Monday, May 25, 2026
Chinese EV makers awaken Western rivals' zombie production lines
Clever move!
"Chinese electric vehicle makers are scooping up idle production lines across the world, intensifying their overseas push as Western competitors pare back output of gasoline cars and need to shed excess capacity. ..."
Sunday, May 24, 2026
A new approach to cancer vaccination yields more powerful T cells
Good news! Cancer is history (soon)!
"... have developed a new way to amplify the T-cell response to mRNA vaccines — an advance that could lead to much more powerful cancer vaccines and stronger protection against infectious diseases.
Most vaccines generate both antibodies and T cells that can target the vaccine antigen by activating antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells.
In this study, the researchers boosted the T-cell response with a new type of vaccine adjuvant (a material that can help stimulate the immune system). The new adjuvant consists of mRNA molecules encoding genes that turn on immune signaling pathways and promote a supercharged T-cell response.
In studies in mice, this mRNA-encoded adjuvant enabled the immune system to completely eradicate most tumors, either on its own or delivered along with a tumor antigen. The adjuvant also boosted the T-cell response to vaccines against influenza and Covid-19. ...
As an alternative approach, the researchers decided to deliver mRNA strands encoding two genes, IRF8 and NIK, which are involved in antigen presentation and can switch immune cells into a more active state. ...
The researchers tested the immune-remodeling mRNAs in several mouse models of cancer, including an aggressive bladder cancer, colon carcinoma, melanoma, and metastatic lung cancer.
In nearly all of these mice, the injected mRNA stimulated a strong T-cell response that significantly slowed tumor growth and in many cases completely eradicated the tumors. This happened even when the mice were not given a vaccine against a specific cancer antigen. When they were, the response was even stronger. ..."
From the abstract:
"Although immunotherapy has benefited a subset of persons with cancer, its broader efficacy remains limited, primarily because of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment characterized by insufficient numbers of functional tumor-specific T cells, antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes.
Here we engineer immune cells in the tumor microenvironment using lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to deliver immune-remodeling mRNAs (IR-mRNAs) encoding NF-κB-inducing kinase or interferon regulatory factor 8. These IR-mRNAs activate APCs in tumors, significantly increasing activated type 1 conventional dendritic cells, immunostimulatory cytokines and priming antitumor CD8+ T cells.
IR-mRNAs encapsulated in LNPs elicited durable antitumor responses in multiple syngeneic mouse tumor models through both intratumoral and intravenous delivery.
Coadministration of IR-mRNA and ovalbumin mRNA elicited a ~10-fold increase in antigen-specific CD8+ T cell responses, sustained long-term memory and effectively prevented tumor growth in vaccinated mice.
Additionally, coadministration of IR-mRNA and hemagglutinin mRNA enhanced the humoral response ~5-fold and the cellular response ~15-fold, underscoring their potential as adjuvants for boosting adaptive immunity."
A German cosmetics store in Hong Kong
I must be an ignorant or I lived in a cave, I never heard of this company Babor that was founded in 1956 near Cologne, Germany. 😊
There are things to be discovered about Germany in Hong Kong! Amazing!
Caveat: I am not an exactly an expert in cosmetics.
Hong Kong presents contemporary German art in public space
Why not urinals? The artist is believed to be Andreas Schmitten (I am not quite sure, unfortunately the sign on the photo below next to the artwork is difficult to read.)
Presumably, the artwork is titled "Verzückung" (ecstasy, rupture)
Here is a German language article about this German artist and another artist.
Maybe the most famous artwork showing an urinal is this one by Marcel Duchamp titled "Fountain" dating from 1917 (as part of the Dada movement)
Handwriting speed may be a sign of cognitive decline in older (institutionalized) people. Really!
When I write, I write 99% all the time on a computer or device keyboard! Thus, I have more and more difficulty to write with my hand over the years.
Longitudinal monitoring or after a stroke of handwriting may seem to make sense for some individuals.
"... The study included 58 older adults, aged between 62 and 92, living in care homes. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
- Diagnostic differentiation emerged only in tasks with higher cognitive–motor demands.
- Temporal efficiency and stroke organization were the most robust predictors of cognitive impairment.
- Process–product coupling was minimal in healthy aging but pronounced in cognitive impairment.
- Dictation tasks showed greater sensitivity than isolated pen-control tasks.
- Digital handwriting analysis offers a scalable, non-invasive approach for early cognitive screening and longitudinal monitoring.
Background:
Handwriting is a hierarchical cognitive–motor activity requiring the integration of motor execution, visuospatial processing, working memory, and executive control.
Digital handwriting technology enables simultaneous assessment of process (kinematics) and product (performance outcomes), offering a theoretically grounded approach to detecting cognitive vulnerability in aging.
Methods:
This study examined whether kinematic handwriting features differentiate institutionalized older adults with and without cognitive impairment and whether these features predict handwriting product performance under varying cognitive–motor demands.
