Good news!
"... Walmart is the first traditional retailer to have a 13-figure valuation. It joins a small but growing club that includes Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Microsoft."
Tuesday, February 03, 2026
$1.018 trillion Walmart’s market capitalization, as of today’s close
Abbas calls first-ever voted PLO Council elections in November. Really!
The 90 year old, unelected crook/terrorist again failed to announce his long overdue retirement!
Mahmoud Abbas
Bundesverwaltungsgericht Leipzig: Per „Klimaschutz“-Urteil in den Staatsruin
Ich kenne nicht die Details des Falls noch des Urteils, aber anscheinend hat der Klimawahn in der Bananenrepublik D auch eines der höchsten deutschen Gerichte erfasst!
Klimaschutz ist ein besonders hässliches, absurdes deutsches Unwort! Aus Umweltschutz wurde Klimaschutz im Land wo die Heinzelmännchen/-weibchen und Gartenzwerge regieren!
"Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht hat am 29. Januar 2026 gegen den Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland, wie von der Deutschen Umwelthilfe sehnlich gewünscht, geurteilt. Das Gericht vertritt die Auffassung, dass das sogenannte Klimaschutzprogramm der Bundesregierung von 2023 nicht ausreiche und die Regierung zusätzliche Maßnahmen zum „Klimaschutz“ ergreifen müsse. ..."
X offices raided in Paris, France, both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned
What is going on? Politically motivated?
"The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.
The prosecutor's office also said both Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino had been summoned to appear at hearings in April.
In a separate development, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced a probe into Musk's AI tool, Grok, over its "potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content." ...
The investigation began in January 2025 when French prosecutors started looking into content recommended by X's algorithm, before being widened in July that year to include Musk's controversial AI chatbot, Grok.
In a post at the time, X said the action was "politically-motivated" and denied allegations it had manipulated its algorithm.
Following today's raid, French prosecutors say they are now investigating whether X has broken the law across multiple areas. ..."
Muslim IDF Officer 'Captain Ella' Named New Arabic Spokesperson
Good news! Bravo! Congratulations to Lt.-Col. Ella Waweya!
"... Waweya, 36, will be promoted to lieutenant colonel upon assuming the position, becoming the highest-ranking Muslim officer currently serving in the IDF. Born in Kalansuwa, a Muslim Arab town in central Israel, Waweya has been part of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit since 2013, most recently heading its Arabic media desk. ..."
Lt.-Col. Ella Waweya
Waymo raises $16B to scale robotaxi fleet internationally
Good news! Waymos everywhere! If you drive on the streets of the Phoenix metro area (Arizona), you see a Waymo car almost every other minute or so.
"Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company, has raised $16 billion as it plans to grow its fleet of driverless taxicabs this year to more than a dozen new cities internationally, including London and Tokyo.
Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which now values Waymo at $126 billion, the company said in a blog post Monday. ...
In 2016, it made its first geographic leap forward and began testing in Phoenix, where it eventually pulled its human safety driver out of the vehicles. Phoenix became Waymo’s first robotaxi market, in which the public could hail driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.
Waymo pushed down the accelerator in August 2023 after receiving the final necessary permit to operate a robotaxi service — and charge for rides — in California. It launched a limited service in San Francisco, later expanding to much of the greater Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and more recently to the freeways that connect the dozens of towns in the area. It also expanded to Los Angeles. The company launched in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. It kicked off the year by expanding to Miami. ..."
"... This milestone is built on a foundation of safety that is now statistically superior to human driving. Across 127 million miles of fully autonomous operation—the equivalent of going to the moon and back over 260 times—we have achieved a 90% reduction in serious injury crashes. ..."
China is leading the fight against hidden car door handles by prohibition beginning 2027
Bad news! What is this all about? Some kind of a trade war?
For how long have these hidden car door handles been around on how many cars?
According to Google search results such car door handles have a long history:
"Key, early, and modern milestones include:
1947: The Cisitalia 202 sports car is credited with the first use of a hidden, flush-mounted door handle.
1950s: The practice of "shaved door handles" (removing external handles for a smooth look) became popular in custom car/hot rod culture, often using solenoids for access.
1970s/80s: Manufacturers like Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Toyota (Celica) began incorporating integrated, flush-style handles."
I am not aware of any past news indicating serious issues with this type of car door handle in case of severe traffic accidents.
"One of the design features that became synonymous with Tesla has been banned in China.
