1 patient, T2 since mid-30s and now 59, had kidney transplant 2017 after end-stage diabetic nephropathy and fucked glucose control since 2019. The successful cells were endoderm stem cells from him cultivated by mice they injected with his PBMCs that they then made diabetic. So not from cadavers (except mouse cadaver i guess), which is the actual new part here. Intrahepatic implant, and cells from unrelated donor failed that were embedded at the same time. His personalised mouse-donor cells worked well enough to take him off insulin 3 months later.

Wu, J., Li, T., Guo, M. et al. Treating a type 2 diabetic patient with impaired pancreatic islet function by personalized endoderm stem cell-derived islet tissue. Cell Discov 10, 45 (2024).

It’s good news, but you’re entirely correct that the article missed the point entirely. Thanks for the crash course in islet cell therapy!

Looming? Sudan is past the looming stage. When do known verified atrocities reach “current reality” status?

I once looked at a job listing for something with very specialist technical knowledge in specific programming areas, for a Japanese company based in Tokyo (pre-covid so remote wasn’t really a thing yet). Pretty niche stuff and needed at least basic Japanese language skills too, so I assumed it would pay ok - even if it wasn’t good or great in comparison with jobs where i was.

After conversion it worked out to be around USD$40k a year, which is probably just over 1/3 of what it would pay at minimum elsewhere. More like 1/4 or less for Silicon Valley type locations, but the rent for a tiny Tokyo shoebox is about the same price even if food is a cheaper. There was no way I was applying for that.

It isn’t just about a weak yen, it’s much more about hugely underpaying people.

GNU+Linux user just wonders whether medical technology is bad for humanity’s long term survival because hereditary diseases can be survived and spread, but wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand.

It’s nice to know we have looped back to the point in history where we casually consider which people should have agency over their reproductive rights. Oh wait, no it’s not nice at all, but somehow still totally acceptable and commonplace.

Sounds like we had the same programmers. I feel you, Kairos.

That is not a level of power I officially possess, but it is a level of power that I am able to unofficially implement for the people who solely report to me. I am also able to tailor their roles and responsibilities to whatever causes them the least pain because their job titles are extremely non-specific, which is very helpful for both of us.

Both manager and non-managers are economically coerced into providing our time and energy. I try my best to reduce that burden for as many people as I can without being noticed by the people who are willing to suck the life out of others for personal gain.

The people who are marginalised by the process are the ones who will be doing the real suffering.

Hobbies indicate interest and aptitude. Someone who collects things might enjoy jobs and tasks related to organisation but not necessarily enjoy highly collaborative work that requires many meetings, whereas someone who enjoys team sports might enjoy the more collaborative social meeting type work instead of solo detailed organisation etc.

It is far from the first thing I would use as a hiring choice, but it does give me an idea of questions I might ask someone to figure out what would make them happiest.

The centerpoints of major waterways and roads are often the places with the most conflict, especially when it’s good fertile land that someone might want to live in. Different religious sects have had major presences in the region, some even established there - the first Christian Roman Emperor was born nearby. They’re also positioned directly in the path of many cultures, both ancient and modern, attempting to increase the size of their own Empires.

The land was built on conflict.

While humans continue to choose competition instead of collaboration with other slightly different humans, it will remain in conflict - much like other strategic arable accessible locations we see in the headlines.

Climate change will slowly increase the amount of land affected by conflict, when resource shortages become more severe from natural disasters; but the flashpoints are places like the Balkans.

I’m pleasantly surprised they didn’t start up again sooner. But, like, in the tiniest glimmer of silver lining kind of way.

Edit: tl;dr We all live in a shitty Civilization game but with less predictable players.

In places that were invaded, resistance were thrown from the top of buildings after they were interrogated, their bodies were left there to be collected by whoever dared. At night all you could hear were their screams while they were being tortured in cellars by the Gestapo. Dissidents were hanged from lampposts in the main street and left as warnings. The concentration camps were often in the middle of the town, not placed at a distance to avoid offending the locals.

And the next generation in those places grew up right next to those concentration camps and mass graves. They were raised by physically and psychologically scarred people, in places that were not funded by the Marshall Plan reconstruction funds that even West Germany received. Decades later there was still rubble and half destroyed buildings.

I appreciate there is much trauma involved in losing any family, friends or community members to war, or to experiencing the bombs being dropped around you. But, I think the level of cruelty and fear experienced by invaded regions was next level. And I don’t think Germans generally understand the details of what life was like for the places that were occupied - but that is only my suspicion. I can’t understand how else the AfD could discuss deportations or receive such a huge proportion of the vote.

Neither Axis aligned country tesidents nor the invaded would cherish reliving it, but they have had and continue to have very very different experiences as a consequence of the war.

There’s nothing more human than killing each other to stop war, either.

The human species’ best creations have been through collaboration on new ideas and projects, but we keep going back to the old competitive methods that have clearly demonstrated that they don’t make good long term solutions. We just don’t learn.

Thanks for standing up to Nazis. It gives those of us who had family experience the horrors wrought by fascists in WW2 hope that Germans haven’t been won over again by the same poisonous ideas.

The word “fossil” could have made an appearance in this article title, and yet it is noticeably and somewhat misleadingly absent.

Can we… see them?

Edit: some quick math, the minimum recommended space between trees is 3m, 200 million of those is 600km² / 148k ac , which would make the space required bigger than 17 countries (larger than Andorra but very slightly smaller than Saint Lucia). They have a blog with their tree planting updates but I wish there were more photos.

More important things to worry about than journalism on issues that affect (at least half) the entire population? Issues that have never been acknowledged institutionally due to women being denied employment and education? In a country that ranks fourth lowest for gender equality globally, maternal and infant mortality rates? Do you really think Somali women have nothing to add to these conversations that hasn’t already been covered?

Adding to this: Bilan’s self introduction video (1 min 41 sec, hardcoded English subtitles). Sorry, no transcript for those who rely on real text. I wanted to watch this but I was left with no information in the article on how or if English speakers even could.

The entire Western media’s approach to African nation reporting also enrages me. The continual insistence of media (especially UK based) on choosing photos to remind us that black Africans are poor and “backwards” is shameful racism. It’s no wonder that African nations are distancing themselves economically and ideologically from the West when their colonizers allies’ media machines continue to treat them this way.

“Before the war, I used to play with my friends,” he said. “I can’t play because of my injury. I can’t play, and I don’t have friends, and I don’t have anything.”

Acquired disability is a problem that will exponentially increase with climate change and industrial pollution. Wildfires create smoke that triggers heart and lung problems. War creates amputations and trauma. Drought increases food prices and creates malnutrition. Floods spread malaria and infection and other poisons. The stress on the body from any of those can in turn trigger other underlying health conditions and other genetic inefficiencies.

If we don’t stop spending all our resources on killing each other and start spending them on helping each other, more people won’t have anything. Just like this 12 year old child.

Funny that the Pope loves the rule of law when the Vatican refuses to cooperate in international lawsuits against them, which they can easily do because they can deny warrants as a sovereign entity.

Return the Nazi loot, Vatican. Then maybe you can look a little less hypocritical when asking others to cooperate in international justice systems.

Last week, for anyone else feeling a sense of déjà vu. It’s nice of BBC to catch up.

I prefer more drag, less death and suffering.

But not more fascists either, which presents a dilemma.