Beginning today 4/1 (no April fool's joke)! 😊
Wednesday, April 01, 2026
AI completes the formal proof of higher-dimensional sphere packing
Good news!
"When Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska received a Fields Medal—widely regarded as the Nobel Prize for mathematics—in July 2022, it was big news. Not only was she the second woman to accept the honor in the award’s 86-year history ... Today, in a collaboration between humans and AI, Viazovska’s proofs have been formally verified, signaling rapid progress in AI’s abilities to assist with mathematical research. ..."
"These results, originally proved by Maryna Viazovska and collaborators, earned Viazovska the Fields Medal at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians. This is the only formalization of a Fields Medal-winning result from this century ..."
Completing the formal proof of higher-dimensional sphere packing "Using Gauss, we have helped formally verify the sphere packing problem in dimensions 8 and 24 — certifying that the E8 lattice and the Leech lattice achieve the densest possible arrangements of non-overlapping spheres in their respective dimensions."
Fields Medal–winning mathematical work about optimal sphere packing in many dimensions is now formally verified by a human-AI collaboration
AI turns electron microscopy into materials insights in minutes
Good news! This could be an important breakthrough!
"... The EMSeek platform ... streamlines materials research by identifying key features in a microscopy image, determining the crystal structure, predicting material properties, comparing results with existing scientific literature and generating a report within a single, integrated workflow. ..."
From the abstract:
"Electron microscopy (EM) reveals atomic-scale structures that underpin catalysis, energy storage, and semiconductor reliability, yet current workflows remain fragmented across segmentation, crystallographic reconstruction, property modeling, and literature review, often requiring weeks of expert effort. Although recent artificial intelligence models have assisted individual steps, the diversity of EM modalities and tasks means existing approaches remain siloed and perform poorly in complex multistage workflows.
We present EMSeek, a modular, provenance-tracked multiagent platform that connects EM to materials insight through five key units: reference-guided one-for-all segmentation, mask-aware reconstruction of crystal structures from EM data, a gated mixture of experts property predictor with uncertainty calibration, literature retrieval with citation anchoring, and physical consistency checks with audit-ready reporting. These units are orchestrated by large language models (LLMs) that automatically plan, invoke, and execute tools, minimizing human intervention.
On 20 material systems and five tasks, EMSeek delivers segmentation about twice as fast as Segment Anything with higher accuracy, achieves more than 90% structural similarity on STEM2Mat, and, with about 2% labeled calibration, matches or surpasses strong single experts on three out-of-distribution property benchmarks.
A complete query runs in 2 to 5 minutes per image, roughly 50 times faster than expert workflows. Case studies on two-dimensional lattices and nanoparticles validate EMSeek’s ability to automate complex workflows, with integrated uncertainty calibration and audit signals that provide scientists with rigorous yet actionable guidance to accelerate materials discovery."
Bridging electron microscopy and materials analysis with an autonomous agentic platform (open access)
Fig. 1. Interactive EMSeek multiagent framework for end-to-end EM analysis.
Fig. 2. One-click reference-patch framework for universal EM segmentation.
Fig. 4. End-to-end agentic workflow linking EM images to materials knowledge.
Italy turns away Middle East-bound US military aircraft from Sicily stopover
Bad news! What the heck is Italian Prime Minister Meloni doing?
"U.S. military aircraft heading from the United States to the Middle East have been refused permission to stop off at an air base in Italy, an Italian government source has told Defense News. ...
Italy has a longstanding deal with the U.S. to allow it to use Sigonella for regular military flights, while permission for use of the base by flights not covered by the agreement must be granted by the Italian parliament.
In a speech to parliament this month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said, “The bases used by the U.S. in Italy derive from agreements signed in 1954 and which have been updated since then by various governments. According to those agreements there are technical authorizations when it comes to logistics and non-kinetic operations that do not involve, put simply, bombing.” ..."
Paper tiger NATO didn’t show up — now Trump’s asking why we stay
This is very serious stuff! It may have serious consequences!
"... Trump said, when the U.S. needed cooperation, allies denied access to bases, shut down airspace, and stayed out while Washington moved forward alone. ...
He pointed to Ukraine to make the contrast unavoidable. When Russia invaded in 2022, the United States stepped in immediately despite having no obligation under NATO to do so. It didn’t wait for consensus. It didn’t hedge. “We were there for them… and we would always have been there for them,” Trump said. “They weren’t there for us.”
That’s where his long-running criticism of NATO lands differently now. “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too.”
Inside the administration, that thinking is no longer just Trump’s. Marco Rubio said Monday the alliance will have to be “re-examined” after several countries blocked U.S. operations during the Iran conflict. Spain, among others, reportedly refused to allow American use of its airspace and bases—decisions that didn’t just signal disagreement, but actively limited what the U.S. could do. ..."
No helium, no chips: why Australia needs to make the gas again
Recommendable!
"No helium, no chips: why Australia needs to make the gas again
Australia should restart domestic helium production. Government action will be needed for it to do so.
Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex have knocked out roughly a third of the world’s helium supply" (Source, I can not access aspistrategist website from China)
Scientists claim to have found evidence of a liquid-liquid critical point in supercooled water
Amazing stuff! The many wonders of water!
