Is Xi’s Sudden Embrace of Business for Real? China Is Left Guessing.
Is Xi’s Sudden Embrace of Business for Real? China Is Left Guessing.
When Xi Jinping, China’s leader, made his entrance at a symposium with a group of top entrepreneurs this week, he seemed to be in good spirits.
China has had a few good weeks. The artificial intelligence models by the start-up DeepSeek sent U.S. stocks tumbling and Western commentators screaming, “Sputnik moment.” Then an animated film based on ******** mythology raked in nearly $2 billion. Mr. Xi signaled that he stood behind the private sector at the meeting on Monday, pushing the Hong Kong stock market to its highest point in three years.
For China, it all provided a respite from two years of malaise — chronic economic problems and challenging geopolitics.
What remained unclear is how much of a lasting boost China’s economy could get from the ingenuity of one start-up, or how much confidence the business community could derive from the sudden friendliness of a leader who has a reputation for distrusting and disliking the private sector. Interpretations of the meeting varied widely.
“Is China,” one social media commenter asked, “now like Shanghai in 1949,” after which the private sector was nationalized under ********** Party rule? “Or is it Shenzhen in 1979,” when China started the policies of reforming and opening up its economy?
“No one knows,” was the response from another commenter, who added that many of the senior leaders in attendance probably didn’t know, either.
Both the lack of confidence and the desire to start anew are real, highlighting the country’s eagerness to get out of its slump and its uncertainty about its leader’s readiness to change course. The private sector also has good reasons to worry that Beijing could meddle more in businesses in the name of supporting them, suffocating innovation and competition.
Mr. Xi summoned the meeting because he saw that the impact of DeepSeek, a mostly unknown start-up until last month, was much stronger than what he tried to achieve through a top-down approach, said Xu Chenggang, an economist at Stanford. “He wanted the private enterprises to help him find a way out of trouble,” he said.
Mr. Xu, who is critical of Mr. Xi’s leadership and was among the first to point out China’s deflationary pressures, said that DeepSeek’s arrival and other positive news could bolster investors’ confidence, and that any persistent momentum could support the economy.
“I don’t think the trend of economic decline will change,” he said. “However, China might be able to escape a serious crisis that started a year ago and shift to a steadier, yet sustained, decline, giving it a chance to catch its breath.”
He said he also did not believe that DeepSeek or artificial intelligence could fix the root of China’s economic woes: weak demand. If anything, it could boost supply by making businesses more efficient, worsening the imbalance.
Mr. Xi has high hopes for private enterprises and entrepreneurs. During the symposium, he told them that they should “firmly position themselves as builders of socialism with ******** characteristics and promoters of ******** modernization.” Mr. Xi urged them to pursue high-quality development and enhance independent innovation.
In a nearly 10-minute segment about the symposium on state television, China’s most prominent entrepreneurs, mostly in tech and advanced manufacturing, stood respectfully and clapped vigorously as Mr. Xi walked in. After the meeting, they lined up to shake hands with him.
A couple of the founders wore what’s called the “Xi jacket” — a dark, zippered windbreaker that the ******** leader often wears and that has become the unofficial uniform of ******** officialdom. As Mr. Xi spoke, many of the executives, seated before him like university students, were shown on the segment taking notes. Among them was Jack Ma, the founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba and the online financial behemoth Ant Group, who was the first target of a crackdown on tech that Mr. Xi carried out during the pandemic.
“The meeting felt like a teacher lecturing students,” a venture capitalist who invested in some of China’s most successful tech start-ups told me. “The market reaction surprised me — it was overly optimistic.”
The private sector contributes over 50 percent of China’s fiscal revenue, more than 60 percent of its economic output, more than 80 percent of urban employment and over 90 percent of the total number of enterprises, according to the state broadcaster.
A businessperson who employs thousands of people in China told me that it was in the party’s interest to treat entrepreneurs better. “If the private sector collapses, China’s economy will be gone,” he said.
At the meeting, Mr. Xi talked, as he often does, about his experience working in provinces where the private companies were highly competitive. But his economic thinking can be summed up as: ******* role for the state, and smaller role for the market. Under his rule, China pulled back from pro-business policies that transformed it into the world’s No. 2 economy. It smothered its most successful tech companies, sending accomplished entrepreneurs to early retirement or self-imposed exile.
Now as the country’s economy struggles and artificial intelligence demonstrates its sway in China’s most important geopolitical rivalry, with the United States, Mr. Xi has been showing some warmth toward the private sector.
A founder of a publicly listed company told me that he believed the ********** Party, which does not allow any force to rival it for power, would always be wary of the private sector.
A lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions told me that he did not see signs of economic recovery as he walked through Shanghai. But he agreed that it was good that people were talking about the successes of DeepSeek and “Ne Zha 2,” the animated blockbuster. Some investors are hoping that the government will announce more substantial policies during the annual parliamentary sessions in March, he said.
The lawyer, like the other businesspeople I interviewed, asked not to be named for fear of retaliation for speaking publicly.
China’s state media and government have heralded DeepSeek’s and A.I.’s potential to boost economic growth. In the past few weeks, China’s three major telecom operators, the state utility and major oil companies, as well as tech giants like Tencent and Baidu, have announced partnerships with DeepSeek. Some provinces have said they will integrate DeepSeek’s models into their government service systems.
While these deals were good news for DeepSeek and could improve the productivity of these institutions, they could come at the expense of other artificial intelligence companies.
“DeepSeek’s real impact is the destruction of other ******** A.I. language models,” Jielin *****, a researcher of China’s tech industry, wrote on X, “as all resources are flowing toward DeepSeek, making it difficult for others to secure funding and market opportunities.” A founder of an A.I. start-up said DeepSeek was significant for China but agreed with Ms. *****’s assessment that it would divert funding.
The venture capitalist who believed that the market was overly optimistic expressed concern that too much government attention could hurt DeepSeek. The company’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, who attended the symposium with Mr. Xi, is now spending time attending political meetings and pleasing officials high and low, the venture capitalist said.
But that’s a fate DeepSeek and other successful private enterprises might not be able to avoid.
After the symposium, a video skit on WeChat showed a conversation between a mandarin and a businessman in the Ming dynasty. “How exactly should we manage things to bring some life into the market?” the mandarin asked. “Just leave it alone,” the businessman replied.
The video has since been deleted.
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As the U.S. Exits Foreign Aid, Who Will Fill the Gap?
As the U.S. Exits Foreign Aid, Who Will Fill the Gap?
