Will Iceland become another Celtic tiger like Ireland (1995 to 2007) before?

Recommendable! This article recommends economic and tax policy reforms for Iceland. However, the author of this article is pessimistic given the current government of Iceland.

Iceland is one of those special small countries in Europe like Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Montenegro and Monaco. It is always worth keeping an eye on them.

"Nineteenth-century Icelandic poet Grímur Thomsen said Iceland was like the two-faced Roman god Janus, with one face turned towards Europe and the other towards America. Indeed, Iceland acted on this when she rejected resuming talks on EU accession in a referendum on 29 August 2026, with 53 per cent against 47.

She is, with Norway and Liechtenstein, in the European Economic Area (EEA), which Switzerland has similar access to through bilateral agreements. ...

Domestic policy should also be revised, although this is unlikely under the present government, an uneasy alliance of social democrats, social liberals and populists under three female leaders. One popular step, though special interests would strongly resist it, would be to reduce taxes.

During the Davíð Oddsson era of extensive economic liberalisation, from 1991 to 2004, tax cuts largely paid for themselves. ...

Now, the [personal income] tax rate is 22 per cent. It should be brought down to 10 per cent so that Iceland can become a viable competitor for capital and corporations with Ireland, which has a 12.5 per cent corporate income tax (15 per cent for the largest multinationals).

The special resource rent tax imposed on profitable Icelandic fishing firms should be lowered to the point where it only covers the costs of managing the fisheries. ...

The inheritance tax (currently 10 per cent), which is really triple taxation (first on income, then on savings from what is left of that income, and then on the capital formed from those savings), should be abolished. ..."

What should Iceland do now? "Iceland’s “no” to EU talks should be the start of an Atlantic strategy, with deep cuts to corporate and personal taxes at home."

Experimental treatment promotes repair after heart attack damage in animal study

Good news!

"The treatment ‘reawakens’ heart muscle cells so they start to divide and help repair damaged muscle.

In a study in mice, this produced a stronger heartbeat and increased the amount of blood pumped through the heart with each heartbeat by around 10%, compared with mice that received a mock treatment, following a heart attack. ...

The treatment uses mRNA therapy to temporarily activate two proteins inside heart cells, called Myc and Cyclin T1, promoting repair of heart tissue. ...

Reassessing the mice after 28 days and after 12 weeks showed that the improvement in heart function is long-lasting. ..."

From the abstract:

"Myc is an evolutionarily conserved transcription factor that is necessary for the restoration of tissues in multiple regenerative species.

The adult mammalian heart lacks regenerative capacity and cardiomyocytes fail to divide following damage-induced signaling.

Transgenic expression of Myc and cyclin T1 can drive substantial adult cardiomyocyte proliferation to replace lost cardiomyocytes.

Here, using transgenic models and a prototypical mRNA therapeutic, we show that Myc and cyclin T1 require transient induction for cardiomyocyte proliferation that leads to myocardial repair and functional recovery after myocardial infarction in mice.

This research provides a strategy to translate Myc–cyclin T1 coexpression for cardiac regeneration to address serious unmet needs in the treatment of cardiovascular disease."

Experimental treatment promotes repair after heart attack damage in animal study | University of Cambridge "Scientists have developed a treatment that promotes the regeneration of damaged heart muscle following a heart attack, which has shown promising results in mice.

Since adult heart cells can’t repair themselves once damaged, this represents an important step towards a potential curative treatment for heart disease."

A transient modified mRNA encoding Myc and cyclin T1 improves cardiac function after myocardial injury (open access)

Close up of a mouse heart 24 hours after injecting the mRNA therapy, modified to glow green. This shows how the mRNA surrounds the damaged heart cells in the bottom right section.

Cross sections of a whole mouse heart, following injection with the mRNA therapy. The areas glowing green mark cells that successfully took up the therapy, helping the scientists get a 3D view of where it can reach within the heart.

The current super El Nino is spoiling the Fall/Winter weather in Arizona

We have already experienced too many cloudy and rainy days since about the beginning of November. In early November there was one of the heaviest rainfalls in decades.

Again, today (11/14/2026), the weather of the Phoenix metro area is dreary grey with drizzles.

According to Google, the current super El Nino is forecasted by the National Weather Service to last into early 2027. Bad news!

New research could lead to faster, trustworthy AI models for climate prediction. Really!

When climate models are developed to simulate human activities! This is not science, but resembles alchemy!

And the once prestious PNAS even published this article!

Notice also here again the prejudice and bias involved. We still know barely anything about the very complex natural phenomenon of climate, but the MIT is focusing here human activity in form of CO2 (see also Fig. 2 below copied from their article).

What do they mean here by "method to optimize training datasets"? Data manipulation?

"Now, MIT researchers have developed a technique that streamlines the production of fast, trustworthy [???], and adaptable artificial intelligence models for climate prediction.

These specialized AI models, known as climate emulators, can rapidly simulate the effects of human activities [???] onto a future climate, predicting impacts on temperatures or sea level, for example. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Climate emulators developed through machine learning promise to revolutionize impact assessments by offering an inexpensive way to explore future climates. However, these models often fail to generalize to scenarios that differ from their training data.

