Why does the body deem some foods safe and others unsafe?

Amazing stuff!

"Highlights

• Scientists identify three new proteins, one each from soybean, corn, and wheat, that the body uses to determine oral tolerance—the opposite of food allergy
• They found that specialized immune cells called regulatory T cells interact with these proteins in the gut
• By understanding tolerance, researchers can better understand food allergies and begin to imagine future immunotherapies that promote tolerance rather than allergic reactions

...

identifies new bits of food proteins that tell gut immune cells when to tolerate certain foods. They found three of these protein segments, called epitopes—one each from soybean, corn, and wheat. These epitopes interact with specialized immune cells called regulatory T cells to inform that tolerance-or-rejection decision. ..."

"Editor’s summary

Immunological tolerance to dietary antigens is essential for preventing food allergies and digestive disorders such as celiac disease. However, the specific food-derived antigens that contribute to immune tolerance remain poorly described. Blum et al. mapped the dietary epitopes recognized by food-responsive T cell receptors (TCRs) derived from murine intestinal regulatory T (Treg) cells.

Seed storage proteins from corn, wheat, and soy, including the maize protein αZein, were targets of food-responsive Treg cell TCRs. αZein-specific Treg cells suppressed T cell responses to αZein ex vivo and after adoptive transfer into naive mice. These findings provide insight into the dietary components recognized by naturally occurring Treg cells that mediate oral tolerance. ...

Abstract

Food antigens elicit immune tolerance through the action of intestinal regulatory T (Treg) cells. Unlike food allergens, the proteins that mediate tolerance are mostly undescribed.

Here, we found that epitopes derived from seed storage proteins are targets of murine intestinal Treg cells, with the most frequent response targeting the C terminus of the maize protein alpha-zein.

A major histocompatibility complex (MHC) tetramer loaded with this antigen revealed that zein-specific T cells are predominantly intestinal Treg cells, develop concurrently with weaning, and constitute up to 2% of the peripheral Treg cell pool. Zein-responsive Treg cells repressed naïve T cell proliferation ex vivo, and prior dietary exposure resulted in a constrained response upon diverse inflammatory challenges in vivo, supporting a specific role for gut-resident Treg cells in suppressing systemic immune responses.

Our work reveals the development, immune-suppressive characteristics, and function of naturally occurring Treg cells that recognize dietary seed storage proteins, a previously undescribed class of antigens in oral tolerance."

Why does the body deem some foods safe and others unsafe? - Salk Institute for Biological Studies "Study co-led by scientist now at Salk Institute finds three new proteins that the body uses to determine “safe” foods, helping understand food tolerance and allergy"

Identification and characterization of dietary antigens in oral tolerance (no public access)

Tiny implantable, high density ‘cell factories’ produce drugs inside the body

Good news!

"Tiny devices containing cells engineered to continuously produce drugs could one day deliver medicines from inside the body without requiring patients to remember to administer doses.

Researchers have designed a device called hybrid oxygenation bioelectronics system for implanted therapy, or HOBIT, in a step towards realising this goal.

The system hides genetically-engineered cells from the immune system while producing its own oxygen and nutrients to keep the cells alive.

It contains a cell chamber to house the cells, an electrochemical device to generate oxygen by splitting water molecules and electronics and a battery to regulate oxygen production while wirelessly communicating with external devices.

In a proof-of-concept study the team engineered cells to produce an anti-HIV antibody, a GLP-1-like peptide used to treat type 2 diabetes and leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and metabolism. They implanted the devices under the skin of rats and monitored drug levels in the animals’ bloodstreams for 30 days.

Levels remained stable across the study period. About 65% of the cells were still viable by the end of the experiment. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"The bigger picture

.... The difficulty lies in making cells potent enough to be clinically relevant and easy to administer. The hybrid oxygenation bioelectronics system for implanted therapy (HOBIT) device solves these problems: supplemental oxygen is produced at the site of implant and enables a greater density of cells in the subcutaneous space, allowing a minimally invasive procedure to deliver a complex biologic regimen in a proof-of-concept model. From here, the platform can be expanded to target a variety of diseases or cell types to maximize efficacy and feasible translation.

Highlights

• A fully implantable, subcutaneous device enables high-density cell therapy

• Complex biologic therapy regimens are enabled with the HOBIT design

• The HOBIT device demonstrates power-efficient, subcutaneous oxygen generation

Summary

Cell therapy shows promise for sustained delivery of therapeutics, allowing a single dose to replace repeated injections and lasting many months to years. As cells are typically delivered systemically, a natural progression of cell therapy is to miniaturize and compact the cells into a single device. However, the nutrient requirements, coupled with practical limits on device size, limit its application. In addition, while the subcutaneous space presents a convenient location for implantation, oxygen supply is limited and restricts the density of effective cell therapy.

To address this problem, we designed and validated a wireless, fully implantable platform to produce local oxygen and increase the maximum cell density. We demonstrate that encapsulated cells with a density of 60 million cells per mL are viable in our device for 31 days in vivo. This technology has the potential to serve as a platform for cell therapy, allowing clinically relevant doses with minimally invasive implants."

Implantable ‘cell factories’ produce drugs inside the body | News | ConnectSci

Design of a wireless, fully implantable platform for in-situ oxygenation of encapsulated cell therapies (no public access)

Graphical abstract

What changes happen in the aging brain? A comprehensive single-cell atlas to date of epigenetic changes in the aging mouse brain

Very impressive!

"Highlights

• Salk researchers create epigenetic atlas of cell type-specific changes in the aging mouse brain
• The atlas represents eight different brain regions and 36 different cell types, and shows clear epigenetic differences associated with different ages
• The new resource—available publicly on Amazon Web services—can be used to unravel age-related contributions to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS

...

