Könnten wir Stechmücken ausrotten?

Empfehlenswert! Wer braucht schon diese Blutsauger!

"... Keine dieser Methoden [der Vergangenheit} ist dazu geeignet, eine Mückenart komplett auszurotten. Aber es gibt eine Technik, die es schaffen könnte: der Gene-Drive. Eine einzige im Labor genetisch veränderte Mücke könnte ihre ganze Art ausrotten. ..."

NZZ Quantensprung

Ein Jahr Digitalministerium: Faxe abgeschafft – sollen wir das glauben?

Neues aus der Bananenrepublik D!

Mir ist z.B. persönlich bekannt, dass das Amtsgericht München immer noch eine Fax Nummer angibt, wenn sie per Email mit Bürgern kommunizieren (Fax 09621/962413115 wie geschehen im Februar 2026).

Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung Jahrestag | NIUS "Das Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung (BMDS) feiert seinen ersten Geburtstag. Prominentester Gast ist Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz (CDU). Nach einem Jahr ist die Bilanz jedoch ernüchternd."

India's first space tech unicorn emerges as Skyroot Aerospace gears up for orbital launch

Good news!

"Skyroot Aerospace has become India’s first space tech unicorn after raising $60 million in a new investment ahead of the maiden orbital launch of its Vikram-1 rocket in the coming weeks.

The funding round valued the Hyderabad-based startup at $1.1 billion on a pre-money basis ...

The investment comes as Skyroot prepares for the first orbital launch attempt by an Indian private company. The Vikram-1 rocket was flagged off to India’s spaceport on the southern island of Sriharikota in April, and the startup is targeting a June launch after completing flight qualification tests and beginning integration and launch campaign activities. ..."

India's first space tech unicorn emerges as Skyroot gears up for orbital launch | TechCrunch

Skyroot co-founders Naga Bharath Daka (left) and Pawan Kumar Chandana (Right)

Solar System’s largest moon is unique with a still forming core for billions of years

Amazing stuff!

"In 1996, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made a shocking discovery at Ganymede, Jupiter’s—and the Solar System’s—largest moon. Unlike every other known moon, it hosted an internally powered magnetic field called a dynamo. Now, scientists think the reason might make the moon doubly unique: its core may still be forming. ...

Typically, the elements within a planet or moon stratify over time, with heavier elements like iron sinking down to form a dense core. When that core churns, it generates electrical currents that sustain a magnetic field.

Scientists only know of such dynamos on the gas giants, Earth, and Mercury. But when researchers modeled the process on Ganymede to match the magnetic field measurements from Galileo, they found that the core might not simply be churning, but actively growing, with new iron still dripping down from rocks in the moon’s mantle. If true, that would render Ganymede the only known body still to be forming its center. ..."

From the abstract:

"Ganymede is the only known moon with an active dynamo today.

Previous studies interpret Ganymede’s dynamo as arising from convection in a metal core that formed billions of years ago.

However, Ganymede likely accreted too cold to form with a metal core, which confounds interpretations of Ganymede’s magnetic field as a constraint on the moon’s broader history.

Here, we reevaluate the thermal evolution of Ganymede’s rock-metal interior from a cold start. Our models show that Ganymede’s observed dynamo is consistent with ongoing core formation, a process not yet observed elsewhere.

If Ganymede has an Fe-FeS core with a sub-eutectic composition, then gradual mantle warming may expel dense Fe melt onto the growing protocore and stir liquid metal, sustaining a dynamo for billions of years."

ScienceAdviser

Core of Solar System’s largest moon may still be forming "Ganymede discovery could force rethink of how worlds power their magnetic fields"

Powering Ganymede’s dynamo with protracted core formation (open access)

Fig. 1. Possible thermal evolution of Ganymede’s interior based on assumed initial temperatures.

Deep inside Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, molten iron may be sinking, adding to a still-growing core.

Hundreds of different genes have been linked to autism – but a new study suggests it may be their path to the brain that matters

Good news!

"... The researchers found that these genes “converge” on a shared set of biological pathways in the brain, triggering similar downstream effects as brain cells mature. ...

Using a CRISPR gene-editing tool, they switched off 23 genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in human brain cells. They then tracked how each genetic disruption altered gene activity across different stages of brain development.

Critically, they found that many of the at-risk genes produced similar effects downstream as brain cells matured. But they first converged in the same neural pathways, including pathways involved in synaptic communication, regulation of gene expression, and mitochondrial function ..."

From the abstract:

"Diverse risk genes have been identified for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), but how these genes converge on similar biological pathways in neurons, and thus give rise to similar phenotypes, is unclear.

Here we apply a pooled CRISPR approach to successfully target 23 NDD loss-of-function genes with roles in chromatin biology and examine convergent effects on gene expression across human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells, glutamatergic neurons and GABAergic neurons.

Points of convergence vary between these cell types, with the greatest number of convergent genes and strongest convergent networks in mature glutamatergic neurons, where they broadly represent synaptic, epigenetic and, unexpectedly, mitochondrial pathways.

