Very recommendable! Amazing stuff! A huge temple with seven towers, one for each emirate. About 30% of the population of the UAE are from India.
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Who’s Buying Nebraska? After shopping spree, Mormon church is top land purchaser
What are the Mormons up to? Or is Nebraska such a backwater that a few land purchases by the Mormons make a splash?
"... Farmland Reserve Inc., a nonprofit owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, has been quietly buying up ranch land in Nebraska’s Sandhills for the past three decades.
The Garden County shopping spree, coupled with more buys in four neighboring counties, made the church Nebraska’s top single buyer of land in the past five years.
The church bought a whopping 57,500 acres – double the amount of the second largest buyer– between 2018 and 2022, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of data gathered by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications data journalism class. ..."
Credits: Salt Lake Tribune Mormon Land
After criticism for Biden skipping global climate summit, White House to send Kamala Harris. Really!
What to expect from a senile, demented and corrupt 46th President!
Yes, send Mistress Kamala to this COP28 show and extravaganza in the name of the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion. Her giggle will make all the difference!
China is running an operation to get Americans hooked on illegal drugs, former DEA boss warns
This has been known for many years! Why is the U.S. doing so little about it. The role of Mexico also needs to be investigated and countered more.
Supposedly, the former Soviet Union was also involved in similar activities.
Not very long ago, such efforts of subversion would have been considered a casus belli (cause for war).
Make no mistake: China is not the only reason for widespread drug addiction in the U.S.
Chart of the day
Patent registration for electric vehicles world wide! Notice how strong China is, ranked no. 3 after Japan and Germany.
Babies’ brains start to learn language before they’re born
Amazing stuff!
"Fetuses gain the ability to hear sometime between five and seven months gestation. Previous studies had indicated that during this time, they learn to recognize the sounds of music and speaking voices they hear. But whether they really pick up on the language in either has remained unclear. So, researchers fitted one- to five-day-old newborns with electroencephalography (EEG) caps to measure their brain activity. Then they played kids’ stories in English, Spanish, and French—the last of which was their parents’ language. When the French story came at the end, the newborns’ brains reacted differently, exhibiting brain wave patterns that suggested they were already primed to learn their parent’s tongue, according to the authors.
“These results provide the most compelling evidence to date that language experience already shapes the functional organization of the infant brain, even before birth,” the team writes. ..."
From the abstract:
"Human infants acquire language with notable ease compared to adults, but the neural basis of their remarkable brain plasticity for language remains little understood. Applying a scaling analysis of neural oscillations to address this question, we show that newborns’ electrophysiological activity exhibits increased long-range temporal correlations after stimulation with speech, particularly in the prenatally heard language, indicating the early emergence of brain specialization for the native language."
Babies’ Brains Are Primed for Their Native Language Before Birth
Fig. 1. Illustration of the experimental paradigm and the analysis pipeline.
Snakes had legs some 70 millions of years ago. This gene may explain how they lost their limbs
I am glad humans did not loose their legs during evolution!
What did rattle snakes have millions of years ago? 😊
"In a quest to decode the secrets of snake evolution, ... a herpetologist at the Chengdu Institute of Biology, sequenced the genomes of 14 snake species. These species span 150 million years of evolution. They also looked at an additional 11 previously sequenced snake genomes. ...
The result is an unprecedented treasure trove of genetic data that is robust enough to uncover patterns that were previously hidden. Li’s team identified significant DNA alterations in a gene called PTCH1, which governs limb development. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Comprehensive chromosome-level assembly of representative snake genomes
• Reveals the genetic basis of limb loss, elongated body, and asymmetrical lungs
• Genomic variation drives blind and infrared-sensitive snake specialization
• Functional experiments validate the comparative genomic discoveries
Summary
Snakes are a remarkable squamate lineage with unique morphological adaptations, especially those related to the evolution of vertebrate skeletons, organs, and sensory systems. To clarify the genetic underpinnings of snake phenotypes, we assembled and analyzed 14 de novo genomes from 12 snake families. We also investigated the genetic basis of the morphological characteristics of snakes using functional experiments. We identified genes, regulatory elements, and structural variations that have potentially contributed to the evolution of limb loss, an elongated body plan, asymmetrical lungs, sensory systems, and digestive adaptations in snakes. We identified some of the genes and regulatory elements that might have shaped the evolution of vision, the skeletal system and diet in blind snakes, and thermoreception in infrared-sensitive snakes. Our study provides insights into the evolution and development of snakes and vertebrates."
