Ist der Kanzler Merz wirklich so doof sowas auf seinem Besuch in der Türkei zu behaupten! Und völlig falsch dazu! Kaum im Amt und schon so blamiert!
Hater er versucht sich plump anzubiedern bei Osmanischen Sultan Erdogan?
Friday, October 31, 2025
‘TIME TO RETIRE’: GOP rep’s DESPERATE call for Nancy Pelosi to ‘move on’
Nancy Pelosi (age 85) has been very nutty and erratic for several years and while she still was the Speaker of the House! I have blogged about this for years!
Warum grüner Wasserstoff selbst im Best-Case-Szenario ein Desaster ist! – Christian Loose (AfD)
Empfehlenswert! Typisch Bananenrepublik D!
Democratic female state senator secretly filmed two critics in bed together to try to silence them
"Baltimore City State Senator Dalya Attar has been arrested and indicted on federal extortion and conspiracy charges, according to court documents.
Attar, a Democrat from Baltimore City representing District 41, made history by becoming the first Orthodox Jewish woman to hold a seat in the Maryland Senate, which she assumed in January following a vacancy."
Why JP Morgan Dominates Wall Street
Recommendable! Dimon forever! His succession is inevitable! Who will it be?
JD Vance Under Fire for "Hoping" His Wife Will Convert with Palki Sharma
I think, JD Vance's response was largely OK. Palki messed up here!
US and India Sign 10-year Defence Pact Amid Trade Tensions with Palki Sharma
Good news! India, a rising superpower!
On Learning Affordances at Inference-Time for Vision-Language-Action Models
This could be an interesting paper by Sergey Levine and his team!
"Solving complex real-world control tasks often takes multiple tries: if we fail at first, we reflect on what went wrong, and change our strategy accordingly to avoid making the same mistake.
In robotics, Vision-Language-Action models (VLAs) offer a promising path towards solving complex control tasks, but lack the ability to contextually and dynamically readjust behavior when they fail to accomplish a task.
In this work, we introduce Learning from Inference-Time Execution (LITEN), which connects a VLA low-level policy to a high-level VLM that conditions on past experiences by including them in-context, allowing it to learn the affordances and capabilities of the low-level VLA.
Our approach iterates between a reasoning phase that generates and executes plans for the low-level VLA, and an assessment phase that reflects on the resulting execution and draws useful conclusions to be included in future reasoning contexts.
Unlike similar approaches to self-refinement in non-robotics domains, LITEN must reflect on unstructured real-world robot trajectories (e.g., raw videos), which requires structured guiderails during assessment.
Our experimental results demonstrate LITEN is able to effectively learn from past experience to generate plans that use high-affordance instructions to accomplish long-horizon tasks."
When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing—he believes in anything
Food for thought! A famous observation by Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
When pseudo religions like environmentalism, climate change, LGBTQ, AI and so forth gain support.
"G.K. Chesterton famously observed that when people no longer have faith in God they don’t believe in nothing, they are open to believing anything. And as Christianity has ebbed recently, so the tide of mysticism, the occult and magical thinking has grown. It is precisely amid some of those who proclaim their belief in Reason most loudly that curious belief systems are taking hold.
Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, warns Damian Thompson in this week’s cover piece. Half a century ago, Arthur C. Clarke observed that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. Today, artificial intelligence has advanced so far that even its creators are flirting with mystical mythologies and supernatural fantasies.
Peter Thiel’s lectures on ‘the Antichrist’ attract many, while the number of self-identifying witches in America has overtaken Presbyterians. And these modern day magi are thoroughly at home in the tech-enabled world, with witches now using ChatGPT to generate spells. AI can craft an incantation in the style of a Yoruba magician or conjure a Wiccan goddess.
In Silicon Valley, the corner of the US where Christianity is weakest, cults have thrived since the 1960s. In the vacuum left by faith, tech firms have fed employees eastern mysticism to cultivate ‘mindfulness’ among the workforce. What remains is an endless Halloween of woke spirituality, demonstrating that any sufficiently advanced cultic fad is indistinguishable from hell. ..."
China’s military may discard its rigid command structure for mission command
Is this the reason why Xi Jinping recently purged several high level military commanders?
"“A Chinese military that fully embraces mission command would likely lead to improved operational performance, with quicker decision-making, better adaptability, and greater resilience in the face of degraded C4ISR,” according to a new report by Rand Corporation.
There is evidence that Chinese military reformers are beginning to push for the People’s Liberation Army to adopt mission command, researchers warn in the U.S. think tank’s Oct. 22 report. A more flexible, decentralized Chinese system would be more resistant to U.S. tactics such as attacking command and control centers. In turn, the report suggests, this would force the U.S. to revise its strategy. ..."
