Definitions of Life.
Happy Finns.
Coffee, then News Items. Every day. — Katie Couric.
1. UC Davis researchers engineered wheat that encourages soil bacteria to convert atmospheric nitrogen into plant-usable fertilizer. By boosting a natural compound in the plant, the wheat triggers bacteria to form biofilms that enable nitrogen fixation. This breakthrough could cut fertilizer use, reduce pollution, and increase yields. It also offers huge potential savings for farmers worldwide. (Sources: ucdavis.edu, sciencedaily.com)
2. Times of London:
About half of American jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.
The American consultancy’s analysis found that robots and AI agents could automate more than half of US work hours, both mental and cognitive, using technology that is available today, if companies redesigned how they did things.
Most of the roles at risk — about 40 per cent — involve the kinds of drafting, processing information and routine reasoning that AI agents can do. Hiring is slowing in some such jobs, such as among paralegals, administrative and office support workers and programmers, the research found.
Similarly, dangerous, physical jobs, in warehouses or operating machines, are most likely to be replaced by robots, McKinsey said.
Conversely, a third of US jobs would be difficult to replace with AI because they have uniquely human attributes, such as nursing, the analysis found. Some 70 per cent of the tasks performed by carers and other healthcare workers require the kind of physical presence, empathy, care and dexterity that machines cannot replicate. (Sources: mckinsey.com, thetimes.com)
3. Nicolai Tangen, head of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, warned that the accelerating deployment of artificial intelligence risked deepening social and geopolitical inequalities across the globe. The chief executive of Norway’s $2 trillion national fund said that as access to advanced models became increasingly expensive, AI had the potential to widen the gap between rich and poor individuals as well as nations. “You need prior education, you need electricity, you need digital infrastructure . . . There is a potential for this to amplify differences in the world,” Tangen said from his New York office overlooking Bryant Park. “There is a potential for splitting societies, and there is a real potential for splitting the world into the countries which can afford it and the countries which cannot afford it.” Mr. Tangen remains an “AI optimist”. (Source: ft.com)
4. Bloomberg:
GPUs, the chips used to train and run the most advanced large language models, are one of the biggest costs for AI companies. Most of them are borrowing money to buy as many GPUs as possible, as fast as possible. As they do, accounting rules require them to produce estimates of how long these chips will retain value. Choosing a longer period spreads out the cost over more time, allowing companies to report higher profits now. But there’s a risk in claiming that equipment will be good for six years if, in reality, it will have lost almost all of its value in four. A company might have to buy new, even more expensive chips sooner than expected. Any loans it took out using the now-useless chips as collateral, meanwhile, could get complicated. At the very least, a company might have to write down the value of obsolete equipment, creating a one-time hit to profits.
Any of these things could get a business into trouble. If many companies are making the same mistake at the same time, it could set off a larger reckoning. What if the entire AI industry is less profitable than it appears, holding loans that are riskier than they seem, and facing bigger future capital costs than it’s acknowledging?
5. The Economist:
China is in the midst of a national campaign that aims to squash pessimism and promote positivity. In some ways this is nothing new. One theme of Xi Jinping’s leadership, dating to his rise to the top of the Communist Party in 2012, has been the promotion of “positive energy”, especially in online discourse.
But the special emphasis now suggests China’s leaders have something extra to worry about. One inference—fairly obvious—is that the economy is weak. About 17% of Chinese aged between 16 and 24 (excluding students) are unemployed, according to the latest official data. As in any country, disaffected youth plus ubiquitous social media make for a volatile combination. Yet there may also be something else at play. The underlying dynamics of public opinion appear to be changing. For decades China has stood as one of the most optimistic countries, a place where people believe that tomorrow will bring better opportunities. In the past few years, however, that faith in progress has given way to doubt.
Detecting such shifts is fraught in a country where it is so hard to study public opinion. Nevertheless, data show growing frustration. In big surveys in 2004, 2009 and 2014, Martin King Whyte, a sociologist at Harvard, collaborating with researchers from Peking University, rejected the common assumption that gaping inequality was sowing discontent in China. Instead he concluded that people were more focused on fairness, ascribing success in life to attributes such as talent.