One major mechanistic influence on aging is epigenetic change: the way small chemical tags on top of our base genetic code shift over time to alter gene expression. Salk researchers created the most comprehensive single-cell atlas to date of epigenetic changes in the aging mouse brain, revealing how DNA methylation, genome structure, and gene activity change across brain regions and cell types. The new atlas represents eight brain regions and 36 distinct brain cell types, with over 200,000 single cells profiled across methylation and chromatin conformation assays, plus nearly 900,000 cells captured with spatial transcriptomics. ..."

What changes happen in the aging brain? - Salk Institute for Biological Studies "Salk Institute scientists create atlas of cell type-specific epigenetic changes that occur in the mouse brain as it ages to better understand the basis of neurodegenerative diseases"

Salk researchers used spatial transcriptomics to map where different cell types reside in the mouse brain. Shown are excitatory neurons (left, blue), inhibitory neurons (middle, red), and non-neuronal cells (right, green), color-coded by cell type.

New theory reshapes quantum view of earliest expansion of Big Bang

Amazing stuff!

"... Their work suggests that the universe’s rapid early expansion could have arisen naturally from a deeper, more complete theory of quantum gravity. ...

research team that explored a novel method of combining gravity with quantum physics, the rules that govern how the smallest particles in the universe behave. While general relativity has been successful for more than a century, it breaks down at the extreme conditions that existed at the birth of the universe. To address this problem, the team used Quadratic Quantum Gravity, which remains mathematically consistent even at extremely high energies — similar to the kind present during the Big Bang.

Most existing explanations for the Big Bang rely on Einstein’s theory of gravity, plus additional components added by hand. This new approach offers a more unified picture that connects the earliest moments of the universe to the well-tested cosmology scientists observe today.

The research team found that the Big Bang’s rapid early expansion can emerge naturally from this simple, consistent theory of quantum gravity, without adding any extra ingredients. This early burst of expansion, often called inflation, is a central idea in modern cosmology because it explains why the universe looks the way it does today.

Their model also predicts a minimum amount of primordial gravitational waves, which are tiny ripples in spacetime geometry created in the first moments after the Big Bang. These signals may be detectable in upcoming experiments, offering a rare chance to test ideas about the universe’s quantum origins. ..."

From the abstract:

"We present a quantum quadratic gravity inflationary scenario that can accommodate the new cosmological constraints, which have disfavored Starobinsky inflation. The theory is asymptotically free in the ultraviolet, but 1-loop running is found to dynamically lead to slow-roll inflation toward the infrared. When a large number of matter fields contribute to the beta functions, the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be phenomenologically viable. We find that as inflation ends, the theory approaches its strong coupling regime and general relativity must emerge, as an effective field theory, as the universe must reheat and enter its standard radiation era. In order to avoid strong coupling, a minimum tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.01 is predicted for this theory. Our framework offers a laboratory for connecting a concrete ultraviolet completion (quantum quadratic gravity) with inflationary dynamics, reheating, and precise cosmological observations."

New theory reshapes quantum view of Big Bang "Researchers show how the universe’s earliest expansion may emerge directly from quantum gravity"

Ultraviolet Completion of the Big Bang in Quadratic Gravity (open access)

Credits: Urknall-Rätsel gelöst? Neue Theorie erklärt die Inflation "Neue Studie aus Waterloo: Die quadratische Quantengravitation erklärt die Inflation des frühen Universums ganz ohne Zusatzfaktoren."

Fig. 2.

Plot of the scalar spectral index ns vs the tensor-to-scalar ratio r for Starobinsky inflation (in black), contrasted with our QQG model in color for different values of the coupling λtH. The purple and dashed contours correspond to a combination of CMB (Planck18+ACT+SPT+Lensing+BK) and BAO (DESI) observational constraints for ΛCDM and w0waCDM cosmologies, respectively

When phages of different species communicate with each other

Amazing stuff!

"... scientists studied chemical communication by phages (viruses that infect bacteria).

The phages assessed in this study have two choices when they enter a cell: lie dormant or kill the cell and release new virus particles to infect other cells nearby.

It was recently discovered that some phages use chemical communication systems to optimise this decision.

The new study reveals these signals do not pass solely between phages of the same species. Instead, other species – some of them barely related to the signaller – can eavesdrop. ...

The signal chemicals are called peptides, and are produced by the phage during infection. High peptide concentrations signal a lack of susceptible hosts, while low concentrations signal an abundance of uninfected hosts.

The existence of these signalling systems (called “arbitrium” systems) suggests they provide an evolutionary benefit – at least for in-species communication.

But the new study shows “cross-talk” between species does not help the “listener”. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• Phages are exposed to non-cognate arbitrium signals from other phages

• Some non-cognate signals mediate crosstalk between phages

• Crosstalk shifts lysis-lysogeny decisions toward early lysogeny

• Crosstalking signals can benefit emitting phages but impose costs on responders

Summary

Many viruses can switch between lytic replication and dormancy (or lysogeny). It was recently discovered that some viruses that infect bacteria (known as bacteriophage or phage) employ peptide-based (“arbitrium”) communication systems to optimize their lysis/lysogeny switch; high peptide concentrations signal a lack of susceptible hosts and trigger lysogeny, while low peptide concentrations signal an abundance of uninfected hosts and prompt lysis.

Here, we demonstrate that arbitrium phages belonging to different species and genera can influence each other’s infection dynamics by secreting similar communication peptides, leading to early lysogenization of the signal-receiving phage and elevated fitness of the signal-emitting phage. Antagonistic coevolution between signal-emitting and signal-receiving phages to manipulate each other’s infection behaviors may explain the rapid diversification of arbitrium systems and their frequent horizontal exchange to escape the noise of crosstalk."

