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Mitochondria, often called the powerhouses of the cell, are responsible for producing the energy needed for nearly all vital cellular processes. Researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have now used cryo-electron tomography to study mitochondria in unprecedented detail, revealing new insights into their inner structure.

Their findings show that the proteins responsible for generating energy, known as respiratory complexes, do not work alone. Instead, they assemble into large structures called “supercomplexes,” which play a key role in efficiently producing ATP, the cell’s primary energy source.

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Peering into the jungle of microbes that live within us, researchers have stumbled across what seem to be an entire new class of virus-like objects.

“It’s insane,” says University of North Carolina cell biologist Mark Peifer, who was not involved in the study, told Elizabeth Pennisi at Science Magazine. “The more we look, the more crazy things we see.”

These mysterious bits of genetic material have no detectable sequences or even structural similarities known to any other biological agents.

So Stanford University biologist Ivan Zheludev and colleagues argue their strange discovery may not be viruses at all, but instead an entirely new group of entities that may help bridge the ancient gap between the simplest genetic molecules and more complex viruses.

“Obelisks comprise a class of diverse RNAs that have colonized, and gone unnoticed in, human, and global microbiomes,” the researchers write in a preprint paper.

Named after the highly-symmetrical, rod-like structures formed by its twisted lengths of RNA, the Obelisks’ genetic sequences are only around 1,000 characters (nucleotides) in size. In fact, this brevity is likely one of the reasons we’ve failed to notice them previously.

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n a recent essay, scientists challenge the prevailing genetic-focused model of cancer, advocating for a shift towards more holistic views that include non-genetic factors in cancer development.

They criticize the inconsistencies in current genetic research and propose considering alternative paradigms like disruptions in gene regulatory networks and tissue organization theories. This approach could lead to more effective cancer treatments and preventive measures against environmental non-mutagenic carcinogens.

Dallas Observer.

Plano, the so-called “hot air balloon capital of Texas,” landed at No. 6 in the 10 Best Cities in the U.S. to Live In 2025 from Niche, a data-driven platform used to provide information on schools, cities and real estate across the U.S. Niche defines a city as “a principal city for an urbanized area with a population of 100,000 or more.”

Uh, okay. Kind of like getting a literary prize for Best Typeface, but okay.

The recently published list used data from Niche, an AI platform that Forbes says offers “insights into cities, suburbs and neighborhoods across the U.S.” Niche analyzes categories such as best city, best neighborhood, and best spots for young professionals. Niche likes what it sees in Plano.

I’m curious: Why would anybody care about what a AI picks, given the egregious errors of which AI has been guilty? (Other than a published periodical that needs attention, of course.)

Now, I live in Plano and I think it’s a pretty good place to live, but ‘sixth best in the U.S.’? I’m not sure I buy that.

Niche gives Plano an overall score of A+, with its public schools, jobs, nightlife, diversity and health and fitness all receiving A scores. For Dallas-dwellers who rarely venture north of Interstate 635, hearing that Plano is a diverse city with lots of fun to be had might come as a shock, but both are true. According to the latest census, Plano’s population is 53% white, 22% Asian, 16% Hispanic or Latino and 9% Black. A 2020 Dallas Morning News report noted that Plano was slightly more diverse than Dallas.

Ah, there we go. Apparently some people consider ‘diversity’ a feature rather than a bug. I venture to suggest that it’s not so much the ‘diversity’ as it is the type of ‘diversity’ that’s important.

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Taiwan has revealed a new drone boat, or uncrewed surface vessel (USV), the Endeavor Manta. Somewhat surprisingly, this is said to be the first of its kind to have been developed for the Republic of China Navy (ROCN). While global interest in this class of vessels has been growing fast recently, especially in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Endeavor Manta has been tailored specifically to help defend Taiwan against a possible Chinese invasion.

The existence of the Endeavor Manta was disclosed today by Taiwan’s China Shipbuilding Corporation (CSBC Corp.), which produces ships and submarines for military and civilian use, during a launch event held in the port of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. The event included a demonstration of the USV’s at-sea capabilities and TWZ has reached out to the company for more information.

