I will be visiting Beijing on Fri. 5/15 and Sat. 5/16.
I expect to resume blogging on Sunday 5/17.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Do scientists hit their creative peak at a relatively young age in their careers?
Food for thought!
"Can old scientists learn new tricks?
Famed polymath Sir Isaac Newton did much of his work developing calculus in the mid-1660s, when he had not yet celebrated his 25th birthday.
Albert Einstein’s “annus mirabilis,” during which he published the revolutionary papers that would become the foundation of modern physics, occurred when he was only 26 years old.
And Maria Skłodowska-Curie was just 31 when she discovered radium and polonium.
These anecdotes give the impression that scientists hit their creative peak relatively early in their careers, an idea that has been supported by some studies. Other research, however, has found no such relationship between age and declining creativity, while one theory holds that more experienced researchers are better poised to generate new ideas. According to a Policy Article published yesterday in Science, the relationship between age and innovation may be more complicated than that.
The authors of the new study analyzed a dataset of more than 12.5 million scientists who published between 1960 and 2020.
They found that, as the years since initial publication increased, scientists became more adept at forging links between previously unconnected ideas.
At the same time, however, their capacity for truly disruptive innovation—work that overturns established paradigms with transformative breakthroughs—sharply declined.
This cycle held true across disciplines, from computer science to biology.
The study authors also note the existence of a “nostalgia effect,” in which scientists increasingly cite older papers as their career progresses. “These findings highlight a universal tension between science’s forward momentum and aging scientists’ growing attachment to the intellectual past,” the team writes.
The researchers also found that nations with younger scientific workforces, such as China and India, tend to produce a larger share of disruptive papers.
The United States, which has a comparatively older workforce (in part thanks to a 1994 Supreme Court decision that removed mandatory university retirement), has lower rates of disruption. “Together with the nostalgia effect, these results suggest that familiarity with established ideas narrows the scope of creative search,” the study authors write. “Aging scientists grow more adept at recombining what they know but become less inclined (or able) to abandon old concepts and replace them with new ones.”
Of course, referencing foundational papers and building on existing knowledge remains an integral part of the scientific enterprise. “Aging people are not less creative, they are just creative differently ,” ...
find ways to balance novelty with disruption, he argues, potentially by encouraging more collaborations across generations and welcoming young scientists from other nations. ...
Even the greatest minds, the study authors note in their paper, risk becoming set in their ways as they age.
In his later years, for example, Einstein struggled to develop a unified field theory and refused to accept the rise of quantum mechanics.
Speaking of quantum theory, physicist Werner Heisenberg published his pioneering work on the subject in 1925, when he was just 23 years old."
From the abstract:
"Scientific careers today are marked by growing polarization:
A small number of scientists now remain active and influential for longer than ever , whereas many others pass through research as temporary workers.
Lengthened training periods, the elimination of mandatory retirement, and funding systems that reward experience have concentrated resources among senior scientists.
As science becomes increasingly dependent on its aging core, a central question arises: How does academic age influence creativity?
The answer has long divided scholars. Analyzing more than 12.5 million scientists who published between 1960 and 2020,
we find that novelty—the linking of previously unconnected ideas—increases with academic age,
whereas disruption—the replacement of established ideas with new ones—declines.
These and other findings invite reflection on potential implications for policy, such as funding, tenure, and promotion systems; immigration and mobility; workforce development; and incentives for (and barriers to) collaboration and innovation."
Aging and the narrowing of scientific innovation (no public access) "Aging researchers and the removal of retirement policies yield decreased disruptive innovation in science"
Neanderthal used stone drills to treat tooth cavities nearly 60,000 years ago, ancient molar suggests
Amazing stuff!
"Neanderthals had the know-how to identify a tooth infection and the motor skills to drill out the damage, according to a study published May 13, 2026, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Alisa Zubova of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences ..."
From the abstract:
"Neanderthal medical knowledge has long attracted scholarly interest. Evidence suggests they cared for sick, injured, and elderly group members, with possible use of medicinal plants.
However, it remains uncertain whether such practices reflect deliberate medical strategies or instinctive self-medication akin to that observed in non-human primates.
Here, we analyze and interpret traces of deliberate artificial manipulation of Chagyrskaya 64, a Neanderthal lower left second molar found in Chagyrskaya Cave (Altai Krai, Russia).
The tooth exhibits a large human-generated concavity on the occlusal surface, created during the lifetime of the individual.
Traceological and microtomographic analyses of the observed modifications, combined with experimental verification, reveal that the concavity in Chagyrskaya 64 is indicative of the earliest documented instance of caries treatment involving the drilling/rotating with a lithic perforator, ca. 59 ka.
Evidence of two distinct types of manipulations requiring different tools, in addition to the drilling/rotating technique, necessitating complex finger movements, indicates that the Chagyrskaya Cave Neanderthals possessed the cognitive capacity to intuit the source of pain, comprehend the feasibility of its elimination, and deliberately select the most efficacious dental intervention.