Under new safety rules published Monday by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cars sold in the country must have mechanical releases on their door handles. The new rules, which go in effect January 1, 2027, will prohibit the hidden, electronically actuated door handles popularized by Tesla — and now found on numerous other electric vehicles in China.
The new rule dictates that each door (excluding the tailgate) should be equipped with a mechanically released external door handle. Vehicles must also have a mechanical release on the interior of the vehicle. ...
Numerous high-profile fatal incidents, in which occupants have become trapped in their vehicles, have raised concerns among safety regulators and advocates globally. China is the first country to issue a ban. ..."
Traces of ancient seafloor cataclysms turn up in the Himalayas
Amazing stuff!
"High on the Tibetan Plateau, geologists have identified slivers of twisted and folded lava they say are the relics of immense volcanic eruptions more than 200 million years ago, on the floor of a vanished sea. The discovery provides a culprit for previously unexplained marine extinctions.
Such supereruptions, which can spew millions of cubic kilometers of magma and last for millions of years, have been linked with some of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Called large igneous provinces, they are easy to recognize when they occur on land because the lava plateaus they leave behind stick around for eons. However, because oceanic crust gets recycled relatively quickly back into the mantle, the evidence for marine supereruptions has mostly vanished. By identifying the landlocked traces of two vanished supereruptions, the new study ... fills out the history of these cataclysms—and adds to the evidence that oceanic supereruptions have shaped the history of life more than once thought. ..."
From the abstract:
"The trigger for frequent extinctions during the Phanerozoic remains a persistent and unresolved frontier issue in Earth sciences.
We present a detailed analysis of oceanic island, seamount, and plateau remnants in the Tibetan Plateau that trace the evolution of the Meso- and Neo-Tethys oceans, incorporating new and published data.
During the Triassic, three major episodes of marine large igneous provinces (LIPs) formed at 250−248 Ma, 233−231 Ma, and 210−208 Ma. By integrating geological records of these LIP episodes with Triassic geological data sets, we demonstrate a correlation between marine LIPs and at least four extinctions in marine biota, driven by the resultant anoxic-euxinic events.
Consequently, marine LIPs emerge as a primary driver of recurrent mass extinctions. Numerous previously unexplained extinctions throughout Earth’s history may potentially result from currently unidentified components of marine LIPs occurring as fragments within orogenic belts."
Key Drivers of Recurrent Extinction in the Triassic "New study in Geology links massive undersea volcanism to repeated marine extinctions"
How generative AI can help scientists synthesize complex materials
Good news! Alchemy in the age of machine learning & AI! This is only the beginning!
How much will ML & AI accelerate material science?
"... Now, ... researchers have created an AI model that guides scientists through the process of making materials by suggesting promising synthesis routes. In a new paper, they showed the model delivers state-of-the-art accuracy in predicting effective synthesis pathways for a class of materials called zeolites, which could be used to improve catalysis, absorption, and ion exchange processes. Following its suggestions, the team synthesized a new zeolite material that showed improved thermal stability.
The researchers believe their new model could break the biggest bottleneck in the materials discovery process. ..."
From the abstract:
"The synthesis of crystalline materials, such as zeolites, remains a notable challenge owing to a high-dimensional synthesis space, intricate structure–synthesis relationships and time-consuming experiments.
Here, considering the ‘one-to-many’ relationship between structure and synthesis, we propose DiffSyn, a generative diffusion model trained on over 23,000 synthesis recipes that span 50 years of literature.
DiffSyn generates probable synthesis routes conditioned on a desired zeolite structure and an organic template.
DiffSyn a chieves state-of-the-art performance by capturing the multi-modal nature of structure–synthesis relationships. We apply Diffsny to differentiate among competing phases and generate optimal synthesis routes.
As a proof of concept, we synthesize a UFI material using DiffSyn-generated synthesis routes. These routes, rationalized by density functional theory binding energies, resulted in the successful synthesis of a UFI material with a high Si/AlICP of 19.0, which is expected to improve thermal stability."
DiffSyn: a generative diffusion approach to materials synthesis planning (no public access)
DiffSyn: A Generative Diffusion Approach to Materials Synthesis Planning (preprint, open access)
'Thermal diode' design promises to improve heat regulation, prolonging battery life
Good news!
"New technology from University of Houston researchers could improve the way devices manage heat, thanks to a technique that allows heat to flow in only one direction. The innovation is known as thermal rectification ...