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Harnessing moisture from air, Northwestern University chemists have developed a simple new method for breaking down plastic waste.

The non-toxic, environmentally friendly, solvent-free process first uses an inexpensive catalyst to break apart the bonds in polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the most common plastic in the polyester family. Then, the researchers merely expose the broken pieces to ambient air. Leveraging the trace amounts of moisture in air, the broken-down PET is converted into monomers—the crucial building blocks for plastics. From there, the researchers envision the monomers could be recycled into new PET products or other, more valuable materials.

Safer, cleaner, cheaper and more sustainable than current plastic recycling methods, the new technique offers a promising path toward creating a circular economy for plastics. The study was recently published in Green Chemistry.

Naval News.

Satellite and ground imagery shared on social media recently revealed an intriguing system of Chinese amphibious bridging barges. The design likely aims at facilitating a large scale amphibious operation aimed at a Taiwan-contingency. Naval News in this analysis will provide an overview on the characteristics of these designs and outline their notional application.

Naval News in a notable first reported on the production of these distinct barges in early January. In a follow-up, naval analyst and former USN submariner Tom Shugart provided additional detail on the nature of the designs. The builder of the barges in question is CSSC Offshore & Marine Engineering Company (COMEC) in Guangzhou, southern China. The company is frequently referred to by its former name, Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), including here on Naval News. COMEC is an established provider to the Chinese Navy (PLAN). The yard produces naval designs such as replenishment oilers, hospital ships and submarine support vessels. COMEC in recent years has diversified into building innovative new systems such as a aviation platform for drones and helicopters.

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A stem cell treatment helped improve the motor function of two out of four patients with a spinal cord injury in the first clinical study of its kind, Japanese scientists said.

There is currently no effective treatment for paralysis caused by serious spinal cord injuries, which affect more than 150,000 patients in Japan alone, with 5,000 new cases each year.

Researchers at Tokyo’s Keio University are conducting their study using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS)—created by stimulating mature, already specialized, cells back into a juvenile state.

They can then be prompted to mature into different kinds of cells, with the Keio researchers using iPS-derived cells of the neural stem.

Chinese food is one of the few ethic cuisines that I can eat.

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In his new role as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin has proposed changes that would fundamentally alter government regulation of America’s energy and transportation industries—if the changes can survive legal challenges from environmental groups.

On March 12, Zeldin announced what he called “31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.”

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S., and more,” Zeldin said in an official statement.

These changes, he said, would “roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’ on U.S. families” and make it “more affordable to purchase a car, heat homes, and operate a business.”

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Recent findings from a groundbreaking remote sensing study using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) have unveiled massive underground structures beneath the Khafre Pyramid, the second largest of the three Giza pyramids. The study, conducted by Corrado Malanga of the University of Pisa and Filippo Biondi of the University of Strathclyde, employed SAR Doppler tomography—a non-invasive radar technique capable of detecting millimetric vibrations—and revealed internal formations previously unknown to Egyptology.

…

The research team analyzed dozens of tomographic SAR images captured from various angles, allowing for a 3D reconstruction of not only the internal layout of the Khafre Pyramid but also the subsurface of the Giza Plateau. Near the pyramid’s base, the team identified five identical structures connected by geometrically aligned pathways. Within each of these five units, the SAR scans revealed five horizontal levels and sloped roofs.

Beneath these structures, researchers detected eight cylindrical formations believed to be vertical wells, each encircled by descending spiral paths. The wells, arranged in two north-south parallel rows, descend approximately 648 meters below the surface, where they converge into two massive cubic structures, each measuring around 80 meters per side. The entire formation reportedly extends nearly two kilometers underground, stretching beneath the full extent of the Giza Pyramid complex.

UPDATE: SAR Scan of Khafre Pyramid Shows Huge Underground Structures (The Reese Report)

UPDDATE: Pyramids Or Ancient Power Grids? Radar Scans Reveal Massive Underground Structures In Egypt’s Giza (News18)

Doo-dee-doo-doo, doo-dee-doo-doo….

