Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian foreign protesters, one of them is an American citizen

President Trump is not alone! There are copycats abroad! 😊

Will President Trump accept the return of this American citizen? 😊

"Germany is moving to deport four foreign residents of Berlin over their alleged activity at pro-Palestinian protests, in a move that appears likely to test a foundational principle adopted in the wake of the Holocaust.

Three of the residents are citizens of the European Union, which normally allows free movement between member states. Kasia Wlaszczyk is a citizen of Poland, and Shane O’Brien and Roberta Murray are citizens of Ireland.

The fourth, Cooper Longbottom, is a 27-year-old U.S. citizen from Seattle who faces a ban from all 29 European countries in the Schengen Zone for two years after leaving Germany.

German immigration authorities ordered this group’s expulsion based on separate allegations tied to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including a sit-in at the Berlin central train station, a road blockade and the occupation of a building at the Free University. 

The deportation orders say that two of the protesters called a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer is illegal in Germany — and three demonstrated with groups that chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan the country outlawed last year as antisemitic. All of them are also accused of “indirectly” supporting Hamas and pro-Hamas organizations in Europe.

They have been given a deadline of April 21 to leave Germany or be forcibly deported. ..."

Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters - Jewish Telegraphic Agency "One of the people who has been ordered to leave the country is a U.S. citizen."

A startup is Building a nuclear reactor the size of a desktop computer in Israel. Really

My second blog post today about nuclear fusion (see also my first one here)! I feel energized! 😊 However, this article appears to be a marketing or publicity piece as it does not e.g. contain any new information.

"A startup in Israel is developing a nuclear reactor no bigger than a desktop computer.

Having proved that the breakthrough technology works, Metatron N.R.G. now aims to build a fully functioning prototype.

If the researchers succeed, their miniature device could revolutionize the world of clean, affordable energy.

Metatron N.R.G. is among dozens of startups globally seeking to harness the power of nuclear fusion in small-scale reactors, but it alone has overcome significant technical hurdles to do so using micro-entities called plasmoids. ..."

Building a nuclear reactor the size of a desktop computer - ISRAEL21c "Metatron N.R.G. says its miniature device using a unique form of nuclear fusion could revolutionize the world of clean, affordable energy."

Metatron N.R.G. (Unfortunately, the company's website seems to be outdated and stale)

Israel's magnificent new Museum of Tolerance is opening its doors to the public

Israelis worldwide are tested every day by antisemitism and enmity!

"The newly opened Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem resembles a bridge or a dove with outstretched wings, representing its founders’ vision of promoting unity, dignity and respect among Jews and people of all faiths. 

Conceived as the Israeli counterpart of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles developed by the LA-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, the 150,000-square-foot glass-and-stone museum ironically sparked controversies from the time ground was broken in April 2004. 

The project hit snags including the discovery of a 1,000-year-old Muslim cemetery under the building site, which had been a parking lot. Ensuing protests, plan changes, a Supreme Court case and the reinterring of remains led to lengthy delays and a final price tag more than double the original estimate. 

Renowned architect Frank Gehry, whose (also controversial) design was approved in 2002, pulled out of the project eight years later. The current building was designed by Israeli architects Bracha and Michael Chyutin, who also later left the project. ..."

Israel's magnificent new Museum of Tolerance is a study in just that  - ISRAEL21c "Dogged by controversy from the start, the Museum of Tolerance is finally opening its doors to the public, though the finished museum still isn’t quite up to full speed."

Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem

Looks more like an opera house or grand piano to me! Just kidding!

Museum staircase

Gruppenchat aus der Hölle: Ein Journalist deckte kürzlich ein gigantisches Sicherheitsleck in der US-Regierung auf

Ist das ein schlechter Aprilscherz aus der Bananenrepublik D? Sicher doch!

Was für ein grandioser Schwachsinn! Das war Bestenfalls ein Sturm im Wasserglas! Das stellt ja sogar die Bild Zeitung weit in den Schatten.

Hat hier der Freitag einen Artikel von The Guardian übernommen?

Vorsicht: Habe den Artikel nicht gelesen!

Geheimer Signal-Chat: Wer ist „Atlantic“-Chefredakteur Jeffrey Goldberg? — der Freitag "Jeffrey Goldberg deckte kürzlich ein gigantisches Sicherheitsleck in der US-Regierung auf. Der Chefredakteur des „Atlantic“-Magazins brachte damit Donald Trump und seine Leute in arge Bedrängnis. Es war nicht das erste Mal"

Commercialized Nuclear fusion energy and new power plant design: Tokamak versus stellarator

The rumble in the reactor! 

Forget about unreliable, intermittent wind and solar power! What a waste of resources! What a regression!

Will machine learning & AI finally design a working and effective nuclear fusion reactor? You bet!

"The doughnut-shaped tokamak is the familiar face of fusion reactors. But many researchers—and startup companies—are beginning to realize that its twistier cousin, the stellarator, has better prospects as a future power plant. They’ve gotten less attention over the years because they performed less well and are tough to build, but in operation a stellarator should just purr along like a kitten, compared to the twitchier tokamak.

