From Gulf of America to Lake of America or how President Trump changes geography by executive order

This US President and multiple assassination survivor is having too much fun in office!

"The executive order requires that the U.S. Interior Department update geographic information systems. It’s expected that official U.S. documents and communications will include the new name; it likely won’t be recognized by Canada. It isn’t the first time Trump has taken out his frustrations on America’s neighbors by renaming geography—in January, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”"

The Wall Street Journal What's news

Cancer-killing cells in those humans live to 110 or longer

Amazing stuff! Good news! Cancer is history (soon)!

"People who live to 110 years and older have large populations of a rare type of immune cell that can kill cancer.

These killer T cells might help people to live to extraordinarily long ages by fighting off cancer — although this has yet to be proved.

“Most of immune ageing research has focused on decline,” [what a mistake!] ... “Our study suggests that even at extreme old age, the immune system may still selectively adapt.”"

"The current study builds on a 2019 finding by Hashimoto and his colleagues that supercentenarians have relatively large numbers of rare CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD4 CTLs).

Cytotoxic cells kill other cells. CD4 CTLs typically make up less than 5% of the total population of T cells in the body. They’re not as well studied as other kinds of T cell, but they are commonly detected during viral infections, and there’s increasing evidence that they can kill cancer cells, including lung cancer and melanoma cells. Hashimoto says that his team wanted to find out at what age CD4 CTLs proliferate.

Supercentenarians are challenging to study because not many people live that long, says Hashimoto. In Japan, where his team did the study, there are only about 150 people aged 110 or older, he says. The study enrolled 28 participants, including some relatively young people: eight individuals aged 70–90, ten centenarians (people 100–109 years old) and ten supercentenarians.

As the researchers had previously found, CD4 CTLs were abundant in supercentenarians. But they were also found in large numbers in people aged 100 and older, suggesting that this immune adaptation begins around that age. The younger people had normal abundance of these cells, with CD4 CTLs making up 4% of their total T cells. The proportion was around 10% in centenarians and around 18% in supercentenarians.

And they found that these cells seem to be responding to specific immune threats. ... In the study’s centenarians and supercentenarians, the researchers found that single clonal lines made up a large percentage of the total CD4 CTLs. In the sample of one centenarian, for example, 53.8% of the cells were identical to each other. This suggests that their immune systems were leaping into action in response to a particular persistent trigger. ...

To get some clues, they examined the receptors found on the most common CD4 killer cell lines. They compared the amino-acid sequences of these cell lines with those in a database of CD4 cell receptors. Around 30 sequences from the study matched those from people with cancer in the database. Matches to people with lung cancer were most frequent, even though none of the people in the study had experienced any kind of cancer during their lives. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• CD4 CTLs expand around age 100 without signs of exhaustion

• A CD27−CD28+ state marks the intermediate helper-to-killer transition

• Large private CD4 CTL clones suggest repeated antigen exposure

• Single clones diversify cytokine profiles after ex vivo stimulation

Summary

Our previous study identified CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD4 CTLs) as a hallmark of supercentenarians.

CD4 CTLs have primarily been studied in disease contexts; however, their role in healthy aging remains unclear.

Using single-cell immune profiling, we analyzed T cells from supercentenarians and found that CD4 CTLs begin to expand around the age of 100, characterized by sequential CD27/CD28 loss without exhaustion.

CD4 CTLs were dominated by large clones, with top clones averaging 33.3%, indicating repeated stimulation by persistent antigens.

Furthermore, CDR3β sequences of the top clones matched those of T cells expanded in tumors, particularly lung cancer.

Ex vivo stimulation experiments revealed that CD4 CTLs consist of subgroups defined by interleukin expression patterns, suggesting their plasticity within the same clone.

These findings suggest that CD4 CTLs expand and diversify as an adaptation to persistent antigens, potentially contributing to longevity through cancer suppression."

Nature Briefing: Cancer

How do people live beyond 110? Abundance of cancer-killing cells might be key "Research on people 110 years and older reveals an immune system that continues to adapt."

CD4 CTLs in supercentenarians: Signs of adaptive expansion in healthy aging (open access)

Misao Okawa celebrated her 117th birthday in 2015. Is she still alive?

Graphical abstract

Figure 1 Overview of single-cell immune profiling

Figure 6 Characteristics of activated CD4 CTLs

What are the consequences of data center gigantism?

If I am not wrong there is strong trend to build more data centers across the globe. However, size matters here. The bigger the data center, the more protest from the local population etc. is to be expected.

Be modest is perhaps a good advice developing much needed data centers.

China's huge strategic petroleum reserve as a geoeconomic tool

Serious stuff! Much has been written about the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve over many years, but fairly little about the Chinese counterpart.

I have recently blogged here how China has apparently dampened global crude oil prices as the war against Iran was going on.

Unfortunately, these RAND authors also omitted to mention that China has built hundreds of coal fired power plants over the past 10-15 years or so. "Total Capacity: China accounts for over half of the world's total operating coal power capacity, sitting at roughly 1,271 GW" (Google Search). Thus, these authors like many other Western observers believe in the myth of or have a huge blindspot regarding the China energy transition that ought to be emulated in the West.