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One moment a flounder lies hidden in the sandy bottom of the ocean, the next it vanishes in the bloody frenzy of a shark’s dinner. The shark didn’t see or hear the fish; it pinpointed it from the infinitesimal electrical signals of the flounder’s beating heart.

This seeming superpower is called electroreception. It allows sharks to locate electric fields from a few feet away using sensory organs in their skin.

The flounder’s signal sparks a “little jolt in the shark’s brain,” says Chris Braun, who studies animal sensory systems at Hunter College in New York. To appreciate how the shark zeroes in on the flounder, says Duncan Leitch, who researches sensory adaptations in vertebrates at the University of California, Los Angeles, imagine “navigating toward a hot lightbulb with your eyes closed and hand outstretched.”

Electroreception is an extra sense, not a substitute. Sharks hear well, have good vision, and can smell blood in the water from a quarter mile away. But within a few feet, electroreception is the go-to sense. You don’t want to challenge a shark to a game of hide-and-seek.

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Poland is preparing to lay up to one million anti-personnel mines along its eastern border as part of its newly announced East Shield defense initiative, according to Pawe? Bejda, secretary of state at the Ministry of National Defense.

The decision comes as Poland, alongside Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, withdraws from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use, production, and transfer of such mines.

“We have no choice. The situation at the border is very serious. Mines will be one of the elements of the East Shield,” Bejda stated in an interview with RMF FM, highlighting Poland’s increasing focus on fortifying its defenses against potential threats from Russia and Belarus.

Poland, along with its Baltic allies, recently announced its withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, citing the need for stronger border security.

“We do not have anti-personnel mines. They have to be produced — we have such capabilities. We want these mines to be manufactured in Poland,” Bejda said, revealing that the state-owned PGZ Group will oversee their production.

Watch it.

We have the technology. This appears to be more efficient than the normal evaporative operation using nasty chemicals like freon.

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The evolutionary path of modern humans is more complex than previously thought, as new evidence suggests an ancient human ancestral population split into two separate groups that eventually reunited.

According to a new genome sequence analysis conducted by the University of Cambridge, these ancient populations split around 1.5 million years ago before diverging genetically and then reconnecting roughly 300,000 years ago. The modern humans that first arose in Africa between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago were not an even mix, though, as one of these ancestral populations donated 80% of the current genome.

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Advances in the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 over the past 15 years have yielded important new insights into the roles that specific genes play in many diseases. But to date this technology — which allows scientists to use a “guide” RNA to modify DNA sequences and evaluate the effects — is able to target, delete, replace, or modify only single gene sequences with a single guide RNA and has limited ability to assess multiple genetic changes simultaneously.

Now, however, Yale scientists have developed a series of sophisticated mouse models using CRISPR (“clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) technology that allows them to simultaneously assess genetic interactions on a host of immunological responses to multiple diseases, including cancer.

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

New York’s top court has struck down a law that would have let noncitizens vote in New York City elections, with the court’s progressive majority overwhelmingly siding with Republicans who challenged the idea.

The law would have made more than 800,000 people eligible to vote in municipal contests such as mayoral races.

“We file some lawsuits that are stretches,” said Joe Borelli, the former Republican minority leader of the New York City Council and one of the plaintiffs who challenged the law. “This one was, from the beginning, an open-shut case.”

The times, they are a-changin’.

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The People’s Liberation Army has unveiled the first of what are expected to be as many as five special barges with bridges capable of overcoming minefields during a potential future invasion of Taiwan.

“Anyone wondering what an invasion of Taiwan might look like now has a fresh visual clue,” wrote Naval News analyst H.I. Sutton about the new barge.

The first barge was photographed at a shipyard in Guangzhou, China, with PLA forces shown conducting exercises. The barge lays out a road-like structure above the water that produces a 2,500-foot causeway capable of handling military vehicles and troops.

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“There are all kinds of proteins congregating at the cellular membrane, and if we want to understand what a protein does, how it’s regulated by its environment, and specifically how it triggers the spread of a disease, we need to understand what surrounds it,” explained Gupta, whose lab is part of the Nanobiology Institute at Yale’s West Campus.