Fifty-eight participants (20 cognitively healthy; 38 cognitively impaired), classified using education-adjusted MMSE cutoffs, completed pen-control tasks (DOTS, LINES) and four handwriting-speed tasks (two copy, two dictation) on a digitizing tablet. Nine standardized kinematic variables were analyzed using logistic and multiple linear regression models with correction for multiple comparisons.
Results:
Pen-control tasks (DOTS, LINES) did not significantly discriminate between the two groups, the handwriting-speed tasks, particularly dictation, revealed significant group differences.
Temporal efficiency and stroke organization variables (e.g., Duration, Number of Strokes) significantly contributed to classification in high-demand tasks. Among cognitively healthy participants, associations between kinematic and product measures were limited, suggesting preserved compensatory mechanisms.
Conversely, cognitively impaired individuals exhibited stronger process–product coupling, with Start Time, Vertical Size, and Duration significantly predicting handwriting performance in dictation tasks.
Conclusion:
Handwriting kinematics, especially temporal and stroke-related features, are sensitive indicators of cognitive impairment when assessed under high cognitive–motor load. These findings support the use of digitally mediated handwriting tasks—particularly dictation paradigms—as ecologically valid, low-cost tools for screening and monitoring cognitive decline in older adults. ..."
A 6,000-year-old necropolis in central Spain is forcing a radical rethink of who built Europe's first megalithic tombs
Amazing stuff!
Too bad, the University of Salamanca (a very famous and very old university), Spain website is in Spanish only! I don't speak Spanish and I have no time to translate. And Google Translate failed (see screenshot below). Researchers from this university were involved in this study!
The other Spanish University website, i.e. University of Alcalá, was also not very helpful to find additonal information on this research! At least it offered EN translation!
"... Archaeologists working in Toledo, central Spain, have discovered what they believe is the oldest documented monumental necropolis in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. This ancient site dates back to about the end of the 5th millennium BC (about 4300 to 4000 BC) and challenges a long-held theory that megalithic funerary structures were initially restricted to the coastline before spreading inland. ...
The prehistoric site, called Valdelasilla, sits on a hill overlooking the town of Illescas. It was discovered in 2020 and excavated during that year. ...
The site contains a large circular chamber tomb measuring 6 meters across, surrounded by a large, ditched enclosure measuring roughly 36 meters in diameter. Around it are several smaller funerary chambers made from wood, clay, and compacted earth, and measuring 2 to 3 meters wide. Human remains from at least 46 individuals were found inside 11 of the funerary structures and dated using radiocarbon dating and computer modeling. ..."
From the abstract:
"This study presents an analysis of funerary practices at the site of Valdelasilla (Illescas, Toledo, Spain). The methodology integrates the morphological study of burial structures, anthropological analyses, a consideration of grave goods and the radiocarbon dating of human bone.
The chronological data indicate funerary activity at the site from the Late Neolithic to the Chalcolithic period. Bayesian modelling confirms the establishment of a planned cemetery by the end of the fifth millennium cal. bc, featuring small burial chambers organized around a larger tomb enclosed by a ditch. The burial chambers, which were constructed from wood, clay and small stones, created distinct spaces for the deceased.
This embryonic form of monumentalization, the funerary practices observed and the early chronology link Valdelasilla to other peninsular cemeteries associated with the emergence of megalithism, now identified for the first time on the plateau. The location of the necropolis offers new insights into the role of inland regions in the emergence of Iberian and European megalithism."
Location of the site in the Iberian Peninsula and aerial photograph taken during the excavation work.
Graves, enclosure and post-holes of upper area with the excavation sequence of each of them.
Figure 7.
Grave goods.
(a) Hairpins next to the skull in VLD-T296;
(b) stone beads from chamber VLD-T450;
(c) flint microliths from VLD-T520;
(d) flat rods from VLD-T452.
Huawei says new Kirin chip for phones overcomes US sanctions by 2031, first ever to adopt the LogicFolding architecture
If it will take Huawei up to five years to catch up, then these sanctions are kind of effective. I have my doubts it will take them that long!
Impressive progress by Huawei!
"Huawei Technologies on Monday said it has found a new way to design chips to bring its semiconductor capabilities close to those of global chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Intel, as China's tech champion continues working to overcome U.S. sanctions that have cut it off from top-tier global suppliers. ..."
"... the Tau (τ) Scaling Law, a new principle for guiding the future development of the semiconductor industry. This law proposes replacing geometric scaling with time (τ) scaling as a new guiding principle for the evolution of both semiconductors and electronic systems.
Based on this principle, innovative technologies such as LogicFolding can be used to continuously compress signal propagation delay and steadily improve transistor density, which will drive the ongoing evolution of semiconductors and electronic systems. ...
HUAWEI's application of the τ Scaling Law to smartphones and AI computing. Over the past six years, HUAWEI has designed and mass-produced 381 chips based on the τ Scaling Law, serving a wide range of industries, sectors, and markets.
