What Really Happened in Wuhan with Sharri Markson and Tucker Carlson

Very recommendable! Anthony Fauci granted and financed so called gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to circumvent U.S. restrictions on such research. That Mr. Fauci has not long been fired and indicted for deception and lying to the U.S. Congress is a huge scandal!

Because it was a presidential election in the U.S., the lab leak hypothesis was systematically, extensively and prolongedly suppressed by the elites so President Trump would not win reelection and continue to counter China as the next rising superpower!

In AI development, equality starts with a mandate for fairness and inclusivity

Apparently, the earlier title for this article was not strong enough! When a inclusivity, racism, and equality fanatic writes an article you get this opinion piece! Some of his statements are outright laughable!

 

"... But as someone deeply involved in applying AI to health care, I found one element grating: Highlighting inclusivity and equality as things to be “encouraged” is not the way forward, especially with something as important as health care. ...
Inclusivity and equality must be built into the DNA of a product from day one, and it does not happen by simply checking a politically correct box. ...
For example, it was only in 1993 that the United States mandated adequate inclusion of women in clinical trials for medicines.
And systemic racism can still be seen in revised U.S. guidelines which now, as a result of Covid-19, recommend that women under age 50 skip annual mammograms even though breast cancer diagnoses are at their highest for Black, Hispanic and Asian women in their 40s. ...
There are troubling indications that significant disparities exist in the performance of AI-enabled health care solutions ...
Unfortunately, bias exists everywhere in the world and permeates the datasets used to develop and test AI products. ...
The lack of diverse data to develop and train AI products is currently the primary inhibitor to making substantive progress in this area. ..."

Fairness and inclusivity: key ingredients in equitable health AI

Call-and-response circuit tells neurons when to grow synapses

Amazing stuff!

"... [researchers] took a closer look at how this process plays out in the visual cortex of the mouse brain. They sequenced the RNA of astrocytes at different stages of brain development to assess gene activity and compared it with neuronal synapse development. They found that astrocyte signaling was directly related to each stage of neuronal development. The researchers then wanted to know how the astrocytes knew to make these signals at the right time. First, the researchers looked at what happened to the astrocytes when they changed the neurons’ activity. To do this, they stopped neurons from releasing a neurotransmitter called glutamate that can signal to astrocytes, and this stopped the astrocytes from showing the typical developmental changes. Next, the scientists stopped the astrocytes from responding to neurotransmitters, and found this stopped the astrocytes from expressing the right signals. With both these manipulations, the development of synapses was also disrupted, in line with the changes observed in the astrocytes.

Collectively, the findings suggest that astrocytes are responding to neurotransmitters produced by neurons to control the timing of when astrocytes produce signals to instruct neuronal development ..."

From the abstract:

"Astrocytes regulate the formation and function of neuronal synapses via multiple signals; however, what controls regional and temporal expression of these signals during development is unknown. We determined the expression profile of astrocyte synapse-regulating genes in the developing mouse visual cortex, identifying astrocyte signals that show differential temporal and layer-enriched expression. ..."

Call-and-response circuit tells neurons when to grow synapses - Salk Institute for Biological Studies Discovery by Salk scientists explains signaling mechanism between astrocyte cells and neurons that regulates synaptic development

Activity-dependent modulation of synapse-regulating genes in astrocytes (open access)

Astrocytes (green) and neurons (magenta) closely interact in the developing cortex and signal to each other to ensure correct development.

Killing the American Dream to Save a Mythic Suburban One

Recommendable! Not only restrict zoning rules to single family homes they also require usually stick built or on site construction, thus prohibiting much cheaper manufactured or modular homes.

"The United States is in the midst of a housing crisis, and California has been hit especially hard. Costs to purchase and rent are increasing much faster than wages, and more Americans than ever believe homeownership is an unrealistic goal — including 48% of renters, according to one survey. One of the primary causes is zoning reform opponents’ Herculean efforts to preserve archaic regimes that restrict most residential land in the United States to single‐​family use — 61% in 2019. Upzoning some of these single‐​family zones to multi‐​family use would help ease the shortage, as more residential units become available with the construction of new duplexes and triplexes, with the benefit of giving individuals more freedom over what they can do with their own land. In a similar vein, it would allow a freer market to decide which neighborhoods remain single‐​family and which begin to reflect a growing preference for an urban‐​suburban synthesis. ..."

Killing the American Dream to Save a Mythic Suburban One | Cato Institute Upzoning more single‐​family neighborhoods for multi‐​family use is a must for any comprehensive plan to ease America’s endemic housing crisis. 

The New Franco-Italian Alliance in Europe

This is one of the more humorist than serious articles I just discovered! The author probably had a fit of wishful thinking!

Draghi is more of a funny Dracula and Macron is a rather mediocre politician. I have blogged about Draghi several times before (please click on label nearby). Thus, an agreement between these two is probably more hilarious than serious! 

The New Franco-Italian Alliance in Europe by Melvyn B. Krauss - Project Syndicate Behind a new bilateral cooperation agreement between France and Italy is a burgeoning political alliance that could reshape the European Union and its global role. With German Chancellor Angela Merkel departing, all eyes are now on Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Economist Arthur B. Laffer visits Pakistan

Will Pakistan become the next free market economy bringing many millions of people out of poverty? This would certainly stimulate the rivalry of Pakistan and India! Laffer is now 81 years old!

An interview with Arthur B. Laffer, noted American economist - BR Research - Business Recorder Earlier this month, Laffer visited Pakistan on the invitation of PRIME Institute, a public policy think tank that advocates market-based economy in the country. During his visit, Laffer also met with Prime Minister Imran Khan and other members of federal cabinet, and advocated broad-based, low-rate, flat taxation.

PRIME organizes its 1st Pakistan Prosperity Forum 2021 Dr. Arthur B. Laffer delivers a keynote address

Datenchaos in der Pandemie - „Die Unterlassungssünden sind schwindelerregend“

Der Artikel ist leider hinter einer paywall! Neben Klimawahn, hat sich auch der Coronawahn in der Bananenrepublik gut eingenistet!

"Neuinfektionen und Krankenhauseinweisungen, die Validität von Tests, das Alter der Intensivpatienten, der Anteil von Geimpften und Ungeimpften am Infektionsgeschehen: Zu all dem gibt es nur höchst unzureichende Daten und Zahlen, auf deren Grundlage aber dennoch Corona-Politik betrieben wird. „Ich bin bereits seit Beginn der Pandemie sehr erstaunt darüber, wie dilettantisch und stümperhaft in diesem Land mit Zahlen umgegangen wird“, sagt Gerd Antes, einer der renommiertesten Medizinstatistiker Deutschlands, im Interview mit Ralf Hanselle. „Gerade die Intensivstationen wären ein immens wichtiger Ort, um die Ursprünge und Auswirkungen der Krankheit besser zu fassen zu kriegen.“ Doch damit ist es leider nicht weit her. Nur zur Erinnerung: In Deutschland schlagen wir uns bald schon zwei Jahre mit der Pandemie herum. Von „Neuland“ kann also wirklich kaum die Rede sein."

Datenchaos in der Pandemie - „Die Unterlassungssünden sind schwindelerregend“ | Cicero Online Neuinfektionen und Krankenhauseinweisungen, die Validität von Tests, das Alter der Intensivpatienten, der Anteil von Geimpften und Ungeimpften am Infektionsgeschehen – zu all dem gibt es nur höchst unzureichende Daten und Zahlen, auf deren Grundlage aber dennoch Pandemiepolitik betrieben wird.