"China’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established in March 2004, with the aim of constructing China’s first oil base to protect the country’s energy security. Since then, China’s SPR has evolved from a small coastal network into a nationwide system of large-scale storage facilities combining central government, commercial and provincial reserves.

While the Chinese SPR is primarily designed to mitigate risks from oil supply chain disruptions, its size compared to that of other countries could give China a large potential leverage on international energy markets and, by extension, in the global economy. ...

Key Takeaways

• China’s SPR has grown into a substantial and increasingly sophisticated system, with a capacity rivalling the world’s largest oil importers and backed by a recently strengthened legal and institutional framework.
• RAND researchers participating in a workshop identified the baseline scenario – strategic caution – as the most likely, with China prioritising energy security, domestic resilience and stability through conservative, sparing SPR releases.
• At the same time, experts viewed the precision relief scenario, where SPR resources are selectively released to specific provinces or sectors facing acute shortages, as highly realistic.
• Looking ahead, the panel noted that China’s ongoing energy transition [???] – with increased electrification, renewables and nuclear power – may diminish its dependence on oil over the course of the next two decades. This shift could allow Beijing to use the SPR more assertively for diplomatic or geoeconomic gains, especially in crises or when cultivating strategic relationships.

..."

China's strategic petroleum reserve as a geoeconomic tool: A 'what if' exercise | RAND

Image of the day

In a World of AOCs, Be a Leavitt "Two radically different approaches to motherhood." Working and freezing eggs vs. working and having babies.

 

Hungary Formally Classifies Russia a ‘Threat’ in UN Document

Good news! Bravo! This official announcement appears to include Crimea as well occupied by Putin the Terrible since 2014.

"... “Hungary condemns Russian military aggression and fully supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity within the internationally recognized borders,” the document states. ..."

Hungary Formally Classifies Russia a ‘Threat’ in UN Document "In brief: Led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new government officially classified Russia as a “threat” in a document submitted for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, marking a sharp break from its previous Kremlin-aligned policy under former PM Viktor Orbán."

Prime Minister Péter Magyar

VW CEO confirms Iron Dome production talks

Is the embattled German automaker becoming a arms manufacturer?

"... According to the report, the federal government [of Germany] will also take part in establishing a new partnership that will manufacture Iron Dome parts at the plant [in Osnabrück], and a memorandum of understanding has already been signed with Rafael to produce parts for Iron Dome and other missile interception systems. "Talks are at an advanced stage," it was reported. ..."

VW CEO confirms Iron Dome production talks - Globes "Involvement of the state and federal governments in the partnership with Rafael is supposed to solve problems for Volkswagen and overcome opposition from Qatar."

New Research on the link between Gender Ideology and Left-Wing Authoritarianism and violence

Bad news! There is little doubt that those who promote/espouse  gender/transgender ideology have other radical/extreme views too including the use of violence!

Unfortunately, the survey size is rather small (i.e. only 1,200 adults).

"Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm Left-Wing Authoritarian Psychology? is a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services examining the psychology behind strong support for radical gender ideology and left-wing authoritarianism.

Researchers surveyed over 1,200 U.S. adults using a new measurement tool built from “gender-affirming” guidance issued by major medical and psychological associations.

The study found that people who scored higher on this measure (i.e., those who are more likely to agree with the guidance) were also more likely to hold left-wing authoritarian views — and more likely to say political violence could be justified in certain cases, even after accounting for political party alone.

The authors conclude that support for "gender-affirming" norms is strongly associated with broader authoritarian attitudes, not just political identity, and predicts support for political violence."

From the abstract:

"For decades, psychological research on attitudes toward individuals who identify as transgender has focused almost exclusively on prejudice and has attributed that prejudice to authoritarian dispositions presumed to reside on the political right.

Little research has examined the characteristics associated with strong endorsement of "gender-affirming" norms.

We developed the Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale (CGAS), drawing items from official guidance issued by the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and American Academy of Pediatrics, and

administered it to 1,208 U.S. adults.

Across preregistered analyses, CGAS and related gender ideological-belief measures were strongly associated with left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), with Spearman correlations ranging from ρ = 0.44 to ρ = 0.59.

CGAS also significantly predicted LWA, accounting for 31.5% of its variance.

In ordinal regressions predicting CGAS, political identity was the strongest predictor, but LWA remained an independent predictor after controlling for political identity and age.

LWA and CGAS were also positively associated with justification of political violence across six targets: killing Charlie Kirk, killing Donald Trump, killing Brian Thompson, arson of ICE buildings, damaging wealthy people’s property, and violence against police.

Both independently predicted all six violence outcomes after controlling for left-wing political identity.

These findings suggest that gender ideology is associated with LWA and willingness to justify political violence. Experimental research is needed to determine causality. "

'Our results shocked us': HHS report confirms your darkest suspicions about trans ideology | Blaze Media

New Research on Gender Ideology and Left-Wing Authoritarianism (original news release)

HHS Releases Study Finding Individuals Who Associate with Left-Wing Authoritarian Beliefs and Radical Gender Ideology Are More Likely to Justify Political Violence (original news release)

Australian scientists have been building the world’s first quantum battery

Good news! This seems to be very preliminary, unpublished research and it refers back to research published already in March of 2026.

"... a device that charges faster the bigger it gets. For now, it only holds a charge for nanoseconds."

