Elon Musk is working on Grokipedia to dethrone Wikipedia (aka wokepedia)

Good news! Hopefully, Elon Musk will find a better name than Grokipedia!

Elon Musk is working on 'Grokipedia' to dethrone Wikipedia | PCWorld "Elon Musk and his AI company xAI are creating Grokipedia as an alternative to Wikipedia. Here's why."

Credits: Grokipedia“ versus „Wokepedia“ Wenn das Lexikon zum Schlachtfeld wird

World Bank considers only 12% of all countries as low income in 2024

Good news!

"World Bank country income classifications reflect tremendous global economic growth. 

In 1987, the organization classified 30 percent of countries as low-income and 25 percent as high-income.

In 2024, only 12 percent of countries were low-income, while 40 percent were in the high-income group."

Doomslayer: Weekly Progress Roundup - by Malcolm Cochran

Understanding country income: World Bank Group income classifications for FY26 (July 1, 2025–June, 2026)

Very poor choice of colors by the World Bank! High and low is almost indistinguishable! Why is low income e.g. not in bright red color!!! Political correctness nonsense???

A Warning from the Ruins of Golden Ages past

Recommendable as far as the brief overview of history is concerned, but quite wrong as to the application to current affairs.

"... There was a time, not so long ago in historical terms, when Baghdad and Cordoba were [...] intellectual centers of the world. Arab and Muslim scholars pioneered medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. These were not just randomized bursts of brilliance; they formed the engine of human progress for centuries.

Then came the counterrevolution. In the 11th century, the theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali published The Incoherence of the Philosophers, a sweeping attack on rationalist inquiry. With that single work, he helped turn the tide against thinkers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Al-Farabi—giants of logic, science, and metaphysics. The rationalist school was branded heretical. Revelation trumped reason. And so began the implosion of once great civilizations.

The Andalusian polymath Ibn Rushd (Averroes) tried to fight back, famously defending reason in The Incoherence of the Incoherence. But he lost. And with him, the Islamic world lost its intellectual edge. It passed the torch to Europe—and never took it back.

Europe, too, once went dark. After Rome fell, the continent descended into centuries of intellectual stifling. The Church persecuted heretics, criminalized curiosity, and policed thought with the threats of pyres and gallows. Bruno was burned at the stake. Galileo silenced. And the pursuit of truth was reframed as a threat to moral order.

Ironically, it was through translations of the very Muslim philosophers condemned by the Islamic world that Europe began to reawaken. The Renaissance was not a divine miracle. It was the rediscovery of the idea that reason, not doctrine, drives human flourishing.

Civilizations across time have repeated this fatal mistake. Under the Qing dynasty, China’s imperial court executed scholars for misinterpreting Confucian texts. Innovation became dangerous; conformity, sacred. The result? China missed the Industrial Revolution and became a subject of Western colonization.

In the Soviet Union, Stalin decimated scientific disciplines he deemed ideologically impure. Geneticists were imprisoned, physicists vanished into thin air, and entire fields were replaced by pseudoscientific dogma. The cost was measured in lives lost, knowledge buried, and a superpower that ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own ignorance. ..."

A Warning from the Ruins of a Golden Age "History shows that every society that silences its thinkers signs its own death warrant"

The most-cited papers of the first quarter of the 21st century

Good news!

Notice 4 of the 10 papers are related to machine learning & artificial intelligence, i.e. nos. 1, 6, 7, and 8.

Credits: Global Health NOW: Pandemic Agreement Reached; A Brain Bank Hangs in the Balance; and Spore-Driven Threats

Exclusive: the most-cited papers of the twenty-first century "A Nature analysis reveals the 25 highest-cited papers published this century and explores why they are breaking records."

Are We Losing the Ability to Write by Hand?

Certainly, like we are not using stone tablets anymore! What a rhetorical question!

 

I feel, I lost my ability to hand write several years ago! 😊 It has become almost painful to write with the hand.

Signature Moves: Are We Losing the Ability to Write by Hand? | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

Smartphones and human interaction

There is widespread and serious concern that humans, in particular children, become too glued to their smartphones and thereby risk to neglect important human interactions.

Let's take dog owners for example. I can personally witness that some dog owners while taking out their dog have become so glued looking at their smartphone screen that they completely ignore a passersby even when greeted by a passerby.

In the past, owning a dog was supposedly a means for dog owners to get to know more people like neighbors, have a conversation or two with other pedestrians, and have their dog play with other dogs while walking the dog.

From transvestite to transgender, a brief overview

Human progress comes and evolves in many forms, often simultaneously! Some forms are obviously more debatable, if not controversial, than others.

Some forms of human progress are pushed onto society so as to dominate public discourse, policy etc. The tyranny of the well organised, well funded and influential  minority and parts of the elite!

Transvestites (cross-dressers) have a long history! It is intertwined with homosexuality and prosecution.