Bundesverfassungsgericht nickt Bundeslockdown ab – Verfassungsrechtler Vosgerau kommentiert

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht wird einer Bananenrepublik immer gerechter! Nach dem höchst kontroversen Klimaurteil folgt nun  dieser einstimmig ergangene Beschluss!

"... Dass dessen Vorsitzender Stephan Harbarth kein ausgewiesener Verfassungsjurist und kein Richter, aber ein früherer CDU-Abgeordneter und auch bekanntermaßen ein Vertrauter der Kanzlerin ist, wird diesen Eindruck sicher nicht zerstreuen. ..." (Quelle)

Das üble Vermächtnis der 16 Jahre mit der SED Kanzlerin Merkel! Meine Abrechnung mit ihr hier!

"... Die „Bundes-Notbremse“ bricht mit allen herkömmlichen Grundsätzen des Gefahrenabwehrrechts. Denn normalerweise ist eine Entscheidung der vor Ort zuständigen Behörden nach den Umständen des Einzelfalles aufgrund eines Gesetzes erforderlich, sodass die Maßnahmen der jeweils wirklich bestehenden Gefährdungslage angepasst werden können; und gegen die Entscheidung der vor Ort zuständigen Behörden ist der Rechtsweg gegeben.

Durch die unmittelbar durch ein Gesetz und allein aufgrund eines „Inzidenzwertes“ herbeigeführten Freiheitseinschränkungen – wobei ja ein hinreichend hoher Inzidenzwert von Behörden, die durchgreifende Freiheitseinschränkungen durchsetzen wollen, auch „herbeigetestet“ werden kann – wird demgegenüber nicht nur mit dem Gewaltenteilungsgrundsatz gebrochen, sondern auch mit der Rechtsweggarantie. Denn die Verwaltungsgerichte werden faktisch ausgeschaltet, wenn die Rechtsfolge sich bereits unmittelbar aus dem Gesetz ergibt und keine behördliche Abwägung mehr möglich ist. ..."

Bundesverfassungsgericht nickt Bundeslockdown ab – Verfassungsrechtler Vosgerau kommentiert Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat zwei Beschwerden gegen die Bundesnotbremse abgelehnt. Verfassungsrechtler Ulrich Vosgerau kommentiert den Beschluss: "Wir steuern auf chinesische Verhältnisse zu." Der erste Senat des BVerfG entwickle sich zum "Totengräber des freiheitlichen Verfassungsstaates".

Bundesverfassungsgericht -Stets zu Diensten (behind paywall) Corona, Klima, Rundfunkbeitrag: „Karlsruhe“ entwickelt sich immer mehr zum Erfüllungsgehilfen der Politik. Für unsere Demokratie ist das brandgefährlich. Wohin steuert das Bundesverfassungsgericht?

Indien bietet afrikanischen Ländern Corona-Impfstoff an

The scramble for Africa continues! Der Wettlauf um Afrika geht weiter!

"Indien hat afrikanischen Ländern, in denen die Omicron-Variante aufgetreten ist, Corona-Impfstoffe angeboten. Diese könnten entweder durch das UN-Impfprogramm Covax oder bilateral bereitgestellt werden, teilte das indische Außenministerium am Montagabend mit.

Die Regierung habe zudem unter anderem bisherige Bestellungen für den in Indien hergestellten AstraZeneca-Impfstoff Covishield von Malawi, Äthiopien, Sambia, Mosambik, Guinea und Lesotho freigegeben, hieß es. Indien sei auch bereit, Medikamente, Testkits, Schutzanzüge und Beatmungsgeräte zu liefern. ..."

Indien bietet afrikanischen Ländern Corona-Impfstoff an Zwischen Indien und China herrscht Konkurrenz um den Einfluss auf Afrika. Nun versorgen die beiden asiatischen Staaten den Kontinent mit Impfstoffdosen. Indien kann es sich derzeit leisten.

George Fredric Handel: A Titan Of Baroque Music

Very recommendable! Handel premiered Messiah in Dublin. All profits were donated to charities. Handel was one of the governors of the famous Foundling Hospital for which he held benefit concerts.

The EU's New Plan to Transform the Economy

Very recommendable! Ursula von der Leyen is turning the EU into a circus and government spending extravaganza with increasing EU debt! The Maastricht Treaty is long down the drain! Who is ultimately responsible: The socialist 16 year in office German chancellor Merkel, who is the protege of the incompetent Ursula von der Leyen!

On Emerging Cross-lingual Structure in Pretrained Language Models

Recommendable! Interesting results!

From the abstract:

"We study the problem of multilingual masked language modeling, i.e. the training of a single model on concatenated text from multiple languages, and present a detailed study of several factors that influence why these models are so effective for cross-lingual transfer. We show, contrary to what was previously hypothesized, that transfer is possible even when there is no shared vocabulary across the monolingual corpora and also when the text comes from very different domains. The only requirement is that there are some shared parameters in the top layers of the multi-lingual encoder. To better understand this result, we also show that representations from independently trained models in different languages can be aligned post-hoc quite effectively, strongly suggesting that, much like for non-contextual word embeddings, there are universal latent symmetries in the learned embedding spaces. For multilingual masked language modeling, these symmetries seem to be automatically discovered and aligned during the joint training process."

From the body:

"... Multilingual language models such as mBERT and XLM  enable effective cross-lingual transfer — it is possible to learn a model from supervised data in one language and apply it to another with no additional training. Recent work has shown that transfer is effective for a wide range of tasks ...

we discover that language universal representations emerge in pretrained models without the requirement of any shared vocabulary or domain similarity, and even when only a subset of the parameters in the joint encoder are shared. ...

By sharing parameters alone, pretraining learns to map similar words and sentences to similar hidden representations. To better understand these effects, we also analyze multiple monolingual BERT models trained independently. We find that monolingual models trained in different languages learn representations that align with each other surprisingly well, even though they have no shared parameters ...

This type of emergent language universality has interesting theoretical and practical implications. ..."

[1911.01464] Emerging Cross-lingual Structure in Pretrained Language Models (open access)

On Learning in High Dimension Always Amounts to Extrapolation

Recommendable! This is a new paper by Facebook co-authored by Yann LeCun. I am not sure what the ramifications are of the conclusions of this paper, but it may turn out to be quite relevant.

From the abstract:

"The notion of interpolation and extrapolation is fundamental in various fields from deep learning to function approximation. Interpolation occurs for a sample x whenever this sample falls inside or on the boundary of the given dataset's convex hull. Extrapolation occurs when x falls outside of that convex hull. One fundamental (mis)conception is that state-of-the-art algorithms work so well because of their ability to correctly interpolate training data. A second (mis)conception is that interpolation happens throughout tasks and datasets, in fact, many intuitions and theories rely on that assumption. We empirically and theoretically argue against those two points and demonstrate that on any high-dimensional (>100) dataset, interpolation almost surely never happens. Those results challenge the validity of our current interpolation/extrapolation definition as an indicator of generalization performances."

[2110.09485] Learning in High Dimension Always Amounts to Extrapolation (open access)

The FDA's Dysfunction Is A Public Health Crisis Of Its Own

Recommendable! The article does not even mention the Faucian Bargain!