Viruses 'eavesdrop' on each other—but it can backfire

Viruses ‘eavesdrop’ on each other – but it can backfire (original news release)

Arbitrium phages can manipulate each other’s lysis/lysogeny decisions (open access)

Graphical abstract

Figure 1 Arbitrium phages encounter each other in nature

Lost mosaic reveals first image of female beast-fighter from the Roman era

Amazing stuff!

"... presents evidence that a 3rd-century Roman mosaic from Reims, which depicts a topless figure with prominent breasts battling a leopard, is actually a visual representation of a Roman female beast-fighter, or venatrix. This contradicts previous research, which read her role as that of an agitator, a clown-like arena staff member whose job was to whip the animals to make them attack during a hunt. ..."

From the abstract:

"Women fighting beasts in arena games are attested by the written sources, but no visual source is known to show their image. It is proposed that a figure in a mosaic found in Reims in 1860 but destroyed in World War I, and largely forgotten since then, depicts one of those women.

Evidence is presented proving that (1) she is a woman – whereas previous researchers only suggested that she might be a woman; and (2) she is a beast-fighter – a huntress, a venatrix – whereas previous researchers have wrongly identified her as an agitator, an inexistent arena role, or a paegniarius, a kind of clown with a whip.

The identification of the sole known visual source depicting a Roman female beasts-huntress alone is very important, but, additionally, since the mosaic dates to the third century, it adds a whole century to the history of those female arena huntresses, since venatrices are supposed to have disappeared soon after AD 100, and to the history of women in the Roman arena, since female gladiators disappeared in AD 200. Thus, she is a female arena fighter (and performer) recorded at a later date."

Lost mosaic reveals first image of female beast-fighter from the Roman era

New Evidence of Women Fighting Beasts in the Roman Arena: The Woman in the Mosaic from Reims (open access, a very long article covering all sorts of aspects)

Figure 1. Mosaic from Reims, third century. Found in Reims in 1860, destroyed in 1917 during WWI. Lost. Drawing from Loriquet 1862: planche XVIII.

Figure 2. The woman. (a) Drawing from Loriquet 1862: planche IX, n° 11. (b) Detail of the breasts.

English for trippers: Wither, dither, and slither

Hither not!

ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly

Cause for concern!

Unfortunately, it appears I can not access the ASPI website from behind the Great Firewall despite VPN software.

"ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly ...

China is no longer merely leading the research in major technology fields. It’s also moving towards a monopolistic position in most of them, the latest update of ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker shows. As wars in ..."

Today on The Strategist

Ducati’s $165,000 Superleggera V4 Centenario motorcycl has already sold out the 500 units

Amazing stuff! Would you buy a motorcycle for over $160,000?

"Ducati’s $165,000 Superleggera V4 Centenario motorcycle, which it calls the most extreme and expensive road-legal motorcycle it has ever built, has already sold out the 500 units it built for its 100th anniversary, as well as the $250,000 Tricolore variant."

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Ducati's $165,000 'no limits' Superleggera motorcycle is already sold out

The Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario

New discovery about the parasite behind sleeping sickness

Good news!

"Scientists discovered that the parasite behind sleeping sickness builds an “invisibility cloak” from special proteins, solving a 40-year mystery about how the deadly disease hides in the body for years."

"... Newly discovered ESB2 proteins may be the reason why. These collectively create a barrier structure called a variant surface glycoprotein (VSG). At the same time, the parasite is also precisely editing its genes to hide inside its host. ..."

From the abstract:

"Antigenic variation is an immune evasion strategy used by pathogens, including Trypanosoma brucei. This parasite expresses a single variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) from a large genetic repertoire, which it periodically switches throughout an infection.
VSGs are co-transcribed with expression-site-associated genes (ESAGs) within a specialized nuclear body, but there is substantial differential expression and the regulatory mechanisms remain unclear.

Here we applied TurboID-mediated proximity labelling mass spectrometry to map the subnuclear expression-site body (ESB) post-transcriptional network. We identify and characterize three previously undescribed components: ESB-associated protein 1 (ESAP1) and ESB-specific proteins 2 and 3 (ESB2 and 3). These proteins form discreet subnuclear condensates that are developmentally regulated. ESB2 is an active RNA endonuclease that negatively regulates ESAG transcripts. Its recruitment depends on a hierarchy involving VEX2, ESAP1 and ESB3, a constant flux of active transcription and RNA processing, and its own nuclease activity. Overall, we uncover a molecular mechanism that fine-tunes expression of virulence genes through specialized RNA decay in T. brucei."

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Parasitic sleeping sickness creates ‘invisibility cloak’ to hide in humans for years "After 40 years, biologists made a breakthrough in understanding the deadly disease."

University of York scientists solve 40-year-old biological mystery behind Sleeping Sickness (original news release) "Scientists at the University of York have cracked a 40-year-old biological cold case by revealing how the parasite that causes Sleeping Sickness stays one step ahead of the human immune system."

Specialized RNA decay fine-tunes monogenic antigen expression in Trypanosoma brucei (open access)

Fig. 1: VEX1 and VEX2 PL–MS identified novel ESB-specific, SLAB and NUFIP body components.

The DNA of the the African trypanosome parasite in magenta and it's protective "cloak" in green

Can Scientists revive Nuclear Arms Control

Food for thought! Probably, other nuclear weapons countries like China, India, Pakistan need to be included.