These patterns bring Neanderthal behavior closer to modern humans and differentiate that behavior from the instinctive actions of other primates."
Fig 2. Chagyrskaya 64 molar tooth and its macro-features.
Fig 4. Retouched points (1, 4) and perforators (2, 3, 5) from Layer 6c/2 in Chagyrskaya Cave.
Your brain on anesthesia, a special state of neural activity with distinct patterns unique to anesthesia
Amazing stuff!
"... anesthesia. It’s great for eliminating the perception of pain—but with brain activity significantly suppressed ... Scientists wanted to better understand what the anesthetized brain is actually doing—and whether it more closely mimics sleeping or a coma.
Researchers recorded whole-head electroencephalograms (EEGs) for 28 patients under anesthesia, 14 patients who were resting but awake, 20 patients in REM sleep, and 40 comatose patients.
They found that, at different frequencies, the brain waves of anesthetized patients shared properties of both sleep and comas. Brains in REM sleep, in particular, overlapped heavily with those under anesthesia. But there were brain waves unique to anesthesia, too, leading the authors to conclude it is indeed its own state of neural activity. ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
Every day, thousands of patients undergo general anesthesia, a safe and reversible medically induced state of unconsciousness often likened to sleep or coma.
Despite profoundly altering brain function, most procedures are carried out without monitoring the brain due to limited understanding of optimal tracking methods.
Here, we demonstrate that whole-head scalp electroencephalography can precisely map brain states during anesthesia showing both elements of sleep- and coma-like states. We identify distinct neural activity patterns unique to anesthesia that could enhance intraoperative neuromonitoring. Moreover, our findings open up future avenues of investigating neural activity during anesthesia, potentially steering it closer toward sleep instead of coma thus promoting better cognitive outcomes and postoperative recovery.
Abstract
General anesthesia is often compared to sleep but may more closely resemble a medically induced coma. While all three states involve a loss of awareness, the extent of their neural similarity remains unclear.
Electrophysiological markers, such as delta activity (< 4 Hz), are present in slow wave sleep, disorders of consciousness (DoC, including coma), and propofol anesthesia but are absent during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
Frontal alpha oscillations are a key feature of propofol anesthesia and detectable via intraoperative EEG.
However, it remains unclear whether alpha and delta activity fully define the brain state.
Using whole-head EEG, we analyzed brain activity in individuals under propofol anesthesia, during sleep, or in DoC in the intensive care unit.
Our spectral parameterization and similarity analyses revealed that propofol anesthesia exhibits spatiotemporal patterns resembling both coma and sleep. We introduced a spectral orthogonalization approach, identifying unique signatures of propofol anesthesia, including posterior slow waves, frontocentral delta, and reduced aperiodic activity.
Critically, the reduction in aperiodic activity partially overlaps with REM sleep and may reflect decreased cortical excitability, contributing to reduced arousal, muscle atonia, and immobility common to both states.
These results imply that propofol anesthesia creates a brain state where some features resemble sleep while others are more similar to coma.
Embracing its full spatiotemporal complexity could improve titration of sedation, thus minimizing excessive suppression and the risk of postoperative cognitive deficits."
The obsession with school smartphone policies coninoues and it is narrowly focused on distraction. How stupid!
Here is another such study! How relevant is it how often a student checks his/her smartphone!
It is high time to integrate smartphones into school curricula!!! Banning is stupid!
Again this study also resorts to the totally antiquated term "cell phone" as if we are still living in the 1970s/1980s!
"A new RAND study finds that stricter school cell phone policies are associated with less student phone use in class, but even the most restrictive policies don’t completely stop students from checking their phones.
The study draws on survey data from the RAND American Youth Panel, a nationally representative panel of middle and high school students. Cell phone policies and how those policies are enforced vary widely among schools, so this approach provides a clearer picture of how those differences relate to student behavior. ..."
AntAngelMed: The Largest Open-Source Medical LLM — 103B Parameters, Only 6.1B Active
Good news! Does this model also cover traditional Chinese medicine? 😊
Note only a fraction of all parameters are active!
"A team of Chinese researchers has released AntAngelMed, a 103B-parameter open-source medical language model built on a 1/32 activation-ratio MoE architecture — meaning only 6.1B parameters are active at inference time. You get frontier-scale medical knowledge capacity at a fraction of the compute cost. It is the largest open-source medical LLM released to date, built on top of Ling-flash-2.0 and available on GitHub now."
‘In Real Life They Would Have Been Dead’: Ukrainian Drone Teams ‘Destroy’ Swedish Forces in NATO Drill
Good news! Ukrainians are training NATO forces in latest drone warfare!
"Ukrainian drone operators “destroyed” Swedish troops during a NATO-linked military exercise on the Baltic island of Gotland this week, according to participants and observers. ..."
On AI Co-Mathematician: Accelerating Mathematicians with Agentic AI
This sounds promising! I bet ML & AI will revolutise how we do math! This is only the beginning!
