Wow! Signs of a shrinking and aging population! Demography is destiny!
Monday, July 20, 2026
China shutters 30,000 preschools and primary schools in a single year
Das wichtigste Enthüllungsbuch des Jahres: Polizisten erzählen, worüber niemand offen spricht
Was ist dran? Wieviel ist Übertreibung und Meinungsmache? Wie schlimm ist es wirklich?
Hinweis: Ich habe das Buch nicht gelesen.
"... Aus einzelnen Stimmen und Beobachtungen hat Liv von Boetticher ein Buch geschrieben, das schonungslos das ganze Ausmaß der Kriminalität in all ihren Facetten offenlegt - und welchen Anteil Ausländer daran haben. Sie zeigt auf, was oft nur unvollständig erzählt und von Politikern nach wie vor gerne unter den Teppich gekehrt wird. Dieses Buch blickt hinter die Statistik. Es handelt von der Lücke zwischen dem, was die Bevölkerung erlebt und wahrnimmt, und dem, was offiziell gesagt wird. Und von der Frage, was das für ein Land bedeutet, das sich auf seinen Rechtsstaat verlässt. ..."
Israeli Electricity Authority halts server farm permits after applications reached 27,000 megawatts
Amazing stuff!
"The Electricity Authority announced today that it was halting permits for server farms for at least the next 140 days. "So far, the power system has committed to 1,500 megawatts in connections to server farms. If the entire commitment is taken up, it will represent 10% of power consumption in the economy at the beginning of the next decade, which will position Israel as one of the leading countries in this field. ..."
Chart of the day
Studieren in Österreich ist spottbillig (z.B. Studiengebühren)! Auch für Ausländer! Ist studieren in Deutschland generell auch immer noch so billig an öffentlichen Universitäten?
A Trap for AI Use in Peer Reviews Sparks Controversy at upcoming NIPS 2026
More news on the propagating controversy over the use of AI in scientific research!
NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) is one of the preeminent conferences of the ML & AI research community! NIPS was renamed in 2018 to NeurIPS to accommodate ideological preferences!
"Organizers of a prominent ... conference are facing pushback on social media after adding hidden prompts to their papers to catch peer reviewers who are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to referee papers.
The 40th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)—which is slated to take place in Sydney, Australia, in December 2026—bans peer reviewers from uploading papers they referee to AI chatbots, as the practice breaches confidentiality. Reviewers can still use AI chatbots for background research purposes, according to the policy outlined in the conference’s handbook.
To enforce the policy and catch illicit AI use in peer review, the event’s organizers have included deliberately concealed instructions for large language models (LLMs) in papers sent out for peer review. ..."
RNC Opens New Front in Election Integrity Battle Over ‘Never Residents’ Voting in 6 US States
Enforcing election integrity in the US is complex and comprehensive task! Too much trust and laxity make this effort even more difficult.
Remember trust but verify (an adage repeated often by President Reagan)!
The loopholes are many and as big as a barn door!
RNC = Republican National Committee
"After a victory in the battleground state of North Carolina, the Republican National Committee has pending litigation against six other states to stop U.S. citizens who never lived in those states from voting in their elections.
The RNC has sued battleground states Arizona and Nevada; blue states such as Colorado, New Jersey, and Virginia; and the red state of Nebraska over laws allowing non-residents to vote. These cases are narrowly focused on closing state loopholes that allow people who never lived in a state to vote by absentee ballot. ..."
Withering, Relentless Ukraine Drone Strike Campaign Hits Crimea Hard
Good news!
Any eventual peace agreement between the Ukraine and Russia must include a full and immediate return of occupied Crimea to Ukraine.
"In brief: Ukraine’s drone forces have spent the past two weeks hammering Russian logistics networks supporting occupied Crimea, targeting fuel tankers, cargo ships, ferries, power infrastructure, rail hubs, bridges, and freight traffic. The operation is aimed at isolating Crimea from mainland Russia and degrading its value as a military base. ..."
US Navy instructs commands to remove portraits, biographies of officers and civilians from websites
Bad news!
It was also reported that individual US soldiers stationed in the Gulf States, Jordan were surveilled and their location determined by publicly available records by rogue states. This may have contributed to specific targeting by recent Iranian attacks.
"The U.S. Navy announced that certain commands are no longer authorized to provide photos and biographies of leadership on public-facing websites.