"February 2026 saw the end of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, the last nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia,” ... What does this mean for the future of nuclear arms control? ... that this moment calls for “scientists from all three nuclear powers [China, Russia, and the US] to collaborate on a solution.” ... how, in the 1950s, atomic physicists from the US and USSR “stepped forward to lay the groundwork for eventual nuclear agreements in the 1960s and 1970s.” Encouraging a replay of this history, ... today’s nuclear scientists can help the major nuclear powers find a compromise on “the key issue of what level of activity is permitted under the nuclear testing moratorium.”" (Source)

Did the first modern apes emerge in northern Africa and the Middle East instead of East Africa?

Amazing stuff! Maybe the pyramids in Egypt distracted too much! Just kidding!

"Scientists have long assumed that modern apes—the group that includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans—first emerged in East Africa. Newly discovered fossils described recently in Science, however, may rewrite that history.

Researchers working at the Wadi Moghra archaeological site in northern Egypt unearthed teeth and jawbones belonging to a previously unknown ape genus and species, which lived around 17 to 18 million years ago during the Early Miocene epoch. “Discovering a fossil ape in this region is both significant and somewhat surprising,” ...

The ancient animal, dubbed Masripithecus moghraensis , appears to be closely related to the last common ancestor of all living apes, suggesting this group actually got its start in northern Africa and the Middle East. Based on its large, textured teeth and robust jaw, the team believes M. moghraensis ate a flexible diet of fruit, nuts, and seeds—helping the species thrive during a period of climatic change. ..."

"... The remains, discovered in 2023 and 2024, are very incomplete ‪—‬ just a few fragments of lower jawbone and some worn teeth. But Al-Ashqar and her colleagues established that the remains didn't belong to any known ape species. The researchers have assigned the fossils to a new genus and species named Masripithecus moghraensis; the genus name translates to "Egypt monkey or trickster" in Arabic and Greek, while the species name refers to "Wadi Moghra," where it was found. ..."

From the Perspective abstract:

"Research on the closest extinct relatives of humans (such as australopiths) can only explain the most recent evolutionary history of the human lineage. Older apes are essential to reconstructing the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans—that is, the starting point of human evolution

(1). The ape and human lineage (hominoids) diverged from Old World monkeys in Afro-Arabia more than 25 million years ago (Ma)

(2). In the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 Ma), apes were much more diverse and widespread than they are today (1, 3). Various lineages of African archaic (stem) hominoids evolved before the origin of modern (crown) hominoids and their eventual dispersal into Eurasia. However, the origins of crown hominoids are still unclear. On page 1383 of this issue, Al-Ashqar et al. (4) describe a previously unknown Miocene ape from North Africa and discuss its relevance for crown-hominoid origins."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

The vast majority of early hominoid fossil hunting has occurred in East Africa, where a trove of early fossils and lineages have been found. Other regions in Africa have been less explored for various reasons, inspiring the question of whether a focus on East Africa has shaped opinions about where early hominoid evolution occurred. Al-Ashqar et al. now describe a Miocene ape from Egypt with crown hominoid affinities suggesting both that this lineage diverged before entering Eurasia and that a focus on one African region may have shaped our ideas about where hominoids first emerged (see the Perspective by Alba and Arias-Martorell). ... 

Abstract

The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys.

Here, we describe a fossil ape from North Africa, a new genus (Masripithecus) from the Early Miocene (~17 million to 18 million years) of northern Egypt, on the basis of mandibular remains. A combined molecular-morphological Bayesian tip-dating analysis positions Masripithecus closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa, thereby filling a phylogenetic and biogeographic gap in the evolution of stem hominoids. This evidence suggests that crown Hominoidea might have originated during the Early Miocene in the underexplored northeastern part of Afro-Arabia, rather than in eastern Africa or Eurasia."

ScienceAdviser

18 million-year-old fossils of ape found in Africa, but in an unexpected place "The ancestor of apes was long thought to come from East Africa, but newly discovered fossils in Egypt may prompt a rethink."

The dawn of modern apes (Perspective, no public access)

An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea (no public access)

A map showing the dispersal of apes, including Masripithecus moghraensis, in the Miocene.

A jaw fragment from Masripithecus moghraensis, photographed at the moment of discovery.

AI-driven framework uncovers new carbon structures—one thought to be harder than diamond

Amazing stuff! The magic of carbon!

"... With this approach, the researchers discovered several allotropes with combinations of exotic properties that have never previously been observed. Among them is a superhard phase with a calculated hardness exceeding even that of diamond. Its dense sp3-dominant network makes it a potentially groundbreaking material for applications demanding extreme hardness.

On top of this already remarkable discovery, the team discovered a material whose thermal conductivity varies depending on the direction of heat flow, combined with an ultra-low shear stiffness—allowing different regions of the carbon lattice to reorient relative to each other when a shear force is applied.

"We also discovered an sp-sp2-sp3 hybridized phase of C12 phase containing 12 carbon atoms per unit cell, which uniquely combines metallic conductivity with a negative Poisson's ratio," ... The latter property describes how the material counterintuitively expands in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which it is being stretched. ..."

From the abstract:

"The discovery of novel carbon allotropes with tailored thermal and mechanical properties is critical for advanced thermal management. However, exploring the vast configurational space of carbon using ab initio calculations remains computationally prohibitive. Driven by the rich topological landscape of carbon, where the competition between  and hybridization states dictates material performance, we establish a closed-loop artificial intelligence (AI) framework to explore this complex configurational space. We introduce a hybridization entropy descriptor to guide the search beyond conventional forms.

Here, we establish a closed-loop AI framework that synergizes a Large Language Model (LLM) for structural generation with a Machine Learning Potential (MLP) for accelerated evaluation. Leveraging CrystaLLM to generate candidates and an iteratively refined MLP for high-fidelity validation, we screened thousands of structures to identify several stable allotropes with exotic properties.

