ALMOST ALIVE: Scientists Create A Near-Living Crystal.

Three billion years after inanimate chemistry first became animate life, a newly synthesized laboratory compound is behaving in uncannily lifelike ways.

The particles aren’t truly alive — but they’re not far off, either. Exposed to light and fed by chemicals, they form crystals that move, break apart and form again.

“There is a blurry frontier between active and alive,” said biophysicist Jérémie Palacci of New York University. “That is exactly the kind of question that such works raise.”

Palacci and fellow NYU physicist Paul Chaikin led a group of researchers in developing the particles, which are described Jan. 31 in Science as forming “living crystals” in the right chemical conditions.

Their experiments are rooted in the researchers’ interest in self-organizing collective behaviors, which are easier to study in controlled particle form than in schooling fish or flocking birds.

Interesting.

NRA 2, OBAMA 0: Newtown Votes To Request Armed Police Officers In Elementary Schools.

SOCIAL MEDIA FAIL: Applebee’s waitress canned after posting pastor’s tip.

THE NEW YORK TIMES QUOTES AN OBAMA ADVISER ON CHUCK HAGEL’S PERFORMANCE: “It’s somewhere between baffling and incomprehensible.”

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT NOT SO AFFORDABLE: IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family.

SO HOW COME WE’RE NOT HEARING FROM ALL THE LIBERAL WOMEN on the Bob Menendez prostitution scandal? Oh, right, because he’s a Dem. Of course, the real scandal is that he stiffed them on the tab.

ROLL CALL: Scott Brown Won’t Run For Senate. “The Republican bench in the Bay State is thin. Potential contenders include former Gov. Bill Weld and former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.”

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED: True Story: Woman Invites Hurricane Sandy Refugee To Stay With Her, He Gets Violent And Refuses To Leave.

ISOLATED: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II.

UH OH: Internet Users, Tech Companies Beware: Son of SOPA Lives. “The new House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the former chairman of the House Judiciary Intellectual Property subcommittee and one of the co-sponsors of SOPA last year, has taken the extraordinary step of rehiring one of the chief architects of SOPA from the K Street entertainment lobby, signaling a possible resurrection of SOPA from its legislative grave.”

IS RAHM EMANUEL losing his grip on the city of Chicago?

I DUNNO, THAT’S PRETTY MUCH WHAT IT’S LIKE AT MY HOUSE: Marriage Is Not a ’24/7 Sleepover Party.’

MESSAGE TO ENVIRONMENTALISTS: STOP POISONING PEOPLE! Grocery Bag Bans And Foodborne Illness: “Recently, many jurisdictions have implemented bans or imposed taxes upon plastic grocery bags on environmental grounds. San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to enact such a regulation, implementing a ban in 2007. There is evidence, however, that reusable grocery bags, a common substitute for plastic bags, contain potentially harmful bacteria. We examine emergency room admissions related to these bacteria in the wake of the San Francisco ban. We find that ER visits spiked when the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, ER admissions increase by at least one fourth, and deaths exhibit a similar increase.”

DAVID BOAZ: Top 10 Ways to Talk about Libertarianism.

JOAN HEMINWAY: What Is A Security In The Crowdfunding Era?

RAND SIMBERG: NASA’s Mission Is Not Safety: To honor the lives lost in past missions, we must keep exploring.

CHUCK HAGEL’S VERY BAD DAY. “The Left wanted Chuck to repudiate Bush’s Neo-Con War for Oil — the Jews! the Jews! — and instead he is forced to eat humble pie on national TV. Bad enough to have once made a few vaguely Stormfront-ish comments about Israel, but then to get up in front of a Senate hearing and deny everything . . . eh, it looks cowardly.”

Plus, the ghost of John Tower. “Though he was being asked about things he had said over the course of the past 15 years, it was what Hagel said yesterday — and how he said what he said — that had his defenders reeling in shock and even his critics aghast at how poorly he handled himself.”

TOM MAGUIRE ON “PUBLIC HEALTH” JIGGERY-POKERY AT THE TIMES:

The NY Times is now fretting that focusing on the link between mental health and gun violence may not be “fair”. What is striking is that when the Times opines on “gun violence” and the need for policies including an assault weapons ban and a limit on magazine capacity, they cite 30,000 gun deaths a year; that figure is based on roughly 19,000 firearm suicides and 11,000 firearm homicides.

Yet now, where the topic is mental illness and access to guns, the emphasis is exclusively on homicides; in fact, the word “suicide” does not appear in their article.

Yes, it is a puzzling use of statistics – the link between magazine capacity and suicide is tenuous at best, but one might imagine that the links between mental illness, suicide and access to guns are much stronger.

But its TimesWorld, so there may be a subtle agenda at play, and maybe “gun violence” is not their real concern.

Jeez.

UPDATE: News Flash: Crazy People Are Dangerous.

WHAT AUSTERITY? Federal Spending Set To Climb 2% This Year.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): In a Continuing Indictment of Obamanomics, Another Bad Jobs Number Showing the “New Normal” of High Unemployment.

Plus, an update of that devastating graphic on what was promised vs. what has been delivered.

AT AMAZON, up to 60% off on clothing.

Also, today only: 35% Off Rosetta Stone Level 1 Language-Learning Software.

WHO SAYS THERE’S NO HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE? Frozen Generation: US Youth Immobilized by Student Debt. “On Wednesday TransUnion LLC released an alarming report confirming one of our greatest fears: one-third of all student loans are going to subprime borrowers, and many of these loans are beginning to go bad. . . . Given that the federal government is now responsible for nearly 93 percent of student loans, many are beginning to worry that taxpayers will once again find themselves on the hook for bad loans. And with a fraying job market and ballooning university costs costs, these loans won’t get any easier to pay off.”

Are ya feelin’ the hopey-changey yet?

NEW YORK POST: Bob Menendez is certainly raising new questions about what the Senate means by “foreign relations.” Plus, noting his hypocrisy about the Secret Service prostitution scandal.

SEN. TED CRUZ IN POLITICO: Chuck Hagel’s Confirmation-Day Conversion. “Some of my Senate colleagues may be satisfied that the pledges he has made in recent days are more meaningful than his policy record compiled over the past fifteen years. I am not.”