A few decades ago, you would encounter transvestites primarily only in particular entertainment shows at particular establishments geared for adult audiences or at events for or within the gay/lesbian community. Later came public parades and so on.

More recently, some transvestites cast themselves as attractive alluring drag queens playing and interacting with children as if it was normal as apple pie. With possible pedophilia an afterthought?

For some time, the rest of us (the large majority) are expected to treat biological males/transgender women (a minority) in all respects as if they were women. 

How come there so few prominent and celebrated biological females/transgender males? I sense bias, inequity, and exclusion (BIX) not DEI. Where are the transgender males hiding?

The history of humanity is full of fads, follies, cultism, tribalism and so on. Only the future will tell where this is going and what remains relevant.

Stop attacks against Hindus, other minorities or I’ll resign: Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus

Powerful words to remember! Bravo! Kudos! He is already setting an example for all the world! 

He might well be standing on the shoulders of giants like Ashoka and Mahatma Gandhi!

The revolution in Bangladesh is off to a good start!

Words of wisdom!

Nigeria’s New Era of Genetic Research

Good news!

"This year, one of the first-ever public health programs to use cutting-edge CRISPR gene editing to monitor for disease outbreaks will launch in Nigeria.

The program is an opportunity for Africa-based researchers to “realize our dreams” to lead the world in genetic research, says Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases.

In the new initiative, the center will collect blood samples from rural clinics, and will sequence for 16 blood-borne pathogens, including Ebola, West Nile virus, mpox, and Lassa fever—which is especially under-studied. 

The goal: Researchers hope to stay ahead of outbreaks and become increasingly agile to respond to them as needed."

"Just outside the center of Ede, Nigeria, on the campus of Redeemer’s University, a sort of mirage rises from the red earth: a pair of sleek, almost-completed two-story structures ... the $11 million headquarters of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID).  ... the lab is a state-of-the-art biosafety level 3 ..."

Global Health NOW: A Scourge of Counterfeit Medicines; A 40-Year Quest to a Malaria Vaccine; and Nigeria’s New Era of Genetic Research

The cutting edge of CRISPR is in Nigeria (original news release) "Christian Happi is pioneering a revolutionary approach to fighting disease"

Professor Christian Happi

African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID)

Why this obsession with skin color in Western countries and other parts of the world?

The skin color of a human being is about the most irrelevant fact about or characteristic of a human being conceivable! This is the naked truth!

It is comparable to the very crude and primitive dichotomous thinking in categories like we versus them or friend and foe or black and white.

Thus, most references to skin color are an easily identifiable form of or an attempt of indoctrination with propaganda and demagoguery! 

For much too long, human progress has been  significantly impeded by the frequent abuse of skin color for ideological purposes in human history! Good riddance skin color ideology!

Thus, too many members of the so called elite and many intellectuals can thus be easily identified as stupid, lazy or dishonest or all three of them combined!

It is intellectually extremely lazy if not very primitive to dumb down complicated matters or subjects to a differences between two groups of individuals identified by their skin color (e.g. white v. black). Only fools (terrible simplificateurs) try to explain the world this banal way and feel empowered by their deeply flawed understanding of the world!

About the relation to a sense of supremacy or superiority: If history is any guide, then each major skin color (white, black, yellow) has been exploited to assert supremacy over the humans with other skin colors. Each of the major skin color was abused to claim superiority over the others often for different, but implausible reasons.

New thermal scope lets snipers see bullets in flight without tracers

A deadly activity gets deadlier!

"Defense contractor Teledyne FLIR has unveiled its new thermal sniper scope that can see its own bullets fly by day or night at ranges up to 2,200 m (1.3 miles). First seeing light at the annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the ThermoSight HISS-HD allows snipers and machine gunners to engage targets at long range while remaining unseen. ...

What the ThermoSight HISS-HD does is allow a sniper to see the rounds as effectively at long range as if they were tracers even in full daylight. It does this using an imaging sensor with a cryocooler to bring it down to very cold temperatures. This reduces the thermal noise and increases the resolution. The upshot is that, with the help of advanced processors, the sniper can directly see the thermal signature of the round in flight. ..."

New thermal scope lets snipers see bullets in flight without tracers

Teledyne FLIR Defense Unveils Advanced Thermal Weapon Sight at SHOT Show in Las Vegas

Record number of internet users, two-thirds of the world's population are now online

Good news! Soon we are all connected!

I appreciate it very much that I have viewers of my blog from all over the world! One of the peculiar major blind spots is Latin America. I get very view views from this region.

📶 Record number of internet users, two-thirds are now online 5.4 billion people are now online. More than ever before. Growth in internet connectivity is strongest in low-income countries.

Credits: Human Progress Weekly Progress Roundup

How close is humanity to paradise on earth?