The most convergent networks were observed between NDD genes with shared biological annotations, clinical associations and co-expression patterns in human post-mortem brain.

Drugs that were predicted to reverse convergent transcriptomic signatures and/or arousal and sensory processing behaviors ameliorated behavioral phenotypes in zebrafish NDD gene mutants.

These results suggest that convergent effects of NDD risk genes could provide clinically useful insights."

Many genes have been linked to autism – but a new study suggests it may be their path to the brain that matters | Yale News "While scientists have identified hundreds of different genes that are associated with autism, a new Yale-led study suggests that the specific genes may be less important than the pathway they take to the brain."

Transcriptomic and phenotypic convergence of neurodevelopmental disorder risk genes in vitro and in vivo

Fig. 1: KO [knock out] effects of 21 NDD risk genes are most strongly correlated in mature neurons.

Fig. 2: Gene-level convergence is greatest in mature glutamatergic neurons.

Fig. 3: Network-level convergence resolves cell-type-specific and developmental-specific node genes.

Fig. 4: Functional similarity and brain co-expression between NDD genes predict gene-level and network-level convergence, with unique influences by cell type.

26 killed in fireworks factory explosion in China

Bad news! Communism kills!

Yesterday, I blogged here about the deadliest company in the world, the state-owned China National Tobacco Corp.!

"Incident on 4 May injured over 60 others, with rescue work hampered by further fires and explosions 

An explosion at a fireworks factory in Liuyang killed 26 people and injured over 60 others on 4 May.

Five rescue teams totaling 482 personnel attended the scene, according to local news reports, but search and rescue efforts were hampered by re-ignition and further explosions of stored gunpowder as well as finished and semi-finished firework products on the site. ..."

26 killed in fireworks factory explosion in China | Business | Chemistry World

Source

The Fog, a New Encrypted Cloud Platform, Rolls In into the cloud

Good news! The cloud is getting foggy! 😊

"Niobium Microsystems is a technology company based in Dayton, Ohio, specializing in Zero Trust Computing through dedicated hardware accelerators for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)." (Google AI)

"... Launched in early April by chip startup Niobium, the Fog is an encrypted cloud platform. It follows a client-server architecture, where a person or organization (the client) can encrypt data or workloads locally using their own private keys and deploy the encrypted data or workloads to the Fog (the server) without sharing their keys. These private keys remain with data owners, and only they can decrypt any results from the platform.

Much as actual fog obscures everything it envelops, so does the encrypted cloud platform named after it. ...

“The data in our cloud will never be exposed—it’s always encrypted,” says John Barrus, vice president of product at Niobium. “It’s a new category of cloud.” ..."

New Cloud Platform Uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption - IEEE Spectrum "It keeps data encrypted all the time—even while computing"

Tesla Model Y 2026 is first car to meet new US driver assistance safety benchmark

Good news! When are we getting rid of the steering wheel and breaks?

"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday that the later release 2026 Tesla Model Y is the first vehicle to meet the agency’s new benchmark for advanced driver assistance systems.

Four pass-fail tests were added to the agency’s safety ratings program, assessing a car’s automatic emergency braking for pedestrians, blind-spot warning, blind-spot intervention, and lane assist, a feature that helps keep the vehicle in the lane.

The new benchmark rating applies to 2026 Tesla Model Y vehicles assembled on or after November 12, 2025. ..."

Tesla Model Y is first car to meet new US driver assistance safety benchmark | TechCrunch

Revolving Doors and Efficient Engines: How Proteins Escape a Molecular Tangle and misfolded proteins

Amazing stuff!

"... Machines from the AAA+ family, which exist in the cells of all living organisms from bacteria to humans, can, among their many functions, recognize misfolded protein chains and swiftly unravel them.

Researchers ... have deciphered this sophisticated mechanism, which is both fast and remarkably efficient. Their findings ... reveal how cells perform quality control on their proteins, and may help explain why this control fails in diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer. They may also provide inspiration for the development of highly efficient artificial molecular machines. ...

When a protein chain in the cell becomes entangled or misfolded, these machines come to the rescue, unraveling the chain by threading it through the channel. ...

Until now, it was unclear how a tiny molecular machine converts chemical energy within the cell into an effective mechanical pulling action. ...

To address this question, the researchers ... developed a method that allowed them to monitor, in real time rather than through frozen snapshots, the passage of a protein chain through the molecular machine. They used fluorescent sensors attached to the milk protein casein and to the AAA+ machine that processes it. A green sensor was attached to the casein, an orange sensor to the machine’s entrance and a red sensor to its exit. ...

“Loops in the channel wall protrude into its interior and, like the wings of a revolving door, determine the preferred direction of movement. The machine uses energy to ensure that these loops oscillate in the correct direction.” ...

