Bizarre CRISPR enzyme kills cancer cells by shredding their DNA. This is clever. Instead of using CRISPR-Cas9, this system uses CRISPR-Cas12a2. This enzyme destroys the DNA instead of just editing it. This technique could be used to go after cancers that depend on molecular targets that are considered "undruggable" because of their location or the inability to avoid attacking normal cells. By going after some unique genetic signature in cancer cells, you can restrict the destruction. Very nice. Paper here.
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I asked Codex to redesign my homepage. It pushed my entire repo to an OpenAI server. Clearly some bugs need to be worked out. This is a way to get your proprietary code whisked off your computer and sent to OpenAI for training. All your secrets (and maybe your API keys) get uploaded. This is why I avoid these AI coding platforms.
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LLMs Are Still Toxic, Stuck in the Past, and Bad at Math. It's 2026 and LLMs are still limited by training cutoff dates and tokenization errors. Even the latest frontier models are not perfect.
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Police Are Deploying 60 MPH Autonomous Drones to Read Your License Plate from the Sky. Mounted Flock cameras might soon be replaced by drone-mounted cameras. They'll be out of reach of vandals. While I'm against mass surveillance, I like that these can be deployed to high crime areas, and when and where they are needed. Seems like a reasonable compromise.
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Defenders are embracing the prompt injection, too. This is clever. Don't want Chinese AI bots to steal your data? Then set up canary files.
I can see why many are upset. So some are thinking of prohibiting Google from accessing their sites for AI. Or they can negotiate a deal like Reddit did, charging for the privilege.Examples are a prompt that orders the LLM to provide steps for developing inhalable Anthrax spores, or, in the case of LLMs from Chinese developers, make references to the iconic Tank Man from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Once the LLM encounters these forbidden commands, it no longer follows its existing commands. The researchers have named the technique context bombing.
Susumu Tonegawa died recently.This guy was amazing and few have heard of him. For a long time it was a mystery how the immune system could generate immunity to all sorts of invaders. There's not enough genes to code for each different type of antibody that you'd need. Tonegawa discovered the hypervariable region in the immunoglobulin protein, allowing for all that diversity. Now we know that the immune system shotguns an immune response, and whatever sticks to the foreign antigen gets positive feedback and is amplified. Brilliant! But he then switched fields and explored how memory works, and discovered that the hippocampus enables memory engrams to be stored in different parts of the brain. A true genius! RIP Professor Tonegawa.
Starting next year, Medicare reimbursement is going to make some people happy and some people upset. There's a shortage of primary care physicians and so the Trump administration is going to increase payment to primary care and prevention, while decreasing reimbursement for specialists like dermatologists and orthopedic surgeons. It's about time that primary care got the respect it deserves. (Probably still won't be enough.)
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America Is About to Go Over a Peptide Cliff. It's crazy that access to unknown peptides will be easier. Then I read that RFK Jr likes experimenting with peptides, too, so that might be the reason. Some peptides can be quite potent, and I suspect that a lot of these peptides, especially the ones from China, haven't undergone rigorous testing. "Over a cliff" is right.
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Four types of thinker have been identified. I bet it's more than just four, but it's interesting that someone attempted to systematically classify how people think. Paper here.
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Here's Veritasium's secret to making videos that get those coveted YouTube clicks. Gotta admit, those videos are engaging.
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Here's a good explanation as to why maintaining muscle mass is so important as you get older. A lot of aging experts warn against sarcopenia and recommend weight training. There is indeed something special about muscle tissue.
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Good for Douglas County! Oregon county rejects so-called 'sanctuary' laws, vows to support Trump's immigration enforcement. We've got to respect the value of citizenship and enforce our borders. We can't have a country without it, nor can we administer benefits to our citizens until we know who they are.
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