James' World 2

Hmmmm   ….   Check the graphs carefully!

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The super El Niño climate phase that has begun in the Pacific Ocean is already the strongest on record on some measures. When it peaks at the end of this year, sea surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean are projected to reach 4°C above normal, a 60 per cent increase over the old record.   

As well as raising global temperatures, El Niño also shifts atmospheric circulation patterns, causing extreme weather around the world. This brings drought to some regions and flooding to others, damaging property and disrupting food supplies.

While the exact impacts vary from El Niño to El Niño, what’s clear is they will, on the whole, be stronger than in previous events.

“If you ramp up the size of your El Niño, you tend to ramp up the impacts in most regions of the world,” says Nick Dunstone at the UK Met Office, the national weather service. “It’s hard to know exactly which regions are going to be impacted the worst, but in general it’s fairly linear.”

El Niño forms when trade winds weaken, allowing water they have pushed into the “warm pool” in the western Pacific to run back eastward. This huge blob of warm water heats the atmosphere.

When El Niño isn’t occurring, the heat of the warm pool causes moist air to rise into the atmosphere above it, with the moisture condensing and falling as rain over South-East Asia. At the same time, air sinks over the cooler eastern Pacific. The warm air aloft, now mostly free of moisture, flows in to replace it, creating a giant loop. This loop is joined up with similar loops that circle the global tropics in what is known as the Walker circulation.

But when the warm pool sloshes eastward across the Pacific during El Niño, the centre of rising moist air moves with it, shifting the entire Walker circulation eastward. As a result, the warm, dry air now sinks over South America rather than the eastern Pacific. Another loop of warm, dry air has also shifted and begun descending over South-East Asia and Australia. The Met Office is forecasting dry conditions in these areas over the next few months.

“The Amazon is a concern, as is Borneo and places in Indonesia and Australia as well,” says Dunstone. “Those are some of the regions that wildfire risk would be greatly increased.”

During the 1982-83 super El Niño, the “Great Fire of Borneo” destroyed 36,000 square kilometres of rainforest. Now, thousands of square kilometres of Borneo are burning again, with peatlands releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. 

Warm weather and drought can also wilt crops. The Met Office is forecasting dry conditions in Central America, home to several major coffee producers, and India, the world’s largest rice exporter.

As a result of El Niño, India is experiencing its weakest monsoon since 2009, a major blow to the rice crop. Rainfall, which is the source of water for 60 per cent of the country’s agricultural areas, is on track to be 15 per cent below average.

Analysts expect global rice production to fall by 9 million tonnes in 2026-27, raising prices on a staple that half the world’s population relies on.

At the same time, because the areas of rising moist air have also shifted, places like Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil are forecast to have more rain than usual. During the super El Niño of 2015-16, more than 100,000 people were displaced by flooding in these areas. The UK and parts of the US are also likely to experience wetter, stormier weather.

On 26 August, global average sea surface temperature reached a new record. Seas around the world have been warming for years. But this new record is unusual because it comes in August rather than in March or April, when the global ocean is normally warmest after the austral summer. Part of the reason is El Niño.

“El Niño is adding heat to the system, but it is doing so on top of decades of human-driven warming,” Samantha Burgess of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a statement.

A rare bit of good news from El Niño is that it reduces the likelihood of hurricanes hitting North America in summer and fall. These tropical storms in the Atlantic are fuelled by warm, moist air rising high into the atmosphere. But El Niño often intensifies high-level westerly winds, creating a contrast with weaker low-level winds known as wind shear that can disrupt this process.

“Tropical storms form better when they’re not being torn apart basically by the upper-level and the lower-level winds,” says Dunstone.

The Atlantic hurricane season has had the quietest start in almost 40 years, with only three named storms, all of them short-lasting. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that conditions will remain less active than normal and generate zero to two major hurricanes.

In the Pacific, however, winds are, in general, weaker than average, and the rising warm air can still generate large tropical storms. But because this convection has shifted eastward, the storms that make landfall in Asia have had more time to suck up energy from the ocean.

Amid all of this, global temperature invariably rises during El Niño, and this incredibly strong event is expected to amp it up even more than is typical. Because this comes on top of climate change, climate scientists are widely predicting that 2027 will be the hottest year ever observed.

Global temperature rise will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C. While that isn’t the long-term average that would be needed to officially fail the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, it’s another nail in its coffin.

And a strong El Niño is often followed by strong La Niña, a cooling in the eastern Pacific that creates its own extreme weather.