As the reality sets in that the United States is drastically diminishing its foreign assistance to developing countries, an urgent conversation is starting among governments, philanthropists, and global health and development organizations.
It is centered on one crucial question: Who will fill this gap?
Last year, the United States contributed about $12 billion to global health, money that has funded treatment of H.I.V. and prevention of new infections; children’s vaccines against polio, measles and pneumonia; clean water for refugees; and tests and medications for malaria.
The next largest funder is the Gates Foundation, which disburses a fraction of that amount: its global health division had a budget of $1.86 billion in 2023.
“The gap that has been filled by the U.S. cannot be easily matched by anybody,” said Dr. Ntobeko Ntusi, the chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council.
U.S. assistance has been channeled through the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., which the new Trump administration has largely dismantled, and other government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, which is also facing substantial cuts in health research grants.
Many people are suggesting that other countries, particularly China, could move into some of the areas vacated by the United States, Dr. Ntusi said. Others are making urgent appeals to big philanthropies including the Gates Foundation and Open Philanthropy.
This conversation is most consequential in Africa. About 85 percent of U.S. spending on global health went to programs in or for African countries.
For countries such as Somalia, where U.S. aid made up 25 percent of the government’s whole budget, or Tanzania, where the U.S. funded a majority of public health care, the loss is catastrophic. And for the major global health agencies, the situation is similarly critical.
President Trump has already pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, which is now trying make an initial budget cut of $500 million for 2026-27 to cope with the withdrawal of American funds.
“Most of our neighbors on the continent, they’ve been completely reliant on the U.S. to procure most of the lifesaving medications for endemic infections,” Dr. Ntusi said. “And I don’t see most of the governments overnight being able to have the resources to cope. And so I think there’s going to be devastating consequences on lives lost from Africans who will die of preventable infections”
The U.S. is the largest donor to Gavi, an organization that supplies essential vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The U.S. contribution is required by Congress. Asked about the commitment to these and other multilateral agencies including the Pandemic Fund, a State Department spokesperson said that the programs were being reviewed to see if they aligned with the national interest, and that funding would continue only for those that met this condition.
Who Steps In?
There is no indication that additional funding will come from the other G7 countries, the European Union or other high-income nations. Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries have all reduced their foreign aid. Some new donor countries have come forward to support the W.H.O., including Saudi Arabia and South Korea, but their spending is dwarfed by the amount the U.S. once gave.
Of nongovernmental players, the World Bank is best placed to provide long-term support for health spending. The bank has said little so far. It could offer countries hit hard by the U.S. cutoff innovative financing such as debt-for-health-care swaps to give nations struggling under heavy debt burdens some fiscal freedom to make up lost health care funding. However, the U.S. is the largest shareholder of the bank, and the Trump administration would have influence over any such investment.
Much of the public discussion about filling the vacuum left by the U.S. has focused on China, which has built a significant presence by financing infrastructure projects in African countries, particularly those with extensive mineral reserves or strategic ports.
“There is good reason for them to do so,” said Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. China regards foreign aid as a soft-power tool in its superpower rivalry with the United States, much as the United States did when setting up U.S.A.I.D. during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. China seeks to use aid to garner more support from developing countries in the United Nations.
While ******** aid has largely come in loans to build infrastructure, it includes support for more varied projects. China’s answer to Western development aid, a program unveiled in 2021 called the Global Development Initiative, includes $2 billion for upgrading livestock production in Ethiopia, fighting malaria in Gambia and planting trees in Mongolia, among other projects.
Mr. Chong said China’s ability to fill the opening left by U.S.A.I.D. could be constrained by its own financial limitations. China’s economy has stagnated because of a property crisis and rising government debt, and the country has already scaled back on big infrastructure loans.
To date, China has shown little interest in supporting global health programs, or in providing grants on a scale anywhere near U.S.A.I.D. levels. AidData, a university research lab at William & Mary in Virginia, estimates that Beijing provides about $6.8 billion a year in grants and low-cost loans.
Philanthropies
Philanthropies that were already working in global health have been deluged with panicked calls from organizations with frozen funds.
“I have talked to some foundations who have all said we’re being inundated with people saying, ‘Help us, help us, help us,’ and I think they’re trying to patch little holes,” said Sheila Davis, the chief executive of the nonprofit Partners in Health, which works with local governments to bring health care to communities in developing countries. But if a patchwork bailout can cover just 20 percent of what the U.S. was paying for, what should a new donor save? she asked. “Do you choose to save one program fully and then let others go? Or what is the best strategy?”
Chief among the foundations fielding pleas for help is the Gates Foundation, which has been warning its grant recipients that it cannot make up the gap. In addition to funding global health programs, the foundation also supports health research and is a major contributor to Gavi.
“There is no foundation — or group of foundations — that can provide the funding, work force capacity, expertise, or leadership that the United States has historically provided to combat and control deadly diseases and address hunger and poverty around the world,” the foundation’s North America director, Rob Nabors, said by email.
Multiple recipients of Gates Foundation funding, who declined to speak on the record because they were describing confidential conversations, said they had been told by foundation staff members that it would continue to fund research and programs in the areas it already worked, but wouldn’t expand significantly, and that while some grants might be restructured to try to compensate for part of the lost U.S. funding, the foundation’s work would continue to be “catalytic” rather than support large-scale programming like U.S.A.I.D. did.
John-Arne Røttingen, the chief executive of the Wellcome Trust, which is among the largest donors to global health research, said in an email that the foundation was “exploring what options might exist” in the new landscape. But, he said, its help would be “a drop in the ocean compared to what governments across the world need to provide.”
A couple of small organizations, such as Founders Pledge, have started “bridge funds,” ranging from about $20 million to $200 million, to try to help plug immediate gaps.
But the philanthropic sector has largely been silent about the momentous change in the landscape. Major players that have already put hundreds of millions of dollars into health care in Africa, such as the Susan T. Buffett Foundation, did not respond to questions about their plans. The Delta Foundation (co-founded by the Zimbabwean telecom billionaire Strive Masiyiwa) declined to discuss the issue.
Two executives at smaller private foundations said there was a reluctance to say anything publicly because of fear of retribution from the Trump administration, including a potential loss of charitable status.
African Governments
African governments are under tremendous pressure from frustrated citizens to assume responsibility for the health spending that was coming from the U.S. The issue led the agenda at a meeting of the continent’s health ministers at an African Union summit last week.
In the 24 years since the Union adopted what’s called the Abuja Declaration, committing its 42 members to spending 15 percent of their budgets on health, only a couple of states have ever hit that target, and for a year or two at most. Average health spending by African countries is less than half that amount.