Lacking the spatial nanotechnology required to understand the molecular context of how membrane proteins are regulated in health and diseases, the scholars developed a novel platform that provides access to around 2000 membrane proteins as well as a chemical tool to examine areas that surround proteins of interest.

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The vice chief of the U.S. Space Force said Chinese satellites have been observed rehearsing “dogfighting” maneuvers in low Earth orbit, a display of the communist nation’s ability to perform complex maneuvers in orbit.

The maneuvers, referred to as rendezvous and proximity operations, involve not only navigating around other objects but also inspecting them, the Air Force Times reported Tuesday.

“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said Tuesday at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C.

Reuters, a Voice of the Crust.

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday affirmed that a work of art generated by artificial intelligence without human input cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed, opens new tab with the U.S. Copyright Office that an image created by Stephen Thaler’s AI system “DABUS” was not entitled to copyright protection, and that only works with human authors can be copyrighted.

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Democrats just had their egg-related misinformation and disinformation campaign against the president scrambled, as new USDA data reveals a third consecutive week of price declines at supermarkets. The drop follows President Trump’s recent countermeasures to stabilize national supply after the Biden-Harris administration’s reckless culling of 150 million egg-laying hens plunged the industry into turmoil and sparked egg-flation.

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The basic externalities story goes like this: Some things, like air quality or scientific discoveries, have effects which spread to millions of people without cost or reward to the creator. Actions with unpunished costs are over-produced and actions with uncompensated benefits are left undone.

The story continues that if only we could coordinate, we could fix the misallocation caused by externalities. We might get the government to tax and subsidize externalities or else we might try to lower transaction costs so that people can bargain to solve externalities on their own.

The basic story over-focuses on social coordination as the solution to externalities. Our institutions cannot be relied on to optimally correct externalities or even to avoid making them worse. Usually, the costs of an externality subside only after we’ve invented a technology which makes it cheap or privately beneficial to do the socially optimal thing. Most importantly, technology shifts out the production possibilities frontier making it possible to get outcomes beyond what even perfect social coordination could attain.

Economics should emphasize the importance of technology as a solution to externality problems and focus less on social coordination.

The New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

The United States began to carry out large-scale military strikes on Saturday against dozens of targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, according to local news reports and two senior U.S. officials, the opening salvo in what American officials said was a new offensive against the militants.

Air and naval strikes ordered by President Trump hit radars, air defenses, and missile and drone systems in an effort to open international shipping lanes in the Red Sea that the Houthis have disrupted for months with their own attacks. The Biden administration conducted several similar strikes against the Houthis but largely failed to restore deterrence in the region.

U.S. officials said the bombardment, the most significant military action of Mr. Trump’s second term, was also meant to send a warning signal to Iran: Mr. Trump wants to broker a deal with Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but has left open the possibility of military action if the Iranians rebuff negotiations.

U.S. officials said that airstrikes against the Houthis’ arsenal, much of which is buried deep underground, could last for several days, intensifying in scope and scale depending on the militants’ reaction. U.S. intelligence agencies have struggled in the past to identify and locate the Houthi weapons systems, which the rebels produce in subterranean factories and smuggle in from Iran.

Long past time.

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Videos have emerged showing an out of control commercial oil tanker hitting a row of three Brazilian Navy patrol boats, as well as the pier, in the Port of Santos along the country’s southeastern coast last night.

The Brazilian-flagged Olavo Bilac suffered an issue with its rudder while maneuvering between piers, according to multiple Brazilian media reports citing the Port Authority of Santos. The incident happened at around 11:20 PM local time on Wednesday. The Port of Santos is situated just to the southeast of the city of São Paulo.

As can be seen in the videos below, which offer views of the incident from what appears to be a closed circuit camera at the port and the ship’s deck, the nearly 817-foot-long (249-meter-long) Aframax class tanker first went careening into a pier after the loss of rudder control. It then struck a moored patrol boat, which was then pushed into two other patrol boats.

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New imagery has appeared of one of China’s new ‘invasion barges,’ which involves a temporary pier that can be connected to other vessels via a barge, or series of barges, with jack-up supports for more stability. The development of jack-up barges is widely seen as part of preparations for a possible invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China. At the same time, they also reflect the growing use of ostensibly non-military maritime assets to support amphibious operations by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

A new video showing three of the jack-up barges deployed in tandem on a still-unidentified beach began to circulate recently on social media channels.