"Despite being the most familiar liquid, water is weird. It breaks many of the usual rules that govern the liquid state. In 1992 a team of researchers suggested why that is. Perhaps, they said, there are two types of liquid water, which become distinct only at temperatures well below freezing point, where it’s all but impossible to keep water liquid. Researchers have sought evidence for this bold conjecture ever since – and now an international team claims to have found it.
Water is weird. It has over 60 properties that mark it as rather different to other liquids, such as high surface tension, high boiling point and low compressibility. Is it because liquid water is better thought of as two different liquids? ...
used ultrafast laser pulses to rapidly melt ice at temperatures and pressures close to those at which the two deeply supercooled liquid phases of water are thought to exist. They then used x-ray scattering to see a signature of the two liquids and the liquid–liquid phase transition between them – an abrupt (first-order) transition that, like the transition between a normal liquid and gas phase, ends in a critical point where the two phases become indistinguishable. ..."
"Using x-ray lasers, researchers at Stockholm University have been able to determine the existence of a critical point in supercooled water at around -63 °C and 1000 atmosphere. Ordinary water at higher temperatures and lower pressures is strongly affected by the presence of this critical point, causing the origin of its strange properties. ..."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Polyamorphism and the resulting liquid-liquid critical point (LLCP) in supercooled water are intriguing phenomena in condensed-matter science. Rapid spontaneous ice formation that the water can undergo when probed makes finding the LLCP extremely challenging experimentally.
Previously, evidence for polyamorphism relied on indirect signs such as extrapolating unusual physical properties, the presence of two amorphous ice forms, and liquid-liquid transitions in simulations.
Experiments presented by You et al. with isochoric heating of high- and low-density amorphous ices using infrared ultrafast laser pulses followed by x-ray scattering at time scales before ice formation have directly and convincingly demonstrated two liquid states near a critical point in supercooled water ...
Abstract
The search for the liquid-liquid critical point in supercooled water is challenging owing to rapid crystallization. We studied supercooled water at timescales before ice formation by heating high- and low-density amorphous ices using infrared ultrafast laser pulses, followed by x-ray scattering.
By varying the pump laser fluence, we accessed liquid states straddling the predicted critical point. We observed a crossover from a discontinuous to a continuous transition at which broad and slow structural variations occurred, consistent with critical fluctuations and slowing down.
We also observed a rapid increase in the heat capacity indicating a critical divergence at 210 ± 8 K coincident with enhanced density fluctuations. These results suggest that our experiments have directly probed the vicinity of a critical point in supercooled water."
Experimental Discovery of a New Critical Point in Water (original news release)
Experimental evidence of a liquid-liquid critical point in supercooled water (no public access)
AI system learns to keep warehouse multiple robots traffic running smoothly
Good news!
"Inside autonomous warehouses, even small traffic jams or minor collisions can snowball into massive slowdowns. Now, MIT researchers have developed a system that keeps a fleet of robots moving smoothly. It decides which bots should get the right of way at every moment, avoiding congestion and increasing throughput."
From the abstract:
"Lifelong Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) is critical for modern warehouse automation, which requires multiple robots to continuously navigate conflict-free paths to optimize the overall system throughput. However, the complexity of warehouse environments and the long-term dynamics of lifelong MAPF often demand costly adaptations to classical search-based solvers. While machine learning methods have been explored, their superiority over search-based methods remains inconclusive.
In this paper, we introduce Reinforcement Learning (RL) guided Rolling Horizon Prioritized Planning (RL-RH-PP), the first framework integrating RL with search-based planning for lifelong MAPF.
Specifically, we leverage classical Prioritized Planning (PP) as a backbone for its simplicity and flexibility in integrating with a learning-based priority assignment policy.
By formulating dynamic priority assignment as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP), RL-RH-PP exploits the sequential decision-making nature of lifelong planning while delegating complex spatial-temporal interactions among agents to reinforcement learning.
An attention-based neural network autoregressively decodes priority orders on-the-fly, enabling efficient sequential single-agent planning by the PP planner. Evaluations in realistic warehouse simulations show that RL-RH-PP achieves the highest total throughput among baselines and generalizes effectively across agent densities, planning horizons, and warehouse layouts.
Our interpretive analyses reveal that RL-RH-PP proactively prioritizes congested agents and strategically redirects agents from congestion, easing traffic flow and boosting throughput. These findings highlight the potential of learning-guided approaches to augment traditional heuristics in modern warehouse automation."
Donald Trump says US strongly considering NATO exit, Telegraph newspaper says
Food for thought! Is NATO still necessary and viable? What comes next?
Trump EPA Ends Exorbitant Pay-Outs to Litigious Environmental Nonprofits
Good news! Bravo!
"Since 2013, millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees have been awarded to entities, usually nonprofits, to resolve environmental law litigation against the federal government. New data collected via Freedom of Information Act shows that in the first year of the Trump administration, environmental attorney fee pay outs have seen record lows.
As Open the Books has reported in the past, these fees are often part of “sue-and-settle” schemes where environmental nonprofits friendly to a presidential administration (typically Democratic) will sue the federal government to initiate a back-door rule making process that can exclude Congress and the public. ...
While Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin hasn’t made many public statements about sue-and-settle practices since taking office at the head of the agency, a spokesperson told Open the Books last year:
“Outside activist groups should not dictate EPA’s agenda or federal environmental policy. The Trump Administration is keenly aware of concerns with sue-and-settle practices and commits to not engage in them. The Trump EPA will respect the rule of law and the will of the American people in setting policy based on its statutory mandates and Gold Standard Science, not based on side deals with outside activist groups dead-set on driving up costs to Americans or advancing the interests of our foreign adversaries.”
New data indicates Zeldin has kept his word, as attorney fee payouts in 2025 for litigation under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act (three of the most important laws under which most environmental litigation is filed) have been at their lowest level since 2013, when our records begin, at a little more than $510,000. ..."
Disclaimer
I am currently 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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Why does the body deem some foods safe and others unsafe?
Amazing stuff!
"Highlights
- Scientists identify three new proteins, one each from soybean, corn, and wheat, that the body uses to determine oral tolerance—the opposite of food allergy
- They found that specialized immune cells called regulatory T cells interact with these proteins in the gut
- By understanding tolerance, researchers can better understand food allergies and begin to imagine future immunotherapies that promote tolerance rather than allergic reactions
...
identifies new bits of food proteins that tell gut immune cells when to tolerate certain foods. They found three of these protein segments, called epitopes—one each from soybean, corn, and wheat. These epitopes interact with specialized immune cells called regulatory T cells to inform that tolerance-or-rejection decision. ..."
"Editor’s summary
Immunological tolerance to dietary antigens is essential for preventing food allergies and digestive disorders such as celiac disease. However, the specific food-derived antigens that contribute to immune tolerance remain poorly described. Blum et al. mapped the dietary epitopes recognized by food-responsive T cell receptors (TCRs) derived from murine intestinal regulatory T (Treg) cells.
Seed storage proteins from corn, wheat, and soy, including the maize protein αZein, were targets of food-responsive Treg cell TCRs. αZein-specific Treg cells suppressed T cell responses to αZein ex vivo and after adoptive transfer into naive mice. These findings provide insight into the dietary components recognized by naturally occurring Treg cells that mediate oral tolerance. ...
Abstract
Food antigens elicit immune tolerance through the action of intestinal regulatory T (Treg) cells. Unlike food allergens, the proteins that mediate tolerance are mostly undescribed.
Here, we found that epitopes derived from seed storage proteins are targets of murine intestinal Treg cells, with the most frequent response targeting the C terminus of the maize protein alpha-zein.
A major histocompatibility complex (MHC) tetramer loaded with this antigen revealed that zein-specific T cells are predominantly intestinal Treg cells, develop concurrently with weaning, and constitute up to 2% of the peripheral Treg cell pool. Zein-responsive Treg cells repressed naïve T cell proliferation ex vivo, and prior dietary exposure resulted in a constrained response upon diverse inflammatory challenges in vivo, supporting a specific role for gut-resident Treg cells in suppressing systemic immune responses.
Our work reveals the development, immune-suppressive characteristics, and function of naturally occurring Treg cells that recognize dietary seed storage proteins, a previously undescribed class of antigens in oral tolerance."
Identification and characterization of dietary antigens in oral tolerance (no public access)
Tiny implantable, high density ‘cell factories’ produce drugs inside the body
Good news!
"Tiny devices containing cells engineered to continuously produce drugs could one day deliver medicines from inside the body without requiring patients to remember to administer doses.
Researchers have designed a device called hybrid oxygenation bioelectronics system for implanted therapy, or HOBIT, in a step towards realising this goal.
The system hides genetically-engineered cells from the immune system while producing its own oxygen and nutrients to keep the cells alive.
It contains a cell chamber to house the cells, an electrochemical device to generate oxygen by splitting water molecules and electronics and a battery to regulate oxygen production while wirelessly communicating with external devices.
In a proof-of-concept study the team engineered cells to produce an anti-HIV antibody, a GLP-1-like peptide used to treat type 2 diabetes and leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and metabolism. They implanted the devices under the skin of rats and monitored drug levels in the animals’ bloodstreams for 30 days.
Levels remained stable across the study period. About 65% of the cells were still viable by the end of the experiment. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"The bigger picture
.... The difficulty lies in making cells potent enough to be clinically relevant and easy to administer. The hybrid oxygenation bioelectronics system for implanted therapy (HOBIT) device solves these problems: supplemental oxygen is produced at the site of implant and enables a greater density of cells in the subcutaneous space, allowing a minimally invasive procedure to deliver a complex biologic regimen in a proof-of-concept model. From here, the platform can be expanded to target a variety of diseases or cell types to maximize efficacy and feasible translation.
Highlights
• A fully implantable, subcutaneous device enables high-density cell therapy
• Complex biologic therapy regimens are enabled with the HOBIT design
• The HOBIT device demonstrates power-efficient, subcutaneous oxygen generation
Summary
Cell therapy shows promise for sustained delivery of therapeutics, allowing a single dose to replace repeated injections and lasting many months to years. As cells are typically delivered systemically, a natural progression of cell therapy is to miniaturize and compact the cells into a single device. However, the nutrient requirements, coupled with practical limits on device size, limit its application. In addition, while the subcutaneous space presents a convenient location for implantation, oxygen supply is limited and restricts the density of effective cell therapy.