While current research emphasizes improving model designs, we demonstrate that the training data themselves can be a limiting factor. We introduce a method to optimize training datasets, such that emulators demonstrate improved generalization to unseen scenarios. Our results suggest an opportunity for modeling centers to reallocate resources to simulate scenarios tailored for training emulators, thereby enabling future climate pathways to be explored at a fraction of the cost.

Abstract

As deep learning for physical systems continues to grow in popularity, efforts to improve generalizability have primarily focused on designing architectures that embed physical constraints. However, for machine-learning surrogate climate models (emulators), we show that the low structural diversity in existing scenarios commonly used to generate training data places a ceiling on predictive skill.

Here, we examine whether training datasets themselves can be optimized to improve generalization.

We introduce a method to create datasets that produce emulators capable of generalizing to new, structurally different scenarios absent from the training data.

We use a differentiable simple climate model (SCM) to calculate the sensitivity of emulator loss to perturbations in the training data, iteratively updating the training data to maximize emulator skill. For an SCM, an emulator trained on one scenario optimized in this fashion outperforms an emulator trained on six standard Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) pathways. We achieve this higher predictive skill despite training on a smaller dataset, finding that our emulator successfully isolates distinct physical behaviors of different climate forcing agents (e.g., greenhouse gases vs. aerosols) without single-forcing runs.

We then demonstrate that scenarios optimized using an SCM, when used to drive an intermediate-complexity climate model, produce a training dataset that yields a more skillful emulator than training on ScenarioMIP outputs.

Our results suggest that, in the compute-constrained environment of running full-scale climate models, generating a small number of dynamically rich scenarios provides greater marginal value for emulation and characterizing system responses than expanding the suite of traditional emissions pathways."

New research could lead to faster, trustworthy AI models for climate prediction | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology "MIT scientists developed a training method to generate models that simulate the effects of human activities [ ???] on climate much more quickly than other approaches."

Optimal scenario design for climate emulation (no public access)

Optimal scenario design for climate emulation (preprint, open access)

Large language models (LLMs) can edit other LLMs for improvement and optimization

Infinite improvement by recursion comes to mind!

"Research suggests that you can improve a neural network’s weights simply by prompting an LLM — for networks of less than 1 billion parameters, at least.

What’s new: ... showed that GPT-6 Astra can interpret, improve, and produce neural network weights in proof-of-concept studies.

How it works: The authors asked GPT-6 Astra to
(a) identify which game a network was trained on based on its weights,
(b) alter the weights of a network to improve its ability to operate a simulated car, and
(c) generate a network that would win a game. In a more practical experiment, they asked GPT-6 Astra to improve Qwen3.5-0.8B’s math performance. ..."

"TL;DR

We find that frontier LLMs are surprisingly good at natively reading and writing neural network weights much like code, sometimes with tools such as a Python kernel and sometimes from the raw weights alone. These results show sparks of Weight-Space Programming, which may extend beyond what we’d expect from humans or conventional algorithms. This might be a big deal for both optimization and interpretability.

Just by looking at the raw weights, GPT-6 Astra can tell what a network was trained to do. And without any environment feedback, it has no trouble writing, from scratch, small game-playing networks that outplay networks trained with PPO for 100 million steps.

Likewise, asked to make Qwen3.5-0.8B better at math without gradients, Astra identifies an issue in its weights causing reasoning loops that Qwen’s own model card warns about, and fixes this by natively editing 0.016% of the weights.

With the same sampling settings, this weight correction raises MATH-500 from 7.9% to 48.1% and generalizes out of the box to instruction following, raising IFEval by 3x.

All of this is possible without allowing Astra to write training loops. It uses its reasoning to figure out what each part of a neural network computes, or should compute, and changes the weights accordingly, much as a programmer reads and edits code.

We call this concept Weight-Space Programming: treating the weights as a program to be read and written.

Throughout the history of deep learning, we encoded our simplistic inductive biases into tiny symbolic optimizers like Adam or Muon.

This is changing: our neural network weights will soon be natively optimized by LLMs that deliberately reason about their weights.

..."

GPT-6 Cyber Versus Linux, The Problem With LLM-Powered Search, LLMs Edit Model Weights, Agentic Doc Retrieval

LLMs can natively read & write neural network weights

Chinese Deepseek composes perfect legal documents in German language solely based on the facts comparable to an attorney

I was truly stunned! I recently learnt that you can feed multiple German language documents (letters, invoices, statements etc.) related to a case to Deepseek and Deepseek will compose a legal response (e.g. a letter to the other party of the case) according to your choice.

This legal response is of very high quality and pertinent based on the facts of these documents. It contains the legal arguments and issues that apply in this case. This legal response can hands down compete with the any response by written by an attorney. With little revisions and/or polishing/finishing touches necessary!

Apparently Deepseek has a good memory capability. It can e.g. retrieve older information (up to several days or longer) submitted by the same person and within the same conversation. If I am not mistaken that is not generally possible with similar free public Western models. 

The service of Deepseek has been made available to consumers for free.

English for trippers: A robust robot

Does not get busted!

