The world's most sensitive radiation detectors sometimes rely on low background steel produced before the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, according to a new report from SpaceDaily.
Steel manufactured before the nuclear age lacks the tiny traces of radioactive fallout that atmospheric weapons testing later introduced into the environment, making it valuable for experiments searching for extraordinarily rare particles and faint radiation signals.
The report says that this gave rise to the popular story that scientists depend on steel salvaged from pre war shipwrecks resting on the ocean floor. While there is some truth to that, the claim has been greatly exaggerated. Some laboratories have indeed used steel from old warships for shielding, but it is not true that nearly every sensitive detector depends on sunken ships or that science faces a crisis as this supply disappears.
The reason low background steel matters is that, in cutting edge physics experiments, even the detector's own walls can generate enough background radiation to interfere with measurements. Facilities searching for dark matter, rare nuclear decays, or other elusive phenomena go to extraordinary lengths to eliminate every possible source of interference, often operating deep underground and surrounding detectors with multiple layers of carefully selected shielding materials.
Today, researchers no longer rely exclusively on pre 1945 steel. Advances in metallurgy allow laboratories to manufacture and rigorously screen modern stainless steel, titanium, copper, and other materials with extremely low levels of radioactivity. In many cases, these newly produced metals perform just as well as their pre war counterparts, making the finite supply of old ship steel far less important than popular accounts suggest.
The enduring lesson is not that modern science depends on scavenging sunken fleets, but that the atomic age permanently changed the way physicists design their experiments.
When scientists are trying to detect just a handful of events over the course of an entire year, even the manufacturing history of the steel surrounding an experiment can make the difference between finding a signal and measuring nothing but noise.
Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 21:20Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,
According to the latest Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education. One of the Gallup experts told Fox News that one of the key reasons for the continued slide in public trust is "the perception that there's a political agenda being taught." That perception is well documented after most departments purged their ranks of any republican, conservative, or libertarian faculty members. At the same time, many faculty oppose the long-standing principle of institutional neutrality for universities, the subject of a recent debate that I had with the President of the American Association of University Professors.
Gallup's expert added that there is also a view that we are "not teaching people the right kinds of things they need to succeed in the job once they finish."
As I have previously written, this generation of administrators and faculty has destroyed not just public trust in our institutions but their financial viability. Colleges are closing at an alarming rate as both tuition and revenue fall. Yet, faculty members would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias in hiring and teaching.
According to Gallup, roughly a third of polled individuals cited partisan bias or indoctrination on college campuses. Bias was the leading reason for given for the lack of trust, ahead of tuition costs. That is a large chunk of potential applicants and their families. Worse yet, they are not wrong.
Our campuses have been ideological echo chambers where collective orthodoxy is more prominent than academic inquiry. This group think has created an overtly hostile environment for more than half of this country that consider themselves conservatives or libertarians. As schools struggle to maintain financial stability, they are literally cutting away half of their potential applicant pool.
Currently, only 37% of Americans report having "some" confidence in the institution. In any other industry or area, that record of alienation and mistrust would prompt massive changes in management. In higher education, however, colleges and universities remain captive to administrators and faculty members who replicate their views and values to the exclusion of many others.
The result is evident in multiple surveys which reveal widespread self-censorship among students, particularly conservative students. When I confronted a Harvard Law professor in a debate at Harvard Law School with those surveys, he responded by calling these students "conservative snowflakes."
It did not matter that only a third of Harvard students felt comfortable expressing their views in classes or on campus. Since Harvard has also shown the same bias in admissions, only roughly nine percent of the students identify as conservative. Thus, the vast majority of the students who are saying that they self-censor are liberals. This is the environment that the current generation of administrators and faculty have created.
As I have previously written, parents and students who value free speech must increasingly look to public universities where faculty are subject to constitutional guarantees. Public universities may be the final line of defense for free-speech advocates.
We now largely have two systems of higher education for those seeking education with a diversity of opinions and viewpoints. Except for outliers like the University of Chicago and other private universities holding the line on free speech, the orthodoxy found at private universities remains a barrier to many conservative and independent thinkers.
If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members continue to take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to continue funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state.
If faculty members want to continue maintaining echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should have to seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.
Legislatures can demand evidence that schools are maintaining intellectually diverse faculties in determining the level of continued support from citizens.
When some of us have argued for such campaigns, academics hypocritically claim that we are calling for political litmus tests or hiring based on political parties. It is an absurd argument that I have previously addressed, including in my book "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage."
The call is for donors and legislators to withhold funding until they see real reforms, including greater diversity on faculties. They are not directing the hiring but looking at the results. The faculty members objecting to such calls have watched passively (or actively supported) the purging of conservative or libertarian faculty from universities and colleges.