Mission Command with Chinese Characteristics? "Exploring Chinese Military Thinking About Command and Control in Future Warfare"
Thousands of Cuban men are fighting in the Russo-Ukrainian War
I have blogged here several times before that the Russo-Ukrainian War is World War III by any other name given how many countries are involved on both sides.
Of course, Cuban mercenaries can not be left out from this war!
According to Google: "Estimates vary, but Ukrainian intelligence suggests that up to 20,000 Cubans may have joined the Russian army since 2022, with some sources claiming 6,000 to 7,000 are currently fighting on the front lines. ..."
Ukraine closes Havana embassy over Cuban fighter pipeline for Russia
Cubans Could Soon Become Russia’s Largest Foreign Fighting Force
Warum hat Kanzler Merz gleich den Osmanischen Sultan Erdogan besucht?
Eine schlechte Wahl! War das überhaupt notwendig zu diesem Zeitpunkt? Laut Medienberichten war der Besuch wohl kein Erfolg!
Wahrscheinlich muss man auf den Nachfolger/in von Erdogan warten!
Merz in der Türkei: Nett sein aus „zwingenden Gründen“ "In Ankara machte Merz seinen ersten Antrittsbesuch abseits von EU und Washington. Er wollte gefallen, angeblich zuhören. Die Chance ließ sich Erdogan nicht entgehen und rückte eine angeblich wachsende „Islamfeindlichkeit“ in Deutschland in den Vordergrund. Merz parierte aufs Wort und versprach prompt die Durchsetzung der Islam-Freiheit in Deutschland."
EU Presidency Denmark surprisingly abandons EU plans for chat control
Good news! Bravo Denmark!
Child protection was apparently used as a pretense for potentially massive government censorship and snooping!
Leave it to social media providers to remove e.g. child pornography! It is in their own best interest to prevent this abuse.
"The Danish EU Council Presidency has abandoned its plan to oblige providers of communication services to search for depictions of child sexual abuse, according to Danish Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgard. A spokesperson for the Council Presidency stated this upon inquiry by heise online, thereby confirming a report by Danish broadcaster (DR).
Denmark's government, which presides over the Council of EU Member States until the end of the year, is tasked with achieving agreements between the states. It is thus abandoning one of the most controversial projects of recent months due to a lack of prospects for success. For weeks, the Danish Council Presidency had attempted to convince other member states of its proposal, according to which providers of communication services could have been obliged to actively search for potentially child-pornographic or abuse depictions. ..."
On SutureBot: A Precision Framework & Benchmark For Autonomous End-to-End Suturing
Chelsea Finn and her team are into surgery now! Maybe next time one has a surgery, a robot will do the stitching.
Notice Ms. Finn and her team used the well known da Vinci medical robot.
Once robots can successfully perform brain surgery, anything is possible! We are getting there! 😊
From the abstract:
"Robotic suturing is a prototypical long-horizon dexterous manipulation task, requiring coordinated needle grasping, precise tissue penetration, and secure knot tying. Despite numerous efforts toward end-to-end autonomy, a fully autonomous suturing pipeline has yet to be demonstrated on physical hardware.
We introduce SutureBot: an autonomous suturing benchmark on the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), spanning needle pickup, tissue insertion, and knot tying. To ensure repeatability, we release a high-fidelity dataset comprising 1,890 suturing demonstrations.
Furthermore, we propose a goal-conditioned framework that explicitly optimizes insertion-point precision, improving targeting accuracy by 59\%-74\% over a task-only baseline.
To establish this task as a benchmark for dexterous imitation learning, we evaluate state-of-the-art vision-language-action (VLA) models, including \pi_0, GR00T N1, OpenVLA-OFT, and multitask ACT, each augmented with a high-level task-prediction policy.
Autonomous suturing is a key milestone toward achieving robotic autonomy in surgery. These contributions support reproducible evaluation and development of precision-focused, long-horizon dexterous manipulation policies necessary for end-to-end suturing. Dataset is available at: this https URL"
Chelsea Finn at the interface of robotics and surgery
On The Reality Gap in Robotics: Challenges, Solutions, and Best Practices
This could be an interesting and timely survey paper by Dieter Fox and his team!
From the abstract:
"Machine learning has facilitated significant advancements across various robotics domains, including navigation, locomotion, and manipulation. Many such achievements have been driven by the extensive use of simulation as a critical tool for training and testing robotic systems prior to their deployment in real-world environments.
