Very recommendable!
Thursday, July 31, 2025
Israel Refuses Hamas Deal No Swap of live Terrorists for Hostage Bodies
How evil or what kind of monsters are these mass killers of Hamas!
"Israel has formally rejected a chilling demand from Hamas to release live terrorists in exchange for the bodies of Israeli hostages, a move Israeli officials say is morally indefensible and strategically unacceptable.
The proposal, sent via mediators, was Israel's first detailed response to Hamas's latest position paper. ..."
Congress Just Eliminated the Three Biggest Subsidies for EVs
Good news! Other Western countries should follow! Long overdue to end this folly!
Gone are the superfluous and unfair government subsidies for middle and high income earners!
"... But what has received far less attention is a significant achievement of this Congress: eliminating the three major policy levers that have artificially supported the electric vehicle market for over a decade. Not phasing them out by 2030 but eliminating them immediately in 2025. These three policy levers accounted for up to $60,000 in subsidies per EV in 2023. Now, for the first time since the 1990s, electric and gasoline vehicles will compete on a mostly level playing field. ..."
Federal autonomous truck legislation introduced
Good news! No drivers wanted! Keep on trucking!
"Establishing a national framework for autonomous vehicle trucking is the focus of proposed legislation recently introduced by Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif.
The America Drives Act would preempt state laws pertaining to autonomous commercial vehicles while supporting the deployment and regulation of autonomous vehicles in interstate commerce.
If this proposal becomes law, states would not be allowed to prohibit the operation of commercial motor vehicles with Level 4 or Level 5 automated driving systems based on the absence of a human occupant. ...
Fong said 35 states allow some form of autonomous truck testing or deployment, while others have imposed “restrictive or conflicting regulations.”
The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association threw its support behind a Congressional effort to establish autonomous vehicle regulations. ..."
US Congressman Vince Fong (R, CA-20)
RSF alarmed about fate of 14 other, detained journalists after the execution of Turki al-Jasser in Saudi Arabia
How bad is the situation for journalists in Saudi Arabia?
The Wikipedia entry on this journalist is extremely thin and says little about his journalistic career.
Was he a terrorism sponsor or a journalist or both?
Of course, the RSF wants to compare the death of this journalist with the killing of the celebrity journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"... Before his murder, Turki al-Jasser was a jailed journalist. He had been imprisoned for running the news blog Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi (“The Saudi Scene”), where he regularly addressed social issues such as women’s rights and the Palestinian cause. Several of his fellow journalists remain behind bars — often mistreated or denied fair trials — for their reporting. Some have been imprisoned since 2012. Others were arrested during the wave of detentions that preceded the rise to power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017. Their fate now lies in the hands of an increasingly repressive regime. ..."
"Turki al-Jasser was the founder of the news blog Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi and also contributed to the now-closed newspaper Al-Taqrir. He was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to death on charges of terrorism and high treason, based on writings he was accused of authoring. He was executed on 14 June 2025 after 7 years imprisonment. ..."
"The Ministry of Interior announced today [7/14/2025] the execution of Turki bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al-Jasser, a Saudi national, after he was proven to have committed several terrorist crimes, including high treason, communicating with foreign parties to harm the Kingdom's security, and receiving sums of money to finance terrorist activities aimed at undermining internal security, national unity, and the country's stability. ..."
UNESCO Director-General condemns the execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser in Saudi Arabia "The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, has condemned the execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser in Saudi Arabia, on 14 June."
Treason, espionage, and financing terrorism: A citizen was executed as a discretionary punishment in Riyadh. (this news outlet publishes in Arabic) "Treason, espionage, and financing terrorism: A citizen was executed as a discretionary punishment in Riyadh."
Turki al-Jasser
Climate change heat kills—but it also hurts. Really!
Welcome to the next round of climate change alarmism and hysteria! What a morbid attempt! May we call this junk science!
The AAAS is so shocking in its constant propaganda and demagoguery!
This research is only based on California and visits to emergency rooms! This is laughable! What about other reasons for visiting ERs? Does not also this daily climate propaganda and demagoguery cause more ER visits by vulnerable individuals?
Don't you love it that these demagogues employ doom and gloom forecasts up to 2050 or even 2100 to scare us!
At least this research confirmed that so called Global Warming reduces cold-related deaths.
"Recent efforts by the Trump administration to repeal the landmark “endangerment finding”—the conclusion that greenhouse gases pose a threat to health—have drawn pushback from climate scientists and public health professionals alike. That’s because a growing body of research has already linked deaths around the world to human-induced warming [???]. Now, new research also quantifies the effects of climate change on our overall health and disease rate, called morbidity, not just its death toll.