The Kirin chips scheduled to launch in Fall 2026 will be the first ever to adopt the LogicFolding architecture, which will considerably enhance the chips' performance.
By 2031, the high-end chips HUAWEI designs based on the τ Scaling Law are expected to feature a transistor density that is equivalent to 14 Å (1.4 nm) processes. ..."
HUAWEI Presents the Tau (τ) Scaling Law, Enabling Breakthroughs in Transistor Density and System Performance (I believe, this is the underlying news release by Huawei)
Can one parent silence the other’s genes? Natural ‘paramutations’ found in mice
Amazing stuff!
"... The new research ... indicates genes from one parent can sometimes unexpectedly silence those inherited from the other, and that the effect could persist for generations. If the findings extend to humans, they could help explain why some people who carry a disease-causing genetic variant never develop the condition.
The phenomenon, named paramutation, challenges the conventional view of inheritance and had not been shown to naturally occur in mammals. It’s a form of epigenetics, in which chemical modifications to DNA sequences or proteins they wrap around turn genes on or off. In paramutation, through a process scientists don’t fully understand, one copy of a gene can silence the dominant version inherited from the other parent by coating it with methyl groups.
Paramutation’s discovery in mice marks a major shift in how scientists think about epigenetic inheritance in mammals ..."
"... Since its discovery in maize in 1950s, paramutation has been observed in other plants, fruit flies, and nematodes. The effects can be visible. ...
Until recently, researchers lacked the tools to reliably trace which parent has passed along a particular version of a gene, called an allele. Traditional DNA sequencing didn’t read long sequences of DNA to see the variation needed to distinguish maternal and paternal alleles—the short stretches were often identical, obscuring their origin. But the arrival of long-read sequencing changed that, as researchers could examine enough DNA from a gene at once to link individual alleles to a specific parent. ..."
"... “Non-Mendelian patterns of inheriting epigenetics could be a faster way to acquire diverse or new traits than alterations in the genomic sequence itself, especially in response to environmental pressures,” ..."
From the abstract:
"Epigenetic mechanisms such as genomic imprinting demonstrate that molecular inheritance can deviate from typical Mendelian patterns. Despite this, the intergenerational inheritance of DNA methylation remains poorly understood.
Here we developed a genome-wide approach to study epigenetic inheritance in mice using long-read nanopore sequencing. Using this approach in both liver and muscle, we found that ~93% of autosomal epigenetic inheritance patterns followed Mendel’s laws, primarily driven by cis-acting methylation quantitative trait loci.
However, we also identified extensive non-Mendelian inheritance, including emergent epigenetic inheritance patterns, widespread sex-specific DNA methylation patterns localized to the liver, and five seemingly new autosomal and X-linked imprinted genes.
Notably, we also report an example of naturally occurring intergenerational paramutation, confirmed over strain-specific transposable elements within Capn11 and highly likely at Vps37c.
Overall, an unexpectedly high ~7% of autosomal epigenetic inheritance patterns identified were non-Mendelian, highlighting the importance of epigenetic information in the analysis of inherited traits and disorders."
Lab Study Reveals Patterns of Inheritance That Defy Mendel's Laws (original news release)
Fig. 1: Identification and characterization of Mendelian and non-Mendelian epigenetic inheritance patterns.
China has developed into a powerhouse for clinical trials of innovative drugs conducted in the country since 2015
Good news! Impressive! This might just be the beginning!
When will India catch up? The world population will be healthier!
"Regulatory reforms in China, which started in 2015, have contributed to a continued increase in the number of clinical trials of innovative drugs conducted in the country over the following decade.
As a result, China contributed 50% of worldwide clinical research activity of this type in 2025, compared with 13% in 2015. But a focus on oncology and specific well-validated drug targets has led to a homogenization of drug discovery."
Climate change gives rivers in the Himalayas wanderlust. Really!
Smells strongly like junk or shoddy science, again featured by the the AAAS! Plus, it is a Chinese study (any possible political motive in this case?).
Only 40 years of history (satellite imagery) is nothing or definitely not enough data! What about other human factors that may have contributed to this phenomenon (overpopulation, increasing tourism etc.)?
If you believe in global warming/climate change then everything is automatically related to it. These scientists most likely suffered from this bias!
"High in the Himalayas, a system of rivers and glaciers known as the “Water Tower of Asia” supplies freshwater to roughly two billion people downstream. Scientists who examined 40 years of satellite imagery from three major river basins—the Yarlung Tsangpo, Indus, and Ganges—observed that, due to climate change, the waters there have started wandering more.
As rivers flow, they rarely follow a straight path, curving in different directions and forming bends called meanders. Since water erodes the outer bank over time and deposits sediment on the inner bank, those bends move across the floodplain and the river shifts sideways, in a “meandering migration.” Researchers found that, in the Himalayas, rates of lateral channel migration nearly doubled between 1980 and 2020. Rivers also abandoned meandering loops, jumped channels, and changed patterns more often, drastically reshaping downstream ecosystems.