The decision was made to enhance security for sailors and their families, the service said.
“Adversaries increasingly aggregate publicly available data to track, profile, and target our personnel,” a Navy administrative message read. “By creating an unnecessary spotlight and surge of online interest, routine command triad biographies inadvertently expose our people to elevated risk.”
Commands led by vice admirals and officers with a lower rank, including civilian equivalents, are now prohibited from uploading the personal information on public websites. ..."
First baby born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years
Congratulations!
Probably, also the first Indian-American baby born to Vice President in 250 years! 😊
Source unknown
Last German bike helmet maker moves production to China
Headline of the day!
The last person turns off the light please! 😊
"When family-run German bicycle helmet manufacturer KED announced it would move its entire production process to China later this year, the news hardly made any waves internationally. Yet, the development tells the story of trade and economic tensions between the European Union and China, and underscores how hard it is to defend any industry on the continent from Chinese competition. ..."
EU Commission fines Chinese AliExpress €550 million for breaching the Digital Services Act over sales of illegal, counterfeit products
Good news?
"Today, the European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million for breaching its obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to diligently assess and mitigate risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe or counterfeit products on its e-commerce platform. The Commission has ordered the platform to take action. ..."
"EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen ... pointed to AliExpress's 193 million users in Europe last year versus Shein's 156 million and Temu's 130 million. Temu has also been fined under the DSA and Shein is facing an ongoing investigation. ..."
Obesity: How Big Soda Leveraged the World Cup Spotlight. Really!
The hottest take on the FIFA Club World Cup 2026?
"Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup allowed the company to use branded replay and clip videos and social media campaigns that vastly expanded the company’s reach beyond live matches—including to children ...
By aligning its brand with athletic excellence, Coca-Cola perpetuates a false sense of health and legitimacy that directly contradicts what sport represents,” ..."
Breakdown of immune cells' interaction is key driver in aging and the liver is a major source
Good news!
"Two immune cell types’ contact plays a major role in aging. Blocking a hormone’s influence on one of those cell types halted mice’s age-associated decline in multiple organs."
"... A study in mice and human cells by Stanford Medicine researchers pins much of the blame on a particular type of immune cell's increasing inability, with advancing age, to gobble up another immune cell type. ...
So-called tissue-resident macrophages appear to be central coordinators of age-related organ decline. Blocking a single receptor on these cells preserved the youthfulness of multiple organs in mice including the brain, heart, skeletal and heart muscle, liver, spleen, bone marrow, kidney, and colon. The receptor binds specifically to a hormone known to cause inflammation and pain in humans as well as mice.
In mice, selectively disabling this receptor exclusively on tissue-resident macrophages prevented chronic-inflammation-driven disorders of age including frailty, excessive fat accumulation and heart trouble; it also substantially slowed cognitive decline ...
Immune cells produce hormones called prostaglandins. One of the five varieties of prostaglandin, called PGE2, can exert diverse effects on a cell, depending on which type of surface receptor is expressed on that cell’s surface.
Of the various subtypes of receptors for PGE2, one designated EP2 is highly pro-inflammatory. Tissue-resident macrophages are loaded with EP2.
Infection, injury and toxic chemicals including the ones produced by our aging bodies increase PGE2 output. As the 2021 Nature paper showed, that output grows substantially as we grow older. So does the concentration of EP2 on tissue-resident macrophages. ...
bioengineered a mouse in which, at a time of the scientists’ choosing, the gene that’s a recipe for EP2 gets deleted — but only in tissue-resident macrophages. The subsequent disappearance of EP2 from these cells, the new study proves, reinvigorated the neutrophil-devouring process that PGE2 undermines. ...
older mice whose EP2-encoding gene had been deleted at 4 to 6 months of age (their “teenage” years).
The scientists identified 71 proteins, found in blood, whose levels were significantly altered in older normal mice. Of those proteins, 59 stayed at youthful levels in older mice whose tissue-resident macrophages lacked EP2. Many of these proteins originated in the liver.
“The liver is one of the body’s most tissue-resident-macrophage-enriched organs and a major contributor to aging-related changes in blood chemistry,” ... “It’s the central organ determining the body’s metabolic rate.”
Smoldering senescent neutrophils, the study showed, accumulated in normal old mice’s livers, spleens and bone marrow — and, to a lesser extent, in all the many other bodily organs the researchers looked at.