The ultimate test of stellarators and other fusion reactors is to get their fuel of ionized hydrogen to a temperature and pressure where nuclei will fuse, something that no reactor has achieved except in the brief laser flashes at the National Ignition Facility in California. Tokamaks and stellarators both used complex systems of magnets to hold the ionized gas, or plasma, in place while it is heated. Tokamaks have long performed best at holding onto particles and heat but are prone to potentially damaging “disruptions” when the plasma breaks free.

After decades of work trying to understand why stellarators underperform, researchers believe they have computed out their shortcomings.

The key is a series of bizarrely twisted magnets to produce an exact magnet field to hold onto particles. Now the largest stellarator yet built, Wendelstein 7-X, is beginning to compete with similar tokamaks. Investors have noticed and a bevy of companies are now hoping to commercialize stellarators. Over the past few weeks, several of them—Type One Energy, Proxima Fusion, and Thea Energy—have published magnet test results and reactor designs that they believe could be generating electricity by the end of next decade. “People are coming to realize the stellarator maybe is the way to go,” says Type One vice president Chris Hegna."

"Type One Energy announced today publication of the world’s first comprehensive, self-consistent, and robust physics basis, with conservative design margins, for a practical fusion pilot power plant. This physics basis is presented in a series of seven peer-reviewed scientific papers in a special issue of the prestigious Journal of Plasma Physics (JPP). They serve as the foundation for the company’s first Infinity Two stellarator fusion power plant project, which Type One Energy is developing for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) utility in the U.S.

The Infinity Two fusion pilot power plant physics design basis realistically considers, for the first time, the complex relationship between competing requirements for plasma performance, power plant startup, construction logistics, reliability, and economics utilizing actual power plant operating experience. This Infinity Two baseline physics solution makes use of the inherently favorable operating characteristics of highly optimized stellarator fusion technology using modular superconducting magnets, as was so successfully proven on the W7-X science machine in Germany. ..."

ScienceAdviser

Physics Basis of the Infinity Two Fusion Power Plant "This special issue’s six peer-reviewed articles provide a comprehensive physics basis for a fusion pilot power plant, Type One Energy’s Infinity Two stellarator. The completion of this study is a major achievement in efforts to commercialize fusion energy based on the stellarator confinement concept."

Type One Energy Issues First Realistic, Unified Fusion Power Plant Design Basis

Wendelstein 7-X

Getting Cancer to Unmask Itself to be targeted by immune response

Amazing stuff! Cancer is history (soon)!

"... cancer cells often evade detection by displaying very few suspicious proteins that the immune system can identify and target. A new approach to cancer treatment ... increases the number of the immune system’s targets by disrupting protein production in cancerous cells. In a new study ... the researchers show that this disruption forces the cancer cells to expose themselves by producing dozens of suspicious proteins, which leads to a powerful immune response that is capable of destroying human cancer cells and slowing the development of aggressive tumors in mouse models. ...

However, many types of cancer harbor few mutations, leaving the immune system with very few effective targets for identifying and eradicating the cancer cells. ...

To disrupt the translation process in human melanoma cells, the research team ... used genetic engineering to delete one of those enzymes. The deletion caused the ribosome to misread the genetic instructions, incorrectly divide the words and produce proteins with the wrong amino acids. In their study the researchers identified 34 short proteins, uniquely synthesized in cancer cells, that had been disrupted, and showed that some of them could be effective new targets for triggering an immune response against the cancer. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• TYW2 loss induces ribosomal FS and immunogenic aberrant peptide MHC presentation

• Impaired translation fidelity limits tumor growth in a CD8+ T cell-dependent manner

• Tyw2 KO enhances CD8+ T cell infiltration into tumors and sensitivity to ICB

• TYW2 expression predicts survival and ICB response in patients with primary melanoma

Summary

Aberrant peptides presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules are targets for tumor eradication, as these peptides can be recognized as foreign by T cells.

Protein synthesis in malignant cells is dysregulated, which may result in the generation and presentation of aberrant peptides that can be exploited for T cell-based therapies.

To investigate the role of translational dysregulation in immunological tumor control, we disrupt translation fidelity by deleting tRNA wybutosine (yW)-synthesizing protein 2 (TYW2) in tumor cells and characterize the downstream impact on translation fidelity and immunogenicity using immunopeptidomics, genomics, and functional assays. These analyses reveal that TYW2 knockout (KO) cells generate immunogenic out-of-frame peptides.

Furthermore, Tyw2 loss increases tumor immunogenicity and leads to anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) checkpoint blockade sensitivity in vivo. Importantly, reduced TYW2 expression is associated with increased response to checkpoint blockade in patients.

Together, we demonstrate that defects in translation fidelity drive tumor immunogenicity and may be leveraged for cancer immunotherapy."

Getting Cancer to Unmask Itself - Life Sciences | Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries "Researchers ... manipulated cancer cells into making themselves visible to the immune system, creating a new approach that gives hope to patients with previously untreatable disease"

Translation dysregulation in cancer as a source for targetable antigens (open access)

Graphical abstract

After the translation process in tumor cells was disrupted (left), many more killer T cells (red) penetrated the tumor environment, as compared to the same growth in which the translation process was intact (right). Other types of immune cells are in blue

Study of Lyft drivers reveals reality of ‘driving while Black’. Really!

This is another piece of junk science and junk journalism as so often produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)!