Scientists believe the changes are caused by the thawing and retreat of the region’s ice and frozen ground, a phenomenon known as “cryosphere degradation.” As temperatures in the upper Himalayas rise at roughly twice the global average rate, glacial melt accelerates, frozen ground thaws, and riverbanks lose the icy cohesion that once held them in place. This rise in meandering is part of a broader pattern, geophysical scientists Shawn Chartrand and Jonas Eschenfelder argue in an accompanying Science Perspective, noting that the dynamics of rivers in cold regions “ can be early indicators of environmental change under a warming climate.”"
From the abstract of the Perspective:
"Surface sediments in polar and high mountain regions underlain by permafrost—ground that is frozen for two consecutive years or longer—undergo seasonal freezing and thawing. This yearly cycle influences river dynamics by changing water flow and susceptibility to erosion.
Consequently, a warming climate can change river configurations in cold landscapes. However, elucidating a causal link between atmospheric temperature trends and river erosion is more difficult than it appears. Despite previous efforts, there is no generally accepted theory describing river erosion in permafrost-dominated basins, in part because of a lack of long-term observations. On page 716 of this issue, Lin et al. (8) report that rates of river migration in high Himalayan river basins accelerated over the past two decades. This suggests that cold-region river dynamics can be early indicators of environmental change under a warming climate."
From the editor's summary and abstract:
"Editor’s summary
High mountain ranges are particularly sensitive to climate change [???], and their landscapes provide an early warning for how surface processes may shift with warming. Using 40 years of satellite imagery, Lin et al. compiled river migration data across three major high Himalayan drainages ... Measures of channel mobility for over 1000 river bends indicated a near doubling of migration rates between 1980 and 2020 in response to melting glaciers, higher sediment loads, and warmer ground. The accelerated meandering of upland rivers will alter soil and sediment fluxes and could have a destabilizing effect on downstream ecosystems, infrastructure, and human populations. ...
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
River meandering and migration are two of the most ubiquitous geomorphic processes on Earth, governing floodplain evolution, ecosystem disturbance, and infrastructure stability. A long-standing, but largely untested, hypothesis proposes that climate change systematically alters the pace of river planform morphodynamics [???]. The upper high Himalayas, where temperatures are rising nearly twice as fast as the global average, offer a critical natural laboratory to detect climatic imprints within upland rivers that sustain billions of people downstream.
RATIONALE
River meandering is controlled by complex interactions between channel dynamics, hydrology, sediment supply, bank strength, and external disturbances. Climate warming may [???] influence these controls through multiple pathways, including cryosphere degradation such as increased runoff or permafrost thaw, vegetation change, and altered hydrosedimentary regimes. However, distinguishing climatic forcing from intrinsic self-organization processes, human disturbances, and geological controls has remained a fundamental challenge, particularly at regional scales. To address this gap, we conducted a multidecadal analysis of river planform dynamics across the upper high Himalayas and evaluated the relative contributions of nonclimate and climatic drivers.
RESULTS
We show that unconfined Himalayan rivers experienced a widespread and coherent acceleration of morphodynamics over the past four decades.
Mean lateral migration nearly doubled between 1980–2000 and 2000–2020, accompanied by increases in cutoff frequency (115%), avulsion activity (77%), and channel pattern transitions (97%). The integrated river planform morphodynamics index more than doubled, whereas characteristic migration timescales shortened by 40%.
Sensitivity tests confirmed that these accelerations are robust across temporal resolutions, sinuosity classes, and ground thermal regimes.
Statistical analyses support significant associations between accelerated morphodynamics and rising temperature and related environmental changes.
By using structural equation modeling, we show that climate warming has both direct and indirect impacts on meandering and migration dynamics by weakening bank stability, modifying vegetation conditions, and altering hydrosedimentary regimes, whereas nonclimate factors such as geological structures, river slope, or channel width contribute comparatively little at regional scales. [no human factors???]
CONCLUSION
Our study reveals that river morphodynamics in the Himalayan uplands have detectably and substantially accelerated in response to climate warming over the past four decades and are primarily driven by cryosphere degradation rather than anthropogenic disturbances, local topography, or channel self-organization. Unlike Arctic permafrost rivers, where warming decelerates meandering through shrub-induced bank stabilization, sparsely vegetated Himalayan uplands lack this buffering mechanism, making this region a sensitive sentinel of climate-driven fluvial change.
Channel planform dynamics of Himalayan rivers serve as an emerging geomorphic signal of climate change and underscore a previously underappreciated pathway through which warming reshapes landscape evolution.
The doubling of lateral channel mobility over four decades accelerates sediment reworking, shortening organic carbon residence times on upland floodplains and posing potential risks to water security, infrastructure stability, and riparian ecosystems, which warrants further attention to climate change impacts on upland river systems.