To address this problem, we designed and validated a wireless, fully implantable platform to produce local oxygen and increase the maximum cell density. We demonstrate that encapsulated cells with a density of 60 million cells per mL are viable in our device for 31 days in vivo. This technology has the potential to serve as a platform for cell therapy, allowing clinically relevant doses with minimally invasive implants."
Design of a wireless, fully implantable platform for in-situ oxygenation of encapsulated cell therapies (no public access)
Graphical abstract
What changes happen in the aging brain? A comprehensive single-cell atlas to date of epigenetic changes in the aging mouse brain
Very impressive!
"Highlights
- Salk researchers create epigenetic atlas of cell type-specific changes in the aging mouse brain
- The atlas represents eight different brain regions and 36 different cell types, and shows clear epigenetic differences associated with different ages
- The new resource—available publicly on Amazon Web services—can be used to unravel age-related contributions to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS
...
One major mechanistic influence on aging is epigenetic change: the way small chemical tags on top of our base genetic code shift over time to alter gene expression. Salk researchers created the most comprehensive single-cell atlas to date of epigenetic changes in the aging mouse brain, revealing how DNA methylation, genome structure, and gene activity change across brain regions and cell types. The new atlas represents eight brain regions and 36 distinct brain cell types, with over 200,000 single cells profiled across methylation and chromatin conformation assays, plus nearly 900,000 cells captured with spatial transcriptomics. ..."
Salk researchers used spatial transcriptomics to map where different cell types reside in the mouse brain. Shown are excitatory neurons (left, blue), inhibitory neurons (middle, red), and non-neuronal cells (right, green), color-coded by cell type.
New theory reshapes quantum view of earliest expansion of Big Bang
Amazing stuff!
"... Their work suggests that the universe’s rapid early expansion could have arisen naturally from a deeper, more complete theory of quantum gravity. ...
research team that explored a novel method of combining gravity with quantum physics, the rules that govern how the smallest particles in the universe behave. While general relativity has been successful for more than a century, it breaks down at the extreme conditions that existed at the birth of the universe. To address this problem, the team used Quadratic Quantum Gravity, which remains mathematically consistent even at extremely high energies — similar to the kind present during the Big Bang.
Most existing explanations for the Big Bang rely on Einstein’s theory of gravity, plus additional components added by hand. This new approach offers a more unified picture that connects the earliest moments of the universe to the well-tested cosmology scientists observe today.
The research team found that the Big Bang’s rapid early expansion can emerge naturally from this simple, consistent theory of quantum gravity, without adding any extra ingredients. This early burst of expansion, often called inflation, is a central idea in modern cosmology because it explains why the universe looks the way it does today.
Their model also predicts a minimum amount of primordial gravitational waves, which are tiny ripples in spacetime geometry created in the first moments after the Big Bang. These signals may be detectable in upcoming experiments, offering a rare chance to test ideas about the universe’s quantum origins. ..."
From the abstract:
"We present a quantum quadratic gravity inflationary scenario that can accommodate the new cosmological constraints, which have disfavored Starobinsky inflation. The theory is asymptotically free in the ultraviolet, but 1-loop running is found to dynamically lead to slow-roll inflation toward the infrared. When a large number of matter fields contribute to the beta functions, the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be phenomenologically viable. We find that as inflation ends, the theory approaches its strong coupling regime and general relativity must emerge, as an effective field theory, as the universe must reheat and enter its standard radiation era. In order to avoid strong coupling, a minimum tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.01 is predicted for this theory. Our framework offers a laboratory for connecting a concrete ultraviolet completion (quantum quadratic gravity) with inflationary dynamics, reheating, and precise cosmological observations."
New theory reshapes quantum view of Big Bang "Researchers show how the universe’s earliest expansion may emerge directly from quantum gravity"
Fig. 2.
Plot of the scalar spectral index ns vs the tensor-to-scalar ratio r for Starobinsky inflation (in black), contrasted with our QQG model in color for different values of the coupling λtH. The purple and dashed contours correspond to a combination of CMB (Planck18+ACT+SPT+Lensing+BK) and BAO (DESI) observational constraints for ΛCDM and w0waCDM cosmologies, respectively
When phages of different species communicate with each other
Amazing stuff!
"... scientists studied chemical communication by phages (viruses that infect bacteria).
The phages assessed in this study have two choices when they enter a cell: lie dormant or kill the cell and release new virus particles to infect other cells nearby.
It was recently discovered that some phages use chemical communication systems to optimise this decision.
The new study reveals these signals do not pass solely between phages of the same species. Instead, other species – some of them barely related to the signaller – can eavesdrop. ...
The signal chemicals are called peptides, and are produced by the phage during infection. High peptide concentrations signal a lack of susceptible hosts, while low concentrations signal an abundance of uninfected hosts.
The existence of these signalling systems (called “arbitrium” systems) suggests they provide an evolutionary benefit – at least for in-species communication.
But the new study shows “cross-talk” between species does not help the “listener”. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Phages are exposed to non-cognate arbitrium signals from other phages
• Some non-cognate signals mediate crosstalk between phages
• Crosstalk shifts lysis-lysogeny decisions toward early lysogeny
• Crosstalking signals can benefit emitting phages but impose costs on responders
Summary
Many viruses can switch between lytic replication and dormancy (or lysogeny). It was recently discovered that some viruses that infect bacteria (known as bacteriophage or phage) employ peptide-based (“arbitrium”) communication systems to optimize their lysis/lysogeny switch; high peptide concentrations signal a lack of susceptible hosts and trigger lysogeny, while low peptide concentrations signal an abundance of uninfected hosts and prompt lysis.