I wish I had a co-mathematician in high school! 😊
From the abstract:
"We introduce the AI co-mathematician, a workbench for mathematicians to interactively leverage AI agents to pursue open-ended research.
The AI co-mathematician is optimized to provide holistic support for the exploratory and iterative reality of mathematical workflows, including ideation, literature search, computational exploration, theorem proving and theory building. By providing an asynchronous, stateful workspace that manages uncertainty, refines user intent, tracks failed hypotheses, and outputs native mathematical artifacts, the system mirrors human collaborative workflows.
In early tests, the AI co-mathematician helped researchers solve open problems, identify new research directions, and uncover overlooked literature references.
Besides demonstrating a highly interactive paradigm for AI-assisted mathematical discovery, the AI co-mathematician also achieves state of the art results on hard problem-solving benchmarks, including scoring 48% on FrontierMath Tier 4, a new high score among all AI systems evaluated."
Chart of the day
Saudi Arabia envy! Iran take note! Putin the Terrible fumes! 😊
"The shale boom and wars in Ukraine and Iran have transformed the U.S. into a global energy powerhouse. Energy-industry analysts expect export volumes—already at or near records for various products—to notch new highs. The flow of fuel from U.S. ports has put a big dent in the national trade deficit and helped to stabilize overseas markets during war and other periods of scarcity."
US Vice President JD Vance has delivered an ultimatum to all states: Fully comply with antifraud statutes or risk losing federal Medicaid funding
Good news! When American generosity and philanthropy is exploited and abused for too long!
Over the years, there have been plenty of news reports of rampant fraud regarding Medicaid! However, so far little has been done about it.
"The Trump administration launched a nationwide audit of state Medicaid watchdogs established and funded under federal law. It’s the latest campaign in the administration’s war on fraud, which the VP is quarterbacking. The White House antifraud task force has already targeted alleged misconduct in both Democrat and Republican states, including suspending payments to hospice services in California and durable medical-equipment suppliers in Florida."
Hantavirus, COVID, norovirus, legionnaires’: why are cruise ships so prone to disease outbreaks?
It has been known at least since the 1970s that cruise ships are prone to infectious/contagious disease outbreaks among passengers almost every year or every few years, often involving gastrointestinal viruses.
An outbreak of a hantavirus seems to be unusual on a cruise ship. It was reported that the zero patient was a retired ornithologist who visited a landfill in Brazil.
However, given how many cruise ship tours and how many passengers on these ships, the risks of becoming ill in this way are rather small, I would guess.
"The ship’s design adds to the problem. People spend time together in dining rooms, bars, lifts, corridors, theatres and spa areas. Crew members also live and work in the same environment, often in shared accommodation, so illness can move through the ship from passenger to passenger or between passengers and crew. ..."
Here is a table showing outbreaks just in the year 2018
English for trippers: At best a second best
A contest in bestiality? Maybe not! 😊 What about the rest?
The anti corruption campaign in the Ukraine is making further progress
Good news!
"Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s former chief of staff and widely regarded as one of Ukraine’s political kingpins before his resignation last year, was named a suspect in a major corruption probe involving alleged money laundering tied to a luxury housing project. The probe is a continuation of last year’s “Operation Midas,” with anti-graft agencies now saying six more suspects have been named – though they added that Zelensky was not, and has never been, a subject of the investigation."
Former Presidential Office Head Notified of Suspicion in Major Laundering Case "Ukraine’s anti‑corruption authorities say former Head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, has been notified of suspicion in a case involving Hr.460 million ($10.4 million) in alleged money laundering. The investigation centers on high‑end real estate development near Kyiv and remains in its early stages. Officials say further details will emerge as the probe continues."
Ukraine Names 6 More Suspects in Yermak-Linked $10M Luxury Property Laundering Case "Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have named six more suspects in an expanding probe into alleged money laundering through elite Kyiv-area real estate. Former top officials, including Andriy Yermak, are under suspicion. Investigators say about $10 million was laundered via luxury construction schemes tied to wider corruption cases in the energy sector."
Europe’s Green Deal Is Unraveling. Good riddance!
Recommendable! What took so long! The Iron Curtain fell and socialism spread all over Europe!
The many socialists of the EU united and clearly abused the climate change/global warming hoax/scare as a pretext to impose drastic socialist central planning in Europe.
These arrogant Europeans even tried to impose their lunacy on the rest of the world like colonialists of the past!
"Over the past decade, Europe has played a leading role in shaping global climate policy, highlighted by the launch of the European Green Deal in 2019 — Ursula von der Leyen described it as a “man on the moon moment.” The initiative aims to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 while fostering innovation and strengthening its industrial base.
Yet several years later, the results are deeply disappointing. Instead of meeting its goals, the Green Deal is increasingly associated with higher energy costs, weakened competitiveness, and growing political backlash. It has deepened divisions within the EU, strained global relations, and increased pressure on households and businesses — raising serious doubts about its feasibility and long-term economic impact. ..."