But the organs of older mice lacking EP2 on their tissue-resident macrophages retained the lower neutrophil numbers of youth. These mice looked younger, leaner and more physically fit compared with control littermates. They evidenced less visceral fat and greater muscle mass. Their performance on tests of multiple organs’ function equaled that of young mice.
EP2 deletion reduced inflammation in the blood, liver, colon, heart, kidney and hippocampus (a brain region tightly tied to memory and navigation ability) in the older mice. Their speed, balance and forelimb grip strength resembled that of young animals.
Reducing EP2 action in older mice also preserved their memory capabilities. They could thread their way through a maze or recall previously encountered objects almost as well as younger mice — and far better than similarly old mice in whose tissue-resident macrophages EP2 remained functional. ..."
From the abstract of the Perspective:
"Human aging is asynchronous. Cells, tissues, and organs deteriorate at different rates, an unevenness that may help explain the differential aging trajectories of people.
Elucidating both the overlapping and distinct biological pathways that contribute to cell-tissue-organ aging could guide strategies to promote health longevity. ...
Tan et al. (1) report that the oxylipin prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) undermines the capacity of tissue-resident macrophages (TRMs) from clearing out old, and hence damaging, neutrophils in aging organs.
n a mouse model, this housekeeping process can be restored if PGE2 action is blocked. The implication is that organ aging is not fixed but may be shaped by specific interventions that slow the decline."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Increased inflammation is associated with aging and is implicated in decreased function in aging tissues.
Tan et al. explored changes in older tissue-resident macrophages and investigated how these cells may contribute to aging phenotypes in mice ...
They found that signaling by the lipid messenger prostaglandin E2 was increased in these cells. In various mouse tissues, preventing an increase in tissue-resident macrophages helped to maintain mitochondrial function and limited other deleterious effects of aging. Tissue-resident macrophages help to reduce inflammation by removing apoptotic and damaged cells.
One consequence of inhibiting prostaglandin E2 signaling was restored clearance of senescent neutrophils. These results emphasize the possible roles of macrophages and neutrophil clearance in tissue disfunction during aging. ...
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Aging is accompanied by parallel functional decline across organs, but the cellular drivers remain unclear.
Tissue-resident macrophages (TRMs), long-lived cells that comprise 60 to 90% of macrophages in major organs, maintain homeostasis through efferocytosis of apoptotic and senescent cells.
Neutrophils, the most abundantly produced and shortest-lived leukocytes (more than 100 billion generated daily in humans), require continuous TRM clearance; uncleared aged neutrophils release proteases and extracellular traps that damage tissues and propagate aging. TRMs express the prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) receptor EP2, which suppresses macrophage metabolism and phagocytosis in aging. Whether impaired TRM efferocytosis drives the accumulation of senescent neutrophils that promote organ aging and whether inhibition of EP2 signaling can restore this process, remain unknown.
RATIONALE
We studied aged mice in which EP2 signaling on TRMs was selectively reduced, either genetically (TRM-specific EP2 deletion) or pharmacologically, to define how TRM dysfunction shapes organ-wide aging.
TRMs are long-lived gatekeepers of tissue homeostasis, and EP2 offers a tractable target because its activity increases in aged macrophages and suppresses their metabolic and phagocytic function.
Using complementary genetic and pharmacological approaches, we tested whether restoring TRM function reverses organ aging and identified which efferocytic substrate is most affected. The same design also defined the molecular step at which EP2 acts within TRMs and extended our findings to aged human tissues.
RESULTS
In aged mice, TRM-specific EP2 deletion restored mitochondrial fitness and immune homeostasis, and reversed cognitive decline, frailty, sarcopenia, adiposity, and cardiac dysfunction toward youthful states.
Plasma proteomics identified the liver as a major source of age-associated immune changes.
Single-cell RNA-seq of mouse liver and multiorgan flow cytometry revealed accumulation of senescent CXCR4+ neutrophils across efferocytic organs in aging. These cells exhibited the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), DNA damage response activation, cell cycle inhibitor induction, NETosis, and anti-apoptosis programs, and were efficiently cleared following EP2 deletion. Liver multiplex imaging localized paracrine stress to parenchymal cells neighboring senescent neutrophils.
