Science

Elon Musk asks Union to hold vote at Tesla factory in California

According to Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, the United Auto Workers labor union (UAW) has been invited to vote at its California factory.

An additional $4,500 tax incentive is being proposed for union-built, US-built electric vehicles, a move that was recently criticized by billionaire Elon Musk.

Neither Tesla nor other foreign automakers have unions at their factories in the United States.

For the UAW to organize a Tesla plant would be a major victory, since workers at foreign-owned automakers or electric vehicle startups, which are overwhelmingly located in the US south, have rarely backed them up. Austin is also home to a Tesla plant.

The real challenge is the negative unemployment in the Bay Area, where the factory is located. If people are not compensated well, they will leave since they have many job offers. That’s what Elon Musk said in his tweet on Thursday.

„I invite the UAW to hold a union vote when it is convenient for them. Tesla will not interfere with such a vote.

Analysts said Musk’s actions over the past year do not match the rhetoric he’s used. UAW could not comment on Musk’s tweet immediately.

Despite selling fewer EVs than Tesla, Joe Biden praises GM and Ford’s electric-vehicle efforts.

After Elon Musk complained repeatedly about being ignored by Biden this year, he acknowledged Tesla’s leadership role in making electric vehicles last month. Elon Musk had compared Biden earlier to a “damp sock puppet.” He claimed Biden’s EV policy appeared to be directed by labor unions last fall.

Tesla Director of Communications Elon Musk has also faced the ire of the National Labor Relations Board. This board ruled the company violated US labor law and ordered the company to delete a tweet Elon Musk made in 2018. This tweet said unions would result in employees losing their stock options.

The company appealed the NLRB decision with the US court of appeals in New Orleans, and that case is still pending.

Tesla’s car plant employees are free to vote union in a 2018 tweet from Elon Musk. Employees have until tomorrow to do so. What’s the point of paying union dues and giving up stock options? There is already healthcare for everyone since we have a 2X better safety record than when the plant was UAW.”

Additionally, the NLRB ordered Tesla to reinstate one former employee and to rescind its 2017 disciplinary rules that prohibited union literature distribution in its parking lot during non-work hours and that blocked union stickers, leaflets, and pamphlets from being distributed without permission.

The Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the League of Conservation Voters, along with 10 other environmental and advocacy groups, called on Rivian to join labor organizations to ensure a healthy future and secure jobs, and to allow union voting within its plants.

Unlike many Rivian plants, one in Normal, Illinois, does not have a union. After Musk’s tweet on Thursday, Rivian declined to comment on the matter and could not be reached.

Longstanding employee complaints have plagued Tesla’s Fremont factory. According to a lawsuit filed in February by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), Black employees experienced rampant racism.

The complaint claims that Black employees were subjected to racist slurs and graffiti, as well as being given the most physically challenging jobs.

Defendants’ production leaders ‘crack the whip’ at the factory, where workers called it a ‘slaveship’ or a plantation, the agency stated.

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Science

NASA Switches Off Instrument On Voyager 2 Spacecraft To Save Power

NEW YORK — To save power, NASA turned off another scientific equipment on its long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft.

NASA Switches Off Instrument On the Spacecraft To Save Power

The space agency announced on Tuesday that 2’s plasma science instrument, meant to study the movement of charged atoms, was turned off in late September to allow the spacecraft to continue exploring for as long as possible, which is estimated to be into the 2030s.

NASA turned off a suite of instruments on Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, after exploring the gas giant planets in the 1980s. Both are currently in interstellar space or the region between stars. The plasma instrument on Voyager 1 stopped working years ago and was finally shut off in 2007.

The remaining four instruments on 2 will continue to collect data on magnetic fields and particles. Its mission is to investigate the regions of space beyond the sun’s protective sphere.