Graphical abstract:
Syrer zu Kurden in Tegel: „Wir schneiden euch die Köpfe ab“
Immer was los in der Bananenrepublik D.! Ausländische Einwanderer bringen natürlich auch ihre alten Feindschaften, Vorurteile, etc. mit!
Man könnte meinen so lange die Einwanderer den Kopf von Kanzler Scholz noch dran lassen ist ja alles in bester Ordnung.
Nachruf auf Henry Kissinger - Ein Glücksfall für Deutschland
Empfehlenswert! R.I.P.
Image of the day
R.I.P. Was Kissinger laughing because the German chancellor Helmut Schmidt had troubles lightening up his pipe? 😊
Credits: Ein Glücksfall für Deutschland
Taiwan to continue shifting investment away from China
Good news! Smart move! Safer to diversify!
"Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua says Taiwanese companies have reached a milestone in investing more in Southeast and South Asia than China for the first time in 2022. ..."
English for trippers: Amok on the hammock ends in havoc
When was the last time you have been on a hammock?
Out of amok comes havoc!
The obsession with social bias in public discourse
Another one of those tremendously annoying signs of the times! Ideology gone amok again!
According to the media, academia and others there is bias everywhere! Be guilty!
Certainly an authoritarian attempt to sanitize language!
Saudi Arabia offered to increase investments in the Iranian economy
What!
If confirmed, then this seems to be somewhat bizarre. What is the motive?
"Saudi Arabia offered to increase investments in the Iranian economy if Iran reins in its proxies and prevents the Israel-Hamas war from turning into a regional conflict, according to Arab and Western officials."
Why Does My ‘Efficient’ Dishwasher Takes almost 3 hours for a Load?
This insanity of super slow consumer dishwashers has been going on for decades due to Big Government overregulation!
Any restaurant with a dishwasher this slow would go bankrupt immediately! Why are restaurants allowed to have fast dishwashers (like one load in under 5-10 minutes and with hot water)?
"The average standard cycle time for a dishwasher has increased from around 70 minutes in 1983 to 160 minutes this year, according to research by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. ..."
How Shein Took Over 40% of American Fast Fashion in Six Years
Recommendable! Rapid an demand production and super fast design combined with taking advantage of the de minims exemption.
Ukraine's Farmers Risk Their Lives Clearing The World's Largest Minefield With Drones And Robots
Very recommendable, but horrible! It is estimated that about 20,000 people in the Ukraine had to undergo amputations. The highest number in Europe since World War I.
The Ukraine was famous for being a bread basket to the world until the invasion by Putin the Terrible!
It will probably take decades to rebuild the enormous Ukrainian agriculture sector!
Can you imagine a big milk cow killed by stepping on a mine. This too is mentioned in the video.
'Go f**k yourself': Elon Musk blasts 'blackmailing' advertisers boycotting X
Not shy of controversy! But is it good for business! Twitter cost him $44 billion!
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Henry Kissinger has died at 100. See the moments that defined his career
R.I.P. A remarkable career and great achievements! He will be missed!
Compare him e.g. to Anthony Blinken! What a joke!
Chinese Athletes as Young as Seven Undergo Military Training with Palki Sharma
Nothing unusual! Very typical for current and former communist countries!
Our Galaxy's Black Hole Spins Fast, Alters Space-Time with Palki Sharma
Recommendable! Yes, we still know very little about black holes.
Mehrfach Ausgelacht im Bundestag: Scholz flieht aus Bundestag!
Köstlich! Typisch Bananenrepublik D.!
Image of the day
Medical ML/AI devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "The FDA had approved roughly 700 products as of July 2023."
Credits: The Batch by Andrew Ng
Indigenous Communities around the world Reclaim Health to break the cycles of historical trauma caused by colonization. Really!