Ex vivo efferocytosis assays showed that aged TRMs were most impaired in clearing senescent neutrophils relative to apoptotic substrates, with both functions restored by EP2 deletion or pharmacologic antagonism.
Mechanistically, EP2 signaling suppressed integrin-dependent stabilization of senescent neutrophils on TRMs and downstream engulfment.
Analyses of human liver and heart datasets revealed conserved EP2 up-regulation in aged TRMs, enrichment of senescent neutrophils, and reduced TRM–neutrophil interactions.
CONCLUSION
This work identifies EP2 signaling in TRMs as a central regulator of organ-wide aging through its control of senescent neutrophil clearance, reframing aging as a failure of active cellular clearance rather than passive degeneration. With age, neutrophils acquire senescence-associated features, and their accumulation drives tissue injury through two converging mechanisms: intrinsic degranulation and NETosis, and extrinsic paracrine stress on neighboring parenchymal cells. Pharmacological inhibition of EP2 restores TRM efferocytic capacity and promotes clearance of senescent neutrophils, positioning EP2 antagonism as a tractable therapeutic strategy for age-related organ and functional decline."
Breakdown of immune cells’ interaction is key driver in aging, study finds (original news release)
Tidying up aging organs (Perspective, no public access)
Tissue-resident macrophage (TRM) clearance of senescent neutrophils is restored by EP2 deletion or inhibition to limit organ aging.
Analyzing the interplay between electronic excitation and nuclear motion in single atoms of a molecule
Amazing stuff!
"... The study provides evidence that excitation by light can enhance an atom's sensitivity to the motion of nearby atoms. The new method for following ultrafast chemical reactions at the atomic scale, in real time, can help researchers understand photostability in DNA, energy flow in light-harvesting materials and other fundamental processes driven by light.
The team investigated 3-fluoropyridine, a small ring-shaped molecule. When the molecule absorbs light like a short pulse from an ultraviolet laser, it is promoted into an electronically excited state and rapidly distorts out of its original planar shape. It then passes through a so-called conical intersection: a short-lived but crucial crossing point where movements of electrons and the atoms’ cores become strongly coupled. After this point, the molecule returns to the ground state.
At that moment, electronic energy is converted into vibrations.
The researchers found that this conversion leaves distinct fingerprints at different atomic sites: the fluorine atom acts as a clean marker of vibrational relaxation, while the nitrogen atom, which is more directly involved in the excitation, reflects an intertwined response of electron redistribution and structural motion. ..."
From the abstract:
"The advent of novel free-electron laser sources enabling time-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (tr-XPS) provides a unique opportunity to monitor local chemical environments in real time by measuring sub-eV shifts in core-electron binding energies. These shifts reflect the interplay between electronic excitation and nuclear motion, an interplay that remains largely unexplored.
In our combined theoretical and experimental study of fluoropyridine (C5H4FN), we investigate this link by monitoring the evolving chemical environment at the N and F atomic sites as the photoexcited S1 state relaxes to the ground state via a conical intersection.
We find that the F site responds primarily to vibrational relaxation, showing minimal sensitivity to the electronic excited state.
In contrast, excitation to S1 induces a measurable energy shift at the N site and significantly enhances its sensitivity to local vibrations within the ring.
This behavior arises from a photoinduced redistribution of charge, which also increases the Coulomb interaction between the 1s electron at the N atom and the atomic partial charge at an adjacent C atom.
This insight opens new avenues for exploring ultrafast dynamics and conical intersection pathways in more complex systems, from photostable DNA bases to light-harvesting materials."
Researchers watch chemistry unfold atom by atom "Study suggests a new way to follow electronic and vibrational dynamics in real time"
Graphical abstract
Figure 1. Chemical shifts during conical intersection passage.
Video Generation Models are General-Purpose Vision Learners
This could be an interesting new paper by Kaiming He and Andrew Zisserman and their team!
From the abstract:
"Driven by next-token prediction, NLP shifted from task-specific models into powerful generalist foundation models. What, then, is the equivalent catalyst needed to achieve a general-purpose model in computer vision?
In this paper, we contend that large-scale text-to-video generation serves as a strong pre-training paradigm for computer vision, providing the necessary spatiotemporal priors, vision-language alignment, and scalability required for general visual intelligence.
We introduce GenCeption, which leverages a pre-trained video generative diffusion backbone to define a feed-forward perception model, capable of performing various vision tasks steered by text instructions.