Our findings underscore the urgency of integrating climate-fluvial feedback into sustainable development strategies for this vulnerable region."
River dynamics in a warming climate (Perspective, no public access) "Rivers in high Himalayan mountain regions are evolving rapidly because of climate change [???]"
Accelerated Himalayan river meandering and dynamics due to climate change (no public access)
Several common food preservatives were linked to a greater risk of elevated blood pressure and of heart attacks and stroke in a study of over 112,000 individuals
Bad news! There were actually three food related French studies coming out at about the same time (with some of the same authors/researchers involved, see link below).
"Common preservatives used in store-bought foods were linked to a 29% greater risk of elevated blood pressure and a 16% higher risk of heart attacks and stroke, per a new study published in European Heart Journal; the study found that even “natural” preservatives citric acid and ascorbic acid were linked to a 22% greater risk of high blood pressure."
"... Two of these studies show, for the first time, associations between the consumption of food colouring additives and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes (Diabetes Care) and cancer (European Journal of Epidemiology). These additives are used to add or restore colour to food products in order to make them more appealing. They are characteristic markers of ultra-processed foods.
The third study, published in the European Heart Journal, shows an association between the consumption of preservatives—additives that extend the shelf life of foods containing them—and the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. ..."
From the abstract:
"Abstract
Background and Aims
Experimental studies suggest that some preservative food additives may exert adverse cardiovascular effects, yet human data are lacking. The associations between exposure to these compounds and incidence of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) were investigated in the NutriNet-Santé cohort (France, 2009–2024).
Methods
Dietary intakes were assessed using repeated 24-h dietary records (up to 96), including commercial brands. Exposure to food additives was evaluated through multiple composition databases and ad hoc laboratory assays in food matrices. Associations between cumulative time-dependent exposures to preservative food additives during follow-up and outcomes were characterized using multi-adjusted Cox models.
Results
Overall, 112 395 participants were included (78.7% women, mean age 42.8 ± 14.7 years) with a median follow-up of 7.9 years. The sum of total preservatives encompassed 58 substances consumed by at least one participant.
Total non-antioxidant preservatives were positively associated with higher incidences of hypertension [n = 5544; hazard ratio (HR) higher vs. lower consumers: 1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.20–1.39] and CVD (n = 2450; HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.04–1.29), while
total antioxidant preservatives were associated with higher incidence of hypertension (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.13–1.31).
Out of the 17 individual preservative food additives consumed by at least 10% of the study population, eight were associated with higher incidence of hypertension and one with higher incidence of CVD, after multiple test correction.
Conclusions
Multiple associations between exposure to preservative food additives widely used in industrial foods and higher incidence of hypertension or CVD were observed in this large prospective cohort.
Experimental research is needed to gain insight into underlying mechanisms.
If confirmed, these new data call for the re-evaluation of regulations governing the use of these additives to improve consumer protection."
Preservative food additives, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases: the NutriNet-Santé study (open access)
Fig. 1 Dietary sources of total and groups of preservative intakes among study participants from the NutriNet-Santé cohort, 2009–24 (n = 112 395)
Mathilde Touvier, senior researcher of these three studies (Source)
Madame Touvier is also an artist (Source)
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.
Lab glove deposits drive false microplastic signatures in atmospheric pollution samples
Let this sink in for a moment! This story already came out in March of 2026.
Reminds e.g. of the urban heat island effect that contributed to the corruption of global warming and climate change data!
Alert: Plastophobia is a serious disorder. Please seek immediate medical help! (Caution: satire)
"Particles shed from lab gloves are being misidentified as microplastics, distorting measurements of atmospheric pollution, new research shows. ..."
"The study found that gloves may unintentionally contaminate lab equipment scientists use to measure microplastics in air, water and other samples with nonplastic particles called stearates ... researchers ... suggest cleanroom gloves, which release fewer particulates, be worn instead. ..."
From the abstract:
"To attenuate microplastics pollution, we first must quantify the number and types of microplastics found in the natural environment and identify their sources. Quantifying environmental microplastics requires distinguishing synthetic polymers from other naturally occurring species. Quality assurance and control measures – including wearing gloves when handling laboratory materials and samples – seek to reduce overestimating microplastic abundance.
However, commonly used laboratory gloves release non-volatile residues, including stearate salts, that exhibit vibrational spectra similar to microplastics. In this work, we illustrate that dry surface contact with nitrile and latex laboratory gloves can cause overestimations of microplastics (mean 2000 false positives per mm2) when using traditional library matching approaches.
We recommend a nitrile cleanroom glove (mean 100 false positives per mm2) to reduce contamination.
For existing contaminated infrared and Raman spectral datasets, we outline workflows that differentiate between microplastics and stearate contamination from gloves. Applying these workflows to a case study of glove-contaminated environmental data, we illustrate that the proposed solutions reduce MP false positives at the smallest size ranges (<10 µm).