"... In March 2026, his team made an important breakthrough when they unveiled what they say is the world's first working quantum battery prototype. ...

latest experiment represents a first tentative step towards a quantum battery that could one day be substituted for conventional ones. However, at present, the prototype battery can only hold a very small amount of energy – a few billion electron volts – for a matter of nanoseconds. ...

Quach says he has in fact already achieved this with a new design he's built, and is now working on a paper to publish the results. It uses "a hybrid structure", he says, involving quantum components to allow super-fast charging with classical layers added in to store the energy for longer.

He also plans to combine many microscopic quantum batteries together to increase their total capacity. ..."

"... One strange feature of the quantum world is what are called “collective effects”. They are what give quantum batteries their unique properties.

Under the right circumstances, the storage units of quantum batteries don’t act individually, but behave collectively. In a counterintuitive twist, this means the units charge faster together than if they were charging alone.

Let’s say your quantum battery has N storage units, and each unit takes one second to charge. Collective effects mean that if all units are charged at once, each unit will take only 1∕√N seconds to charge.

This means that the bigger your quantum battery, the less time it takes to charge. If it doubles in size, charging will take just a little more than half as long. ..."

From the abstract:

"Superextensivity, where the response of a physical system scales super-linearly with size, originates from collective quantum effects and provides a promising route to augment next-generation quantum technologies.

While recent work has demonstrated superextensive behaviour in the coherent dynamics of quantum systems, these effects typically occur on short timescales, prohibiting their practical utility.

In contrast, triggering steady-state superextensive effects in, for example, a generated electric current, remains unexplored despite the immediate impact on photovoltaic technologies.

Here, we utilise a microcavity quantum battery as an experimental platform that superextensively captures light energy and converts it to an electric current via the incorporation of charge transport layers into the resonant microcavity.

This architecture enables, for the first time, a complete quantum battery charge-discharge cycle. We demonstrate that strong light–matter coupling induced by the microcavity leads to superextensive scaling of the steady-state electrical discharging power under low-intensity, incoherent illumination.

Our results provide the first experimental demonstration of superextensive light-to-charge conversion in steady-state, highlighting the feasibility of leveraging strong light–matter coupling for enhanced energy harvesting under low-light conditions."

Wednesday, August 26, 2026 - Join The Flyover

'It's very counterintuitive': The quantum batteries that upend the rules of charging "Scientists have made the world's first quantum battery prototype and, unlike conventional batteries, it charges faster the larger it gets. Could these bizarre devices one day power quantum computing – or even your phone?"

A world-first quantum battery charges faster when it gets bigger – but it’s tiny and only lasts nanoseconds (original news release, but from March 2026) "In quantum batteries, subunits take collective action to charge faster."

Superextensive electrical power from a quantum battery (open access, published March 2026, I blogged here about this paper)

Fig. 1: Composition of the quantum battery tuned for strong light–matter coupling.

Blood-clotting protein may be SARS-CoV-2's hidden accomplice, helping it hide from antibodies and reach blood vessels

Amazing stuff!

Notice that the authors of this study could be considered to be "outsiders".

The lab leak hypothesis has never been disproven or refuted thanks to the secrecy and obstruction of the Communist Party of China! Was the SARS-Cov-2 just another naturally occurring coronavirus or something else?

Anthony Fauci made tremendous efforts to conceal and dismiss the lab leak hypothesis, because the Wuhan Institute of Virology (a dual research institute) did some research that was funded by the US government and US gain of function research was conducted there. How was this ever possible and approved!

"... The proposal offers a single mechanistic explanation for two features of COVID-19 that have long been treated as separate problems: the virus's ability to evade immunity and the vascular damage, microclotting and inflammation that characterize severe disease and long COVID. ...

SARS-CoV-2 is generally described as entering cells through the ACE2 receptor. But the spike protein carries clusters of positively charged lysine and arginine residues in its N-terminal domain (NTD) and receptor-binding domain (RBD).

In contrast, human fibrinogen is negatively charged at physiological pH. The authors argue this electrostatic attraction is more than incidental chemistry.

When fibrinogen binds the spike NTD, it can mask antigenic sites, providing a molecular shield against antibody detection. At the same time, the other end of the fibrinogen molecule, its gamma chain, engages endothelial receptors including the integrins αvβ3 and α5β1, platelet receptor GPIIb/IIIa and ICAM-1.

The result is a tether with the virus on one end and the blood vessel wall on the other. ..."

From the abstract:

"SARS-CoV-2 exploits multiple cellular entry routes. Beyond ACE2-mediated entry, we propose that the spike protein binds fibrinogen not only to facilitate immune evasion but also to position the receptor-binding domain for integrin-mediated uptake. This molecular bridge may enhance viral RNA delivery to endothelial cells. Targeting the spike protein–fibrinogen interface could open new therapeutic avenues for acute and post-COVID vascular disease."

Blood-clotting protein may be SARS-CoV-2's hidden accomplice, helping it hide from antibodies and reach blood vessels (This article was written by one of the authors of the research article below)

Fibrinogen as a Molecular Bridge Linking SARS-CoV-2 Immune Evasion and Endothelial Access? (no public access) "Fibrinogen as a Molecular Bridge Linking SARS-CoV-2 Immune Evasion and Endothelial Access?"