Under the demented and senile 78 years old lifetime career politician and chronic liar for decades, the 46th President of the U.S. do not expect things to get better!

The FDA's Dysfunction Is A Public Health Crisis Of Its Own

AI Reveals Previously Unknown Biology – We Might Not Know Half of What’s in Our Cells

Amazing stuff! Artificial intelligence, machine learning are being used more and more to reveal the mysteries of nature! This could be a game changer/breakthrough!

"... “The combination of these technologies is unique and powerful because it’s the first time measurements at vastly different scales [micrometer & nanometer] have been brought together,” ...

“But how do you bridge that gap from nanometer to micron scale? That has long been a big hurdle in the biological sciences,” ... “Turns out you can do it with artificial intelligence — looking at data from multiple sources and asking the system to assemble it into a model of a cell.”

The team trained the MuSIC artificial intelligence platform to look at all the data and construct a model of the cell. The system doesn’t yet map the cell contents to specific locations, like a textbook diagram, in part because their locations aren’t necessarily fixed. Instead, component locations are fluid and change depending on cell type and situation.

... noted this was a pilot study to test MuSIC. They’ve only looked at 661 proteins and one cell type. ..."

From the abstract:

"The eukaryotic cell is a multi-scale structure with modular organization across at least four orders of magnitude. Two central approaches for mapping this structure – protein fluorescent imaging and protein biophysical association – each generate extensive datasets but of distinct qualities and resolutions that are typically treated separately. Here, we integrate immunofluorescent images in the Human Protein Atlas with ongoing affinity purification experiments from the BioPlex resource6 to create a unified hierarchical map of eukaryotic cell architecture. Integration involves configuring each approach to produce a general measure of protein distance, then calibrating the two measures using machine learning. The evolving map, called the Multi-Scale Integrated Cell (MuSIC 1.0), currently resolves 69 subcellular systems of which approximately half are undocumented. Based on these findings we perform 134 additional affinity purifications, validating close subunit associations for the majority of systems. The map elucidates roles for poorly characterized proteins, such as the appearance of FAM120C in chromatin; identifies new protein assemblies in ribosomal biogenesis, RNA splicing, nuclear speckles, and ion transport; and reveals crosstalk between cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ribosomal proteins. By integration across scales, MuSIC substantially increases the mapping resolution obtained from imaging while giving protein interactions a spatial dimension, paving the way to incorporate many molecular data types in proteome-wide maps of cells."

AI Reveals Previously Unknown Biology – We Might Not Know Half of What’s in Our Cells Artificial intelligence-based technique reveals previously unknown cell components that may provide new clues to human development and disease.

Mapping cell structure across scales by fusing protein images and interactions (open access, 2020 preprint)

Ecclesia and Synagoga

These two prominent symbols of Christian iconography are a fascinating history of Christianity and Judaism!

"... The two female figures are usually young and attractive; Ecclesia is generally adorned with a crown, chalice and cross-topped staff, looking confidently forward. In contrast, Synagoga is blindfolded and drooping, carrying a broken lance (possibly an allusion to the Holy Lance that stabbed Christ) and the Tablets of the Law or Torah scrolls that may even be slipping from her hand. ..."

"Ecclesia Et Synagoga, the name given to the symbolic representations in Christian art of the Middle Ages of the victorious Church and defeated Synagogue, symbolizing the triumph of Christianity. The representation is often found in medieval Christian manuscript art. It also became a conventional decoration in many medieval churches, especially in France, England, and Germany, and took the form of two graceful female figures, usually on the outside of the building. The Church is shown erect and triumphant, bearing a cross; the Synagogue is usually blindfolded and dejected, bearing a broken staff and sometimes decorated with the Tables of the Ten Commandments symbolizing the Old Testament. ..." (Source)

Ecclesia and Synagoga - Wikipedia

Credits: Henry Abramson The Whole History of Antisemitism in 15 Minutes (EDUCATIONAL CONTENT)

From the façade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

A New Research On Unsupervised Deep Learning Shows That The Brain Disentangles Faces Into Semantically Meaningful Factors, Like Age At The Single Neuron Level

Amazing stuff!

"With the emergence of deep self-supervised generative models that learn to “disentangle” high-dimensional sensory data into meaningful variables of variation, recent breakthroughs in machine learning have provided an implementational blueprint for this theory. The beta-variational autoencoder (β-VAE) is one such model that learns to faithfully reconstruct sensory data from a low-dimensional embedding while also being regularised in a way that encourages individual network units to code for semantically meaningful variables like object color, face gender, and scene arrangement. ...
The findings support previous evidence that the monkey IT’s face identification code is low-dimensional, with single neurons encoding independent axes of variance. Unlike earlier research, however, our findings show that such a code can be meaningfully interpreted at the level of a single neuron. The study shows that single IT neurons’ axes of variation align with single “disentangled” latent units that appear to be semantically meaningful and are discovered by the β-VAE ..."

From the abstract:

"... we model neural responses to faces in the macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex with a deep self-supervised generative model, β-VAE, which disentangles sensory data into interpretable latent factors, such as gender or age. Our results demonstrate a strong correspondence between the generative factors discovered by β-VAE and those coded by single IT neurons, beyond that found for the baselines, including the handcrafted state-of-the-art model of face perception, the Active Appearance Model, and deep classifiers. Moreover, β-VAE is able to reconstruct novel face images using signals from just a handful of cells. Together our results imply that optimising the disentangling objective leads to representations that closely resemble those in the IT at the single unit level. This points at disentangling as a plausible learning objective for the visual brain."

A New Research On Unsupervised Deep Learning Shows That The Brain Disentangles Faces Into Semantically Meaningful Factors, Like Age At The Single Neuron Level - MarkTechPost

Unsupervised deep learning identifies semantic disentanglement in single inferotemporal face patch neurons (open access; the paper was previously published as a preprint in 2020: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.14304; this paper is a collaboration between Google, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Schottland fällt 14 Millionen Bäume, um Platz für Windräder zu machen!

Tolle Schlagzeile! Bringt den Unsinn der Windenergie genau auf den Punkt! Umweltzerstörung für Windräder!

Der schlechte Einfluss der desaströsen SED Kanzlerin Merkel und ihrer hirnlosen Energiewende reicht sogar bis nach Schottland!

Schottland fällt 14 Millionen Bäume, um Platz für Windräder zu machen! | EIKE - Europäisches Institut für Klima & Energie

America's Privileged Policy Elites and Their Lack of Accountability

Very recommendable, with a few exceptions! 

The culmination of this lack of accountability is that the demented and senile 78 years old lifetime career politician and chronic liar for decades, is the 46th President of the U.S.