Here, we demonstrate that arbitrium phages belonging to different species and genera can influence each other’s infection dynamics by secreting similar communication peptides, leading to early lysogenization of the signal-receiving phage and elevated fitness of the signal-emitting phage. Antagonistic coevolution between signal-emitting and signal-receiving phages to manipulate each other’s infection behaviors may explain the rapid diversification of arbitrium systems and their frequent horizontal exchange to escape the noise of crosstalk."
Viruses ‘eavesdrop’ on each other – but it can backfire (original news release)
Graphical abstract
Figure 1 Arbitrium phages encounter each other in nature
Lost mosaic reveals first image of female beast-fighter from the Roman era
Amazing stuff!
"... presents evidence that a 3rd-century Roman mosaic from Reims, which depicts a topless figure with prominent breasts battling a leopard, is actually a visual representation of a Roman female beast-fighter, or venatrix. This contradicts previous research, which read her role as that of an agitator, a clown-like arena staff member whose job was to whip the animals to make them attack during a hunt. ..."
From the abstract:
"Women fighting beasts in arena games are attested by the written sources, but no visual source is known to show their image. It is proposed that a figure in a mosaic found in Reims in 1860 but destroyed in World War I, and largely forgotten since then, depicts one of those women.
Evidence is presented proving that (1) she is a woman – whereas previous researchers only suggested that she might be a woman; and (2) she is a beast-fighter – a huntress, a venatrix – whereas previous researchers have wrongly identified her as an agitator, an inexistent arena role, or a paegniarius, a kind of clown with a whip.
The identification of the sole known visual source depicting a Roman female beasts-huntress alone is very important, but, additionally, since the mosaic dates to the third century, it adds a whole century to the history of those female arena huntresses, since venatrices are supposed to have disappeared soon after AD 100, and to the history of women in the Roman arena, since female gladiators disappeared in AD 200. Thus, she is a female arena fighter (and performer) recorded at a later date."
New Evidence of Women Fighting Beasts in the Roman Arena: The Woman in the Mosaic from Reims (open access, a very long article covering all sorts of aspects)
Figure 1. Mosaic from Reims, third century. Found in Reims in 1860, destroyed in 1917 during WWI. Lost. Drawing from Loriquet 1862: planche XVIII.
Figure 2. The woman. (a) Drawing from Loriquet 1862: planche IX, n° 11. (b) Detail of the breasts.
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly
Cause for concern!
Unfortunately, it appears I can not access the ASPI website from behind the Great Firewall despite VPN software.
"ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly ...
China is no longer merely leading the research in major technology fields. It’s also moving towards a monopolistic position in most of them, the latest update of ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker shows. As wars in ..."
Ducati’s $165,000 Superleggera V4 Centenario motorcycl has already sold out the 500 units
Amazing stuff! Would you buy a motorcycle for over $160,000?
"Ducati’s $165,000 Superleggera V4 Centenario motorcycle, which it calls the most extreme and expensive road-legal motorcycle it has ever built, has already sold out the 500 units it built for its 100th anniversary, as well as the $250,000 Tricolore variant."
Ducati's $165,000 'no limits' Superleggera motorcycle is already sold out
The Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario
New discovery about the parasite behind sleeping sickness
Good news!
"Scientists discovered that the parasite behind sleeping sickness builds an “invisibility cloak” from special proteins, solving a 40-year mystery about how the deadly disease hides in the body for years."
"... Newly discovered ESB2 proteins may be the reason why. These collectively create a barrier structure called a variant surface glycoprotein (VSG). At the same time, the parasite is also precisely editing its genes to hide inside its host. ..."
From the abstract:
"Antigenic variation is an immune evasion strategy used by pathogens, including Trypanosoma brucei. This parasite expresses a single variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) from a large genetic repertoire, which it periodically switches throughout an infection.
VSGs are co-transcribed with expression-site-associated genes (ESAGs) within a specialized nuclear body, but there is substantial differential expression and the regulatory mechanisms remain unclear.
VSGs are co-transcribed with expression-site-associated genes (ESAGs) within a specialized nuclear body, but there is substantial differential expression and the regulatory mechanisms remain unclear.
Here we applied TurboID-mediated proximity labelling mass spectrometry to map the subnuclear expression-site body (ESB) post-transcriptional network. We identify and characterize three previously undescribed components: ESB-associated protein 1 (ESAP1) and ESB-specific proteins 2 and 3 (ESB2 and 3). These proteins form discreet subnuclear condensates that are developmentally regulated. ESB2 is an active RNA endonuclease that negatively regulates ESAG transcripts. Its recruitment depends on a hierarchy involving VEX2, ESAP1 and ESB3, a constant flux of active transcription and RNA processing, and its own nuclease activity. Overall, we uncover a molecular mechanism that fine-tunes expression of virulence genes through specialized RNA decay in T. brucei."
Parasitic sleeping sickness creates ‘invisibility cloak’ to hide in humans for years "After 40 years, biologists made a breakthrough in understanding the deadly disease."