Visual abstract

Gamma-ray signal could be long awaited evidence for WIMPs. Really!

Amazing stuff, but possibly wimpish!

Notice Big Bang, Dark matter & energy are perhaps some of the least plausible explanations/theories of our cosmos/universe/physics. E.g. what came before the Big Bang? Nothing?

Notice again how a popular science article deviates from the actually published research article. The abstract of the paper makes no mentioning of WIMPS. A case of journalistic sensationalism? Some skepsis is perhaps in order.

"Dark matter is known to make up roughly 85% of all mass in the universe, as evidenced by the way galaxies spin and how galaxy clusters are held together under gravity. Yet despite decades of searching, physicists have never managed to detect the elusive substance directly.

In new research ... claims to have spotted a strong gamma-ray signal coming from a group of galaxy clusters, which could be among the most compelling evidence yet for a leading dark matter candidate known as WIMPs.

Elusive particles

WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are hypothetical particles that barely interact with normal matter or light but would still exert a gravitational pull. ..."

From the abstract:

"As the largest gravitationally bound objects in the Universe, galaxy clusters have provided the first piece of evidence for the presence of dark matter and may be suitable targets for indirect dark matter searches.

Among various signals, the GeV-TeV 𝛾-ray line has been taken as the smoking-gun signal of the dark matter annihilation and decay, since no known astrophysical or physical process(es) could generate such a peculiar spectrum.

With 15.5 years of Fermi-LAT P8R3 publicly available data, we search for the 𝛾-ray line emission in the directions of 13 massive galaxy clusters at redshifts 𝑧 ≤0.028 with an unbinned likelihood analysis.

A 𝛾-ray line signal at  ∼43.2  GeV has a net test statistic (TS) value of  ≈30 if we take into account only the data in the directions of the Virgo, Fornax, and Ophiuchus clusters, three massive clusters with the highest J-factors expected to generate the dark matter annihilation signal.

The signal still presents when the data of 10 other nearby massive clusters are also included, though the TS value decreases to  ≈21, likely because of their lower signal-to-noise ratios.

The absence of this signal in the inner Galaxy disfavors both the instrumental effect and the canonical dark matter annihilation interpretation, and a more sophisticated dark matter model or very peculiar astrophysical scenario might be needed.

This 𝛾-ray line signal, if intrinsic, could be unambiguously verified by the Very Large Area 𝛾-ray Space Telescope in its first two years of performance."

Gamma-ray signal could be long awaited evidence for WIMPs

Evidence for a ∼43 GeV 𝛾-ray Line Signal in a Stacking Analysis of the Virgo, Fornax, and Ophiuchus Galaxy Clusters (no public access)

Evidence for a ∼43 GeV γ-ray line signal in a stacking analysis of the Virgo, Fornax, and Ophiuchus Galaxy clusters (preprint, open access, first published July 2024, but last updated July 2026)

How the sun's galactic journey shapes Earth's climate

Amazing stuff! How does the temporal dynamics of the heliosphere (shrinking/expanding) influence climate on Earth while our solar system travels through the Milky Way?

Notice the researchers limit the frequency of such disturbances to "every couple of million years", while I would propose it may happen more often.

If I am not mistaken, we still know very little about the trajectory of our solar system traversing the interstellar space within the Milky Way galaxy. For example, the researchers investigated only the extreme event when the heliosphere shrank so much that the Earth was no longer protected by heliosphere anymore.

Notice Merav Opher (the author of the paper below) has extensively written about the influence of the heliosphere on paleoclimate on Earth for several years (see e.g. her webpage on this subject).

I have been arguing here on blog for some years that the climate (e.g. long warming and cooling periods) on Earth may significantly be influenced by our solar system traveling or its trajectory through the Milky Way galaxy.

"... In new research ... trace the trajectory of the heliosphere, the massive bubble created by our sun that envelops our solar system, as it moved through our galaxy and influenced Earth's climate along the way. ...

Our heliosphere orbits around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Throughout the sun's 4.6-billion-year existence, our heliosphere has traversed various regions within our galaxy. In a paper ..., researchers ... used computer modeling to reverse-engineer the path of the heliosphere through our galaxy, revealing that the environments it passed through may have triggered changes on Earth. ...

ran simulations that showed the sun has encountered frigid expanses of gas and dust at least three times in the past few million years. In these instances, massive interstellar "cold clouds" pushed against the heliosphere to such an extent that it shrank to smaller than Earth's orbit, stranding our planet outside the sun's protective shield. 

These exposures—approximately 2–3 million years, 6–7 million years and 13–14 million years ago—would have exposed Earth's atmosphere to different surroundings. The simulation results match geologic evidence: Elements prevalent in interstellar dust appear in deep-sea sediment core samples, Antarctic snow and lunar samples from these periods.

These heliosphere collapse events may also explain ancient climatic patterns on Earth. In the simulations, when Earth's atmosphere was exposed to a cold, dense galactic hydrogen cloud, water vapor content increased and upper-atmospheric dynamics shifted, ultimately altering conditions at the surface. In summary, our heliosphere's trips through colder regions in our galaxy may be a key factor in driving some of Earth's ancient climate changes, including possible ice ages. ..."

