Latest news with #UniversityofNebraska-Lincoln
USA Today
05-08-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Rep. Mike Flood booed at Nebraska town hall after defending Trump policies
The event in Lincoln, Nebraska, attracted a rowdy crowd that continuously yelled and booed as GOP Rep. Mike Flood defended Trump administration policies. Congressman Mike Flood said he wanted to talk about President Donald Trump's signature legislation and declared there was "a lot of misinformation" surrounding it. That's when the shouting started, continuing for more than an hour as the Republican lawmaker faced a rowdy town hall crowd in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Aug. 4, full of people irate about Trump's new bill and other policies coming from his administration. Audience members in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Kimball Recital Hall pressed Flood on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, accused Trump of "fascism," and raised concerns about cuts to government programs. They yelled and booed continuously as Flood spoke. Trump carried Nebraska by 20 percentage points in 2024, and Flood won his district, which includes Lincoln and other communities in the eastern part of the state, by the same margin in 2024. But the town hall reflected an energized opposition to the new administration. Trump's top legislative priority, a package that includes sweeping tax cuts and deep reductions to spending on programs such as Medicaid, was a frequent target. One woman called the measure a "monstrosity." The president signed the new law on July 4. With the House in recess until September, lawmakers are now home in their districts, hearing directly from voters about the legislation. Polls indicate the measure is unpopular. Trump and the GOP have been gearing up to sell voters on it ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The town hall highlighted the challenges they face. The crowd unloaded on Flood, who tried to preempt some of the criticism by opening the event with a defense of the law, lauding the tax reductions and focusing on Medicaid work requirements and a fund to help rural hospitals. "More than anything, I truly believe this bill protects Medicaid for the future," Flood said. The crowd booed, and the criticism kept coming. The law is projected to cut $1 trillion mostly from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance plans and eliminate insurance coverage for 11.8 million people over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A person raised concerns about thousands of Nebraskans losing health insurance coverage. Other constituents focused on the CBO projection that the law will increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion over a decade. With the Trump administration embroiled in a controversy over releasing government records about Epstein, a wealthy financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, one question posed to Flood: "Why are you covering up the Epstein files?" Flood said he favors releasing the records. The congressman was also pressed about how to ensure the accuracy of the nation's economic data after Trump decided to fire Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following the agency's release of a report showing weak job creation. Flood said he didn't know the details, but that "if all that person did was get the data out there… and I don't know that's the case, but if that's all they did, I would not have fired her." "But I don't know because things are complicated," Flood added. Contributing: Ken Alltucker
Indian Express
22-06-2025
- Science
- Indian Express
22 chirps = 17°C?: How crickets became nature's living thermometers
Did you know that the cricket chirp is nature's indicator of the weather? According to the official website of Reconnect With Nature, American scientist Amos Dolbear first described this quirk of nature in 1897. In his paper 'The Cricket as a Thermometer,' he observed that the muscles crickets use to chirp move more easily in warmer temperatures than they do in cool weather. This correlation was so reliable that he was able to write a formula that connected ambient temperature to cricket chirp rates — popularly known as the Dolbear's law. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Dolbear's law states that temperature in degrees Fahrenheit is roughly equal to the number of cricket chirps in 15 seconds plus 40. Here's some cricket math: If you count 22 cricket chirps in 15 seconds, it is roughly 62 degree Fahrenheit (or 16.67 degree Celsius), because 22+40=62. If you count 35 chirps, it's about 75 degrees out (or 23.89 degree Celsius), because 35+40=75. Based on these simple equations, you can see that crickets chirp faster in warmer temperatures than they do in lower temperatures. The reason a cricket's chirp rate changes with the temperature is because they are cold-blooded, or ectothermic, meaning their body temperature is the same as that of their external environment. Chirping requires their muscles to contract, and temperature is a factor in how quickly the chemical reaction necessary for muscle contraction can occur. Muscles contract faster in warmer temperatures, allowing them to chirp at a more frequent pace. According to the Reconnect With Nature website, it is believed, however, that Dolbear was listening to a snowy tree cricket, a species that has earned itself the nickname 'thermometer cricket.' While cricket math is a useful indicator of the temperature, keep in mind the crickets generally don't chirp when the temperature is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Plus a cricket's chirping rate can be affected by hunger, age, mating success and competition from other male crickets. Although we can derive useful, if not exactly precise, information about the temperature from a cricket's chirps, that's not the point of the racket. The real reason crickets chirp is because the males attract a mate. The process of chirping is called stridulation, and crickets create their signature sound by rubbing their wings together. When they want to chirp, they raise their wings, and a structure called a scraper on one wing moves across a structure called a file on the other wing. The process of rubbing these two structures together is similar to what happens when you run a finger along the teeth of a fine-tooth comb.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The 1 Thing Rich People Can't Afford To Lose, According to Warren Buffett