Temperature-driven mortalities are just “the pointy tip of iceberg,”[???] lead author Carlos Gould told ScienceAdviser, noting that they are the most severe but least common outcome of temperature on the body. “We wanted to get a better picture of the whole iceberg so we can see the full health price tag of climate change.”
While deaths are fairly well documented, morbidity is trickier to quantify. ...
So, the researchers tracked all three—mortality, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations—in California, along with high-resolution temperature data, from 2006 to 2017. They found that while mortality and hospitalization rates peaked during both colder and hotter days, emergency room visits increased linearly with temperature. ...
That might be because, in addition to the usual culprits like fluid loss, electrolyte imbalance, and cardiac stress, people tend to go outside and do riskier things on warmer days, the authors suggest. They also estimated that between now and the year 2050, there would be 1.5 million cumulative extra emergency room visits in California due to rising temperatures. ..."
From the abstract:
"Increased temperature-related mortality is expected to significantly contribute to future economic damages from climate change, with declines in cold-related deaths outweighed by increases in heat-related deaths.
While temperature-mortality relationships are well-documented, the effects of climate change on morbidity are less understood.
Using data on emergency department (ED) visits, hospital admissions, mortality, and daily temperatures across California from 2006 to 2017, we find distinct differences in the temperature-response functions of these health outcomes, influenced by age distribution and underlying causes of morbidity and mortality. These differential responses fundamentally shape the burden of future climate change: We project that while future warming will increase ED visits, mortality will decrease due to fewer cold extremes. These results underscore the need to quantify temperature-morbidity responses to fully understand and anticipate the health impacts of climate change and suggest that local declines in mortality due to warming can mask economically meaningful increases in temperature-driven morbidity and health care utilization."
Fig. 7. Projections of changes in temperature-related ED visits, hospital admissions, and mortality, 2020–2100.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and the NYC mass shooter
Why is it not possible to diagnose a (progressive) neurodegenerative disease like CTE while a person is still alive?
Was a possible, but yet undiagnosed mental illness used as an excuse for mayhem by the killer?
What other treatment options were available to this killer before he committed the mass shooting? What was the responsibility of this killer?
It may not be possible to prevent a seriously, but dangerous mentally ill person from acquiring a gun in the US.
"The gunman who killed four people in a Manhattan office shooting this week said in a note that he believed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative disease that stems from repeated hits to the head.
It is unclear whether he had the condition, as it can only be diagnosed posthumously in an autopsy. But the violence has brought renewed attention to CTE—along with scrutiny about how the shooter was able to access a gun despite documented mental health hospitalizations, and deploy it in a city with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation ...
Concerns about CTE and full-contact sports have been building for two decades, as more studies have shown how repeated blows to the head lead to the buildup of brain-damaging proteins ..."
Hightech Agenda Deutschland beschlossen I Bundesregierung
Die Bananenrepublik D hat die Fusion als "klimaneutrale Energieerzeugung" entdeckt!
Überall deutscher Klimawahn! Was für eine Besessenheit! Am deutschen Wesen wird die Welt nicht genesen! Klimaschutz ist ein deutsches Unwort!
"... Fusion und klimaneutrale Energieerzeugung
Die Fusion ist die Chance auf unbegrenzte Energie. Wir haben eine starke Wissenschaft und starke Start-ups in Deutschland. Mit der Hightech Agenda Deutschland bringen wir mehr Tempo in die Fusionsforschung. So machen wir deutsche Unternehmen führend in der Fusion. Außerdem fördern wir andere Energietechnologien wie Solar, Windkraft, Geothermie oder Wasserstoff. Neue Technologien „made in Germany“ prägen die Energieversorgung der Zukunft, schaffen Wohlstand und schützen das Klima. ...
Technologien für klimaneutrale Mobilität
Wir etablieren die Batterietechnologie in Europa. Denn Batterien sind zentral für die E-Mobilität. Für Luftfahrt, Schifffahrt und schwere Fahrzeuge entwickeln wir klimaneutrale Kraftstoffe. Neue Mobilitätsformen erfordern Mut und Innovation. Deshalb gehen wir neue Wege, die uns neue Perspektiven eröffnen – zum Beispiel durch Drohnen für Lieferungen oder zur Schädlingsbekämpfung in der Landwirtschaft. ..."