"It is increasingly apparent that America’s political and military elites are almost never held to account for their blunders or even outright crimes. The latest episode is the Pentagon’s multi‐​year campaign to conceal information about a March 2019 airstrike in Syria that killed as many as 64 civilians, including women and children. Despite the New York Times’ expose, there is no indication that the individuals responsible for that atrocity or the subsequent cover up will face any serious consequences.
The military’s behavior in that case is essentially the same as its obfuscation and reluctant backpedaling about the August 2021 drone strike in Kabul that killed an innocent aid worker and his family. At the time the attack took place, the Pentagon insisted that the targeted individual was a terrorist affiliated with ISIS‑K, and that “secondary explosions” after the drone missile hit the van he and the other passengers were riding in proved that the vehicle was carrying bombs and bomb‐​making components. Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, went out of his way to describe the drone response not just as a necessary military action, but as a “righteous strike.” ...
The latest episodes are reminiscent of the Navy’s behavior when one of its warships in the Persian Gulf, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian airliner with 290 people aboard in July 1988. Navy spokesmen initially insisted to a credulous news media that the Iranians were entirely responsible — that the flight took place outside the boundaries of the civilian air corridor, that the plane was not sending signals on a proper civilian transponder, and that the plane was descending in a potentially threatening manner toward the Navy vessel. All of those statements were false. Even when the truth finally began to emerge months later, though, no disciplinary actions were taken against the individuals responsible for the tragedy or their colleagues who tried to cover it up. Indeed, some of them were awarded medals. ...
Several cases in recent years confirm that corrupt reality, especially the sweetheart deals given to Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, Samuel R “Sandy” Berger, former CIA director David Petraeus, and FBI assistant general counsel Kevin Clinesmith. ....
A similar sweetheart deal occurred in January 2021, when federal judge James Boasberg sentenced Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted falsifying evidence submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for a warrant to spy on onetime [President] Trump foreign‐​policy adviser Carter Page. Clinesmith’s principal offense was altering an email (which confirmed that Page had been a CIA source) to create one that said the exact opposite. One might think that committing forgery to mislead the FISA court so that the bogus Russia collusion investigation could continue would be considered a serious, criminal offense, but apparently it was not deemed so. Boasberg sentenced Clinesmith to 12 months’ probation and 400 hours of community service. ..."

America's Privileged Policy Elites and Their Lack of Accountability | Cato Institute Given that the institutions guilty of such misconduct are not held to account, it is hardly surprising that the leaders of those power centers enjoy similar immunity.

China Relaxes Cabotage Rules While the United States Clings to Outdated Protectionism

Recommendable! Libertarian think tanks like to harp on the Jones Act! 😄

"... Although details remain scant, it appears that China will permit foreign vessels to engage in cargo relay by which cargo is transported by a company between two ports within a country and then transferred to another vessel owned by the same company for shipment abroad (or the reverse). To be conducted on a trial basis through the end of 2024, the liberalized rules will apply to the transportation of containers from the ports of Dalian, Tianjin, and Qingdao to Shanghai’s Yangshan port (the world’s busiest). ...

Not so the United States, which is subject to the onerous Jones Act. Deemed the world’s most restrictive cabotage law by the World Economic Forum, the Jones Act limits domestic waterborne cargo transport to vessels that are U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built, and mostly U.S.-crewed and owned. Such vessels are significantly more expensive to build and operate than internationally-flagged ships, which no doubt helps explain the lack of cargo relay and transshipment in the United States. ...  Instead, essentially all movement of containers between ports in the contiguous United States, including import and export containers, occurs by truck or train. ..."

China Relaxes Cabotage Rules While the United States Clings to Outdated Protectionism | Cato at Liberty Blog

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization by Victor Davis Hansen

Very recommendable! VDH is fuming!

"... For the first time in memory, conservatives now connect the FBI hierarchy with bureaucratic bloat, political bias, and even illegality.

In the last five years, the FBI was mostly in the news for the checkered careers of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok. Add in the criminality of convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

The colossal FBI-driven “Russian collusion” hoax was marked by the leaking of confidential FBI memos, forged documents, improper surveillance, and serial disinformation.

Prior heads of the CIA and FBI, as well as the director of national intelligence, have at times either not told the truth under oath or claimed amnesia, without legal repercussions. ...

Mention the military to conservative Americans these days, and they unfortunately associate its leadership with the disastrous flight from Afghanistan. Few, if any, high-ranking officers have yet taken responsibility—much less resigned—for the worst military fiasco of the last half-century.

Instead, President Joe Biden and the top generals traded charges that the other was responsible for the calamity. Or both insisted the abject flight was a logistical masterpiece.

Never in U.S. history have so many retired four-star admirals and generals disparaged their president [President Trump] with charges of being either a traitor, a liar, a fascist, or a virtual Nazi, as occurred during the last administration. ...
Never has the secretary of defense promised he would ferret out alleged “white supremacists,” without providing any evidence whatsoever of their supposedly ubiquitous presence and dangerous conspiracies. ...

Many in the media ran uncritically with the Jussie Smollett concoction and the “hands-up-don’t shoot” Ferguson distortions. Journalists promulgated misinformation about the “white Hispanic” George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin encounter, and doctored photos and edited tapes.

They invented the myth of the supposedly brilliant—but now utterly disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—as well as the “Russian disinformation” yarn that allegedly accounted for the missing Hunter Biden laptop. ..."

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization

Prospera: erste freie Privatstadt der Welt

Good news! Auf nach Prospera! 

"In Próspera sieht es aus wie im Paradies. Das Karibische Meer plätschert in türkisblauen Farben vor sich hin, in den tropischen Gärten zwitschern die Vögel. Eine Gruppe libertärer Investoren hat hier auf der honduranischen Insel Roatàn ein Stück Land erworben, um die erste Freie Privatstadt der Welt zu gründen. Maximal 50 000 Menschen sollen hier leben. Firmen sollen sich hier ansiedeln, aber auch Universitäten, Kliniken und Hotels. Um Dinge wie die Müllabfuhr, Bildung, Gesundheit, Strom- und Wasser sollen sich private Firmen kümmern. Die Stadt soll nach eigenen Gesetzen und mit einer eigenen Polizei funktionieren. Juristisch losgelöst aus dem honduranischen Staatsgebiet."

Prospera: erste freie Privatstadt der Welt - NZZ Akzent Zu Besuch in einer Stadt, in der ein Staat nichts zu melden hat. Auf einer idyllischen Insel in Honduras entsteht die erste Freie Privatstadt der Welt. Próspera. Ein Ort mit eigenen Gesetzen und einer eigenen Regierung. Dahinter steht eine Gruppe libertärer Kapitalisten, die den herkömmlichen Staat als gescheitert betrachtet.

Joschka Fischer: «Wenn Sie überzeugt sind, dass Atomenergie sauber ist, rate ich Ihnen zu einem Urlaub im Luftkurort Tschernobyl»

Dumm, dämliche Worte eines alternden Politikers! Er kann anscheinend mit dem dementen und senilen 46. Präsidenten der USA konkurrieren.

Etwa 441 Atomkraftwerke werden in etwa 30 verschiedenen Ländern betrieben. Seit einigen Jahrzehnten ist Kernkraft die zuverlässigste Form der Stromerzeugung!

Warum ist Tschernobyl der bisher schwerste Unfall, Herr Fischer? Weil Kommunisten sich nicht darum scheren was Menschenwürde und Menschenleben ist!

Joschka Fischer: Mit Gewalt geht Klimaschutz nicht Der frühere deutsche Aussenminister gilt als grüner «Realo»: Er gehört nicht zu denen, die behaupten, Klimaschutz sei zum Nulltarif zu haben. Nur bei einem Thema fällt ihm das Gespräch schwer: wenn er Schweizern die EU näherbringen soll.

Poop transplant rejuvenates brain of old mice

Amazing stuff! It has been reported multiple times over the past decades that fecal  transplants can be beneficial to health. Here is another research result confirming this!

