So the vaccine was on the right track after all. A breast cancer vaccine was tested 20 years ago, and although it was not pursued, the women were followed, as is the right thing to do. Turns out the vaccinated cohort was living way longer than typical for metastatic breast cancer.
––– 凄い –––
Turns out the vaccine induced the presence of T-cells positive for CD27, seen on natural killer cells. That's probably the mechanism. So now, they're going to see if they can pick up where they left off and improve it. I'm used to reading more about CD28 and checkpoint inhibitors, so this is new.“We were stunned to see such durable immune responses so many years later,”
Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries. Ah yes, the YouTube Institute of Medicine. Nice of them to get referrals from Google, eh?
But for geolocaton, Google's AI mode is the most accurate. GPT-5 is the worst, and I can confirm that. GPT-4.1 did a good job. But since Google AI mode uses Gemini 3, I'll use the Gemini API, instead of using Google, which I try to avoid as much as possible.
––– 凄い –––
Apple is going to beef up their AirTags. The problem is that they're really thick. That's why I don't use them. They're not meant to be hidden, but to show off, hence the leather holder. I'd rather not thieves know that something is protected by a tracker, otherwise what's the point?
––– 良くない–––
This is why so many politicians and activists like to portray themselves as victims. It's partly due to wanting the sympathy, but it's also a kind of narcissism, seeking recognition and validation. Makes sense.
––– 良くない–––
Why Pancreatic Cancer Is So Deadly. Turns out that pancreatic stellate tumor cells secrete periostin, enabling cancer cells to invade nerves and spread at an early stage, leading to metastasis. Periostin alters the tumor environment, and generates a desmoplastic reaction: intense fibrosis around the tumor formed by cells and proteins that harden and inflame the tissue. This hinders the arrival of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs because they have more difficulty penetrating the hardened tissue. I remember when researchers were trying to digest this layer of stroma with drugs like marimastat, and that effort failed.
––– 良くない–––
Dario Amodei is always warning about the dangers of AI to the world. But I notice he hasn't stopped making more AI models. I wish he would stop worrying about this and fix the Anthropic site, which is so hard to use. Ever since they switched from console.anthropic.com to platform.anthropic.com, I get errors.
––– 良くない–––
Microsoft is getting into the AI chip business, too - the Maia 200 AI accelerator. Why not?
––– 凄い –––
I didn't realize that this topic was so sensitive. Simon Willison wanted people to stop calling chatbots LLMs and call it Artificial intelligence. Apparently that offended enough people that he had to apologize for it. This is so below my "Chamath Line".
––– 凄い –––
nVIDIA hopes to make pinpoint weather forecasting so easy that you won't need a supercomputer for it. They've got an AI model that is probably so distilled and quantized that it can perform well enough on a scaled-down GPU. That's progress.
––– 凄い –––
A 2024 study of ~112,000 people taking cognitive tests found that even short, mild COVID infections were associated with small, but measurable, cognitive deficits after recovery (a loss of about 3 IQ points). Severe cases requiring intensive care were associated with much steeper deficits (corresponding to a loss of -9 IQ points).
Well, then I wouldn't worry so much. There's a greater difference in IQ points amongst various racial groups, and even within, and I'm not seeing that it translates to any significant detriment. They still become entertainers or government workers, and some even make it to Washington DC.
––– 良くない–––
Leave it to CNN. They feature an article on new nuclear reactor technology, and all they focus on is how some people are afraid. Don't be like the Germans. We are going to have to develop nuclear energy, and small modular reactors will be the future. This is the solution, not limiting datacenters or building more windmill farms or lining our contryside with solar panels.
––– 凄い –––
So this morning, Beaverton, OR was trending on X, and this is why. Looks like the City of Beaverton wants to jump on the anti-ICE bandwagon, too. Oh boy, this is trouble we don't need.
––– 良くない–––
Hospital Pricing Has Become Highway Robbery for American Patients. It's true. Hospitals, like universities, have grown accustomed to major cash flow coming in. They're like the government now, with so much administrative waste and fat. I don't like the fact that healthcare is so monolithic now, where care is delivered at just a few large institutions. Community clinics are almost always satellite clinics of some central monolith. The few independent clinics remaining are often spartan, austere and utilitarian, located in parts of town where the rent is affordable. But now hospitals are feeling the pinch, and this doesn't bode well for healthcare.
––– 良くない–––