SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Here’s Why Drilling Holes in Your Skull Was Never Really a Migraine Cure.

MICHAEL LEDEEN: Italy: The Political Laboratory of the West.

TRADE: How Europeans Are Saving the Ford Mustang. “Buyers abroad are proving more faithful than Americans who grew up worshipping the pony car.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The US Air Force Is Preparing For War in Space in The Next Few Years.

THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE WEB: We need a ‘legal or regulatory framework’ to save the Web from dominant tech platforms.

The British computer scientist issued an open letter today, 29 years to the day after he first proposed his idea for the online information management system that would later become known as the Web. In the letter, he outlined what he thinks we need to do to save the Web from the concentration of power of a “few dominant platforms” that has “made it possible to weaponize the Web at scale.”

The likes of Facebook, Google, and Twitter have faced increasing scrutiny over the roles they play in disseminating fake news — while also serving as easy vehicles for third parties, including foreign governments, to manipulate public opinion.

“The Web that many connected to years ago is not what new users will find today,” Berners-Lee noted. “What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms. This concentration of power creates a new set of gatekeepers, allowing a handful of platforms to control which ideas and opinions are seen and shared.”

In the meantime, keep getting your news from friendly bloggers instead of from soulless algorithms developed by gazillion-dollar tech giants.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Jeff Bezos Is Smiling: Regulators Approve “Limited Drone Deliveries.”

YOU CAN’T SAY THAT IN THIS CLASS! But that’s not all Indiana University of Pennsylvania administrators are telling religious studies major student Lake Ingle, who had the temerity to tell classmates there are only two genders. He also can’t attend the “Self, Sin and Salvation” course that is required for him to graduate, according to LifeZette’s Elizabeth M. Economou.

IUP claims on its web site that its official policy is “to promote the growth of all people in their academic, professional, social, and personal lives. Students, faculty, and staff join together to create a community where people exchange ideas, listen to one another with consideration and respect, and are committed to fostering civility through university structures, policies, and procedures.” Apparently civility does not extend to students who state the obvious about males and females.

NO THANK YOU: Why You Might Want To Try A Yogurt Facial.

RICK MORAN: Warren Says She’s Not Running in 2020. “She also refuses to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry.”

SHARYL ATTKISSON: For press and public, big risks lurk behind ‘opposition research.’

U.S. intel officials used political opposition research (that relied on Russia) to justify wiretaps to investigate Donald Trump’s Russia ties.

Congress and an inspector general are investigating the federal investigators who investigated Trump.

Congress and the Justice Department are investigating the federal investigators’ use of political opposition research.

The latest punchline?

The political “oppo research” group in question is reportedly oppo-researching the congressional investigators who are investigating the federal investigators who used the oppo research.

In simpler terms: Congressional investigators are being targeted by those they’re investigating.

Shut down this whole sham — and maybe look into obstruction charges.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Magnetic heart pump cuts blood clots, stroke risks in study.

HMM: Tesla paused Model 3 production for planned upgrade in February.

The company did not provide specifics about the production upgrade, but it said there could be more periods of downtime in coming months.

Last month, Tesla said in a shareholder note that it continues to target weekly Model 3 production rates of 2,500 by the end of the first quarter and 5,000 by the end of the second quarter.

The company, however, said in the note that while it has plans to achieve those goals, “our prior experience on the Model 3 ramp has demonstrated the difficulty of accurately forecasting specific production rates at specific points in time.”

That’s not very reassuring.

ILYA SOMIN: Should Local Governments Have Greater Autonomy from States?

I appreciate the discussion of my intrastate secession piece. Somin concludes: “In my view, Reynolds and other commentators may underestimate the potential viability of creating new states through secession.”

EXPERT OPINION: Dave Ramsey has spent 25 years helping radio listeners climb out of debt. What does he see behind their economic anxiety?

Sitting in his wood-paneled studio, flanked by copies of his best-selling books and a Tennessee Volunteers football helmet autographed by Peyton Manning, Ramsey laments about something more fundamental: the loss of a certain kind of can-do thinking among the people who need it most. He is a conservative, fiscally and culturally, and sounds cautiously bullish about the economy under President Donald Trump. But he worries that more and more Americans of all political persuasions have become economically paralyzed, and are mistakenly looking to the government to help them solve their problems.

“There’s more of a hopelessness than I think there was,” Ramsey says. “If you don’t believe you can do it, you won’t do it. So as cheesy as it sounds, there’s a real reality in this discussion to hope. Does somebody believe that if I plant corn, I’m going to grow corn? That if I sell my car, take an extra job, get on a budget, don’t go on vacation, don’t go out to eat, and use all of that to clean up my debt, will it actually work? … That has more to do with hope than it does math.”

True.

MICHAEL WALSH: Will the wall pay for itself? “Nothing but upside to cutting the influx of illegal-alien public charges.”

MUELLER’S FORTHCOMING ASSAULT ON THE SEPARATION OF POWERS? Bloomberg: “When it comes to the obstruction portion of the investigation, Mueller is said to be focused on three main episodes: Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey last May; the drafting of a misleading statement about the purpose of a June 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and a group of Russians at Trump Tower; and the disclosure that Trump considered firing Mueller last June.”

The first and third of these are part of the Executive’s constitutional authority to hire and fire whomever he wants who works for him. It’s hard to imagine that the Supreme Court would ultimately uphold obstruction of justice charges against a president for firing his underlings, unless perhaps the president knew that the individual in question was literally just about to indict him. The view of the executive branch that Comey seems to be operating under, that the FBI director and special prosecutor are not the president’s agents but are instead somehow independent officials not subject to presidential authority is quite wrong, constitutionally.

(Bumped, by Glenn).

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, KICKBACK EDITION: University of Michigan pours billions into funds run by contributors’ firms.

MORE LIKELY THEY’D RATHER GIVE ONE TO EVERYONE THAN TAKE FARRAKHAN’S AWAY: Twitter May Give Everyone A Blue Checkmark To Weed Out The Robots.

POWER, UNLIMITED POWER: ‘Proton’ battery uses cheap carbon instead of lithium.

The batteries are a hybrid between a chemical battery and a hydrogen fuel cell. During charging, water is split to produce protons, which then pass through a cell membrane and bond to the carbon electrodes, without producing hydrogen gas. To tap the stored energy, the hydrogen ions are released and lose an electron to re-form the protons. The electrons supply power, while the hydrogen protons combine with oxygen and other electrons to re-form into water.

The big advantage with proton batteries compared to fuel cells is efficiency. The latter must produce hydrogen gas then split it back into protons, which creates losses. But a proton battery never produces hydrogen gas, so the energy efficiency is comparable to lithium-ion batteries. And even though the system is far from optimized, energy density is also comparable to lithium ion, the team said.

The researchers built a small, 1.2 volt battery, so the next step is to scale it up and improve efficiency.

Faster, please.

SOCIALISM MEANS CARING: Weaponizing hunger is a new low for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

It might be a new low for Maduro, but it’s nothing new for really committed socialists.

FRACK THAT: If Venezuela’s economy collapses, and with it the oil business, then expect oil prices to jump by as much as $10 a barrel.

BAD NEWS FOR KIM JONG UN: The Pentagon is buying more MOPs (Massive Ordnance Penetrators). These bombs go deep.

VERY RELATED: A MOP delivery system deploys to Guam.

HIS APPEAL IS BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE: Does Richard Spencer’s Disastrous College Tour Mean The ‘Alt-Right’ Is Fizzling Out?