As food becomes scarce, Asian (female) elephant friendships fall apart in Sri Lanka

Amazing stuff, but the study is not quite convincing!

Keep in mind: The study is limited to only one area, i.e. the Udawalawe National Park in Sri Lanka.

Some questions:

1. Why were only female elephants tracked and investigated? What about male elephants?
2. Why is a comparison with elephants in India is missing? Only one sentence in the article mentions India.
3. What influence may have had the severe civil war with over 100,000 people killed? "many parks were off-limits because of the civil war fought in the country from 1983 to 2009". This omission by the authors is surprising given "So, in 2006, [Shermin de Silva] began to study a population in Sri Lanka’s Udawalawe National Park, working with staff to identify individual elephants by the distinctive shapes and marks on each elephant’s ears."

"... The risk of isolation for that population of elephants appears to be rising. A new study ... describes a social breakdown among Asian elephants as food has become less plentiful.

Unlike elephants in Africa, those in the Sri Lankan park have not responded to stress by forming larger groups. Instead, when the population began to shrink because of food scarcity, the elephants suddenly fractured into smaller groups. ..."

"Key Takeaways

• UC San Diego researchers studied the social dynamics of hundreds of Asian elephants over more than a decade in Sri Lanka.
• They tracked a decrease in the population of the highly social animals that has led to fractured and more isolated communities.
• Surpassing a social “tipping point,” they warn, can be detrimental to the future of the animals.

..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Community is essential to social animals. Connections among individuals provide support, protection, and resilience to challenge for individuals within connected groups. Loss of individuals within groups can sometimes be absorbed due to connections among remaining individuals, but continued loss can challenge the relationships of those who remain. Madsen et al. looked at social connections among female Asian elephants over more than a decade using network theory and found that there was a threshold of loss above which there was restructuring of the entire community, generally leading to smaller and more isolated groups likely to be less resilient to threat ...

Abstract

Humans and many other animals live in interconnected social communities that are essential for survival and well-being. In principle, communities can persist despite changes in constituent members. However, gradually accumulating changes to membership could push systems past critical thresholds into alternate states, restructuring patterns of connectivity. Such changes can further affect systemic resilience against disturbance.

We investigated social network dynamics for 443 wild female Asian elephants over 12 years by tracking community membership and structure. Following accumulated demographic turnover, networks fractured into smaller and more isolated communities.

Connections changed not only owing to loss of members but also modifications in relationships among remaining individuals.

This provides empirical evidence of a persistent state change in the social network of a long-lived terrestrial mammal following gradually accumulating demographic turnover."

As food becomes scarce, Asian elephant friendships fall apart | Science | AAAS "Social breakdown poses long-term risks to the population"

Elephants Found to be Increasingly Isolated, Leading to Fractured Social Networks (original news release) "With a troubling decline in the population, researchers warn of a tipping point for the highly social animals"

Increased demographic turnover and isolation precede social fragmentation in Asian elephants (open access)

On the Microsoft global meltdown affecting over 70 countries

Here is one explanation for what happened!

Well, Microsoft did not call the layoffs what they are. Microsoft described it as "Instead, the company announced a voluntary exit/buyout offer in late October 2026 targeting up to 60,000 employees (about a quarter of its global workforce) across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India." (Google)

"... this episode is indicative of a cultural problem at Microsoft, where all the major talent is getting assigned to the hot trend of AI development, and the “boring” job of keeping the email servers running is seen as career stagnation.

The company’s tens of thousands of layoffs in the past few weeks have probably culled many old-guard employees who knew these systems — the backbone of their core products — inside and out."

Today's Hottest Stories (11/13/2026)

US Treasury Secretary Bessent bans immigrants who are on government assistance from sending remittances abroad

There is certainly a third reason for these remittances: Support of family members in in the home of the immigrant.

Remittances by Latin Americans living in the US are very substantial flow of money to Latin American countries. E.g. the total annual remittances to Mexico in 2025 were over $62 billion.

"... Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is banning immigrants who are on government assistance from sending any U.S. dollars outside the country through remittances.

“If you are wiring the money out of the country, one of two things must be true,” Bessent told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “You’re either getting too much money and your benefits must be cut, or you’re part of this conspiracy,” referring to fraud schemes and funds sent to foreign terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab. ..."

Today's Hottest Stories (11/13/2026)

The Trump Administration’s Heroic Work in South Africa

Recommendable! I am not sure I would call this work heroic. The article also covers Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Over the years, there have been numerous reports of white South Africans being mistreated, treated violently, or even killed for being white.

Caveat: I did not read the entire, long article.

"... In response to South Africa’s continued decline, the Trump Administration has made five requests of the country’s political leadership:

(1) Address the murder of farmers, who are disproportionately white and are often targeted for racial reasons, and rural violence more generally, by declaring it a priority crime.

(2) Condemn as hate speech the “Kill the Boer [Afrikaner] kill the farmer” chants that have been defended by South Africa’s president and are popular with some on the South African Left, including members of parliament.

(3) Ban land expropriation—almost invariably from white South Africans—without appropriate compensation.