"... transplanted the poop of 3 to 4-month-old mice into the intestines of 19- to 20-month-old mice. The age difference is equivalent to that between 18-year-old and 70-year-old humans.

After some time, the transplanted fecal bacteria colonized the guts of the elderly rodents, growing and expanding until the microflora of the young and old mice resembled each other. ...
that the results can be explained by the altered rejuvenated microbiome, with research over the past decade showing it plays a major role in brain function. Previously, Cryan’s team showed that introducing a specific strain of Lactobacillus bacteria into the guts of mice reduces levels of the stress hormone corticosterone and reduces anxiety and depression.
The effects of the poop transplant could also be seen in the brain’s physiology. When the researchers examined the brains of older mice they found that the hippocampus — a region of the brain associated with forming and storing memories — resembled that of young mice. Essentially, the fecal transplant helped reverse neurodegenerative effects in the brain. ..."

From the abstract:

"The gut microbiota is increasingly recognized as an important regulator of host immunity and brain health. The aging process yields dramatic alterations in the microbiota, which is linked to poorer health and frailty in elderly populations. However, there is limited evidence for a mechanistic role of the gut microbiota in brain health and neuroimmunity during aging processes. Therefore, we conducted fecal microbiota transplantation from either young (3–4 months) or old (19–20 months) donor mice into aged recipient mice (19–20 months). Transplant of a microbiota from young donors reversed aging-associated differences in peripheral and brain immunity, as well as the hippocampal metabolome and transcriptome of aging recipient mice. Finally, the young donor-derived microbiota attenuated selective age-associated impairments in cognitive behavior when transplanted into an aged host. ..."

Poop transplant rejuvenates brain of old mice

Microbiota from young mice counteracts selective age-associated behavioral deficits (no public access)

Airobotics has teamed with Zzap Malaria on a 12-month project to eradicate Malaria in São Tomé and Príncipe

Good news! Let the private sector do the eradication of this age old scourge! Can we finally get rid of Malaria and perhaps mosquitos!

"Israeli drones maker Airobotics has signed an agreement with Zzap Malaria, a developer of AI-based software for locating standing water, with the aim of working towards eradication of of malaria on the African continent.

Zzap Malaria's system maps the territory concerned and devises strategies for dealing with stagnant water. Airobotics will supply Zzap Malaria with a system for a first commercial project due to start in 2022 and to last twelve months in São Tomé and Príncipe in Central Africa. ..."

Airobotics in malaria eradication project in Africa

Super-Batterie: Forscher entwickeln ultraschnell aufladbaren Akku

Good news!

"... Die Wissenschaftler der University of Cambridge haben das Start-up Nyobolt gegründet und einen Energiespeicher gebaut, der Elektroautos an der Tankstelle konkurrenzfähig macht.  ...
Sie ersetzen das Graphit der Anode durch Niobwolframoxid (NWO). Das sorgt für eine höhere Beweglichkeit der Ionen. Erste Tests des Prototypen sind vielversprechend verlaufen. In fünf Minuten lädt der Akku auf mehr als 90 %. Außerdem wird weniger Wärme produziert als bei herkömmlichen Lithium-Ionen-Akkus. ...
Auch in Sachen Haltbarkeit besteht der Prototyp den Test: 90 % der ursprünglichen Kapazität konnte nach hunderten Ladezyklen beibehalten werden. ...
Bei der Entwicklung gibt es jedoch ein Aber: Niob und Wolfram sind zwar häufig vorkommende Elemente, dennoch kann es zu Problemen führen, Niobwolframoxid in ausreichender Menge zu beschaffen. Manche Nioberze und auch Wolfram gelten als sogenannte “Konfliktrohstoffe”. ..."

Super-Batterie: Forscher entwickeln ultraschnell aufladbaren Akku Cambridge-Forschende haben ein Material entdeckt, das eine extrem schnelle Aufladung von Akkus ermöglicht. Die Vorgehensweise ist dabei äußerst simpel.

Super fast-charging batteries are coming to high performance vehicles

Nybolt Nyobolt is commercializing high-power, ultra-fast-charging Li-ion batteries. The company’s technology builds on a decade of battery research led by University of Cambridge battery scientist Professor Clare Grey and is exclusively licensed from the University.  

“Zuckerbucks” and the 2020 Election

Very recommendable! A detailed account how Mark Zuckerberg and his wife spent $400 million dollars on the 2020 presidential election! I blogged here in December 2020 about it. This is probably unprecedented in U.S. history that one man spent so much money on a presidential election!

I hope, Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife are happy and content that we have a demented and senile 78 years old lifetime career politician and chronic liar for decades, the 46th President of the U.S. thanks to their massive intervention in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

"... A major part of this “conspiracy” to “save the 2020 election” was to use COVID as a pretext to maximize absentee and early voting. This effort was enormously successful. Nearly half of voters ended up voting by mail, and another quarter voted early. It was, Ball wrote, “practically a revolution in how people vote.” Another major part was to raise an army of progressive activists to administer the election at the ground level. Here, one billionaire in particular took a leading role: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. ...

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization led by Zuckerberg’s wife Priscilla, gave more than $400 million to nonprofit groups involved in “securing” the 2020 election. Most of those funds—colloquially called “Zuckerbucks”—were funneled through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a voter outreach organization founded by Tiana Epps-Johnson, Whitney May, and Donny Bridges. ...

Flush with $350 million in Zuckerbucks, the CTCL proceeded to disburse large grants to election officials and local governments across the country. These disbursements were billed publicly as “COVID-19 response grants,” ostensibly to help municipalities acquire protective gear for poll workers or otherwise help protect election officials and volunteers against the virus. In practice, relatively little money was spent for this. Here, as in other cases, COVID simply provided cover.
According to the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), Georgia received more than $31 million in Zuckerbucks, one of the highest amounts in the country. The three Georgia counties that received the most money spent only 1.3 percent of it on personal protective equipment. The rest was spent on salaries, laptops, vehicle rentals, attorney fees for public records requests, mail-in balloting, and other measures that allowed elections offices to hire activists to work the election. ...

Of all the 2020 battleground states, it is probably in Wisconsin where the most has been brought to light about how Zuckerbucks worked. 

CTCL distributed $6.3 million to the Wisconsin cities of Racine, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, and Kenosha—purportedly to ensure that voting could take place “in accordance with prevailing [anti-COVID] public health requirements.” ..."

“Zuckerbucks” and the 2020 Election - Imprimis

Omicron variant symptoms 'unusual but mild', says chair of the South African Medical Association

Finally, the we are reminded again that SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 is a relatively harmless disease! The disease is highly infectious, but not very dangerous! It is long overdue to return to essentially normal life like before the pandemic!

The seeming less endless panic and hysteria over the coronavirus must end! So must the shameless exploitation and artificial prolongation of this pandemic by governments and politicians for unrelated purposes like fighting climate change!

"The South African doctor who first sounded the alarm on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus said that its symptoms are “unusual but mild” in healthy patients — but she’s worried the strain could cause complications in the elderly and unvaccinated. ..."

Omicron variant symptoms 'unusual but mild', says South African doctor

Abraham Accords are helping Israel transform the Middle East

Recommendable! Blessed are the peacemakers! The legacy of President Trump is evolving!

