Recommendable!
Friday, October 23, 2026
Why France Has a Nuclear-Powered Economy—and America Doesn’t
What will President Trump and the 50 states do about it if anything?
How much power supply does artificial intelligence need going forward?
"France generates nearly 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors. In the US it’s about 20 percent (although the US runs the world’s largest nuclear fleet and generates more nuclear electricity in absolute terms than France does). ..."
Citigroup gets Beijing’s approval for wholly owned securities firm in China
Good news!
"US bank Citigroup has received approval to set up a wholly foreign-owned securities firm in mainland China, allowing the lender to pursue more opportunities in one of the world’s largest capital markets. ..."
"... The approval, which was also announced on the same day by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, followed a recent approval by Beijing for the U.S. payments giant Visa to prepare to set up a bank card clearing business in China. ...
In a statement, Citi, a major U.S. financial services provider, said the onshore securities license will allow Citi — through the new entity — to offer equities brokerage, securities underwriting, securities research and principal trading services to domestic and foreign clients. ..."
A chainmail suit
What Sydney Sweeney does for fame and glory! We know what came next!
N.b.: This is an older news story from 2025, but I missed it.
SLAC sets record for ultra short high-energy X-ray pulses
Amazing stuff!
"In brief
- Researchers developed a method to indirectly measure the duration of X-ray pulses created by SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source.
- The pulses lasted only 100 to 400 attoseconds, making them the shortest high-energy X-ray pulses ever recorded at an X-ray free-electron laser.
- The pulses can be used by scientists to capture the real-time motion of electrons in dense systems like plasmas and the inner orbitals of atoms.
..."
From the abstract:
"We present the experimental confirmation of attosecond pulse generation in the hard X-ray regime with a free-electron laser.
Our experiment is based on the measurements of a nonlinear optical phenomenon known as amplified spontaneous emission from 3d transition metals.
By analysing the yield of the collective X-ray fluorescence induced by ultrashort pulses at the Linac Coherent Light Source, we identify the generation of attosecond pulses and shot-to-shot fluctuations in their duration, ranging from 100 as to 400 as. The inferred time–bandwidth product for 100-as pulses is approximately 2 fs eV, indicating that a fraction of the pulses is nearly transform-limited pulses.
Our results confirm the generation of attosecond hard X-ray pulses that can be used to simultaneously probe matter on the timescales of electronic phenomena and with atomic spatial resolution.
Furthermore, attosecond hard X-ray pulses can outrun the fastest radiation damage processes, paving the way to single-shot damage-free X-ray measurements."
Experimental demonstration of attosecond hard X-ray pulses (no public access)
Experimental demonstration of attosecond hard X-ray pulses (preprint, open access, however this preprint dates back to June 2025)
Safeguarding global terrestrial vertebrate species from future sea level rise by year 2100. Really!
More medieval superstition and futuristic propaganda dressed up as science! Alarmism and hysteria!
We can not even forecast local weather accurately for more than barely 24 hours!
"Editor’s summary
Global warming is causing sea level to rise, inundating and shifting coastal ecosystems. Sea level rise has already led to population declines of coastal species and even an extinction.
Jiang et al. estimated the extent of projected future sea level rise’s effects on terrestrial vertebrate diversity at the global scale. They found that one-fifth to two-thirds of species will be exposed to sea level rise in some part of their habitats, depending on the taxonomic group and projection, with especially high diversity threatened by sea level rise in Southeast Asia. Considering refugia from sea level rise in conservation priorities may be important for protecting species in the future.
Abstract
Sea level rise (SLR) threatens terrestrial biodiversity, yet its spatiotemporal and species-specific impacts remain unclear. Integrating relative SLR projections across five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) with area of habitat (AOH) maps for 34,120 terrestrial vertebrate species, we project that species exposed to SLR will increase from up to 13,680 in 2050 to 15,324 by 2100, including 57 to 63% of birds, 47 to 52% of mammals, 28 to 36% of reptiles, and 20 to 24% of amphibians. In Southeast Asia, inland inundation areas support high richness.
Under SSP5-8.5, species facing >10% habitat inundation surge from 18 in 2050 to 109 by 2100, with reptiles and already threatened species overrepresented. Safeguarding SLR refugia—the noninundated habitats for exposed species—is critical, yet more than 96% lie outside protected areas, which means that early international action is required. [???]"