By using this approach in conjunction with our included spectral libraries of stearate standards, researchers can address glove-based contamination in environmental datasets and provide more accurate estimates of environmental microplastic abundance."
Residue from nitrile or latex gloves may unintentionally contaminate lab equipment scientists use to measure microplastics in air, water and other samples with non-plastic particles called stearates. Stearates, a kind of salt, are chemically similar at the structural level to microplastics. They also look similar visually.
Andes hantavirus PCR test created in two days
Good news! Impressive! This is only the beginning!
"Researchers have managed to develop a diagnostic PCR test for the Andes hantavirus in just two days. The disease sickened more than 10 people and killed three aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius last month. A PCR test is important to track the spread of the virus, which can take up to 42 days to become symptomatic. At the moment, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using a blood test to detect antibodies in infected people, but it doesn’t work in those not yet showing symptoms."
"... Some other countries have used PCR tests to detect hantavirus, but in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not yet have a validated one for diagnosis. The CDC is developing such a test, but in the meantime, the agency has been using a blood test that can detect antibodies in infected people who are symptomatic, but it can’t detect low levels of the virus in asymptomatic people. ..."
P.S. I was unable to find an original news release for this story.
Inside the race to develop a hantavirus PCR test "Researchers at the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory worked round the clock to develop a test for the Andes virus at the center of the deadly cruise ship outbreak"
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Announcement
I will be visiting Hong Kong on Fri. 5/22 and Sat. 5/23.
I expect to resume blogging on Sunday 5/24.
Iran demands Big Tech pay fees for undersea Internet cables in Strait of Hormuz
More evidence, the warmongering, terrorism sponsoring and nuclear weapons developing fanatic, suicidal mullahs in Iran are totally insane or megalomaniac!
Is this a threat to cut the undersea cables?
Be glad, Israel and President Trump exposed it!
"... The latest assertions of Iranian authority over the Strait of Hormuz were announced in a brief statement by Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We will impose fees on internet cables” Zolfaghari wrote in a May 9 post. It was not immediately clear how Iran might implement such fees or impose its rules on cable projects, given that the majority of routes pass through Oman-controlled waters. ..."
Wie viel CO₂ Elektroautos wirklich sparen? Wenig!
Ich wette sehr wenig wenn alle relevanten Fakten/Daten berücksichtigt werden!
Klimawandel (Alarm und Hysterie) ist nur ein vorgeschobener Grund für mehr Elektroautos! Eine der größten Lügen/Schwindel/Skandal unserer Zeit! Der wahre Grund ist eher Rohöl und fortschreitende globale Motorisierung!
Specialized medical transcription speech-to-text model beats frontier AI in real time and accuracy
Good news! Impressive! Errors in translation could be deadly!
When will all and any patient doctor encounters be quickly transcribed?
"Copenhagen-based Corti launched Symphony for Speech-to-Text, a clinical-grade recognition model that achieved a 1.4 percent word error rate on English medical terminology—versus OpenAI’s 17.7 percent, ElevenLabs’ 18.1 percent, Whisper’s 17.4 percent, and Parakeet’s 18.9 percent. The gap widens further on structured clinical entities like medication dosages: Corti hit 98.3 percent recall while the strongest generalist model managed 44.3 percent. That difference matters more now than it used to.
As healthcare shifts toward autonomous AI agents making real-time clinical decisions, transcription errors compound—if a model mishears “hyperthyroidism” as “hypothyroidism,” every downstream system operates on corrupted data. Corti also outperformed legacy incumbent Dragon Medical One in dictation accuracy and now serves over 100 million patients annually across health systems including the UK’s National Health Service. ..."
From the abstract:
"After decades of use in dictation and, more recently, ambient documentation, speech is emerging as a primary modality for interacting with technology and AI in healthcare.
Yet medical speech recognition remains difficult: systems must capture specialized terminology, resolve contextual ambiguity, and render measurements, abbreviations, and clinical shorthand precisely.
Existing solutions are typically optimized either for general-purpose transcription or narrow dictation workflows, limiting their reliability in safety-critical settings and their usefulness for broader clinical workflows.
We introduce Symphony for Speech-to-Text, a medical-grade speech recognition system for real-time streaming and batch file-based clinical use. Symphony decomposes the transcription process into specialized components for recognition, formatting, and contextual correction to optimize medical term recall while producing clinically structured text in real time and adapting across use cases. Evaluations on public benchmark and medical speech datasets show that Symphony substantially outperforms state-of-the-art systems in clinical settings while matching or exceeding them in general-domain settings, suggesting robust generalization rather than overfitting.
We release a clinical benchmark dataset to support reliable validation and further progress in medical speech recognition. Symphony is available through a production-grade API for live dictation, conversational transcription, and batch audio file processing."