This indoctrination is driven by a leftist obsession with purported racism claims!

Notice it is Black versus white drivers!

Notice that this study is only limited to Florida!

Perhaps the biggest and most devastating flaw of this study: The study authors did not bother to directly sample the ethnicity/race of the 200,000 Lyft drivers, but by inferring ethnicity/race of these drivers by "fit[ting] a model that relates the self-reported race or ethnicity of the 45.7% of drivers who are registered voters in Florida to a picture that each driver submits when they apply to drive on Lyft’s platform. This fitted model is then used to infer the race or ethnicity from the picture submitted by the 54.3% of drivers who are not registered voters.".

One may also question the motives of these researchers: If researchers are obsessed with purported racism, then they will find it despite facts to the contrary. 

There are several, serious doubts about this study's finding of racial profiling of drivers by police officers or racial bias in policing (It appears none of the following questions were investigated in this study):

1. What was the skin color of the police officers? How many of the police officers were non-white?
2. How do drivers respond to and interact with police officers during a traffic stop? Will some drivers more likely insult a police officer as racist?
3. What were the driving records of the drivers at the time of the traffic stop?
4. Where (location) did the traffic stop occur? (That this study focused narrowly on the Florida Highway Patrol is probably not good enough. Potentially, this particular selection of the FHP may have introduced a bias by itself.)

The abstract indicates that the authors have taken into account accidents and reoffenses. It states "no evidence that accident and reoffense rates explain these estimates"). However, when you look at how the authors defined and measured accidents and reoffenses (see the Methods section of the study), then you find out their approach was rather dubious and peculiar!

"The phrase “driving while Black” entered the American lexicon in the 1990s, when the people learned that police officers were explicitly targeting racial and ethnic minorities for traffic stops. Still, the argument has persisted that higher numbers of detainments and citations for non-white drivers are not due to bias, but rather, a higher likelihood for those drivers to engage in traffic offenses. Now, using a clever dataset, researchers have clearly demonstrated the latter is untrue.

A team analyzed data from more than 200,000 Lyft drivers in Florida who were tracked using high frequency GPS pings from their smartphones. In that way, the team was able to determine whether and by how much a driver was speeding when they were pulled over, regardless of what was written in a police report. They also assessed how often that driver engaged in such behaviors. The data were unequivocal: There were no discernible differences in driving behavior between white and minority drivers, yet police were up to 33% more likely to issue a citation and charged up to 34% more if the driver wasn’t white.

“Our findings suggest that police racial profiling of drivers is due to police having animus or prejudice against minority drivers,” the team writes. Properly translating these findings into policy actions will require additional work, write Dean Knox and Jonathan Mummolo in a related Perspective. “For example, it may be just as important to study bias in how officers are assigned to work those locations and times in the first place—estimates that may reveal patterns of, for example, overdeployment in minority neighborhoods causing disparate impact.”"

"Data limitations have long stymied research on racial bias in policing. To persuasively demonstrate bias, scholars have sought to compare officer behavior toward minority versus white civilians while holding constant all other factors in the police-civilian encounter that might provide alternative explanations for enforcement disparities. ... On page 1397 of this issue, Aggarwal et al. (2) report using data from the ridesharing service Lyft—having obtained vehicle location on more than 200,000 drivers using high frequency GPS pings from their smartphones—to analyze speeding enforcement by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) and to show how such data offer a path forward for addressing both challenges.

One challenge to establishing all-else equal comparisons in studies of policing is that standard police datasets contain one sided officer accounts of civilian behavior, which past work has shown do not always accurately measure actual driver behavior. For example, prior research (3) has shown that in the same FHP context, officers gave white drivers a “discount” on tickets by reporting lower speeds relative to the speeds reported for minority drivers. Aggarwal et al. use the Lyft data to construct an objective measure of speeding behavior.

The other challenge is that traditional police-generated datasets are inherently selective: For example, they do not contain every police-civilian encounter in which an officer could have cited a speeding driver but rather only the subset in which an officer chose to pull vehicles over and therefore had to fill out forms documenting the stop. ... The approach of Aggarwal et al. resolves this challenge too, by allowing researchers to observe all times when Lyft drivers are active rather than only the selected sample of those where officers chose to detain them."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

US police detain racial or ethnic minority drivers (Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, and Hispanic) more than white drivers. However, a longstanding debate remains unsettled: Does this necessarily reflect police bias? Hypothetically, if minorities were more prone to disobey speed limits and traffic laws, then their traffic stops may be warranted. To put this debate to rest [???], Aggarwal et al. examined rideshare data from Lyft in the state of Florida to compare minority drivers with their white counterparts. Lyft objectively measured drivers’ locations, driving speed, and location speed limits ... White and minority drivers showed no discernible differences in speeding behaviors or traffic violations. However, when both drove at identical speeds, police were still 33% more likely to issue speeding citations to minority drivers and charged 34% more expensive fines, unequivocally revealing bias.  ...

