Weekend Edition.
A whole genome for $100.
1. Scientists may have spotted a long-sought triplet superconductor — a material that can transmit both electricity and electron spin with zero resistance. That ability could dramatically stabilize quantum computers while slashing their energy use. Early experiments suggest the alloy NbRe behaves unlike any conventional superconductor. If verified, it could become a cornerstone of next-generation quantum and spintronic technology. More on this here. (Sources: sciencedaily.com, norwegianscitechnews.com)
2. Element Biosciences is going toe-to-toe with gene-sequencing giant Illumina, unveiling a device that can read DNA for half the price of the industry leader’s technology. On Thursday, Element Biosciences announced that its high-throughput benchtop sequencing device called VITARI can deliver a whole genome for $100. A few years ago, Illumina came out with the NovaSeq, which turned heads for its $200 high-throughput whole genome sequencer. Element’s VITARI is not only half the price of the NovaSeq, but it’s also a fraction of the size while maintaining lab-grade readings, the company said. A few years ago, sequencing a genome for $1,000 was considered remarkable. “So that just shows you how fast the field and the space is moving,” Kellinger said. (Source: sandiegouniontribune.com)
3. Bloomberg:
US officials have accepted Iran’s red line of continuing to enrich uranium, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted one of the country’s diplomats as saying.
The idea that Iran would completely stop nuclear enrichment was dismissed during the recent US talks in Geneva, according to the diplomat, whom ISNA did not identify but described as familiar with the discussions. Instead, the official said negotiations are focused on the technical components of Tehran’s atomic program, such as the location, level and number of uranium centrifuges, ISNA reported.
The unnamed diplomat’s remarks echo comments Friday by Iranian Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Abbas Araghchi, who told MS Now that the US hasn’t asked for zero enrichment and that both sides are seeking a “fast deal.” (Source: bloomberg.com)
4. Iranian students at several universities staged anti-regime protests on the first day of the new academic semester, clashing with pro-government groups on campus as public anger towards the Islamic republic persists after last month’s deadly unrest. Students at the prestigious Amirkabir University of Technology and Sharif University of Technology, located in central and western Tehran respectively, on Saturday gathered on campus chanting slogans against the regime and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The protests come amid heightened tensions with the US. Washington has built up one of its largest military forces in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq war, leaving many Iranians fearing the prospect of war. (Source: ft.com)
5. A ship believed to be carrying Russian fuels is on its way to Cuba, putting US President Donald Trump’s sanctions to the test amid the island’s deepening energy crisis. The vessel Sea Horse, expected to arrive in early March, is carrying much-needed fuels to Cuba, according to data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler Ltd. The country is short on fuels critical for cooking, transportation and power generation, with it literally struggling to keep the lights on. Available electricity has plummeted since the start of the year and satellite imagery found the level of light at night is down as much as 50%. It’s unclear whether the Sea Horse will be able to break the US blockade, which so far has seized at least nine ships involved in the illicit transport of sanctioned oil. (Source: bloomberg.com)
6. Bloomberg:
Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s capital and other targets with missiles and drones overnight, days before the Kremlin’s full-scale war on its neighbor enters a fifth year.
Moscow delivered another large air strike on Kyiv, wounding at least two civilians, including a child, local authorities said on Sunday. One man was killed in Kyiv region, according to the governor. Moscow fired ballistic missiles and drones, knocking out power in some areas as temperature plunged to -11 C (12F).
Separately, Russia on Saturday used ballistic missiles to destroy a factory of the US food and beverage company Mondelez International that produces Oreo biscuits in northern Ukrainian city of Trostianets, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.
“This is not a military target but a factory that has operated since the 1990s, producing globally known brands, employing Ukrainians, contributing to our and American economy,” Sybiha said.
“When Russian missiles hit such sites, they are not only targeting Ukraine. They are targeting American business interests in Europe.” (Source: bloomberg.com)
7. Trump administration officials have struggled to figure out how to increase U.S. military spending by a whopping $500 billion in their forthcoming budget, slowing the overall White House spending plan, four people familiar with the matter said. President Donald Trump last month agreed to a roughly 50 percent funding boost sought by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, in the White House’s annual budget proposal. The idea ran into internal criticism from several other officials, including White House budget chief Russell Vought, who warned about its potential impact on the widening federal deficit, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal deliberations. Since Trump agreed to the higher number, White House aides and defense officials have run into logistical challenges surrounding where to put the money, because the amount is so large, the people said. The White House is more than two weeks behind its statutory deadline to send its budget proposal to Congress, in part because it is unclear how precisely to spend the additional $500 billion, according to the people familiar with the matter. (Source: washingtonpost.com)
8. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority:
The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it. IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . . importation” falls short. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word “regulate” to authorize taxation. And until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power. We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. (Sources: scotusblog.com, supremecourt.gov. Full text here.)
9. President Trump:
The Supreme Court’s Ruling on TARIFFS is deeply disappointing! I am ashamed of certain Members of the Court for not having the Courage to do what is right for our Country…in fact, they’re just FOOLS and “LAPDOGS” for the RINOS and Radical Left Democrats and, not that this should have anything to do with it, very unpatriotic, and disloyal to the Constitution. It is my opinion that the Court has been swayed by Foreign Interests, and a Political Movement that is far smaller than people would think — But obnoxious, ignorant, and loud! (Source: pbs.org. Includes video. Italics mine.)