Royal Society of Chemistry: Highlighting the ‘missing elements’ in chemistry curricula. Really!
Unfortunately, the Royal Society of Chemistry is still woke! When demagoguery trumps science!
Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of invading into a red blood cell
Good news! Amazing stuff!
Note: Although all authors of this study are affiliated with Columbia University it appears that Columbia University has not published anything about this research. Strange!
"... Now, ... has imaged the moving junction right at the moment of invasion, in unprecedented detail. Her team found that when the Plasmodium parasite installs molecular gaskets in the host cell, it radically remodels the cell membrane to slip through without a trace. This knowledge could help inform the next generation of malaria treatments and influence the drug-discovery process for other parasitic diseases, such as cyclosporiasis and toxoplasmosis. ..."
From the highlights and the abstract:
"Highlights
• Natively assembled AMA1-RON2/4/5 complex isolated from invading Plasmodium merozoites
• Cryo-EM reveals the structure of the basic functional unit of the malarial moving junction
• The malarial moving junction exhibits hallmarks of a membrane-remodeling machine
• Structure-guided design of an invasion-inhibitory protein that blocks AMA1-RON2 binding
Summary
The Plasmodium moving junction is central to malarial host-cell invasion, and yet its function remains unclear.
Here, we determine the endogenous structure of the basic repeating unit of the moving junction, purified directly from invasion-stalled Plasmodium falciparum parasites, revealing a sailboat-shaped 1:1:1:1 assembly of apical membrane antigen 1 (PfAMA1) and rhoptry neck proteins 2, 4, and 5 (PfRON2, PfRON4, and PfRON5).
We observe two PfRON2 transmembrane helices that anchor the complex in the red blood cell (RBC) membrane and display an extracellular handle for PfAMA1 binding.
PfAMA1 directly contacts the RBC membrane, strengthening the connection. PfRON2/4/5 form a large, basic platform inside the RBC that electrostatically engages the RBC membrane and wedges seven amphipathic helices deep into the bilayer, suggesting an active role in host-membrane remodeling.
We then leverage the native membrane context revealed by our structure, along with recent advances in computational protein design, to enable the rational design of a small protein binder that inhibits invasion."
Structural basis for host membrane binding and remodeling by invading malaria parasites (open access)
Graphical abstract
Figure 1 Global architecture of the P. falciparum moving junction staple
Mexico: 169 journalists murdered in last 20 years or 8 per year, basically none of the killers have been prosecuted and jailed
This is a very sad statistics! Hopefully, the current president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum can do something about it.
"...
Key figures:
- 169 journalists murdered since 2006, an average of eight per year
- Half of all crimes against journalists take place in five states: Veracruz, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas
- 166 victims (98%) were local reporters
- At least 34 victims were tortured before being killed
- In 168 out of 169 cases, neither the person who ordered the killing nor the motive for the murder has been identified, leaving a crime resolution rate of less than 1%
- 59% of the victims reported on organised crime, 46% covered politics.
..."
Microsoft’s AI outperforms generalist doctors on hard, complex cases
Good news! Less quackery! When will ML & AI beat or be on par with specialist doctors? Soon!
When will we have an AI doctor available at any time for every human being on the planet?
"Microsoft’s AI diagnostic system correctly diagnosed complex medical cases in a simulation more than twice as often as generalist physicians, according to a study published Thursday in Science. ...
The system, dubbed MAI-DxO (DxO for short), coordinates several AI agents that act like a panel of doctors. They question a patient, order tests, and debate a diagnosis.
In a simulation using complex cases from the New England Journal of Medicine, it was correct 83% of the time. Primary care doctors and general internists, working individually with reference materials, were correct 36% of the time. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
... Nori et al. made their AI system start from the patient’s chief complaint and decide what follow-up questions to ask and what testing to order to collect the information needed for a diagnosis.
In multiple test settings, this system achieved higher accuracy than human responders and at a lower total cost, demonstrating its potential as a tool to assist physicians. ...
Abstract
We explored the capabilities of frontier language models in sequential diagnosis, a diagnostic paradigm that captures the iterative nature of clinical reasoning.
Given a brief clinical presentation, clinicians selectively acquired information to reach a diagnosis, enabling assessment of diagnostic accuracy and workup cost.
We developed an interactive benchmark and an artificial intelligence (AI) system that simulates a panel of physicians, continually revising the differential diagnosis and selecting cost-effective tests.