Abstract

Prior research on racial profiling has found that in encounters with law enforcement, minorities are punished more severely than white civilians. Less is known about the causes of these encounters and their implications for our understanding of racial profiling. Using high-frequency location data of rideshare drivers in Florida (N = 222,838 individuals), we estimate the effect of driver race on citations and fines for speeding using 19.3 million location pings. Compared with a white driver traveling the same speed, we find that racial or ethnic minority drivers are 24 to 33% more likely to be cited for speeding and pay 23 to 34% more money in fines. We find no evidence that accident and reoffense rates explain these estimates, which suggests that an animus against minorities underlies our results."

Caveat: I did not read the entire study.

ScienceAdviser

New data fill long-standing gaps in the study of policing (Perspective,, open access) "Data show discrimination, but analysis must be more policy relevant"

High-frequency location data show that race affects citations and fines for speeding (no public access)

Pilotless air taxi gains approval to start commercial flight operations in two large cities of China

Good news!

China is pushing the envelope! While President Trump uses the old fashioned and crude cudgel of trade tariffs to gain an advantage for the US.

"Tickets for autonomous flights over two tourist spots in China [Guangzhou and Hefei] should go on sale shortly. China's civil aviation authority has given the green light for urban air mobility outfit EHang to begin low-altitude commercial operations with its EH216-S eVTOL. ..."

Pilotless air taxi gains approval to start commercial flight operations

The pilotless EH216-S eVTOL can carry two paying customers per sight-seeing trip above the city port of Guangzhou

They’d Rather Die: The Lesson That genetics of Male Roundworms Refuse to Learn unlike female roundworms

Are females not superior to males? My feminism influenced mother tried to teach me.

The study is flawed in so far as it compares males to hermaphrodites and not females. Nevertheless, the study suggests that females learn faster than males when it comes to dangers.

"In human society, men tend to be seen as risk-takers, while women are seen as being more cautious. According to evolutionary psychologists, this difference developed in the wake of threats to each sex, and their respective needs. ... clearcut differences between females and males are often evident in other animals, even in simple organisms such as worms. In a new study published ... researchers showed that male worms are worse at learning from experience and find it hard to avoid taking risks – even at the cost of their own lives – and that allowing them to mate with members of the opposite sex improves these capabilities. The scientists also discovered a protein, evolutionarily conserved in creatures from worms all the way to humans, that appears to be responsible for the different learning abilities of the two sexes. ...

C. elegans, a tiny roundworm, is a perfect model for investigating the fundamental genetic differences between the sexes, since the sex of the worm is determined by genes alone, without any hormonal or other factors. These worms are divided into two sexes: males, and females that are actually hermaphrodites that also produce male sex cells and can either fertilize themselves or mate with males. ...

Roundworms get their nourishment from bacteria and, unfortunately for them, are particularly attracted to the odor of one disease-causing bacterium that, if they consume it, harms them. ... “training,” growing worms of both sexes separately and feeding them a diet of the harmful bacterium. After this training, the worms were moved to a “test” dish, where they were free to choose between the toxic bacterium and another one that, while less tempting, would not harm them in any way.

The female worms quickly learned to draw a link between the odor of the harmful bacteria and the disease that it causes, and therefore chose to eat from the other bacterium. 

Most males, however, failed to learn and continued consuming the harmful bacterium, even though they got just as sick ... When the researchers waited for a longer period, a few of the males eventually learned to avoid the harmful bacterium, but only after they were severely infected, became ill and many of them died. ..."

From the abstract:

"The evolutionary paths taken by each sex within a given species sometimes diverge, resulting in behavioral differences. Given their distinct needs, the mechanism by which each sex learns from a shared experience is still an open question.

Here, we reveal sexual dimorphism in learning: C. elegans males do not learn to avoid the pathogenic bacteria PA14 as efficiently and rapidly as hermaphrodites. Notably, neuronal activity following pathogen exposure was dimorphic: hermaphrodites generate robust representations, while males, in line with their behavior, exhibit contrasting representations.

Transcriptomic and behavioral analysis revealed that the neuropeptide receptor npr-5, an ortholog of the mammalian NPY/NPF-like receptor, regulates male learning by modulating neuronal activity. Furthermore, we show the dependency of the males’ decision-making on their sexual status and demonstrate the role of npr-5 as a modulator of incoming sensory cues. Taken together, these findings illustrate how neuromodulators drive sex-specific behavioral plasticity in response to a shared experience."

They’d Rather Die: The Lesson That Male Roundworms Refuse to Learn - Life Sciences | Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries "Researchers found that male worms do not learn from experience as well as females do – and discovered the neural receptor responsible, which also exists in humans"

Modulation by NPY/NPF-like receptor underlies experience-dependent, sexually dimorphic learning (open access)

Fig. 1: Distinct tissues govern sexually dimorphic short-term learning of PA14 avoidance.

Rabea Rogge: Deutschlands erste Frau im All

Gute Nachrichten aus der Bananenrepublik D! Das scheint kein Aprilscherz der Bild zu sein! Sie fliegt mit Elon Musk! 

"I'd Love That" Trump Responds to the Idea of Running Against Obama for a 3rd Term

How is that for an April 1st joke? Good one! Will Obama take up the challenge? Since Obama, the Dimocratic Party had only mediocre presidential candidates!

See also my blog post here about the leftist nonsense of a third term for President Trump.

Tromba Marina—A string instrument that sounds like a trumpet!

Recommendable! From my neighborhood museum! Unfortunately, it again one of those annoying, narrow format videos that have become popular on YouTube lately.