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What they found is a new form of epigenetic inheritance driven by amyloid proteins — structures more commonly linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s. This discovery may help explain mysteries like “missing heritability” — the fact that many traits and diseases run in families without clear genetic explanations.

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Scientists have known for decades that genes alone don’t account for the full picture of inheritance. For instance, we now know about epigenetics — changes in gene expression that don’t involve alterations in DNA code — where mechanisms like small RNA molecules and chemical modifications to chromatin can alter traits that can be passed down to subsequent generations.

However, this is the first time that proteins have been identified as carriers of inheritance.

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Spiders don’t just spin webs—they engineer them. By stretching their silk as they spin, spiders strengthen the fibers at the molecular level, aligning proteins and forming extra bonds that boost durability.

Nature.

Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from primary tumours to distant organs and is the cause of 90% of cancer deaths globally1,2. Metastasizing cancer cells are uniquely vulnerable to immune attack, as they are initially deprived of the immunosuppressive microenvironment found within established tumours3. There is interest in therapeutically exploiting this immune vulnerability to prevent recurrence in patients with early cancer at risk of metastasis. Here we show that inhibitors of cyclooxygenase 1 (COX-1), including aspirin, enhance immunity to cancer metastasis by releasing T cells from suppression by platelet-derived thromboxane A2 (TXA2). TXA2 acts on T cells to trigger an immunosuppressive pathway that is dependent on the guanine exchange factor ARHGEF1, suppressing T cell receptor-driven kinase signalling, proliferation and effector functions. T cell-specific conditional deletion of Arhgef1 in mice increases T cell activation at the metastatic site, provoking immune-mediated rejection of lung and liver metastases. Consequently, restricting the availability of TXA2 using aspirin, selective COX-1 inhibitors or platelet-specific deletion of COX-1 reduces the rate of metastasis in a manner that is dependent on T cell-intrinsic expression of ARHGEF1 and signalling by TXA2 in vivo. These findings reveal a novel immunosuppressive pathway that limits T cell immunity to cancer metastasis, providing mechanistic insights into the anti-metastatic activity of aspirin and paving the way for more effective anti-metastatic immunotherapies.

Yale School of Medicine.

Mireille Serlie, MD, PhD, loves fast food. Her research seeks to understand why.

“Fast and ultra-processed foods do something to our brains that make us overeat,” says Serlie, a professor of medicine (endocrinology and metabolism) at Yale School of Medicine.

Serlie studies the effects of eating patterns and specific nutrients on the brain and the functional differences between the brains of people with obesity and those with a healthy weight.

In a Q&A, Serlie discusses eating patterns, fasting, and the importance of diet and exercise in retaining muscle mass after weight loss.

Watch it.

An interesting approach to creating an artificial ‘fossil fuel’.

I find their approach of trying to keep things as low-cost as possible, without worrying about nominal efficiency, very attractive.

Much of the discussion in the video seems to riff off of the concept “Making energy out of thin air”, and that’s a bit exaggerated. The process depends on inputs of electricity from solar energy and materials like limestone, but compared to the complexities of modern fossil fuel production, it represents (if they can scale it up) a beneficial improvement.

I intend to keep my eye on this company.

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The transition from expensive materials to inexpensive materials is key to advancing productivity.

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Novo Nordisk is adopting a strategy similar to that of its rival Eli Lilly & Co., preparing to offer its blockbuster weight-loss drug directly to obese US consumers at a discounted rate.

Bloomberg reports that Novo’s Wegovy will be offered directly to cash-paying consumers for $499 per month—significantly lower than the uninsured cost of about $1,350 per month.

Lilly began selling its obesity drug Zepbound directly to patients last year. At the same time, Wegovy’s limited supply drove some customers to compounded versions sold by telehealth companies like Hims & Hers Health Inc., which locked overweight Americans into a monthly subscription model.’

From what I’ve seen, the Eli Lilly drug has fewer side effects.