In Nigeria, the president convened an emergency cabinet committee to make a plan for the budget shortfall, and Parliament allotted an extra $200 million to the national budget last week. But that extraordinary measure illustrates the scale of what’s been lost: it’s less than half of the $512 million that the U.S. gave Nigeria for health care in 2023.
Nigeria’s health minister, Dr. Muhammad Pate, said that nearly 28,000 health care workers in the country had been paid in whole or part by U.S.A.I.D., which also covered three-quarters of the bill for drugs and test kits for the 1.3 million ********** who live with H.I.V.
Nigeria will quickly need to find new ways of operating, he said, including boosting manufacturing of some of those items domestically. “It may not be as fancy, but at least it will serve,” Dr. Pate said.
He also predicted that the end of U.S. aid would accelerate what he called a “realignment” in Africa. “The world has shifted in the last 20 years,” he said. “So we have other actors: We have China, India, Brazil, Mexico and others.”
Deisy Ventura, a professor of global health ethics at the University of São Paulo, said the change could open opportunities for other countries to exert newfound influence.
“The retreat of the United States may open space for new leaders now,” she said. “It’s important for us in the global south to imagine an international coordination of emergency preparedness and response without the United States.”
Berry Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
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Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling
Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling
The Trump administration has blocked key parts of the federal government’s apparatus for funding biomedical research, effectively halting progress on much of the country’s future work on illnesses like ******* and addiction despite a federal judge’s order to release grant money.
The blockage, outlined in internal government memos, stems from an order forbidding health officials from giving public notice of upcoming grant review meetings. Those notices are an obscure but necessary cog in the grant-making machinery that delivers some $47 billion annually to research on Alzheimer’s, heart disease and other ailments.
The procedural holdup, which emails from N.I.H. officials described as indefinite, has had far-reaching consequences. Scores of grant review panels were canceled this week, creating a gap in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Together with other lapses and proposed changes in N.I.H. funding early in the Trump administration, the delays have deepened what scientists are calling a crisis in American biomedical research.
Columbia University’s medical school has paused hiring and spending in response to funding shortfalls. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology froze the hiring of nonfaculty employees. Vanderbilt University is reassessing graduate student admissions. And lab leaders said in interviews that they were contemplating and, in some cases, making job cuts as grant applications languished.
For the N.I.H., the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, the ban on announcing grant review meetings has effectively paused the vetting and approval of future research projects. Government advisers and scientists said that amounted to an effort to circumvent a federal judge’s temporary order that the White House stop blocking the release of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans across the Trump administration.
“The new administration has, both in broad strokes and in rather backroom bureaucratic ways, stopped the processes by which the N.I.H. funds biomedical research in the nation,” said Vaughn Cooper, a microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
He had been planning to study ******** tract infections in people with long-term catheters, a project that expert reviewers gave a favorable score in initial vetting four months ago. But a higher-level review meeting to advance his research and other proposals has now been canceled, putting his work on hold.
An N.I.H. official wrote in an email in Feb. 7 reviewed by The New York Times that the ban on announcing grant review meetings was in effect “indefinitely” and “came from the H.H.S. level,” a reference to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is now being led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The breakdown in the grant review process seemed to reflect a broader Trump administration strategy of exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, despite judicial orders to keep taxpayer dollars flowing.
Officials at the N.I.H. and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The lapse in grant-making may augur additional upheaval at the N.I.H., which helps drive the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with its spending and generates tens of billions of dollars in additional annual economic activity each year.
In an internal email late Friday morning, Dr. Matthew Memoli, the agency’s acting director, warned employees of “further changes ahead” and said it would have “many opportunities to demonstrate our value to Secretary Kennedy in the coming weeks and months.”
For American research labs, which in many cases pay their employees with N.I.H. grants, lapses in funding can quickly push scientists to dismantle the infrastructure and work force that support lines of experimentation.
Katie Witkiewitz, who studies treatments for substance use disorders at the University of New Mexico, said that expected gaps in funding already meant that she would have to let go of one employee in the coming months.
“The N.I.H. just seems to be frozen,” she said. “The people on the ground doing the work of the science are going to be the first to go, and that devastation may happen with just a delay of funding.”
The stoppages have touched nearly every area of science. This week alone, the N.I.H. had scheduled some 47 meetings for handpicked experts in various fields to weigh grant applications, the first stage of a lengthy review process. But 42 of those meetings were canceled, stalling proposals to study pancreatic *******, addiction, brain injuries and child health.
Higher-level review panels charged with deciding whether to recommend projects have also been canceled in recent weeks. Under a 1972 law, neither type of review meeting is allowed to occur without being announced on The Federal Register, a government publication. Such notices, which typically need to be published at least 15 days in advance, have not been posted on the register since Jan. 21, the day after President Trump’s inauguration.
In messages to scientists who serve on review panels, which were reviewed by The Times, N.I.H. officials said that federal register notices had stopped being updated. Any meetings not announced on the register, they said, were being canceled. (Some meetings appear to have gone ahead because they had been announced on The Federal Register before the Trump administration took office.)
“What is happening is that they’re basically blocking the process, just by an administrative, legal means, rather than by ordering staff not to make grants,” said Jeremy Berg, who directed the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the N.I.H. for eight years and now works as a data scientist and administrator at the University of Pittsburgh.
On Jan. 21, amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to clamp down on communications from federal health agencies, Dr. Dorothy Fink, then the acting secretary of H.H.S., directed employees not to send any announcement to The Federal Register “until it has been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee,” according to a memo reviewed by The Times.
Portions of the communications pause eventually appeared to be lifted. But meeting notices for The Federal Register remained frozen.
In internal guidance to N.I.H. staff posted on Feb. 10, which was reviewed by The Times, the agency’s leadership said that federal register meeting announcements “continue to be on hold.” For that reason, the guidance said, “those meetings will be canceled on a day-to-day basis until further guidance is received.”
Adding to the confusion, portions of review panel meetings that were once open to the public in the interest of transparency have now been closed, the guidance said. As a result, review panels were being canceled en masse because of a failure to announce them to members of the public who were barred from attending them anyway.
“It’s a Kafkaesque thing going on,” Dr. Berg said.
The review panel shutdown is only one element of a seemingly broader pullback in biomedical research funding. Researchers have also reported delays in the delivery of the money and reductions in new grant awards.
The Trump administration sought to slash tax dollars allotted to overhead research costs like lab maintenance, a plan that remains on hold under a federal judge’s temporary order.