Wealthy business people often have a reputation of being unscrupulous among the general public. While perhaps a bit cynical, the thought among some is that only those who are willing to do anything can get ahead, even if it means making unethical choices. But not all rich people think the same way. In fact, one of the most famous billionaires of all time, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, takes the opposite approach. According to the fifth-wealthiest person in the world, the one thing that rich people can't afford to lose is their reputation. Read More: Find Out: Here's exactly what Buffett means by that and how he implements it both for himself and for the managers in his company. Buffett responded to a question about how to make ethical business decisions at a 2005 Q&A session at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he shared the stage with fellow billionaire Bill Gates. Buffett's strategy is to prioritize integrity and build a solid reputation. Once you have this reputation, you're seen as a person worthy of doing business with. The Oracle of Omaha's strategy both for himself and for his managers is to use the 'newspaper test.' In addition to conforming to legal standards, Buffett's test is to evaluate actions based on how they 'would feel about any given action if they know it was to be written up the next day in their local newspaper.' In Buffett's scenario, he imagines the article would be 'written by a smart but pretty unfriendly reporter' and read by their family, friends and neighbors. 'It's pretty simple,' he said. 'If [the decision] passes that test, it's okay. If anything is too close to the lines, it's out.' Explore More: 'We have all the money we need,' Buffett said, referring to himself and Gates. 'While we'd like to have more, we can afford to lose money. But we can't afford to lose reputation. Not a shred.' It's clear that Buffett prizes reputation above all else. In another one of his most famous quotes, Buffett said, 'It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.' Buffett doesn't value reputation just to be a good guy. He also sees genuine economic value in a good reputation — and his belief is backed up by actual research. According to FINN, a Belgian research company, there's a direct link between financial performance and reputation — to the point that a good reputation can literally place a line of credit at a bank. Whether it's laziness, a good business practice or simply human nature, people and businesses alike tend to do more business with people they like and who have a good reputation. In many cases, a reputation is even enough to prevent people from doing their own financial due diligence, for better or worse. This means that a good business reputation can literally translate into economic gain, making it a prized asset. When one of the most popular, successful business people in the world said that reputation is everything, it's prudent to listen. Buffett said that while rich people can afford to lose some money, they can't afford to lose their reputations, on both a personal and a business level. As Buffett emphasizes, it takes years to build a reputation but only moments to lose it, so protect yours like the precious asset that it is. More From GOBankingRates 3 Luxury SUVs That Will Have Massive Price Drops in Summer 2025 10 Genius Things Warren Buffett Says To Do With Your Money 6 Hybrid Vehicles To Stay Away From in Retirement This article originally appeared on The 1 Thing Rich People Can't Afford To Lose, According to Warren Buffett
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Scientists Developed a Kind of 'Living Concrete' That Heals Its Own Cracks
Concrete is an excellent and versatile material, but it's not without its limitations. One of the biggest problems materials scientists are keen to find a workaround for is its brittleness. Concrete doesn't have very high tensile strength at all, which means it's prone to cracking under stress. One way of resolving this issue would be to develop concrete that can fill in its own cracks, and a new method could be that panacea. A team led by mechanical engineer Congrui Grace Jin of Texas A&M University has developed concrete that can heal itself by harnessing the power of synthetic lichen. It improves on previous attempts at creating self-healing 'living' concrete made using bacteria, the researchers say, by being fully self sustainable. "Microbe-mediated self-healing concrete has been extensively investigated for more than three decades," Jin explains, "but it still suffers from one important limitation – none of the current self-healing approaches are fully autonomous since they require an external supply of nutrients for the healing agents to continuously produce repair materials." Approaches using bacteria, for instance, can require humans to spray nutrients by hand to encourage the organisms to get to work to repair the damaged concrete. In a paper first authored by Nisha Rokaya of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Jin and colleagues take this approach a step further. Lichens are not single organisms, but examples of obligate mutualism, a symbiotic partnership between fungus and cyanobacteria or algae. The researchers designed a bespoke lichen using cyanobacteria that fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the atmosphere, and a filamentous fungus that attracts ionized