As if indigenous peoples never were colonizers themselves!
This colonization propaganda and demagoguery is so annoying!
The Noble Savage stereotype is tiring and naive!
"Indigenous partners from around the globe are using their communal strengths to break the cycles of historical trauma caused by colonization—and improve health outcomes in their communities.
Since December 2022, a group including people from First Nations, Canada; Aboriginal peoples from Australia; the Māori peoples from Aotearoa (New Zealand); and Indigenous hosts from the southwestern U.S., and Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health have been collaborating. ..."
‘We Are All Connected’ Indigenous peoples are overcoming centuries of colonization by reclaiming the health of children and families.
France to ban smoking on beaches, in parks, forests, and other public areas as it seeks to avoid 75,000 tobacco-related deaths per year. Really!
Piecemeal government prohibition! If government can ban smoking it can ban other things too!
President Macron is a little dictator!
The witch hunt against smokers continues! Government paternalism over individual freedom!
"... Legislators also intend to outlaw single-use disposable e-cigarettes, with an initial vote on a draft law to ban them expected in the National Assembly next month. ..."
After Hepatitis C Success, Egypt Looks to export its campaign to other countries in Africa
Good news!
"In a turnaround described as “nothing short of astounding,” Egypt—recently home to the world’s highest burden of hepatitis C—has quickly emerged as a global leader in fighting the disease.
Building on its massive public health campaign that’s on track to be the first country to achieve the WHO goal of eliminating the disease, Egypt is now launching a “health diplomacy” campaign in Africa. ...
Next, Africa: This year, Egypt is sharing its campaign beyond its borders—“for the greater benefit of humanity,” said Egypt’s health minister.
Ghana will be the first beneficiary, chosen for its investment in national health care.
Egypt is now setting up parallel hepatitis C programs in other countries including Chad and Sudan. ..."
12-year-old Hamas hostage was held at gunpoint so that he and other children hostages were forced to watch horrific documentary about the massacre
Only barbarians and Nazis would take little children as hostages!
If confirmed, then is again savagery beyond belief committed by Hamas!
When will the Arab people and Arab countries condemn and prosecute this kind of savagery!
"Hamas forced him to watch the uncensored October 7 documentary released by the IDF, she said.
The 12-year-old watched about 45 minutes of footage that portrays evidence of the gruesome attack carried out by Hamas terrorists. Many of the scenes take place in Nahal Oz where Eitan is from.
"They forced him and other children to watch it: the entire movie. Whenever another child would cry during the screening, they would threaten them with a rifle to silence them," Cohen explained.
"[They] would beat him," she said. ..."
Pope Francis cancels trip to global climate summit, Vatican cites flu, respiratory issues
Good news! What the heck is the Pope supposed to do at the COP28 extravaganza?
The almighty God had mercy with a foolish Pope!
Republicans in the U.S. Senate vow to oppose Israel, Ukraine package if it lacks U.S. border security measures
This kind of hardball gamble is understandable! But the stakes are high. All three causes are important!
The Democratic U.S. Senate leader Chuck Schumer (age 73) is about as senile and demented as the 46th President! He is not yet as crazy as former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi! He is a lifetime career politician since 1975.
"Senate Republicans are pushing back against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's plan to put a Ukraine and Israel supplemental foreign aid package up for a vote without including measures to better secure the U.S.-Mexico border. ..."
Is US Uninsured Crisis a Myth? A rhetorical question
Most likely so!
There is also plenty of philanthropy to help almost anyone with medical care!
"That might seem like an uncomfortably large figure. But consider another crucial fact. The overwhelming majority of uninsured residents — over 20 million — either have access to some form of subsidized health coverage or are in the country illegally. ..."
Military Intelligence Directorate head to resign due to Oct. 7 massacre
About time! This outrageous intelligence failure must have consequences! Israeli intelligence services were thought to be one of the best in the world.
This intelligence failure was probably due to terrible misjudgment. There were too many warnings triggered by years of Hamas activity.
"... According to assessments based on the intelligence gathered prior to October 7 and indications of Hamas exercises near the border ... Military Intelligence estimated that most likely these were routine exercises by the terrorist organization's military wing, similar to the months preceding the attack. ..."