In the final stage of the study, the researchers focused on failure events, in which threading through the channel was not completed. “These events lasted a relatively long time,” ... “We found that in their course, the protein moved back and forth within the channel until it mistakenly exited from the same end where it had entered. This indicates that there are no large energy fluctuations or powerful forces inside the channel, but rather a subtle motion-guiding mechanism that is occasionally prone to error.” ..."

From the abstract:

"How biological machines harness ATP to drive mechanical work remains a crucial question. Structural studies of protein-translocating AAA+ machines proposed a coupled and sequential translocation process, whereby ATP hydrolysis events lead to short threading steps. Yet, direct real-time observation of these events remains elusive.

Here, we employ single-molecule FRET spectroscopy to track substrate translocation through ClpB, a quality control AAA+ machine. We isolate ClpB and its substrate within lipid vesicles and find that translocation events, while dependent on ATP, take milliseconds, much faster than ATP hydrolysis times. Surprisingly, the translocation rate depends weakly on temperature and ATP concentration.

Using three-color FRET experiments, we find that translocation events can occur bidirectionally but are not always complete.

Replacing ATP with the slowly hydrolysable analog ATPγS abolishes both rapid translocation and directionality.

These results indicate a fast, stochastic Brownian-motor-like mechanism, redefining how ATP is coupled with mechanical action in AAA+ machines."

Revolving Doors and Efficient Engines: How Proteins Escape a Molecular Tangle - Chemistry | Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries "A new study reveals how energy-efficient cellular machines rapidly untangle misfolded proteins – a finding that may help improve the design of artificial molecular machines"

A stochastic mechanism drives fast substrate translocation in the AAA+ machine ClpB (open access)

Fig. 1: Observation of multiple fast events of translocation through the lumen of ClpB facilitated by porous vesicles.

Fig. 4: Translocation of casein in both the forward and backward directions is observed in three-color experiments.

How Anthropic’s Mythos has rewritten Firefox’s approach to cybersecurity of its web browser

Good and bad news! How long and how severely was the security of the Firefox browser vulnerable!

"... Now, security researchers for Mozilla’s Firefox browser are providing a closer look at what that process has looked like in practice, and what Mythos’ powers mean for software security at large.

In a post published on Thursday, Mozilla said Mythos has unearthed a wealth of high-severity bugs, including some that had lain dormant in the code for more than a decade.

That’s a significant improvement from what AI security tools were capable of even six months ago. Until now, AI bug-finding tools have come with severe drawbacks, often inundating security teams with low-quality reports and false positives. But Mozilla’s researchers say the latest generation of tools have turned a corner, particularly now that agentic systems can assess their own work and filter out bad results. ...

fixing the 271 bugs identified by Claude Mythos Preview ..."

How Anthropic’s Mythos has rewritten Firefox’s approach to cybersecurity | TechCrunch

Behind the Scenes Hardening Firefox with Claude Mythos Preview (original news release)

What a jump in April 2026!

European Commission Releases ‘Simplified’ Deforestation Regulation. Really!

Bad news! Beware of the EU hegemons and do gooders! What an extra and unnecessary burden on businesses!

European colonialists at work again telling the wold what to do and not to do! 

"In 2023, the European Union adopted regulations to prevent global deforestation and combat climate change. Originally set to go into effect in 2024, implementation has faced multiple delays and growing calls to reduce the scope of the regulation.

On May 4, the European Commission released the results of a simplification review of the EU Deforestation Regulation. Despite push back from the United States, and possible conflicts with the agreement reached in August, the review did not result in delays or significant reductions. ..."

"... The EU Deforestation Regulation aims to ensure that key goods placed on the EU market do not contribute to deforestation and forest degradation, both within the EU and globally 

as they are among the most significant contributors to climate change [???] and biodiversity loss. The main driver of deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land linked to the production of seven commodities covered by the regulation – cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber, and some of their derived products.

Under the Regulation, any operator or trader who places these commodities on the EU market, or exports from it, must be able to prove that the products do not originate from recently deforested land or have contributed to forest degradation. ..."

European Commission Releases ‘Simplified’ Deforestation Regulation

Commission publishes simplification review of EU Deforestation Regulation (original news release)

Credits: Neue EU-Verordnung zum Schutz der Wälder - iwd.de

English for trippers: A mortal mortar

A muzzle loader. Then there are non-lethal mortars.

Turkey rolls out intercontinental missile with purported 6,000km range

What is the Osman sultan Erdogan up to?

"The Turkish Ministry of Defense took the opportunity at the SAHA defense expo to reveal a new intercontinental missile with the a reported range of 6,000km (approximately 3,700 miles).

The large missile, dubbed Yildirimhan, was unveiled at the show on Tuesday, with state media outlet Anadolu reporting that in addition to the extremely long range (far enough to reach across Europe and deep into eastern Asia), it can reach up to Mach 25 on the power of four rocket engines. ..."

Turkey rolls out intercontinental missile with purported 6,000km range - Breaking Defense "The ICBM would add a "crucial layer of deterrence" to Turkey's military arsenal, a defense analyst told Breaking Defense."