Specifically, we report “yne-diamond C12” and “yne-hex-diamond C8,” which exhibit extreme thermal anisotropy and ultralow in-plane shear stiffness arising from their mixed sp– hybridization.

Furthermore, we discovered a complex sp– –  hybridized C12 phase that combines metallic conductivity with an anomalous negative Poisson's ratio.

Notably, we identified a superhard phase (C16_3) possessing a calculated Vickers hardness (103.3 GPa) exceeding that of diamond {96 GPa  ...

Microscopic analysis reveals that thermal transport in these materials is governed by the interplay between rigid frameworks and flexible linkers. This work expands the known carbon phase space and demonstrates the efficacy of coupling generative AI with MLPs for the accelerated inverse design of functional materials."

AI-driven framework uncovers new carbon structures—one thought to be harder than diamond

LLM-driven discovery for carbon allotropes with bond-network entropy (no public access)

Der Berliner Empfang für den syrischen IS-Schlächter al-Scharaa. Wirklich!

Manchmal liegt der Tichy's Einblick völlig daneben, wie in diesem Fall!

Al-Sharaa als Schlächter zu bezeichnen zeugt von erheblicher Unkenntnis! Seit al-Scharia die Führung von Syrien übernommen hat ist wohl wenig von seiner terroristischen Vergangenheit zu vernehmen. Er hat inzwischen auch geheiratet und er ist Vater von kleinen Kinder.

"Manchmal kippt Politik nicht durch Programme, Parteitage oder Leitartikel. Manchmal kippt sie durch Bilder. Berlin liefert an diesem 30. März 2026 genau solche Bilder. Ein Mann mit jihadistischer Vergangenheit wird von Mullah-Freund Steinmeier devot mit höchsten Staatsehren empfangen, trifft Merz, wird von einem gewaltigen Sicherheitsapparat abgeschirmt, in einem Luxushotel im Herzen der deutschen Haupstadt einquartiert – und auf deutschen Straßen sammeln sich zugleich Tausende seiner Anhänger, um ihn zu feiern. Mehr Verdichtung des Migrations- und Autoritätsversagens an einem einzigen Tag ist kaum noch möglich. ..."

Diese Bilder treiben die AfD über 30 Prozent "Der Berliner Empfang für den syrischen IS-Schlächter al-Scharaa und der frenetische Jubel tausender seiner Anhänger markieren einen Kipppunkt. Solche Bilder fräsen sich ins Gedächtnis. Wird hiernach nicht entschlossen gehandelt, wird die CDU als stärkste Kraft endgültig abgelöst."

Energiewende: Hohe Kapazität, wenig Produktion

Empfehlenswert! Mehr schein als sein!

"In der festen Überzeugung, dann nicht mehr auf fossile Energieträger zurückgreifen zu müssen, die uns den konjunkturellen Aufschwung versauen. Doch so einfach ist die Sache nicht. Tatsächlich wurden die Kapazitäten, insbesondere die erneuerbaren, in der EU stark ausgebaut. Die paradoxe Entwicklung dabei ist nur, dass die Produktion nicht Schritt hält. Während sich die installierte Gesamtkapazität seit 2000 fast verdoppelt hat, verharrt die Erzeugung weitgehend auf der Stelle, wie unsere Grafik zeigt.

Der Grund liegt im System selbst. Erneuerbare Energien haben einen geringeren und vor allem stärker schwankenden Wirkungsgrad als fossile Kraftwerke. Die Sonne scheint nicht immer, der Wind weht nicht konstant."

Werden uns die Erneuerbaren retten? – Agenda Austria "Hätten wir doch nur die Energiewende stärker vorangetrieben! So oder so ähnlich schallt es im Zuge der abermaligen Energiekrise aus aller Munde."

A record 57 House of Representatives members have announced they won't seek re-election ahead of midterm

Good news! Western democracies have too many lifelong, elected career politicians!

"A record 57 House members have announced they won't seek re-election, including 36 Republicans, the most GOP retirements ahead of a midterm in nearly a century."

Join the Flyover

Record number of lawmakers retiring from Congress ahead of midterms

Ukrainian President Zelensky: “every Ukrainian housewife can be CEO of Rheinmetall.”

Good one! See my yesterday's blog post (in German) on the stupid remarks by the CEO of Rheinmetall!

"The big news today is probably how Rheinmetall’s CEO talked down Ukrainian drones, calling them “Legos” made by “housewives” – and how the company was quick to go into damage control.

Zelensky is not exactly thrilled with the remarks, of course, saying if that’s the case, then “every Ukrainian housewife can be CEO of Rheinmetall.” " (Source)

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy agrees to defense cooperation with UAE, Qatar

Good news!

"Ukraine on Saturday agreed to cooperate on defense with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to both countries amid escalating tensions in the region.

Qatar’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Doha and Kyiv have signed a defense cooperation agreement which includes the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems. ..."

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy agrees to defense cooperation with UAE, Qatar

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Hezbollah uses ambulances, paramedic uniforms, as disguise for terrorism

Did not Hamas terrorists have a command center underneath a hospital in the Gaza strip?

These terrorists should be prosecuted as war criminals!

"... Another statement from the IDF described Hezbollah as routinely making use of medical infrastructure, equipment, and personnel in order to conceal its terrorist activity. ..."

Hezbollah uses ambulances, paramedic uniforms, as disguise for terrorism | The Jerusalem Post "The terrorists, the military claimed, systematically used ambulances to transfer weapons across the country, in order to launch attacks against Israel and IDF soldiers."

Heat in Texas prisons has killed inmates. A landmark trial starting this week could force the use of AC.

Tough love in Texas! Don't do crime in Texas!

"... Nearly 70% of Texas prisoners live without AC, or roughly 90,000 inmates, according to the legal filings, and temperatures in cells routinely climb to above 90 degrees during the summer. ..."

