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Enlarge / The large Barren Ridge solar panel array near Mojave, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday evening, California's Senate passed SB 100, a bill mandating that utilities serving the state move to 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2045. If the Governor signs the bill into law, it will become one of the most most aggressive in the nation, matching only Hawaii's carbon-free by 2045 commitment.

California's bill specifies that any energy obtained outside the state can not contribute to additional greenhouse gas emissions from that state. The stipulation preemptively closes a potential loophole in which California could acquire cheap energy from polluting plants in border states.

The bill also ratchets up the California's previous carbon-free energy plan, such that the state will have to move to 60 percent carbon-free energy by 2030 rather than 50 percent by 2030.

The meme that launched a veritable fleet of investigations. (credit: Kevin Lamarque / Getty Images)

The Federal Bureau of Investigations issued a terse statement today regarding President Donald J. Trump's allegation via Twitter that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private mail server had been compromised by the Chinese government. The official statement, issued by an FBI spokesperson in response to an inquiry by NBC News, simply read, "The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised"—referring to the three email servers used by Clinton during and after her tenure at the State Department.

Just after midnight this morning—apparently in response to a Daily Caller article—Trump tweeted:

Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

A June report from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General noted that the FBI had found no evidence of any compromise of Clinton's mail servers—though full forensic analysis of the servers wasn't possible, because one (an Apple server) had been disposed of by the time of the investigation. However, as the OIG report recounted, the FBI's computer forensics agent who was involved in the Clinton email investigation told OIG investigators that:

Enlarge / Getting back to the Moon will require navigating politics on Earth. (credit: JAXA / NHK)

The Apollo missions that flew to the Moon during the 1960s were designed and controlled by what is now known as Johnson Space Center, the home of the famous "Mission Control." Moreover, the astronauts that flew to the Moon all lived in Houston. It would stand to reason, therefore, that as NASA gears up to return to the Moon, major elements of this program would likewise be controlled from the Texas metropolis that styles itself "Space City."

Times change, however. In recent months, the politically well-positioned Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, has been quietly pressing leaders with NASA Headquarters for program management of mid- to large-size landers to the lunar surface, which would evolve into human landers. Sources indicated this effort was having some success.

However, Texas legislators have now begun to push back. On Tuesday, both of Texas' senators (John Cornyn and Ted Cruz), as well as three representatives with space-related committee chairs (John Culberson, Lamar Smith, and Brian Babin), wrote a letter to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Enlarge / A computer model of a Bose-Einstein condensate, showing some of its wave-like nature. (credit: NASA)

Although I often write about quantum computing, I mainly write about two forms: gate quantum computing and adiabatic quantum computing. There is a third, though, called quantum walks. Quantum walks are found in nature: a quantum walk is how the electron-transfer step in photosynthesis works. Now researchers have gotten entire clouds of atoms to go marching to their quantum beat.

Quantum walks can be implemented with light, but you would need to make a new computer for every calculation. In a Bose-Einstein condensate, however, the roles of light and matter are reversed. Researchers have used this to demonstrate a BEC quantum walk.

A bevy of quantum computers

Before we get into it, let's quickly compare the different quantum-computer types. A gate quantum computer is the most familiar. A calculation is performed using discrete logic operations using a collection of gates, and the answer is read out at the end.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Zing Images)

Homeopathic product maker King Bio has now expanded a recall to include all of its water-based human and animal treatments—a vast list including nearly 600 products. The expansion comes as the Food and Drug Administration announced it found “high levels of microbial contamination” that appears to be recurring and has the potential to cause “life-threatening” infections.

The recall expansion is the second for King Bio, which first announced a recall of just three products in July. Last week, the company voluntarily expanded the recall to include 32 child and infant products.

But the FDA wasn’t satisfied. On Tuesday, the agency issued its own alert about King Bio’s products and offered a scathing perspective of the company’s manufacturing standards and business.

Enlarge / The Fire TV Cube itself is a small, glossy cube with IR emitters built into its sides. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

Amazon may be gearing up to launch a new video-streaming service, but one that differs greatly from Prime Video. According to a report by The Information, the online retailer's subsidiary IMDb is developing an ad-supported streaming service that would be available to all Fire TV device users.

Free Dive is the purported name of the service, and it's said to be similar to The Roku Channel on Roku streaming devices. Roku's service offers a bunch of licensed shows, movies, and other video content for free to Roku device users, but viewers have to watch advertisements peppered throughout that content. Roku recently expanded The Roku Channel to Web users in the US as well, so those who do not have a Roku streaming device can also watch that content for free.

The Information's report estimates that Amazon could reach the 48 million Fire TV users with this ad-supported service. That's a lot of potential eyeballs, many of which will be amenable to sitting through a few advertisements to watch free movies and shows.