After a gap of nearly a decade, Mr Whyte updated that survey, the results of which were published earlier this year in the China Journal, a Western academic journal. The change was striking. In the earlier surveys, about 62% of respondents agreed that hard work was always rewarded in China. In the new survey, that was sharply down, to just 28%. (Source: economist.com)
6. Scientists have built an artificial intelligence model to flag if previously unknown human genetic mutations are likely to cause disease, potentially transforming possibilities for the treatment of rare conditions. The technique draws on evolutionary information from hundreds of thousands of mainly animal species and outperforms rivals including Google DeepMind’s AlphaMissense in some crucial ways, the researchers said. The innovation promises to offer doctors extra data to tackle medical problems they have never seen and may even be genetically unique in their origins. Rare diseases are estimated to affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide in aggregate, but many sufferers are never diagnosed. The Barcelona-based scientists worked with colleagues from Harvard Medical School to build the AI model, known as popEVE. (Sources: ft.com, nature.com)
7. The percentage of U.S. adults who report ever being diagnosed with cancer has now reached 9.7% in 2024-2025, a significant increase from the 7.0% Gallup recorded in 2008-2009. The share of adults with a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime registered just over 7% from 2010 to 2015, before starting to climb. It has increased at a greater pace over the past decade. (Source: news.gallup.com)
8. A trial of semaglutide, the miracle drug branded as Ozempic and Wegovy for diabetes and weight loss, failed to find any effect of the drug on cognition and functioning in people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia. (Source: nytimes.com)
9. Influenza is picking up in the U.S., and public health experts are bracing for signs of another brutal season with the virus. Last year one of the worst waves of flu in recent decades took the U.S. by surprise. Japan and the U.K. are currently grappling with an unexpectedly early uptick in severe flu cases. A mutated strain known to cause severe disease may be behind some of the unusual activity. “Influenza is no joke,” says Shaun Truelove, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. “Right now it’s time for everybody to get vaccinated.” (Source: scientificamerican.com)
10. In an about-face, the White House is weighing a proposal to extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies that Democrats have been clamoring for since last year. ACA health insurance enrollees face a spike in premium payments if Congress does not extend the extra tax credits, which Democrats enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic. The credits are set to expire at the end of this year. President Trump is considering a proposal that would extend the premium tax credits for two years, with certain restrictions. (Source: statnews.com)
11. Soaring electricity prices are triggering a wave of power shutoffs nationwide, leaving more Americans in the dark as unpaid bills pile up. Although there is no national count of electricity shutoffs, data from select utilities in 11 states show that disconnections have risen in at least eight of them since last year, according to figures compiled by The Washington Post and the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA). In some areas, such as New York City, the surge has been dramatic — with residential shutoffs in August up fivefold from a year ago, utility filings show. In Pennsylvania, power shutoffs have risen 21 percent this year, with more than 270,000 households losing electricity, according to state data through October. The average electricity bill in the state, meanwhile, has risen 13 percent from a year ago, as utilities upgrade electric grids to accommodate a burst of new data centers, according to an analysis of federal data by NEADA, which represents state directors of energy aid programs for low-income families. Overall, Americans are paying 11 percent more for electricity than they were in January, though that number varies widely: Costs have risen 37 percent in Missouri but have fallen in three states by as much as 13 percent, NEADA found. (Source: washingtonpost.com)
12. The US and Ukraine have drafted a new 19-point peace deal but left the most politically sensitive elements to be decided by the countries’ presidents, according to Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister Sergiy Kyslytsya. Washington had previously put Kyiv under pressure to agree a 28-point proposal that had been developed by US and Russian officials and crossed several long-standing Ukrainian red lines. Kyslytsya, who was in the room as part of the Ukrainian delegation for high-stakes talks in Geneva, told the Financial Times the meeting was an “intense” but “productive” effort that resulted in a thoroughly revised draft document that left both sides feeling “positive”. After hours of painstaking talks that nearly fell apart before they started, the US and Ukrainian teams reached agreements on several issues but “placed in brackets” the most contentious points — including territorial issues and relations between Nato, Russia and the US — for presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide. (Source: ft.com)
13. Eurointelligence:
There are many more ways in which the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine can fail than succeed. Getting this deal over the line would indeed be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, if only because of the sheer complexity of the task. Donald Trump’s problem is that Vladimir Putin is inflexible on the land-share issue, and that Volodymyr Zelensky’s political career will end if he accepts this deal. The European strategy is to keep the Ukrainians fighting, so the Russians won’t turn on them.
Our reading from the commentaries in Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Komsomolskaya Pravda suggests that the Russians are open to negotiations based on the 28-point plan, but they seem to be dismayed that Trump is now talking to the Ukrainians. They seem to be under the impression that they could end the war in a bilateral deal with the US alone. Delusions persist on all sides. (Source: eurointelligence.com)
14. Institute for the Study of War (ISW):
The persistent Russian rate of advance does not indicate that Russian forces will imminently seize the rest of Donetsk Oblast. CBS reported on November 23 that a US official stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that he will take all of Donetsk Oblast “one way or another” either through a negotiated settlement or military means. The Kremlin has been doubling down on spreading the false narrative that a Russian victory is inevitable, such that Ukraine and the West should immediately acquiesce to Russian demands. Russia’s imminent seizure of the rest of Donetsk Oblast is not guaranteed, as Russia’s rate of advance has been constrained to a foot pace – even in the past three months when Russian forces have been making relatively quicker gains on the battlefield. ISW continues to assess that the Russian effort to seize Donetsk Oblast will be a years-long battle that would cost Russia significant amounts of manpower and materiel. Russian forces have not shown an ability to seize large population centers like those in the Fortress Belt – the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk Oblast – since 2022 and have tried and failed to seize the Fortress Belt itself since 2014. (Sources understandingwar.org, washingtonpost.com. Italics mine.)