US Senator Cory Booker Breaks Record for Longest Senate Speech in Trump Protest. Really!

This fool looks so shaggy and out of shape! With fools like this and giving speeches like this, the Dimocratic Party will surely lose more elections unless the GOP makes big mistakes!

The American migrants heading for Mexico to flee Trump • FRANCE 24 English. Really!

What an April 1st Joke! What a junk journalism! Where did France 24 find these three individuals featured in this video?

"France 24 is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris."

‘Startling’ Discovery Revealed Lost Species Of ‘Hobbit’ Humans on the island of Flores, Indonesia

Recommendable! But this is not a new discovery, it may date back to 2015.

Deep Purple : Woman From Tokyo (1973) extended version

Enjoy! Giving away what an old dude I am! 😋

Deep Purple - Speed King - Live (1970)

Enjoy! Don't miss the e-guitar acrobatics!

US space superiority crucial in fight with China, Russia

Recommendable! A serious concern!

Why Netflix series "Adolescence" has Sparked a Global Conversation with Palki Sharma

Recommendable, but disturbing!

Israel Warns Egypt Over Sinai Peninsula, Alleges Treaty Violation with Palki Sharma

Recommendable! Will the Sinai peninsula again become a flashpoint between Egypt and Israel after three previous wars in the past 80 years?

Trump Pauses Harvard University's $9 Billion Funding with Palki Sharma

Recommendable! Good news!

Chart of the day

What is missing from the chart? E.g. the years of the first Trump administration or even more historical data. Elon Musk is probably very smart, but he makes mistakes too.

Elon Musk’s Chart Showing How Many Noncitizens Have Social Security Numbers (Source)

High-resolution images discover and capture intricate structure and assembly of the respirasome supercomplex

Amazing stuff!

"... Using cryo-electron tomography, researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have now gained insight into the architecture of mitochondria at unprecedented resolution. ...

They discovered that the proteins responsible for energy generation assemble into large "supercomplexes," which play a crucial role in providing the cell's energy. ...

"Using the electron microscope, individual supercomplexes were clearly visible—we could directly see their structures and how they work. The respiratory supercomplexes pump protons across the mitochondrial membrane. The ATP production complexes, which act similarly to a watermill, use this flow of protons to drive ATP generation." ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

The mitochondrial respiratory chain consists of membrane-integral complexes that build up the proton gradient across the membranes of the cristae, thereby powering ATP synthase.

Waltz et al. used cryo–electron tomography to resolve native structures of these complexes directly within the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Their findings reveal how respiratory complexes I, III, and IV assemble into a respirasome supercomplex, which is restricted to flat membrane regions apart from rows of ATP synthase at the curved tips of cristae. The work also captures fine structural details of how respirasomes are held together and how electron-carrier proteins bind these assemblies, offering insights into mitochondrial respiration inside native cells. ...

Abstract

Mitochondria regenerate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) through oxidative phosphorylation. This process is carried out by five membrane-bound complexes collectively known as the respiratory chain, working in concert to transfer electrons and pump protons. The precise organization of these complexes in native cells is debated.

We used in situ cryo–electron tomography to visualize the native structures and organization of several major mitochondrial complexes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells. ATP synthases and respiratory complexes segregate into curved and flat crista membrane domains, respectively. Respiratory complexes I, III, and IV assemble into a respirasome supercomplex, from which we determined a native 5-angstrom (Å) resolution structure showing binding of electron carrier cytochrome c. Combined with single-particle cryo–electron microscopy at 2.4-Å resolution, we model how the respiratory complexes organize inside native mitochondria."

High-resolution images capture intricate structure of mitochondrial supercomplexes

The cell’s powerhouses: Molecular machines enable efficient energy production (original news release) "Mitochondria are the powerhouses in our cells, producing the energy for all vital processes. Using cryo-electron tomography, researchers at the University of Basel have now gained insight into the architecture of mitochondria at unprecedented resolution. They discovered that the proteins responsible for energy generation assemble into large “supercomplexes”, which play a crucial role in providing the cell’s energy."

In-cell architecture of the mitochondrial respiratory chain (no public access)

In-cell architecture of the mitochondrial respiratory chain (open access, preprint)

I presume, this image represents the supercomplex (a screenshot take from the linked YouTube video, but the video is without any captions and without any audio, how amateurish)

This is the official image provided. However, I believe this is a sort of artistic rendering and not a real image.

Land reparations are possible − and over 225 US communities are already working to make amends for slavery and colonization. Really!

The benefits of federalism! Nutty municipalities and other communities and their nutty professor enablers get to do what they like best. 😊

This is a leftist ideology driven project to try to very selectively remedy pet issues/grievances of history!

Notice again the ideological, capitalized B in Black American.

"Ever since the United States government’s unfulfilled promise of giving every newly freed Black American “40 acres and a mule” after the Civil War, descendants of the enslaved have repeatedly proposed the idea of redistributing land to redress the nation’s legacies of slavery.

Land-based reparations are also a form of redress for the territorial theft of colonialism. ...

Yet our research shows a growing number of municipalities and communities across the U.S. are quietly taking up the charge.