IDF Military Intelligence commander Aharon Haliva in Tel Aviv, November 4, 2022
Wall Street’s ESG Craze Is Fading
Good and long overdue news! The so called environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles are not much more than half baked ideology!
Manias and bubbles usually come to an end eventually in the markets! Trust the self correcting power of the free markets!
"Wall Street rushed to embrace sustainable investing just a few years ago. Now it is quietly closing funds or scrubbing their names after disappointing returns that have investors cashing out billions. ..."
Taiwan engages in gastrodiplomacy!
Winning the hearts and minds through stomachs! Bon appetit! 吃好喝好
As they say make culinary love not war!
"China’s continual efforts to squeeze Taiwan out of the international community limit Taiwan’s options for connecting with the outside world through traditional diplomatic channels. Not only does this undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, but the resulting diplomatic isolation has also created a general lack of awareness regarding Taiwan around the globe. One of the most valuable cultural assets that Taiwan could utilize to gain more global awareness—as well as to distinguish itself from China—is its vast culinary tradition. Gastrodiplomacy ... describes as “the act of winning hearts and minds through stomachs,” presents an invaluable opportunity for Taiwan to enhance its nation branding by connecting foreign audiences with its diverse cuisine. ..."
Robots that scale skyscrapers to clean and check for damage
Yes, let robots do something useful and dangerous!
"There are 9,000 skyscrapers in Hong Kong. All of them need their windows and exteriors – what’s known colloquially as “the skin” – cleaned on a regular basis. ..."
Protect your high rise investments Our robot continuously cleans and scans building exteriors, allowing building owners to proactively maintain and upkeep their buildings — faster, less costly and a lot smarter.
Learning about the culture of the Ukraine since the beginning of the war at Cornell University
Good news!
"A few times a week, songs from Ukraine can be heard coming from a classroom in Goldwin Smith Hall, as Cornell’s Ukrainian program brings the country’s culture to campus through language learning, folk tradition and history.
The effort is led by Krystyna Golovakova, visiting lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature in the College of Arts and Sciences, a native of Ukraine and a recent refugee from the war-torn nation. ..."
Kimawahnsinnige Baerbock: „Jede Tonne CO2, die ein Land ausstößt, schadet uns allen“. Wirklich!
Wie blöd ist diese Frau eigentlich!
Der sog. Klimawandel ist der grösste Skandal im letzten halben Jahrhundert! Warum lassen sich die deutschen Bürger so verarschen!
Global Warming is a hoax and Climate Change is a religion!
Mud plumes from deep-sea mining could stress out jellyfish. Really!
Alarmism and hysteria! Can you imagine the horrors for these creatures of the sea!
Perhaps jellyfish can just move away a short distance!
This research is only based on simulation!
How easy is it to prevent these plumes from forming?
Fig. 4: Illustrated health rating based on the amount of sediment aggregated on the bell and mucus produced.
Der Weidel-Hammer im Bundestag: "Was haben Sie da auf unser Volk losgelassen?"
Sehr empfehlenswert! Wie lange wird Olaf Scholz noch Kanzler bleiben? Wann wird die FDP endlich aus der Koalition aussteigen?
Tunisia steps up cooperation with China in the digital space
China's influence in Africa is growing!
Love letter from Jimmy to Rosalynn Carter read by their daughter, Amy Lynn
Recommendable! The very frail Jimmy Carter was in attendance. So was Melania Trump!
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Finland to close border with Russia for two weeks
Tensions are rising! As of last week Finland left one border crossing open. Not anymore! Russia is deliberately trafficking hundreds of illegal immigrants to the Finnish border.
India to add $5 billion aircraft carrier to fleet to counter China
The arms race in Asia between India and China is on!
Deep space travel may cause long-lasting erectile dysfunction
Men beware! Perhaps a good excuse to send more women into space?
Or do we need robots in the future?
Well, this was only tested on rats in simulated space flight! May not or not fully apply to human males! (just kidding)
"... Adding to the growing research into the effects of long-haul spaceflights on the human body, researchers have found that the weightlessness and radiation exposure accompanying deep space travel can cause long-lasting erectile dysfunction. With crewed space missions planned for the near future, the findings highlight the importance of considering astronauts’ sexual health. ...