Kabinett bringt neue Gaskraftwerke auf den Weg – Neue Umlage für Stromkunden
Neues zu Klimawahn und Energiewende der Bananenrepublik D!
Wenn man z.B. laufende Atomkraftwerke mutwillig und ohne Verstand abschaltet.
Disclaimer
Since end of February, I am blogging from behind the Great Firewall of China.
My Internet service in China is very spotty. Thus, I am not able to blog as usual.
Ukraine’s battlefield integration surpasses US military’s, US Army secretary says
Amazing stuff! You never step in the same war twice!
"Ukraine has linked its military drones, sensors and weapons systems into a unified battlefield network, an integration Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told lawmakers Tuesday the U.S. military has yet to achieve.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Driscoll lauded Kyiv’s “Delta” command and control system and praised its ability to “integrate every single drone, every sensor and every shooting platform into just one single network.” A stark contrast, he said, to fragmented American systems that struggle to communicate or share data. ..."
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Der Brummton ist amtlich Windräder eines Windparks müssen wegen Lärmbelästigung ausgebremst werden
Gute Nachrichten! Neues zum Klimawahn in der Bananenrepublik D!
Nicht nur verschandeln diese Windmühlen die Natur, sie töten auch massenweise Vögel, Fledermäuse, und Insekten.
"... Doch jetzt müssen die Windräder am „Windpark“ Königseiche oberhalb von Uhingen-Baiereck teilweise abgeschaltet werden, gefordert wird sogar deren Aus. Sie verursachen zu viel Lärm. Aus ursprünglichen Anwohnerprotesten ist ein behördlich belegter Immissionsfall geworden. ..."
The expectations regarding the President Trump and General Secretary Xi Jinping summit in Beijing are high!
Will it be a watershed historic event? Hope and pray!
I will be myself in Beijing on Friday 5/15 to attend to an appointment at the German embassy for personal reasons.
Will this event trump (pardon my pun) the famous "President Richard Nixon’s historic eight-day visit to the People's Republic of China from February 21–28, 1972, ended 25 years of diplomatic separation between the U.S. and China. Meeting with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, Nixon aimed to normalize relations and gain leverage over the Soviet Union, producing the Shanghai Communiqué."?
Do not underestimate the businessman Trump and author of The Art of the Deal!
New York Judge Says There Is No Tort of ‘Misgendering’
Hopefully, this will be the end of such obviously frivolous lawsuits with respect to human fads and manias!
Preferred pronouns! Laughable! I want to be called hesheit (pronounced heshit)! Just kidding! Caution: satire!
"At the Volokh Conspiracy, Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh writes about a decision where a judge in Manhattan ruled that repeatedly misgendering a person, in this case calling someone “him” who had asked to be called “them,” does not mean the misgender-er is liable for damages.
The misgendered party asked the judge to order the misgender-er to use the preferred pronoun and sought damages for each “instance of deliberate misgendering that has occurred and continued to occur.” The judge disagreed. “There is . . . no showing of any actual ‘misgendering’ or any legally cognizable injury arising from it,” Judge Gerald Lebovits wrote. “New York recognizes no tort of ‘misgendering.’”"
China-US trade talks kick off in Seoul ahead of high-profile leaders’ summit of President Trump and Xi Jinping in China
Good news! Auspicious! Hope and pray for a breakthrough!
"Senior officials from China and the United States have started a new round of trade talks in Seoul, South Korea, hours ahead of US President Donald Trump’s scheduled arrival in Beijing. ..."
Golden Dome-style missile shield could cost up to $1.2T over 20 years to develop, deploy, and operate, CBO estimates
That is only $60 billion per year! Not too bad!
More concerning is how outdated it might be in the age of hypersonic missiles and drone warfare. How will the Golden Dome be adjusted for that?
Is the acquisition and development of Greenland included? Just kidding! 😊
"... CBO said most of the cost, over $1 trillion, would be needed for acquisition, including “costs for the system’s major components — namely, the interceptor layers and a space-based missile warning and tracking system.”
“The most expensive component is the space-based interceptor layer, which accounts for about 70 percent of acquisition costs and 60 percent of total costs,” the report says. ..."
Amazon launches 30-minute delivery across the US
Good news! But Amazon is only catching up with the already very fast delivery widely available in China for almost everything. I recently blogged here and here about it.
"Amazon deliveries keep getting faster. On Tuesday, the online retailer announced the launch of its 30-minute delivery option, dubbed “Amazon Now,” in dozens of U.S. cities.
This ultra-fast delivery option will allow customers to shop across “thousands” of items, Amazon says, including fresh groceries, household essentials, and other locally relevant items. ..."
Iran's very dubious claim of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz
It seems to be an outrageous claim by the fanatic theocratic dictatorship and major global state sponsor of terrorism!
What about the the state of Oman or the United Arab Emirates?
All Western countries and beyond would be well advised to firmly reject this claim!