Using this benchmark, the system achieved 83.2% accuracy on New England Journal of Medicine clinicopathological conference cases and 80.3% on MIMIC-IV-ED emergency department admissions, outperforming generalist physicians (36.1 and 46.8%, respectively).
Although these findings were obtained in a controlled benchmark setting, they highlight the promise of language models for supporting more accurate, lower-cost diagnoses."
Sequential diagnosis with language models (open access)
Fig. 2. Orchestration in SDBench.
Chiricahua Becomes National Park in Arizona, the 63rd national park
I have said it here before, I think the power of US Presidents to designate national parks need to be curtailed (or how can national parks be converted back)!
How many national parks will there be in 50 years from now? How much of the land of the continental US will be covered by these parks?
"Chiricahua became Arizona’s fourth national park and the nation’s 64th after President Trump signed legislation upgrading the Cochise County national monument.
Known among Native Americans as the Land of Standing-Up Rocks, the 12,000-acre site near Willcox is famous for towering rock spires and draws about 60,000 visitors a year. ..."
Price Analysis Shows China Holds Upper Hand in Russia Gas Supply Talks. Is China paying significantly less than other countries?
How depend is Putin the Terrible already on China?
However, the article is cagey about the price. E.g. it contains no price chart, only a volume chart.
Pentagon, Lockheed agree to 10-year deal for 850 F-35 jets
This seems to be a huge deal!
Is this deal possibly antiquated/outdated in the age of robotics and autonomous weapons?
"The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin agreed to a 10-year framework that the Pentagon says guarantees at least 850 F-35 Lightning II fighters for the U.S. military, pending congressional approval and funding.
The framework, announced Thursday, includes initial spare parts plus 10 years of modification kits and sustainment. It also covers orders from foreign customers, with production continuing at 156 aircraft per year, according to Lockheed. ...
Neither announcement gave a total value or per-jet price. ..."
Linker Wahlsieg lässt bereits 72 Polizisten aus Berlin flüchten
Könnte die Schlagzeile des Tages sein!
Trump moves to restore home ownership dream by cutting mortgage costs, boosting factory-built homes
Good news! Good idea to promote manufactured homes!
"President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at lowering single-family homeownership and mortgage costs, placing renewed emphasis on restoring the American Dream of homeownership amid persistent affordability challenges. ...
The order directs the Federal Housing Finance Agency to launch a pilot program that proactively cancels mortgage insurance premiums for qualifying borrowers once they meet equity thresholds based on current market values, using automated valuation models, and to expand its title insurance waiver pilot into a permanent nationwide program to cut refinance costs. ...
The initiative builds on the July 2026 ROAD to Housing Act’s elimination of the longstanding permanent chassis requirement for HUD-code manufactured homes and HUD’s Oct. 7 Next Generation Manufactured Housing Action Plan, which outlines steps to update construction standards, energy-efficiency rules, foundations, and installation for chassis-free designs.
New manufactured homes have averaged around $135,000 in recent Census data, a fraction of site-built prices, and the task force is charged with recommending ways to expand their eligibility and production while maintaining safety standards. ..."
Kids aren’t more creative than adults - just more confident
An interesting study!
"... Adults consistently believe children possess a higher capacity for creativity than adults do. To find out why, researchers gathered 92 preschool-aged children and 70 adults, mostly in their 20s. They gave each participant the same tasks: thinking of as many creative uses for a tin can as possible in 3 minutes, drawing freely with colored pens for 8 minutes, and inventing and drawing a make-believe animal in 8 minutes.
When reviewers observed and rated the anonymized creative tasks, the adults’ outputs were more novel, effective, and creative than the children’s. ..."
From the abstract:
"It is widely believed that children are more creative than adults, yet direct empirical tests of this assumption are scarce.
A qualitative pre-study indicated that creativity is commonly attributed to preschoolers and associated with intrinsically motivated engagement, informing the design of the main study.
92 preschool children and 70 adults completed a divergent thinking task and two drawing tasks varying in structure (free vs. goal-directed). Independent raters evaluated all products for novelty, effectiveness, and overall creativity; participants reported motivation, enjoyment, confidence, and anxiety.
Adults outperformed children on externally rated creativity, particularly in structured tasks.
In contrast, children reported higher confidence and motivation, lower anxiety, and—except in the structured drawing task—greater enjoyment.