We are geographers who since 2021 have been documenting and analyzing over 225 examples of reparative programs underway in U.S. cities, states and regions. Notably, over half of them center land return. ..."

Land reparations are possible − and over 225 US communities are already working to make amends for slavery and colonization

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's tattoo in Arabic sparks controversy

Amazing stuff! You can't make this up! 😊

Supposedly, this is a right wing symbol of Islamophobia.

What is President Trump thinking or saying about this?

P.S. Just learned that Hegseth (age 44) has been already married three times.

"US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has come under significant public criticism after images shared on social media on Tuesday revealed he has a tattoo of the Arabic word "kafir" (which means "infidel" or "non-believer"). ..."

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's tattoo in Arabic sparks controversy - The Jerusalem Post "The term "kafir" (meaning "infidel" or "non-believer") is used in Islam to describe non-believers and has increasingly been appropriated by far-right groups."

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's tattoo, "kafir" (meaning "infidel" or "non-believer")

Turkey's Erdogan calls on Allah to 'damn Zionist Israel' and wished 'mercy upon the martyrs' on Eid al-Fitr holiday

The Osman sultan Erdogan (age 71) is getting more and more deranged. He is a promoter of Islamism.

Keep in mind: Turkey is a NATO member!

"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the destruction of Israel at the Turkish Eid al-Fitr (festival ending Ramadan) prayer on Sunday, with Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu quoting the president as saying, “May Allah damn Zionist Israel.”

Erdogan spoke at the Grand Camlica Mosque in Istanbul, along with Islamic scholar Ali Erbas, who delivered a religious sermon.

During his speech, Erdogan stated, “We all know what is happening in Palestine” and referred to Allah as “al-Qahhar” – one of Allah’s 99 Quranic names, which could be translated as “The dominator who prevails over all creation” – when asking for Zionism and Israel to be destroyed, Anadolu said.

Erdogan also wished “mercy upon the martyrs” and a “speedy recovery to the veterans,” referring to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and Gaza civilians who were killed and wounded since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War.

Earlier on Sunday, Erdogan released a nationwide message to mark the holiday, in which he stated, “The genocide taking place in Gaza ..."

Turkey's Erdogan calls on Allah to 'damn Zionist Israel' on Eid al-Fitr - The Jerusalem Post "Erdogan spoke at Istanbul's Grand Camlica Mosque where he asked Allah to ensure that Zionism and Israel are destroyed, while wishing "mercy upon the (Hamas) martyrs""

Erdogan with his wife

Eight Palestine Red Crescent Society medics were killed in Gaza by Israel's military. Really!

Again and again, all too gullible Western media report about alleged homicides of supposedly innocent individuals or even first responders by Israel.

A quick reminder: A Hamas headquarters in Gaza was located under a hospital. It was also reported that Hamas and other terrorists use ambulance vehicles for terrorist purposes.

Did any of the journalists verify who was actually inside the ambulance vehicle? The Guardian article also mentions that this ambulance vehicle was sort of driving in a convoy approaching Israeli soldiers of which the first vehicle was identified as a Hamas vehicle.

"Eight Palestine Red Crescent Society medics were killed when Israel’s military fired on ambulances they identified as “suspicious vehicles”—marking the single deadliest attack on Red Cross members anywhere in the world since 2017 and bringing to 30 the number of PRCS workers killed since October 2023."

"... It said it was the single most deadly attack on its colleagues anywhere in the world since 2017. ..."

Global Health NOW: The Rocky Response to Burma’s Earthquake; Revisiting Extraordinary Journeys; and The Dangerous Blights of Skin Bleaching

Red Cross federation ‘outraged’ at deaths of Red Crescent medics in Gaza "Secretary general says he is ‘heartbroken’ by the news, after Israeli military says it fired on ‘suspicious vehicles’ that were later found to include ambulances"

African countries thank Trump for cutting aid as a wake-up call

It has been known and discussed for at least several decades that Western aid to developing countries can be counterproductive.

"... Steep aid cuts from some of the world’s biggest donors, particularly America, are blowing holes in African health budgets as Washington, London, Paris and others slash their assistance spending. ...

“[African nations] must stand on their own,” South Africa’s health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, told the Telegraph on the sidelines of the G20 health summit in Durban.

“This message is to say please stand on your own, because no country can depend forever on another country. It’s a wake up call. ...

Similar sentiments have been voiced in other African capitals.

“I want to thank Mr Trump actually, I think he’s slapped us not on one cheek but on both cheeks, we should have been hammered a long time ago,” Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said. His country was receiving £460m ($600m) in aid a year from the US.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, has used the crisis to repeat his criticism of how aid  undermines sovereignty.

“Whoever gives you aid controls your life,” he said earlier this month.

Meanwhile Nigeria has said it refuses to beg. ..."

 

Global Health NOW: The Rocky Response to Burma’s Earthquake; Revisiting Extraordinary Journeys; and The Dangerous Blights of Skin Bleaching

‘We should have been hammered a long time ago’: African countries thank Trump for aid wake-up call "Just as European countries have grouped together on defence, African leaders want to take back control too"

President of Zambia Hakainde Hichilema

China Miéville, a weird fiction writer

If one's first name is indeed China and the last name is similar to Herman Melville, then what kind of literature would one likely be writing? Caution: satire.