However, simulations consist of abstractions and approximations that inevitably introduce discrepancies between simulated and real environments, known as the reality gap. These discrepancies significantly hinder the successful transfer of systems from simulation to the real world. Closing this gap remains one of the most pressing challenges in robotics.
Recent advances in sim-to-real transfer have demonstrated promising results across various platforms, including locomotion, navigation, and manipulation.
By leveraging techniques such as domain randomization, real-to-sim transfer, state and action abstractions, and sim-real co-training, many works have overcome the reality gap.
However, challenges persist, and a deeper understanding of the reality gap's root causes and solutions is necessary. In this survey, we present a comprehensive overview of the sim-to-real landscape, highlighting the causes, solutions, and evaluation metrics for the reality gap and sim-to-real transfer."
Edgar Allen Poe, Forevermore
Scientists Discover p53 Can “Read” Cellular Signals to Direct Immune Response, Upending 30 Years of Scientific Consensus
Amazing stuff! Cancer is history (soon)!
"... researchers have overturned three decades of scientific thinking about p53, the most important tumor suppressor protein in cancer research. In a study ... they reveal for the first time that this critical protein, responsible for halting cell division or initiating cell death, changes its binding sites according to specific cellular signals. The findings challenge the long-held scientific belief that p53 always activated the same set of genes regardless of cellular context or outcome. Instead, researchers discovered that p53 can be directed by the enzyme PADI4 to leave some of its usual binding sites and relocate to genes that generate an immune response to attack tumors. ...
They also found that PADI4 doesn’t just respond to commands from p53—it actually directs p53’s behavior through a process called citrullination. When PADI4 citrullinates p53 (adding chemical tags to specific amino acid residues), it fundamentally changes where p53 goes in the cell’s DNA. Instead of binding to its usual genes, the modified p53 relocates to genes associated with ETS transcription factors, which are known to regulate immune response genes. ...
This discovery has important implications for cancer treatment and diagnosis. Since certain hypomorphic p53 variants cannot properly activate PADI4, these patients may not respond as well to immunotherapies that rely on the body’s natural immune response to fight cancer. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• p53 can be citrullinated in vivo at the C terminus by the protein PADI4
• Endogenous citrullinated p53 can be detected using modification-specific antisera
• Citrullination of p53 redirects it to DNA-binding sites for ETS transcription factors
• Citrullination alters p53 transcriptional potential and tumor suppressor function
Summary
TP53 encodes for the transcription factor p53, which binds to a diverse set of target genes in response to stress.
Activation of p53 results in highly specific transcriptional responses, but the regulation of promoter selectivity by p53 is poorly understood.
Here, we report that sequence-specific binding of p53 is regulated by its target gene and binding partner peptidyl-arginine deiminase 4 (PADI4).
PADI4 enzymatically converts peptidyl-arginine to peptidyl citrulline in a process known as citrullination.
We show that PADI4 citrullinates p53 at the C terminus in vitro, and we confirm two citrullination events in cells and mouse tissue (R306 and R363).
Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) reveals that PADI4 expression causes a redirection of p53 away from a subset of canonical binding sites to target genes associated with ETS transcription factors.
Chromatin profiling using citrullination-specific p53 antibodies supports this conclusion. These findings link citrullination to p53 function and illustrate how chromatin modifiers like PADI4 can direct the p53 transcriptional response."
Graphical abstract
Mathematical proof debunks the idea that the universe is a computer simulation
I am not convinced! Maybe the universe, as we know it, is just a huge aquarium or simulation. Our current knowledge is still far too limited to make such sweeping generalizations.
"[the authors] have shown that the fundamental nature of reality operates in a way that no computer could ever simulate.
Their findings ... go beyond simply suggesting that we're not living in a simulated world like The Matrix. They prove something far more profound: the universe is built on a type of understanding that exists beyond the reach of any algorithm. ..."
From the abstract:
"General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities.
This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated {within} spacetime; instead, it must explain the very {emergence} of spacetime from deeper quantum degrees of freedom, thereby resolving singularities. Quantum gravity is therefore envisaged as an axiomatic structure, and algorithmic calculations acting on these axioms are expected to generate spacetime.
However, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Tarski’s undefinability theorem, and Chaitin’s information-theoretic incompleteness establish intrinsic limits on any such algorithmic program.
Together, these results imply that a wholly algorithmic “Theory of Everything’’ is impossible: certain facets of reality will remain computationally undecidable and can be accessed only through non-algorithmic understanding.