Together, these findings challenge the view that children are generally more creative than adults by showing that their apparent advantage lies in confident and intrinsically motivated engagement, whereas creative thinking performance increases with age."
Startup plans to rejuvenate the nuclear power industry with a new manufacturing approach
Good news!
"... The company prefabricates huge blocks of its nuclear plants at shipyards, where workers and equipment already produce huge steel structures for the oil and gas industry every day, then ships the blocks on barges to the site of the plant for final assembly. ..."
Uber puts all 30,000 employees on ChatGPT Work
Uber in overdrive?
"Uber and OpenAI announced an expansion of their partnership on Thursday, with the ride-share giant telling TechCrunch that its entire global workforce — some 30,000 people — will now be using ChatGPT Work.
ChatGPT Work was introduced in July as an enterprise-focused AI agent that corporate teams could deploy for various workflows. ..."
Uber brings ChatGPT Work to all employees with OpenAI (original news release)
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Karoline Leavitt issues URGENT PLEA to Republicans on the Sean Hannity Show
How about Karoline Leavitt for president in 2028?
His Holiness the Dalai Lama Meets with U.S. Congressional Delegation
Who will succeed the visibly old Dalai Lama?
Trump's H-1B Woes: 12,700 Indian Techies Return Home as US Layoffs Mount
Recommendable! For some Indian techies returning to India may not be so easy!
Ghost Particles Are Exposing Hidden Black Holes. They Just Won a Nobel Prize with Matt O'Dowd
Very recommendable! This episode is about neutrinos!
Forecasting of (irreversible) Tipping Points with AI applied to complex natural phenomena. Really!
Tipping point is a controversial, fashionable, very popular term of art! This article even attempts to combine this term with the term "irreversible". In this context, this combination is most certainly wrong and a form of demagoguery!
If such tipping points were not reversible, then there would probably be no life on Earth!
Notice that the title of the research paper is rather abstract and does not directly suggest any application to e.g. climate change. Was the authors effort to link their abstract research to tipping points a mistake? Most likely so!
Notice also the mix of arguments here involving an airfoil and climate change! The airflow around an airfoil is certainly complex, hower this complexity totally pales compared to climate change. Much of climate change is still poorly understood unlike the well studied airfoil dynamics.
Anima Anandkumar is a very well known, top ML & AI researcher. However, she tries to come across here as an expert on climatology! She claims e.g. "... increased greenhouse gas concentrations are predicted to lead to drastic decreases in low cloud cover ...". Fact is we still know very little about the complex cloud formation process etc. Maybe Ms. Anandkumar needs to check the accuracy/inaccuracy of the daily weather forecasts more closely and more often!
"The writer Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term "tipping points" to refer to the moment when a trend or social behavior crosses a threshold and rapidly spreads everywhere.
In physics, tipping points occur when systems—say, Earth's climate—reach an unstable point and topple over into a sea of change that is sometimes irreversible. Examples include global warming or the melting of polar ice caps. ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
Tipping points are abrupt and often irreversible shifts in complex systems, like the Earth’s climate or fluid flows.
We introduce a machine learning framework to forecast future tipping points. While most prior works predict tipping points in simpler systems, we demonstrate that our approach works on large-scale complex problems, including forecasting a climate tipping point in cloud cover and aerodynamic instability in airfoils.
Abstract
Tipping points are abrupt, drastic, and often irreversible changes in the evolution of nonstationary and chaotic dynamical systems.
For instance, increased greenhouse gas concentrations are predicted to lead to drastic decreases in low cloud cover, referred to as a climatological tipping point. In this paper, we learn the evolution of such nonstationary dynamical systems using a recurrent neural operator (RNO), which learns mappings between function spaces.
After training RNO on only the pre-tipping dynamics, we employ it to detect future tipping points using an uncertainty-based approach.
In particular, we propose a conformal prediction framework to forecast tipping points by monitoring deviations from physics constraints (such as conserved quantities and partial differential equations), enabling forecasting of these abrupt changes along with a rigorous measure of uncertainty. We illustrate our proposed methodology on nonstationary ordinary and partial differential equations, such as the Lorenz-63 and Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equations.
We also apply our methods to forecast a climate tipping point in stratocumulus cloud cover and airfoil wake and stall transitions using only limited knowledge of the governing equations.
For the latter, we show that our proposed method zero-shot generalizes to forecasting multiple future tipping points under varying Reynolds numbers.