The researchers simulated four weeks of spaceflight in 86 adult male rats, including weightlessness and exposure to varying levels of deep space galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), ..."
The researchers simulated four weeks of spaceflight in 86 adult male rats, including weightlessness and exposure to varying levels of deep space galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), ..."
From the abstract:
"There has been growing interest within the space industry for long-duration manned expeditions to the Moon and Mars. During deep space missions, astronauts are exposed to high levels of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) and microgravity which are associated with increased risk of oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction. Oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction are causative factors in the pathogenesis of erectile dysfunction, although the effects of spaceflight on erectile function have been unexplored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of simulated spaceflight and long-term recovery on tissues critical for erectile function, the distal internal pudendal artery (dIPA), and the corpus cavernosum (CC). Eighty-six adult male Fisher-344 rats were randomized into six groups and exposed to 4-weeks of hindlimb unloading (HLU) or weight-bearing control, and sham (0Gy), 0.75 Gy, or 1.5 Gy of simulated GCR at the ground-based GCR simulator at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory. Following a 12–13-month recovery, ex vivo physiological analysis of the dIPA and CC tissue segments revealed differential impacts of HLU and GCR on endothelium-dependent and -independent relaxation that was tissue type specific. GCR impaired non-adrenergic non-cholinergic (NANC) nerve-mediated relaxation in the dIPA and CC, while follow-up experiments of the CC showed restoration of NANC-mediated relaxation of GCR tissues following acute incubation with the antioxidants mito-TEMPO and TEMPOL, as well as inhibitors of xanthine oxidase and arginase. These findings indicate that simulated spaceflight exerts a long-term impairment of neurovascular erectile function, which exposes a new health risk to consider with deep space exploration."
ADHD's Genetic Mystery Unraveled: Single Variations May Explain Half of Inheritance
Good news!
"... Incredibly, a new study now suggests up to half of inherited ADHD can be explained by single gene variations, instead of clusters of different genes contributing together, as previously suspected. ...
So [researchers] examined the entire genomes of 77 US children with ADHD and their families' to discover the surprising clue to why this might be the case. ...
Similar rates of single gene variations have also been observed in autism, which has been associated with atypical methylation too. ..."
From the abstract:
"Genomic research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) previously focused on common variants; however, polygenic heritability (28%) is lower than phenotypic heritability (76%) for ADHD, and genome-wide association studies revealed increased burden of rare copy-number variations and missense and disruptive variants to constrained genes in pediatric ADHD. Available genomic repositories for ADHD contain heterogeneous clinical phenotypes. Consequently, identification of genetic mechanisms specific to ADHD has been challenging. This study assessed monogenic contributions to pediatric ADHD in a well-characterized familial cohort."
What was the GAN? AI artists are moving on
In the fast paced world of machine learning & AI and its application some models come and go fast!
GANs were first introduced by Ian Goodfellow and colleagues in the famous and one of the most cited ML papers titled Generative adversarial networks in 2014.
"Generative Adversarial Networks were my introduction to AI art. For a while, they were state of the art — capable of generating photorealistic images based on patterns found in large datasets of images. Today, RunwayML, a web-based app and AI playground for creatives, announced that it would be killing off its machine learning tools, GANs included, in favor of diffusion based images and video. ..."
Credits: Last Week in AI
Mathematics is a tool of racial oppression. Absurd!
Can you believe it! This makes headlines these days! Racialize everything!
What is the superlative of absurdity?
The queen of sciences! Caution: The LGBTQ community may object!
"Recent politicization of mathematics has driven questions about its pedagogy in our schools, but these questions fail to recognize mathematics as a potentially oppressive tool. Mathematics is our single most powerful academic building block, but the power it holds frequently allows it to inhibit discovery and societal good. ..."
Teachers Conference Lecture Declares Math a ‘Tool of Oppression’
Variety is the spice of life
Just remembered this great proverb of the English language!