Empirical results demonstrate that GenCeption achieves state-of-the-art performance across a diverse suite of tasks, including depth, surface normal, and camera pose estimation, expression-referring segmentation, and 3D keypoint prediction, often matching or surpassing specialized models (e.g. DepthAnything3, SAM3, D4RT, VGGT-Omega, Sapiens, David, Genmo, and Lotus-2).
Furthermore, the video generative pretrained backbone outperforms alternative pretraining paradigms (e.g., V-JEPA, and Video MAE) under comparable settings.
Importantly, GenCeption exhibits preliminary data and model scaling properties along with exceptional data efficiency, where it achieves comparable performance with leading models like D4RT and VGGT-Omega with 7 to 500 less training data. Finally, GenCeption also exhibits intriguing emergent behaviors: a model trained exclusively on synthetic human videos generalizes to real-world footage and out-of-distribution object categories (e.g., animals and robots). These findings suggest that video generation is not merely a synthesis tool, but a foundational path toward generalist vision intelligence for the physical world. ..."
Sunday, July 19, 2026
Incoming UK PM Andy Burnham to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling
Good news! Bravo!
The moronic BBC obsessed about how the UK would then meet net zero requirements! Laughable!
Microsoft in the race to build the ultimate supercomputer, a quantum computer
Recommendable! Interesting that the quantum computer lab of Microsoft is located in Denmark of all places!
US-Saudi Nuke Deal: Proposed US-Saudi Nuclear Pact Raises Global Alarm
Good news! This may make Israel a little nervous!
How India Built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant From Scratch
Recommendable! Quite a feat for India! Notice also the involvement of Israel! India, a rising superpower!
The Evolution of Human Skin Colour | BBC Earth Science
Very disappointing video by BBC! Nothing new! All well known for several decades at least!
Solo dining is booming. Really!
Bon appetit! It appears this trend has already been reported for several years. This might only be a refresher or a typical silly season article!
"... with reservations for one rising 23% as more Americans embrace quiet meals alone, spending an average of $94 while slowing down and avoiding distractions."
"... Solo dining is having a moment, with reservations for one jumping 23% over the past year, booking app OpenTable says.
Why it matters: That growth may look like another sign of America's loneliness epidemic. But many solo diners say eating alone offers a rare chance to slow down, reflect and savor the small stuff. ..."
Google Cloud's Always-On Memory Agent Replaces RAG and Embeddings With Continuous LLM Consolidation on Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Good news!
Notice Google uses the SQLite database. Me too!
"An open-sourced agent that ditches vector databases and embeddings entirely. Instead it runs continuous LLM consolidation on Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite — ingesting, connecting, and compacting context on the fly (1M input / 64K output) so the model just remembers rather than retrieving chunks.
So what: If a cheap enough model can consolidate memory in-context, the entire vector-DB + embedding pipeline becomes optional plumbing. It's a direct bet that falling inference cost eats RAG — and it's coming from Google itself."
"Most AI agents have amnesia. They process information when asked, then forget everything. This project gives agents a persistent, evolving memory that runs 24/7 as a lightweight background process, continuously processing, consolidating, and connecting information.
No vector database. No embeddings. Just an LLM that reads, thinks, and writes structured memory.
The Problem
Current approaches to LLM memory fall short:
Approach Limitation
Vector DB + RAG Passive. Embeds once, retrieves later. No active processing.
Conversation summary Loses detail over time. No cross-reference.
Knowledge graphs Expensive to build and maintain.
The gap: No system actively consolidates information like a human brain does. Humans don't just store memories. During sleep, the brain replays, connects, and compresses information. This agent does the same thing. ..."
Drones are now assisting with a variety of public services:
Make public services not war!
"
- In Australia, land managers used drones to clear an island of mice, and authorities are employing drone pilots to help warn beachgoers about great white sharks.
- In India, a pilot program is using drones to rapidly transport phlegm samples from rural areas to laboratories for tuberculosis testing, helping patients avoid costly trips to distant testing centers.
- During recent floods in China, rescue operators used drones to deliver emergency supplies and hoist stranded people to safety.
"
How serious or negligible are Hospital-Acquired Infections?
How much does it matter if you have an medical emergency or other urgent medical condition necessitating a hospital visit?
How accurate and comprehensive are these prevalence studies?