Take the Strait of Gibraltar as an example:
"The Strait of Gibraltar is classified under international law as a strait used for international navigation. Its legal status is primarily governed by the transit passage regime established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
This regime guarantees all ships and aircraft the right of free, continuous, and expeditious transit between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, even when traversing the territorial waters of Spain, Morocco, or the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar." (Google AI)
Three Japanese megabanks to gain access to Anthropic's powerful AI model Mythos thanks to US Treasury Secretary Bessent
Good news! What will these banks do with Mythos?
How much die Prime Minister Takaichi influence this decision while Bessent visited Japan?
"Japan's three megabanks are set to gain access to Claude Mythos, the powerful artificial intelligence model developed by U.S. startup Anthropic, as soon as the end of May, Nikkei learned Wednesday. ..."
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, right, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pose for photos at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on May 12. (Source)
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang joins Trump’s trip to China
Good news! This promises to be a very interesting summit! Expectations are rising!
"... Seventeen American CEOs were on the original list of business delegates released by the White House on Monday – a smaller group than Trump’s previous China trip in 2017, when 27 high-profile executives joined. ..."
Pentametallic nanoparticles self-assemble for ammonia decomposition catalyst in a simple synthesis
Amazing stuff! This seems to be a very promising approach!
"A counterintuitive technique developed by researchers ... allows pentametallic nanoparticles of relatively uniform size and composition to form spontaneously from a precursor solution containing the five metals. The nanoparticles are a promising catalyst for the decomposition of ammonia into hydrogen and the technique could also potentially be extended to produce other multimetallic nanoparticles. ...
Multimetallic nanocrystals can sometimes offer catalytic properties that nanocrystals of a single metal cannot such as higher atom economy for a precious metal or synergistic interactions between the metals.
However, they can be difficult to synthesise because different reactivities or natural crystal structures of the constituent metals may not lead to compositionally uniform products. ...
approach, depositing the metals from solution onto ruthenium nanoparticle seeds by mixing them with metal acetylacetonate precursor solutions and heating the mixture. When they studied bimetallic compositions, they found differing results. Iron formed variably sized, self-nucleated nanoparticles separate from ruthenium, copper formed core–shell nanoparticles, and cobalt and nickel both formed mixtures of the two. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Multimetallic nanocrystals offer valuable properties but are challenging to synthesize. Yoon et al. systematically explored how the interplay of ruthenium seeds with iron, cobalt, nickel, and copper precursors can be exploited to produce uniform pentametallic nanocrystals.
They showed that progressive addition of multiple metals suppresses unwanted nucleation and directs growth toward a uniform product. The resulting nanocrystals exhibited high thermal stability and enhanced catalytic activity for ammonia decomposition, highlighting a general strategy for designing complex functional nanomaterials. ...
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Multimetallic nanocrystals exhibit physical and chemical properties unattainable in monometallic systems, arising from the synergistic interplay of their constituent elements.
Synthesizing these materials with precise control over their size and composition represents an important goal. Differences in reduction potentials, interfacial energies, and nucleation and growth kinetics among metal precursors create both thermodynamic and kinetic challenges that often lead to asynchronous reduction and incorporation processes. Rather than forming a single, uniform product, these disparities frequently generate multiple particle populations with distinct sizes and compositions. Therefore, rational design principles that govern competitive reduction and growth processes are critical to directing multimetallic synthesis toward uniform products.
RATIONALE
We hypothesized that the inherent chemical complexity of reduction for multiple metal precursors could be exploited rather than avoided. Specifically, we investigated whether introducing a high number of different competing metals simultaneously during a seed-mediated synthesis might suppress the formation of unwanted heterogeneous products. Under such competitive conditions, mutual affinities and altered energy barriers control the reaction pathways, guiding synthesis toward a single, compositionally uniform product.
RESULTS
We discovered a counterintuitive, composition-focusing effect in which increasing the number of reacting metals dramatically improved product uniformity.
Whereas introducing one or two base metals to ruthenium seeds yielded inhomogeneous products, simultaneously adding four metal precursors suppressed side reactions, resulting in a single pentametallic nanocrystal product. Time-lapse analysis during the heating process demonstrated that the metals deposited sequentially.
The initial elements that deposited acted as mediators that lowered the energy barrier for the addition of subsequent metals, building a multidomain architecture. This focusing phenomenon also proved highly versatile, successfully yielding uniform products regardless of seed size, precursor ratios, or the constituent metals. When used as ammonia decomposition reaction catalysts, the pentametallic nanocrystal-based catalysts achieved a catalytic rate more than four times higher than that of ruthenium catalysts and maintained their structural integrity and performance even after high-temperature treatments up to 900°C.
CONCLUSION
Our study demonstrates that competitive reactivity, typically viewed as a hurdle in chemical synthesis, can actively drive the formation of highly uniform multimetallic nanocrystals.
By increasing the number of competing elements, side reactions could be suppressed to focus the growth into a single structure.