(4) Remove or alter certain racially discriminatory black economic empowerment programs that demand black equity ownership stakes in white-owned companies, especially with respect to U.S. companies operating in South Africa.

(5) Demonstrate true political non-alignment by distancing from U.S. adversaries.

Such requests are eminently reasonable—but the South African regime has been haughtily dismissive, leading to the Trump Administration’s initial travel-related and other sanctions against the regime and its leading figures, which it has promised to escalate if the country’s leaders do not change course.

..."

The Trump Administration’s Heroic Work in South Africa - The American Mind

Germany takes the gloves off: Spies can now hack and sabotage

Good news! Bravo! This comprehensive reform of the German intelligence services is very long overdue!

 

(2) Germany takes the gloves off: Spies can now hack and sabotage | DW News - YouTube

Inside Amazon’s drone hub, which can handle 80 deliveries an hour

Soon there will be a drone port coming to you!

(2) Inside Amazon’s drone hub, which can handle 80 deliveries an hour | National Report - YouTube

Electric auto rickshaws reshape India's roads

Three wheeled Teslas! 😊

(2) Electric auto rickshaws reshape India's roads - YouTube

Why is pepper such a popular spice?

Recommendable!

Why is pepper such a popular spice? - Carolyn Beans - YouTube

ESA: Zoom into Euclid’s 500 gigapixel mosaic of the Universe

Amazing stuff!

Zoom into Euclid’s 500 gigapixel mosaic of the Universe - YouTube

Peter Schweizer: There are larger forces at work here (Nvidia, Jensen Huang, China)

Recommendable!

(263) Peter Schweizer: There are larger forces at work here - YouTube

'Troops Were Already There': Egypt Deploys Army to Saudi Before Parliament Vote? with Alyson Le Grange

Very recommendable!

(260) 'Troops Were Already There': Egypt Deploys Army to Saudi Before Parliament Vote? | Firstpost Africa - YouTube

No More Foreign Loans? Ghana Bets $10 Billion on Itself, Launches New Cedi Notes with Alyson Le Grange

Good news!

(260) No More Foreign Loans? Ghana Bets $10 Billion on Itself, Launches New Cedi Notes | Firstpost Africa - YouTube

Why Ukraine Is Doing Better Than You’d Think

Recommendable!

(259) Why Ukraine Is Doing Better Than You’d Think - YouTube

Why Montenegro Now Looks Like the EU’s Next Member

Good news!

(259) Why Montenegro Now Looks Like the EU’s Next Member - YouTube

China-Nigeria Maritime Pact: Beijing’s Gateway to Gulf of Guinea Footprint? with Alyson Le Grange

Recommendable! The Scramble for Africa continues!

(257) China-Nigeria Maritime Pact: Beijing’s Gateway to Gulf of Guinea Footprint? | Firstpost Africa - YouTube

El Salvador's Bukele Unleashes Gun-Wielding Robot Dogs, Haiti Gangs 'Surrender' with Hem Saroya

Bad news for the criminal gangs in Haiti!

(257) El Salvador's Bukele Unleashes Gun-Wielding Robot Dogs, Haiti Gangs 'Surrender' | Vantage - YouTube

No kings makes not sense

Why would any US movement (decentralized or not, grassroots or not) call itself No Kings! Very absurd!

"... The president [Trump] thinks his rule is absolute [???]. But in America, we don’t have kings — and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty. ..."

About No Kings

Microsoft's latest online multiple application and cloud day-long outage turned into a full blown global cloud crisis

This incident seems to be quite unusual, but maybe not for Microsoft!

Is this a Microsoft specific issue or not? Was it an Microsoft internal error that cascaded as reported?

"Microsoft is slowly recovering from its day-long outage after much of the company’s systems were hit by a cascading software issue.

The problems, which started Thursday, were initially flagged as affecting the company’s services in the U.S. and the Americas, but quickly spread around the world, as engineers struggled to recover downed servers.

What began as an Outlook email and Teams video conferencing outage soon developed into a full blown meltdown, affecting the company’s cloud services for both consumer and business email, files, and documents. The outage also knocked out the company’s Copilot AI tools  ...

Microsoft said in its latest status update on Friday that there was “no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident,” and later noted that there was “not related to cyber or AI / agents.” ...

The last major incident affecting Microsoft services was in September, when a days-long outage hit Microsoft’s cloud services. ..."

Microsoft's latest email outage turned into a full blown global cloud crisis | TechCrunch

AI’s ability to ‘autoformalize’ proofs is fundamentally changing mathematics

No doubt! ML & AI will revolutionize and accelerate progress in mathematics!

The queen of science is in for a makeover!

Transformation | Quanta Magazine

TE-exklusiv: Deutschland schafft sich im Automobilbau selbst ab

Empfehlenswert, aber leider schlimm!

Wie werden z.B. die deutschen Zulieferer der Automobilindustrie das überleben?

TE-exklusiv: Deutschland schafft sich im Automobilbau selbst ab "Mit rund 13 Milliarden Euro haben die Bundesregierungen in knapp elf Jahren die E-Mobilität subventioniert, nur um auf Kosten der Steuerzahler viel zu teure Elektroautos auf Deutschlands Straßen zu bringen und moderne Verbrenner zu verdrängen."