In a worst case scenario, a patient leaves a hospital in worse health than the patient entered it.
It seems recommendable to leave a hospital as early as is possible and if medically reasonable!
Notice that these statistics appear to be collected very infrequently and several years apart in the US.
Notice the abstract of the study claims "infections were not associated with [hospital] devices or procedures", but does not mention what caused the infections.
"“Prevalence surveys in U.S. hospitals showed that on any given day,
1 of 25 patients had a health care–associated infection in 2011, as compared with
1 of 31 patients in 2015. We repeated the survey in 2023 to assess changes in the prevalence of such infections…
1 of 25 patients had a health care–associated infection in 2011, as compared with
1 of 31 patients in 2015. We repeated the survey in 2023 to assess changes in the prevalence of such infections…
The prevalence of health care–associated infections was lower in 2023 than in 2015, with
1 of 38 patients on any given day having such an infection; however, the burden of health care–associated infections in U.S. hospitals continued to be high.”"
From the abstract:
"Background
Prevalence surveys in U.S. hospitals showed that on any given day, 1 of 25 patients had a health care–associated infection in 2011,
as compared with 1 of 31 patients in 2015. We repeated the survey in 2023 to assess changes in the prevalence of such infections.
Methods
Using established methods, 10 Emerging Infections Program (EIP) sites recruited up to 25 hospitals each. Hospitals selected a survey day between May 1 and September 30, 2023. EIP staff reviewed medical records of randomly selected patients to identify health care–associated infections using National Healthcare Safety Network definitions. We described patient and hospital characteristics, compared the prevalence of health care–associated infections in 2023 and 2015, and estimated the national burden of health care–associated infections in 2023.
Results
In 2023, of 13,653 patients in 218 hospitals, 355 (2.6%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3 to 2.9) had at least one health care–associated infection, as compared with 394 of 12,299 patients (3.2%; 95% CI, 2.9 to 3.5) in 199 hospitals in 2015. Approximately 60% of the health care–associated infections were not associated with devices or procedures. Among 151 hospitals in both surveys, patients were less likely to have a health care–associated infection in 2023 than in 2015, after adjustment for other factors (risk ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.63 to 0.85). We estimated that there were 518,000 health care–associated infections (95% CI, 494,500 to 542,000) in U.S. hospitals in 2023.
Conclusions
The prevalence of health care–associated infections was lower in 2023 than in 2015, with 1 of 38 patients on any given day having such an infection; however, the burden of health care–associated infections in U.S. hospitals continued to be high. A majority of the health care–associated infections that were identified were not associated with a device or procedure. ..."
Health Care–Associated Infections in U.S. Hospitals, 2023 versus 2015 (no public access)
The European Union is loosening its restrictions on certain gene-edited crops to take effect in two years. Really!
Good news, but too little, too late!
The excessive fear about genetic modifications in Europe is anachronistic and pathological!
"Last month, the European Parliament passed a law that will allow plants with genetic modifications that could occur naturally or through conventional breeding to bypass the EU’s onerous approval process for genetically modified organisms. The new regulatory process is expected to take effect in around two years."
"In a long-awaited step, the European Parliament yesterday passed a law that allows the expedited approval of many gene-edited crops without the rigorous review required for traditional transgenic varieties. ..."
Near Brazil humpback whale population has grown from around 2,000 whales four decades ago to roughly 35,000 today
Good news! What about other whale populations or humpback whales in other oceans? If I remember correctly, other whale populations also have recovered in recent decades.
What about overpopulation?
"Commercial whaling was effectively banned globally on January 1, 1986" (Google search)
"The co-founder of The Humpback Whale Project, a Brazilian research and conservation nonprofit, estimates that the western South Atlantic humpback population has grown from around 2,000 whales four decades ago to roughly 35,000 today, approaching or possibly matching its estimated pre-commercial whaling abundance."
Sightings of humpback whales surge in Rio de Janeiro, fueling demand for whale-watching trips
Projeto Baleia Jubarte (The Humpback Whale Project) (Unfortunately, I could not find the news release on their website, which is odd)
A humpback whale breaches off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, June 30, 2026.
Income inequality by country is declining significantly worldwide since 1995
Good news!
However, the Gini index/coefficient has some cons to keep in mind:
"Cons of the Gini Coefficient
- Ignores Demographic Context: It cannot differentiate between where the inequality exists (e.g., whether the disparity is driven by a massive gap at the top or widespread poverty at the bottom).