10. President Trump yesterday said he would raise his new, global tariff to 15 percent, a day after he took steps to replicate some of the punishing duties that had been struck down by the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump announced the sudden change in a post on social media, and said the policy would take effect immediately, as he signaled that he would press ahead with his aggressive trade strategy despite suffering a major legal setback. For some countries, such as Britain and Australia, Mr. Trump’s new 15 percent tariff will actually be higher than the rates that previously applied to their exports to the United States. For others, like China, Vietnam, India and Brazil, the new rate will be significantly lower. The previous set of duties were invalidated on Friday, after a majority of the court’s justices found that the president did not have the authority to issue them. (Source: nytimes.com)
11. A majority of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling tariffs on imported goods, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted via Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel shortly before the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s global tariffs. The poll was conducted Feb. 12-17. The Supreme Court’s decision came out Feb. 20. Majorities of Americans with various income backgrounds, men, women and Americans of all age groups disapprove of how Trump is handling tariffs, along with majorities of white, Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans, according to the poll. While most Republicans approve of how Trump is handling tariffs (75%), that drops to 43% among self-described non-MAGA Republicans (which include independents who lean Republican and call themselves MAGA supporters). A 55% majority of non-MAGA Republicans disapprove of how Trump is handling tariffs. Most MAGA Republicans (87%) approve of how he is handling tariffs on imported goods. (Source: abcnews.com)
12. Bloomberg:
Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to the negotiating table with Donald Trump with a boost in bargaining power, after the US leader lost his ability to quickly raise tariffs for nearly any reason.
Weeks before Trump lands in Beijing on March 31, the first trip by an American president since his last visit in 2017, the Supreme Court invalidated his broad emergency tariffs — a key point of leverage over China. That’s eliminated Trump’s second-term levies on China and left Beijing facing the same 15% global fee applied to US allies, a rate that comes with a 150-day expiry date.
The removal of tariff threats, which last year escalated up to 145%, will make it harder for Trump to press Xi for larger purchases of soybeans, Boeing Co. aircraft and energy. It also leaves him without a key weapon to strike back if Chinese negotiators make fresh demands in return for allowing a steady flow of rare earth metals that are vital to US manufacturing. (Source: bloomberg.com)
13. Bloomberg:
Bitcoin has gotten caught in one of its deepest struggles yet, with no obvious way out.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency has plunged more than 40% from its peak, and the usual playbook isn’t working — dip buyers have vanished, and the forces that would normally fuel a rebound are now working against it. Gold is winning the macro-hedge argument. Stablecoins are winning payments. Prediction markets are winning speculation.
The strange part: none of this is happening because the system failed Bitcoin. Washington has never been more accommodating. Institutional adoption has never been deeper. Wall Street has never been more bought in. Bitcoin got everything it wanted — and it wasn’t enough.
That means the defining struggle of this crypto era isn’t about price. It’s about purpose. And this selloff is forcing a question Bitcoin hasn’t needed to answer when prices were rising: if it isn’t the best hedge, the best payment rail or the best speculation — what, exactly, is it for? (Source: bloomberg.com)
14. The United Arab Emirates said it thwarted a series of AI-backed cyberattacks and warned of a “qualitative shift” in the methods used by terrorist groups it didn’t identify. The assaults on the UAE’s digital infrastructure and “vital sectors” included attempts to infiltrate networks, deploy ransomware and conduct systematic phishing campaigns, the state-run WAM news agency reported late Saturday, citing the UAE Cybersecurity Council. Authorities didn’t say how many attacks there’d been or when exactly they happened. The incidents “involved the exploitation of artificial-intelligence technologies to develop sophisticated offensive tools” showing terrorists’ “ability to harness modern technologies to carry out digital attacks,” WAM said.
15. Paul Kedrosky:
New AWS report out on AI as “force multiplier” in attacks, which, I’ve argued, was inevitable. It is cheaper, easier, and much more scalable than ever to launch attacks, and modernity infrastructure is nowhere near prepared, still trapped in an old world. (Sources: paulkedrosky.com, aws.amazon.com)
16. The U.S. Federal Reserve:
Prediction markets offer a new market-based approach to measuring macroeconomic expectations in real-time. We evaluate the accuracy of prediction market-implied forecasts from Kalshi, the largest federally regulated prediction market overseen by the CFTC. We compare Kalshi with more traditional survey and market-implied forecasts, examine how expectations respond to macroeconomic and financial news, and how policy signals are interpreted by market participants. Our results suggest that Kalshi markets provide a high-frequency, continuously updated, distributionally rich benchmark that is valuable to both researchers and policymakers. (Source: federalreserve.gov)
17. Researchers tested whether generative AI could handle complex medical datasets as well as human experts. In some cases, the AI matched or outperformed teams that had spent months building prediction models. By generating usable analytical code from precise prompts, the systems dramatically reduced the time needed to process health data. The findings hint at a future where AI helps scientists move faster from data to discovery. (Source: sciencedaily.com)
Quick Links: The Midwest’s remarkable turnaround. Washington Post/ABC News poll: 60% disapprove of Trump ahead of State of the Union. Democrats have made little headway in persuading Americans that they have better ideas or policies to offer. RFK Jr.’s days of “going wild” on health may be over. President Trump yanked his endorsement of Representative Jeff Hurd (R-CO), imperiling the GOP’s chances of holding onto his seat. Trump demands Netflix remove former Obama official from board. Cyber stocks slide as Anthropic unveils Claude security tool. Bummer: DHS will suspend TSA PreCheck and Global Entry as shutdown continues. Parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary on 12 April 2026. Viktor Orban’s party is running ~10-points behind. His campaign is getting increasingly desperate. Pakistan strikes militant hideouts on Afghan border after surge in attacks.