We formalize this by constructing a “Meta-Theory of Everything’’ grounded in non-algorithmic understanding, showing how it can account for undecidable phenomena and demonstrating that the breakdown of computational descriptions of nature does not entail a breakdown of science. Because any putative simulation of the universe would itself be algorithmic, this framework also implies that the universe cannot be a simulation."
Hidden evolution of genetic mutations in sperm raises disease risk for children as men age
It was known for several decades that sperm deteriorates with age, but this study provides more details and how it develops over time. Probably, older men should have their sperm checked if they intend to become fathers.
"Harmful genetic changes in sperm become substantially more common as men age because some are actively favoured during sperm production, new research has revealed.
In a landmark study ... researchers ... have comprehensively mapped how harmful DNA changes in sperm cells can increase across the genome as men age. ...
In a new study, researchers used NanoSeq, an ultra-accurate DNA sequencing method to analyse sperm from 81 healthy men, aged between 24 and 75 years, with unprecedented precision. The sperm samples were collected as part of the TwinsUK cohort, the UK’s largest adult twin registry, providing a unique opportunity to study genetic variation across a diverse and well-characterised population.
The results show that around 2 per cent of sperm from men in their early 30s carried disease-causing mutations, but this rises to 3–5 per cent of sperm from middle-aged (43 to 58 years) and older men (59 to 74 years). Whilst men may be more likely to father children at a younger age, the researchers found that in those aged 70, 4.5 per cent of sperm carry disease-causing mutations. ...
This risk is driven not just by the steady build-up of random changes in DNA, but by a subtle form of natural selection acting on the sperm-producing cells in the testes, giving some mutations a competitive edge during sperm production.
The researchers identified 40 genes where certain changes in DNA are favoured during sperm production, including many linked to childhood diseases, severe neurodevelopmental disorders and inherited cancer risk. While 13 genes have already been associated with this process, the new findings show it is far more widespread than previously understood, affecting a broad range of genes important for cell growth and development. ..."
From the abstract:
"Mutations that occur in the cell lineages of sperm or eggs can be transmitted to offspring. In humans, positive selection of driver mutations during spermatogenesis can increase the birth prevalence of certain developmental disorders. Until recently, characterizing the extent of this selection in sperm has been limited by the error rates of sequencing technologies.
Here we used the duplex sequencing method NanoSeq to sequence 81 bulk sperm samples from individuals aged 24–75 years.
Our findings revealed a linear accumulation of 1.67 (95% confidence interval of 1.41–1.92) mutations per year per haploid genome driven by two mutational signatures associated with human ageing.
Deep targeted and exome NanoSeq5 of sperm samples identified more than 35,000 germline coding mutations.
We detected 40 genes (31 newly identified) under significant positive selection in the male germline that have activating or loss-of-function mechanisms and are involved in diverse cellular pathways.
Most of the positively selected genes are associated with developmental or cancer predisposition disorders in children, whereas four of the genes exhibited increased frequencies of protein-truncating variants in healthy populations.
We show that positive selection during spermatogenesis drives a 2–3-fold increased risk of known disease-causing mutations, which results in 3–5% of sperm from middle-aged to older individuals with a pathogenic mutation across the exome.
These findings shed light on germline selection dynamics and highlight a broader increased disease risk for children born to fathers of advanced age than previously appreciated."
Fig. 1: Mutational burden and signature analysis in sperm and matched blood.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
PM Modi Honours Sardar Patel: The Man Who Awakened India’s Spirit of Unity
I have to admit, I was not familiar with this man. What surprised me about this video, he was never shown with other major Indian figures of the time e.g. Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi (or it escaped me).
Director Tulsi Gabbard Shares Shocking Ways DEI Was Being Used in Our Intelligence Agencies
Shocking! Some employees were spending up to 50% of their workday on DEI issues!
Trump Orders US Military to Resume Nuclear Testing with Palki Sharma
Maybe it is time again to open up new international negotiations about the future of nuclear weapons! E.g. Iran, North Korea are bad actors. There is also a question of whether nuclear weapons need to be tested from time to time. Palki failed to explore these questions!
The Rise, Fall and Reinvention of American Labor Unions since the 19th century
Recommendable! Trader Joe's is particularly featured in this video. Well, Trader Joe's is owned by a German company. In Germany, labor unions have a very strong legal status guaranteed by the German constitution. Maybe the Wall Street Journal was not aware of this fact! Hopefully, the US will never get there!
Why Antimatter Engines Could Launch In Your Lifetime with Matt O'Dowd
Very recommendable! This time it again easier to follow Matt's discourse! 😊
US will share tech to let South Korea build nuclear submarine: Trump
Good news! This will drive the Dear Leader of North Korea mad! 😊
"Trump said the country would build its nuclear-powered submarine in the Philly Shipyard, which was bought last year by South Korea’s Hanwha Group."