Compounding difficulties at the N.I.H., an estimated 1,200 employees were dismissed as part of Mr. Trump’s plan to shrink the federal work force. Those layoffs especially hurt parts of the agency, like the grants management staff, that turn over more frequently and therefore rely on probationary employees, former agency officials said.
The N.I.H. is on the clock to spend its congressionally allocated funding: Any money not released by the end of the federal government’s fiscal year in September could be lost, scientists said.
And grant review panels generally meet only a few times per year, exacerbating the effect of recent delays. If proposals remain frozen for long enough, researchers said, they could miss the next stage of vetting and remain on hold for half a year.
“This crisis — and I’m not exaggerating by calling it a crisis — has already consumed one funding cycle,” Carole LaBonne, a stem cell biologist at Northwestern University, said. “But if this block to publishing in the register continues on much longer, it’s going to ******** two funding cycles, and that will put many labs out of business.”
Jeremy Singer-Vine contributed reporting.
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****** Says It Has Returned Another Body It Believes Is Shiri Bibas – The New York Times
****** Says It Has Returned Another Body It Believes Is Shiri Bibas – The New York Times
****** Says It Has Returned Another Body It Believes Is Shiri Bibas The New York TimesFate of Bibas Family Renews Fears for Israel-Gaza Cease-Fire The New York TimesKibbutz Nir Oz announces Shiri Bibas was murdered in Gaza captivity The Times of IsraelNetanyahu decries release of wrong body as a ceasefire violation. ****** pledges to investigate The Associated PressTheir Time Is Up Tablet Magazine
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Moonlight Express: 109 passengers rescued after charter boat ran aground in South Perth
Moonlight Express: 109 passengers rescued after charter boat ran aground in South Perth
A party boat had to be evacuated in the early hours of Saturday after running into trouble in South Perth.
More than 105 passengers and crew had to be rescued after the Moonlight Express ran aground about 2am.
Water Police said the boat hit a sandbar a couple of hundred metres left of the channel in South Perth.
No one was hurt and all 109 passengers and crew were safely transferred to another vessel.
A Party Boat Charters spokesman said the vessel returned to Barrack Street Jetty hours later.
“Due to an unusually low tide, the Moonlight Express nudged a sandbar,” he said.
“Thankfully, nobody was injured and the boat is safely birthed back in Elizabeth Quay.”
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Shooting in south Tallahassee injures person, but ‘nobody’s talking’ to police
Shooting in south Tallahassee injures person, but ‘nobody’s talking’ to police
A shooting in south Tallahassee has left one man with a bullet wound and police with few immediate leads.
Tallahassee Police Department Watch Commander Lieutenant Robin Abney confirmed the shooting which happened at about 8 p.m. outside on the 3500 block of Sunburst Loop.
When officers arrived they found an individual who was shot. The person was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Abney said she was not able to share any other details, including the age and gender of the victim.
Abney said there were no suspects at this time, and that those questioned at the scene were not cooperative.
“Nobody’s talking,” she said.
Friday evening’s shooting was at least the sixth serious shooting in 2025 in the capital city and county. So far, three people have died and at least three have been injured, according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis of gun violence.
TPD has recorded four homicides, three caused by gunfire; the cause of death hasn’t been revealed in the other case. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office recorded a road rage-related shooting between a pickup driver and motorcyclist that ended with the truck driver in critical condition. LCSO is also investigating a ********* in which a man was allegedly stabbed in the neck by a woman.
Detectives ask anyone who may have information to please call 850-891-4200. They may also remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 850-574-TIPS.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Shooting in south Tallahassee injures one; no suspects at this time
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Apple Vision Pro to Get Apple Intelligence Support, Spatial Gallery App With visionOS 2.4 in April
Apple Vision Pro to Get Apple Intelligence Support, Spatial Gallery App With visionOS 2.4 in April
Apple Vision Pro is set to gain support for Apple Intelligence features in April, the company announced on Friday. The Cupertino company’s suite of artificial intelligence features will be available on its first mixed reality headset with the next update to visionOS. Apple is also launching a new Spatial Gallery app that offers access to curated content on the Vision Pro, while a new app for iPhone will let users manage app downloads on the device. The Apple Vision Pro will also support a new Guest User mode, allowing the headset to be shared with other users.
Apple Vision Pro to Get Apple Intelligence Features With visionOS 2.4 Update
The company says that Apple Intelligence features will start rolling out to the Apple Vision Pro when visionOS 2.4 is rolled out in April. Features that will be part of the initial release will include Writing Tools (with ChatGPT integration), Image Playground (with a standalone Vision Pro app), and Genmoji. These features will initially be available to users who have set their device language to English (US).
Apple Intelligence features on visionOS 2.4 Photo Credit: Apple
Users will also be able to create Memory Movies in the Photos app, which will also support natural language search queries., or use features like Smart Reply in the Mail and Messages apps. Other features coming to the Vision Pro include Image Wand in Notes, Priority Messages in Mail and Notification Centre, Mail Summaries, and Notification Summaries.
Guest User Mode for Apple Vision Pro
One of the most anticipated features coming to the Apple Vision Pro is a Guest User mode that will allow owners of the spatial computer to share it with other users. Apple’s description of the Guest User mode suggests that this won’t be a full-fledged multi-user system that allows another user to have their own login and password.
Instead, the Apple Vision Pro will allow a guest user to save their eye and hand setup for up to 30 days after using the device. After updating to visionOS 2.4, Apple Vision Pro owners can use their iPhone or iPad to start a new Guest User session and select apps that can be accessed by other users on the headset.
Apple Vision Pro App Coming to iOS, Vision Pro to Get Spatial Gallery App
After updating to iOS 18.4, Apple Vision Pro owners will see a new application on their smartphone that allows remote management of apps on the headset. Users can also see information about the device, in addition to downloading apps and games, or see recommendations for new content (including 3D movies or Apple Immersive titles), according to the company.
On the headset, Apple’s visionOS 2.4 update will introduce a new Spatial Gallery on the Vision Pro. This app will show spatial photos, spatial videos, panoramas and other content that is designed to take advantage of the displays on the mixed reality headset. These will cover various topics, including “art, culture, entertainment, lifestyle, nature, sports, and travel”.
Apple says that the visionOS 2.4 update will roll out to the Apple Vision Pro in April, and the Apple Intelligence features will initially be available to users who have set their device language and Siri language to English (US). The features are also expected to roll out to other regions where the headset is available, including Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the UAE, and the ***.