These concepts have so far only been demonstrated theoretically, but Zhao aims to build experimental platforms to show the innovation in action. ..."
"Key Takeaways
- UH researchers developed a way to make heat flow in only one direction, giving engineers new control over how devices manage temperature.
- The technology works like an electronic diode for heat, helping prevent overheating and potentially extending battery life in phones, electric vehicles and satellites.
- The approach could lead to cooler, safer and more reliable electronics, especially in extreme environments like space.
...
This new technology gives engineers a new way to control radiative heat with the same precision that electronic diodes control electrical currents, which means longer-lasting batteries for cell phones, electric vehicles and even satellites. It also has the potential to change our approach to AI data centers. ..."
From the abstract:
"As a type of energy carrier, polaritons can play a dominant role in the thermal conductivity of nano/microstructures.
Here, we report an asymmetric thermal conductivity mediated by polaritons that break the Lorentz reciprocity. In contrast to existing approaches that rely on nonlinearity or time modulation, we leverage nonreciprocal polaritons induced by magnetic effects.
We show that nonreciprocal surface plasmon polaritons in time-reversal symmetry-breaking systems, including magneto-optical materials and magnetic Weyl semimetals, can alter the symmetry of thermal conductivity in systems like thin films, resulting in direction-dependent thermal conductivity.
Thermal conductivities of reciprocal material systems can also be made asymmetric through near-field coupling with these material systems. In accompaniment with the surging interest in nonreciprocal thermal radiation by polaritons, we extend the role of nonreciprocal polaritons from radiative heat transfer systems to conduction systems, paving the way for next-generation thermal devices and efficient energy management solutions."
University of Houston Researchers Bring the Heat (original news release) "New Technology Promises to Improve Heat Regulation, Prolonging Battery Life"
Asymmetric thermal conductivity mediated by nonreciprocal polaritons (no public access)
Sex differences in brain growth and other brain developments emerge in the womb, study finds
Amazing stuff!
"There has long been debate over exactly how early in human brain development sex differences first emerge, and what causes them. Previous research has typically studied prenatal or postnatal brain development alone but not both together. That means that until now it has not been possible to study brain growth across the prenatal to postnatal transition.
Researchers ... analysed data that mapped how the human brain develops continuously across the prenatal to postnatal transition. This enabled them to develop a more accurate model of early human brain development and to pinpoint exactly when sex differences in brain growth first emerge. ...
on average, males showed greater increases in brain volumes with age, across the whole brain, compared to females. ...
“The next step is to test if the observed sex differences in human brain growth are driven by prenatal sex steroid hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. Male fetuses are exposed to much higher levels of these hormones which we know play a role in shaping sex differences in the brain and behaviour in other animals. We need to test if the same is true in humans.”
The research also provided several other important insights into how the brain grows during early development. For example, different brain regions and tissues were found to mature at different rates. White matter – responsible for connecting different brain regions – was found to be the main contributor to brain growth during mid-pregnancy, while grey matter – responsible for cognition and information processing – was found to dominate growth during late pregnancy and after birth.
The researchers also found that early brain development is carefully timed to meet ongoing developmental demands. For instance, subcortical grey matter structures (those deeper within the brain, such as the amygdala, cerebellum, and thalamus) show earlier peak growth rates than cortical grey matter, suggesting that brain systems supporting basic functions mature earlier than those involved in higher-order cognition. ..."
From the abstract:
"The perinatal period, encompassing both prenatal and early postnatal stages, is a highly dynamic and foundational phase of brain development. Despite its significance, limited work has tracked brain growth continuously across prenatal to postnatal development.
In this study, we analysed one of the largest perinatal MRI datasets from the Developing Human Connectome Project (798 scans from 699 unique individuals: 263 prenatal and 535 neonatal; 380 males and 319 females) to model age-related changes and sex differences in brain volumes from 21 to 45 weeks postconceptional age.
We found that total brain volume grew at an increasing rate up until the early postnatal period, with white matter dominating mid-gestational growth and gray matter dominating late-gestational and postnatal growth.
Subcortical gray matter structures showed distinct trajectories and earlier peak growth rates compared to cortical gray matter structures.
Additionally, sex differences in brain growth patterns were observed, with males showing greater volumetric increases with age compared with females. The findings demonstrate the evolving structural dynamics of perinatal brain development as well as the importance of integrating prenatal and postnatal neuroimaging to map continuous early brain growth trajectories."