Fraunhofer begrüßt Hightech Agenda Deutschland "Gestern hat die Bundesregierung die Hightech Agenda für Deutschland beschlossen. Die Agenda ist ein wichtiger Schritt für eine fokussierte Innovationspolitik als Grundpfeiler technologischer Souveränität [???] und wirtschaftlicher Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft begrüßt die Agenda und die Impulse, die sie für den Technologie- und Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland setzt."
Da hat sich der neue Bundeskanzler aber einiges vorgenommen. Berlin ist auf Platz 15 in dieser Rangliste.
Unbound Academy - The Future of Education is Unbound
What is the future of K-12 education? Here is an example!
According to Google search:
"A new AI-driven virtual charter school called Unbound Academy is set to open in Arizona this fall, serving students in grades four through eight.
Here's a closer look at the key details:
Location: Arizona (initially virtual).
Model: The school will utilize an educational model called "2 Hour Learning", where AI-driven apps will deliver core academic instruction (math, reading, science, language) for two hours daily, followed by four hours dedicated to group workshops, student-led projects, and mentorship sessions focusing on practical skills such as public speaking and financial literacy.
Technology: The AI system utilizes established platforms like Khan Academy and IXL, augmented by proprietary adaptive learning software and close teacher oversight.
Assessment: Students' learning progress will be monitored through the AI system, and they will only advance to more challenging lessons after demonstrating mastery of the current material.
Teacher Role: Teachers will serve as guides and mentors, providing support and oversight while the AI handles the core curriculum delivery.
Parental Engagement: The school emphasizes student-teacher connection and aims to streamline communication between parents and the school.
Origins: Unbound Academy is linked to Alpha School, a private school in Austin, Texas, which uses a similar AI-driven approach. Alpha School reports high academic achievement among its students. ..."
"... What could your child accomplish if they could master academics in just 2 hours a day? ..."
Leon Marchand breaks 200m individual medley world record at swim worlds with a short arm span and normal height
This world record lasted since 2011! And it was surpassed by more than one second! This is huge!
"Léon Marchand's arm span is not as long as Michael Phelps's 79 inches. While Marchand is 6'2" and Phelps is 6'4", Marchand's wingspan is not publicly specified but is described as being notably shorter than Phelps's. News outlets state that Marchand's physique is less imposing than Phelps's, with a smaller frame and a shorter wingspan." (Google search)
"Léon Marchand broke the world record in the 200-meter individual medley Wednesday at the world championships in Singapore, clocking 1 minute, 52.61 seconds, to surpass the 1:54.00 set in 2011 by American Ryan Lochte. ..."
China's JD.com to buy German retailer Ceconomy for $2.5bn
When will the banana republic of Germany become a Chinese province? Pardon my facetiousness!
Drug cartel operatives snuck into Ukraine for drone training
Criminals are catching on very quickly maybe faster than law enforcement!
So far, there have been very sporadic news about the volunteers of the foreign legion fighting for the Ukraine.
"Ukrainian counterintelligence services are investigating the infiltration of Latin American drug cartel members into the country’s International Legion, with operatives seeking advanced drone training to later deploy against rivals and security forces in their home countries.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) launched a joint investigation with military intelligence after Mexico’s National Intelligence Center warned in early summer that Mexican volunteers had joined Ukraine’s foreign fighter units specifically to acquire first-person view (FPV) drone capabilities. The probe has since expanded to include Colombian nationals, raising concerns about Ukraine’s inadvertent role as a training ground for transnational criminal organizations. ..."
Why are some European countries (and Canada) rewarding Hamas terror with a Palestinian state?
Good question! It is so absurd that France, UK, Germany, and Canada are doing this! What is wrong with these Western leaders! Are they out of their minds!
Caveat: I did not read this opinion piece.
China Powers AI Boom with Undersea wind-powered Data Centers
Amazing stuff! Why not heat up the oceans? What could possibly go wrong!
I am not sure what would happen if this was done on a global scale by dozens or more countries.
"... Many companies have sited their data centers in some of the driest regions of the world, including Arizona, parts of Spain, and the Middle East, because dry air reduces the risks of damage to the equipment from humidity ... Partly to address water concerns, China is now putting a data center in the wettest place there is: the ocean. This June construction began on a wind-powered underwater data center about six miles off the coast of Shanghai, one of China’s AI hubs. ...
Instead undersea data centers use pipes to pump seawater through a radiator on the back of server racks to absorb heat and carry it away. ...