- Different Distributions, Same Score: Two very differently structured economies can yield the exact same Gini coefficient, masking structural realities like regional disparities or aging populations.
- Not a Poverty Measure: A low Gini coefficient does not mean an economy is wealthy; it simply means everyone is relatively poor. Conversely, a high Gini coefficient tells you nothing about the absolute living standards of the lowest earners.
- Data Sensitivity and Scope: The coefficient is highly sensitive to the quality and source of data. For example, measuring pre-tax income versus post-tax wealth will produce drastically different results for the same population.
" (Google search)
"... The number of people who live in extreme poverty — i.e., less than $3 a day — is an important indicator to track the first part of this vision. To capture shared prosperity, the second part, requires a measure that includes not just the extreme poor — who constitute 10 percent of the global population today — but everyone. In addition, the measure captures both higher living standards through income growth and how it is distributed. ...
A measure that captures prosperity should account for both the level of welfare and level of inequality. A measure that captures inequality, such as the Gini index, is an example of a measure of inclusivity. The World Bank reports the number of economies with high levels of inequality, defined as those with a Gini index greater than 40. Based on this, the number of economies with high inequality has declined by more than a third in the past three decades. ..."
The Strange Defeat of Nuclear Deterrence in 2025
Food for thought! How vulnerable have nuclear weapons become in the age of drone warfare?
"In June 2025, Ukraine’s security services staged an audacious strike inside Russia. They infiltrated the country and hid short-range attack drones in cargo trucks near a slew of Russian air bases as far away as the Amur region on the border with China. Most of these bases were home to Russian strategic heavy bombers—aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Using Russia’s mobile phone network, Ukrainian operatives remotely launched the drones, successfully destroying at least ten of the bombers and damaging a total of 41 planes, including some used for nuclear command and control, according to Ukrainian assessments. ..."
Two British fugitive Social media influencers arrested in Miami
What a sordid story! Not all social media is wholesome!
Caveat: I am not familiar with the details of this case.
"U.K. social media influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by federal authorities Saturday in Miami, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The charges against the duel U.S. and British citizens have yet to be announced. A Marshals Service spokesperson told the Associated Press the warrant is sealed.
The brothers, who moved to Romania in 2016, were arrested on an extradition request from the U.K., a person familiar with the matter, told the wire service, on the condition of anonymity.
The brothers, who have millions of followers on social media, have been wanted in the United Kingdom, where they face rape and human trafficking charges, the wire service also reports. ..."
"Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate -- whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny has made them among the world's most polarizing internet personalities -- were arrested Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges. ..."
Mexican President Sheinbaum says she will attend World Cup final Sunday after invitation from Trump and negotiate NAFTA
Good news!
World Cup diplomacy for free trade by President Trump! The Art of the Deal! Very clever!
"... The presumption is they [Sheinbaum & Carney] will sit together. And if they do, the meeting would mark their first since December, following months of verbal sparring, according to CBS News. ..."
President Claudia Sheinbaum wears the presidential sash during her swearing-in ceremony as Mexico's new president in Mexico City, October 1 2024
NYC Mayor Mamdani considers Netanyahu arrest ahead of UN General Assembly visit. Really!
This mayor of New York City is more crazy than expected! When was the last time NYC had a great mayor after Rudi Giuliani?
How far will Mamdani go to ruin NYC?
"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is deliberating an order to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City for the UN General Assembly in September, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in the Hague,” Mamdani told NYT podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro on The Interview.
“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court [ICC],” Mamdani added. “And what you will find is that it is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.” ..."
Lebanon's Aoun to present Hezbollah disarmament plan to Donald Trump. Really!
Does the government of Lebanon have the power, means and willingness to fight and disarm these terrorists? I have my doubts!
What has the government done in the past to prevent Islamist terrorists to take control of parts of the country?
How can President Trump make sure that Lebanon carries out this plan?
Lebanon is part of the Levant, a region known for its merchants and traders!
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun
ML & AI can help to identify archaic language in in the corpus of existing laws
Good news!
Credits: Stanford HAI newsletter
Saturday, July 18, 2026
University of Chicago Law School Limits Laptops as AI Transforms Work
How to integrate ML & AI into higher education is a huge challenge.