The design rules established in this study provide a generalizable strategy for synthesizing complex multimetallic nanocrystals, offering a versatile platform for advancing catalysis and sustainable energy technologies."
KAIST unveils ‘complexity paradox’: Multimetallic nanoparticles grow more uniform as components increase
The five-metal nanoparticle showed potential as a catalyst to break ammonia down
The synthesis of the nanocrystal was surprisingly simple
Composition-focusing in multimetallic nanocrystal synthesis.
Ranking Arizona: Top 10 Arizona casinos for 2026. Really!
There are only a total of about 26 casinos in operation in Arizona! Most of them, if not all run by native Americans.
Gaza’s Lost History on Display in a major international exhibition in Turin
This could be an interesting exhibition! However, from the article below I get the impression this is a pro Palestine (PLO/PNA) political statement, perhaps worse with antisemitic undertones!
"The project is a collaboration between Fondazione Merz, Turin’s Museo Egizio, and Geneva’s Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (MAH), with the support of the State of Palestine. It brings together around eighty archaeological artifacts dating from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, placing them in dialogue with works by seven contemporary Palestinian and international artists. Together, the institutions frame the exhibition as both a scholarly undertaking and a public reflection on memory, identity, and responsibility. ...
For years, the name Gaza has been associated almost exclusively with bombardment, siege, hunger, and ruin [???]. The Turin exhibition seeks to recover a much longer, nuanced history. ..."
"... The project brings together a selection of over eighty archaeological finds from the MAH – Musée d’art et d’histoire of Geneva on behalf of the State of Palestine and the Egyptian Museum of Turin – dating from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period – and works by contemporary Palestinian and international artists Samaa Emad, Mirna Bamieh, Khalil Rabah, Vivien Sansour, Wael Shawky, Dima Srouji and Akram Zaatari. ..."
GAZA, the future has an ancient heart (original news release)
An iron age statuette of a woman with a tambourine, from between 800 and 601 BC, discovered in Gaza. (Source)
The exhibition in Turin includes ancient artefacts found in Gaza and new work from artists across the Levant.
Head with pointed cap, from approximately the 5th century BCE, discovered in Gaza.
Garlic compound kills mosquitoes by halting mating and blocking egg-laying
Good news! I love garlic! Scientists were looking for an aphrodisiac and found the anaphrodisiac!
"... In fact, a new Yale study finds that garlic also functions as a de facto birth control for mosquitoes and other winged insects, an insight that could lead to eco-friendly pest control strategies. ...
the presence of garlic blocks mating in mosquitoes and a variety of fly species. ...
the idea that since fruit flies normally mate on fruits, maybe there’s something in fruits or vegetables that acts as an aphrodisiac and stimulates their mating. So, she went to the supermarket and bought 43 different fruits and vegetables. She made purées from each and put them in Petri dishes for the flies to sample. ...
The startling result was that garlic abolished mating completely. It blocked egg-laying, too. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• A “phytoscreen” identifies garlic as a potent deterrent of fly and mosquito behaviors
• Diallyl disulfide, a garlic compound, inhibits mating and egg laying
• Mating and egg-laying effects depend on taste and the TrpA1 channel
• Garlic exposure increases expression of a gene that encodes a satiety hormone
Summary
One means of controlling insect disease vectors and pests is with compounds that manipulate their behavior. An extraordinary variety of phytochemicals, i.e., compounds produced by plants, activate insect chemosensory systems. Fruits and vegetables present a source of compounds that are inexpensive and safe.
A “phytoscreen” of 43 fruits and vegetables identified garlic as a potent deterrent of mating and egg laying in Drosophila.
Diallyl disulfide, a garlic compound, deters both behaviors. Mating and egg-laying effects depend on taste and the TrpA1 channel.
Garlic inhibits mating and egg laying in Aedes vector mosquitoes and mating of the tsetse fly Glossina morsitans.
Garlic exposure increases expression of Drosophila head genes, including female-specific independent of transformer (fit), which encodes a satiety hormone that is essential for the effect of garlic on egg-laying preference."
A phytoscreen identifies a garlic compound as a deterrent of mating and egg laying in Drosophila and mosquitoes (no public access)
Graphical abstract
Pakistan Thinks It’s Playing Trump, the Opposite May Be True by Michael Rubin
Recommendable! A brief synopsis of US-Pakistan foreign relations since 1947.
Adam Smith's Legacy in Alberdi's Argentina
Recommendable! How much is Javier Milei influenced by Juan Bautista Alberdi?
"... However, one of the deepest and most successful applications of Smithian philosophy occurred in the Southern Cone of the Americas. Juan Bautista Alberdi, the intellectual father of the Argentine Constitution (1853), did not merely read Smith; he transformed his economic theories into a foundational institutional framework for a new nation. ..."
Juan Bautista Alberdi (Source)
Monday, May 11, 2026
Panama Canal oil shipments soar 70% as Asian buyers turn to US crude
In times of war, there always winners and loosers! How much crude oil is coming from Venezuela?