“That would generally have the opposite impacts,” says Dunstone. “That can be an extra sort of stress on systems if they are changing like that.”

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Click the link below for the complete article (the graphs are important):

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2586328-5-graphs-that-show-how-the-record-breaking-el-nino-will-affect-the-world/

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The compound, called XJ-4-85, showed promise against an aggressive form of melanoma in mice. It also killed several types of human cancer cells in lab tests, including melanoma, leukemia, breast, lung, liver, and neuroblastoma cells.

A Two-Part Attack On Cancer Fuel

The study focuses on cancer metabolism. That term describes how tumor cells gather and use energy.

Many cancer cells rely heavily on glycolysis, a process that breaks down sugar. This pattern helps tumors grow quickly, even in difficult conditions. It also gives scientists a possible weakness to target.

XJ-4-85 works in a surprising way. One part binds to PFKL, an enzyme that helps cells break down sugar. Rather than blocking this enzyme, the drug speeds it up.

At the same time, the compound releases a payload that targets CPT2. That enzyme helps cells use fatty acids for energy. By disrupting both systems, the drug places cancer cells under severe stress.

“I like to think of this technology like a two-headed dragon,” said Xiaolu (Lulu) Lim Ang Cambronne, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT and co-corresponding author. “We are putting one part of the cell into overdrive while simultaneously weakening another part. It appears to be extremely potent.”

Using Cancer’s Appetite Against It

The idea may sound strange at first. If cancer cells love sugar, why make them burn more of it?

The answer lies in balance. Cells survive by shifting between energy sources. If one pathway becomes strained, they often lean on another.

XJ-4-85 appears to disrupt that flexibility. It pushes sugar metabolism into overdrive while weakening fatty acid metabolism. Cancer cells lose room to adapt.

The result is a kind of metabolic trap. The tumor cell runs harder on one fuel system while losing access to a backup. Many cancer cells could not survive that pressure.

Noncancerous cells were much less affected in the mouse experiments and several lab studies. That selectivity remains an important early sign, though more testing is needed.

A Small-Molecule Alternative

The researchers compare their strategy with antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs. These cancer drugs use antibodies to guide chemotherapy payloads toward tumor cells.

ADCs have become an important tool in cancer treatment. But they also have limits. Antibodies are large, complex and difficult to manufacture.

They usually target proteins on the surface of cancer cells. That leaves many important proteins inside cells out of reach.

“Antibodies are difficult to make, and because they’re so large they’re only able to target proteins in the surface of cancer cells,” said Ken Hsu, an associate professor of chemistry at UT and co-corresponding author. “We think of this new compound as a fully chemical counterpart to ADCs. They are much easier to manufacture. And because they are smaller, they are able to target even proteins that are inside cells.”

How The Drug Finds Its Target

XJ-4-85 targets PFKL at specific sites on the enzyme. In the study image, the protein structure shows the compound bound at K677 and K315.

Those sites help explain how the drug boosts glycolysis. When the compound binds, it helps keep PFKL in an active form. That pushes the sugar-burning pathway forward.

Researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to see the drug bound to PFKL in detail. This method can reveal protein structures at near-atomic resolution.

The team found that the compound stabilizes the enzyme in its active state. That helps explain why sugar metabolism rises after treatment.

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Researchers developed a small-molecule drug that tricks cancer cells into burning more sugar while blocking their backup fuel source. (CREDIT: Shutterstock)

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Click the link below for the complete article:

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Hmmmm  ….  Vote crazy Trump administration out!

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Polls show that Canadians strongly back Mr. Carney’s decision to end trade talks with Washington last month and hit back with tariffs on about $20 billion in American products entering Canada. But there is also concern over what might happen next. Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened another round of American tariffs if Canada follows through on its plan.

Some in Canadian industry say they are inclined to take Mr. Trump at his word, at least on this threat.

People in the Trump administration “are willing to hurt themselves, their own sectors and industries, in pursuit of their goal, however misguided I think it is,” said Flavio Volpe, the president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’​ Association of Canada. “So they may escalate. I hope that we don’t end up in a tit-for-tat situation.”

In what appeared to foreshadow Mr. Trump’s latest intentions, he announced on Monday that Bombardier, the Montreal-based aerospace company, would be banned from selling in the American market unless it built in the United States. “They live off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service — All while Canada blocks our GREAT American Banks, and Companies, throughout the U.S.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the ban.