In our experiments, we demonstrate that even partial or approximate physics constraints can be used to accurately [???] forecast future tipping points."
Fig. 2 Conceptual diagram of our proposed method applied to a flow over an airfoil with a changing angle of attack.
(A) The system exhibits two tipping points, the wake and stall transitions. In this example, we consider forecasting the stall transition.
(B) We train a neural operator model to learn the pre-stall dynamics of the system. Note that our method does not require access to post-tipping data at training time. (C) At inference time, we autoregressively roll-out our model’s dynamics predictions and compute the predictions’ physics loss at each time-step. The first time the physics loss crosses a predefined loss threshold, we label this as the tipping point.
Anima Anandkumar
AI predicts cancer survival from a single selfie photo. Really!
I have some doubts. Indeed, this capability was only tested on individuals with cancer. Cancer is an extremely deadly disease!
It appears more that this model is capable of better forecasting the remaining days until death of a cancer patient from a single selfie photo.
"An artificial-intelligence tool can estimate a person’s biological age and chance of dying from cancer by analysing a single photo of their face.
The model was trained using more than 40 million photos of faces across all age groups and was tested on two, separate groups of people with cancer.
Of the 122 people who were deemed to be at greatest risk of death from cancer by the AI, more than half died within 90 days.
“Clinicians already intuitively assess patient health based on appearance,” report the authors; AI tools “standardize and quantify this intuitive practice”. ..."
From the abstract:
"Summary
Background
Facial appearance offers a non-invasive window into health. We built Foundation Artificial Intelligence for Health Recognition-Face (FAHR-Face), a foundation model trained on more than 40 million facial photographs and fine-tuned it for two distinct tasks: biological age estimation (FAHR-FaceAge) and survival prediction (FAHR-FaceSurvival).
Methods
FAHR-FaceAge underwent two-stage, age-balanced fine-tuning on ten public image datasets;
FAHR-FaceSurvival was fine-tuned on 34 363 photographs of patients with cancer. Model robustness (cosmetic surgery, make-up, pose, and lighting) and independence (attention mapping) were tested. Both models were clinically tested in two independent cancer patient datasets with survival analysed by multivariate Cox models and adjusted for clinical prognostic factors.
Findings
For age estimation, FAHR-FaceAge had the lowest mean absolute error of 5·1 years on public datasets, outperforming benchmark models and maintaining accuracy across the full human lifespan.
In patients with cancer, FAHR-FaceAge outperformed a previous age estimation model in survival prognostication.
FAHR-FaceSurvival showed robust prediction of mortality, and the highest-risk quartile had more than triple the mortality of the lowest (adjusted hazard ratio 3·23; p<0·0001). These findings were validated in the independent cohort and both models showed generalisability across age, sex, race, and cancer subgroups.
The two algorithms provided distinct, complementary prognostic information; attention mapping revealed that each model relied on distinct facial regions. The combination of FAHR-FaceAge and FAHR-FaceSurvival improved prognostic accuracy.
Interpretation
A single foundation model can generate inexpensive, scalable facial biomarkers that capture both biological ageing and disease-related mortality risk. The foundation model enabled effective training by use of relatively small clinical datasets. Routine quantitative facial analysis could enhance risk stratification when traditional biomarkers are unavailable."
Can AI predict whether you’ll die from cancer from just an image of your face? "Researchers tasked an algorithm with predicting cancer patients’ risk of dying. For some people, it was shockingly accurate"
Figure 1 Study design and Harvard-RT patient dataset overview
North Korea tested strategic submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCM)
When will this madness finally end in the unification of the Korean peninsula with a peaceful and democratic unified Korea?
"North Korea Nuclear Modernization. North Korea tested “strategic” submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCM) from the Hero Kim Jun Ok guided-missile submarine on October 14 as part of its efforts to demonstrate its enhanced second-strike capabilities. North Korea may be able to arm other conventional submarines with nuclear-capable SLCMs ..."
Stratospheric airship flew 30 days from US to Japan to test sky cell tower concept
Amazing stuff!
"... The trans-Pacific flight that took place over a month between August and September 2026 was the most notable milestone yet for Sceye, a US aerospace company based near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sceye has developed an uncrewed platform filled with helium for buoyancy and equipped with an electric-powered propeller for active propulsion, allowing it to resist most strong winds and keep hovering over the same location for long periods. The platform also uses top-mounted solar panels and onboard batteries to stay powered for stratospheric operations around the clock. ...