NASA Switches Off Instrument On Voyager 2 Spacecraft To Save Power

It launched in 1977, is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. It is now more than 12 billion miles (19.31 billion kilometers) from Earth. 1 is more than 15 billion miles (24.14 billion kilometers) beyond Earth.

SOURCE | AP

Science

Hurricane Kirk Could Cause Dangerous Surf Conditions Along The US East Coast

MIAMI — Hurricane Kirk’s waves could generate life-threatening surf and rip current conditions this weekend throughout the United States East Coast, as well as in Bermuda, the Greater Antilles, and the Bahamas, according to forecasters.

Kirk was a Category 3 hurricane in the middle Atlantic Ocean that might grow further but was predicted to stay away from land, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center on Thursday.

Hurricane Kirk Could Cause Dangerous Surf Conditions Along The US East Coast

Kirk-generated swells were forecast to reach parts of the Leeward Islands on Friday, Bermuda and the Greater Antilles on Saturday, and the East Coast and the Bahamas on Sunday, according to the center.

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect. The major storm was around 1,130 miles (1,820 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h).

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Leslie formed late Wednesday in the eastern Atlantic and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane in the following days, forecasters said. It was also not considered a threat to the land.

Hurricane Kirk Could Cause Dangerous Surf Conditions Along The US East Coast

The storm was about 540 miles (870 kilometers) southwest of Cabo Verde’s southernmost tip, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), according to the center.

The storms raged in the Atlantic as rescuers in the United States Southeast sought for missing persons after Hurricane Helene struck last week, leaving a trail of death and devastation.

SOURCE | AP

Science

Giant Fossilised Footprint Of Dinosaur Found in China

(CTN News) – A team of palaeontologists believes they have discovered fossilized footprints of one of China’s largest raptors. The collection of five fossilized dinosaur footprints is half the length of a school bus.

The footprints were discovered in a dinosaur trackway in south-east China in 2020. Scientists believe dinosaurs walked over the muddy river during the Cretaceous period, leaving footprints. Some footprints have been preserved for tens of millions of years.

The dinosaur trackway was unearthed in Longxiang and is around the size of a hockey rink. Some of the footprints are unusually formed, with intact imprints of only two toes.

Fossilised footprint of megaraptor found in China

Giant fossil footprints lead to megaraptor dinosaur discovery in China

Raptors, or predatory birds, are often small and referred to as deinonychosaurs. For example, a Velociraptor is around the size of a turkey. Few raptors, such as the Utahraptor and Dakotaraptor, increased in size significantly, reaching lengths of 5 to 6 metres. The Triassic ichthyosaur was the largest raptor known until now.

“Exploring Longxiang: The Rich Dinosaur Trackway in Southeastern China”

According to the scientists, the predator would have attacked its prey with a pair of huge “killing claws” on each foot.

What scientists discovered recently in China is massive, far larger than the largest superpredator known to date.

Scott Persons of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and his colleagues, added another large raptor to the list. They named it Fujianipus, and they believe it lived in East Asia some 96 million years ago.

Scott Persons at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and his colleagues added another giant raptor to the list. They named it Fujianipus, and they say it lived in East Asia about 96 million years ago. Photograph:(Twitter)

Persons and his colleagues are currently working on areas of Fujianipus’ skeleton, therefore little is known. The investigators only discovered a few of its 36-centimetre-long imprints.

“Preservation conditions were right for footprints but not so great for bones,” Persons said. However, scientists are certain that the footprints belong to a raptor because each one contains the imprint of only two toes, which corresponds to the foot anatomy of raptors. Raptors generally have three toes, but they keep one off the ground to preserve the big claw at the tip from wear and tear.

People believe Fujianipus demonstrates that raptors had the ability to grow much larger and compete with the largest predatory dinosaurs on the landscape at the time – allosauroids, some of which exceeded 10 metres or more in length.

According to Persons, raptors had an advantage over allosauroids in terms of speed. However, without fossilized leg bones, the researchers cannot correctly measure Fujianipus’ speed.