The project’s first phase is designed to contain 198 server racks—enough to hold 396 to 792 AI-capable servers—and is slated to begin operation in September ...
a technology that Microsoft pioneered more than a decade ago under an effort called Project Natick, in which the company sank a shipping-container-sized capsule holding more than 800 servers 117 feet below the surface off the coast of Scotland. After hauling up the pod two years later, Microsoft found that underwater data centers “are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably.” ...
The undersea data center concept seems to have growing appeal beyond China. Countries including South Korea have also announced plans to pursue them, while Japan and Singapore are mulling data centers that float on the ocean’s surface instead. ..."
The underwater data center pictured here was a pilot project off the coast of Hainan. Another, more advanced, one is now being built off Shanghai. Shanghai Hailanyun Technology
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
President Trump Has Spent About One-Third Of His Presidency Visiting His Own Properties. Really!
Better than the 46th President who spent about 50% of his time on the beaches of Delaware (I am exaggerating slightly)!
Well, he is conducting the President's business at his properties e.g. meeting with foreign dignitaries etc.
For God's sake, he is a businessman! Maybe it is the swing with the golf club that gives him that extra inspiration! 😊
Pretty Urologist Explains: How to Masturbate Safely After 60 – Avoid These 3 Big Mistakes
One of YouTube's latest health advice videos! She recommends don't rush it!
UK illegal migrants’ luxurious hotel treatment exposed
Another reason why Keir Starmer is such a fool!
CLIMATE CRACKDOWN: Trump EPA axing Obama-era regulations with Laura Ingraham
Bravo EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and President Trump! This unconstitutional crap should have been rescinded many years ago!
The Burden of Weight Loss Drugs: Is It Worth the Risk? with Palki Sharma
Recommendable! Global demand outstrips supply! Palki did not investigate whether overuse versus normal use causes health problems.
Arabic countries sign declaration calling for Hamas to ‘disarm themselves’
A good and historic first step, but not enough! The coward mass killers of Hamas need to be arrested and indicted!
Famous double-slit experiment holds up at the single atom level
Amazing stuff!
"MIT physicists have performed an idealized version of one of the most famous experiments in quantum physics. Their findings demonstrate, with atomic-level precision, the dual yet evasive nature of light. They also happen to confirm that Albert Einstein was wrong about this particular quantum scenario. ...
Scientists have since carried out multiple versions of the double-slit experiment, and they have all, to various degrees, confirmed the validity of the quantum theory formulated by Bohr. Now, MIT physicists have performed the most “idealized” version of the double-slit experiment to date. Their version strips down the experiment to its quantum essentials. They used individual atoms as slits, and used weak beams of light so that each atom scattered at most one photon. By preparing the atoms in different quantum states, they were able to modify what information the atoms obtained about the path of the photons. The researchers thus confirmed the predictions of quantum theory: The more information was obtained about the path (i.e. the particle nature) of light, the lower the visibility of the interference pattern was. ..."
From the abstract:
"We study light scattering of single atoms in free space and discuss the results in terms of atom-photon entanglement and which-way information.
Using ultracold atoms released from an optical lattice, we realize a Gedanken experiment which interferes single photons scattering off of Heisenberg uncertainty-limited wavepackets.
We unify the free-space and trapped-atom pictures by measuring the light scattered during wavepacket expansion and show the coherence properties of the scattered light is independent of the presence of the trap. Our experiment demonstrates the potential of using atomic Mott insulators to create single-atom wavepackets for fundamental studies."
Coherent and Incoherent Light Scattering by Single-Atom Wave Packets (no public access)
Coherent and incoherent light scattering by single-atom wavepackets (preprint, open access)
New tool gives anyone the ability to train a robot. Really!
Looking for a birthday or Christmas gift?
From the abstract:
"Previous methods for Learning from Demonstration leverage several approaches for a human to teach motions to a robot, including teleoperation, kinesthetic teaching, and natural demonstrations. However, little previous work has explored more general interfaces that allow for multiple demonstration types. Given the varied preferences of human demonstrators and task characteristics, a flexible tool that enables multiple demonstration types could be crucial for broader robot skill training.
In this work, we propose Versatile Demonstration Interface (VDI), an attachment for collaborative robots that simplifies the collection of three common types of demonstrations. Designed for flexible deployment in industrial settings, our tool requires no additional instrumentation of the environment.
Our prototype interface captures human demonstrations through a combination of vision, force sensing, and state tracking (e.g., through the robot proprioception or AprilTag tracking).
Through a user study where we deployed our prototype VDI at a local manufacturing innovation center with manufacturing experts, we demonstrated VDI in representative industrial tasks. Interactions from our study highlight the practical value of VDI's varied demonstration types, expose a range of industrial use cases for VDI, and provide insights for future tool design."