"Crude oil and petroleum products traveling through the Panama Canal swelled more than 70% above last year's levels in April, as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent Asian buyers scrambling to secure supplies from the U.S ..."
The hidden structure behind a widely used class of materials: Relaxor ferroelectrics
Amazing stuff!
"Materials called relaxor ferroelectrics have been used for decades in technologies like ultrasounds, microphones, and sonar systems. Their unique properties come from their atomic structure, but that structure has stubbornly eluded direct measurement.
Now a team of researchers f... has directly characterized the three-dimensional atomic structure of a relaxor ferroelectric for the first time. The findings ... provide a framework for refining models used to design next-generation computing, energy, and sensing devices. ...
In their paper, the researchers describe how they used an emerging technique to reveal the distribution of electric charges in the material, with a surprising result.
“We realized the chemical disorder we observed in our experiments was not fully considered previously,” ... “Working with our collaborators, we were able to merge the experimental observations with simulations to refine the models and better predict what we see in experiments.” ...
Probing disordered materials
Leading simulations of relaxor ferroelectrics suggest that when an electric field is applied, the interactions of positively and negatively charged atoms in different nanoregions of the material help give rise to exceptional energy storage and sensing capabilities. The details of those nanoregions have been impossible to directly measure to date. ...
the researchers studied a relaxor ferroelectric material used in sensors, actuators, and defense systems that is a lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate alloy. They used an emerging measurement technique, called multi-slice electron ptychography (MEP), in which researchers move a nanoscale-sized probe of high-energy electrons over a material and measure the resulting electron diffraction patterns. ...
The technique revealed a hierarchy of chemical and polar structures that spanned from atomic to mesoscopic scales. The researchers also found that many regions of differing polarization in the material were much smaller than predicted by the leading simulations. The researchers then fed their new data back into those computer simulations and refined the models to better reflect their findings under different conditions. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
The complexity of lead-based relaxor ferroelectrics makes connecting microscopic characterization with macroscopic properties challenging.
One approach is to compare experimental and theoretical studies, but experiment often averages over material inhomogeneities and theory provides an atomistic view.
To overcome this mismatch, Zhu et al. used multislice electron ptychography, which provided three-dimensional volumetric characterization of the structure and chemistry of a prototypical relaxor material.
Direct comparison with bond valence molecular dynamics simulations revealed that a fully chemically disordered model with residual short-range ordering was necessary to enable agreement with experiment. ...
Abstract
Introducing structural and/or chemical heterogeneity into otherwise ordered crystals can dramatically alter material properties.
Lead-based relaxor ferroelectrics such as 0.68Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.32PbTiO3 are prototypical examples.
We performed three-dimensional (3D) volumetric characterization using multislice electron ptychography (MEP) and bond valence molecular dynamics (BVMD) simulations.
Real-space comparisons between the two under varying strain states revealed a coherent 3D view of the “polar slush.” Dipolar correlations from the atomic to domain scales are shown to be jointly modulated by strain and chemical configurations, with the best agreement found in a model accounting for both overall chemical disorder and residual short-range order.
Together, MEP and BVMD provide a framework for linking atomic-scale heterogeneity in complex materials by means of complementary 3D imaging and predictive modeling."
Bridging experiment and theory of relaxor ferroelectrics with multislice electron ptychography (no public access)
Bridging experiment and theory of relaxor ferroelectrics at the atomic scale with multislice electron ptychography (preprint, open access, published August 2024, could be dated, contains no images)
Using a technique called multi-slice electron ptychography (MEP), researchers move a nanoscale-sized probe of electrons over a material and measure the resulting electron diffraction patterns. Overlapping regions can be used to create a 3-D scan of the material’s atomic structure.
From Brain Drain To Brain Gain to brain circulation: About High-Skilled tech migration between India and the US since the 1990s
Food for thought!
"How did high-skilled immigrants from India both support America's 2000s tech boom and spark India's transformation into the world's largest IT exporter? In the 1990s, a surge of Indian workers began acquiring computer science skills in hopes of migrating to the US, creating a massive skilled workforce. However, the cap on US visas blocked many of these workers from obtaining jobs in the US, while others who did find work ultimately returned to India after working in the American tech sector, a phenomenon known as "brain circulation."
The result was a remarkable win-win: Indian immigrants drove innovation, patenting, and productivity gains that lifted the entire US economy, creating American jobs in the process, while investment in computer skills and brain circulation fueled a tech boom in India that made it the global leader in IT services. ..."
Earthquake-sensing fiber cables can also pick up speech from other, nearby fiber cables
Amazing stuff!
What is the definition of serendipity?
"Fiber optic cables used to detect earthquakes may also be able to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. Researchers reported last week at the European Geosciences Union meeting that distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can accurately capture the faint vibrations of human speech.