Turkey Has a Secret Masterplan for the Middle East. And It's Working
Very recommendable! Nice summary of Osman sultan Erdogan!
29 Nations sign World AI Cooperation Organization agreement promoted by China
An interesting move by China!
"The move comes as China pushes to become a global leader in AI and is warning first world countries against placing their national security interests above international co-operation."
Why the Hard Right is Surging in Norway
Seems to be a common trend in various European countries!
Offshore natural gas drilling is expanding again in Norway. Good news!
The Universe Has Been Expanding Since the Big Bang. Just Not How We Thought with Matt O'Dowd
As usual, very recommendable, but not easy to follow!
English for trippers: Of worriers and warriors
Don't be a worry wart! Worry no more! War worries go away!
Cross-Embodiment Robot Foundation World Models with Latent Actions
This could be an interesting new paper by Li Fei-Fei and her team!
From the abstract:
"The diversity of robot embodiments and action spaces makes it challenging to build robot world models that generalize across different embodiments.
We introduce the Latent Action-Conditioned Robot World Model (LAC-WM), which operates within a learned unified latent action space shared across diverse embodiments.
This unified action space improves the world model’s performance when adapted to previously unseen robot embodiments.
We compare LAC-WM with an Explicit Action-Conditioned World Model (EAC-WM), which conditions on explicit motion labels.
Our results shows that explicit action conditioning leads to disjoint action representations across embodiments, limiting downstream performance when adapting to new robots.
We evaluate both models on dexterous manipulation tasks and a modified LIBERO benchmark. LAC-WM improves downstream performance over EAC-WM by up to 46.7% on dexterous manipulation and 11.7% on LIBERO.
Crucially, the unified latent action space allows LAC-WM’s downstream performance to scale positively with the number of embodiments used during pretraining.
In contrast, the disjoint action space in EAC-WM leads to decreased performance as the number of pretraining embodiments increases.
These results highlights the importance of a unified action space for efficient cross-embodiment learning, addressing a key challenge in robotics."
Inside India's largest transgender festival Koovagam in April-May 2026 and 18 days long
What about transgender men?
Is this a silly season article by Nikkei Asia?
"Koovagam is a small village in Tamil Nadu, India, famous for hosting the annual 18-day Koothandavar Festival. Centered around the transgender community, it commemorates a Mahabharata legend where the deity Krishna assumes female form to marry Lord Aravan before his sacrifice.
The Festival & Rituals
The festival, usually held in April or May (the Tamil month of Chitrai), draws over 100,000 attendees, making it one of the largest gatherings of transgender women in Asia. ..." (Google search)
"The exact year or date of the very first Koovagam festival is not historically documented. The festival's traditions are deeply rooted in the ancient Mahabharata epic. It has been practiced informally for centuries by local communities before evolving into the massive, formal gathering it is today. ..." (Google search)
Arab leaders tell Trump that Netanyahu is an 'obstacle' to the president's Mideast plans - report
Bad news for PM Netanyahu! Is Netanyahu a road block to President Trump with respect to advancing the Abraham Accords?
"Several Arab leaders have privately urged US President Donald Trump to reconsider his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli public broadcaster KAN News reported on Wednesday. ...
Trump has suggested that he has not yet decided how to approach the Israeli election and is examining the broader field of candidates. ..."
EU, Ukraine sign drone deal to fast-track unmanned systems production
Good news!
"... Under the drone deal, joint ventures will be established between selected Ukrainian and European defense companies to fast-track the development and manufacturing of unmanned technologies. ...
While most of the listed companies focus on aerial drones, two in particular — Fincantieri and UForce — will leverage their expertise in naval drones and serve as systems integrators in the maritime domain. ...
In addition, the Commission has pledged to spend €1 billion ($1.14 billion) to support Kyiv’s drone capabilities as part of the €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan."
It must be silly season
Hard to find interesting topics to blog about these days!
Hopefully, the silly season will end this weekend!
Religious Liberty in the States 2026: 50-State Rankings
Recommendable!
"All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
George Washington (August 18, 1790)
Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island
"Here are the top five states:
Arkansas (89%)
Tennessee (85%)
Florida (77%)
Montana (71%)
Illinois (70%)
On the flip side, the five states with the lowest scores are:
California (30%)
West Virginia (30%)
Michigan (27%)
Vermont (27%)
New York (26%)
..."
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