"The United States will share closely held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, President Donald Trump said on social media Thursday after meeting with the country’s president.
President Lee Jae Myung stressed to Trump in their Wednesday meeting that the goal was to modernize the alliance with the U.S., noting plans to increase military spending to reduce the financial burden on America."
President Donald Trump shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during a ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Wednesday. Replica Golden Crown
Hundreds of public figures, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Virgin’s Richard Branson urge AI ‘superintelligence’ ban
Oh, these old worry warts! I have little doubt that humans can handle, benefit from and live with superintelligence!
"Key Points
- Superintelligence — a hypothetical form of AI that surpasses human intelligence — has become a buzzword in the AI race between giants like Meta and OpenAI.
- The statement backed by various public figures calls for a prohibition on superintelligence development until it can be done safely and controllably.
..."
Credits: Last Week in AI
The 7 Phases of the Internet A map to where the Web goes next
Recommendable! One of the two authors, i.e. Vint Cerf, is also known as one of the pioneers/co-inventors of the Internet.
Caveat: I did not read the entire article.
"The Internet, born as an experiment meant to connect teams of researchers, has grown into a planetary-scale infrastructure that has reshaped society. Over the course of six decades, it has advanced through—by our count—three phases: first connecting computers, then mobile devices, and later all devices. But that’s just the start. Because just ahead comes new frontiers of connected intelligence and then, later, perception. Last, we suggest, represents a kind of global or ubiquitous connectedness, and finally connectedness even down to the quantum scale. ...
Through every phase, connectivity has been the unifying principle, although with every successive phase also comes new forms of connection. The story begins with connected packets of data across fixed networks of big machines. Then comes mobility, along with broadly connecting all manner of machines—not just mobile and fixed computing devices. Having already progressed through the first three Phases of the Internet (and having now entered the fourth), the world today has seen the steady expansion of human potential, while unlocking new industries, and reshaping how everyone connected to the Internet lives and works. ..."
Diamond Thermal Conductivity: A New Era in Chip Cooling
Amazing stuff! Diamonds are a chip's best friend!
"When you grow a micrometers-thick layer of diamond inside advanced chips, it spreads out the heat and drops the temperature more than 50°C."
"... But with great power comes great…heat! ...
In some ways, diamond is ideal. It’s one of the most thermally conductive materials on the planet—many times more efficient than copper—yet it’s also electrically insulating. However, integrating it into chips is tricky: Until recently we knew how to grow it only at circuit-slagging temperatures in excess of 1,000 °C.
But my research group at Stanford University has managed what seemed impossible. We can now grow a form of diamond suitable for spreading heat, directly atop semiconductor devices at low enough temperatures that even the most delicate interconnects inside advanced chips will survive. To be clear, this isn’t the kind of diamond you see in jewelry, which is a large single crystal. Our diamonds are a polycrystalline coating no more than a couple of micrometers thick."
Gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistors were an ideal test case for diamond cooling. The devices are 3D and the critical heat-generating part, the two-dimensional electron gas, is close to the surface.
Human Dominance Soars While Wild Biomass and Movement Decline. Really!
So what is the point of these two new studies? Biomass hysteria and alarmism? Exercises in futility?
In 1850, world human population was around 1.2 billion. In 2025, it is about 8.2 billion. So what! The population of China and Japan are already shrinking, while the population of India, Africa and Europe will follow soon.
The first study finds that the movement of human biomass today is 40 times greater than that of all wild land mammals, birds, and arthropods combined. Another study reveals that the combined biomass of wild land and marine mammals has plummeted by about 70 percent since 1850, whereas the biomass of humans has soared by roughly 700 percent and that of domesticated animals by 400 percent; those two categories have a combined biomass approaching about 1.1 billion tons."
A newly discovered antibiotic is 100X stronger against superbugs than comparable antibiotics
Good news! Of course, human ingenuity can beat antibiotic resistance any time!
"A newly discovered antibiotic is 100X stronger against superbugs and so far shows no signs of resistance, per a new Journal of the American Chemical Society paper; the potent compound, called pre-methylenomycin C lactone, had been “hiding in plain sight” in a familiar bacterium. ..."
From the abstract:
"The methylenomycins are highly functionalized cyclopentanone antibiotics produced by Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2). A biosynthetic pathway to the methylenomycins has been proposed based on sequence analysis of the proteins encoded by the methylenomycin biosynthetic gene cluster and the incorporation of labeled precursors. However, the roles played by putative biosynthetic enzymes remain experimentally uninvestigated.