The Yildirimhan long-range missile makes its debut at SAHA 2026 on May 6

Chart of the day

How refreshing this downward trend! When the busybody lawmakers do less!

Fewer and less laws, more freedom!

Why do elected representatives repeal so few laws?

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.

Palki Sharma, we miss you

Sad news! She did an excellent job presenting world news almost every day!

Good luck in your new endeavor!

According to Google AI:

"As of April 2026, Palki Sharma has stepped down from her role as Managing Editor at Firstpost and is departing mainstream media after a 25-year career.

She is transitioning to entrepreneurship to focus on her own venture, including restarting her saree brand, Reyva

Final Role: She was the Managing Editor at Firstpost and host of the popular show Vantage.

Career Move: She officially resigned from Network18 (Firstpost) with March 31, 2026, marking her last day.New Endeavor: She is returning to entrepreneurship, having previously operated a designer saree label between 2016 and 2019. ..."

Cleaner air, thinner clouds? Less air pollution, warmer planet between 1850-2020!

Besides the urban heat island effect and rapid global population growth, this could be another major anthropogenic reason for why we observe global warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the first half of the 19th century!

What about junk climate models!

Do not dismiss the study just because it only reveals two limited geographic regions, i.e. the Southeastern US and the United Kingdom. I bet in Europe and Asia there were probably similar situations.

Something seems dubious about this study when you look at the chart below:

• Apparently, Antarctica was also affected.
• Japan is missing.
• Europe (except the UK) is missing.
• What about China?
• Why is central Africa in blue color?
• What was going on in southeast Asia?

Caveat: This research paper also relies on computer simulations not hard facts!

"Pre-industrial pollution from coal smoke and wood-burning in regions like the southeastern U.S. and UK may have made the air murkier than previously thought. This historical haze could significantly alter our understanding of how clouds formed and reflected sunlight in the past.

Tiny particles in the air can have big climate effects. Each tiny dust or soot grain can seed a water droplet, so more particles mean more, smaller droplets and a brighter, whiter cloud. ...

The vast majority of climate models have assumed that the skies over 19th-century Earth were pristine, meaning that anthropogenic aerosols were much lower than those observed today. "

From the abstract:

"Understanding the preindustrial (PI) to present-day (PD) change in cloud droplet number concentration (ΔNd) is important to constrain the anthropogenic influence on clouds and aid future model projections.

Perturbed parameter ensemble simulations of PI and PD conditions in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SMv3) reveal two locations with consistent negative ΔNd signal across parameter space–the Southeastern US and the United Kingdom–despite a trend of positive ΔNd globally from increased fossil fuel consumption.

These negative ΔNd signals are driven by higher anthropogenic biofuel emissions in the PI. By varying the PI aerosol mass and/or number emissions across these data sets' uncertainty ranges, we can change the magnitude and sign of ΔNd and the effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions (ERFaci) regionally and globally, with near-zero ΔNd leading to near-zero ERFaci.

These results highlight the need to constrain PI emission uncertainty to better understand Earth system responses to aerosol-cloud interactions."

Clean air, thinner clouds? A century-old pollution puzzle

Sensitivity of Anthropogenic Cloud Droplet Number Change to Preindustrial Emission Inventories and Physics Parameterizations (open access)

Fig. 1 (partial, enlarged)

(a) Global ΔNd from the Nephele PPE (default, ensemble mean, and means of the lowest and highest 2.5th percentiles) with the Southeastern US (SEUS) and United Kingdom (UK) denoted by green and blue rectangles, respectively.

A tale as old as time: Young, attractive femme fatale lore appears in nearly every culture

Amazing stuff!

"... The collected data was then split into two groups based on the type of society they belonged to: egalitarian, where everyone has relatively equal power and resources, and complex societies, where large differences in wealth and power exist. ...

They found that these stories existed in almost all egalitarian and complex societies. So, the researcher suggests this isn't just a story shaped by powerful societies to control women—it's a pan-human theme that cuts across cultures. ...

The author also highlighted that these women are consistently portrayed as young and physically attractive across cultures ..."

From the abstract:

"This paper examines the cross-cultural prevalence of the femme fatale (dangerous woman) motif using folkloric materials, ethnographic accounts, and consultations with ethnographers across 84 societies.

Narratives were coded for depictions in which male protagonists suffer harm following involvement with an unfamiliar but physically attractive woman.

Results show that 94% of sampled societies contain recognizable femme fatale imagery.

When male motivation could be inferred, narratives overwhelmingly emphasized expectations of emotional attachment or long-term partnership rather than short-term sexual encounters. This pattern challenges interpretations that frame male involvement primarily in terms of sexual gratification or predatory intent.

Instead, the findings suggest that femme fatale narratives function as culturally mediated responses to recurrent mating dilemmas rooted in asymmetric emotional investment. More broadly, the study demonstrates how universal predispositions toward attraction and attachment are symbolically elaborated within culturally specific moral frameworks."