The lighter-than-air platform has also benefited from advances in material sciences that “were either not discovered or not understood back in the late 1990s,” ... the example of the discovery of graphene in 2004, which “greatly helped us optimize strength relative to weight on our hull, the energy density of our batteries, and performance relative to the area and weight of our solar panels.”
The design could eventually scale up to a high altitude platform system (HAPS) capable of lifting payloads as heavy as 551 pounds (250 kilograms). That would be between 25 and 50 times more payload capacity than competing stratospheric platforms like high-flying drones ..."
Sceye’s Stratospheric Platform Re-enters United States After Record-Breaking Roundtrip Stratospheric Flight Between U.S. and Japan (original company news release) "The journey, which lasted 30 days and traversed nearly 30,000 km, included operating for a week in the stratosphere over Japan. While over Japan, Sceye and its partner SoftBank Corp. successfully verified Direct-to-Device connectivity to unmodified devices, HAPS-based communications with drones, and edge computing from the stratosphere."
Sceye's high altitude platform system (HAPS) launches from New Mexico to begin a trans-Pacific flight to Japan on August 9, 2026
More on subsea cables as targets of military conflicts
Serious stuff! Apparently, the current capabilities to inspect or repair subsea cables are not very well developed.
Notice the critical distinction between severing and damaging a cable.
"...
Key Takeaways
- Nations are more reliant than ever on ocean infrastructure—especially undersea telecommunication cable networks, power cables, and pipelines. This increasing reliance has far outstripped advances in technology and increases in the capacity to repair, inspect, and militarily act when this infrastructure is damaged.
- Unlike in most other domains, only some undersea actions have a sudden impact.
A severed cable or destroyed pipeline is almost immediately known, but a damaged cable may fail many days, weeks, or months later. - There are many challenges to determining who was responsible for an attack (and why) in the undersea arena. And the level of attribution has a direct effect on which actions can and cannot be taken against the actor responsible.
- The legal authorities and laws regarding undersea actions are complicated and poorly defined.
Severing cables, destroying pipelines, surveying infrastructure, and placing sensors clearly constitute an act of war worthy of military response only if the action is of catastrophic effect to the nation (e.g., causing severe economic damage or major ecological crisis). - Ultimately, advantage in the undersea knife fight will accrue to states that can rapidly understand incidents, credibly demonstrate and control detection and response capabilities, and calibrate actions in ways that shape adversary behavior without precipitating unnecessary escalation.
..."
Bacteria discovered to be synthesising metal–organic frameworks with ‘extraordinary conductivity’ for 600 million years
Amazing stuff!
"For the first time, researchers have discovered a microorganism that has made metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and it appears to have been making them for millions of years. These supramolecular structures also have excellent conductivity and can transport electrons over distances spanning several centimetres, helping the bacteria survive the harsh environment on the seafloor. ‘It is a whole new type of [bio]molecular structure,’ ..."
From the abstract:
"Biobased electronics aims for disruptive innovation in sustainable electronics but is obstructed by the low intrinsic conductivity of biomaterials.
Recently, fibres were discovered within the cell envelope of multi-cellular cable bacteria, which display an exceptional conductivity for a biomaterial.
Yet, the molecular structure and electron transport mechanism remain unresolved, thus precluding a detailed structure-function understanding and the development of biomimetic analogues.
Here, we demonstrate that each fibre embeds an extended nickel-organic framework, which consists of a bundle of intertwined nanoribbons, each built from stacked repeat units in which multiple nickel centres are linked by organic dithiolene ligands.
This metal-organic supramolecular architecture provides extensive conjugation and electron delocalization, thus enabling exceptional conductance over macroscale distances.
This suggests a novel design principle for bio-based electronic materials and opens possibilities for biosynthesis of metal-organic frameworks."
Highly efficient long-range conduction through a biosynthetic nickel-organic framework (open access)
Fig. 5: Structural model of the electron transport structure through the periplasmic fibre network in cable bacteria.
How China supplies Russia’s War and how Russia becomes more dependent on China
Is Russia fast becoming significantly dependent on China? Is Putin the Terrible now a puppet of Xi Jinping? Hopefully, China will exert some influence on Putin the Terrible to end the war with the Ukraine, the sooner, the better.