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'It was time': Yanks welcome new facial-hair rule – ESPN
'It was time': Yanks welcome new facial-hair rule – ESPN
‘It was time’: Yanks welcome new facial-hair rule ESPNYankees nix facial hair policy. What other rules should go? CNNRoster Moves: Bears release Gerald Everett, DeMarcus Walker ChicagoBears.comStephen A. Smith completely flabbergasted by Yankees’ facial hair press conference: ‘What a disgrace’ New York Post
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Newcomers fire for undermanned Saints against Blues
Newcomers fire for undermanned Saints against Blues
New St Kilda players Tobie Travaglia, Harry Boyd and Hugh Boxshall have impressed as they narrowly beat Carlton in a pre-season hit-out.
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Another Washington woman claims luggage soiled going through SEA
Another Washington woman claims luggage soiled going through SEA
A woman from Spokane claims that her luggage was damaged and soiled while traveling through SEA to Raleigh, North Carolina back in January. She told KIRO 7 in an exclusive interview that her suitcase was unzipped, heavily damaged, and had stuff stolen when she found it at baggage claim.
“First off, all of those were scattered, and the baggies… nowhere to be found. There’s lotion squirted all over my stuff,” she said.
She also told KIRO 7 that other people’s luggage was also wide open coming down the conveyor belt at baggage claim, but she says the most disgusting part about this? She found a brown liquid-like substance on some of her clothes that she says didn’t smell right.
“And then there is some kind of brown substance on all of my undergarments,” she claims. “It is just… disgusting,” she continued.
This is the second story we have heard from someone who traveled through Seattle and had their bags damaged after checking them. Dr. Janina Damm from Kirkland, Washington reached out to us about someone stealing stuff from her luggage and dumping olive oil all over her clothes, as well as another questionable substance.
“That is when I realized that whoever did this also urinated in my suitcase,” Dr. Damm said.
She filed a claim with Alaska Airlines about the damages done. She says she is still working through the process to respond to the airline, but she says it is an extremely tedious process.
KIRO 7 got this statement from Alaska Airlines about this woman’s claims:
“We looked into this guest’s case and are currently waiting for them to respond with details about the damage and contents of their baggage. If we do find that the baggage arrived with damage beyond normal wear and tear, or the contents were damaged as a result of rough handling, we will make it right. We just need her to respond to our central baggage service office and the process can continue.
We’re sorry this guest’s experience fell short of our expectations for caring service. We investigate trends frequently to identify changes we need to make in our operation. We have found no indication of a pattern with soiled bags.”
Although Alaska Airlines says there hasn’t been a pattern, both women KIRO 7 spoke with are looking for answers to this odd mystery soon because they feel this is a big security concern.
“If somebody has that much time on their hands to actually do something or be so careless to have this stuff happen, then what else could happen?” she said.
A spokesperson with SEA Airport says they are looking into the women’s claims.
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Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk: Judge Halts Trump’s DEI Contract Ban—For Now – Forbes
Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk: Judge Halts Trump’s DEI Contract Ban—For Now – Forbes
Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk: Judge Halts Trump’s DEI Contract Ban—For Now ForbesCourts rule on Trump administration initiatives including DOGE, DEI The Washington PostSan Francisco community groups sue Trump over anti-trans executive orders Axios
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Competitive Balance still a key issue for AFLPA despite Fremantle and West Coast receiving extra home games
Competitive Balance still a key issue for AFLPA despite Fremantle and West Coast receiving extra home games
Fremantle and West Coast will benefit from less travel in 2025 following a Competitive Balance review, but now other clubs are also set to have inequities addressed in a bid to make the AFL fairer.
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Airbus to sign deal with Spirit Aero in weeks: CFO
Airbus to sign deal with Spirit Aero in weeks: CFO
(Reuters) – Airbus expects to firm up a deal to take over some of Spirit AeroSystems European operations in the next few weeks, the planemaker’s CFO said on Thursday, as part of a transatlantic breakup of the aerostructures manufacturer.
“We’re making good progress. I think it would be realistic to expect that this will happen in the next weeks,” Airbus CFO Thomas Toepfer told reporters in Toulouse, France, about a deal signing.
Boeing has said it would buy back its former subsidiary Spirit Aero, which is a critical supplier to Boeing, for $4.7 billion in stock.
Spirit Aero also produces key parts for some Airbus jets, and Airbus will take some of those activities in a deal expected to close by mid-2025. Toepfer said closing by July 1 was a “realistic assumption.”
Airbus reached a binding term sheet last year with Spirit Aero, but a formal agreement, initially expected last year, has not been concluded yet. Airbus will receive compensation because it will take on some loss-making operations.
Sources told Reuters that talks have been challenging due to questions about how to divide intellectual property, along with the future of a Spirit Aero plant in Northern Ireland.
Airbus is expected to take a part of the Belfast factory that produces wings for the planemaker’s smallest A220 jet.
The Airbus deal could exclude part of the plant that produces jet parts for Canada’s Bombardier, which has said it is a potential buyer for that operation.
Earlier this week, a union at the Spirit Aero plant in Belfast called for all operations to go to a single entity.
The Boeing acquisition is important since Kansas-based Spirit Aero has said it has total financial liquidity of just $890 million but expects to burn $650 million to $700 million in free cash during the first half of 2025.
Spirit Aero is critical for Boeing because it produces the fuselage for the planemaker’s 737 MAX jet, its strongest-selling plane. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg on Thursday said Spirit Aero’s production quality has improved since he joined the U.S. planemaker six months ago.
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Allison Lampert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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Prosecutors claim Luigi Mangione's rage against health care industry led to CEO's ******* – CBS News
Prosecutors claim Luigi Mangione's rage against health care industry led to CEO's ******* – CBS News
Prosecutors claim Luigi Mangione’s rage against health care industry led to CEO’s ******* CBS NewsLuigi Mangione’s defense cites evidence concerns, no trial date set in UnitedHealthCare CEO ******* 6ABC PhiladelphiaChelsea Manning Shows Up to Manhattan Courthouse to Support Luigi Mangione PEOPLELuigi Mangione lawyer says Mayor Adams publicly discussed undisclosed evidence Gothamist
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John Curtin College of the Arts parents to meet education officials after teacher praised ******
John Curtin College of the Arts parents to meet education officials after teacher praised ******
A Jewish student who felt threatened by the teacher’s actions was moved to a different class.
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Boost for alien hunters? Earth life may not be so improbable, study suggests
Boost for alien hunters? Earth life may not be so improbable, study suggests
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Did the geological processes of Earth (photographed here by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander) dictate when life evolved?. | Credit: Firefly Aerospace
The concept of the “great filter” to explain why so far we seem to be alone in the universe is based on erroneous assumptions, according to a new model that describes how life on Earth evolved in step with changing geobiological conditions rather than through a series of improbable events.