Closer than you might think! AI & machine learning plus a stream of advances in science will make this possible. 

Of course, there were claims or even postulates of an impending coming of a paradise several times before in history. Why would it be different this time? Well never before have humans created intelligence like this outside the human body and brain. And this is only the beginning. The progress so far is simply breathtaking. On some tasks artificial intelligence/machine learning has already demonstrated superhuman performance. Progress is accelerating!

How to define a (material) paradise on earth? The basic needs like food, housing, energy and healthcare can be provided plentiful and cheap using human supervised robots, latest advances in science & medicine etc. A leisure society (1)  will be common everyday life, one only works voluntarily and when desired. Abundance everywhere and anytime!

This definition does not cover human vices & pettiness, evil, war & aggression and so on! On top of that, humans still have the capacity to annihilate most life on this planet. These will remain unresolved issues for some time to come!

Of course, any definition of paradise will have opponents and detractors. There may not be a common or universal definition or understanding for a long time or never.

The other open question is Big Government! Will we achieve paradise on earth as voluntarily cooperating individuals based on individual consent and deliberation taking as much time as is necessary. Or will it be more of a planned top down approach of some sorts that is imposed on the citizens and may very well go terribly wrong like other such approaches before in history.

What will happen to markets, trade, and commerce? Production, distribution and money will probably not go away. Humans have accommodated new demands for thousands of years with ingenuity, tenacity, and dedication. As long as individual entrepreneurs are free to make decisions we have little to worry!

Here are some speculative forecasts/predictions over the next 20-40 years or latest before 21st century ends:

1. Most if not all major diseases and health conditions will either be eradicated or successfully treatable. Cancer is on the verge to become history. The rapid and simultaneous development of several effective Covid-19 vaccines by different entities in multiple countries was just a foretaste of what is possible!
2. Agriculture and husbandry will be very different from today. Our food supply will not depend anymore or depend much less on nature. 
3. Energy supply will be plentiful based on hydrogen, nuclear fusion, photosynthesis or other inventions.
4. Traditional human procreation will fade away. Genetics and other scientific methods (e.g. artificial womb) will make it possible that e.g. women don't have to get pregnant anymore unless it is a woman's wish (2). 
5. How much will robotics and the human body merge or combine? How much will artificial intelligence and human intelligence merge or combine? E.g. I could use a much larger and faster memory for my brain. The extent is unknown at this time, but over the next decades you can expect something like a fusion to happen. Genetics and other scientific advances etc. indicate many possibilities.

Footnotes:

1. Leisure society: An old term popular in the 1960-70s, going back to economist Thorsten Veblen, but never realized
2. The centuries old controversy over abortion will go away too

Without Egg, Sperm or Womb: Synthetic Mouse Embryo Models Created Solely from Stem Cells

This research has caught quite some attention! This is possibly a gamechanger! Imago dei becomes a whole new meaning!

I have predicted here previously that human procreation/reproduction will be very different in about 20-30 years from now. Women (transgender men?) will not have to get pregnant anymore or give birth. Plus, longevity and health will have improved tremendously by then!

"... researchers have grown synthetic embryo models of mice outside the womb by starting solely with stem cells cultured in a petri dish – that is, without the use of fertilized eggs. The method opens new horizons for studying how stem cells form various organs in the developing embryo, and may one day make it possible to grow tissues and organs for transplantation using synthetic embryo models. ...
team built on two previous advances in his lab. One was an efficient method for reprogramming stem cells back to a naïve state – that is, to their earliest stage – when they have the greatest potential to specialize into different cell types. The other, described in a scientific paper in Nature in March 2021, was the electronically controlled device the team had developed over seven years of trial and error for growing natural mouse embryos outside the womb. The device keeps the embryos bathed in a nutrient solution inside of beakers that move continuously, simulating the way nutrients are supplied by material blood flow to the placenta, and closely controls oxygen exchange and atmospheric pressure. In the earlier research, the team had successfully used this device to grow natural mouse embryos from day 5 to day 11. ...
These synthetic models developed normally until day 8.5 – nearly half of the mouse 20-day gestation – at which stage all the early organ progenitors had formed, including a beating heart, blood stem cell circulation, a brain with well-shaped folds, a neural tube and an intestinal tract. ...
n addition to helping reduce the use of animals in research, synthetic embryo models might in the future become a reliable source of cells, tissues and organs for transplantation. ..."