Here, the biosynthetic functions of enzymes encoded by mmyD, mmyO, mmyF, and mmyE were investigated by creating in-frame deletions in each gene and investigating the effect on methylenomycin production. No methylenomycin-related metabolites were produced by the mmyD mutant, consistent with the proposed role of MmyD in an early biosynthetic step. The production of methylenomycin A, but not methylenomycin C, was abolished in the mmyF and mmyO mutants, consistent with the corresponding enzymes catalyzing the epoxidation of methylenomycin C, as previously proposed. Expression of mmyF and mmyO in a S. coelicolor M145 derivative engineered to express mmr, which confers methylenomycin resistance, enabled the resulting strain to convert methylenomycin C to methylenomycin A, confirming this hypothesis.
A novel metabolite (premethylenomycin C), which readily cyclizes to form the corresponding butanolide (premethylenomycin C lactone), accumulated in the mmyE mutant, indicating the corresponding enzyme is involved in introducing the exomethylene group into methylenomycin C.
Remarkably, both premethylenomycin C and its lactone precursor were one to two orders of magnitude more active against various Gram-positive bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium isolates, than methylenomycins A and C, providing a promising starting point for the development of novel antibiotics to combat antimicrobial resistance."
Discovery of Late Intermediates in Methylenomycin Biosynthesis Active against Drug-Resistant Gram-Positive Bacterial Pathogens (open access)
Graphical abstract
Jack Smith issued about 200 subpoenas targeting more than 400 Republicans in Arctic Frost case
When I first saw images of Jack Smith after he was appointed as special counsel in 2022, I thought he looks like a crook and where did they find this dude to do such dirty work! It was clear from the beginning that his assignment was a fishing expedition!
Was he not a second class attorney with an unimpressive record?
Israel re-arrests Palestinian terrorist freed in hostage deal over explosives production
Bad news! What is wrong with Arabs like him!
"A Palestinian terrorist who had been released several months ago during the hostage deal agreement earlier in 2025 was arrested on suspicion of production and distribution of explosives, Israel Police announced on Thursday.
The terrorist was arrested last year after being caught with 25 explosives he had manufactured and distributed to various terrorist groups. ..."
Two Centuries of Innovations and Stock Market Bubbles from 1825 to 2000
Is there an AI bubble going on? Will it pop?
Hint: The study dates published already 2018.
"... AI companies are both supplying and investing in each other, a [partially circular] pattern that has drawn comparisons to the dot-com era, when telecom companies loaned money to customers so they could buy equipment. Nvidia invested $100 billion in OpenAI and promised to supply chips for OpenAI’s data-center buildout. OpenAI meanwhile took a 10 percent stake in AMD and promised to pack data centers with its chips. ...
When it comes to technology, investment bubbles are more common than not. A study of 51 tech innovations in the 19th and 20th centuries found that 37 had led to bubbles. Most have not been calamitous, but they do bring economic hardship on the way to financial rewards. It often takes years or decades before major new technologies find profitable uses and businesses adapt. Many early players fall by the wayside, but a few others become extraordinarily profitable. ..."
From the abstract:
"The interplay between innovation and the stock market has been extensively studied by scholars across all business disciplines. However, one phenomenon remains understudied: the association between innovation and stock market bubbles.
Bubbles—defined as rapid increases and subsequent declines in stock prices—have been primarily examined by economists who generally do not focus on individual characteristics of innovations or on the consequences of bubbles for their parent firms.
We set out to fill this gap in our paper. Using a sample of 51 major innovations introduced between 1825 and 2000, we test for bubbles in the stock prices of parent firms subsequent to the commercialization of these innovations.
We identify bubbles in 73% of the cases. The magnitude of these bubbles increases with the radicalness of innovations, with their potential to generate indirect network effects, and with their public visibility at the time of commercialization.
Moreover, we find that parent firms typically raise new equity capital during bubble periods and that the amount of equity raised is proportional to the magnitude of the bubble.
Finally, we show that the buy-and-hold abnormal returns of parent firms are significantly positive between the beginning and the end of the bubble, suggesting that these innovations add value to their firm and to the economy, in spite of the bubble.
Our findings have important implications for managers interested in commercializing innovations and for policy makers concerned with the stability of the financial system."
A study of 175 years of stock market activity reveals innovation and speculation drives bubble activity (original news release)
Google to revive shuttered nuclear power plant in Iowa that closed in 2020
Amazing stuff!
While in good old, but foolish Germany nuclear power plants are shut down and demolished in a fit of climate madness!
"Google announced this week it is working with NextEra Energy to revive a nuclear power plant in Iowa that had closed in 2020.