Die Gewalt gegen kritische Journalisten eskaliert

Eine Schlagzeile von heute aus der Bananenrepublik D!

Wenn sich das bestätigt, dann sind das schlimme Zustände!

"... In der Nacht haben Unbekannte das Familienauto von Julian Reichelt in Berlin-Charlottenburg in Brand gesetzt. Gegen zwei Uhr rückte die Feuerwehr an. Nach Angaben von NIUS wurde während der Löscharbeiten auch ein Feuerwehrmann von einem Auto angefahren und leicht verletzt. ...

Auch Tichys Einblick ist seit Jahren Ziel massiver Anfeindungen und Einschüchterungsversuche. Roland Tichy erhielt wiederholt Morddrohungen, die Redaktion wurde mit Hasskampagnen überzogen und musste in einen speziell gesicherten Bereich umziehen. Die persönliche Bedrohung von Journalisten gehört längst zum Repertoire jener, die sich selbst als Verteidiger der Demokratie feiern. Wer sich ihrer politischen Deutungshoheit widersetzt, wird öffentlich diffamiert, zum Feind erklärt und eingeschüchtert. Wie weit diese Feindseligkeit inzwischen reicht, zeigen die brutalen Angriffe auf Journalisten, die ihrer Arbeit nachgehen wollen. ..."

Die Gewalt gegen kritische Journalisten eskaliert "Morddrohungen, Prügelattacken, zerstörte Redaktionszugänge, Pranger vor der Haustür. Seit Jahren eskaliert die Gewalt aus dem linksextremen Milieu gegen kritische Journalisten in Deutschland. Nun gipfelnd mit dem Brandanschlag auf Julian Reichelts Familienauto. Welchen Anteil tragen Politik und Medienvertreter an diesen Zuständen?"

An atlas of all the plasma proteins that pass the blood-brain barrier of the mouse

Good news! Amazing stuff!

It is very surprising to read in the abstract of this paper that in the year 2026 "the scale and function of physiological blood-to-brain protein transport remain largely unknown". Hard to believe!

"... Now, scientists have created an atlas of all the proteins that make the guest list for mouse brains—including one crucial to limiting Alzheimer’s onset.

Researchers used protein-labeling chemistry to tag 861 proteins in mouse blood. Of those, only 92 could pass through the blood-brain barrier. The selection included proteins produced throughout the body, especially in the liver.

Once inside the brain, the different proteins were sent to different kinds of brain cells, where they served specific roles such as maintaining connections between neurons. ..."

"... Multiple organs in the body, such as the liver and kidney, release different proteins into the blood at different times. This means the specific mix of protein types in blood plasma—the liquid portion of the blood—can relay important information to the brain about the current state of the body. But with the blood-brain barrier, which of these proteins can the brain sense? ...

Of the 861 proteins the scientists tracked, the blood-brain barrier only allowed 92 to enter the brain. Most of these proteins were produced in distant parts of the body, especially the liver. The findings suggest that the blood-brain barrier acts as a gatekeeper, using specialized receptors to identify and transport specific plasma proteins from the body into the brain. ...

The team also found that, once inside the brain, different proteins are directed to specific types of brain cells, where they carry out specialized functions. ...

For example, a protein made in the liver travels to the brain to support cells known as astrocytes. Once in the brain, the protein—known as apolipoprotein A1, or APOA1—activates a pathway that maintains healthy connections between neurons. Failure of this pathway has previously been linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• Bioorthogonal chemistry and proteomics map the blood-brain barrier transportome

• Each permeable protein homes to distinct brain cell types to support cell functions

• Blood-brain barrier transport dysfunction arises early in Alzheimer’s disease models

• Liver-derived APOA1 engages astrocyte ABCA1 to rescue Alzheimer’s dysfunction in mice

Summary

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) has been defined primarily by what it excludes, yet the scale and function of physiological blood-to-brain protein transport remain largely unknown.

Using bioorthogonal proteomics, we find that the healthy BBB samples 191 plasma proteins and permits 92 into the brain parenchyma. Enriched for carrier and metabolic functions, these proteins home to distinct brain cell types, such as apolipoprotein A1 (APOA1) to astrocytes and alpha-1 antitrypsin (SERPINA1) to microglia.
This cell-type tropism relies on a BBB-parenchyma receptor hand-off: APOA1 crosses the BBB via SR-B1 and engages astrocytic ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1), a key Alzheimer’s risk gene, driving cholesterol efflux that supports synapse integrity. Unlike LPS-induced nonspecific leakage, early-stage 5xFAD mice show selective BBB transport remodeling, with reduced APOA1 and increased SERPINA1 uptake.
Hepatic APOA1 overexpression restores APOA1 in the 5xFAD brain, rescuing astrocytic, synaptic, and behavioral deficits.

These findings recast the BBB as a selective interface that recruits neuroprotective circulatory proteins for brain health."