You still need a prescription.

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Today, we raise a cheer for reason, justice, and the unyielding spirit of free expression! Today, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia delivered a resounding blow to overreach in the long-running defamation lawsuit brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against conservative commentator Mark Steyn. In a Final Judgment Order, Judge Alfred S. Irving, Jr. reduced Steyn’s punitive damages from an astronomical $1 million to a modest $5,000—vindicating Steyn, protecting open debate, and sending a powerful message about the limits of legal bullying.

It ought to have been zero.

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In their quest for answers, researchers pinpointed a specific protein, AP2A1 (Adaptor Protein Complex 2, Alpha 1 Subunit), which seems crucial to this cellular phenomenon.

Found predominantly in senescent cells, particularly within the structural stress fibers, AP2A1 could be the key to understanding cellular aging.

To explore AP2A1’s function, researchers manipulated its presence in cells, observing significant effects.

“The results were very intriguing,” said Shinji Deguchi, senior author of the study. “Suppressing AP2A1 in older cells reversed senescence and promoted cellular rejuvenation, while AP2A1 overexpression in young cells advanced senescence.”

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President Trump’s election has brought about mass layoffs among federal employees and contractors, including some who have sued and others who have protested.

But one group — that of America’s would-be censors — is taking its cause worldwide.

During the Biden administration, a massive industry took root, sweeping up billions in taxpayer funds to research, target and combat those accused of misinformation, disinformation and “malinformation.”

Although the exact number is uncertain, many trained censors are now facing unemployment.

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And it burns … oh, it burns….

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The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is back at sea conducting routine operations after a week or so in port in Greece for repairs. Truman collided with the cargo ship M/V Besiktas-M in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt’s Port Said earlier this month.

Souda Bay is in Crete, which is technically Greece, but the write-up implies that it is on mainland Greece, which would be incorrect. When I was in the Navy my ship stopped at Souda Bay, which has absolutely nothing to recommend it.

“Led by Forward Deployed Regional Maintenance Center (FDRMC), Truman completed the five-day ERAV at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Souda Bay, Greece,” according to a Navy press release. “In an all-hands effort, Sailors worked with FDRMC personnel, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and local industry partner Theodoropoulos Group to assess damage, develop a repair plan, and restore weathertight integrity to the ship following the collision on Feb. 12.”

So this is just a temporary patch-up job to allow the ship to continue operations. No doubt full repairs will be scheduled for the next RAV (restricted availability) period when back from deployment.

“Our ship remains operationally ready to complete deployment with mission and purpose on full display by the entire crew,” Navy Capt. Christopher Hill, Truman‘s commanding officer, also said in a statement. “We are out here launching and recovering aircraft, ready to ‘Give ‘em Hell’ with combat credible power.”

‘Combat credible power’ sounds like a blurb from the old Wacky Races TV cartoon program.

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More and more good news from the southern border highlights how the Biden administration intentionally created a catastrophe and how President Donald Trump—through a change in policy and rhetoric—has reversed the system practically overnight.

We didn’t need the phony “border security” bill President Joe Biden championed—which was really more of a handout to Ukraine—to fix the problem. We just needed an executive branch willing to enforce the law.

Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said in a CBS News interview on Thursday that unlawful crossings at the southern border are down 94% since this time last year.

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Most people think wrinkles, graying hair, and a few creaks in the knees define aging. Yet scientists have spent decades exploring whether these signs, along with genetic mutations, tell the whole truth about growing older.

Early research suggests that epigenetics might help us measure how our bodies grow older, but what actually pushes these epigenetic “clocks” forward has been heavily debated.

The answer may involve unexpected links between random genetic changes and the epigenetic patterns found in older cells, according to Dr. Steven Cummings from Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute.

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Rumored to have killed the Roman emperor Augustus, nightshade’s berries are notoriously deadly. Tomatoes belong to the same plant family, Solanaceae, and produce toxic steroidal glycoalkaloids too.

Yet, generally, tomatoes don’t kill us.

Once believed to be poisonous, tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) actually convert their bitter toxins into something more palatable and less deadly. Sichuan University biologist Feng Bai and colleagues have now identified the genetic mechanisms involved in the tomato fruit’s safe transformation.