Fig. 4 Regions showing significant quadratic and cubic sex-by-age interactions. Brain volumes (in mm3) that show significant quadratic or cubic sex-by-age interactions plotted against postconceptional age (in weeks) from 21–45 weeks post-conception. Volumes are plotted according to the trajectory (linear, quadratic, or cubic) determined to be the best fit by model comparisons.
US Veterans Affairs ends nearly all abortion procedures at VA medical centers
Was offering abortion procedures in the US military ever necessary?
"... Between September 2022 and August 2025, the VA had covered or provided abortions to roughly 100 veterans and 40 CHAMPVA patients, according to data provided by the VA. ..."
The Cerebellum Takes the Stage, Playing a New Role in language processing
Amazing stuff!
"... New research ... has identified specific language-processing regions in the cerebellum that closely mirror regions in the frontal and temporal lobes of the neocortex, the brain areas long understood as the specialized epicenter for processing language.
“We’ve identified a specific region of the cerebellum that closely mirrors the neocortex, which fundamentally changes how we understand the neural architecture of language,” ... “There is a region in the brain that is being ignored by language researchers that is potentially really important.” ...
Some regions of the neocortex are so specialized for language that they are only used when processing language, and not, for example, when someone does a math problem or listens to non-verbal music. Now, ... have identified a region in the cerebellum that, like those selective regions of the neocortex, responds exclusively to language inputs and processing. The researchers identified several additional regions in the cerebellum that have “mixed selectivity,” meaning they are used in language processing as well as non-language tasks, such as visual perception and movement. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Four regions in the right posterior cerebellum reliably respond to language
• One region—“LangCereb3,” spanning Crus I/II/VIIb—is highly selective for language
• The other regions exhibit mixed selectivity, responding to non-linguistic inputs
• All regions, but especially LangCereb3, mirror the neocortical language network
Summary
Despite ample evidence of cerebellar contributions to cognition, including language, its precise role remains debated. We systematically characterize cerebellar language-responsive regions using precision fMRI.
We identify four cerebellar regions that respond to language across modalities (experiments 1a and 1b, n = 754).
One region—spanning Crus I/II/lobule VIIb—is selective for language relative to diverse non-linguistic tasks (experiments 2a–2f, n = 732), and the rest exhibit mixed selectivity.
Similar to the neocortical language system, the language-selective region is engaged during comprehension and production (experiments 3a and 3b, n = 100), shows sensitivity to linguistic difficulty (experiment 3c, n = 5), and responds to both social and nonsocial sentences (experiment 3d, n = 10).
Finally, all four regions, but especially Crus I/II/VIIb, are functionally connected to the neocortical language system (experiment 4, n = 85).
We propose that these cerebellar regions constitute components of the extended language network, with one region closely mirroring the neocortical network and the rest plausibly integrating information from diverse neocortical regions."
The cerebellar components of the human language network (open access)
Graphical abstract
The Predatory Hegemon | Foreign Affairs. Really!
Big words used here by a talking head from the ivory tower to describe President Trump!
"Stephen M. Walt
STEPHEN M. WALT is Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. A leading proponent of the neorealist school of international relations"
"Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political scientist Barry Posen suggested in 2018 that Trump’s grand strategy was “illiberal hegemony,” and the analyst Oren Cass argued last fall that its defining essence was a demand for “reciprocity.” Trump has been called a realist, a nationalist, an old-fashioned mercantilist, an imperialist, and an isolationist. Each of these terms captures some aspects of his approach, but the grand strategy of his second presidential term is perhaps best described as “predatory hegemony.” Its central aim is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.
Given the United States’ still considerable assets and geographic advantages, predatory hegemony may work for a time. In the long run, however, it is doomed to fail. It is ill suited for a world of several competing great powers—especially one in which China is an economic and military peer—because multipolarity gives other states ways to reduce their dependence on the United States. ..."
Stephen M. Walt (Source)
Monday, February 02, 2026
Trump PUMPS UP the pressure on Cuba
Is Cuba next after Venezuela? The Donroe Doctrine in action! Cuba libre! Like falling dominoes! How much was the government of Cuba dependent on Venezuela?
China's Corrupt Generals Made Nuclear Missiles Dud? | Inside PLA Purge with Molly Gambhir
Recommendable! Is China now a paper tiger?
Xi Jinping’s Plan to Replace the US Dollar With Yuan with Palki Sharma
Good luck with that! Is that the reason why Xi Jinping fired so many at the top recently?