From the abstract:

"This article reviews today's open issues, frontiers of research, and advances in our understanding of the heliosphere throughout the Sun's last 10 million years. Today's heliosphere, the cocoon formed by the solar wind as it moves through the Galaxy, engulfs all the planets extending in the nose direction to ∼120 astronomical units (AU).

• ▪  The Sun moves at 19 pc/Myr and has traversed many different structures in the interstellar medium that affect the heliosphere, at times collapsing it to sub-astronomical-unit scales. These periods of collapse introduce climate and radiation changes in Earth's environment.
• ▪  The frequency of such encounters could be as often as every couple of million years, making it a major external disturbance to the development of life on Earth.
• ▪  Stepwise shifts in past global climate, seen in deep-sea sediment cores, indicate intervals of more rapid cooling at 13–14 Mya, 6–7 Mya, and 2–3 Mya, for which the driving mechanisms are subject to ongoing debate. Such cooling events might be triggered by heliosphere collapse."

How the sun's galactic journey and superflare-filled youth shaped Earth's climate

Understanding the Heliospheric Shield: Laying the Groundwork to Predict Habitable Astrospheres (open access)

Source

Fig. 1 Schematic of the heliosphere. Several elements that form the heliosphere are noted (see also the definitions in the margins throughout this article). The width of the sector region is expected to vary with the solar cycle.

Figure 3 

(a) The heliosphere of today is immersed in a warm ISM ...

(b) The heliosphere of the past after the Sun encountered dense cold clouds ... that compressed the heliosphere to sub-astronomical-unit scales

Abbreviation: AU, astronomical unit; ISM, interstellar medium.

President Trump’s Fondness for Oppressive Strongmen. Really!

I am so sick and tired of these kind of articles and op eds etc.!

Reality is that there are several important dictators around the world (e.g. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran) so a US president can not ignore them.

To criticize and ostracize those dictators or rogue states has been tried many times over several decades by Western leaders without much success!

President Trump e.g. is not responsible for the apathetic and lethargic Russians to finally kick out Putin the Terrible or the peaceful, submissive and very civilized Chinese to abandon the Communist Party of China for a multi party system, pluralism, and democracy or the submissive North Koreans to rid themselves of their Dear Great/Supreme Leader. 

For President Trump to explore The Art of the Deal with those dictators is well worth trying it. Judge President Trump by his results not by his approach!

"Kim Jong Un runs the world’s largest prison camp—it’s called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. ... And President Donald Trump says, “I get along with Kim Jong Un very well. He’s going to be fine.” ..."

Trump’s Fondness for Oppressive Strongmen | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

First North Korea-Russia road bridge nearly complete, symbolizing new era of military cooperation

What a milestone! Two rogue states become more connected!

Germany was reunited in 1990! How much longer will it take to reunite the Korean peninsula? Probably we have to wait until the demise of the Communist Party of China and Putin the Terrible!

"The first-ever road bridge linking North Korea and Russia across the Tumen River appears close to completion, according to satellite imagery reviewed by Defense News, though construction on the Russian side lags behind Pyongyang’s finished part. It is a visible manifestation of the two countries’ tightening relationships, driven by Pyongyang’s military support for Russia in its war against Ukraine. ...

The crossing sits at Tumangang, a longstanding rail hub on the North Korean-Russian border that handled Soviet-era bulk trade before falling largely dormant after 1991. ...

The border between North Korea and Russia is just 17 kilometers, or 11 miles, long, but increasingly geopolitically significant. ..."

First North Korea-Russia road bridge nearly complete, symbolizing new era of military cooperation

The FBI disrupted a massive China-linked hacking network that broke into government systems.

Good news! What took so long!

"The operation targeted networks at the Federal Reserve, the Energy Department, NASA and the Senate, the FBI said in a court filing. Dubbed QTFY by U.S. officials, the campaign has been run since 2018 by a private company based in China that sells access to hacked networks and stolen information to China’s foreign and military intelligence services, the FBI said."

"U.S. officials say they have disrupted a China-linked hacking operation that broke into U.S. government networks and critical infrastructure, while hiding its tracks on a global network of hacked devices, cloud-computing infrastructure and even clandestine networks.

The goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace. The operation targeted networks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy and the Senate, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a court filing. ..."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

FBI Shuts Down Sprawling China-Linked Hacking Network (behind paywall) "Spy operation targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve and other areas, hiding within normal internet traffic to avoid detection"

The Flat Side of Evolution: Even When Multiple Evolutionary Paths Are Equally Advantageous, the Choice Among Them Is Not Random

Amazing stuff! A mathematical study of biological evolution. This work is highly theoretical and model based.

Caveat the study could have been driven by strong presumption to model the subject as a complex manifold with curved and flatter areas. So I am a little skeptical whether this study is not about reality, but a statistical modeling exercise.

"A surprising discovery by Technion researchers sheds new light on the dynamics of evolution. .. 

the study shows that when an organism has several evolutionary paths available with equal fitness, the path it follows is not necessarily chosen at random. ...

organisms sometimes face multiple evolutionary trajectories that all yield the same level of fitness. This raises the question of how evolution selects among these paths of equivalent fitness. ...

researchers found that the choice is not random. Rather than wandering aimlessly, populations deterministically drift toward flatter regions of the evolutionary landscape, where an organism’s traits are more robust to mutations and other perturbations. In other words, when fitness is equal, evolution tends to favor directions that confer greater robustness and tolerance to change, properties that themselves provide a survival advantage. ...