The article is making some fun of the fool John Kerry (currently climate czar in the administration of the the demented and senile 78 years old lifetime career politician and chronic liar for decades, the 46th President of the U.S.):

"... John Kerry, the former US secretary of state currently serving as President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy, finally got to help hammer out and watch the signing of a Middle East agreement on Monday.

It wasn’t, however, an Israeli-Palestinian accord, one that former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon said Kerry was “obsessive and messianic” about brokering ...
The irony was striking since it was Kerry – in a terrible prediction that will always accompany a discussion of his Mideast diplomatic legacy – who famously said, at a conference in 2016, that Israel would never reach a separate peace with any Arab nation without first signing an agreement with the Palestinians. ..."

"... Under this accord, a government-owned UAE firm will build a massive solar energy facility in southern Jordan, which will then sell the energy to Israel. Israel, in turn, will either build a new desalination plant or provide Jordan – via its current desalination facilities – with some 200 million cubic meters of water per year, quadrupling the amount of desalinated water it currently sells the Hashemite Kingdom. ...
The importance of what was signed on Monday goes beyond the supply of renewable energy to Israel and desalinated water to Jordan. This deal moves the benefits to be accrued from the Abraham Accords to other countries in the region, and not just to each of the Arab countries with which Israel reached an agreement: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. ..."

Abraham Accords are helping Israel transform the Middle East - The Jerusalem Post How the deal with the Gulf states is helping Israel improve relations with its ‘first generation’ of Arab partners.

One of the two onlookers in the background is the fool John Kerry!

Elvis Presley: Bridge Over Troubled Water (with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)

Enjoy!  

Elvis Presley: My Way

Enjoy! I did it my way ... more than I could chew ... I loved and I cried ... Not in a shy way ... I took the blows ...

Elvis Presley: Can't Help Falling In Love

Enjoy! Only fools rush in ... I can't help ... Take my whole life too ... Some things are meant to be ... 

Elvis Presley: Love Me Tender

Enjoy! Tell me you are mine ...

Elvis Presley: Are You Lonesome Tonight

Enjoy! With emptiness all around ... Shall I come back again ...

Jackie Wilson: [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher & Higher

Enjoy! 

Stevie Wonder: Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)

Enjoy! Here I am! I did a lot of foolish things ...

Dionne Warwick: You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

Enjoy! Now its gone ... Love me like you used to do ... Don't throw it away ... I beg you please ... Bring back that loving feelin ...

Dionne Warwick: I'll Never Love This Way Again

Enjoy! So I keep holding on ...

3D printing living materials with bioink made entirely from bacteria

Amazing stuff!

"... For the first time, scientists have devised a microbial link entirely made out of bacteria, which can be used to print three-dimensional materials with unique properties, typical of living things. ...

Bioinks are materials used to produce engineered live tissue using 3D printing technology. They’re usually made of living cells enveloped in a 3D molecular scaffold, usually made from a biopolymer gel.

Unlike your typical 3D printer that extrudes an inanimate object based on the specifications of a digital model, bioinks produce tissue-like objects that are constantly morphing. ..."

From the abstract:

"... The emerging field of living materials has leveraged microbial engineering to produce materials for various applications but building 3D structures in arbitrary patterns and shapes has been a major challenge. Here we set out to develop a bioink, termed as “microbial ink” that is produced entirely from genetically engineered microbial cells, programmed to perform a bottom-up, hierarchical self-assembly of protein monomers into nanofibers, and further into nanofiber networks that comprise extrudable hydrogels. We further demonstrate the 3D printing of functional living materials by embedding programmed Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells and nanofibers into microbial ink, which can sequester toxic moieties, release biologics, and regulate its own cell growth through the chemical induction of rationally designed genetic circuits. In this work, we present the advanced capabilities of nanobiotechnology and living materials technology to 3D-print functional living architectures."

3D printing living materials with bioink made entirely from bacteria We're witnessing a revolution in materials engineering and manufacturing.

Programmable microbial ink for 3D printing of living materials produced from genetically engineered protein nanofibers (open access)

Kenosha-Urteil: Wäre ein Afroamerikaner auch freigesprochen worden?

Ein Beispiel für dumm, dämlicher deutscher Journalismus! Die rote, ideologische Brille dieses in New York City basierten Journalisten ist grösser als sein Gesicht! Die Einleitung zum Artikel ist pure Demagogie wie eines NAZI Propagandaministers Joseph Goebbels würdig!

Das die Redaktion der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung mitgespielt hat ist sehr bedauerlich! Der Artikel gehört in den Abfall!

Alleine der Begriff "Afroamerikaner" für sich genommen schon ziemlich problematisch! 

Kenosha-Urteil: Rittenhouse wird in USA Star der Rechten Bürgerrechtler in den USA kritisieren den Freispruch des 18-jährigen Kyle Rittenhouse, der in Kenosha bei einer Antirassismus-Demonstration zwei Menschen erschoss. Die amerikanische Rechte feiert Rittenhouse als Helden.

Dexterous robotic hands manipulate thousands of objects with ease

Solving Rubik's cube with a single robotic hand that was 2019!

Would it not be great to have a robot most of the domestic chores for you including meal preparation and cooking!

"... For this to work, the “teacher” network is trained on information about the object and robot that’s easily available in simulation, but not in the real world, such as the location of fingertips or object velocity. To ensure that the robots can work outside of the simulation, the knowledge of the “teacher” is distilled into observations that can be acquired in the real world, such as depth images captured by cameras, object pose, and the robot’s joint positions. They also used a “gravity curriculum,” where the robot first learns the skill in a zero-gravity environment, and then slowly adapts the controller to the normal gravity condition, which, when taking things at this pace, really improved the overall performance. ..."

From the abstract:

"In-hand object reorientation has been a challenging problem in robotics due to high dimensional actuation space and the frequent change in contact state between the fingers and the objects. We present a simple model-free framework that can learn to reorient objects with both the hand facing upwards and downwards. We demonstrate the capability of reorienting over 2000 geometrically different objects in both cases. The learned policies show strong zero-shot transfer performance on new objects ..."

Dexterous robotic hands manipulate thousands of objects with ease | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Model-free framework reorients over 2,000 diverse objects with a hand facing both upward and downward, in a step toward more human-like manipulation.

A System for General In-Hand Object Re-Orientation (open access)

Just 3 minutes of red light therapy improves declining eyesight due to old age

Good news! However, what are the long-term effects of this therapy? How often would this therapy need to be repeated?

"... Deep red light, which has a wavelength of 670 nanometers, enhances the function of mitochondria ... When water encounters this wavelength, it absorbs its energy, which raises the frequency of vibration of the water molecules.

Since a type of molecular structure within the mitochondria, known as the ATP synthase pump, is bathed in water, the extra energy allows these pumps to rotate faster and release more energy into the biological cell. ...
The human retina ages faster than other organs due to its high density of mitochondria, with a 70% ATP reduction over a person’s lifetime. The degeneration is particularly noticeable from around 40 years of age. ..."

From the abstract:

"Mitochondrial decline in ageing robs cells of ATP. However, animal studies show that long wavelength exposure (650–900 nm) over weeks partially restores ATP and improves function. The likely mechanism is via long wavelengths reducing nanoscopic interfacial water viscosity around ATP rota pumps, improving their efficiency. Recently, repeated 670 nm exposures have been used on the aged human retina, which has high-energy demands and significant mitochondrial and functional decline, to improve vision. We show here that single 3 min 670 nm exposures, at much lower energies than previously used, are sufficient to significantly improve for 1 week cone mediated colour contrast thresholds (detection) in ageing populations (37–70 years) to levels associated with younger subjects. But light needs to be delivered at specific times. In environments with artificial lighting humans are rarely dark-adapted, hence cone function becomes critical. This intervention, demonstrated to improve aged mitochondrial function can be applied to enhance colour vision in old age."