DAS works by firing laser pulses down a fiber cable and measuring tiny changes in any light that reflects back. Geophysicists increasingly use the technique to study earthquakes, volcanoes, traffic, and even pedestrian footfalls, taking advantage of both dedicated research cables and unused “dark fiber” already buried beneath cities and oceans.
But in field tests, researchers found that exposed, coiled cables could also pick up nearby speech from several meters away. Feeding the signals into Whisper, a free AI transcription tool, produced readable real-time transcripts.
“Not many people realize that [fiber optic cables] can detect acoustic waves,” said geophysicist Jack Lee Smith. “This could be a privacy concern.”
The effect was limited: buried cables and straight fiber lines recorded speech poorly. Still, researchers say the findings highlight unexpected privacy risks as DAS use expands."
Fiber optic cables can eavesdrop on nearby conversations "Cables used to detect earthquakes can also capture the faint vibrations of speech"
Image of the day/Bild des Tages
Die Last mit lebenslangen Berufspolitikern! Wer nichts wird, wird Berufspolitiker (Wirte wurden zu lange ungerechtfertigter Weise beleidigt)!
Was hat der Mann eigentlich gemacht als die unsägliche SED Kanzlerin Merkel regierte? Ist er fleissig mitgelaufen?
Putin the Terrible Warns Armenia Over EU Ambitions, Citing ‘Ukrainian Scenario’
What else to expect from this megalomaniac and warmonger!
When will the apathetic and lethargic Russian people/Slav(e)s finally get rid of Putin the Terrible!
"During a press briefing on May 10, Vladimir Putin addressed Armenia’s growing alignment with the EU, urging Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to hold a referendum to choose between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). While claiming Moscow would support what benefits the Armenian people, Putin warned of “certain circumstances” and invoked the “Ukrainian scenario,” claiming that conflict began with Kyiv’s EU aspirations. ..."
Photonics advance could enable compact, high-performance lidar sensors with no moving parts
Good news!
"... A new study from ... researchers could help to enable next-generation lidar sensors that are compact, durable, and have no moving parts. The key advance is a novel design for a silicon-photonics chip, which is a semiconductor device that manipulates light rather than electricity. ...
To avoid these drawbacks, the ... researchers designed and demonstrated an array of integrated antennas that minimizes unwanted crosstalk between the antennas. Their innovation allows a lidar chip to scan a wider field of view while maintaining low-noise operation compared to other silicon-photonics-based approaches. ..."
From the abstract:
"Integrated optical phased arrays (OPAs) have emerged as a promising technology for many applications due to their ability to dynamically control free-space optical beams in a compact and non-mechanical manner.
However, these integrated OPAs typically have a restricted field of view (FOV), limited by grating lobes caused by large antenna pitches that are typically necessary to reduce crosstalk between the antennas in the integrated OPA.
In this work, we develop and experimentally demonstrate for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a set of integrated grating-based antennas with significantly-reduced inter-antenna crosstalk that enable half-wavelength-pitch integrated OPAs with grating-lobe-free and wide-FOV functionality.
First, we derive a generalized theoretical model to describe the coupling dynamics between lossy modes in a system and use this model to analyze the coupling between antennas.
Next, we design and demonstrate a set of three integrated grating-based antennas with different propagation coefficients to enable reduced inter-antenna crosstalk, successfully measuring a significant reduction from 100% to 1% coupling.
Finally, using these reduced-crosstalk antennas, we develop and demonstrate a half-wavelength-pitch integrated OPA, successfully demonstrating grating-lobe-free and wide-FOV functionality.
This work facilitates new functionality for high-performance integrated OPAs."
Reduced-crosstalk antennas for grating-lobe-free and wide-field-of-view integrated optical phased arrays (open access)
Fig. 1: Wide-FOV integrated-OPA concept.
Fig. 2: Design of reduced-crosstalk antennas.
Jelena Notaros, senior author (Source)
How Anthropic aligns its models to be more ethically responsible
Good news!
"Anthropic allays blackmail problems, outlines alignment strategy
Anthropic published research on how it eliminated the agentic misalignment problem that plagued earlier Claude models—instances where AI systems would blackmail engineers or take ethically questionable actions to avoid shutdown.
The behavior originated in the pre-trained model rather than from misaligned reward signals during fine-tuning, since standard chat-based RLHF data didn’t cover agentic tool use.
The key breakthrough came from teaching Claude to explain its reasoning rather than just demonstrate correct behavior: training on responses that included ethical deliberation reduced misalignment from 22 percent to 3 percent, far more effective than training on aligned actions alone.
Even more striking, equivalent improvements came from “difficult advice” data—fictional scenarios where a human faces an ethical dilemma—which was 28 times more efficient and likely to generalize better given its distance from the evaluation distribution.
Every Claude model from Haiku 4.5 onward now scores perfectly on agentic misalignment evals, compared to Opus 4 models that engaged in blackmail up to 96 percent of the time.
The researchers note that while this progress is encouraging, fully aligning highly capable AI systems remains unsolved, and current auditing methods cannot yet rule out catastrophic autonomous action."
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