When confronted by their own obvious ideological litmus tests, they shrug. Some acknowledge that their departments are overwhelmingly liberal, but insist that they just cannot find "competent" or "intellectually promising" conservatives. A few will admit that they do not believe that conservative views have a place in their departments.
It is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber. If a large corporation effectively eliminated women or minorities while claiming no conscious discrimination, they would be trounced in court.
For years, I have raised concerns about the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculty members replicate their own views and values. There is no evidence that any faculty members (including those acknowledging the loss of virtually all faculty from the right of center) are honestly willing to reform their schools.
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many facing rising tuition costs and relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.
A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools - almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
We are watching the demise of American higher education by its own hand. It will be up to legislators and donors to save these institutions from themselves.
Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:55There are new reports Friday of more US troop pullback initiatives in the wake of the last couple weeks of US-Iran fighting, and Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes which have targeted American bases with increased regularity, especially in Jordan and Kuwait.
One regional media publication freshly reports, "The United States military has started to draw down its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Erbil's airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, well-placed sources with close knowledge of the process confirmed to Al-Monitor."
via APSignificant US anti-air defenses are also being pulled back, given they and their radar systems have increasingly been targeted.
"Patriot mobile air-to-surface air-defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles, drones and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound, the sources said, without providing further details," Al Monitor continues.
The pullback from the Iraqi Kurdistan region reportedly began last week and is still in progress, given all the heavy equipment has to be pulled out.
The missile batteries are expected to be 'redeployed' - but this could be further away from within the vicinity of Iran and the Persian Gulf, such as in Israel. Al Monitor notes:
Regional officials described the pullout as routine and in line with the US commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a Sept. 30 deadline that was agreed with Baghdad.
However, coming amid sustained attacks by Iran and its Shiite proxy militias, and on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in particular, the withdrawal has left the Kurds feeling badly exposed.
It's not just Iran which has targeted US personnel and assets in Iraq, but Iraqi Shia paramilitary units have at times targeted Erbil facilities going back years:
While the Patriot systems were deployed to protect US forces, the Kurds have benefited immensely from the security umbrella as well. Erbil's airport has come under constant attack from Iran and Iran-backed militias since the start of the Iran conflict in February, including this week. US interceptors successfully deterred at least 95% of those attacks, the sources said.
The bulk of Iranian and militia attacks have targeted armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region. However, the Erbil compound has also been targeted multiple times. The Patriots have an operational range of between 60 to 100 miles (100-160 kilometers).
Iran's strategy seems to focused on permanently pushing US forces back in the region, while expanding the scope of the war, in what some analysts have called 'horizontal escalation'.
Iran expels America from yet another MENA base. https://t.co/BcZjvVR0W1
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) July 31, 2026One writer calls this a process of 'debasification':
In contrast to the previous hot phase of the war, in which Iran targeted bases across the entire theater simultaneously, this wave started with the targets close to Iranian shores, and has progressed steadily to the Israeli border. After destroying much of the radar network protecting regional US Axis bases in the previous hot phase of the war, Iranian planners have prioritized targeting fuel storage, drone hangers, refueling tankers, and barracks. The American response has been to pull assets back ever further from Iran, to bases in Israel and Jordan. We’ll call this process debasification. Iran’s debasification strategy takes advantage of the inherent asymmetry between the vastly different force structure and capabilities of Iranian rocket forces and US Axis air forces.
Iraq's north has long been a place where US forces can feal more at ease with 'friendly' Kurdish groups, rather than the dwindling presence in the rest of the country. But the Kurds have also come under immense pressure within the Iraq war, especially given headlines alleging they were ready to support an Iranian Kurdish uprising inside the Islamic Republic.
Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:30Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,
For years, students were told the future belonged to college graduates with a four-year degree. Now, some of the fastest-growing opportunities are in skilled trades, where there is an escalating demand for labor and a higher level of job security amid the rise of artificial intelligence.
An instructor teaches a student about brazing—a metal joining process used in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems—at a construction trade school in Homestead, Fla., on May 9, 2026. Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesVocational schools and specialized training programs are seeing a surge of interest among Gen Z students and younger workers who are considering options beyond traditional higher education.
And the timing couldn't be better. Major infrastructure projects and the rapid buildout of AI-related facilities are fueling demand for workers with hands-on technical skills. Workforce experts say the convergence of these trends could reshape how Americans think about education and career pathways going forward.
"The past couple of years, people have been flocking to things that are considered safe from AI, but then this tailwind came in where there's also a lot of need for these roles to support the labor movement," said Brady Colby, head of market research at Validated Insights, which analyzes trends in higher education and trade school.