Corti's new Symphony for Speech-to-Text model beats OpenAI at medical terminology accuracy, highlighting the value of specialized AI
Symphony for Speech-to-Text: Behind the research supporting real-time medical voice interfaces (original news release)
Symphony for Speech-to-Text: Supporting Real-Time Medical Voice Interfaces (preprint, open access)
Latest Cursor Composer undercuts software coding model competition
Good news! Amazing stuff! Automated coding gets faster, better and cheaper by the hour!
"Cursor’s coding model rivals leaders at lower price
Cursor shipped Composer 2.5, a coding model built on Moonshot’s open-source Kimi K2.5 and trained on 25 times more synthetic tasks than its predecessor. It scores 79.8 percent on SWE-Bench Multilingual, beating GPT-5.5 (77.8 percent) and coming within one point of Claude Opus 4.7 (80.5 percent), and 63.2 percent on CursorBench v3.1, broadly in line with both frontier models. It's not clear whether Cursor has achieved true parity: Comparisons mix Cursor’s own harness with self-reported competitor numbers and have not yet been independently reproduced on a unified scaffold.
But Composer operates at a fraction of the cost: $0.50/$2.50 per million input/output tokens versus Anthropic and OpenAI’s substantially higher rates. A faster variant delivers the same performance at $3.00/$15.00 per million tokens. ..."
Introducing Composer 2.5 (original news release)
When a Productivity Boom Meets a Tight Labor Market
Recommendable! Economics and the AI technology revolution.
Caveat: I did not read the entire, long article!
"Edmund Phelps, who died last week at 92, won the Nobel Prize in Economics back in 2006 for his work on the deep structure of unemployment, inflation, and expectations. But one of his most provocative ideas—the productivity business cycle—has still not received the attention it deserves. ...
The U.S. economy has come to an unusual crossroads. Productivity is accelerating, the labor market remains historically tight, and workforce growth has stalled.
Conventional wisdom treats the tight labor market and stalled workforce growth as warning signs that growth could be hampered. This has become one of the leading arguments for easing back on immigration restrictions and expanding foreign worker visa programs. We need more workers, the business lobby is constantly telling President Trump.
Phelps’s theory suggests something different: if productivity is arriving without a prior hiring boom, this may be the rare cycle that delivers gains in output without first producing an employment boom that has to be painfully unwound.
The heart of Phelps’s innovation theory, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, was deceptively simple and deeply counterintuitive. Productivity booms don’t necessarily begin when productivity gains show up in the data. They begin earlier, when entrepreneurs and investors come to expect future productivity gains.
When businesses see new technological opportunities, the shadow value they place on business assets rises—especially trained employees, installed capital, customer relationships, and organizational capacity. Companies rush to hire, train, invest, and expand in anticipation of future productivity improvements. This boom is real. Employment expands, wages rise, asset prices climb, and the economy accelerates.
But when the productivity gains finally arrive, they don’t necessarily produce a second boom. The hiring and investment that the gains would justify may already have taken place. The future has been capitalized in advance. The realized productivity gain then marks the end of the boom rather than the beginning of a new one.
The Great Depression as a Productivity Hangover ..."
Edmund Phelps
How Harvard University intends to deal with grade inflation by implementing an A grade cap
First of all, why did this elite university have a grade inflation problem in the first place!
I am not sure this is helpful! This is like treating the symptoms and not the cause!
"20% The A’s allowed per Harvard course, plus an additional four A’s to account for smaller courses with more variability. Faculty voted to approve the A-cap as part of a yearslong effort to curb grade inflation. The change comes despite a sharp backlash from students."
"Professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have approved a proposal to cap the number of A’s awarded to Harvard College students, part of a broad proposal aimed at reducing grade inflation.
Starting in the fall of 2027, courses will limit A grades to 20 percent of enrollment, plus an additional four A’s per class.
Voting was conducted by email over the past week, and the results were announced on Wednesday morning. Faculty members voted 458 to 201 to approve the grading cap ..."
Harvard Faculty Approve a Cap on A Grades "Reforms to reduce grade inflation will take effect in the fall of 2027."
A cap on A grades is not exactly Veritas!
U.S. prosecutors charged Raúl Castro of Cuba with murder
Why did it take the US 30 years to indict Raul Castro in such a what appears to be a clear case! Raul Castro is now 94 years old!
"U.S. prosecutors charged Raúl Castro with murder, escalating the U.S. pressure campaign as it seeks to force economic and political concessions from Cuba’s Communist regime.
The charges against the aging patriarch and former president relate to the Cuban military’s shooting down a humanitarian group’s planes in 1996, when he was defense minister. Three U.S. citizens and one permanent resident—all part of the Cuban exile community—were killed. ..."
Raul Castro (Source)
Chart of the day
The phenomenal revenue growth of Nvidia! "Sales for the April quarter reached $81.6 billion, up 85% from the year-earlier period " (Source)
Chart generated by Google AI
Four German speaking European countries tout pan-German space command amid European push to supplant US tech
Good news! Europe ought to form their own defense organisation like NATO!