The findings suggest that biological robustness and resilience to disruption can emerge spontaneously through evolutionary dynamics, even in the absence of direct selection favoring these traits. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Evolutionary dynamics selects more fit phenotypes over others. But fitness landscapes are complex and high dimensional, with continuous manifolds of practically identical high fitness.

Intuitively, one may imagine that evolution then proceeds to wander randomly among these degenerate states; we here show that this is generally not so.

On smooth manifolds of equal fitness, an implicit bias appears, directing evolving populations deterministically toward flatter regions.

This bias emerges from interaction between population variability and landscape geometry.

The effect has analogs in other contexts of stochastic dynamics, such as Langevin dynamics in an energy landscape and neural networks optimizing a loss function. Most importantly, it has implications on how we view evolved populations and how we interpret their observed properties.

Abstract

Degeneracy—the multiplicity of phenotypes with equal fitness—is a prevalent feature of biological systems. Such degeneracy is often associated with neutral evolution, under the assumption that adaptive dynamics on degenerate fitness manifolds is random and lacks direction.

Here we show that this is not generally the case. Using a minimal model of evolutionary dynamics on smooth degenerate fitness landscapes, we demonstrate that stochastic mutation–selection dynamics induce a directional drift on manifolds of optimal fitness toward regions of reduced curvature.

This drift arises from an interaction between population variability and landscape curvature: Curvature shapes phenotypic variation, which in turn biases evolutionary exploration even when fitness gradients vanish.

As a result evolution exhibits an implicit bias, preferentially selecting flat and robust regions of the degenerate fitness manifolds, without explicit optimization for these properties.

Interestingly, similar flatness-seeking implicit biases have been discovered in other stochastic optimization algorithms; here we reveal their different underlying mechanisms despite similar outcome, demonstrating the unique properties of evolutionary dynamics.

Our results highlight a general mechanism by which degeneracy shapes long-term evolutionary outcomes, affecting our interpretation of phenotypic variability, robustness, and neutrality in high-dimensional biological systems."

The Flat Side of Evolution: Even When Multiple Evolutionary Paths Are Equally Advantageous, the Choice Among Them Is Not Random - הטכניון-מכון טכנולוגי לישראל

Evolution on degenerate fitness landscapes is not random: Curvature drives directional drift (no public access)

Evolution on degenerate fitness landscapes is not neutral: curvature drives directional bias (preprint, open access)

Fig. 1 Evolution on degenerate landscapes is not neutral. ... 

Fig. 4 Evolutionary steady-state distributions compared to other stochastic dynamics.

(a) Evolutionary Dynamics ...

b) Gradient Langevin Dynamics ...

(c) Shift model approximating Stochastic Gradient Ascent ...

Graffiti: A tool of resistance | Inside Latin America

Recommendable! It has a little bit of a leftist bias.

(11) Graffiti: A tool of resistance | Inside Latin America - YouTube

A new chapter for Syria’s Kurds: What integration really means

Good news! They Kurds may gain some independence and recognition.

(10) A new chapter for Syria’s Kurds: What integration really means • FRANCE 24 English - YouTube

Beyond music: Dolly Parton's lifesaving gift to science

Recommendable! This video touches upon some of Dolly Parton's philanthropic work! And how she supported vaccination during Covid-19.

Beyond music: Dolly Parton's lifesaving gift to science | DW News - YouTube

PM Modi Pulls Up Officials Over Infrastructure Issues with Palki Sharma Show

Bad news! India under Prime Minister Modi has heavily invested in infrastructure, but the quality of these mega projects appears to be lacking.

 

(242) PM Modi Pulls Up Officials Over Infrastructure Issues | The Palki Sharma Show | India Global Review - YouTube

Dolly Parton's other legacy

R.I.P. What else will she be remembered for? She was a cosmetic surgery doll in her later life! Was she obsessed with her beauty and her figure? I don't mean to be nasty or disrespectful.

How many women (or men) were influenced by her cosmetic surgery?

"Yes, Dolly Parton has openly confirmed that she has breast implants and has undergone multiple breast augmentations and lifts throughout her career.

Details on Her Surgery
Open admission: Parton has never hidden her cosmetic procedures and often jokes about them with her signature humor.
Timeline: She has stated that she got her first breast augmentation later in her early career, with further adjustments and lifts done as her body changed over the decades.
No injections: While she confirmed implants and lifts, she has explicitly denied ever having dangerous silicone or foreign substance injections. ...

Her other documented cosmetic procedures (like facelifts or Botox) ..." (Google Search)


Dolly Parton in 1977 at age 31

What happened to pacifism and the non violence principle in the 21st century?

I am afraid the historic lessons of the 20th century with two World Wars, the Cold War and the use of the first nuclear weapons have been unlearned by the end of the first quarter of the 21st century!

This is a sad state of affairs at the beginning of the second quarter of the 21st century! It is certainly a regression/reversal for humanity! What will be the consequences?

Apple bets big on AI users running local models on their personal computers

Good news! This could become a next trend coming to personal computers!

"Apple updated its Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, with the M5 Ultra offering up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute performance of the M3 Ultra, according to Apple.