Versatile Demonstration Interface: Toward More Flexible Robot Demonstration Collection (preprint, open access, but it is an old paper first published in October 2024, IROS 2025). According to Google Scholar it has only a citation count of 5, which is low for a 7 months old paper.
English for trippers: A crashed crush
No rush please! Hush little baby! George Gershwin: "I've Got a Crush on You"
40 robot rabbits deployed in South Florida to lure out invasive Burmese pythons
Amazing stuff! Will it work?
Pythons primarily sense their prey using a combination of sight, smell, and heat detection. So these robots smell right and are warm enough? 😊
"Researchers have deployed 40 robot rabbits in South Florida to lure out invasive Burmese pythons. The robot bunnies use motion sensors and cameras to alert scientists when a python gets close."
"... As reported by The Palm Beach Post, researchers led by UF professor of wildlife ecology and conservation Robert McCleery have released 40 solar-powered, remote-controlled robot bunnies in South Florida this month. The researchers replaced the plush toy’s stuffing with motors and heaters to imitate the motions and body temperatures of one of pythons’ favorite snacks: marsh rabbits (Sylvilagus palustris). ..."
Robot bunnies deployed in Florida to fight invasive pythons "Researchers found a creative new solution to track down the snakes."
Dr. Chris Dutton and his Robo-bunnies tackle the Burmese Python problem in the Everglades (original news release)
US Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo, age 45) introduces bill to provide $600 tariff rebates to all Americans. Really!
When fools rush in! He is too young to be demented!
He must be a RINO calling for such government handouts!
"introduced a bill Tuesday proposing to give $600 tariff rebate checks to nearly all Americans, including dependent children—$2,400 for a family of four."
Hawley Introduces Legislation to Send Rebate Checks to Working Americans (from the Senator's website)
U.S. Rail Giants Plan Historic $85B Merger to form the first transcontinental freight railroad operator in U.S. history
Impressive!
"Union Pacific announced it will acquire Norfolk Southern in an $85 billion cash-and-stock deal announced Tuesday, creating the first transcontinental freight railroad operator in U.S. history. ...
The combined company would control over 50,000 route miles and claim a market value above $250 billion. ..."
Ursula und die 27 Zwerge: Warum das Handelsabkommen mit Trump ein Desaster für die EU ist
Gelungene Schlagzeile! Wird jetzt endlich die Flinten Uschi in Pension geschickt, was seit jahren überfällig ist!
Scheint also ob die Deutschen und die EU Europäer langsam aufwachen!
The EPA wants to rescind a landmark scientific finding on greenhouse-gas emissions
Good news! Long overdue that this nonsense is being rescinded! Bravo President Trump!
Since when is a trace gas like life and plant essential atmospheric CO2 an endangerment? What an absurdity!
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks Arab to please Hamas
Incredible, what a fool!
He explained on X the Germain aid for the Gaza Strip!
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
How did new pigment technologies drive the Impressionist movement? Claude Monet’s ‘The Gare St-Lazare'
Very recommendable! I was not familiar with this rather unusual painting by Monet!
This is what the Democratic Party has come to (Jasmine Crockett): Laura Ingraham
Mistress Kamala is not the only star the Dimocratic Party has to offer!
Germany Pressures Poland Against Drilling Into Newly-Discovered Oil Deposit
Poland should just ignore the German pressure!
Ukraine’s Army Opens Its Ranks to the 60+ Club volunteers with no age limit
The older, the bolder! Just kidding!
Maybe some WW II veterans will be fighting Putin the Terrible (successor of Stalin) now!
Have we in the West not been saying for years that retirees are so much more healthier and active than in the past?
Hack Attack on Russia’s Aeroflot Strands Thousands, Corporate Database Erased
Attack Putin the Terrible were it hurts most!
When will the lethargic, apathetic Russian Slav(e)s/Serfs finally get rid of their last tsar, the megalomaniac and war criminal Putin the Terrible! Please Russian people make the world a better, more peaceful place again!
Spatial Web standard 2025: Transforming Device Interactions
Standards rule the world!
"... Today, following the social media revolution, a new phase of the Internet is emerging. The Spatial Web promises to connect a physical world full of devices, phones, wearables, robots, drones, and even AI agents. In May, the IEEE Standards Association ... ratified a set of standards (IEEE 2874-2025) that defines the Spatial Web.
The original World Wide Web introduced the idea of URLs that point to HTML files, which are accessed remotely via the HTTP standard.