ScienceAdviser

Study Rewrites the Rules of the Blood-Brain Barrier (original news release) "Gladstone scientists discover the dynamic barrier—long defined by what it excludes—imports an unexpected degree of protective proteins into the brain, revealing a new blueprint for treating Alzheimer’s disease."

The blood-brain barrier imports diverse neuroprotective proteins through pathways impaired early in Alzheimer’s disease models (open access)

Graphical abstract

Figure 1 A bioorthogonal proteomics strategy to detect plasma proteins within the healthy brain

How FDR Made Andrew Mellon a Scapegoat for the Great Depression

This could be an interesting book review by Amity Shlaes! 

The President and the Oligarch

Roosevelt, Mellon, and the Triumph of Big Government

By Greg Steinmetz

"... Most historians attribute the precipitous decline of the Mellon name to the Great Depression of the 1930s. ...

Because Mellon was the premier financial statesman of the Roaring 1920s. ...

Yet the attempt to uncover business fraud in the Mellon empire foundered: Mellon won his first case; the Bureau of Internal Revenue even determined he was due a refund. Undaunted, his administration assailants next dragged Mellon before the very court he had created, the Board of Tax Appeals. This time Mellon’s tax deductions for his art purchases were the focus. Mellon claimed the deductions were warranted. He purchased his Rembrandts and Vermeers as part of a collection for a national museum he would give to the American people. Jackson claimed the charity was a sham.

This effort backfired too. Mellon produced a trust charter for a charity committed to building a national gallery dated December 1930, a time when Roosevelt was still governor of New York. The trust’s date provided strong evidence of the legality of subsequent deductions. ... liked the idea of Washington getting its own Louvre. Frank Hogan, Mellon’s lawyer, played on that sentiment. ...

Ever after, historians would treat the National Gallery and its pictures as Mellon’s attempt to bribe Roosevelt into leaving him alone. ...

Mellon’s wealth got him the Treasury post. The money surely helped. But Harding considered several millionaires for Treasury, including the wealthy banker Charles Dawes. Mellon likely won the post for his bond-market mastery and vindicated Harding’s choice with stunning management of both European and American debt. ..."

How FDR Made Andrew Mellon a Scapegoat for the Great Depression "A new book recounts how Roosevelt pinned the Depression on a banker-turned-Treasury secretary to hasten the age of big government."

Book cover

Andrew Mellon (left) and Franklin D. Roosevelt

English for trippers: Let lettuce seduce

Lettuce reduced! Bite by byte!

P.S. According to Google, lettuce is the only English word containing tuce.

Bypassing the FDA, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes Peptides Easier to Access

Good news! Let the people decide and try! Less government paternalism!

Reducing the control of the medical-industrial complex over medications is a good thing in general!

Hopefully, there will be more deregulation of medications to come!

"... Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a peptide proponent who has stated that he has benefited personally from the compounds, announced on October 28 that he would smooth patient access to six unapproved peptides. ...

In a linked policy, HHS said it would practice “enforcement discretion” around the compounding of six peptides: BPC-157, Epitalon, KPV, MOTS-c, Semax, and TB-500. ..."

Bypassing the FDA, RFK Jr. Makes Peptides Easier to Access | The Scientist "Peptide compounds are marketed for everything from longevity to beauty. Now, despite a lack of evidence, six unapproved peptides will be easier to acquire."

From transvestites to transgender individuals

I have some serious doubts about this official and accepted explanation or exposition of how transvestites are distinguished from transgender individuals. 

The official description (see the Google example below) of the difference between transvestites and transgender individuals appears to be rather artificial and not very substantive.

To dismiss transvestites as mere (occasional) crossdressers appears to be very odd! In the past, it was a lot more dangerous for any transgender individual to come out in the open.

How is it possible that transgender individuals only came out in the late 20th century and not earlier in history? A serious historical analysis of the existence of transgender individuals in the past is necessary and overdue. If we can not find convincing examples of transgender individuals in the past, then perhaps T in LGBTQ is just a modern fashion and modern human exploration or an expression of individualism etc..

Where do drag queens fit in here? Depends on the individual drag queen.

What nonsense is the very popular but nonsense expression "sex assigned at birth" all about? The sex of a human being at birth was determined by the genes!

"The evolution from the historical term transvestite to the modern understanding of transgender reflects a significant shift in how medicine, psychology, and society define gender identity, expression, and sexuality. ...

• German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term transvestite in 1910 to describe individuals who wore clothing associated with the opposite sex. In the early 20th century, Hirschfeld and researchers used it broadly as an early framework for people crossing gender boundaries, though understanding at the time often conflated cross-dressing, homosexuality, and gender identity.

• Evolution of Meaning: Through the mid-20th century, "transvestite" came to refer primarily to cross-dressers—individuals who periodically or conventionally wear clothing of another gender, typically identifying as straight and distinct from living full-time as another gender. ...

• Coining and Popularization: The term transgender developed later in the 20th century. Figures like Virginia Prince and others in publications like Transvestia in the late 1960s helped shape and popularize terms distinguishing cross-gender lifestyle choices from permanent medical transitions. By the 1970s, "transgender" and "trans" grew into umbrella terms.