A tale as old as time: Young, attractive femme fatale lore appears in nearly every culture

Wanting Beauty, Fearing Beauty: Mate Preference, Intimacy, Deception, and the Femme Fatale (open access)

The current state of cancer vaccination with over 500 cancer vaccines are in development

Good news! Cancer is history (soon)!

"The progress of cancer vaccines has been limited by immune tolerance, variability in how well antibodies can attach to targets and modest clinical efficacy.

But recent advances in mRNA vaccines, better ability to predict cancer-specific targets and combination with immunotherapies are helping to make vaccines more precise and effective.

As of May 2025, there are 513 cancer vaccines in development, with most (47%) in early-stage development. Continued advancement will require more accurate ways to predict new proteins on cancer cells that can be targeted by antibodies, improved delivery systems and integration with other forms of therapy, suggest a group of health and drug researchers."

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

The landscape for therapeutic cancer vaccines (no public access)

a) All 513 vaccines were classified based on their mechanism, with most being peptide or dendritic cell vaccines. b) The graph shows the trial-stage breakdown of each vaccine type. c) Distribution of products by antigen type, including tumour-associated antigens (TAAs) and tumour-specific antigens (TSAs).

Some kids are bypassing online age-verification checks with a fake mustache. Really!

Is it not foremost the responsibility of parents to make sure their kids do not access inappropriate content on their devices etc.?

This article appears to be based on self reporting by children! How reliable is that?

"Some age-verification systems are no match for enterprising children, who have found that drawing on a fake mustache with a makeup pencil is enough to skirt the blocks of adult websites.

U.K.-based nonprofit Internet Matters surveyed a thousand children about age-verification checks online, and about half said that age checks were easy to bypass. ..."

Some kids are bypassing age-verification checks with a fake mustache | TechCrunch

EU Diversity Month 2026 | Promoting Inclusive Labour Markets for All. Really!

This leftist ideological nonsense has been going on every May since 2020!

"EU Diversity Month raises awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and across our societies. It is about the representation and visibility of different groups, where diverse perspectives are valued and included into the work environment. ..."

EU Diversity Month 2026 | Promoting Inclusive Labour Markets for All

Amazon stuck with months of repairs after drone strikes by Iran on data centers in the Middle East

Bad news! First undersea cables, now datacenters are the very vulnerable assets/infrastructure/targets of modern human progress!

One more reason why humanity can no longer tolerate megalomaniacs and warmongers like Putin the Terrible or religious fanatics and sponsors of suicidal terrorism like the mullahs of Iran!

"Amazon’s cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian drone strikes targeted three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—meaning that full recovery from the cloud disruption could take nearly half a year in all.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) dashboard posted an April 30 update describing how its UAE and Bahrain cloud regions “suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East” and are unable to support customer applications. The update also said that “relevant billing operations are currently suspended while we restore normal operations” in a process that “is expected to take several months.”"

Amazon stuck with months of repairs after drone strikes on data centers - Ars Technica

Google employees in the UK protest military uses of AI, vote for labor union

Bad news! Antisemitism? Leftist anti militarism?

Does Google Deepmind need new employees?

"Google employees protest military uses of AI, vote for union

 

Employees at Google DeepMind’s London office voted to unionize, seeking recognition from the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union specifically to block the lab from providing technology to US and Israeli militaries.

The push accelerated after Alphabet removed its public pledge against weapons development and surveillance from its ethics guidelines in February 2025, a move that prompted one anonymous DeepMind employee to tell WIRED the company is moving toward “further militarization of the AI models we’re building here.”

The unionization effort comes as Google signed a Pentagon deal allowing the US military to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose”—language the employees consider dangerously vague—and follows similar concerns across the industry: DeepMind and OpenAI staff signed a letter supporting Anthropic after the Department of Defense tried to designate it a supply chain risk for refusing autonomous weapons use. If Google refuses to recognize the unions, workers say they’ll escalate to a UK arbitration committee to compel recognition." (Source)

"Employees at Google DeepMind in London have voted to unionize as part of a bid to block the AI lab from providing its technology to the US and Israeli militaries. ...

The push to unionize began in February 2025, when Google’s parent company Alphabet removed a pledge not to use AI for purposes like weapons development and surveillance from its ethics guidelines, according to a DeepMind employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. ..."

Google DeepMind Workers Vote to Unionize Over Military AI Deals "UK staff of Google’s AI research lab hope to block the use of the company’s artificial intelligence models in military settings."

White House signals it will more closely regulate AI industry possibly modeled on the FDA drug approval process. Really!

Bad news! Pray and hope that President Trump will not make this mistake!

The FDA drug approval process is slow and cumbersome etc.!

"US signals it will more closely regulate AI industry

The White House is preparing an executive order to create a vetting system for new artificial intelligence models, modeled on FDA drug approval processes, according to National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

The move follows Anthropic’s disclosure that its Mythos model can identify network vulnerabilities and poses potential cybersecurity risks; the Trump administration is currently testing the model across federal agencies and large tech firms before wider release.