A portable ultrasound sensor may enable earlier detection of breast cancer
Amazing stuff!
Notice MIT too uses the horrible ideological term "people" for women!!!
"For people [women] who are at high risk of developing breast cancer, frequent screenings with ultrasound can help detect tumors early. MIT researchers have now developed a miniaturized ultrasound system that could make it easier for breast ultrasounds to be performed more often, either at home or at a doctor’s office.
The new system consists of a small ultrasound probe attached to an acquisition and processing module that is a little larger than a smartphone. This system can be used on the go when connected to a laptop computer to reconstruct and view wide-angle 3D images in real-time. ..."
From the abstract:
"Effective resource-constrained volumetric ultrasound imaging requires compact, low-power systems capable of wide-angle real-time 3D imaging to accommodate small changes in placement by the operator. However, obtaining such images requires an excessive O(N2) channel count, bulky electronics, and high power consumption.
We introduce an end-to-end system architecture to enable high-resolution, real-time 3D ultrasound imaging in a portable form factor. We present: a convolutional optimally distributed array (CODA) geometry that drastically reduces the number of elements (from 1024 to 128), a novel chirped data acquisition (cDAQ) architecture that enhances imaging depth while operating with a 25.3 dB lower transmit amplitude than a pulsed system, and an associated new signal processing methodology.
We experimentally demonstrate our system's ability to perform deep (> 11 cm), high axial resolution (< 600 µm), and wide-angle (57°) imaging, while simultaneously reducing power consumption (29.6x reduction) and drive voltage (18 V).
We validated our system in vitro and further performed in vivo human trials, demonstrating the ability to detect both tumors and cysts in breast tissue. This new architectural approach will unlock a new class of medical devices with enhanced diagnostic and long-term monitoring capabilities and open up future wearable designs of real-time 3D ultrasound systems."
Fig. 1 Real-time 3D ultrasound imaging system architecture.
SpaceX unveils 'Stargaze' space satellite tracking system free of charge
Good news! It is crowded in low Earth orbit! Congestion in the sky!
"SpaceX today unveiled an online tool, called Stargaze, for tracking space objects and warning of potential on-orbit collisions — with a promise to provide the system’s space situational awareness (SSA) data free of charge to other satellite operators.
SpaceX recently faced a collision scare in December when a Chinese satellite nearby one of its Starlink communication birds made an unannounced maneuver. That and other near misses over the past year has prompted the company to lower some 4,400 Starlinks to about 480 kilometers where there is less congestion, in part because dead satellites and other debris falls out of orbit faster due to the stronger gravitational pull of the Earth. ..."
US clears $6.7B in new weapon sales to Israel, $9B in Patriot missiles for Saudi Arabia
Everybody wins! Harmony in weapons sales prevails!
Nasdaq Aims to Offer 23x5 Trading This Year. Really!
Why not 24 * 7? What is it about that 1 hour?
"Adena Friedman, chair and chief executive of Nasdaq, said the firm aims to launch trading for 23 hours from Monday to Friday on its stock exchange in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Nasdaq announced plans to launch 23×5 stock trading in 2025. Friedman said on the results call on 29 January 2026 that the firm will be ready to launch the capability in the second half of this year, subject to regulatory approval. ..."
The woman of the hour, Adena Friedman (Source)
Die große Abwendung – Jüngeren Deutsche wollen kündigen und Deutschland verlassen
Was ist dran? Wie ernst ist die Lage in der Bananenrepublik D?
Nur eine vorübergehende, negative Stimmungslage oder schlimmer?
"Gut jeder Vierte (26 Prozent) sagt, er überlege ernsthaft, aus Deutschland auszuwandern, ermittelte das Meinungsforschungsinstitut INSA in diesen Tagen. Nein, die auswandern wollen, werden nicht alle schon morgen die Koffer packen. Aber es ist der Ausdruck tiefster Unzufriedenheit; es ist eine Abkehr von diesem Land. Man möchte weg. Nur weg. Eine Besserung wird nicht mehr erwartet.
Besonders schlimm: Es sind die unter 40-Jährigen. 37 Prozent wollen auswandern. ...
Die Wähler der FDP [gibt es die überhaupt noch?] sind mit acht Prozent Auswanderungswilligen die kleinste Gruppe, die der AfD stellen mit 40 Prozent die größte Gruppe ..."