• Separation of Gender and Sexuality: A core breakthrough in modern understanding—pioneered by early sexologists and later affirmed by organizations like the American Psychological Association—is that gender identity (an internal sense of being a man, woman, or another identity) is distinct from sexual orientation (who a person is attracted to).

• Current Definition: Transgender is an inclusive umbrella term for individuals whose internal gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth [???]. This encompasses trans men, trans women, and non-binary or gender-nonconforming individuals, regardless of whether they pursue social, legal, or medical steps to transition." (Google)

Cholinergic hypothesis of Alzheimer's returns

Recommendable! A bit of history of neurological disorders in medicine and how competing theories come and go.

"A decade before the amyloid hypothesis emerged to explain how Alzheimer’s disease develops, there was the cholinergic hypothesis.
The idea, first articulated by brain pathologists and drug researchers in the 1970s and 80s, was that a set of long neurons in the basal forebrain began to die as people aged, depriving the brain of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter important to learning and memory. 

Experiments in the 1970s, on people and monkeys, lent support to the idea and formed the basis for a class of Alzheimer’s drugs still in wide use today. ...

Meanwhile, new tools, including advanced nuclear and viral imaging and optogenetics, are affording a new generation of researchers an unprecedented look at the form and function of cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain.

As it turns out, these extraordinarily long-projecting, vulnerable cells may be failing well before symptoms start—not just in Alzheimer’s but other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
And cholinergic drugs might be more effective than previously thought. Several, including some whose development was shelved in the 1990s, are now in clinical trials. ..."

"... A rash of research in the U.S. and United Kingdom [in the mid-1970s]  implicated the brain’s cholinergic system, made up of neurons that produce a chemical called acetylcholine. Though this neurotransmitter is normally widespread in the brain, autopsy studies found the brains of Alzheimer’s patients mysteriously depleted of it. Researchers also reported severe damage to the nucleus basalis of Meynert, nestled in a deep brain region called the basal forebrain, from which cholinergic neurons shoot projections into areas important for memory and learning. ...

[A] 1982 paper in Science became the first to articulate “the cholinergic hypothesis of geriatric memory dysfunction.” ...

By the 1990s, the golden age of neurotransmitters was giving way to a fascination with disease proteins—beta amyloid and the tangle-forming protein called tau—and with the areas in the cortex that saw the earliest damage associated with these proteins. ...

They aren’t the only long-projecting neurons Alzheimer’s researchers worry about. ... studies spindly cells that produce the neurotransmitter norepinephrine and originate in a separate deep-brain structure called the locus coeruleus. She has linked specific patterns of Alzheimer’s symptoms to damage to the locus coeruleus and the nucleus basalis of Meynert. ..."

ScienceAdviser

The sideshow "How an unpopular hypothesis linking Alzheimer’s disease to the loss of crucial neurons made a comeback"

In the 1970s, Raymond Bartus developed a device using windows, lights, and a food reward to study the memory of aging monkeys. R.T. Bartus et al., Journal of Gerontology (1978)

Anchored in the basal forebrain of a mouse, a single cholinergic neuron sends bushy projections through the cortex, reaching regions key to emotion, attention, and memory. Cells like this one are among the earliest to die in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists think their outsize dimensions and extreme energy needs leave them—and the brain areas they serve—susceptible to age-related damage.

From airports to droneports in your neighborhood

Some environment related concerns about drones and how it might affect acceptance.

How much noise pollution will drones be producing in urban areas?

How often will drones be buzzing by in your neighborhood or vicinity?

Drone Delivery Noise Shows Limits of Tech Acceptance - IEEE Spectrum "Flying delivery robots prompt concern about noise, safety, and more"

How far would a Big Three or G3 (CN, RU, US) go?

What would an alliance of China, Russia, and the US do or mean for the rest of the world?

The days of leadership of Putin the Terrible and Xi Jinping are counted. Who comes next?

Maybe the future prospects for the Big Three are better.

US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opens 800 MHz spectrum for drone operations

Good news!

"The FCC has opened 50 MHz of low-band spectrum in the 800 MHz band for drone operations, removing a decades-old restriction intended to prevent interference with terrestrial networks. The move is expected to drive innovation and expand the use of licensed spectrum for drones."

IEEE-USA SmartBrief

FCC votes to open up ‘huge swath’ of spectrum for drone operations

Texas Democrats File almost two dozen Bills Proposing Sweeping Gun Restrictions

Is this the best the Dimocratic Party in Texas has to offer after their historic win in the midterm elections?

The sooner the Texans find out who won the midterm elections and what they are up to, the better!

"Summary

• Texas Democrat lawmakers filed at least 23 firearm-related bills ahead of the 90th Texas legislative session. 
• The proposals include red-flag orders, background checks, age restrictions, firearm-transfer limits, and increased criminal penalties. 
• The Texas Legislature convenes Jan. 12, 2027, with Republicans holding a slim Senate majority. 

..."

Texas Gun Control Bills: What to Know

Watters: Jensen Huang turning into the country’s biggest political scandal

Very recommendable! Lot's of good information to the very end!

He also hints that this scandal and its timing was a Dimocratic Party sabotage act!