Now the Spatial Web puts forward a new set of defining principles. HSML (Hyperspace Modelling Language) behaves like nouns and verbs on the Spatial Web, describing what an entity is and what it does.
HSTP (Hyperspace Transaction Protocol) behaves like the Spatial Web’s grammar, defining how each entity functions and how it can interact with others.
And the UDG (Universal Domain Graph) acts as the directory that keeps track of every entity along with its activities and relationships. ..."
"This standard describes the services, hypergraphs, protocols, and languages that enable interoperable, semantically compatible connections between network-connected hardware (e.g. autonomous drones, sensors, loT devices, robots) and software (e.g. user agents, services, platforms, applications, artificial intelligence systems) and includes specifications for: ⎯a functional layer stack capable of fulfilling spatially defined real-world and virtual requests for digital content respectful of governance authorities and self-sovereign identity
⎯a spatial range query and response format for requesting content or data about assets within a dimensional range
⎯a data ontology for describing objects, relationships, and activities
⎯a verifiable credentialing and certification method for permissioning create-retrieve-update-delete access to devices, locations, users, and data
⎯a human and machine-readable contracting language that enables the expression and automated execution of legal, financial, and physical activities
This standard is identical in content to a base document developed by the Spatial Web Foundation and provided to the lEEE P2874 Spatial Web, Architecture and Governance Working Group for standardization."
What happens inside a battery at atomic scale
Amazing stuff! How much do we know about battery technology?
"A team ... has completed the first investigation into a widely acknowledged but often overlooked aspect of electrochemical cells: the nonuniformity of the liquid at the solid-liquid interfaces in the cells. ... microscopic imaging revealed that these interfacial structures, called electrical double layers (EDLs), tend to organize into specific configurations in response to chemical deposition on the surface of the solid. ...
Based on the data, the researchers proposed three primary responses in the EDLs: "bending," in which the layers appear to curve around the cluster; "breaking," in which parts of the layers detach to form new intermediate layers; and "reconnecting," in which the EDL layer above the cluster connects to a nearby layer with an offset in the layer number.
"These three patterns are quite universal," ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
Nucleation and growth at electrode–electrolyte interfaces is crucial for electrochemical energy conversion and storage. Here, we find that, at the very initial stage of surface nucleation, the local electrical double layers (EDLs) abruptly restructure. The initially flat, oscillatory liquid layers are strongly disrupted and continuously evolve as the size of the cluster increases. We identify three universal patterns of such EDL reconfigurations, quantify the spatial density profiles, and clarify the impact of the previously hidden, heterogeneous EDLs on the nucleation and growth kinetics.
Abstract
In electrochemical systems, the structure of electrical double layers (EDLs) near electrode surfaces is crucial for energy conversion and storage functions. While the electrodes in real-world systems are usually heterogeneous, to date the investigation of EDLs is mainly limited to planar, homogeneous substrates.
To bridge this gap, here we image the EDL structure of an ionic liquid/graphite battery anode system in the initial stage of interfacial nucleation and growth using our recently developed electrochemical 3D atomic force microscopy.
Upon surface nucleation of lithium-containing compounds, the local EDL layers exhibit pronounced restructuring, featuring bending, breaking, and/or reconnecting patterns that switch when the size of the local interphase cluster changes. These EDL reconfiguration patterns are likely universal during nucleation and growth, calling into attention the hitherto hidden contribution of EDL heterogeneity on electrochemical processes."
UK Prime Minister Starmer announces ready to join France in recognizing Palestinian state. Really!
Starmer just outed himself to be a another European fool like Macron before!
It is absolutely ridiculous to call for Palestine state while Hamas has not released the remaining hostages (alive or dead). Are these mass killers apprehended and indicted?
How can someone reward bloody terrorism like the coward killers of Hamas!
China to offer $500 per child per year in move to boost birth rate. Really!
Have similar incentives not been tried in Western countries before? Were they successful! I might be wrong, but the general answer is no.
Chinese good luck charms
Tracing the Sexual Revolutions: How the Assault on Marriage Is Destroying Democracy. Really!
Sometimes it is quite amusing when conservatives muse about sex!
When biblical connotations are abused!
The invention of the oral contraceptive pill in 1960 must pure horror to this man!
"In October 2022, a New York City judge decided that polyamorous relationships — that is, sexual-romantic relationships involving more than two persons — were entitled to the same legal protections as relationships of two persons. ...