The M5 Max configuration has an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory, while the 

M5 Ultra scales to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and up to 512GB of unified memory for running large language models entirely on device. ...

the 512GB memory configuration arrives in late October. ...

The larger memory pools and clustering support for both devices let developers run bigger open-weight models on-device instead of paying for cloud compute."

Data Points: Ox Alpha is a multimodal GLM model by Z.ai

Apple introduces new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra — the ultimate desktop for on‑device AI and the most extreme pro workflows (original news release) "Apple’s most powerful Mac raises the bar for local AI with up to 4.3x faster performance, more advanced graphics, up to 512GB of unified memory, and extensive connectivity"

Bedrock Robotics' first operator-free retrofitted excavator deployments take off at job sites

Good news!

"Bedrock Robotics Inc. has deployed fully autonomous, retrofitted heavy excavators onto active infrastructure projects in Texas and Nevada. These AI-driven heavy equipment projects directly address the construction industry’s severe labor shortages, safety hazards, and cost overruns. ..."

"... The excavators use Bedrock’s Operator system, which retrofits existing fleets with a sophisticated sensor and compute suite to perform excavation without onboard operators, according to the company. ..."

Bedrock Robotics' first operator-free excavator deployments take off - The Robot Report

Bedrock Robotics deploys fully autonomous excavators on jobsites "The company said its retrofit tech, which digs without an operator, is now active on infrastructure projects for firms such as Sundt Construction and Zachry Construction."

Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile interceptor for its T-Dome

Good news!

"Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) revealed details of a hypersonic missile interceptor that could be central to the proposed T-Dome air defense concept. ... 

NCSIST said the Chiang Kung, also known as the Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV), would use a land-based mobile vertical launch system to fire interceptor missiles at up to hypersonic speeds to intercept ballistic missiles at “mid-level” altitudes — up to 70 km, according to an unnamed defense official, which is a major improvement on the Tien Kung III missile’s maximum altitude of 45 km.

Each launcher can hold four missiles at a time. The missile will use a two-stage solid-fuel rocket to propel the warhead and thrust-vector control to maneuver it at high altitudes. The Chiang Kung system includes a mobile active electronically scanned array radar vehicle co-developed by Taiwan and the United States, which can classify, track, and engage multiple tactical ballistic missiles while being resistant to electronic jamming.

The Chiang Kung will form the outermost layer of the multilayered T-Dome integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) concept ..."

China & Taiwan Update, August 25, 2026 | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

EU: Freiheitseinschränkung der Bürger durch neue Kapitalkontrollen gegen Banken aus Drittstaaten

Sehr bedenklich! Zieht die Festung EU noch mehr Zugbrücken rauf! Betrifft das z.B. auch das Vereinigte Königreich und Schweiz?

Hinweis ich habe den Artikel nicht gelesen.

"Ab dem 11. Januar 2027 droht EU-Bürgern mit Auslandskonten Ungemach. Ab diesem Zeitpunkt soll es Banken aus Drittstaaten wie der Schweiz, Großbritannien, den USA oder auch Singapur untersagt sein, europäischen Bürgern sogenannte Kernbankdienstleistungen anzubieten. Damit sind im Prinzip drei Kernfunktionen gemeint: das klassische Einlagengeschäft, also Giro-, Spar- oder Festgeldkonten, das Kreditgeschäft sowie das Garantiegeschäft. Banken, die diese Dienstleistungen auch künftig EU-Bürgern anbieten wollen, müssen dann eine eigens zugelassene, vollständig beaufsichtigte Zweigstelle in genau dem Mitgliedstaat unterhalten, in dem der Kunde ansässig ist. ..."

EU: Freiheitseinschränkung der Bürger durch neue Kapitalkontrollen "Brüssel zieht die finanzielle Repressionsschlinge enger. Ab 2027 erschwert die EU ihren Bürgern den Zugang zu Konten außerhalb ihres Machtbereichs. Hinter technokratischen Formeln wächst eine totalitäre Finanzarchitektur, die Kapital bindet und den Zugriff auf privates Vermögen vorbereitet. In Brüssel weiß man, dass hier alles zusammenbricht."

Ukraine President Zelensky Awards Elon Musk with Ukraine’s Order of Freedom (in absentia)

Good news! Congratulations!

Zelensky Awards Elon Musk Ukraine’s Order of Freedom "In brief: President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Elon Musk Ukraine’s Order of Freedom by decree on Aug. 26, citing the American entrepreneur’s personal contributions to protecting human life and freedom and developing relations between the Ukrainian and American peoples."

King Abdullah of Jordan Predicted Iran’s Two Decades Of Expansionism in 2004. Really!

Is the King of Jordan (since 1999, age 64) out of touch with reality?

First of all, Saddam Hussein of Iraq was a menace like Ayatollah Khomeini and the theocratic dictatorship in Iran. Two evil regimes side by side. So if the king of Jordan argues that the US "upended the regional balance of power" is disingenuous at best!

That the Iraqi people and other Arab countries (like Jordan) were unable or failed to establish a robust democracy in Iraq to counter rogue regimes like Iran after the fall of Hussein is there fault!

Caveat I did not read the whole article.

King Abdullah Predicted Iran’s Two Decades Of Expansionism "The U.S. invasion of Iraq and the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan upended the regional balance of power. The Islamic Republic spent the next two decades taking advantage."