Trump Launches $12 Billion Minerals Stockpile to Counter China
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (plundered under the 46th President) is getting company!
"President Trump is launching a new $12 billion strategic critical-minerals stockpile called “Project Vault” aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese supply of rare earths and other key minerals for industries like EVs, tech, and defense."
Sunday, February 01, 2026
Mafiöse Strukturen in der Windkraft-Lobby. Wirklich!
Deutsche Sprache, schwierige Sprache! Mafiose, nicht Mafiöse Strukturen. Die Mafia ist keine Möse!
Wieder so ein ätzender schmal Format Kurzfilm von YouTube!
Sweden wants to send inmates to empty Estonian prisons
Amazing stuff! However, language as an issue was not even mentioned in the entire video! Swedish and Estonian are not exactly the same language!
Peter Schweizer exposes how immigration is weaponized against America
Food for thought! How serious is e.g. the threat of birthright citizenship by Chinese citizens?
Mexico has over 50 consulates in the US. For how long have there been so many Mexican consulates? I bet for decades. How serious is the threat?
Venezuelan Activist Tarazona Freed From Notorious Jail | WION
Good news! Hundreds more need to be released!
SpaceX Stops Russia’s Unauthorised Use of Starlink in Ukraine
Absolutely stunning how one man can have so much influence on the outcome of a current war!
Chinese Spy Ships Changed Trump's Mind on UK Chagos Island Deal
To give up Diego Garcia would be pound foolish! It is very strategically located in the Indian Ocean!
Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Putin revealed with Russian girls in ‘world’s largest honeytrap’ for KGB
Did Putin the Terrible join the party too? Does he like young girls too?
Intense backlash after radical leftist Spanish government legalises 500,000 illegal aliens
An insane measure by the leftist government! The requirements are ridiculously low!
India Unveils Record $86 Billion Defence Budget | 18% Jump in Weapons Spending with Palki Sharma
Recommendable! This seems to be a huge shift in defense spending by India!
Paleontologists have published their first comprehensive analysis of a giant fossil site in southern China
Amazing stuff!
"Paleontologists have published their first comprehensive analysis of a giant fossil site in southern China containing the remains of a 512-million-year-old marine ecosystem. The team analyzed thousands of specimens from the site representing 153 species—nearly 60 percent of them new to science."
"The fossils date from the Cambrian period, which began 541 million years ago. The early Cambrian saw an explosion of diversity in animal life which gave rise to most of the major groups alive today.
But this flourishing came to a halt with the Sinsk event around 513.5 million years ago, when oxygen levels in the ocean fell, killing off several groups of animals.
Han Zeng at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China and his colleagues began finding fossils at a quarry in the mountainous region of Huayuan County in Hunan Province in 2021.
So far, they have analysed 8681 fossils from 153 species, nearly 60 per cent of which are new to science. ..."
From the abstract:
"Cambrian Burgess Shale-type (BST) fossil biotas document nearly complete snapshots of the oldest Phanerozoic marine ecosystems. However, the rarity of deposits bearing high-diversity BST biotas has restricted our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of the Cambrian explosion.
Here we report the Huayuan biota—a lower Cambrian (Stage 4, approximately 512 million years ago) BST Lagerstätte from an outer shelf, deep-water setting of the Yangtze Block in Hunan, South China.
The Huayuan biota yields remarkable taxonomic richness, comprising 153 animal species of 16 phylum-level clades dominated by arthropods, poriferans and cnidarians, among which 59% of species are new. The biota is comprised overwhelmingly of soft-bodied forms that include preserved cellular tissues.
The complex ecosystem contained diverse radiodonts and pelagic tunicates, filling a gap of high-diversity BST biotas from the Cambrian Stage 4.
Critically, multivariate ordination based on a global dataset of Cambrian BST biotas places the Huayuan biota within a main transition of marine animal ecosystems between Cambrian Age 3 and Age 4.
Network analysis reveals close faunal connections between the Huayuan and Burgess Shale biotas, indicating transoceanic dispersal. Dated shortly after the Sinsk event, the Huayuan biota illuminates differences in the impacts of this extinction in shallow- versus deep-water settings during the first Phanerozoic mass extinction and offers critical insights into the transformation of global ecosystems in the early Cambrian."
Huayuan Biota Decodes Earth’s First Phanerozoic Mass Extinction (original news release)
A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction (no public access)
Fossil excavation in the field
Soft-bodied fossils from the Huayuan biota
AI-supported mammography screening results significantly beat human screeners
Good news!
