Snail-derived compound could be a safer anticoagulant compared to heparin. I don't want a comparison with heparin. I want a comparison with existing anti-Xa agents, like apixaban or rivaroxaban. This snail compound,
CCG, targets the factor Xa activating enzyme (X-ase) through the intrinsic pathway. They called it "iFXase" which is not just one thing, but the whole enzyme-lipid membrane-calcium ion complex.
Paper here.
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This guy wanted to help people by creating a site that helps artists convert images from one format to another. He called it
delphitools. It was free and easy to use and went viral on TikTok and Bluesky. But then artistic type people found out that the developer used AI to create it. So when they uploaded their images, it was sent to a foundational AI model. Which means it could be saved and used for training. And now we know that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. So its amusing to read how the developer is defending himself. The tools are there. Use it if you want. Don't use it if you don't want. And you can roll your own converter.
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Here's an
in-depth discussion on age-verification tech that is soon to be coming everywhere. You're going to have to give up your identity to someone eventually. Preferable it will be a neutral third-party. But then everything can and will be hacked. Another arms race will commence. But there are so many bad actors now that some kind of verification was inevitable. And anonymity is exceedingly difficult to preserve now, anyway. I still think that the person that comes up with a way to sell alternative online identities will make a huge profit. It reminds me of the old site
BugMeNot.com where people could share login credentials that worked and allowed access to sites that required login. Accounts kept getting blacklisted while new ones popped up. It got so popular that their ISP got overloaded and had to shut them down. They sold to another hosting site that was less reputable and the whole operation eventually collapsed. Too bad.
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Earlier this year, the government body that funds science, the UK Research and Innovation Agency (UKRI), imposed a new 'bucket' system, under which money will now be put into three buckets: one for blue-sky research, the second for government priorities such as AI and quantum computing, and the third for helping businesses develop new products. It is the latter two that count as 'applied research'; these are the buckets the government thinks will drive economic growth.
I think business should fund their own research. Let them find investors to fund them.
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“This is all to say that there is a method to how these decisions historically have been made — a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements. Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions,” Murphy wrote in his 45-page decision. “First, the Government bypassed ACIP to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.”
Some random judge gets to decide what the procedural requirements must be? And gets to decide what constitutes "technical knowledge and expertise"? Seems like too many judges want to be in the executive branch, rather than the judicial branch.
Like this Chicago judge.
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British Columbia is sucking away Oregon doctors and nurses. Going to B.C. from Oregon seems like a lateral move to me. The pay is lower in B.C. but things like malpractice premiums and healthcare insurance are paid for by the government, so it sort of evens out. This may be a case that life always seems greener somewhere else. We'll see how things go after a few years.
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