University of York scientists solve 40-year-old biological mystery behind Sleeping Sickness (original news release) "Scientists at the University of York have cracked a 40-year-old biological cold case by revealing how the parasite that causes Sleeping Sickness stays one step ahead of the human immune system."
Fig. 1: VEX1 and VEX2 PL–MS identified novel ESB-specific, SLAB and NUFIP body components.
The DNA of the the African trypanosome parasite in magenta and it's protective "cloak" in green
Monday, March 30, 2026
Can Scientists revive Nuclear Arms Control
Food for thought! Probably, other nuclear weapons countries like China, India, Pakistan need to be included.
"February 2026 saw the end of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, the last nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia,” ... What does this mean for the future of nuclear arms control? ... that this moment calls for “scientists from all three nuclear powers [China, Russia, and the US] to collaborate on a solution.” ... how, in the 1950s, atomic physicists from the US and USSR “stepped forward to lay the groundwork for eventual nuclear agreements in the 1960s and 1970s.” Encouraging a replay of this history, ... today’s nuclear scientists can help the major nuclear powers find a compromise on “the key issue of what level of activity is permitted under the nuclear testing moratorium.”" (Source)
Did the first modern apes emerge in northern Africa and the Middle East instead of East Africa?
Amazing stuff! Maybe the pyramids in Egypt distracted too much! Just kidding!
"Scientists have long assumed that modern apes—the group that includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans—first emerged in East Africa. Newly discovered fossils described recently in Science, however, may rewrite that history.
Researchers working at the Wadi Moghra archaeological site in northern Egypt unearthed teeth and jawbones belonging to a previously unknown ape genus and species, which lived around 17 to 18 million years ago during the Early Miocene epoch. “Discovering a fossil ape in this region is both significant and somewhat surprising,” ...
The ancient animal, dubbed Masripithecus moghraensis , appears to be closely related to the last common ancestor of all living apes, suggesting this group actually got its start in northern Africa and the Middle East. Based on its large, textured teeth and robust jaw, the team believes M. moghraensis ate a flexible diet of fruit, nuts, and seeds—helping the species thrive during a period of climatic change. ..."
"... The remains, discovered in 2023 and 2024, are very incomplete — just a few fragments of lower jawbone and some worn teeth. But Al-Ashqar and her colleagues established that the remains didn't belong to any known ape species. The researchers have assigned the fossils to a new genus and species named Masripithecus moghraensis; the genus name translates to "Egypt monkey or trickster" in Arabic and Greek, while the species name refers to "Wadi Moghra," where it was found. ..."
From the Perspective abstract:
"Research on the closest extinct relatives of humans (such as australopiths) can only explain the most recent evolutionary history of the human lineage. Older apes are essential to reconstructing the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans—that is, the starting point of human evolution
(1). The ape and human lineage (hominoids) diverged from Old World monkeys in Afro-Arabia more than 25 million years ago (Ma)
(2). In the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 Ma), apes were much more diverse and widespread than they are today (1, 3). Various lineages of African archaic (stem) hominoids evolved before the origin of modern (crown) hominoids and their eventual dispersal into Eurasia. However, the origins of crown hominoids are still unclear. On page 1383 of this issue, Al-Ashqar et al. (4) describe a previously unknown Miocene ape from North Africa and discuss its relevance for crown-hominoid origins."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
The vast majority of early hominoid fossil hunting has occurred in East Africa, where a trove of early fossils and lineages have been found. Other regions in Africa have been less explored for various reasons, inspiring the question of whether a focus on East Africa has shaped opinions about where early hominoid evolution occurred. Al-Ashqar et al. now describe a Miocene ape from Egypt with crown hominoid affinities suggesting both that this lineage diverged before entering Eurasia and that a focus on one African region may have shaped our ideas about where hominoids first emerged (see the Perspective by Alba and Arias-Martorell). ...
Abstract
The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys.
Here, we describe a fossil ape from North Africa, a new genus (Masripithecus) from the Early Miocene (~17 million to 18 million years) of northern Egypt, on the basis of mandibular remains. A combined molecular-morphological Bayesian tip-dating analysis positions Masripithecus closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa, thereby filling a phylogenetic and biogeographic gap in the evolution of stem hominoids. This evidence suggests that crown Hominoidea might have originated during the Early Miocene in the underexplored northeastern part of Afro-Arabia, rather than in eastern Africa or Eurasia."
18 million-year-old fossils of ape found in Africa, but in an unexpected place "The ancestor of apes was long thought to come from East Africa, but newly discovered fossils in Egypt may prompt a rethink."
The dawn of modern apes (Perspective, no public access)
An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea (no public access)
A map showing the dispersal of apes, including Masripithecus moghraensis, in the Miocene.
A jaw fragment from Masripithecus moghraensis, photographed at the moment of discovery.
AI-driven framework uncovers new carbon structures—one thought to be harder than diamond
Amazing stuff! The magic of carbon!
"... With this approach, the researchers discovered several allotropes with combinations of exotic properties that have never previously been observed. Among them is a superhard phase with a calculated hardness exceeding even that of diamond. Its dense sp3-dominant network makes it a potentially groundbreaking material for applications demanding extreme hardness.