"Proverbial saying, late 18th century; originally as a quotation from the English poet William Cowper (1731–1800) in The Task (1785): ‘Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour.’ An earlier version is found in the The Rover (1681) by the dramatist Aphra Behn (1640–89), ‘Variety is the soul of pleasure.’ The Greek dramatist Euripides (c.485–c. 406bc) in his Orestes has, ‘a change is always nice.’"
Private enterprise Venturi Astrolab’s rovers will deploy $160M worth of payloads on the moon in 2026
Good news! Private enterprise can easily compete with NASA!
"It turns out a NASA contract isn’t the only way to fund a mission on the moon.
Lunar technology startup Venturi Astrolab announced today that its first moon rover mission will bring in over $160 million in customer contracts. That mission, aptly named Mission 1, will launch and land on a SpaceX Starship as early as mid-2026.
The contract value is spread across eight customers ...
The three remaining customers were not disclosed.
Astrolab has developed a rover it calls Flexible Logistics and Exploration, or Flex, that will be capable of carrying 1,500 kilograms of payload to the lunar surface. ..."
Kyutai is a French AI research lab based in Paris with a $330 million budget that will make everything open source
Could this be the next job for Sam Altman should he get fired again by OpenAI? Pardon my facetiousness!
Some French individuals are trying to catch up! Savoir vivre!
"... French billionaire and Iliad CEO Xavier Niel gave some extra details about his plans for an AI research lab based in Paris.
This new lab, called Kyutai, will be a privately funded nonprofit working on artificial general intelligence. It will work with PhD students, postdocs and researchers on research papers and open source projects. ..."
Credits: Last Week in AI
Amazon aims to provide free AI skills training to 2 million people by 2025 with its new ‘AI Ready’ commitment
A machine learning & AI mania/frenzy in full swing! 😊 An AI rush!
What will the curricula of educational institutions look like in the coming years? Will they still exist?
Are you ready for ML & AI?
"The three new initiatives are:
- Eight new and free AI and generative AI courses
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) Generative AI Scholarship, providing more than 50,000 high school and university students globally with access to a new generative AI course on Udacity
- New collaboration with Code.org designed to help students learn about generative AI
..."
Credits: Last Week in AI
Be My Eyes AI offers GPT-4-powered support for blind Microsoft customers
Seems to be a wonderful idea!
"Microsoft is working on offering a better customer service experience powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 for its visually impaired users through a partnership with Be My Eyes, a company that helps visually impaired individuals tackle everyday tasks with the help of sighted volunteers.
Microsoft is integrating a digital visual assistant tool Be My Eyes created — Be My AI — into its Microsoft Disability Answer Desk, allowing visually impaired Microsoft users to resolve technical issues or perform tasks like updating software without needing the assistance of a call center agent. After testing the tool earlier this year on Microsoft users, Be My Eyes said the tool resolved inquiries in four minutes on average, which is less than half the average call time with human agents. In addition, only 10 percent chose to talk to a human customer service representative after interacting with the AI tool. ..."
Credits: Last Week in AI
The Spanish Clueless agency made their own AI model Aitana as a substitute for human models
You can't make this up! It's so clueless!
How well does this new AI model dance Flamenco?
There is also a real Spanish female singer by the name Aitana and about the same age. Do you recognize some similarities between the female singer and the clueless model? I am not sure the singer is so delighted about this.
France, Germany and Italy join forces to propose unified AI regulation in the EU. Really!
What is the hurry about! Big Government stay out!
You can bet that private enterprises, business associations and so forth will develop regulations themselves!
Brexit is such a blessing! The UK will wait (see my blog post here)!
PragerU: Rutherford B. Hayes: The Most Disputed President
Recommendable! He wanted to be only a one time president! That example alone makes him a great president!
Several female teachers found sexually assaulting young male students
Me Too! Female sexual predators! Welcome to the age of gender equality! I have blogged here several times about this subject.
Hamas was training for raid on Israel for the past three years in Gaza
Recommendable! It was a shocking intelligence failure by Israel. Apparently, the terrorists were training frequently and in the open on mock Israeli targets inside of Gaza for the past three years. Was this a case of too many warnings/alarms that overwhelmed or that made Israel lower the guard?
