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) Certified Broadcast Technologist exam, providing national recognition of their engineering abilities.

Tuition, fees and books will be covered by the NCAB. Additional funds will be available to assist with living expenses, transportation, etc., provided the student attends all classes and meets workload and grade requirements.

A blogger, Destin, talked TVA into letting him film the refueling process at Browns Ferry in Alabama. Browns Ferry is a three unit boiling water reactor plant. The design is essentially the same as the reactors at Fukushima. The hour and 45 minute video is overly long; and Destin’s narration can be a little grating at times; but overall he does a great job. It’s worth your time.

We also get a pretty good feeling for the plant’s safety culture. //

much of the video is taken up by Destin’s going through various check points, each manned by 3 or 4 people sitting around watching screens. While there are scores of people on the refueling floor, only a handful seem to be actually doing something to the plant. The actual shifting of the fuel bundles is done by a three person team, and is largely automated. At one point, a lady berates Destin’s guide who outranks her for letting Destin walk down a stairs facing forward. The stairs were narrower and steeper than normal. The rule is you have to treat it like a ladder.

Destin is told not to step on the floor drains. The problem is the moisture might contaminate his shoes, and set off alarms. The radiation in the drain is not from the plant. It’s normal background, naturally occurring radon and daughters. Nuclear plants don’t produce radon. On the way out, Destin’s camera fails to clear a check. So they disassemble the camera and put each piece into the detector separately, to allow the pieces out of the plant. Once again the source is background radon. //

On a positive note, TVA should be congratulated for allowing this visit. It should be commonplace. If I were king of the world, I’d have a glassed in viewing gallery, high in every reactor’s refueling space. During outages, I would invite everybody to walk through and get a look at what’s going on. Most of the people will come out as enthusiastic about nuclear as Destin.

The second 1974 Power Engineering article that Nick Touran has uncovered is Senior Editor Olds’ discussion of the massive jumps in power plant capital costs between 1965 and 1974 Power Plant Capital Costs Going Out of Sight.

The AEC required plant owners to report their estimate of the capital cost of any nuclear plants under construction, and update those estimates annually. Olds’ article is largely based on that data. All his dollar figures are in nominal dollars, the dollar of that year.

Figure 2. USA fossil plant costs bottomed out in 1966.

The paper is graced by a number of hand drawn, beautifully lettered graphics. Figure 2 shows that prior to 1967 fossil plant capital costs were falling reaching a low of $100/kW in nominal dollars in 1966. But in 1967, the cost jumped nearly 20% to $118. Unfortunately, Old does not take the fossil figures any further forward. But if he did he would see that 20% per year escalation continue unabated through 1974, Figure 3. //

Thanks to nuclear’s factor of 100,000 advantage in energy density over fossil, a technology that did not exist 15 years earlier, was working its way down a steep learning curve, and in 1967 was fully competitive with coal, when coal was as cheap as it ever was. Nuclear was insulated from both oil price and fossil pollution regulation.

But in 1967, a new omnipotent player emerged. In 1954, Congress had given the AEC complete and unfettered control over nuclear, both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. As Truman put it, atom power was “too important to be made the subject of profiteering”. The AEC had to both implement Mutually Assured Destruction, and promote and regulate nuclear power. The first responsibility included making sure everybody was petrified of the bomb.

bungalowbernard Ars Praetorian
5y
404

Each KG of coal produces about 8 KWh of electricity - to produce 8 MWh in a year is literally just Steve throwing a shovelful into the hopper once a day.

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022
·
CBS POLL: Do you favor or oppose requiring proof of citizenship (e.g., passport or birth certificate) to register to vote?

🟢 Favor: 66%
🟤 Oppose: 34%
——
• Dem: 43-57 (-14)
• GOP: 93-7 (+86)
• Indie: 61-39 (+22)
• White: 68-32 (+36)
• Black: 60-40 (+20)
• Hispanic: 63-37 Show more

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022
·
CBS News Poll: Do you favor or oppose requiring people to show valid photo ID before they are permitted to vote?

🟢 Favor: 80%
🟤 Oppose: 20%
——
• Dem: 65-35 (+30)
• GOP: 95-5 (+90)
• Indie: 79-21 (+58)
• White: 80-20 (+60)
• Black: 80-20 (+60)
• Hispanic: 77-23 (+55) Show more
6:42 PM · Mar 19, 2026

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