On top of this already remarkable discovery, the team discovered a material whose thermal conductivity varies depending on the direction of heat flow, combined with an ultra-low shear stiffness—allowing different regions of the carbon lattice to reorient relative to each other when a shear force is applied.
"We also discovered an sp-sp2-sp3 hybridized phase of C12 phase containing 12 carbon atoms per unit cell, which uniquely combines metallic conductivity with a negative Poisson's ratio," ... The latter property describes how the material counterintuitively expands in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which it is being stretched. ..."
From the abstract:
"The discovery of novel carbon allotropes with tailored thermal and mechanical properties is critical for advanced thermal management. However, exploring the vast configurational space of carbon using ab initio calculations remains computationally prohibitive. Driven by the rich topological landscape of carbon, where the competition between and hybridization states dictates material performance, we establish a closed-loop artificial intelligence (AI) framework to explore this complex configurational space. We introduce a hybridization entropy descriptor to guide the search beyond conventional forms.
Here, we establish a closed-loop AI framework that synergizes a Large Language Model (LLM) for structural generation with a Machine Learning Potential (MLP) for accelerated evaluation. Leveraging CrystaLLM to generate candidates and an iteratively refined MLP for high-fidelity validation, we screened thousands of structures to identify several stable allotropes with exotic properties.
Specifically, we report “yne-diamond C12” and “yne-hex-diamond C8,” which exhibit extreme thermal anisotropy and ultralow in-plane shear stiffness arising from their mixed sp– hybridization.
Furthermore, we discovered a complex sp– – hybridized C12 phase that combines metallic conductivity with an anomalous negative Poisson's ratio.
Notably, we identified a superhard phase (C16_3) possessing a calculated Vickers hardness (103.3 GPa) exceeding that of diamond {96 GPa ...
Microscopic analysis reveals that thermal transport in these materials is governed by the interplay between rigid frameworks and flexible linkers. This work expands the known carbon phase space and demonstrates the efficacy of coupling generative AI with MLPs for the accelerated inverse design of functional materials."
LLM-driven discovery for carbon allotropes with bond-network entropy (no public access)
Der Berliner Empfang für den syrischen IS-Schlächter al-Scharaa. Wirklich!
Manchmal liegt der Tichy's Einblick völlig daneben, wie in diesem Fall!
Al-Sharaa als Schlächter zu bezeichnen zeugt von erheblicher Unkenntnis! Seit al-Scharia die Führung von Syrien übernommen hat ist wohl wenig von seiner terroristischen Vergangenheit zu vernehmen. Er hat inzwischen auch geheiratet und er ist Vater von kleinen Kinder.
"Manchmal kippt Politik nicht durch Programme, Parteitage oder Leitartikel. Manchmal kippt sie durch Bilder. Berlin liefert an diesem 30. März 2026 genau solche Bilder. Ein Mann mit jihadistischer Vergangenheit wird von Mullah-Freund Steinmeier devot mit höchsten Staatsehren empfangen, trifft Merz, wird von einem gewaltigen Sicherheitsapparat abgeschirmt, in einem Luxushotel im Herzen der deutschen Haupstadt einquartiert – und auf deutschen Straßen sammeln sich zugleich Tausende seiner Anhänger, um ihn zu feiern. Mehr Verdichtung des Migrations- und Autoritätsversagens an einem einzigen Tag ist kaum noch möglich. ..."
Energiewende: Hohe Kapazität, wenig Produktion
Empfehlenswert! Mehr schein als sein!
"In der festen Überzeugung, dann nicht mehr auf fossile Energieträger zurückgreifen zu müssen, die uns den konjunkturellen Aufschwung versauen. Doch so einfach ist die Sache nicht. Tatsächlich wurden die Kapazitäten, insbesondere die erneuerbaren, in der EU stark ausgebaut. Die paradoxe Entwicklung dabei ist nur, dass die Produktion nicht Schritt hält. Während sich die installierte Gesamtkapazität seit 2000 fast verdoppelt hat, verharrt die Erzeugung weitgehend auf der Stelle, wie unsere Grafik zeigt.
Der Grund liegt im System selbst. Erneuerbare Energien haben einen geringeren und vor allem stärker schwankenden Wirkungsgrad als fossile Kraftwerke. Die Sonne scheint nicht immer, der Wind weht nicht konstant."
A record 57 House of Representatives members have announced they won't seek re-election ahead of midterm
Good news! Western democracies have too many lifelong, elected career politicians!
"A record 57 House members have announced they won't seek re-election, including 36 Republicans, the most GOP retirements ahead of a midterm in nearly a century."
Record number of lawmakers retiring from Congress ahead of midterms
Ukrainian President Zelensky: “every Ukrainian housewife can be CEO of Rheinmetall.”
Good one! See my yesterday's blog post (in German) on the stupid remarks by the CEO of Rheinmetall!
"The big news today is probably how Rheinmetall’s CEO talked down Ukrainian drones, calling them “Legos” made by “housewives” – and how the company was quick to go into damage control.
Zelensky is not exactly thrilled with the remarks, of course, saying if that’s the case, then “every Ukrainian housewife can be CEO of Rheinmetall.” " (Source)
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy agrees to defense cooperation with UAE, Qatar
Good news!
"Ukraine on Saturday agreed to cooperate on defense with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to both countries amid escalating tensions in the region.
Qatar’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Doha and Kyiv have signed a defense cooperation agreement which includes the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems. ..."