China's Xi Jinping is falling from his pedestal, here are the details with Molly Gambhir
Very recommendable! In how bad a shape is the Chinese economy?
Monday, November 27, 2023
New Zealand Scraps Smoking Ban to Pay for New Tax Cuts with Palki Sharma
Bravo! New Zealand is coming to its senses again! Big Government coercion and prohibition does not work!
Why Indians Are Leaving India to Get Married during wedding season with Palki Sharma
Recommendable! Different strokes for different folks! What an extravaganza!
US navy secures Israeli-owned oil tanker that had been seized in the Gulf of Aden
How much and how deep is the U.S. going to get involved in the ongoing Israel Hamas war?
Wheel chair driving paralyzed Texas governor Greg Abbott goes skydiving with 106-year-old WWII veteran
What is he trying to prove? What a publicity stunt! Nothing better to do in office while being the governor?
Israel Communications minister says agreement reached on Starlink providing service in Israel and Gaza
Linking stars or linking Hamas killers!
Where there is war there is Starlink (e.g. Russo-Ukraine war)!
"... Musk responded: "No Starlink terminal has attempted to connect from Gaza. If one does, we will take extraordinary measures to confirm that it is used *only* for purely humanitarian reasons. Moreover, we will do a security check with both the US and Israeli governments before turning on even a single terminal. We are not so naïve." ..."
Beating the Flesh-Eating Disease
Good news! Maybe more shoes would help too!
"A cheap, existing drug has been found to work effectively against mycetoma, a devastating infection that afflicts thousands of people across three continents ...
A clinical trial in Sudan led by Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), the Mycetoma Research Center, and others showed the oral drug fosravuconazole to be up to 85% effective. It has no side effects.
Mycetoma, caused by certain bacteria and fungi, primarily affects people in impoverished rural areas. Many are infected while walking barefoot.
The flesh-eating, bone-destroying disease can lead to severe complications requiring amputation.
Fosravuconazole’s major advantage: Just two pills of the drug (used to treat fungal nail infections) need to be taken once a week versus four pills per day of the current treatment ..."
An Egg a Day Helped Stave off Malnutrition of schoolchildren in China. Really!
What about the one child policy between 1979 and 2015? Not mentioned in the article!
"Since 2010, primary schools across rural China have participated in the One Egg Program.
The nonprofit Shanghai United Foundation initiative aims to promote stable growth and stave off malnutrition among rural schoolchildren using a simple but unusual method: Serving them a single hard-boiled egg each day. ..."
Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe: burden of disease 2023 — European Environment Agency
The usual alarmism and hysteria! Air pollution in most Western countries has improved tremendously in recent decades!
What about existing morbidities of EU citizens (e.g. obesity) and their effects?
Concepts like burden of disease or attributable deaths or years of life lost are rather dubious and open to manipulation!
"Toxic air killed 500,000+ people in Europe in 2021, according to an EU report released Friday; reducing those pollutants to WHO-recommended levels could have prevented half of those deaths. The Guardian"
"Key messages
Air pollutant concentrations in 2021 remained well above the levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its air quality guidelines. Reducing air pollution to these guideline levels would prevent a significant number of attributable deaths in EU Member States (EU-27); 253,000 from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5); and 52,000 from exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Furthermore, reducing the short-term exposure to ozone (O3) would have avoided 22,000 attributable deaths. ..."
U.S., China forge new anti-fentanyl deal but Beijing’s history of non-compliance looms large
Recommendable! Long article covering the subject quite well.
Let's see how that works out! When will China become a democracy! The world would be so much better off!
Not long ago if one country did something like this to another country this would have been a casus belli (cause of war)!
"... On November 16, shortly after President Biden and President Xi met face-to-face on the sidelines of an important Pacific economic forum held in San Francisco, the Biden Administration announced that China agreed to resume bilateral cooperation in counternarcotics, specifically to address the ongoing fentanyl crisis. ...
“The PRC is now taking law enforcement action against illicit precursor suppliers, has issued a notice to industry warning Chinese companies against illicit trade in precursor chemicals and pill presses equipment, and has committed to restart key law enforcement cooperation,” it continued. ..."