"In brief: China’s part in sustaining Russia’s wartime economy goes well beyond that of a major trading partner. In energy, Chinese demand gives Russia a critical outlet for crude oil and other fossil fuels. ...
... China matters the most to the Russian war economy for two reasons. It buys large amounts of Russian energy, and it supplies the machinery, components and materials Russia needs to sustain military production. The two countries now depend on each other, but the balance increasingly favors Beijing.
Russia has vast energy and industrial resources. Turning them into revenue and weapons, however, relies more and more on Chinese markets, supply chains and manufactured goods. China has more room to maneuver. It can diversify its energy suppliers and has a wider range of international economic partners.
Russia’s dependence on China therefore has two connected sides: China as a major market for Russian energy, and China as an enabler of Russia’s military-industrial complex. Together, they show that the post-2022 economic order has not simply weakened Russia. It has also pushed Moscow into a deeper and more lopsided relationship with Beijing. ..."
Who is shaking who? Source
Putin the Humanist? 10 Ways Russia Has Shown Its ‘Humanity’ in Ukraine
Understandably, the Ukrainian people are not exactly amused about such a label for Putin the Terrible!
"In brief: US envoy Steve Witkoff called Vladimir Putin a “humanist.” The record of Russia’s war against Ukraine includes the killings in Bucha, the bombing of Mariupol’s theater and maternity hospital, the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, torture of prisoners of war – and a baby killed in a stroller in a Russian drone strike. ..."
Mounting Fatalities Linked to Militant Islamist Violence in Africa amid Shifting Tactics
Recommendable!
"Fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence in Africa surpassed 20,000 for the fourth consecutive year, underscoring the resiliency of militant groups across the Sahel, Somalia, the Lake Chad Basin, and Mozambique.
Highlights
The record 23,872 fatalities linked to African militant Islamist groups over the past year sustain a pace of more than 20,000 such deaths observed since 2023.
The rising level of annual fatalities (for the 12 months ending in mid-2026) was propelled by a 60-percent spike in deaths in the Lake Chad Basin and Mozambique. ..."
This original on the webpage is an interactive map allowing you to select years between 2017-2026
English for trippers: Tap a trap or taper a tape
Lot's of claptrap? Try some tap dancing!
A tapeworm trapped in red tape!
Migratory birds spread avian influenza to Greenland’s polar bears due to climate change. Really!
Is here an American elite university abusing the cute polar bear again? This may very well be the case.
How serious a disease is this particular influenza virus to animals like polar bears? Do the polar bears survive? Do they have chronic or lasting effects on polar bears?
It appears there no historical data available or the authors of this study did not mention it!
"Migrating birds that breed in the Arctic are spreading avian influenza to polar bears in eastern Greenland, according to a new study that found evidence of infections in bear blood samples acquired from Greenland Inuit subsistence hunters.
The results suggest that such emerging viruses may pose risks to Arctic mammals.
The Arctic is warming at faster rates than much of the rest of the planet – in the western Arctic, four times the global rate. As a result, threatened polar bears that hunt on dwindling sea ice are being forced to search for food elsewhere, which has likely increased their odds of exposure to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). ...
In 2026, in Svalbard, scientists reported a young polar bear died from HPAI after eating an infected walrus. ..."
Caveat: I did not read the entire study.
From the abstract:
"We detected influenza A virus antibodies in plasma collected from East Greenland polar bears during subsistence hunts in 2024 (3/14 [21%]) and 2025 (6/14 [43%]). Four bears from 2025 had antibodies for the globally emerging highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5 clade 2.3.4.4b, consistent with survival after exposure."
Evidence of Exposure to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5 Viruses in East Greenland Polar Bears
Mother polar bear and cubs in East Greenland. (photo taken from article)
Figure. Potential mechanisms of transmission for highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses to polar bears, including direct contact through mucosal or nasal secretions, scavenging dead birds or bird eggs, eating infected mammals, and mother-to-offspring transmission through lactation.
Thermal noise used to send data without an active signal
Amazing stuff! Sounds almost a bit exotic. Notice two female students are featured here.
"In brief
- In pursuit of a new low-power communication system, researchers turned to thermal noise, background static produced from the vibrations of electrons in electrical conductors.
- An experimental setup successfully sent signals between a transmitter and receiver, but how those signals could be distinguished from background thermal noise when both devices and their surroundings were at room temperature remained a mystery.