“We’re arguing that intelligent life may not require a series of lucky breaks to exist,” said lead author Dan Mills of the University of Munich in a statement. “Humans didn’t evolve ‘early’ or ‘late’ in Earth‘s history, but ‘on time’ when the conditions were in place.”
It was the *********** physicist Brandon Carter who first popularized the notion that life on Earth was the result of a sequence of unlikely events, which he described as “hard steps” in a 1983 paper.
A ****** hole theorist, from time to time Carter also dipped his hand into more existential matters, specializing in drawing assumptions from probabilistic and anthropic (i.e. the argument that conclusions about the nature of the cosmos have to be constrained by the fact that we exist) reasoning to say something about our existence in the universe.
Related: The search for alien life
This is no better seen than in his Doomsday argument, in which Carter posits that we, as individuals, are more likely to exist at a time when the greatest number of humans are alive. For example, imagine every human who ever lived is given a number based on the order in which they were born, and then these numbers are pulled from a pot like the numbers in a lottery — you’re more likely to pull a higher number than a very low number if the total number of humans who have lived and will ever live is large. Since population growth can be modeled as exponential, the fact that we exist now with a relatively low birth number compared to all the hundreds of billions to trillions of people who will follow us suggests that something catastrophic could be about to happen to the human race that will curtail future population numbers. At least, that’s the argument; philosophers and statisticians have been arguing about it ever since Carter proposed it.
Carter’s “hard steps” model of our evolution on Earth is similarly probabilistic in nature. The sun is nearing the halfway point of its approximately 10-billion-year lifespan, and yet it’s taken us — ***** sapiens — nearly all of that time to arrive on the scene. Carter could not see any reason why it would take so long for human-like life to evolve on Earth if complex life is common in the universe. This suggested to Carter that the development of human-like life must be difficult, passing through a series of evolutionary bottlenecks for which the chances of life succeeding are so remote that we would not typically expect those evolutionary transitions to occur in the lifetime of Earth. Life on our planet would therefore be a complete fluke, unlikely to be repeated elsewhere in the universe.
The hard steps idea has subsequently morphed into the concept of the “great filter,” the idea that something in the history of all life inevitably brings that life to an end. Suggested great filters have included the origin of life in the first place, the evolution of technological life and the ability of said life to wipe itself out. The existence of the great filter would certainly help explain the apparent “great silence” in the universe that SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) researchers have encountered, with no confirmed evidence of alien life in all the decades that we have been searching.
However, like the Doomsday argument, the “hard steps” model has its critics, and now adding to them are the authors of a new paper that highlights what they say is a fallacy in Carter’s reasoning.
Carter specifically assumed that the age of the sun, and therefore the Earth, should have no bearing on how quickly complex life evolved. However, the new paper by Mills (a geomicrobiologist), along with Penn State University co-authors Jennifer Macalady (a professor of geosciences), Adam Frank and Jason Wright (both astrophysicists), points out that the age of the sun and therefore the Earth very much have something to do with it.
The team selected five of the more universally agreed-upon “hard steps:” the origin of life, the evolution of eukaryotes (organisms with cells made from a nucleus containing genetic information surrounded by a membrane), the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere, the development of complex multicellular life and the arrival of ***** sapiens. They then looked at how geological and atmospheric changes to Earth might have affected when these supposedly hard steps occurred. If Earth were initially hostile to these supposed hard steps, it would naturally explain why they took so long to pass — because they had to wait for Earth to reach the point where they could be possible.
Take, for example, the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere. For over two billion years after its formation, Earth’s atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide. It was only about 2.1 to 2.4 billion years ago that Earth’s atmosphere began to fill with oxygen. This was thanks to the onset of photosynthesis, brought about by the evolution of microbes called cyanobacteria. In turn, the development of cyanobacteria relied on certain climactic and environmental conditions. In some models, the oceans of this era were hot, and the water would have had to cool below 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) for cyanobacteria to evolve. In other models, conditions were milder and the development of cyanobacteria then depended upon the availability of freshwater and how much of Earth’s landmass was above sea level. Either way, cyanobacteria’s evolution and the onset of photosynthesis and the oxygenation of the atmosphere was delayed until these conditions were met; it couldn’t have happened any sooner.
And even once cyanobacteria were ingesting carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen via photosynthesis, it took time for oxygen levels to build up. Multicellular life requires a certain abundance of oxygen, with more complex life in general requiring more oxygen. The oxygen abundance in the atmosphere suitable for the evolution of ***** sapiens didn’t occur until 400 million years ago — meaning that for 91% of Earth’s history, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support human life.
In other words, Mills’ team propose that these were not “hard steps” as Carter saw them, but that life simply had to wait until Earth could facilitate them — that Earth and life had to co-evolve together.
Related: Fermi Paradox: Where are the aliens?
Related stories:
— SETI & the search for extraterrestrial life
— Does alien life need a planet to survive? Scientists propose intriguing possibility
— Alien life may not be carbon-based, study suggests
Other variables that may have had an effect on how soon the different stages of life’s evolution could occur include atmospheric ozone levels, nutrient availability, decreasing sea surface temperatures, decreasing ocean salinity, snowball Earth periods in which the planet completely iced over, and the development of plate tectonics.
“This is a significant shift in how we think about the history of life,” said Macalady. “It suggests that the evolution of complex life may be less about luck and more about the interplay between life and its environment, opening up exciting new avenues of research in our quest to understand our origins and our place in the universe.”
We know from geological evidence that life existed on Earth as early as 3.7 billion years ago, and possibly even earlier. The initial development of life on Earth is known as the “habitability boundary.” As different windows of habitability subsequently opened up, life would have been able to evolve in bursts. And if this is the way it happens on Earth, it could be the way it happens on other worlds, too — and perhaps faster or more slowly, depending upon how the geology of those worlds develops.
There is a caveat, in that evolutionary biologists still do not understand how life originated on Earth. This moment of genesis is currently lost in the mists of time, and we cannot yet say whether it was a fluke one-off event or whether it was an easy step. One possibility is that life developed on multiple occasions on Earth, but all the other lineages went extinct, leaving only ourselves — the descendants of LUCA, the last universal common ancestor, from which all known life on Earth evolved — as the only ones left standing. This would give the illusion that life originated only once when it could have had several independent origins.
Other mysteries include how biological cells first evolved, and what caused the dramatic onset of complex life during the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago.