Hassett said the vetting process would likely extend to all AI companies, not just Mythos, though it remains unclear whether the order would mandate testing or operate as a voluntary framework. The announcement represents a potential shift toward regulation for an administration that has generally favored hands-off AI policy. Separately, the Commerce Department expanded a voluntary testing program on Tuesday, with Google, Microsoft, and xAI now providing the government early access to assess their models’ security and capabilities. " (Source)

"... But in an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett confirmed that the White House is considering an order that would allow the administration to block the release of AI models deemed unsafe.

“We’re studying possibly an executive order to give a clear roadmap to everybody about how this is gonna go, and how future AIs that also potentially create vulnerabilities should go through a process so that they’re released into the wild after they’ve been proven safe — just like an FDA drug [???],” said Hassett. ..."

"... “We’re studying, possibly an executive order to give a clear roadmap to everybody about how this is going to go and how future AIs that also potentially create vulnerabilities should go through a process so that they’re released to the wild after they’ve been proven safe, just like an FDA drug [???],” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox Business. ..."

White House Prepares Order to Boost AI Security, Hassett Says (behind paywall)

White House mulls tighter controls on advanced AI

Kevin Hassett (perhaps someone President Trump needs to fire?)

Ted Turner (1938-2026), who shaped cable TV and launched CNN, died at 87.

R.I.P.

While he still owned CNN (until 1995), CNN was much better than afterwards!

Whether it was a good idea to donate $1 billion to the United Nations remains questionable!

"The high-profile media tycoon was also a sailor, a conservationist who was one of the largest U.S. landowners, and a major philanthropist who helped set a model for generous giving by billionaires. Turner was best known for turning the billboard-advertising company he inherited from his father into Turner Broadcasting System, an Atlanta-based TV and movie giant that he sold to Time Warner in 1995."

"... As a philanthropist, he gave $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden U.S. support for the United Nations. Turner served as chairman of the United Nations Foundation board of directors. Additionally, in 2001, Turner co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative with U.S. senator Sam Nunn (D-GA). NTI is a non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing global reliance on, and preventing the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He served as co-chairman of the board of directors. ..." (Wikipedia)

Wall Street Journal What's news

Ted Turner

The 'First Salute' exhibition explores how Jews in the Caribbean helped to shape the American Revolution

Recommendable!

"In November 1776, a small Caribbean island fired a cannon at an American ship — and in doing so, made history. The exchange, known as the “First Salute,” marked the first international recognition of the United States. Now, a new exhibition at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia is bringing that moment, and the often-overlooked role of Jewish merchants and Caribbean trade networks in the American Revolution, back into view. 

The exhibition, “The First Salute,” which will run until April 2027, traces how the American fight for independence extended far beyond the colonies, relying on global trade networks and unlikely allies. Drawing on newly displayed artifacts — from a 250-year-old cannon recovered from St. Eustatius to letters tied to the movement of revolutionary supplies — it tells the story of how Jewish merchants, many with ties across the Atlantic, helped funnel goods, information, and support to the Patriot cause. ...

At the center of that network was the small Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, then one of the busiest ports in the Atlantic. By the late 18th century, its harbor had become a critical waypoint for goods moving between Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and the American colonies, including weapons and gunpowder, often disguised as ordinary trade goods, that the Continental Army desperately needed.

Because Jews had often been pushed into finance, trade, and mercantile work in Europe ... they developed the Atlantic-world connections that later made them valuable to the Patriot cause. By the time revolutionaries needed weapons, gunpowder, and supplies, “history placed Jews exactly in the right places, with the right skills, the right connections.”

Jewish merchants, who made up 30% of the European population on St. Eustatius at the time, played an outsized role in that system. Many had roots in the Iberian Peninsula, having fled persecution in Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition, and later built extensive commercial ties across the Atlantic. As a Dutch colony, St. Eustatius offered Jews more religious freedom than in most of Europe. The population grew, and by 1739 had become established enough to build a synagogue, Honen Dalim. By the time of the Revolution, that community was deeply embedded in the commercial networks that made St. Eustatius so valuable to the American cause. ..."

"... For centuries, the story of how a small community of Jews living in America and on a tiny Caribbean island helped tip the scales of the Revolutionary War was largely forgotten — it’s the story of swashbuckling, patriot Jewish pirates who smuggled gunpowder into America.

The Jewish merchants on the lush, windswept island of St. Eustatius, who supplied Washington’s army with the critical contraband, were members of the first international entity to recognize the United States. Their allegiance to the American cause cost them dearly. Targeted for abuse by the British, they were stripped of their homes and wealth, torn from their families and exiled, and had their graves plundered. ..."

The 'First Salute' explores how Jews shaped the American Revolution "The "First Salute" exhibit reveals how Jewish merchants helped fuel the American Revolution and secure its first international recognition."