"Researchers have published the full results of the largest randomized trial of AI cancer screening to date, comparing mammograms read by one radiologist assisted by AI with the standard two-radiologist review.
The AI-supported process cut the radiologists’ workload by 44 percent and detected 29 percent more cancers, without additional false positives. Women who received a negative result during their AI-assisted mammogram ended up having 12 percent fewer cancer diagnoses before their next scheduled screening than those in the control group, suggesting that the AI screen missed fewer aggressive cancers."
"
- First full results of a randomised trial investigating the use of AI in a national breast cancer screening programme finds AI-supported mammography screening is more effective across many measures than standard mammography.
- AI-supported breast cancer screening identified more women with clinically relevant cancers during the screening without a higher rate of false positives.
- Additionally, women who underwent AI-supported screening were less likely to be diagnosed with more aggressive and advanced breast cancer in the two years following.
- Authors say these findings could justify implementing AI in mammography screening programmes, particularly in the context of health professional workforce shortages.
..."
From the abstract:
"Summary
Background
Evidence indicates that artificial intelligence (AI) can improve mammography screening by increasing cancer detection and reducing screen reading workload, but its effect on interval cancers (primary breast cancers diagnosed between two screening rounds or within 2 years after the last scheduled screening that were not detected at screening) is unknown. We aimed to compare the interval cancer rate in AI-supported mammography screening with standard double reading without AI.
Methods
In this Swedish randomised, controlled, non-inferiority, single-blinded, population-based screening accuracy trial, participants were allocated in a 1:1 ratio to either AI-supported mammography screening (the intervention group) or standard double reading without AI (the control group).
AI was used to triage examinations to single or double reading by radiologists and for detection support. This is a protocol-defined analysis of the primary outcome, interval cancer rate, with a 20% non-inferiority margin. Secondary outcomes reported in this analysis are interval cancer characteristics, sensitivity, specificity, and sensitivity by age, breast density, and cancer type (in-situ and invasive). ...
Findings
Between April 12, 2021, and Dec 7, 2022, 105 934 women were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group, of whom 19 were excluded from the analysis. Median age was 53·8 years (IQR 46·5–63·3) in the intervention group and 53·7 years (46·5–63·2) in the control group. Interval cancer rates were 1·55 (95% CI 1·23–1·92) and 1·76 (1·42–2·15) per 1000 participants in the intervention and control group respectively, a non-inferior proportion ratio of 0·88 (95% CI 0·65–1·18; p=0·41). Descriptively, the intervention group had fewer interval cancers that were invasive (75 vs 89), T2+ (38 vs 48), or non-luminal A (43 vs 59) than the control group. Sensitivity was higher in the intervention group (80·5% [95% CI 76·4–84·2]) than the control group (73·8% [68·9–78·3]; p=0·031), an effect consistent across age and breast density, and for invasive cancer but not for in-situ cancer. Specificity was 98·5% (95% CI 98·4–98·6) for both groups (p=0·88).
Interpretation
AI-supported mammography screening showed consistently favourable outcomes compared with standard double reading, with a non-inferior interval cancer rate, fewer interval cancers with unfavourable characteristics, higher sensitivity, and the same specificity, while also reducing screen reading workload. These findings imply that AI-supported mammography screening can efficiently improve screening performance compared with standard double reading and may be considered for implementation in clinical practice."
AI support in breast cancer screening: Fewer missed cancer cases (original news release) "There were fewer cases of breast cancer between two screening rounds, and of the cancers that did develop, fewer were advanced or aggressive. The final results from Lund University's MASAI trial are now available, and they show further benefits of AI-supported breast cancer screening. The study has already shown that AI support in mammography screening contributes to a 29 percent increase in detected breast cancers compared to traditional screening."
SpaceX seeks federal approval to launch 1 million solar-powered satellite data centers
Amazing stuff!
"SpaceX has filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission to launch a constellation of up to 1 million solar-powered satellites that it said will serve as data centers for artificial intelligence. ...
The FCC recently gave SpaceX permission to launch an additional 7,500 Starlink satellites, but said it would “defer authorization on the remaining 14,988” proposed satellites.
There are currently around man-made 15,000 satellites orbiting the Earth, according to the European Space Agency, and they’re already creating issues with pollution and debris. ..."
In 2025 about 2% to 5% of plastic pollution of the oceans was removed
Good news! So much for the hysteria and alarmism about plastic polluting our oceans!