- The researchers determined that switching between two types of electrical circuits in the transmitter creates noise frequencies that appear “hotter” and “colder” to the receiver, allowing them to produce a binary code signal.
- The team hopes this could lead to new low-power, wireless options for communications systems that send small amounts of data.
..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
This work develops a wireless channel model and transmission scheme for thermal noise-based communication networks. These systems offer low-power communication in radio-frequency-sensitive environments. By switching a transmitter’s impedance, these systems enable wireless communication by inducing changes in the receiver’s measured thermal noise temperature.
This work models received noise power for impedance-matched and -mismatched transmitter loads.
This work uncovers a previously unidentified physical phenomenon of thermal noise backscatter, which explains how noise-temperature changes can arise at the receiver when the entire system is at ambient temperature. Building on this model, this work derives the channel capacity of thermal noise communications and presents a capacity-achieving scheme. The achievable rate is governed by measurement noise bandwidth and thermal contrast between transmitter load states.
Abstract
Thermal noise communication systems transmit information by modulating thermal radiation, eliminating the need for a dedicated signal power source and making them attractive solutions for low-power sensor networks.
Their efficiency enables long-lived, unobtrusive operation, which is valuable in the Internet of Things, electromagnetic interference-sensitive environments, and radio frequency identification tag systems.
However, a limited understanding of the wireless channel model and efficient transmission schemes has hindered their practical deployment.
Here, we present a wireless channel model that elucidates how systems operating at ambient temperature can modulate thermal noise to convey information.
Our results reveal a thermal noise backscatter mechanism that enables significantly higher data rates than previously achieved.
We designed and built a thermal noise communication system leveraging this mechanism to achieve data rates in the kilobits-per-second range—over two orders of magnitude higher than prior demonstrations.
We also derive the system capacity and show that using polar codes, we are able to achieve this expected capacity.
Our channel model and transmission scheme pave the way for strategies in thermal noise sensing and communication, advancing practical low-power networking for next-generation wireless applications."
First-principles channel model and capacity-achieving transmission scheme in thermal noise backscatter links (no public access)
No preprint paper found!
Electrical sliding switches stacked graphene between magnetic states
Amazing stuff!
"Researchers found that when voltage was applied to a graphene stack, the layers slid into different arrangements and alternated between magnetic states."
"... researchers ... have found that electrically sliding the layers of ultrathin graphene can switch the material between distinct magnetic states that persist even after the voltage is removed. ...
“We discovered that if we focus on the much weaker bonds between the layers, known as van der Waals bonds, we were able to reconfigure the crystal structure,” Yasuda said. “Using voltage, we were able to shift alignment of the layers, something called ‘sliding,’ which changed how the graphene layers were stacked.”
The most stable and common pattern of these layers, or Bernal configuration, corresponded to a nonmagnetic state. Voltage transformed it into the less common and less stable pattern, rhombohedral configuration – a state associated with magnetism, superconductivity and exotic quantum phenomena. ..."
From the abstract:
"Layer stacking in two-dimensional materials can strongly impact electronic phases.
In graphene, for instance, the metastable rhombohedral stacking arrangement hosts correlated and topological electronic phases, which are absent in conventional Bernal stacking.
Here we use the sliding-induced first-order structural phase transition between Bernal and rhombohedral tetralayer graphene driven by gate voltages to manipulate the magnetic phase of the sample.
Through transport measurement on marginally twisted double-bilayer graphene samples, we observe bistable switching between a Bernal-dominant state and a rhombohedral–Bernal mixed state across a wide space of the gate-voltage phase diagram.
The structural phase transition induces a non-volatile switching between a non-magnetic and a ferromagnetic phase.
We characterize the latter phase via low-temperature electric transport measurements and observe an anomalous Hall effect.
The sign reversal of the anomalous Hall signal under opposite displacement fields suggests that the Hall signal may originate from domain boundaries between Bernal and rhombohedral regions.
Our experiments showcase how gating-induced sliding phase transitions of two-dimensional materials can provide on-demand toggle switching between complex phases and offer insights on the effect of stacking domain boundaries on the global response of the system."
Gate-induced layer sliding drives non-volatile switching of magnetism in tetralayer graphene (no public access)
Nonvolatile Switching of Magnetism via Gate-Induced Sliding in Tetralayer Graphene (preprint, open access)
Figure 1:Doping-induced sliding phase transition between rhombohedral and Bernal tetralayer graphene
Figure 2:Determination of switching boundary
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