The First Salute exhibition "The First Salute: An Untold Story of the American Revolution is the first-ever major museum exhibition to explore the little-known story of a small group of Jewish merchants in the Caribbean whose outsized contributions to the cause of American Liberty tipped the scales in the fight for American Independence."

A reimagined Jewish Museum tells the forgotten story the Jews who helped win the Revolution

France moves aircraft carrier into Red Sea ahead of potential Strait of Hormuz mission. Really!

What a coward and laggard this president of France is, i.e. Emmanuel Macron!

Allied forces were needed weeks ago to assist the US in its campaign against Iran!!!

"France is deploying the carrier strike group centered on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier into the Red Sea and towards the Gulf of Aden, positioning the force for a possible mission to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the Armed Forces Ministry said on Wednesday. ..."

France moves carrier into Red Sea ahead of potential Hormuz mission

Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier

How It Got Harder for Americans to Climb the job ladder by job hopping or job shopping

Bad news! Food for thought! Mass illegal immigration is a good guess as it takes away large numbers of entry and difficult to fill jobs.

Then there is more intense competition going on with respect to international supply chains and foreign trade. Sourcing and buying cheap products from foreign countries has never been easier.

"A new economics paper puts its finger on something that American workers have felt for years, even though economists keep describing it too abstractly: it has become much harder to use one job as a springboard to a better one.

The paper is very good at establishing the decline of upward job mobility. But it misses the major causes: deindustrialization and [illegal] mass immigration.

The economists/authors seem to be dead wrong when they blame "noncompete agreements" for the wage stagnation! These noncompete agreements play most likely a rather minor role.

Let’s start with what they get right. For most workers, the biggest raises don’t come from annual reviews, cost-of-living adjustments, or even internal promotions. They come from getting a better [job] offer somewhere else. When those offers stop coming, wages stagnate even if the economy is still cranking out jobs. ..."

From the abstract:

"We quantify how structural changes in the U.S. labor market have contributed to wage stagnation over the past four decades by weakening the job ladder. Using Current Population Survey microdata from 1982–2023 and a partial-equilibrium job-ladder model, we estimate that employed workers today are about half as likely to receive a better-paying outside offer as they were in the 1980s. This decline is unlikely to reflect less efficient matching, weaker labor demand, or changes in workers' acceptance behavior.

Instead, cross-state variation is consistent with rising employer concentration and the growing use of noncompete agreements having curtailed opportunities for job shopping. In a general equilibrium version of the model, we find that these changes have reduced annual real wage growth by 0.68 percentage points—roughly one-third of the post-1980 slowdown—with about two-thirds of the effect operating through equilibrium wage setting rather than mechanical reallocation."

Breitbart Business Digest

The Long-Term Decline of the U.S. Job Ladder (no public access)

US Senator Rand Paul pushes for Anthony Fauci indictment for lying about gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

What the hell took so long! Unfortunately, Anthony Fauci strategically retired just in time and is now over 85 years old!

I have blogged here as early as 2020 or so that something was very fishy about the US federal government funding so called gain of function research at that Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, the possible source and lab leak of the SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 virus. This Institute of Virology is also suspected to do dual use research.

"Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday called for Anthony Fauci, former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to be indicted for what the senator claimed was his lying under oath about gain-of-function research.

“6 days from now, on May 11th, the statute of limitations expires on the possibility of indicting Anthony Fauci for denying under oath that he funded gain-of-function research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, the origin city of the pandemic,” Paul wrote on social media. ..."

Rand Paul pushes for Anthony Fauci indictment

Credits: The Flyover

Anthony Fauci

Israel to supply jet fuel to Germany amid Iran war shortages

Israel provides the banana republic of Germany with jet fuel! Let this sink in!

Too bad you can not run airplanes on so called renewable energy like wind and solar power!

Does the banana republic of Germany not have a sufficient strategic reserve of crude oil? Very possible since e.g. working nuclear power plants were shut down etc.

"Israel will begin supplying jet fuel to Germany following a recent request received by the Energy Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MFA) announced in a X/Twitter post on Wednesday. ..."

Israel to supply jet fuel to Germany amid Iran war shortages | The Jerusalem Post "Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar informed Germany's Economic Affairs and Energy Minister of the decision during his recent trip to Berlin."

Yale University: The Carbon Dioxide Removal Roadmap. Really!

Plant some more trees and be happy! It is that easy!

Carbon capture: What a waste of money! Or when universities seek new or more funding for ridiculous reasons!!

"In 15 years, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be a portfolio of safe, effective, and affordable climate solutions that deliver mitigation at scale as well as meaningful benefits to communities, farmers, and ecosystems. In our first five years, the YCNCC has made several contributions towards this goal, and we plan to continue this work for the next five years and beyond. Our symposium is both a celebration of progress to date and an honest survey of the massive task ahead of us. ..."