"Germany’s defense minister used a rare four-nation gathering of German-speaking defense chiefs this week to push forward plans for a European military space command, calling on close partners including Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg, to help shape the initiative rather than simply join it.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, announced at a press conference in Berlin that Germany is developing a European Space Component Command alongside a Weltraumakademie − a multilateral space training academy − and insisted that partner nations will be “embedded in the design phase” rather than presented with finished structures.
The meeting, billed as the first “DACH+L” format, expanding the traditional German-Austrian-Swiss defense dialogue to include Luxembourg, served as a platform for Pistorius to demonstrate traction on Germany’s €35 billion ($40.7 billion) military space investment pledged last fall. That program spans encrypted low-earth-orbit satellite constellations, military-grade launch capacity, and an expanded Space Command within the Bundeswehr.
Austria’s Defense Minister Claudia Tanner reaffirmed that Austria plans to put three operationally designated military satellites plus a test object into orbit next year, developed partly with Austrian startups."
Austria’s Defense Minister Claudia Tanner (Source)
The history of the domestication of horses goes back much further to at least about 3000 BCE
Amazing stuff!
"... Scholars continue to debate when this historic bond actually began. Some scientists have argued, for example, that horse domestication first occurred about 2200 to 2100 B.C.E., around the same time humans invented chariots.
This time period marked the expansion of horses from a lineage known as DOM2, the direct genetic ancestors of all modern domesticated horses. These equines possessed favorable genetic mutations linked to endurance and calmness around humans—and they eventually galloped their way across Europe, Anatolia, the Near East, and Central Asia.
But research published last week ... challenges this idea, suggesting that humans began riding horses much earlier than previously thought.
Researchers combined archaeological artifacts, ancient DNA, bone studies, and other evidence to show that horses from multiple genetic backgrounds were being eaten, managed, milked, and ridden in communities across Eurasia long before 2200 B.C.E. The team identified people from the Yamnaya culture, who lived across the Eurasian steppes between about 3200 and 2600 B.C.E., as early riders of DOM2 horses. “Rather than a sudden breakthrough, domestication was a protracted, regionally varied process whose transformative effects on human mobility and social organization began as early as the fourth, if not the fifth millennium B.C.E.,” ..."
"Taming and domestication were not single events. They were a slow, stop-start process, full of setbacks, playing out over generations and across vast regions, before full domestication set in shortly before 2000 BCE. ...
“The role of horses in major historical developments is almost too vast to measure, hence the saying that the world was conquered on horseback,” ...
Today, truly wild horses no longer exist. Even Przewalski's horse
Opens in a new tab, long held up as a living relic of the wild, is now known to descend from early domesticated populations, showing how deeply humans have shaped horse populations over time.
The timing matters. Around 3,500 to 3,000 BCE, steppe populations began pushing east and west across Eurasia. They brought the wheel with them. Cattle pulled the first wagons. Horses came at the same time. A rider could cover ground in hours that a wagon took days to cross but both were key innovations in mobility and transport, revolutionizing human society.
Researchers now link that leap in mobility to the spread of Proto-Indo-European languages. The horse carried people. And with them, words. The languages spoken across much of Europe and Asia today trace back to those early riders and wagon drivers. ..."
From the abstract:
"Recent papers argued that the domestication of horses can be equated with the appearance of favorable genetic mutations that are first evident in individuals in the DOM2 clade dated about ∼2200–2100 BCE.
We challenge the idea that this genetic shift alone defines domestication.
Evidence from archaeology, ancient DNA, osteology, and other disciplines shows that horses from multiple genetic backgrounds (DOM1, DOM2, and, as we suggest here, DOM3) were managed, milked, and ridden long before 2200 BCE.
Yamnaya groups (∼3200–2600 BCE) rode DOM2 horses—the direct ancestors of modern domestic stock—while incorporating them into diets, rituals, and mobility systems.
Selection for traits linked to endurance and temperament began centuries earlier. Rather than a sudden breakthrough, domestication was a protracted, regionally varied process whose transformative effects on human mobility and social organization began as early as the fourth, if not the fifth millennium BCE, and set the stage for later DOM2 dominance."
The first domesticated horses: 6,000 years of a complex story (original news release) "Horses were being ridden, worked, and traded long before anyone thought it possible. New research pushes back the accepted timeline of human use of horses by centuries, showing that humans used horses in organized ways as early as the 4th millennium BCE, if not earlier."
Horse genetics, archaeology, and the beginning of riding (open access)
Fig. 1. Early horse representations in the steppes.
(A) The earliest clear image of a steppe horse, embossed on a silver cup from the Maikop-Oshad chieftain’s grave, Russia dated 3520–3350 cal BCE
Fig. 9. Wagons in the third millennium BCE record.
Two time slices, three geographical regions and three horse populations: A complex map of Eurasia.
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