15. Russia attacked Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, earlier today, killing at least six people in a large-scale barrage of missiles and drones, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, hours after Ukrainian and U.S. delegations finished two days of talks in Geneva on a proposal to end the war. Loud explosions were heard across the city, and the local authorities said air defenses were being deployed against cruise and hypersonic ballistic missiles, as well as drones. They urged people to stay in shelters. (Source: nytimes.com)
16. In an unusual diplomatic move, China’s leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with President Trump on Monday to discuss Taiwan, a flashpoint that has surged to the forefront in recent days as Japan takes a more assertive stance on the island’s autonomy. While Taiwan was Xi’s focus, Trump steered the conversation to Ukraine, said people familiar with the matter, as Washington-Kyiv peace talks appear to make progress and Trump tries to decisively end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The two issues—Taiwan and Ukraine—are both sensitive for U.S.-China relations, but they are rarely linked in discussions between the two leaders. Xi made the outreach, people close to Beijing said, turning the high-level communication into a rare diplomatic overture from China. (Source: wsj.com)
17. A Farewell to Europe:
Any objective expert, looking at the indicators and the numbers, will tell you that it is highly unlikely this indiscriminate European mass-immigration experiment will end well. That’s, unless all you want is bodies, any bodies, populating your land. But here is the definition of a nation: it is “a country considered as a body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language.” The migrants will increase Europe’s population, yes, but the inhabitants won’t be Europeans anymore.
If your country is suddenly populated by people from an entirely different background, who don’t speak your language, are the products of a completely different history and culture, have no common roots with you, express hate or contempt for you, are committed to an expansionist religion that believes in conversion, and have principles very different from yours on basic matters such as dress, food, drink, behavior, status of women. If they are determined and able to enforce your compliance with their principles, then you have not been joined by immigrants. You have been invaded by an occupying force. (Source: nationalinterest.org)
18. Local News: The New York University women’s cross country team won the 2025 NCAA Division III National Championship last Saturday. One of the team’s coaches is Joanna Thompson, our science editor. Congratulations to her and the speedy Violets. (Source: gonyuathletics.com, joannathompson.work)
19. At noon today, we’ll be posting a podcast conversation with Sven Beckert, author of the just-released Capitalism: A Global History. It’s an extraordinary book.
Quick Links: Cows are highly intelligent and deeply sentient and emotional beings with distinct individual personalities. Robots and AI are already remaking the Chinese economy. US cannot overcome manufacturing gap with China. BYD, China’s biggest carmaker, has opened more than 200 showrooms across Brazil selling electric and hybrid cars. Finland clings to happiness crown as economic gloom deepens.
Financialization Links: The global fund management industry is on track to reach $200 trillion in assets by 2030, up from $139 trillion last year. US leveraged loan sales are coming under pressure. Bloomberg ‘Big Take’: Trump’s $21 trillion investment boom is actually short trillions.
Political Links: This one is worth reading in full: CRINK (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) in 10 charts. Iran’s water crisis is so dire the president has proposed evacuating the capital. President Trump says he’ll visit China in April. Japan’s Sanae Takaichi says Trump called after speaking with Xi Jinping. Alternative for Germany (AfD) faces splits over Russia policy. Trump ready to talk with Maduro over Venezuela drug strikes. Xi pledges support for Maduro, criticizes US actions in Venezuela. Chile presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast holds double-digit poll lead. Pew Research: Support for Trump amongst Latinos is collapsing. Why Mike Johnson is losing control of the House. James Comey, Letitia James prosecutions dismissed. Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to appeal. Pentagon to investigate Sen. Mark Kelly for anti-Trump video. This is a surprise: Former Sen. Doug Jones (D) jumps into Alabama governor’s race. Among Americans under 30, 62 percent feel favorable toward socialism.
Science/Technology Links: Trump orders wide-ranging “Genesis Mission” to boost AI research. Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip business. Allen Institute for AI unveils ‘fully open’ AI models in challenge to China’s open-source dominance. South Korea and others believe their homegrown tech sectors are strong enough to build up their AI capabilities. What’s next for AlphaFold: A conversation with a Google DeepMind Nobel laureate. The State of AI: don’t share your secrets with a chatbot. Trump is betting $80 billion that the U.S. can revive the stalled nuclear-power industry. The startup Amogy, founded by four MIT alumni, believes it has the technology to finally unlock ammonia as a major fuel source. Who will win the trillion-dollar robotaxi race? Sleep apnea linked to Parkinson’s Disease, new study finds. A cell so minimal it challenges definitions of life.
War: The return of hydronuclear testing? Ukraine: the Trump administration’s “non-traditional policy coordination”. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi to advance talks to end the war in Ukraine. Timothy Snyder’s withering critique of the Ukraine “peace plan.” Russian disinformation campaign comes to Mexico, seeking to rupture U.S. ties. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao accused of facilitating payments to Hamas.
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