ST-v-SW.Net: Trek. Wars. Pew-pew.

Here's a "pinned tweet" thread because I want to pin more than one.

@AmericanDebunk TBH, I prefer the tree to the Starbucks sign

Bukele has proved that living in a shit hole is a choice.

@Rainmaker1973 It's called "replicative fading".

For decades, many scientists assumed that serial cloning — the repeated cloning of clones — could theoretically continue indefinitely. A landmark 20-year experiment has now demonstrated that this is not the case. Researchers found that successive rounds of somatic cell nuclear transfer lead to the progressive accumulation of genetic mutations, eventually creating insurmountable barriers to further cloning. The study, conducted by Teruhiko Wakayama and colleagues at the University of Yamanashi in Japan, began in 2005 using cells from a single female mouse. Over nearly two decades, the team produced more than 1,200 cloned mice across 58 generations. Early generations appeared healthy, with cloning success rates even improving slightly in the first 25–26 rounds. However, from around the 27th generation onward, success rates began to decline steadily. By the 57th generation, the average success rate had fallen to just 0.6%. All mice from the 58th generation died within a day of birth due to severe genomic instability. Whole-genome sequencing revealed that each round of cloning introduced new mutations at a rate approximately three times higher than in naturally mated mice. These included an accumulation of single-nucleotide variants and large structural abnormalities, such as chromosomal losses and translocations. Unlike sexual reproduction, which benefits from natural DNA repair and recombination mechanisms during meiosis, cloning bypasses these processes, allowing deleterious mutations to build up unchecked — akin to the progressive degradation seen in repeated photocopying. Importantly, while the late-generation cloned mice still appeared phenotypically normal and had typical lifespans up to the 57th generation, the accumulated genetic load proved fatal when attempting the 58th round. The study underscores that, without the introduction of genetic diversity through sexual reproduction, long-term serial cloning in mammals is ultimately unsustainable. These findings have significant implications for biotechnology. They highlight fundamental limits for applications such as de-extinction efforts, long-term agricultural cloning, and conservation breeding programs. While cloning remains a powerful tool for producing genetically identical animals, the research serves as a clear reminder that current techniques cannot indefinitely replace the evolutionary safeguards provided by sexual reproduction. [Wakayama, S. et al. (2026). Limitations of serial cloning in mammals. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69765-7]

@TrekTrekkie Not true. Such tweets happened, just with opposite meaning.

No one has ever tweeted like this for Nutrek.

Count Dooku (Sir Christopher Lee) didn't hold back in this interview😨👀

.... And? I mean, when you absolutely need to destroy something most anywhere on the planet, is there any better substitute?

Again, this would be expensive and a technical challenge, but it's easy to imagine needing to hit a deep crucial target with only minutes to do so and no B-2 or B-21 for thousands of miles.

@FilmLadd Responding: - it's a tungsten cylinder - 11.5 tons KE from 37.5% of orbital velocity retained (USAF number), no warhead - deorbit thrusters are old hat - re-entry guidance doesn't require fuel (ref.: SpaceX) Would I prefer a cheap drone? Sure, but this has a place, too.

I just threw up.

@FilmLadd - Minutes to hit versus hours - Contested airspace irrelevant - Precision probably favors B-2 - 11.5 ton KE of tungsten penetration (per 2003 USAF study) versus 2.5 ton MOP blast after penetration of X meters ... might be a draw, might not Would love to see some more data.

@STvSW Yes.

There are only five Star Trek series.

“A gallon of jet fuel contains 34 kilowatt-hours of energy in a package weighing six pounds. A lithium-ion battery storing the same energy weighs 250 pounds. That density gap is why every military on earth runs on liquid hydrocarbons, why every container ship crossing the Pacific burns bunker fuel, why every combine harvester in Iowa runs on diesel, and why every 747 landing at Heathrow runs on kerosene. The fact that nobody wages war over solar panels is evidence of their limitations not superiority.” —@Shellenberger open.substack.com/pub/public/p/2…

The amount of pr0n on X is getting out of control

@ThatEricAlper The title "Skynyrd's Innyrds" hits different after seeing this.

High school gym teacher Leonard Skinner holds the latest album by a band of his former students Lynyrd Skynyrd.

@DavidMKeyes "Our new creeping barrage is inspired by video games where one can just constantly remain airborne by shooting explosives at the ground!" "Doesn't that require 'god mode'?" "You shut up!"

🚨Breaking: Trump orders 24/7 bombing directly under feet of US soldiers so technically there are never "boots on the ground"

Thing is, the idea that a nation is free can endure long after the freedom itself has largely died out.

Sure, we doubled the cost for the driver, the fuel for the bread truck, the environmentally-regulated truck itself, the similar transport costs upstream for the wheat, the farmer's machines and tools, and the very fertilizer he needed for a suitable yield, but it's greed.

Vilifying producers and retailers is an easy way out for the magic-minded. They don't understand what it takes to get fresh-in-bag sliced bread to a store and sold for a couple of bucks. It's just always been there, and always will ... only greed raised prices, amirite?

Modern western civilization may well fall because people forget the harsh realities that prompted us to build it this way in the first place. In its place comes the magical thinking where {producer/retailer} can always sell cheap {product} despite regulatory and tax burdens.

re base vulnerability, i think even this is too little _everything_ is vulnerable take a minute to work through the consequences of iran getting some shipping containers full of drones into baltimore harbor and launching at DC until the ship was destroyed