calcium and promotes the precipitation of large amounts of calcium carbonate – the material that makes eggshell, sea shells, coral, and chalk. In laboratory tests, these lichens were able to heal cracks in concrete by depositing large amounts of calcium carbonate, gluing the crack back together and preventing it from spreading further. It's actually not dissimilar to the ancient Roman self-healing concrete that uses chemical reactions to produce the calcium carbonate to repair concrete. Unlike the bacteria approaches, the lichen doesn't need to be fed: it just hangs out, doing its thing, and doesn't need to be tended by humans. It needs to be investigated further – the researchers next plan to see how the lichen deals with pre-existing cracks – but it could present a way to improve the lifespan of a material that has become vital to humanity's way of life. "The results demonstrated the potential of creating a stable phototrophic-heterotrophic system for self-sustained concrete repair," the researchers write, "utilizing the capabilities of two species simultaneously and eliminating the need for exogenous nutrient supplies." The findings have been published in Materials Today Communications. World's First CRISPR-Edited Spiders Shoot Fluoro Red Silk From Their Butts Who Gets Your 'Digital Remains' When You Die? Here's Some Expert Advice. Rubik's Cube Record Smashed in Less Time Than It Takes to Blink
Miami Herald
22-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Money might not grow on trees, but home value does. Find out how much
Every parent who has uttered the immortal words, 'Money doesn't grow on trees,' was dead wrong. According to academic research, money does grow on trees — to the tune of billions of dollars. A study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Bureau of Business Research found that, nationwide, trees collectively add more than $31.5 billion of value to private homes each year. The research, which was sponsored by the nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, also says neighborhood trees provide more than $73 billion worth of environmental benefits yearly. To top it off, the business of growing, selling, planting and maintaining our trees employs more than a half-million people and has an economic benefit of $35 billion. The study doesn't say what trees are worth to individual homeowners, but other studies say 'plenty.' That's why homebuilders charge a premium for wooded lots, and why some buyers will gladly pay extra for mature trees. Whether their place came with large trees or not, one of the first things new homeowners do upon moving in— - after putting up curtains and laying down doormats — is upgrade their landscaping. They might spruce up their flower beds, drop in some bushes and add a tree or two. If you do it right, landscaping can pay off handsomely: The Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers says the value of mature trees runs between $1,000 and $10,000. A study from the Forest Service found that in Portland, Oregon, trees planted near houses increased their sales price by an average of $8,870. There's an entire science behind establishing the value of individual trees. But you may not need to call in a professional to establish what yours are worth. Casey Trees, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is 'committed to restoring, enhancing and protecting the tree canopy of the nation's capital,' has developed a tool that can help. Its tree benefit calculator ( can give you an idea of how much value a particular species, at various circumferences, will add to your property. Of course, trees' value isn't only monetary: They also clean the air, provide homes for local wildlife and give us cool shade, beautiful springtime flowers and vibrant fall color. But even these can be translated into dollars, to some extent. In its 1992 book 'Growing Greener Cities,' the American Forestry Association said that each year, a single deciduous tree can provide $73 worth of air conditioning, $75 worth of erosion control, $75 worth of wildlife shelter and $50 worth in air pollution reduction. Casey's tree calculator measures the value of some of these factors as well. Generally, there are four main elements that can be measured in dollars: ▪ Size: Obviously, the larger the tree, the more it's worth. And after many years of growth, trees become literally irreplaceable. ▪ Species: The most valuable trees are hardy, durable, highly adaptable and won't drop debris like nuts or pods everywhere. They will have sturdy, well-shaped branches and pleasing foliage, and require little maintenance. ▪ Condition: Of course, a healthy, well-maintained plant has a higher value. ▪ Location: A tree in the yard is usually worth more than one growing in the woods. Ditto for one standing alone versus growing in a group. A tree near your house, or one serving as a focal point in your landscape, also tends to have more value. If you have a hankering to do some landscaping, the American Society of Landscape Architects suggests investing about 5% to 10% of your home's value. Admittedly, that can be expensive, but it's less costly if you put in multiple trees at once, rather than adding them one at a time. Even so, you don't have to do everything all at once, and you can save big bucks by doing some of the work yourself. Start with smaller trees, say from 5 feet to 15 feet tall, then let them grow in size and value. Anything larger than that will require professional installation. With a realistic budget in hand, start in the front yard with the largest shade tree you can afford. It will quickly give your place an established look that would otherwise take years to create, and will have greater visual impact than several smaller trees. Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. He is a regular contributor to numerous shelter magazines and housing and housing-finance industry publications. Readers can contact him at lsichelman@