Texas faces landmark trial over lack of air conditioning in prisons

Selbst wer zahlen kann, findet keine Wohnung mehr

Schlagzeilen aus der Bananenrepublik D!

So stark sind die Mieten in Großstädten gestiegen | FAZ (behind paywall) "In 80 Großstädten sind die Mieten um bis zu 20 Prozent gestiegen. ..."

Huawei poaches top German scientist, as scholars blame academic system

How times are changing!

"Huawei Technologies has poached a prominent German scientist from a leading public institution [Fraunhofer Gesellschaft], highlighting the difficulty that the country faces in keeping staff from joining well-resourced and fast-moving Chinese tech giants."

Huawei poaches top German scientist, as scholars blame academic system - Nikkei Asia "Lawmakers call for tighter rules over fears of Chinese tech know-how theft, sabotage"

Taiwan’s Kuomintang leader to visit mainland China to aid ‘peaceful’ relations

Good news? This seems to be a little bit unusual?

"Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT), will lead a delegation to mainland China next month at the invitation of Beijing, her first visit since assuming the position in November."

Breaking | Taiwan’s Kuomintang leader to visit mainland China to aid ‘peaceful’ relations: Beijing | South China Morning Post "Cheng Li-wun invited to visit Jiangsu province, Shanghai and Beijing next month"

Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen, Published: 10:47am, 30 Mar 2026

Novel measurement confirms a 50-year-old prediction: Dark points are faster than light

Amazing stuff!

"A research group from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology reports in Nature an unprecedented achievement in electron microscopy: the direct measurement of "dark points" within light waves. By doing so, the researchers were able to confirm a prediction from the 1970s that the speed of these points exceeds the speed of light. ..."

From the abstract:

"Phase singularities—points carrying quantized topological charge—are universal features found across diverse wave systems from superfluids and superconductors to acoustic and optical fields. Ensembles of these singularities exhibit distance correlations resembling particles in liquids, extensively studied for their role in exotic material phases. By contrast, the full correlations in phase space that govern the system evolution have remained unexplored and experimentally inaccessible.

Here we directly measure the ultrafast dynamics of optical singularity ensembles, capturing their full phase-space correlations, presenting the joint distance–velocity distribution.

Our observations show a breakdown of the particle-singularity analogy: phase singularities accelerate towards formally divergent velocities in the moment before annihilation, indicated by measurements of velocities exceeding the speed of light.

These apparent superluminal velocities are paradoxically amplified by the slow group velocity of hyperbolic phonon polaritons in our material platform, hexagonal boron nitride membranes. We demonstrate these phenomena using combined hardware and algorithmic advances in ultrafast electron microscopy, achieving spatial and temporal resolutions, each an order of magnitude below the polaritonic wavelength and cycle period. Our findings deepen our understanding of phase singularities and their universality, enabling to probe topological defect dynamics at previously unattainable timescales."

Novel measurement confirms a 50-year-old prediction: Dark points are faster than light

Superluminal correlations in ensembles of optical phase singularities (no public access)

Earth's 40,000-year tilt cycle links Antarctic ice growth to subtropical productivity

Much of the so called global warming/climate change is most likely caused by variations in solar activity or various regular, recurrent movements of the earth axis. I have blogged about this multiple times.

"... The study ... found that the obliquity cycle—a 40,000-year astronomical cycle tied to changes in Earth's axial tilt—influenced ocean productivity in subtropical latitudes about 34 million years ago, when the Antarctic ice sheet was first expanding. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

The impact of Antarctic cryosphere dynamics on global marine ecosystems, under the anticipated elevated atmospheric pCO2-levels of our future, is a question of broad societal importance. Newly acquired geologic data from the subtropical South Atlantic provide the first evidence of a highly synchronized 40-kyr-scale teleconnection between Antarctic ice sheet evolution, physical oceanography, and subtropical marine bioproductivity following the Eocene–Oligocene Transition, under pCO2-levels that exceed that of today. This work underscores the sensitivity of the marine-based ice sheets of Antarctica to oceanic heat delivery—with linkages to meridional temperature gradients and pCO2—yielding important implications for marine bioproductivity in our future warming world.

Abstract

The inception of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) marked a major global climatic reorganization of the Cenozoic, but the response of the subtropical marine biosphere remains poorly constrained.

A new sediment archive from the subtropical South Atlantic (IODP Exp. 390 and 393) reveals a sevenfold increase in surface ocean bioproductivity proxy accumulation (biogenic barium) commensurate with the initial expansion of the AIS 34 Mya, and the emergence of an amplified astronomical forcing of subtropical bioproductivity that mirrors the subsequent evolution of the AIS in the early Oligocene.

We find that a strong 40-kyr obliquity response characterizes subtropical bioproductivity following the initial establishment of an expansive marine-based AIS. Portions of the AIS in contact with the marine environment are sensitive to meridional heat delivery controlled by obliquity-forced interactions between the atmosphere and ocean, which can propagate to the lower latitudes via Southern Ocean overturning circulation.

The surprising emergence of obliquity forcing of low-latitude bioproductivity enhances our understanding of global teleconnections and feedbacks that regulate global climate, and points to mechanisms driving global marine bioproductivity on astronomical timescales—and their intricate connections to the evolution of the cryosphere."

Earth's 40,000-year tilt cycle links Antarctic ice growth to subtropical productivity

High-latitude teleconnections drive subtropical marine bioproductivity at the dawn of the Antarctic ice sheet (no public access)

Autonomous language-model-powered agents went rogue

Bad news!