It is still entirely possible that these were unique and rare events, but the new paper is not arguing that life is common in the universe, only that the concept of hard steps in evolution is not necessarily true and that the development of planetary environments has a big role to play, counter to Carter’s original model.
Another caveat is that, so far, astronomers have not yet found another world like Earth, so geologists cannot yet say whether the way in which Earth’s geology and atmosphere developed is typical or not. It could yet be that creating a habitable world is where the hard steps really lie.
Until we discover true extraterrestrial life, whether that be microbes on Mars or bonafide little green men, we will continue to grapple with the possibility that Earth and its life are unique. For now, it’s a lonely universe out there.
The Mills et al paper was published on Feb. 14 in the journal Science Advances.
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4 Nations Face-Off shatters expectations as a hockey showcase. The Milan Olympics are up next – The Associated Press
4 Nations Face-Off shatters expectations as a hockey showcase. The Milan Olympics are up next – The Associated Press
4 Nations Face-Off shatters expectations as a hockey showcase. The Milan Olympics are up next The Associated PressCanada Just Beat the United States in Hockey. What the NHL Players Did Afterward Was Inspiring Inc.4 Nations Face-Off makes lessons clear for Team USA, NHL — but can they achieve them? New York Post Justin Trudeau sends fiery message to US after Canada’s 4 Nations win Fox News
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Perth Festival 2025 the world premiere of The Last Great Hunt’s Night Night at Studio Underground
Perth Festival 2025 the world premiere of The Last Great Hunt’s Night Night at Studio Underground
The Last Great Hunt founding artist Arielle Gray likens the small theatre company’s latest work, Night Night, to doing magic tricks while running a marathon.
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Elon Musk Loses It After Astronaut Dares Calls Out His Lie
Elon Musk Loses It After Astronaut Dares Calls Out His Lie
Elon Musk went straight to the slurs after being called out yet again for saying that astronauts have been stranded on the International Space Station by the Biden administration for “political reasons”—a lie that astronauts themselves have repeatedly debunked.
“What a lie,” Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen wrote on X Thursday, in reply to Musk parroting the talking point yet again on Fox News. “And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
Musk exploded.
“You are fully *********. SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused,” he replied. “Return WAS pushed back for political reasons. ******.”
Screenshot of X conversation between Andreas Mogensen and Elon Musk
“Elon, I have long admired you and what you have accomplished, especially at SpaceX and Tesla,” Mogensen kindly replied. “You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September.”
Musk is trying to gain easy points with MAGA by peddling that the Biden administration sticking to its previous plan instead of accepting his offer is equal to leaving the astronauts in space to die.
“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck,” astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams, told CNN last week. “Help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative. Let’s change it to ‘prepared and committed.’”
Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore’s trip was extended due to technical difficulties.
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Los Angeles removes fire chief in wake of massive wildfires – ABC News
Los Angeles removes fire chief in wake of massive wildfires – ABC News
Los Angeles removes fire chief in wake of massive wildfires ABC NewsMayor Bass says LAFD Chief Crowley did not warn her about wildfire risk ABC7 Los AngelesLA mayor sacks fire chief, blaming her for mishandling wildfires BBC.comLAFD Chief’s firing could be overturned by city council KTLA Los Angeles
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Roger Cook announces $14.2 million election sweetener with free bus service from Scarborough to Stirling
Roger Cook announces $14.2 million election sweetener with free bus service from Scarborough to Stirling
Labor has announced a $14.2 million election sweetener in the prized seat of Scarborough, promising to deliver a free CAT bus service from Stirling Station to Scarborough beach if re-elected.
With West Australians able to cast an early vote in the March 8 State Election from Monday, Premier Roger Cook used a Saturday morning presser to try and shore up votes for Labor MP Stuart Aubrey.
The Surf CAT would operate every 10 minutes during peak periods running from Stirling Station along Ellen Stirling Boulevard and Scarborough Beach Road direct to Scarborough Beach in under 15 minutes, including on Thursday nights when the Scarborough Summer Markets are held.
The commitment includes funding for additional stand space at Scarborough Beach Bus Station with more seating and shade, and improvements to the West Coast Highway and Scarborough Beach Road intersection bus lanes to prioritise bus movement and reduce traffic build up.
“Scarborough is one of Western Australia’s most iconic beaches and just the other week was listed in Tourism Australia’s top 10 beaches in the country,” Mr Cook said.
“It’s an incredibly popular spot for locals and tourists with good surfing conditions all year round and a great array of bars, cafes and shops, so we want to make it easier for everyone to access this vibrant precinct.
“Fittingly named the Surf CAT, this free service will save beachgoers time, hassle and money trying to find a spare park and have them at the beach in under 15 minutes.”
Scarborough prior to the 2021 election was Liberal Party territory, held by former leader Liza Harvey, but it turned to Labor in that landslide election.
Held with a 9.5 per cent margin, which would usually a safe seat, the Liberals are throwing everything at regaining Scarborough, with highly fancied candidate Damien Kelly expected to do well.
“I think every electorate is a tight race,” Mr Cook said, when asked whether he thought the result in Scarborough would be close.
“Stuart Aubrey has been working so closely with this community over the four years he has been a member for Parliament.
“He deserves to get re-elected.”
At Saturday’s press conference a fired-up Treasurer Rita Saffioti again called on the Liberals to come clean on who would be doing their independent costings.
Labor, which submits its costings to Treasury each week, has its election promises at $2.4 billion and estimates the Liberals-Nationals election promises total nearly $10 billion.
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DOGE shut the funding spigot for medical research overnight. Scientists are calling it ‘the end of science’ in America
DOGE shut the funding spigot for medical research overnight. Scientists are calling it ‘the end of science’ in America
The Trump administration’s vow to cut $4 billion in medical research targets so-called indirect funding, which he claims to be wasteful. But these costs are key to allowing medical institutions to exist, with scientists decrying the budget moves as a death blow that could lead top American scientists to jump ship to China and alter the scientific exchange of data.
Recently, the medical research communities saw their livelihoods flash before their eyes as the Trump administration announced the world’s leading benefactor in medical research grants was being put on a diet.
World’s richest man Elon Musk, who initially claimed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could cut $2 trillion in government spending but has waffled on that figure since then, has been busy trimming federal agency budgets across the country in recent weeks. The National Institute of Health is up next: Last week, it announced DOGE will cut more than $4 billion from the NIH budget—which equates to 11% of its 2023 budget—impacting major research institutions nationwide.