Just 3 minutes of red light therapy improves declining eyesight due to old age

Weeklong improved colour contrasts sensitivity after single 670 nm exposures associated with enhanced mitochondrial function | Scientific Reports (open access)

Inside Lalibela, the mysterious holy site visited by 200,000 Ethiopian Christians on their annual pilgrimage

Very recommendable! The Jerusalem of Africa. Queen of Sheba

New COVID-19 variant: How dangerous is Omicron?

Supposedly up to 500% more infectious than Delta!

I am already scared to death and I pee in my pants! (Caution: Irony, sarcasm)

Why I think that SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 is a relative harmless disease.

Why African nations failed after independence | Thomas Sowell

Very recommendable!

The contrasting manifestations of Islam: from Afghanistan to Morocco

Recommendable! Morocco is a very different Arab and Islamic country!

"... As a predominantly Sunni Muslim state, Morocco’s version exudes two important aspects in its promotion of an amiable Islam at the societal level. One is that the hereditary King Mohammed VI, whose lineage is traced back to the Prophet, has used his title of ‘Commander of the Faithful’ and protector of Islam, along with his extraordinary constitutional powers, to promote an anti-extremist or what some might call ‘progressive’ Islam. He has pursued this aim using a two-pronged approach that enables Islamists, formally and informally, to participate in the political arena while regulating their religious tone and dispositions in accord with the changing times.

He has leveraged the constitutionally enshrined multiparty electoral system of governance to provide the Islamists with participatory space in the political arena. In the five-yearly parliamentary elections, the Islamist Justice and Development Party is permitted to contest, along with other parties from the right, centre and left of the spectrum, for 325 seats, with the king appointing the prime minister as head of the government from the party that wins the largest number of seats. In the 2021 elections, the Islamist party suffered a historic defeat by winning only 13 seats. Yet, the fact that it is given the same opportunity as the other parties to contest the elections, as regulated as they may have been, is in contrast to many other Arab states where the Islamist parties are either banned or totally politically marginalised. ..."

The contrasting manifestations of Islam: from Afghanistan to Morocco | The Strategist

Millimeter wave radiation can kill COVID-19 and polio virus, Israeli study shows

Interesting study, but is this method practical to use in every day life the study won't say!

"... It does not appear that the technology can currently target the virus in the human body, “but it can be very useful for rooms, equipment and all forms of surfaces that need to be clear from any virus and coronavirus specifically,” ...

the big advantage offered by millimeter waves is that they can disinfect a surface very fast. ...

The radiation is also very gentle on the surfaces, neither heating them nor affecting them, and therefore can be used on delicate surfaces such as electronic equipment.

The scientists also tried the same technology with the poliovirus and obtained similar results. ...

For the future, the researchers are focusing on applying the technique to disinfect water. ..."

From the abstract:

"... However, their efficiency in object decontamination for viruses has not been tested yet. Here we report the high efficiency of 95 GHz waves in killing both coronavirus 229E and poliovirus. An exposure of 2 s to 95 GHz waves reduced the titer of these viruses by 99.98% and 99.375%, respectively, and formed holes in the envelope of 229E virions as detected by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. ..."

Special radiation can kill COVID-19 and polio virus, Israeli study shows - The Jerusalem Post Millimeter waves can be used as an effective tool to kill over 99% of the pathogens on different surfaces in two seconds, research by Ariel University scholars indicates.

Corona and polio viruses are sensitive to short pulses of W-band gyrotron radiation (open access)

Scientists Discover Sugar Molecule on HIV-infected Cell That Plays a Role in Evading Immune System

Good news!

"The findings, published in PLOS Pathogens, could lead to new treatments that don’t just suppress HIV-infected cells, but kill them. That would be a key step toward finally curing HIV. ...
[researchers] looked at a type of sugar found on the surface of HIV cells called sialic acid. These sugars can trigger inhibitors on disease-fighting "killer" immune cells, shutting them down before they attack. ... that these HIV-infected cells are covering themselves with these sugars to evade immune surveillance ...

The researchers used an enzyme that removed the sialic acid. This caused the immune cells to attack and destroy the HIV. 

"The killer cells become a super killer for the HIV-infected cells," ...

Current treatments can reduce HIV to undetectable levels, but they can’t eradicate it entirely. The disease typically returns quickly when treatment stops. ..."

From the abstract:

"Siglec-9 is an MHC-independent inhibitory receptor expressed on a subset of natural killer (NK) cells. Siglec-9 restrains NK cytotoxicity by binding to sialoglycans (sialic acid-containing glycans) on target cells. Despite the importance of Siglec-9 interactions in tumor immune evasion, their role as an immune evasion mechanism during HIV infection has not been investigated. Using in vivo phenotypic analyses, we found that Siglec-9+ CD56dim NK cells, during HIV infection, exhibit an activated phenotype with higher expression of activating receptors and markers (NKp30, CD38, CD16, DNAM-1, perforin) and lower expression of the inhibitory receptor NKG2A, compared to Siglec-9- CD56dim NK cells. We also found that levels of Siglec-9+ CD56dim NK cells inversely correlate with viral load during viremic infection and CD4+ T cell-associated HIV DNA during suppressed infection. Using in vitro cytotoxicity assays, we confirmed that Siglec-9+ NK cells exhibit higher cytotoxicity towards HIV-infected cells compared to Siglec-9- NK cells. These data are consistent with the notion that Siglec-9+ NK cells are highly cytotoxic against HIV-infected cells. However, blocking Siglec-9 enhanced NK cells’ ability to lyse HIV-infected cells, consistent with the known inhibitory function of the Siglec-9 molecule. Together, these data support a model in which the Siglec-9+ CD56dim NK subpopulation is highly cytotoxic against HIV-infected cells even whilst being restrained by the inhibitory effects of Siglec-9. To harness the cytotoxic capacity of the Siglec-9+ NK subpopulation, which is dampened by Siglec-9, we developed a proof-of-concept approach to selectively disrupt Siglec/sialoglycan interactions between NK and HIV-infected cells. We achieved this goal by conjugating Sialidase to several HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies. These conjugates selectively desialylated HIV-infected cells and enhanced NK cells’ capacity to kill them.  ..."

Wistar Scientists Discover Sugar Molecule on HIV-infected Cell That Plays a Role in Evading Immune System All cells have an outer layer of sugar molecules ... Now a new study by Wistar scientists shows how these sugars play a key role in helping HIV cells evade the immune system. The study also shows how this mechanism can be disabled

Siglec-9 defines and restrains a natural killer subpopulation highly cytotoxic to HIV-infected cells

Study digs up roles bacteria play in global carbon cycle

Global Warming is a hoax! Climate Change is a religion! Climate models are junk!

There are so many important things affecting climate we do not understand very well! This is one of them!