NextEra has been looking for a partner to reopen the reactor for the past year, and it found one in Google, which has been steadily adding zero-carbon energy sources to power its growing data center fleet. ..."
"
- Duane Arnold Energy Center restart to strengthen American energy grid resilience; Iowa’s only nuclear facility is targeted to be fully operational by the first quarter of 2029
- Project expected to create approximately 400 direct, high-quality full-time jobs and deliver more than $9 billion in economic benefits to Iowa
- Google and NextEra Energy sign a 25-year agreement for Duane Arnold’s energy, as well as an agreement to explore deployment of nuclear generation nationwide
..."
Duane Arnold Energy Center
US military service members with facial hair blocked from Pete Hegseth's South Korea event
The Defense Secretary is serious about facial hair!
"... The Pentagon last month unveiled new grooming standards for troops, requiring service members “to be clean shaven and neat in presentation for a proper military appearance.” ..."
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
How India is entering a new era of maritime self-reliance and global leadership — The Inside Story!
Ambitious! India wants to become a global maritime power!
Wind & Solar power: Too Good To Be True?
Very recommendable! However, the video is about 20 years or more too late!
Death toll of police operation against organised crime in favelas of Rio de Janeiro rises to over 130
Wow! What is going on there!
French Senate Backs Bill Defining Rape as Any Non-consensual Act with Palki Sharma. Really!
I don't believe this makes things easier in court regarding sometimes difficult cases of alleged rape!
Second, it may result in being used as a weapon or a means of extortion by a woman against a man.
What if a woman first consents and then reconsiders etc.
In my view, this is perhaps a feel good legislation!
Men beware of the battle of the sexes!
Donald Trump mocks Bill Gates after billionaire’s humiliating backflip on climate change
Kudos to Mr. Gates for admitting a huge mistake that has cost the world billions/trillions of dollars wasted expenditures/investments (like wind and solar power) etc.
EU Leadership to be India's Republic Day Guests? with Palki Sharma
Good news! Maybe a major free trade agreement between the EU and India will be signed soon.
The Japanese secret to being calmer and happier
Recommendable! Make a slurping sound with your very last sip of green tea!
Nvidia Just Bet $1 Billion on Nokia. Here’s Why. with Palki Sharma
Good news! What an amazing comeback by Nvidia! Finnish, but not finished!
NASA Tests "Quiet" Supersonic X-59 Jet to End Sonic Booms with Palki Sharma
Good news! Very recommendable!
German laser weapon could be on ships by 2029, say contractors
Good news!
"Germany’s navy could have a fielded laser weapon ready by 2029, following nearly a decade of work between contractors Rheinmetall and MBDA, the companies said today.
The two firms said that they have completed a years worth of testing at sea, with a laser demonstrator now being handed over to the government for further testing at the Laser Competence Centre at the Technical Centre for Weapons and Ammunition in Meppen, something an announcement called a “major step” forward.
“Successful tests conducted on the frigate [Sachsen] proved the demonstrator’s tracking capability, effectiveness and precision under real operational conditions for the first time in Europe,” the announcement says. “These tests comprised over 100 live-firing trials and significantly more tracking trials. ..."
With a new molecule-based method, physicists peer inside an atom’s nucleus
Amazing stuff! However, can this approach be transferred to atoms of other elements?
"Physicists at MIT have developed a new way to probe inside an atom’s nucleus, using the atom’s own electrons as “messengers” within a molecule.
In a study appearing today in the journal Science, the physicists precisely measured the energy of electrons whizzing around a radium atom that had been paired with a fluoride atom to make a molecule of radium monofluoride. They used the environments within molecules as a sort of microscopic particle collider, which contained the radium atom’s electrons and encouraged them to briefly penetrate the atom’s nucleus. ...
The team’s new molecule-based method offers a table-top alternative to directly probe the inside of an atom’s nucleus.
Amazing stuff!
Within molecules of radium monofluoride, the team measured the energies of a radium atom’s electrons as they pinged around inside the molecule. They discerned a slight energy shift and determined that electrons must have briefly penetrated the radium atom’s nucleus and interacted with its contents. As the electrons winged back out, they retained this energy shift, providing a nuclear “message” that could be analyzed to sense the internal structure of the atom’s nucleus.
The team’s method offers a new way to measure the nuclear “magnetic distribution.” In a nucleus, each proton and neutron acts like a small magnet, and they align differently depending on how the nucleus’ protons and neutrons are spread out. The team plans to apply their method to precisely map this property of the radium nucleus for the first time. What they find could help to answer one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology: Why do we see much more matter than antimatter in the universe? ..."