The Carbon Dioxide Removal Roadmap "The Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture’s Spring Symposium marks an anniversary and sets its sights on what natural carbon capture needs to achieve by 2040."

Stanford University: School cell phone bans deliver benefits – but not right away. Really!

First of all, the term "cell phone" sounds so 1980s/1990s if not 1970s!

Up to what grade should smartphones be banned? All grades?

Why are smartphones not integrated into school curricula beginning from a certain age of the students?

Plus, there is a lot of alarmism and hysteria about the use of smartphones going on! This akin e.g. to the introduction of video and video games!

School cell phone bans deliver benefits – but not right away | Stanford Report "New research reveals that while bans aren’t an instant panacea for problems in U.S. classrooms, schools can achieve positive outcomes with persistence."

China National Tobacco Corp.: The Deadliest Company in the World

This is shocking! Communism kills!

There is no doubt that too many Chinese people are smoking and smoking almost everywhere at anytime! I have seen it with my own eyes while visiting China. This is very regrettable and unfortunate!

"... Outsized impact: ... one company stands out as the single commercial entity linked to the most global deaths: China National Tobacco Corp., better known as China Tobacco—a state-owned company that for decades has controlled ~97% of China’s cigarette market in a country that consumes nearly half the world’s cigarettes. 

 

Staggering toll: Tobacco use in China caused ~59–78 million deaths from 1990 to 2023, or 2 million people annually, per data from the Global Burden of Disease study run by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. 

China Tobacco is tied to ~57 million of those deaths—a toll surpassing fatalities linked to war, drugs, or traffic worldwide, even adjusting for the highest plausible death estimates from those other industries.   

The company also wields significant influence over China’s public health policy, systematically undercutting anti-smoking efforts. 

Intervention possible—and unlikely: Because of China Tobacco’s centralized role, direct policy change could avert millions of early deaths over decades.  

But the government’s dependence on billions in tax revenue from the industry means the company “is likely to retain its spot as No. 1 in the world for years to come.” ..."

Global Health NOW: Identifying ‘The Deadliest Company in the World’; and On the Front Lines of an Emerging Drug Crisis

English for trippers: Full of rigor and vigor

Like cigar and vinegar! A composition by Igor Stravinsky?

The Type of Fat—Not the Amount—Fuels Pancreatic Cancer

Bad news for olive oil! Cancer is history (soon)!

Olive oil gets a bad rap here, while e.g. fish oil is more beneficial.

"... The research ... shows that for pancreatic cancer, the type of fat you consume matters more than the amount. ...

One fat in particular—oleic acid, the primary fatty acid in olive oil—may be accelerating tumor growth in ways scientists never anticipated. The result was surprising given oleic acid's reputation in medicine. "It's traditionally been considered a healthy type of fat for cardiovascular health," ...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) ...

Fat can be protective against cancer

To find out the effects of each fat, ... designed a comprehensive dietary screen using 12 high-fat diets, each identical in caloric content but differing solely in fat source. The diets were modeled on real patterns of modern American fat consumption. ...

for decades, the research community broadly “gave mice very high levels of fat in their diet, often using a single fat source.” Most prior studies used lard-based diets at 60% fat by calories—a formulation that neither reflects what most people actually eat nor isolates the effects of specific fatty acids.

“Exactly what components of dietary fat cause cancer has remained a mystery,” ...

What the team found was striking. Diets rich in oleic acid—a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) found in, among other foods, olive oil, high-oleic safflower oil, high-oleic sunflower oil, peanuts, and lard—significantly accelerated tumor development in mice carrying a genetic mutation that leads to illness closely mimicking human PDAC development.

However, diets high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) suppressed it, especially omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in fish oil."

From the abstract:

"High-fat diet (HFD) intake has been linked to an increased risk of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), a lethal and therapy-resistant cancer.

However, whether and how specific dietary fats drive cancer development remains unresolved.

Leveraging an oncogenic Kras-driven mouse model that closely mimics human PDAC progression, we screened a dozen isocaloric HFDs differing solely in fat source and representing the diversity of human fat consumption.

Unexpectedly, diets rich in oleic acid – a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) typically associated with good health – markedly enhanced tumorigenesis. Conversely, diets high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) suppressed tumor progression.

Relative dietary fatty acid saturation levels (PUFA/MUFA) governed pancreatic membrane phospholipid composition, lipid peroxidation, and ferroptosis sensitivity in mice, concordant with circulating PUFA/MUFA levels being linked to altered PDAC risk in humans.

These findings directly implicate dietary unsaturated fatty acids in controlling ferroptosis susceptibility and tumorigenesis, supporting potential “precision nutrition” strategies for PDAC prevention."

The Type of Fat—Not the Amount—Fuels Pancreatic Cancer | Yale School of Medicine

Diet-induced phospholipid remodeling dictates ferroptosis sensitivity and tumorigenesis in the pancreas (no public access)

Diet-induced phospholipid remodeling dictates ferroptosis sensitivity and tumorigenesis in the pancreas (preprint, open access)