Scientists are making significant advances in developing artificial blood substitutes, with two promising approaches emerging in 2025, the New Yorker reports. At the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Blood Oxygen Transport and Hemostasis, researchers are testing ErythroMer, a synthetic nanoparticle that mimics red blood cells' oxygen-carrying capabilities. Simultaneously, the UK's National Health Service is conducting the first human trials of lab-grown blood cells.

These developments address critical blood shortages - of the 38% of Americans eligible to donate, less than 3% do so regularly. Traditional donated blood also has significant limitations: platelets last only 5 days, red blood cells 42 days, and all require careful refrigeration and blood-type matching. DARPA awarded $46 million in early 2023 to develop ErythroMer, seeing potential for battlefield medicine where traditional blood storage isn't feasible.

The synthetic blood can be stored as a powder and reconstituted when needed. There are still a lot of challenges, the report adds. The lab-grown blood currently costs about $75,000 per syringe compared to around $200 for a pint of donated blood, and production is limited to small quantities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Veel dingen zijn zo gewoon geworden, dat we ons niet meer afvragen waar hun oorsprong ligt. In deze rubriek wordt gezocht naar het begin der dingen. Deze keer: de trompet. Van Jericho tot jazz.

Johan Bakayoko en Guus Til scoorden, waardoor PSV won met 2-0. Feyenoord, de nummer 5 van de Eredivisie, leed de derde nederlaag op rij.

Frans Timmermans wil iets nieuws opzetten, in plaats van een fusie tussen GroenLinks en PvdA. Dat is voornamelijk een cosmetische optie. Het gaat vooral om een nieuw imago.

Chipmaker GlobalFoundries heeft Tim Breen benoemd tot zijn nieuwe ceo. Dat bevestigde het bedrijf op woensdag. Breen is momenteel de chief operating officer van het bedrijf en volgt huidige ceo, Dr. Thomas Caulfield, op.

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

I really appreciate Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter for providing historical context to what’s happening right now. In this morning’s letter, after summarizing the Musk/Trump attacks on our government (most of which I linked to yesterday), Richardson talks about the history of the liberal consensus, the post-WWII agreement about how government should be deployed and how that consensus is coming to an end (gradually, then suddenly).

Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government to override Congress and dictate what programs he considers worthwhile is a logical outcome of forty years of Republican rhetoric. After World War II, members of both political parties agreed that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. The idea was to use tax dollars to create national wealth. The government would hold the economic playing field level by protecting every American’s access to education, healthcare, transportation and communication, employment, and resources so that anyone could work hard and rise to prosperity.

Businessmen who opposed regulation and taxes tried to convince voters to abandon this system but had no luck. The liberal consensus—”liberal” because it used the government to protect individual freedom, and “consensus” because it enjoyed wide support—won the votes of members of both major political parties.

But those opposed to the liberal consensus gained traction after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. Three years later, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent troops to help desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Those trying to tear apart the liberal consensus used the crisis to warn voters that the programs in place to help all Americans build the nation as they rose to prosperity were really an attempt to redistribute cash from white taxpayers to undeserving racial minorities, especially Black Americans. Such programs were, opponents insisted, a form of socialism, or even communism.

That argument worked to undermine white support for the liberal consensus. Over the years, Republican voters increasingly abandoned the idea of using tax money to help Americans build wealth.

Tags: 2025 Coup · Donald Trump · Elon Musk · Heather Cox Richardson · politics · USA

GUATEMALA-STAD (ANP/RTR) - Guatemala zal meer deportatievluchten uit de Verenigde Staten accepteren. Het gaat daarbij niet alleen om Guatemalanen die de VS zijn uitgezet, maar ook om migranten uit andere landen.

De Guatemalaanse president Bernardo Arevalo heeft dat bekendgemaakt na een bezoek van de Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Marco Rubio. Die is naar Midden-Amerika gereisd om een strenger Amerikaans asielbeleid mogelijk te maken.

Rubio laat weten dat de VS Guatemala zal helpen om migranten die niet uit Guatemala komen, terug te sturen naar hun thuisland. Volgens persbureau Reuters kwamen in december tijdens het presidentschap van Trumps voorganger Joe Biden gemiddeld ongeveer veertien deportatievluchten per week aan in Guatemala. Nu is afgesproken dat het land 40 procent meer vluchten toelaat.