Mr. Carney announced Canada’s new tariffs after he pulled Canadian negotiators out of talks in Washington last month — an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stave off 50 percent American tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian exports and to reduce or eliminate tariffs of up to 50 percent on Canadian steel, aluminum and automobiles.

The Trump administration said the tariffs it imposed last month were in part a response to retaliatory tariffs Canada placed last year on some U.S. imports, particularly autos. American officials have repeatedly noted that only China and Canada retaliated against the United States since Mr. Trump began upending global trade.

Since trade tensions began to rise with Canada at the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the United States has lashed out in ways both substantive and symbolic, including threats to block the reopening of a U.S.-Canada bridge and an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”

At a news conference after a sternly worded speech announcing the tariffs, Mr. Carney declared that Canada had been attacked by the United States and that the two countries are now “at war.”

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The Blue Water Bridge, connecting Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Mich., this month. Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king, the palace instead becomes a circus. — Turkish proverb,”

 

Hmmmmm…History is repeating itself yet again!

 

Isaiah 59:14

New Living Translation

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You might find these videos enlightening!

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A. R. Bernard: one of many

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Click the link below for the videos:

https://www.youtube.com

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The Trump administration has remained silent so far on vaccination recommendations as flu season approaches. But leaders of some of the country’s largest medical organizations are urging Americans to get their shots to avoid serious illness.

On Wednesday, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, as well as the University of Minnesota’s Vaccine Integrity Project, released recommendations indicating that the vast majority of people should get vaccinated against influenza, COVID and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

“Unfortunately, today the federal government is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has. But the need for that work has not disappeared,” said Bruce Gellin, a member of the Vaccine Integrity Project’s board of advisers and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Americans should have access to the best available scientific evidence and recommendations from the physicians and medical experts who care for them so they can make informed decisions about vaccination. Whatever happens to the federal vaccine policy process, we cannot lower that scientific standard,” Gellin said.

The recommendations come as an increasing number of people opt not to get themselves or their children vaccinated for various diseases. Nodding to data showing that the nation’s medical institutions are suffering from a crisis of confidence among a growing number of Americans, the consortium released summaries of research into the shots’ safety and efficacy in the Journal of the American Medical Association and online to accompany the new guidelines.

The group’s guidance acknowledges the fact that COVID is less dangerous today than it was at the height of the pandemic. But during the 2025–2026 respiratory virus season in the U.S., an estimated 15,000 to 42,000 people still died of the disease, while up to 240,000 people were hospitalized and millions more experienced less severe illness. The consortium’s research review for the COVID shots finds that they cut the risk of hospitalization for adults older than age 65 by 53 percent and reduce that risk for pregnant women by 58 percent. There are also signs that the vaccines’ benefits are passed on to the latter’s babies, who tend to have fewer COVID-related hospital visits than children of unvaccinated mothers. Adults who are immunocompromised see their risk of being put into intensive care or of dying from COVID cut by the vaccines by between 32 and 53 percent.

Influenza is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable respiratory illness. Vaccines against the illness reduce its hospitalization rate among adults older than age 65 by 31 percent and cut deaths among infants and children by 80 percent, according to the group’s research review for these shots. Meanwhile, the consortium’s review of RSV vaccines finds that they reduce hospitalization rates by up to 83 percent among people older than 60, while vaccination during pregnancy reduces hospitalization for infants by up to 70 percent.

Despite the evidence showing the vaccines are safe and effective, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which usually produces an annual campaign to push people to get vaccinated against respiratory illnesses, has yet to roll out a similar effort this year. The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CDC recommends vaccinations against the flu and COVID for most Americans, including pregnant women and healthy children. Still, those guidelines are at odds with vaccine-skeptic statements and positions taken by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other members of the administration.

Kennedy’s apparent opposition to vaccines could make access to the shots more difficult for some parents, said AAP president Andrew Racine at the same press event. Racine said it’s also unclear at this time if the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program, which provides shots for families that can’t afford them, will cover the cost of the recommended vaccines.

“Last year Vaccines for Children covered all of the recommended vaccines that we had put in our vaccine schedule,” Racine said. “I can’t say necessarily what’s going to happen going forward, but it’s our anticipation that the federal government, with Vaccines for Children and other programs that they run, have a responsibility and an interest in making sure that children of any income get all of the care that they need in order to keep them healthy and safe.”

Still, Racine pointed out that, while there is a decline, most U.S. children are vaccinated and that polling data indicate that most families prefer to get medical information from their pediatricians.