(259) Watters: This is turning into the country’s biggest political scandal - YouTube

Pete Hegseth Commends Army Sentinel Who Scolded Him At Tomb of unknown soldier at the Arlington Cemetery

Well done by both of them! The American spirit/exceptionalism!

(254) Pete Hegseth Commends Army Sentinel Who Scolded Him At Tomb - YouTube

President Trump warns Mexico: Stop migrant caravan or face double tariffs

Good news! Bravo President Trump! 

The senile, demented and pathological liar 46th President totally failed with respect to these mass illegal immigrants crossing the border.

This time it appears to be a rather small caravan with an estimated 1,000 or more individuals.

Yes, Mexico is certainly guilty of allowing these caravans to cross its country. I am not aware that Mexico has done anything to prevent these caravans in the past.

(254) Trump warns Mexico: Stop migrant caravan or face double tariffs - YouTube

Denmark's Muslims Targeted? Controversial Housing Law Sparks Major Racism Row

Controversial! Denmark apparently tries to prevent ghettos and similar parallel societies. The Danish society generally has been very homogeneous.

(254) Denmark's Muslims Targeted? Controversial Housing Law Sparks Major Racism Row | Firstpost America - YouTube

Russia ditches China's Yuan as US Sanctions Bite | Why the Dollar Still Dominates Global Trade

It is not easy to dump the US dollar, not even for Putin the Terrible!

(251) Russia Rethinks China's Yuan as US Sanctions Bite | Why the Dollar Still Dominates Global Trade - YouTube

DR Congo Sentences 66 Soldiers to Death For 'Cowardice' with Palki Sharma

Bad news!

(250) DR Congo Sentences 66 Soldiers to Death For 'Cowardice' | The Palki Sharma Show | IGR - YouTube

Annoyances

I am seeing this message now almost every day at least once!

Well, I did not melt thousands of commercial freezers in France!

P.S. aei.org (American Enterprise Institute) is what leftists probably consider a right wing entity.

White House counsel Warns Democratic Party Representatives not to abuse subpoena powers

Good news! Good move! Being proactive is often commendable! Put the Dimocrats on notice!

"White House counsel Will Scharf warned incoming House Oversight Chair Robert Garcia in a letter reported Wednesday that Democrat investigations of the Trump administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality.”

Scharf wrote that subpoenas “designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient” could be criminal, pointing to Democrat threats to issue them indiscriminately once the party takes control of both chambers in January. ..."

Thursday, November 12, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Tiny Fingerprints Reveal Children Helped Make Ancient Clay Art in Israel about 15,000 years ago

Amazing stuff!

"Fingerprints pressed into clay 15,000 years ago show that adults and children in what is now Israel made art side by side, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reports. The study... describes the earliest known tradition of making clay figurines in the Middle East.

The researchers examined 154 clay artifacts... The objects came from three sites in modern-day Israel and date back between about 15,000 and 11,500 years ago ... Some depict birds, mammals and humans. ... The makers belonged to the Natufian culture, a group of hunter-gatherers who formed some of the first permanent settlements in the Levant ...

Archaeologists had believed clay figurines became common in the region only with the agricultural revolution, beginning around 11,500 years ago, according to the study. Earlier Natufian figurines were mostly bone or stone. The new finds push the clay tradition back well before farming villages and the invention of pottery ..."

From the abstract:

"The emergence of clay technologies and their use in symbolic practices marks a momentous techno-symbolic innovation for human societies.

While in North Africa, Europe and East Asia, this innovation was sporadically attested during the Upper Palaeolithic, in Southwest Asia, it has been commonly believed to emerge in full much later, as one of the innovations associated with Neolithic agricultural societies.

Here, shifting back the ‘revolution of symbols’, we report evidence of the earliest clay figurative tradition in Southwest Asia with the discovery of 154 figurative artefacts from three Natufian (15,000–11,650 years cal. BP) sites in the Southern Levant (Israel).

Through a combined multidisciplinary approach, we demonstrate that children and adults manufactured these objects to produce new symbols with new figurative techniques and practices used as their primary media of figurative expression.

Our study provides important original insights regarding the demographics of craft production and the development of symbolic practices at the beginning of sedentism that influenced the Neolithic transition in Southwest Asia."

Tiny Fingerprints Reveal Children Helped Make Ancient Clay Art in Israel "A study of 154 clay artifacts from Natufian sites finds adults and children shaped and colored figurines together."

Stone Age children left fingerprints on ancient art projects "Clay figurines hint at hands-on learning in the Levant"

15,000 Years Ago, Children Shaped Clay, Long Before Pottery or Farming (original news release from 3/23/2026)

Modelling symbols among the first-sedentary communities: Emergence of clay figurines in Epipaleolithic Southwest Asia (open access)

Fig 1. Sample of Natufian zoomorphic, anthropomorphic and phallic bone, stone and clay figurations from the Southern Levant

Fig 9. Sample of the fingerprints identified on the clay figurines, cylinders and shapings.

The torso of this 14,500-year-old human figurine preserves the fingerprints of an adult (left) and child (right). Researchers think the adult taught the child how to shape the clay.