"Artificial intelligence “agents,” a kind of algorithm that can autonomously plan and carry out tasks such as managing emails and entering calendar appointments, have been attracting a lot of buzz. ... [a team] wondered how trustworthy they are ...  organized a series of stress tests. Their answer: too often, not very much.

Scientists probed the AIs for security and privacy vulnerabilities; in 11 case studies the agents went rogue, sharing private files—containing medical details and Social Security and bank account numbers—without permission. One agent publicly posted a potentially libelous allegation about a fictitious person, Shapira and her team reported in a preprint they titled “Agents of Chaos.” ..."

From the abstract:

"We report an exploratory red-teaming study of autonomous language-model-powered agents deployed in a live laboratory environment with persistent memory, email accounts, Discord access, file systems, and shell execution. Over a two-week period, twenty AI researchers interacted with the agents under benign and adversarial conditions. Focusing on failures emerging from the integration of language models with autonomy, tool use, and multi-party communication, we document eleven representative case studies.

Observed behaviors include unauthorized compliance with non-owners, disclosure of sensitive information, execution of destructive system-level actions, denial-of-service conditions, uncontrolled resource consumption, identity spoofing vulnerabilities, cross-agent propagation of unsafe practices, and partial system takeover.

In several cases, agents reported task completion while the underlying system state contradicted those reports.

We also report on some of the failed attempts.

Our findings establish the existence of security-, privacy-, and governance-relevant vulnerabilities in realistic deployment settings. These behaviors raise unresolved questions regarding accountability, delegated authority, and responsibility for downstream harms, and warrant urgent attention from legal scholars, policymakers, and researchers across disciplines. This report serves as an initial empirical contribution to that broader conversation."

ScienceAdviser

Agents of Chaos (open access)

Independent measurement strengthens the case for toponium

Amazing stuff!

"An independent measurement by the CMS experiment at the LHC confirms the existence of toponium, a bound state of a top quark and its antiquark, with a statistical significance exceeding five standard deviations. This finding establishes toponium as the most massive composite particle observed and enhances understanding of the strong nuclear force."

"... The first hints of toponium appeared in searches for heavy Higgs-boson-like particles that could decay into a top quark–antiquark pair. An unexpected excess of collision events was observed at a mass close to twice the mass of the top quark, which is more characteristic of a bound state rather than a new fundamental particle. Detailed studies by the CMS and ATLAS experiments confirmed this excess using events in which both top quarks decay into leptons (electrons or muons).

The new CMS study approaches the problem from a different angle, examining events in which one top quark decays into a bottom quark, a charged lepton and a neutrino while the other decays into quarks that produce sprays, or "jets," of particles. ...

These new techniques proved highly effective. They resulted in the observation of an excess with a statistical significance of more than five standard deviations ... The result provides a new, statistically independent confirmation of toponium production.

"Toponium is heavier than the heaviest known atomic nucleus, oganesson, making it the most massive bound state ever observed," ..."

From the abstract:

"A search is presented for top quark-antiquark (t¯t) bound states near the t¯t

 production threshold, in final states with a single electron or muon and jets. The study uses proton-proton collision data at √s= 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb

−1. The analysis examines the relative velocity between the top quark and antiquark, along with two angular observables sensitive to the parity and spin of the t¯t system. A significant excess of events is observed relative to the standard model prediction for t¯t production calculated at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics. The excess corresponds to an observed cross section of 5.1 ± 0.9pb and is consistent with a simplified model of a color-singlet pseudoscalar toponium motivated by nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics. The result provides an independent confirmation of the excess reported in the dilepton channel."

Independent measurement strengthens the case for toponium

Observation of a pseudoscalar excess at the top quark pair production threshold in the single lepton channel (open access)

Rheinmetall-Chef spottet über ukrainische Drohnen

Ich glaube nicht, das Putin der Schreckliche ueber diese Dronen spottet!

Was für eine chauvinistische Bemerkung!

"Rheinmetall-Chef spottet über ukrainische Drohnen

Von Hausfrauen mit 3-D-Druckern gemacht: Der Rheinmetall-Chef sieht in ukrainischen Drohnen kein besonderes Innovationspotential. Das sorgt für deutliche Kritik aus der eigenen Branche und aus der Ukraine." (Source)

Armin Pfaffberger. Vielleicht ist der Kragen am Pullover zu eng?

Female Teacher, 28, who engaged in sexual activity with 15-year-old boy in her car — victim's aunt caught them

Another Me Too event!

"A former Ohio high school teacher who was caught sexually abusing a 15-year-old student in a car has pleaded guilty to child sex crimes. The teacher avoided a harsher sentencing with a plea deal. ..."

Teacher, 28, who engaged in sexual activity with 15-year-old boy in her car — victim's aunt caught them — cuts plea deal | Blaze Media

The Venezuelan first lady’s other job: tending a family crime dynasty and crime business

Another Me Too!

"The Venezuelan first lady’s other job: tending a family crime dynasty.

 

When DEA agents flew Nicolás Maduro to New York to face narcoterrorism charges, beside him was his wife, Cilia Flores. Pursued for years by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Flores was an alleged crime lord in her own right.

A federal indictment unsealed the day U.S. commandos pulled Flores and Maduro from Caracas accused her of conspiring with Venezuelan officials to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., accepting bribes to allow drug-trafficking flights and ordering murders.

According to court records and former associates, she rewarded a web of relatives with drug routes, state contracts and impunity. In a January appearance in federal court, Flores pleaded not guilty and said she was “completely innocent.”"

Wall Street Journal What's news

Cilia Flores

Rwanda and Zipline agreed to build the world’s first nationwide on-demand drone delivery network for healthcare

 Good news!