“I’m not saying this to say that we don’t have work to do,” he said. “We do have work to do. Certainly, the trends are not moving in the direction we would like, but I do think that we have lots of advantages in our day-to-day work.”

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SanyaSM/Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

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It’s fall migration season in the Park! A key stop on the Atlantic Flyway, Central Park welcomes more than 210 bird species each year. On this hands-on tour, you will learn the basics of bird identification while you explore the Ramble, a vibrant woodland habitat that supports a variety of NYC wildlife. Our expert Conservancy guides will share helpful tips for spotting and identifying birds. Bring your own binoculars or borrow a pair from us.

BUY TICKETS

• Sunday, September 6

  10:00 am EDT Sold Out

• Saturday, September 12

  10:00 am EDT Sold Out

• Friday, September 18

  10:00 am EDT

• Sunday, September 27

  10:00 am EDT Sold Out

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Central Park is a birding haven! Join us this season to make the most of fall migration.

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Click the link below for the complete article:

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided in early 2025 to spike Gen. Christopher T. Donahue’s nomination to be the top U.S. military officer in Europe.

Mr. Hegseth believed that President Trump wanted heads to roll for the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. General Donahue was not responsible for security at the bombing site. But he was a top commander at the airport, and so Mr. Hegseth decided he needed to go.

It fell to Joe Kasper, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, to try to convince him that he was wrong.

Mr. Kasper asked a senior Pentagon official to prepare a card with a half-dozen bullet points laying out the facts in General Donahue’s defense, current and former officials said. He took it with him in March of last year as he and Mr. Hegseth sped through traffic to the White House for a press event.

For those few minutes in the car, Mr. Kasper knew he would have his boss’s undivided attention.

Sirens were blaring. He handed Mr. Hegseth the card.

These were the facts of General Donahue’s three-decade career: He had seen more combat in his 20-plus deployments than just about any officer in the U.S. military. A star in the clandestine world of special forces, he had spent years in the shadows hunting terrorist leaders. And then as the world and warfare changed, he changed with it.

He had played a central role in the U.S. military’s efforts to help Ukraine hold off a much larger Russian force, a job that inspired his vision for a new kind of combat that married divebombing drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Now his fate lay in the hands of Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host who had two deployments as an Army officer to Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Hegseth had come to the Pentagon vowing to weed out the “small” and “feeble” generals who he believed had failed in those wars.

What played out in the 16 months after the car ride was a clash between Mr. Hegseth and General Donahue’s supporters, who viewed him as a generational talent.

That clash, and its outcome, was described to The New York Times by more than 40 people at the Pentagon, in Congress and around the world, nearly all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

It amounts to one of the most consequential chapters in Mr. Hegseth’s campaign to drive out those he sees as out of step with his priorities, a leadership purge that his critics say is driven by ideology, identity and suspicion of those with tenuous ties to former military leaders that he does not like. And it shows the intensity of the behind-the-scenes battle to save one general.

The more General Donahue’s allies pushed, the more Mr. Hegseth’s opposition seemed to harden.

The Pentagon declined to answer questions about General Donahue, saying in a statement that all senior military leaders serve at the pleasure of the president and the defense secretary.

In the spring of 2025, General Donahue was commanding ground forces in Europe. Mr. Hegseth was new to the Pentagon. To the extent he was familiar with General Donahue, it was largely through the prism of the Afghanistan withdrawal and a grainy photo that indelibly linked the general to the war’s tragic end.

General Donahue was the last U.S. soldier to leave Afghanistan. As he stepped onto a hulking military cargo plane, an Army photographer snapped his picture using his cellphone camera and night vision device.

The green-and-black image rocketed around the world. Senior Pentagon officials said Mr. Hegseth seemed to be fixated on the photo, mistakenly referring to it as a “selfie.”

The first item on the card that Mr. Kasper handed to Mr. Hegseth in the car clarified that the photo was not a selfie and that General Donahue had nothing to do with its distribution. Other bullet points noted that Marines, not General Donahue’s paratroopers, were in charge of the gate where the suicide bombing occurred.

The defense secretary glanced at the card and passed it back to his chief of staff.

“I don’t care,” Mr. Hegseth told Mr. Kasper.

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Gen. Christopher T. Donahue greeted service members before the 2023 renaming of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The general had extensive combat experience and strong support in the Army. Credit…Allison Joyce/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Click the link below for the complete article:

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