How did we get here? After all, wasn’t it just a decade ago that same-sex marriage proponents — my friend Jonathan Rauch for example — were dismissing conservative arguments that expanding marriage’s definition would eliminate any possible principled ground for declining to extend the same rights and recognition to polyamorous and polygamous relationships?
In his powerful and timely book Sex and the Citizen: How the Assault on Marriage Is Destroying Democracy, Conn Carroll makes a compelling case that our contemporary cultural woes in the realm of marriage, gender, and sexuality are ultimately the fruit of the same poisonous tree [???]: the sexual revolution of the mid-to-late 20th century. ..."
Robert P. George
Just looking at a sick person can stimulate your immune system
Amazing stuff!
"Simply seeing someone who looks ill—even in virtual reality—can ramp up immunological responses that help defend against infection. The finding is “really remarkable,” ..."
"... To study this phenomenon, researchers fitted 248 healthy participants with virtual reality headsets and asked them to watch a series of looming virtual faces approach them, some of which had visible signs of illness, such as coughing or rashes.
The participants who saw sick faces had a greater activation of innate lymphoid cells—the first responders of the immune system—in their blood within 2 hours of seeing the first face, ... Researchers saw a similar rise in initial immune activity when they performed the same blood test on people 2 hours after receiving a vaccine. ..."
From the abstract:
"Once contact with a pathogen has occurred, it might be too late for the immune system to react. Here, we asked whether anticipatory neural responses might sense potential infections and signal to the immune system, priming it for a response.
We show that potential contact with approaching infectious avatars, entering the peripersonal space in virtual reality, are anticipated by multisensory–motor areas and activate the salience network, as measured with psychophysics, electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.
This proactive neural anticipation instigates changes in both the frequency and activation of innate lymphoid cells, mirroring responses seen in actual infections. Alterations in connectivity patterns between infection-sensing brain regions and the hypothalamus, along with modulation of neural mediators, connect these effects to the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis.
Neural network modeling recapitulates this neuro–immune cross-talk. These findings suggest an integrated neuro–immune reaction in humans toward infection threats, not solely following physical contact but already after breaching the functional boundary of body–environment interaction represented by the peripersonal space."
Fig. 2: Modulation of ILC frequency and activation as a function of virtual or real stimulation.
How will AI revolutionize mathematics?
Here is a foretaste of what is to come! Very exciting! Maybe a quantum leap in the making!
"... Evidence of AI’s mathematical capabilities is mounting. In 2024, two AI models from Google DeepMind earned a silver medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad, the largest and most prestigious competition for young mathematicians. Also in 2024, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of DeepMind won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their AI model AlphaFold2, which predicted the structure of almost all 200 million known proteins.
“It is now possible to make a computational model that leads scientifically to the extent that, within years of publication, it wins a Nobel Prize,” Brenner said. “That’s unprecedented.” ...
In 2021, researchers at DeepMind ... used AI to discover new relationships between knot invariants, the numerical characteristics that define each knot’s properties. The discovery could have taken human mathematicians years to uncover through traditional methods.
Another breakthrough came in research into elliptic curves, deceptively simple structures with big implications in both pure mathematics and cryptography. When Harvard researchers fed curve data into machine learning systems, they found that the curves’ behavior resembled murmurations — those swirling, coordinated movements of flocks of birds.
“No mathematician ever thought to look for that before, and they were quite surprised to see it,” Douglas said. “They are now busy trying to prove it.”
But perhaps the form of AI that’s generating the most buzz in the math world is in automated theorem proving. ...
Generative AI can almost instantaneously translate proofs into formats that automated systems can verify, while the verification process catches any AI-generated errors or hallucinations. ...
In the 2025 version of “Applied Mathematics 201,” he did away with traditional homework problems. Instead, students had to create their own problems, have a classmate verify them, and see if they could outsmart an AI. (“One of the good ones,” Brenner specified. “If the not-very-good models can solve your problem, it doesn’t count.”)
By the end of the semester, the students had created nearly 700 math problems of increasing difficulty. ..."
George Mason university launches Virginia’s first robotics PhD
When will the first robots earn a PhD?
Researcher Missy Cummings will direct the PhD in robotics program.
Syria expected to hold parliamentary election in September
Good news! After almost 55 years of the Assad dictatorship, this is refreshing!
"Syria is expected to hold its first parliamentary election under the new administration in September, the head of the electoral commission told state news agency SANA on Sunday.
Voting for the 210-member People’s Assembly is scheduled to take place between September 15 and 20, said Mohamed Taha, who is overseeing the electoral process.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa has received a draft electoral law that amends a previous decree and raises the number of seats from 150 to 210. A third of the seats will be appointed by the president. ..."