"The Rwandan government has agreed to expand its partnership with Zipline to build the world’s first nationwide drone delivery network for healthcare. The system will extend beyond rural areas into cities like Kigali, enabling on-demand delivery of blood, vaccines, and medicines across the entire country." (Source)

A pill for sleeping sickness that can cure the disease with a single dose has been approved by EU regulators

 Good news!

"A pill for sleeping sickness that can cure the disease with a single dose has been approved by EU regulators and could be deployed in endemic countries as soon as next year. It’s far easier to administer than the current standard 10-day regimen and could make it much easier to treat patients in remote areas." (Source)

The economy of Paraguay

Good news!

"Paraguay’s economy has grown by an average of 4 percent annually for two decades—a record of stability that helped earn it investment-grade credit ratings and is now drawing in foreign investors." (Source)

Celebrated female cop accused of 'grooming,' raping teen boy for years

Another Me Too event!

"A female cop in Massachusetts and her husband are facing serious allegations that they raped a boy for years, beginning when he was 14.

Around 6 a.m. on Thursday, Samantha Pelrine, a 31-year-old officer with the Plymouth Police Department, and husband Daniel Forand, 37, were arrested without incident in connection with the allegations. ..."

Celebrated female cop accused of 'grooming,' raping teen boy | Blaze Media 

Self-cleaning fabric could eliminate the need for detergent

Call me skeptical! This goal has been researched for several decades now. More success this time?

To use a spray, as in this case, makes you already wonder.

And these researchers worry about "microplastic-laden wastewater"! These researchers are beholden to the superstition of our time!

"... In a study published in Communications Chemistry, researchers introduced a versatile self-cleaning fabric coating that could eliminate the need for detergents in everyday laundry. By alternately spraying the fabrics with two polymers—poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) and poly(vinylsulfonic acid) (PVS)—they created a dense hydration layer that allows dirt and microbes to be washed away using only water. ..."

From the abstract:

"Laundry is an everyday necessity in modern life, yet its role in converting vast amounts of clean household water to wastewater remains underappreciated primarily due to the excessive reliance on detergents to achieve effective cleanliness and hygiene. To tackle this enduring issue particularly amid mounting global concerns over water scarcity, here a self-cleaning polyelectrolyte multilayer coating was developed by alternately spraying poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) and poly(vinylsulfonic acid) (PVS) onto various fabrics-including both hydrophobic synthetic fibers and hydrophilic cotton textiles-forming an ultra-high dense sulfonate-derived complete hydration layer that enables the effective removal of food stains, oily residues, bacteria, and fungi through simple rinsing with tap water.

This innovation transforms conventional detergent-assisted, multi-step laundry practices – typically requiring 1 washing cycles and 4 rinsing cycles – to a single detergent-free rinsing cycle with enhanced cleanliness and hygiene.

As a result, the overall consumption of water, electricity, and time is reduced by approximately 82%, while the discharge of detergent- and microplastic-laden wastewater is entirely eliminated. This study presents an approach for sustainable textile care that has the potential to advance environmentally responsible and resource-efficient hygiene technologies in everyday life."

Self-cleaning fabric could eliminate the need for detergent

A versatile self-cleaning fabric coating as a detergent-free laundry product (open access)

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (age 75) is losing it like the senile and demented 46th President

I have been saying this since at least November last year!

When old, elected politicians don't know when it is time to quit! When voters are ignorant about the age of politicians!

It is high time for the Dimocratic Party to look for better leadership!

Howie Carr: Chuck Schumer's losing it like Dementia Joe Biden

U.S. Records Net Negative Migration Across Every Metro Area With illegal border crossings at their lowest level since the 1970s

Good news! Massive illegal immigration like under the administration of the senile and demented 46. President finally came to an end!

"The United States has achieved a historic turnaround on immigration, with net migration falling across every single metropolitan area in the country last year. ... 

With illegal border crossings at their lowest level since the 1970s, the U.S. recorded net negative migration last year for the first time in at least 50 years — reversing decades of open border failures that undermined American workers, strained public resources, and eroded national sovereignty. ..."

America First in Action: U.S. Records Net Negative Migration Across Every Metro Area – The White House

Notes on Hyperplasia Functions as a Link Between Obesity and Cancer

Good to know! Cancer is history (soon)! I only became aware of this paper, because one of authors is Allain Yuille, a well known ML & AI researcher, who I am following via Google Scholar.

Another good reason to lose weight when overweight!

From the abstract:

"Obesity is a well-established risk factor for several cancers, yet the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We hypothesized that as body size increases with obesity, organ size increases to meet metabolic demands, which in turn raises the number of cells at risk of malignant transformation.

Measurement of the liver, pancreas, and kidney volumes in 747 adults across a wide BMI range (17.8 to 70.9 kg/m²) showed a strong positive correlation between BMI and organ size: a 5-unit increase in BMI was significantly associated with volume increases of 12% in the liver, 9% in both kidneys combined, and 7% in the pancreas.

To determine the cellular basis of organ enlargement, kidney cell numbers were quantified using both autopsy samples (34,337 proximal tubular epithelial cells) and biopsy data from 25 individuals. The total number of cells increased substantially, indicating that approximately 61% of kidney enlargement was due to hyperplasia, with the remaining 39% increase attributable to hypertrophy. Moreover, organ volume ratios, relative to volume for normal-weight adults, strongly correlated with cancer risk across the three organs, indicating that a doubling in organ volume corresponded approximately to a doubling in cancer risk. These findings suggest a mechanism linking obesity to cancer: as body size and metabolic demands increase, organs expand primarily through hyperplasia that increases the number of cells susceptible to malignant transformation, complementing known pathways involving inflammation, hormones, and metabolic dysregulation."

Hyperplasia Functions as a Link Between Obesity and Cancer | Cancer Research | American Association for Cancer Research (no public access)