From the abstract:

"In vitro cultured stem cells with distinct developmental capacities can contribute to embryonic or extra-embryonic tissues after microinjection into pre-implantation mammalian embryos. However, whether cultured stem cells can independently give rise to entire gastrulating embryo-like structures with embryonic and extra-embryonic compartments, remains unknown. Here we adapt a recently established platform for prolonged ex utero growth of natural embryos, to generate mouse post-gastrulation synthetic whole embryo models (sEmbryos), with both embryonic and extra-embryonic compartments, starting solely from naïve ESCs. This was achieved by co-aggregating non-transduced ESCs, with naïve ESCs transiently expressing Cdx2- and Gata4- to promote their priming towards trophectoderm and primitive endoderm lineages, respectively. sEmbryos adequately accomplish gastrulation, advance through key developmental milestones, and develop organ progenitors within complex extra-embryonic compartments similar to E8.5 stage mouse embryos. Our findings highlight the plastic potential of naïve pluripotent cells to self-organize and functionally reconstitute and model the entire mammalian embryo beyond gastrulation."

Without Egg, Sperm or Womb: Synthetic Mouse Embryo Models Created Solely from Stem Cells - Life Sciences | Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries: he method opens new vistas for studying how stem cells self-organize into organs and may in the future help produce transplantable tissues

¬Post-Gastrulation Synthetic Embryos Generated Ex Utero from Mouse Naïve ESCs (open access)

Development of synthetic embryo models from day 1 (top left) to day 8 (bottom right). All their early organ progenitors had formed, including a beating heart, an emerging blood circulation, a brain, a neural tube and an intestinal tract

What are the culture wars like

Progress of human civilization is very slow, slower than molasses! A lot of time and resources are wasted! That is the sad truth!

Today, you may want to add to this trio:
Everything is racism and gender identity is arbitrary!

Living in the age of accelerated discovery

Are you ready? AI and quantum technology are coming together!

"The world is witnessing a revolution in computing. Artificial intelligence (AI) is enhancing traditional computing and could soon boost the emerging quantum technologies that will be able to solve problems that are intractable to today’s classical machines. In this Turing Lecture, Alessandro Curioni (Vice President of IBM Research Europe and Africa) will explore the new AI- and quantum-powered age of computing, describing its potential to accelerate discoveries up to 10 times faster and with 10 times less cost than in the past. This will lead to breakthroughs across business, policy-making and everyday life."

The Turing Lectures: Accelerated discovery | The Alan Turing Institute

The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered babies someday

Humans are about to transcend nature and evolution!

I have suggested here several times that one of the first genes to be removed from the human genome is the sneezing gene. 😄 And what about eagle eyes and much better memory? 😄

"Jennifer Doudna is the co-discoverer of CRISPR editing, the revolutionary method for engineering genes that, 10 years after her original breakthrough, is now making its way into human trials.

There’s an expanding list of applications in diagnostics and engineered plants; already researchers are exploring potential treatments to cure sickle cell disease, blindness, and liver disease. In 2020, she shared a Nobel Prize with fellow scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier. The two became the sixth and seventh women to win the award in chemistry. ..."

The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered babies someday | MIT Technology Review

A research breakthrough could make it easier for transgender men to have children

How far away are we from asexual reproduction outside of the human body (ex utero)? Maybe only 10-30 years. Humans are transcending nature.

About 3 years ago, I speculated here about the state of artificial wombs and ectogenesis.

I think, the MIT Technology Review is disingenuous to make this article about transgender men, while the featured reproductive scientist Evelyn Telfer's research is not directly related to transgender humans. See e.g. two of her latest published articles (on which this MIT TR article is possibly be based):

Workflow optimization for identification of female germline or oogonial stem cells in human ovarian cortex using single-cell RNA sequence analysis

Culture of human ovarian follicles from primordial stages to maturity

Wikipedia about Evelyn Telfer: "She leads a research team which has successfully grown immature human eggs to maturity in the lab, and discovered that human ovaries are capable of growing new eggs."

"Ovaries contain hundreds of thousands of underdeveloped eggs, held in a kind of suspended animation. Each month, one matures and is released—potentially to be fertilized by sperm and create an embryo. For the first time, scientists say they have managed to take eggs from the ovaries of transgender men and get them ready for fertilization in a process completed entirely outside the body.

The achievement, carried out by a team led by Evelyn Telfer, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh, suggests that viable eggs can be obtained from transgender men even after years of testosterone therapy, which can stop ovulation.

While freezing eggs is an option for transgender men who want children, this typically involves stopping testosterone treatment and allowing a menstrual cycle to return. This can take months and cause fatigue, mood changes, and sleep problems. The need for vaginal probes can prove particularly distressing for transgender men. 

Telfer and her colleagues’ alternative involves taking eggs from the ovaries and maturing them outside the body, in the lab. This new technique could not only help transgender men but also many others struggling to concieve."

A research breakthrough could make it easier for transgender men to have children | MIT Technology Review A new technique means eggs can be grown from the ovaries of transgender men, even after years of testosterone therapy.  It could offer them new ways to start a family.

Meme about Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing papers

Say they scientific progress is often very incremental ... 😄

Credits: Sebastian Ruder's latest newsletter

How Humans Lost Their Fur

Very recommendable! Short and sweat!