"Boyan Slat claims that his non-profit The Ocean Cleanup removed over 27,000 tons of plastic from the world’s waterways in 2025, which he estimates is 2 to 5 percent of annual plastic pollution. If the operation can maintain its current rate of growth, it could meet its goal “to clean up 90% of floating ocean plastic pollution by 2040.”"
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Alkali Treatment Implications for Microwave-Assisted Rare Earth Elements Extraction from Coal Mine Tailings
Good news! Rare earth elements are not rare!
"... discovered a new way to extract rare earth elements out of coal tailings, the cast-off soil and rock left behind by coal mining. Using a chemical treatment and a specially designed microwave reactor to control the temperature, the researchers have doubled the extraction levels previously possible. ..."
"... Pennsylvania alone, where the tailings for their experiment were harvested, contains an estimated 2 billion tons of coal tailings, according to their paper. ..."
From the abstract:
"Coal tailings represent a promising secondary resource of rare earth elements (REEs), yet efficient extraction is limited by their complex mineralogy. This study investigated the impact of alkali pretreatment on aluminosilicate structures in coal tailings and its implications for REE extraction via acid digestion. Precombustion coal refuse was treated with 5 M NaOH at varying solid-to-liquid (S/L) ratios (5, 50 g/L) and reaction times (5, 15 min), including a multistep (five-cycle) treatment under microwave conditions. At 180 °C, XRD, 29Si NMR, and thermodynamic modeling showed kaolinite transformed to hydrosodalite at high S/L ratios, while kaolinite completely dissolved at low S/L ratios.
Quartz maintained crystallinity but slowly transformed to amorphous silica during prolonged alkaline treatment. Compared to untreated tailings, light REE extraction was enhanced by a factor of ∼3 when kaolinite dissolved and by ∼2 when it converted to hydrosodalite; heavy REE extraction increased by ∼2 and ∼1.5, respectively.
Extending pretreatment time produced minimal additional enhancement, indicating that under microwave conditions, kaolinite concentration in alkaline solutions and hydrosodalite solubility in acidic solutions are the primary factors controlling REE release. Alkali pretreatment also promoted uranium removal prior to acid digestion, while REE extraction correlated strongly with Mg, Ca, Fe, and Ti release."
Rare earth element extraction can be doubled with this new technique (original news release) "New Northeastern research has identified a method of extracting rare earth elements from the mining waste product that is two to three times more efficient than previous approaches."
Alkali Treatment Implications for Microwave-Assisted Rare Earth Elements Extraction from Coal Mine Tailings (open access)
Graphical abstract
Advanced ancient stone tools in China are forcing scientists to rethink early humans
Amazing stuff!
"An international research team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences carried out excavations at Xigou in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region of central China. Their work revealed evidence of advanced stone tool technologies dating from about 160,000 to 72,000 years ago. ..."
"... The explorations ... revealed hominins in this region were far more inventive and adaptable than previously believed, at a time when multiple large-brained hominins were present in China, such as Homo longi and Homo juluensis, and possibly Homo sapiens. ..."
From the abstract:
"Technological innovations in Africa and western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioural complexity of hominin populations. Yet, at the same time, it has long been believed that hominin technologies in Eastern Asia lack signs of innovation and sophistication.
Here, we report on technological innovations occurring at Xigou, in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, central China, dating to ~160,000–72,000 years ago. Technological, typological, and functional analyses reveal the presence of advanced technological behaviours spanning over a 90,000-year period. The Xigou hominins used core-on-flake and discoid methods to effectively obtain small dimensional flakes to manufacture a diverse range of tool forms.
he identification of the hafted tools provides the earliest evidence for composite tools in Eastern Asia, to our knowledge.
Technological innovations revealed at Xigou and other contemporary sites in China correspond with increasing evidence for Late Quaternary hominin morphological variability, including larger brain sizes, such as demonstrated at Lingjing (Xuchang) in central China.
The complex technological advancements recorded at Xigou indicate that hominins developed adaptive strategies that enhanced their survivability across fluctuating environments of the late Middle Pleistocene and middle Late Pleistocene in Eastern Asia."
Discovery challenges long-held beliefs on early human technology in East Asia (original news release)
Technological innovations and hafted technology in central China ~160,000–72,000 years ago (open access)
Excavation of Xigou site
Fig. 2: Core metric and techno-typological variables.
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