King Abdullah

Concrete structural evidence that ketamine has opioidic tendencies

Amazing stuff!

"Research has provided concrete structural evidence that ketamine has opioidic tendencies.

Until recently, ketamine’s pain-reducing and sedatory abilities have been predominantly put down to its ability to block the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) in the brain.

While studies have suggested some relationship between ketamine and the opioid pathway, until now, no study has visualized ketamine activating opioid receptors. Looking at how NMDAR and opioid receptor signalling works together to drive ketamine's therapeutic effects could help guide the next generation of drugs ..."

From the abstract:

"Ketamine offers rapid relief for treatment-resistant depression and severe pain in the clinic, providing immediate benefits that traditional medications often fail to deliver.

While its antagonistic action at the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) is a key mechanism, ketamine’s dual nature as both a promising treatment and a drug with abuse potential suggests its therapeutic effects extend beyond NMDAR inhibition.

Here we provide structural evidence of human opioid receptors bound to ketamine and its parent analog phencyclidine (PCP), supporting that both ligands can directly bind and activate opioid receptors.

The structures, together with site-directed mutagenesis and structure–activity relationship studies, identify key motifs involved in ketamine and PCP recognition and efficacy modulation.

Furthermore, we determine the structure of the ligand-free state of human κ opioid receptor, revealing molecular details before ligand engagement.

Compared to PCP, ketamine displays more notable binding dynamics in the orthosteric site that may contribute to its unique pharmacology at opioid receptors. Our findings highlight the importance of including opioid receptors to fully understand ketamine’s versatility in clinical settings."

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Structural basis of opioid receptor activation by PCP and ketamine (open access)

Fig. 1: Cryo-EM structures of human opioid receptors bound to ketamine and PCP.

Fig. 3: Unique pharmacology of 3-OH-PCP.

A new pill to limit appetite and reduce obesity or to maintain weight

This seems to be an interesting new drug!

"Early results for a pill which mimics some of the chemistry of exercise have been positive, announced the company making the pill, Enveda. The trial was conducted in 88 non-obese people, with no adverse effects and none of the side effects often seen in GLP-1s, such as nausea or vomiting.

The pill mimics the enzyme lactate phenylalanine to make people more sensitive to leptin — the hormone which limits appetite — thereby helping to maintain weight loss rather than yo-yoing. The upcoming phase II trial will involve people who have come off GLP-1s to see if the drug can help them to maintain their weight loss."

"Exceptional safety was observed across 88 healthy volunteers. Phase 2 plans to test whether ENV-308 can help people maintain their weight after stopping GLP-1s. 

• ENV-308 is the first drug in human trials designed to mimic Lac-Phe, a pseudo dipeptide hormone released by the body in response to high-intensity exercise. 
• In its first clinical trial, ENV-308 was extremely well tolerated across 88 healthy volunteers, including for gastrointestinal safety – the most common side effect that leads to people stopping GLP-1 medicines. 
• The trial showed ENV-308 reduced circulating leptin, an exploratory signal that the drug reaches biology relevant to metabolic disease. 
• In animal studies, ENV-308 preserved lean muscle during weight loss and prevented weight regain after weight-loss therapy was stopped. 

..."

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Enveda Reports Positive Phase 1 Results for ENV-308, the First Pill Designed From the Chemistry of Exercise (original news release)

Source

What do popular terms like disparity, equity, equality, and justice have in common

They are perfect examples of terms in the toolkit of alarmists, ideologues and demagogues! One of their most favorite terms "disparate impact".

Whenever you see these terms or their derived terms used in research and journalistic articles be immediately alert! It is almost like a red flag! If there is a combination of these terms used in an article be alarmed!

Often the use of these terms identify the author immediately as a simple minded terrible simplificateur!

Then there is the pretense of knowledge that these authors implicitly invoke. E.g. so called intellectuals want to appear as smart and convincing!

Like Karl Marx, many times the world/subject is divided into two supposedly distinctive dogmatic categories aka as dichotomy (e.g. capitalists and laborers). Many times this division is artificial or too coarse or is very incomplete and ignores dynamics/interactions etc.

If we want a better humanity going forward, then this cheap demagoguery needs to stop!

CIA Director John Ratcliffe Visits Moscow Unannounced – US Media

What is going on? It seems this visit is highly unusual!

"CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise visit to Moscow, U.S. officials said.

 

Ratcliffe spent about four hours in the Russian capital before leaving. The reason for the visit wasn’t immediately clear. It came as intelligence collected by the U.S. showed Russia’s preparations for a possible military mobilization in Ukraine. The CIA declined to comment."

CIA Director John Ratcliffe Visits Moscow Unannounced – US Media "In brief: A US Air Force C-17 military transport plane landed in Moscow on Tuesday, Aug. 25 after flying from Riga, raising questions about the mission. CBS News later reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Moscow for meetings with Russian authorities. Ahead of the trip, Washington reportedly asked Ukraine to temporarily refrain from striking Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to Axious and Suspilne."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

Scotland's Intellectual Triumph – The Scottish Enlightenment

Recommendable!

The year 1776 is not only famous for the US Declaration of Independence but also for the publication of Scottish author Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

Scotland's Intellectual Triumph – Samuel Gregg