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Hezbollah uses ambulances, paramedic uniforms, as disguise for terrorism
Did not Hamas terrorists have a command center underneath a hospital in the Gaza strip?
These terrorists should be prosecuted as war criminals!
"... Another statement from the IDF described Hezbollah as routinely making use of medical infrastructure, equipment, and personnel in order to conceal its terrorist activity. ..."
Heat in Texas prisons has killed inmates. A landmark trial starting this week could force the use of AC.
Tough love in Texas! Don't do crime in Texas!
"... Nearly 70% of Texas prisoners live without AC, or roughly 90,000 inmates, according to the legal filings, and temperatures in cells routinely climb to above 90 degrees during the summer. ..."
Selbst wer zahlen kann, findet keine Wohnung mehr
Schlagzeilen aus der Bananenrepublik D!
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Huawei poaches top German scientist, as scholars blame academic system
How times are changing!
"Huawei Technologies has poached a prominent German scientist from a leading public institution [Fraunhofer Gesellschaft], highlighting the difficulty that the country faces in keeping staff from joining well-resourced and fast-moving Chinese tech giants."
Taiwan’s Kuomintang leader to visit mainland China to aid ‘peaceful’ relations
Good news? This seems to be a little bit unusual?
"Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT), will lead a delegation to mainland China next month at the invitation of Beijing, her first visit since assuming the position in November."
Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen, Published: 10:47am, 30 Mar 2026
Novel measurement confirms a 50-year-old prediction: Dark points are faster than light
Amazing stuff!
"A research group from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology reports in Nature an unprecedented achievement in electron microscopy: the direct measurement of "dark points" within light waves. By doing so, the researchers were able to confirm a prediction from the 1970s that the speed of these points exceeds the speed of light. ..."
From the abstract:
"Phase singularities—points carrying quantized topological charge—are universal features found across diverse wave systems from superfluids and superconductors to acoustic and optical fields. Ensembles of these singularities exhibit distance correlations resembling particles in liquids, extensively studied for their role in exotic material phases. By contrast, the full correlations in phase space that govern the system evolution have remained unexplored and experimentally inaccessible.
Here we directly measure the ultrafast dynamics of optical singularity ensembles, capturing their full phase-space correlations, presenting the joint distance–velocity distribution.
Our observations show a breakdown of the particle-singularity analogy: phase singularities accelerate towards formally divergent velocities in the moment before annihilation, indicated by measurements of velocities exceeding the speed of light.
These apparent superluminal velocities are paradoxically amplified by the slow group velocity of hyperbolic phonon polaritons in our material platform, hexagonal boron nitride membranes. We demonstrate these phenomena using combined hardware and algorithmic advances in ultrafast electron microscopy, achieving spatial and temporal resolutions, each an order of magnitude below the polaritonic wavelength and cycle period. Our findings deepen our understanding of phase singularities and their universality, enabling to probe topological defect dynamics at previously unattainable timescales."
Superluminal correlations in ensembles of optical phase singularities (no public access)
Earth's 40,000-year tilt cycle links Antarctic ice growth to subtropical productivity
Much of the so called global warming/climate change is most likely caused by variations in solar activity or various regular, recurrent movements of the earth axis. I have blogged about this multiple times.
"... The study ... found that the obliquity cycle—a 40,000-year astronomical cycle tied to changes in Earth's axial tilt—influenced ocean productivity in subtropical latitudes about 34 million years ago, when the Antarctic ice sheet was first expanding. ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
The impact of Antarctic cryosphere dynamics on global marine ecosystems, under the anticipated elevated atmospheric pCO2-levels of our future, is a question of broad societal importance. Newly acquired geologic data from the subtropical South Atlantic provide the first evidence of a highly synchronized 40-kyr-scale teleconnection between Antarctic ice sheet evolution, physical oceanography, and subtropical marine bioproductivity following the Eocene–Oligocene Transition, under pCO2-levels that exceed that of today. This work underscores the sensitivity of the marine-based ice sheets of Antarctica to oceanic heat delivery—with linkages to meridional temperature gradients and pCO2—yielding important implications for marine bioproductivity in our future warming world.
Abstract
The inception of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) marked a major global climatic reorganization of the Cenozoic, but the response of the subtropical marine biosphere remains poorly constrained.
A new sediment archive from the subtropical South Atlantic (IODP Exp. 390 and 393) reveals a sevenfold increase in surface ocean bioproductivity proxy accumulation (biogenic barium) commensurate with the initial expansion of the AIS 34 Mya, and the emergence of an amplified astronomical forcing of subtropical bioproductivity that mirrors the subsequent evolution of the AIS in the early Oligocene.
We find that a strong 40-kyr obliquity response characterizes subtropical bioproductivity following the initial establishment of an expansive marine-based AIS. Portions of the AIS in contact with the marine environment are sensitive to meridional heat delivery controlled by obliquity-forced interactions between the atmosphere and ocean, which can propagate to the lower latitudes via Southern Ocean overturning circulation.
The surprising emergence of obliquity forcing of low-latitude bioproductivity enhances our understanding of global teleconnections and feedbacks that regulate global climate, and points to mechanisms driving global marine bioproductivity on astronomical timescales—and their intricate connections to the evolution of the cryosphere."
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