Monday, July 28, 2025
Russia and North Korea Launch Direct Flights with Palki Sharma
Hopefully, this will speed up the reunification of Korea! Putin the Terrible seems desperate!
Scientists discover the receptor that helps your brain clean itself—and fight Alzheimer’s
Good news!
"Scientists at UCSF have uncovered how certain immune cells in the brain, called microglia, can effectively digest toxic amyloid beta plaques that cause Alzheimer’s. They identified a key receptor, ADGRG1, that enables this protective action. When microglia lack this receptor, plaque builds up quickly, causing memory loss and brain damage. But when the receptor is present, it seems to help keep Alzheimer's symptoms mild. Since ADGRG1 belongs to a drug-friendly family of receptors, this opens the door to future therapies that could enhance brain immunity and protect against Alzheimer’s in more people."
From the highlights and summary:
"Highlights
• ADGRG1 activates MYC to induce a protective microglial state in Alzheimer’s disease
• MYC activation upregulates genes involved in phagocytosis and lysosomal activity
• Loss of microglial ADGRG1 impairs Aβ clearance and exacerbates AD pathology
Summary
Germline genetic architecture of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) indicates microglial mechanisms of disease susceptibility and outcomes. However, the mechanisms enabling protective microglial responses remain elusive. Here, we investigate the role of microglial ADGRG1, an adhesion G-protein-coupled receptor (aGPCR) specifically expressed in yolk-sac-derived microglia, in AD pathology using the 5xFAD mouse model.
Transcriptomic analyses reveal that ADGRG1 activates the transcription factor MYC, leading to upregulation of genes involved in homeostasis, phagocytosis, and lysosomal functions, thereby promoting a protective microglial state. We demonstrate that deletion of Adgrg1 in microglia impairs MYC activation, resulting in increased amyloid-beta deposition, exacerbated neuronal loss, and cognitive deficits.
Functional assays in mouse models and human embryonic stem cell-derived microglia confirm that ADGRG1 is required for Aβ phagocytosis. These findings uncover a GPCR-mediated pathway that drives a protective microglial state via MYC activation, suggesting potential therapeutic strategies to alleviate AD progression by enhancing microglial functional competence."
G-protein-coupled receptor ADGRG1 drives a protective microglial state in Alzheimer's disease through MYC activation (no public access)
Graphical abstract
Walk faster, age slower
Just regular walking is fine, but faster is better! I would personally subscribe to this finding from my own experience.
"Walking just a bit faster could be the key to aging well. Researchers found that older adults who upped their walking pace by just 14 steps per minute significantly improved their physical abilities—even those who were already frail. A new, user-friendly smartphone app helps measure walking cadence more accurately than typical devices, making this science-backed health strategy easy to adopt. By shifting from a casual stroll to a brisker walk, older adults can stay active, independent, and energized in daily life."
"... The study’s results showed clear benefits: those who increased their cadence by at least 14 steps per minute above their usual pace (to roughly 100 steps per minute) experienced substantial improvements in their functional capacity, demonstrated by their ability to walk longer distances in a standardized test. ..."
From the abstract:
"Walking cadence has been suggested as a measure of activity intensity; however, it remains uncertain if prefrail and frail older adults can increase their walking cadence and if doing so leads to improvements in functional capacity. We aimed to determine if cadence can be increased and if this leads to improvement in functional capacity in prefrail and frail older adults.
We performed a secondary data analysis of a walking intervention in prefrail and frail older adults living in retirement communities. Patients were randomized to Casual Speed Walking (CSW) and High-Intensity Walking (HIW) groups.
Our primary outcome was improvement in 6-minute walk test distance above the minimally clinical important difference. We performed linear and logistic mixed-effects regressions to analyze our aims. 102 participants were included in the final analysis with 56 in the CSW group and 46 in the HIW group.
Participants in the HIW group increased their walking cadence as compared to the CSW group during the intervention (HIW 100[88, 111] steps/min vs. CSW 77[65, 86] steps/min; P < 0.001).
Participants that increased their walking cadence demonstrated an increased odds of improvement in their 6-minute walk test minimum clinically important difference (OR: 0.11, 95% CI: 0.033, 0.18; p = 0.005). Older adults can increase their walking cadence and walking cadence can serve as a surrogate measure of activity intensity during walking interventions. An increase of 14 steps/minute from their comfortable walking cadence increased the odds of improvement in 6-minute walk test minimum clinically important difference."
Walking slightly faster could help older adults stay fit (original news release)
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