From the editor's summary and the abstract:
"Editor’s summary
Precision molecular spectroscopy is increasingly being used to probe symmetry violations relevant to fundamental physics studies. Of particular interest are molecules containing heavy radioactive nuclei, such as the pear-shaped radium isotope 225Ra. Wilkins et al. performed laser spectroscopy measurements of the hyperfine structure of the radium monofluoride molecule, which is especially challenging given the molecule’s short lifetime. In combination with calculations, the researchers were able to test models of magnetization distribution inside the radium nucleus. Their findings may lead to improved tests of fundamental symmetries. ...
Abstract
Precise experimental control and interrogation of molecules and calculations of their structure are enriching the investigation of nuclear and particle physics phenomena. Molecules containing heavy, octupole-deformed nuclei, such as radium, are of particular interest.
Here, we report precision laser spectroscopy measurements and theoretical calculations of the structure of the radioactive radium monofluoride molecule 225Ra19F.
Our results reveal fine details of the short-range electron-nucleus interaction, indicating the high sensitivity of this molecule to the distribution of magnetization, within the radium nucleus.
These results provide a stringent test of the description of the electronic wave function inside the nuclear volume, highlighting the suitability of these molecules for investigating subatomic phenomena."
Observation of the distribution of nuclear magnetization in a molecule (no public access)
Microbiome may determine the temperament of babies
Amazing stuff! I am not sure this study resolved the chicken and egg issue or what came first. Did the microbiome influence the temperament or vice versa.
"... a new preprint, may be differences in their microbiomes.
Previous studies have drawn connections between microbiome composition and certain temperament traits.
But it’s hard to tell the chicken from the egg: Do kids who behave certain ways end up with a specific mix of microbes, or do some microbes influence the way kids behave? ...
They gathered four exuberant 2.5-year-old toddlers and four more inhibited ones. ... The team obtained fecal samples from all the toddlers, then prepared a bunch of rats for a poo transfusion by essentially rinsing the microbes from their bowels before giving them a filtered stool sample or a sham control, followed by booster inoculations 2 and 3 days later.
Rats that received exuberant toddler poo were more exploratory in standard lab tests than both the rats that received samples from the inhibited kids and the control rats.
Intriguingly, although the rats that received the inhibited kids’ stools didn’t show significant behavioral differences from the controls, a part of their brains showed reduced dopamine signaling, which could indicate that they felt less “reward” from joyful activities. ..."
From the abstract:
"Background
Behavioural phenotypes have previously been transferred via faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from patients with psychiatric disorders to rodents. Studies indicate that the gut microbiota composition may be linked to certain temperament traits, defined as biologically-based differences in emotional reactivity and self-regulation. Here, we aimed to determine if the gut microbiota plays a role in temperament using an FMT approach. We focused on the temperament traits of exuberance, defined as positive reactivity, decreased behavioural inhibition, and high behavioural approach tendencies.
Methods
Faeces from 2.5-year-old toddlers from FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study with high exuberance/approach or high behavioural inhibition in the LabTAB bubbles-episode was transferred to juvenile male Sprague Dawley rats (age 22/23 days). Behaviour of the rat recipients (n=53) was assessed using the novel non-social arena, novel social arena, hole board test for exploratory behaviour, social approach-avoidance test, and forced swim test. The faecal pellets collected from the rodents were analyzed with 16s rRNA sequencing and faecal samples from the sample of toddlers (which included the donors, n=176) were analysed using short-read metagenomic sequencing. The striatum and prefrontal cortex from the rodents’ brains were analysed post-mortem using RNAseq.
Results
Microbiome from toddlers with high exuberance traits induced increased exploratory behaviour compared to vehicle-controls and rats receiving faeces from inhibited toddlers.
Locomotor activity, social, and depressive-like behaviour remained unaffected. We noted a downregulation of the dopamine synapse pathway within the striatum of the rats that received faeces from the inhibited trait donors compared with vehicle-controls. Faecal microbiota of rats receiving faeces from the same donor resembled more each other than rats from a different cage. Clostridium species AM29 11AC in toddler microbiome was positively related to exuberance, but there were no cross-sectional associations between faecal metabolites in the human sample.
Conclusions
FMT from exuberant toddlers lead to altered exploratory-related behaviour in rats."
Faecal transplantation from exuberant toddlers increases exploratory behaviour in rats (preprint, open access)
Figure 1. Schematic of the animal experiment timeline.
Figure 3. Pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes in striatum in recipients of inhibited toddler’s faeces vs controls were not statistically significant.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)