"He often describes his work as "weird fiction", and is allied to the loosely associated movement of writers called New Weird."

Some authors strive to create a persona, sometimes larger than their literary output.

China Miéville - Wikipedia

Credits: China Miéville says we shouldn’t blame science fiction for its bad readers

Google's Isomorphic Labs announces $600m external investment round

Good news! Let AI dazzle us with new drugs!

"... Isomorphic Labs, a division within Google using AI to accelerate drug design, has raised $600 million from outside investors. Jared Kushner-owned Thrive Capital led the round ..."

Isomorphic Labs announces $600m external investment round - Isomorphic Labs

Credits: Techcrunch newsletter

Government interest in chat archiving service skyrockets following Signalgate

Was privacy and undocumented/unrecorded chatting not one of the main reasons why government officials resorted to the Signal chat app (I blogged here about it)?

Government interest in chat archiving service skyrockets following Signalgate - Nextgov/FCW "Top staffers across the government have reached out to Whiterock Technologies about its electronic communications preservation service amid a court ruling tied to last week’s Signal chat with top administration officials that accidentally included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg."

Two GOP-led states remove about 300,000 voter registrations from voter rolls and non citizen voter registrations and cast votes were identified

This clean up is long overdue!

For many years, there were credible reports of seriously outdated/inaccurate voter rolls that may impact voting results in those cases when the results were close! Probably, one of the working hypothesis was it would affect both parties in a similar way or no party did have a clear benefit from outdated voter rolls.

"Collectively, the GOP-led states of Idaho and Missouri took nearly 300,000 registrations off their voter rolls after finding inactive, ineligible, or deceased voters, in addition to duplicates and voters who moved. ...

Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R) announced on March 19th that 144,121 voter registrations were removed from the state’s voter rolls during its biennial voter list review and maintenance. The removed registrations were for inactive voters, ineligible voters, and voters who moved. The affected voters were sent notices before their registrations were canceled. ...

Iowa

On March 20th, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate (R) announced that there were 277 non-citizens confirmed to be on the state’s voter rolls, after gaining access to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. Of the 277 non-citizens, 35 of them cast ballots in the November election, and five attempted to vote but their ballots were rejected. ..."

GOP-led states remove hundreds of thousands from voter rolls, finding non-citizens had registered | Just The News "The GOP-led states of Idaho and Missouri took nearly 300,000 registrations off their voter rolls after finding inactive, ineligible, or deceased voters, in addition to duplicates and voters who moved. Non-citizens ineligible to vote under those states' laws have also been removed."

Bloomberg: Tesla CEO Musk Says DOGE Is 'Costing Me a Lot'. Really!

Two thumbs down! Very poorly done by Bloomberg TV! This only about Musk's Tesla business! Grrrr! What about SpaceX or XTwitter?

An example of lousy and lazy journalism!

Sperm and egg donors: Lifting anonymity in France

Food for thought! The considerably long waiting lists for fertility treatment may get longer. 

Heavily armed British Commandos helped generals leave Ukraine finds investigation

Recommendable!

Who Is Nidhi Tewari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Newly Appointed Private Secretary

Let good looking, young women be around me! Caution: satire!

Why Costco Went All in on Kirkland — and How It Paid Off

Very recommendable!

Auroras Spotted on Neptune for the First Time with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff! This video also talks about the other auroras found in our solar system and compares them.

Goodbye Chips & Soda? Inside Mexico’s Junk Food Ban For Schools with Palki Sharma

Government prohibition is usually the dumbest thing to do and it often does not work! Is it not foremost the responsibility of parents to make sure that children eat healthy?

Inside Israel's Historic Shift in Its West Bank Security Strategy

Recommendable! How to get permanently rid of murderous Arab terrorism?

US Defense Secretary Hegseth pushes uniform combat standards for men and women in military

Generally, a good idea. Will e.g. improve more cohesion and combat readiness when women are trained like men. How far will it go?

US is Making a “War-Fighting Base” in Japan to Counter China with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! Good news!

Trump’s First Foreign Trip: Why Saudi Arabia Again? with Palki Sharma

If President Trump e.g. can add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords, then he will go down in history as a great peacemaker!

Will the young Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia be bold and help to end the decades old Arab-Israeli conflict for a better future of the Middle East?

Hope and pray!

Ukraine-Krieg: Damit provoziert Putin die Nato | Reportage

Empfehlenswert! Was für ein Beruf! Wem verdanken wir diesen ständigen und enormen Aufwand? Putin dem Schrecklichen!

US Treasury Secretary Bessent Announces Sanctions Against Financiers Of Major Drug Cartel Sinaloa

Good news! President Trump means business!

Marine Le Pen found guilty of embezzlement and barred from running for public office for five years

Good news! Maybe is a great opportunity for her political party National Rally (French: Rassemblement national) to clean up the act and find a better candidate to challenge President Macron.

Many news media reports suggested or claimed this was some kind of lawfare to eliminate a strong opposition candidate comparing it e.g. with Donald Trump's struggles. Or more generally, some claimed that the judiciary and not the voters would decide elections and Le Pen was made a victim. I readily admit, I am not very familiar with the details of this case. However, some politicians are crooks, why not her?