An AI robot chemist could make oxygen on Mars
Amazing stuff!
"The presence of water on Mars offers the possibility of large-scale oxygen generation through solar-powered electrochemical processes with an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst made from local Martian materials.
Recently, researchers in China have developed an AI robot that could significantly impact Mars exploration. This AI-powered robot chemist utilizes local Martian materials to produce catalysts that break down water to release oxygen. ..."
From the abstract:
"Living on Mars requires the ability to synthesize chemicals that are essential for survival, such as oxygen, from local Martian resources. However, this is a challenging task. Here we demonstrate a robotic artificial-intelligence chemist for automated synthesis and intelligent optimization of catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction from Martian meteorites. The entire process, including Martian ore pretreatment, catalyst synthesis, characterization, testing and, most importantly, the search for the optimal catalyst formula, is performed without human intervention. Using a machine-learning model derived from both first-principles data and experimental measurements, this method automatically and rapidly identifies the optimal catalyst formula from more than three million possible compositions. The synthesized catalyst operates at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 for over 550,000 s of operation with an overpotential of 445.1 mV, demonstrating the feasibility of the artificial-intelligence chemist in the automated synthesis of chemicals and materials for Mars exploration."
China's AI Robotic Chemist Synthesizes Catalysts for Oxygen Production on Mars
Automated synthesis of oxygen-producing catalysts from Martian meteorites by a robotic AI chemist (no public access)
Fig. 1: Workflow of an all-encompassing system for the on-site design and production of an OER electrocatalyst on Mars by an AI chemist consisting of a mobile robot, a computational ‘brain’, a cloud server and 14 task-specific workstations.
Researchers working with an AI-driven robotic chemist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei
My next medical advisor - a medical GPT or bot
I can not wait for the public release of a super bot trained in medicine to give everyone advice on medical issues.
This might be one of the most useful near-term applications of AI!
I tried Google Bard myself today to answer a diagnostic question on a medical condition. The answer was surprisingly good and helpful.
Ridley Scotts „Napoleon“ - Dieser Film ist ein Desaster
Na so ein Veriss!
Hinweis: Habe den Film bisher nicht gesehen.
Vielleicht hat auch die Auswahl des Hauptdarstellers Joaquin Phoenix etwas damit zu tun. Der sieht ja aus wie eine traurige Gurke.
Key congressman says CDC, FBI refused to investigate illegal California biolab tied to China
What! How naive and stupid can the U.S. be!
How many such China run laboratories are there already in the U.S.? What would happen in a military conflict?
This is called subversion or hybrid warfare! On top of that China delivers fentanyl in large quantities to the U.S.
How much money did the Biden Clan receive from the communist party of China! The senile, demented and corrupt 46th President is seriously compromised!
"Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs a House subcommittee on China, said Sunday that the FBI and initially the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refused to investigate a secret biolab connected to the Chinese Communist Party in California. ...
The interview comes after the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party ... concluded that a fugitive Chinese national ran an illegal laboratory in Reedley, Calif., for years with about 20 samples of infectious diseases. The operation was only discovered when a building inspector noticed suspicious activity at what was supposed to be an abandoned building. ...
CDC was forced to send a team to investigate. And that wasn’t until many, many months later ..."
CDC was forced to send a team to investigate. And that wasn’t until many, many months later ..."
More than half of Utah's teens, 16-19, have jobs
Good news! I liked working as a teen!
Elon Musk visits Israel, tours October 7 massacre sites with Netanyahu
Bravo!
"Israel hosted Elon Musk on Monday, where he toured sites of the October 7 massacre and was shown footage of the violent acts committed by the terrorist organization on Israeli soil.
Musk voiced support on Monday for Israel after it came under attack by Hamas terrorists, saying one challenge was "ultimately stopping the propaganda that is convincing people to engage in, you know, murder."
After hearing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Hamas must be destroyed in a live online chat, Musk said: "There's no choice." Musk, visiting Israel during its war on Hamas in Gaza, added: "I'd like to help as well." ..."
Elon Musk walks around the site of one of the many massacres committed by Hamas on October 7th.
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