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Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

Don’t like the F-word? Blame farmers and soft food. When humans switched to processed foods after the spread of agriculture, they put less wear and tear on their teeth. That changed the growth of their jaws, giving adults the overbites normal in children. Within a few thousand years, those slight overbites made it easy for people in farming cultures to fire off sounds like “f” and “v,” opening a world of new words.

The newly favored consonants, known as labiodentals, helped spur the diversification of languages in Europe and Asia at least 4000 years ago; they led to such changes as the replacement of the Proto-Indo-European pat?r to Old English faeder about 1500 years ago, according to linguist and senior author Balthasar Bickel at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. The paper shows “that a cultural shift can change our biology in such a way that it affects our language,” says evolutionary morphologist Noreen Von Cramon-Taubadel of the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York system, who was not part of the study.

Postdocs Damián Blasi and Steven Moran in Bickel’s lab set out to test an idea proposed by the late American linguist Charles Hockett. He noted in 1985 that the languages of hunter-gatherers lacked labiodentals, and conjectured that their diet was partly responsible: Chewing gritty, fibrous foods puts force on the growing jaw bone and wears down molars. In response, the lower jaw grows larger, and the molars erupt farther and drift forward on the protruding lower jaw, so that the upper and lower teeth align. That edge-to-edge bite makes it harder to push the upper jaw forward to touch the lower lip, which is required to pronounce labiodentals. But other linguists rejected the idea, and Blasi says he, Moran, and their colleagues “expected to prove Hockett wrong.”

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Sometimes the lawfare works, and sometimes it does not.

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The Navy has relieved the commanding officer of the USS Truman — the aircraft carrier that had a collision with a merchant ship outside the Suez Canal last week.

Capt. Dave Snowden was relieved Thursday for “loss of confidence in his ability to command” by Rear Adm. Sean Bailey, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 8, a Navy statement announced Thursday.

Snowden’s replacement will be Capt. Chris “Chowdah” Hill, the commander of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower who rose to fame online last year while he commanded his aircraft carrier in the Middle East amid Houthi attacks.

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Satellite imagery shows the extent of the massive amount of work that has been done in the past year to restore more than 20 million square feet of runways and other World War II-era infrastructure at historic North Field on the U.S. island of Tinian in the Western Pacific. The airfield was originally established as a launchpad for B-29 bomber raids on Imperial Japan, including the ones that saw atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The facility has been refurbished to again offer a critical power projection node with its original grid-like layout presenting targeting challenges for a modern opponent, all of which could be especially valuable in a future high-end fight in the region against China.

A series of satellite images of North Field taken between Dec. 3, 2023, and Jan. 29, 2025, by Planet Labs starkly illustrates just how extensive the reconstitution of the derelict airfield has become. The images, as can seen below, show the progressive clearing of the previously overgrown runways, taxiways, and other infrastructure.

The New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

The new guidance follows President Trump’s demand that the Health and Human Services Department align with his executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports.

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It says a lot about America’s fast fading legacy media establishment leaders that they’ve decided to use up the last shreds of their credibility to glorify censorship.

This dynamic is exactly what’s been playing out following Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich, Germany, on Friday. In that speech, he excoriated European governments for, among other things, retreating from the principle of free speech.

Vance pointed to specific examples where Western European governments trampled on free speech rights, like how the Germans have raided the homes of people who expressed “anti-feminist” commentary on the internet or how British authorities arrested a man for praying at an abortion clinic.

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A bill that could help Indiana absorb nearly three-dozen Illinois counties breezed through committee Monday — although a border shakeup appears unlikely.

Republican House Speaker Todd Huston’s proposal would create an Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission tasked with exploring the secession and transfer of counties that have already voted to leave the state of Illinois.

Huston said House Bill 1008, part of the majority caucus’ priority agenda, seeks to show disgruntled Illinois residents that Indiana “welcomes” those counties “to consider joining our state.”

Odd how you never find ‘secession movements’ seeking to leave a Red State for a Blue State.

Actually, it’s not odd at all.