He told The Epoch Times that while interest in vocational studies had seen slow, steady growth in recent years, it "really took off" in the past six months.
"It's harder to recruit for some of these skilled trades than it is for computer programmers now," he said.
Validated Insights noted in its June report that trade school revenue surpassed all expected growth in 2025, expanding 11.4 percent and surpassing $19 billion. That's nearly double the original growth forecast.
The Philadelphia Technician Training Institute states on its website that many Gen Z members are choosing vocational colleges "because these institutions provide quick applied education that leads directly to rewarding professions with reliable salaries."
Mike Nager, author of The Smart Student's Guide to Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0, told The Epoch Times: "For decades, four-year degrees were seen as the only path for a safe future. Trades were seen as a fallback for those who couldn't or wouldn't go to college and get a degree."
But now when it comes to choosing a four-year degree path as the default, "the payback just isn't there anymore in many cases," he said.
He also believes an interest in education alone won't be enough to replenish the widening gap in America's skilled talent pool.
"Kids have to be shown what the trades are, get some firsthand experience. This is where the industry needs to step up, create outreach programs to address the 'awareness gap' for trades," he said.
The "awareness gap" is the disconnect between rising demand for skilled professionals and the public's perception of these careers. For years, some say it fostered the societal stigma that vocational career paths led to either overly physical or just low-paying work. On the flip side, this perception created a favorable atmosphere for standard university education.
Changing the NarrativeCyrus Kennedy, a behavioral analyst and CEO of The Ad Firm, said attitudes toward vocational careers are definitely changing.
"It's a mix of a math problem and a psychological shift," he told The Epoch Times. "Gen Z has watched older millennials drown in six-figure student debt for degrees that don't guarantee a job."
Kennedy said this trend toward vocational studies as higher education is happening at a time when there's "growing fatigue with purely digital, screen-bound work."
"Young people are realizing that specialized trades offer immediate earning potential, job security that AI can't easily displace, and a clear path to entrepreneurship without the financial chokehold of a four-year degree," he said.
Kennedy said another assumption being reexamined about working in skilled trades is the alleged cap on career growth and the risk of physical burnout.
"In reality, the trades are one of the fastest pipelines to business ownership," he said. "An apprentice plumber or electrician doesn't just learn how to fix a pipe; they learn a business model. Many transition into project managers, estimators, or business owners. It requires high-level cognitive problem-solving, customer psychology, and financial literacy."
Steven Morgan, a licensed master plumber and certified HVAC technician at 24hr.Supply, agreed. However, he said there's still a serious physical element involved in many trade professions that shouldn't be taken lightly.
"The body takes a beating. You're in attics in August, and the real money comes after years of licensing and hard experience," he said. "What students overlook most is the ceiling - field tech, foreman, estimator, then running your own shop. The ones who see that from day one go furthest."
He also doesn't find the surge in interest surprising.
"Young people watched a generation take on serious debt for degrees that didn't guarantee much, and they did the math," he said. "An apprentice earns while learning instead of paying to learn. The work also can't be shipped overseas or handed to software.
"Nobody's replacing a licensed plumber with an app."
Industries that have reported the highest number of skilled worker shortages in 2026 include electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and heavy equipment mechanics.
Meanwhile, the median pay in many of these professions now matches or exceeds that of many that require four-year degrees, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Growing interest in technical careers is also reflected in public polls. A Resume Templates survey of 1,250 Gen Z adults in January found that six out of 10 respondents planned to pursue "blue collar" work in 2026. The main reason cited was better long-term job security against possible AI-related job loss.
In May, Challenger, Grey & Christmas published research showing there were 38,579 planned job cuts due to AI - the highest monthly total they'd ever recorded for that specific reason. AI-related downsizing accounted for 40 percent of all announced cuts, up from just 7 percent in January and 26 percent in April.
One-Two PunchWhen it comes to rebuilding America's skilled labor force, there are two major factors converging. On one hand, there are millions of trade workers planning to retire through 2032.
On the other hand, there's the ongoing U.S. data center and infrastructure buildout, which is driving a technician talent crisis.
Between now and 2032, 18.4 million workers between the ages of 55 and 64 with post-secondary education plan to retire. This drastically outpaces the 13.8 million workers between the ages of 16 and 24 who will enter the labor market with the same qualifications, according to a Georgetown University analysis.
Concurrently, a Randstad analysis showed the need for skilled labor in the United States is escalating due to the data center boom. Demand for robotics technicians is up 107 percent, HVAC professionals up 67 percent, and construction-related roles up 30 percent.
Students attend a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning class at a construction trade school in Homestead, Fla., on May 9, 2026. Recent statistics show that people are exploring alternatives to the four-year degree, with many opting for trade schools. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:05