"... That’s important because soil bacteria are notorously difficult to study, though they are a key to the health of our biosphere. They convert plant biomass into soil organic matter, which is the basis for soil fertility and which holds three times more carbon than the atmosphere. In this way, bacteria control how much carbon ends up in the atmosphere or stored in soil and every year soil microbes process about six times more carbon than all anthropogenic emissions combined.

Improving our knowledge of the roles bacteria play in carbon cycling will ultimately help climate modelers develop more accurate predictions. ...
One of the biggest uncertainties in computer models that predict the carbon cycle and climate change is that so little is understood about how soil bacteria operate and influence carbon in the soil ..."

Study digs up roles bacteria play in global carbon cycle | Cornell Chronicle

Multisubstrate DNA stable isotope probing reveals guild structure of bacteria that mediate soil carbon cycling (no public access)

Nepal - Snowland children

Very recommendable! An unusual documentary! What a breathtakingly beautiful country! Tough land, tough choices, tough love! Strong women!

A Buddhist founded school in the capital of Nepal for the brightest, from poorest families and some of the remotest children of the country. Many of these children will never see their parents again, because they are too far away and it is too difficult, too expensive to travel.

TURKS vs SAUDIS: the FIGHT for the CONTROL of the MIDDLE EAST

Recommendable!

Henry Abramson: Origins of the Jews of the Americas

Recommendable! Fascinating! Early Jews, who settled in what became New York City were asked to take care of their own poor people.

2-million-year-old bones shed light on human spine and bipedalism

Amazing stuff!

"Modern humans have been evolving and developing the ability to walk upright for over two million years, new research into a fossilized spine of an early human ancestor has revealed. ...
The structure of the fossilized A. MH2 vertebrae suggests that the A. sediba would have walked comfortably on two legs, but other aspects of the species' bone structure indicate that it would probably still have spent a significant amount of time climbing trees. The knee and ankle bones of the A. sediba "demonstrate clear evidence for bipedal locomotion," the study states, explaining that they possess human-like traits such as the ankle joint and the angle of the femur bone. Most importantly, the well-preserved MH2 spine indicates a clear curvature, more so than any other early human fossil, backing up the hypothesis that the species was well adapted to walking on two legs. ...

The upper body of the A. sediba was still well-equipped for climbing, with powerful trunk musculature that would have been suited for climbing and traveling via treetops rather than on the ground. Its shoulder blade is most similar to that of an orangutan, and it has an elongated humerus bone much like non-human ape species.

What is notable, however, is that, as mentioned in a 2011 study, the hand features a relatively long thumb and short fingers, similar to modern humans, indicating the ability to create complex stone tools. ..."

2-million-year-old bones shed light on human spine - The Jerusalem Post The Australopithecus sediba is estimated to have lived nearly two million years ago and is thought to be a predecessor to the Homo genus, to which modern humans – Homo sapiens – belong.

New fossils of Australopithecus sediba reveal a nearly complete lower back (open access)

Ampel-Koalition: Das steht im Koalitionsvertrag

Wie es sich für eine Bananenrepublik gehört! Ein Dokument das der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands viel Freude bereitet hätte! Zentralplanwirtschaft steht ganz oben an wegen dem Klimawahn!

Schon der offizielle Titel "Mehr Fortschritt wagen!" klingt reichlich abgedroschen und ziemlich einfallslos!

Die FDP wäre besser beraten gewesen dieser Regierung fernzubleiben! 

Hier einige Beispiele:

1. Solardachpflicht im sonnigen Deutschland???
2. Wahlalter auf 16 Jahre senken??? Mit 16 Jahren hatte ich wenig Ahnung von Politik. Was für ein Unsinn!
3. Superabschreibungen bei Investitionen in den Klimaschutz???
4. „Deutschlandtakt“ sollen künftig die Züge zwischen den größten Städten im Halbstundentakt fahren.
5. Mindestlohn von zwölf Euro geeinigt. Der Mindestlohn wurde erst 2015 unter der SED Kanzlerin Merkel mit 8.50 Euro eingeführt, was damals schon ein enormer Fehler war!!!! Mindestlohn ist eine staatliche Preiskontrolle! Wie im Schlaraffenland man erhöhe einfach den Mindestlohn, wie schön!!! Abschaffen wäre angesagt!!!
6. Junge Menschen sollen eine Garantie auf einen Ausbildungsplatz bekommen??? Mehr Wohlfahrt für alle vom Staat!
7. Mietpreisbremse wird verlängert, der Anstieg von Mieten in besonders schwierigen Wohnungsmärkten soll auf elf Prozent über einen Zeitraum von insgesamt drei Jahren begrenzt werden. Neben Mindestlohn, weitere staatliche Preiskontrollen, wie in der DDR!
8. Die  Außenpolitik soll  „deutsche Interessen im Lichte europäischer Interessen“ definieren. Was für ein Wischiwaschi!
   
9. "Es heißt dazu, „wir wollen, dass Deutschland im Sinne eines vernetzten und inklusiven Ansatzes langfristig drei Prozent seines Bruttoinlandsproduktes in internationales Handeln investiert, so seine Diplomatie und seine Entwicklungspolitik stärkt und seine in der NATO eingegangenen Verpflichtungen erfüllt“. Damit ist das Zwei-Prozent-Ausgabenziel, dem sich Deutschland gegenüber der NATO verpflichtet hat, nicht aufgegeben"
   Bleiben also 1% fuer internationales Handeln? Wie vermessen und absurd!
10. "Zur Türkei heißt es einerseits, die EU-Beitrittsverhandlungen sollten faktisch eingefroren werden, andererseits sei „die EU-Türkei-Dialogagenda mit Leben zu füllen“." Ohne Worte!
11. "Es soll eine „umfassende China-Strategie“ erarbeitet werden, „um in der systemischen Rivalität mit China unsere Werte und Interessen verwirklichen zu können“." Ohne Worte!

Ampel-Koalition: Das steht im Koalitionsvertrag

Ministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, Vizekanzler: Robert Habeck

Eine im Klimawahn und Coronawahn verhaftete Bananenrepublik konnte nicht umhin, die Wirtschaft mit sog. "Klimaschutz" zu verquasten!

Ludwig Erhard dreht sich im Grab herum! Seine Zigarre hatte er längst ausgespuckt! Walter Eucken kennt keiner mehr usw. Freie Marktwirtschaft seit vielen Jahren beerdigt!

Die Mauer ist gefallen und der Sozialismus hat gesiegt in ganz Deutschland! Vielen Dank an die 16 Jahre mit der SED Kanzlerin Merkel!

Auswärtiges Amt: Annalena Baerbock

Wenn man den Bock zum Gärtner (Aussenminister) macht! Was für eine Fehlbesetzung. FDP wiedermal geschlafen! Alles ist möglich in der Bananenrepublik. 

Wer glaubt das wegen der EU, das deutsche Außenministerium nur noch eine nachgeordnete Rolle oder Nebenrolle spielt, täuscht sich gewaltig! Ein erstklassiger deutscher Außenminister kann viel bewegen zum Vorteil der Menschheit. Ein ideologischer Hohlkopf, wie Frau Baerbock wohl weniger! 

Tichy's Einblick argumentiert: "Womöglich könnten die Grünen ihre Kandidatin, die hierzulande in jeden Fettnapf trat, international auslagern. Vielleicht ist aber das Außenministerium auch deswegen der beste Posten für Baerbock, weil das Auswärtige Amt schon lange nicht mehr die Bedeutung von einst hat."