The National Institute of Health is the paramount government agency in the U.S. when it comes to conducting and supporting medical research. In 2023, the NIH yielded more than $35 billion in funding to disease-related research projects.
The budget cuts trimmed facility and administration expenses, known as indirect costs, to 15%. These funds cover overhead costs for institutions, including their electricity bills, equipment, and rent.
“I think it’s the end of science as we know it for the United States if that really goes through,” Richard Huganir, director of the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, told Fortune.
The Trump administration is levying NIH’s indirect funding budget to play on par with private philanthropic organizations. Entities like the John Templeton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation carry the highest level of indirect cost coverage of private philanthropic organizations at 15%.
Formerly, the NIH did not have a cap on indirect fund support. On average, indirect costs from the NIH reached 27.5%, and many times allocated administrative overhead up to 50% or 60%.
In an X post, the top receivers from were Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins, who received indirect rates of 69%, 67.5%, and 63.7%, respectively. When asked about the NIH budget cuts, Trump said, “Why are we giving money to Harvard when it’s got a $50 billion endowment, 50 billion and yet they don’t use that endowment to help their students.”
Dwight Bergles, a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, refutes the notion that the NIH should be on the same playing field as private philanthropic organizations.
“That 15% doesn’t cover the cost necessary to do the research,” Bergles told Fortune.
Funding from private foundations only makes up a small portion of the research that goes on at universities, and universities take that on as a liability, Bergles said.
“They (universities) say, ‘You know what, this money that’s coming in, we realize it doesn’t support all of the infrastructure necessary to do it, but it’s investment into further research and the lifeblood of the lab to have support coming in,’” Bergles said.
Universities have to plan on other ways to balance out the indirect costs of a project that private foundations lack supporting, he added.
Bergles rejects this idea, saying university donors “don’t want that money going to support indirect cost.”
“You can’t impose upon universities to tap endowments for this,” Bergles said.
Bergles emphasized it’s important to be fiscally efficient in the world of scientific research, but the expedited manner in which NIH funding was cut “has been very, very disruptive and could have long ranging impacts on the future of science in this country and our ability to want to understand biology, to develop new therapies, to provide ways of improving the lives of our citizens.”
Immediate effects
While the NIH funding cuts may cause long-term impediments to scientific discovery in this country, they also pose more immediate risks for some patients and their families.
Huganir said Johns Hopkins is currently developing a solution for children who are “severely intellectually disabled, autistic” and plan to send it to clinical trials in a few years—but that agenda could now face setbacks.
Huganir said in order for this therapy to work, “we have to treat them very young.”
“Any delay in research is going to be, you know, tragic,” said Huganir. “I’ve gotten to know the families and the families are desperate, you know, they know there’s a window of time so it’s a race to develop these therapeutics to treat their kids.”
Johns Hopkins currently has 600 clinical trials in progress and all will be impacted, according to Huganir.
Huganir said the NIH cutting indirect costs will affect everyone, and treatment for things like mental health and ******* will be “severely compromised if this goes through.”
Expect a youthful brain drain in American scientific discovery
The United States is the worldwide leader in science, according to the AD Scientific Index. Although the U.S. has a major foothold in talent recruitment, some think the next generation of scientists will either go abroad or pick a different career path.
“I see this as a huge part of it, you’re talking about some of the most gifted, creative (people) that I’ve seen, and you’re sort of telling them that there’s no outlet for you, there’s no future for you here,” Bergles said.
Since 1946, the U.S. has been able to dish out grant funding for “neglected areas of research in the health sciences,” according to its website, which has attracted top talent from all over the world.
“My lab looks like the United Nations,” Bergles said.
Bergles hopes a future for scientists remains in the United States, but if funding runs dry, “they will leave and go somewhere else,” and many scientists think they might move into ******** research and development (R&D) labs.
“China in particular has emerged, due to tremendous investment in their research enterprise, as a major force in our field of neuroscience,” Bergles said. “That work that’s being done in China is exceptional.”
While the U.S. still funds more R&D than China as a whole, ******** R&D spending within universities and government institutions beats American spending, according to the OECD reported by The Economist.
“I think they will be able to recruit some of the best ********,” Huganir said. “But even Americans that really want to do science could be recruited to China.”
“That’s an imminent danger.”
How will NIH cuts change how research is conducted in the private sector?
Major universities focus their attention on basic research, which, as it relates to medicine, is all about exploring the fundamentals of medical processes.
Bergles said basic research that often goes on at these universities is the foundation for outside organizations to develop new therapies.
“They (private companies) take the knowledge that is developed by basic science scientists, and then try to apply it to create a new therapy or treatment,” Bergles said.
If university-based research were to be cut out, “you’re not going to have any of the information that you’re going to need to develop new therapies to treat disease,” Bergles said.
Huganir says the private and publicly funded sectors are two different ways to practice science.
“In general, [the private sector] can’t duplicate the kind of research that NIH does,” Huganir said. “Biotech and pharma are mostly not doing the sort of basic research, which really is the engine for discovering novel ways to develop therapies.”
Huganir said if NIH research funding fades, there’s not enough positions in the private sector for every scientist.
“I don’t think it’s going to give a boost to the private sector, it’s just not,” Huganir said. “The magnitude of people moving is not that great.”
Chief executives in the health-care industry warn of a trickle-down effect into the private medical sector as major universities exchange data findings with private medical companies to expand R&D. OMNY Health CEO Mitesh Rao told Fortune a cut in funding would change the manner in which research is conducted and funded. But in a world without NIH funding, Rao believes scientific research will adapt, and industry sponsorship and partnership will be the next up to fill holes in the billion-dollar budget.
“I think we will see a lot more of the private sector step up to drive the cost and the alignment to unlock those pieces,” Rao said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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Gemelli hospital: The facility treating Pope Francis – BBC.com
Gemelli hospital: The facility treating Pope Francis – BBC.com
Gemelli hospital: The facility treating Pope Francis BBC.comPope Francis isn’t out of danger but his condition isn’t life-threatening, medical team says The Associated PressWhat is double pneumonia? Pope Francis’s diagnosis explained. Livescience.comPope marks 1 week in hospital with pneumonia as the obvious question gets asked: Might he resign? ABC NewsPope’s complex clinical picture requires longer hospitalization ******** News – English
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West Coast Intraclub: Harley Reid rested after three quarters as round one team takes shape
West Coast Intraclub: Harley Reid rested after three quarters as round one team takes shape
West Coast have taken a cautious approach with young star Harley Reid, benching the teenager after only three quarters of the Eagles’ match simulation on Saturday morning
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