Maybe this nepotism (party leadership handed from father to daughter) had to come to this end! I was skeptical for a long time about this and Marine Le Pen never convinced me!

"Marine Le Pen and eight MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] were found guilty of misappropriation of public funds ..." (Source)

"... Le Pen has also been given a four-year prison sentence - two years will be spent with an electronic tag rather than in custody, while the other two are suspended ..."

Marine Le Pen to speak after five-year ban from running for public office - BBC News

Marine Le Pen (age 56)

How President Trump could try to stay in power after his second term ends. Really!

This kind of or similar nonsense has now been reported several times in the media over the past week or so. I also found similar reports in German news media.

This is one way these media are trying very hard to claim that President Trump is a dictator! This is another great example for the Trump Derangement Syndrome this time spread by a college professor.

Yes, President Trump may have made some remarks to this effect, but was he serious?

President Trump will be 82 years old at the end of his second term. Being a US President is a very demanding job (except for the sleepy 46th President).

"Though the 22nd Amendment prohibits Trump from being elected president again, it does not prohibit him from serving as president beyond Jan. 20, 2029. The reason for this is that the 22nd Amendment only prohibits someone from being “elected” more than twice. It says nothing about someone becoming president in some other way than being elected to the office. ...

And while Trump claims he’s only joking when he floats the idea of a third term, he has a long history of using “jokes” as a way of floating trial balloons. ..."

How Trump could try to stay in power after his second term ends

Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court. Really!

This is what you get when a nutty professor defends criminals of a foreign organized crime gang!

Nice try to confuse illegal immigrants and foreign criminals as well as illegal immigrants with citizens!

If e.g. the Venezuelan government is directly or indirectly in cahoots with these criminals (which is very likely), then the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 may apply.

Of course, there are legitimate legal concerns about that some of the deportees are innocent. However, these innocent deportees are still illegal immigrants.

"A federal appeals court on March 26, 2025, upheld a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants [???], including alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. ... 

Attorney General Pam Bondi previously said the deportations are necessary as part of “modern-day warfare” against narco-terrorists. ...

the Trump administration’s evidence against the migrants, which relied in part on the immigrants’ tattoos and deleted social media pictures, is “flimsy.” [???]

Those who are challenging Trump’s actions in court say the administration has violated constitutional principles of due process. That’s because it gave the migrants no opportunity to refute the government’s claims that they were gang members. ..."

Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court

Prisoners stand in a cell as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025 (would standing in front of these criminals give you any goosebumps?)

Anthropic: Tracing the thoughts of a large language model

How much do you really want to learn about the secret sauce? 😊😇

Unfortunately, Anthropic did not publish it's two new papers in the usual way for scientific review, but as self published. The first paper is very long like a book chapter or even longer than that (with lots of illustrations).

"... Knowing how models like Claude think would allow us to have a better understanding of their abilities, as well as help us ensure that they’re doing what we intend them to. For example:

• Claude can speak dozens of languages. What language, if any, is it using "in its head"?
• Claude writes text one word at a time. Is it only focusing on predicting the next word or does it ever plan ahead?
• Claude can write out its reasoning step-by-step. Does this explanation represent the actual steps it took to get to an answer, or is it sometimes fabricating a plausible argument for a foregone conclusion?

... 

Today, we're sharing two new papers that represent progress on the development of the "microscope", and the application of it to see new "AI biology".

In the first paper, we extend our prior work locating interpretable concepts ("features") inside a model to link those concepts together into computational "circuits", revealing parts of the pathway that transforms the words that go into Claude into the words that come out.

In the second [paper], we look inside Claude 3.5 Haiku, performing deep studies of simple tasks representative of ten crucial model behaviors, including the three described above. Our method sheds light on a part of what happens when Claude responds to these prompts, which is enough to see solid evidence that:

• Claude sometimes thinks in a conceptual space that is shared between languages, suggesting it has a kind of universal “language of thought.” We show this by translating simple sentences into multiple languages and tracing the overlap in how Claude processes them.
• Claude will plan what it will say many words ahead, and write to get to that destination. We show this in the realm of poetry, where it thinks of possible rhyming words in advance and writes the next line to get there. This is powerful evidence that even though models are trained to output one word at a time, they may think on much longer horizons to do so.
• Claude, on occasion, will give a plausible-sounding argument designed to agree with the user rather than to follow logical steps. We show this by asking it for help on a hard math problem while giving it an incorrect hint. We are able to “catch it in the act” as it makes up its fake reasoning, providing a proof of concept that our tools can be useful for flagging concerning mechanisms in models.

... "

Tracing the thoughts of a large language model \ Anthropic

Shared features exist across English, French, and Chinese, indicating a degree of conceptual universality.

Hegseth’s younger brother, a social media entrepreneur, is serving in a key role inside the Pentagon

Not sure this is a good idea! Nepotism? Has President Trump approved this?

Pete Hegseth himself does not have exactly the credentials to lead the US Department of Defense. Does his brother have the credentials for this new job?

"... Phil Hegseth’s official title is senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department ...

... Based on Phil Hegseth’s publicly available resume, his past experience includes founding his own podcast production company, Embassy and Third, and working on social media and podcasts at The Hudson Institute. ..."

Hegseth’s younger brother is serving in a key role inside the Pentagon