Monthly Archives: April 2025

Saving the Smiling Salamander

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A homely aquatic salamander with a cartoonish smile and the ability to regenerate lost body parts has become a global phenomenon, appearing as characters in Minecraft, Fortnite and Pokémon and inspiring a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. Where the axolotl can barely be found: in its natural habitat in Mexico. 

The axolotl (pronounced ah-SHO-lohtl) is hurtling toward extinction, just as it becomes globally familiar with a cottage industry using its image to sell beer, T-shirts and videogames. Scientists estimate that no more than 1,000—and perhaps as few as 50—are left in the wild in their last natural habitat, a Venice-like system of canals and islands built by the Aztecs that still exists in the Mexico City borough of Xochimilco.

Excerpt from The Race to Save a Salamander That Spawned a Global Cottage Industry, WSJ, Mar. 29, 2025

The Scramble for Congo 21st Century Style

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During the 19th century’s Scramble for Africa, European countries raced to secure territory and wealth across the continent. Now, African powers are grabbing resources from a neighbor crippled by infighting and ill-equipped to defend itself. Caught in the middle is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of Western Europe whose forests conceal a wealth of gold, diamonds and coltan, a key component in smartphones and computers. These mineral riches are turning what was already a region plagued by militia violence into a battleground, as Rwanda and its local allies seize coltan supplies while Uganda and its proxies move to take over gold mines to the northeast, according to United Nations and Ugandan officials…Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame are pouring troops and weapons into Congo, while their Congolese allies, who control strategic border crossings, secure smuggling routes to move more minerals to the global markets.

In 2024, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized the coltan-mining town of Rubaya, where fighters bring in around $800,000 each month by taxing traders. Rebel fighters have doubled diggers’ wages to encourage them to keep working, and they rely on forced labor to widen roads to accommodate trucks transporting coltan into Rwanda along with gold. According to the U.N., some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting inside Congo, a report that Rwandan authorities have denied.

Excerpt from While War Rages, Congo’s Neighbors Smuggle Out Its Gold and Mineral Wealth, WSJ, Apr. 7, 2025

Plastics Effects on Brain

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The damage caused by plastic pollution goes far beyond the digestive system.

Beneath the skin of seemingly healthy seabirds, new research has revealed the widespread effect of plastics on crucial proteins made by the liver, kidneys and even the brain. Samples taken on Lord Howe Island, which lies between Australia and New Zealand, showed that young birds which appeared healthy were suffering from severe damage to multiple organs. Seabirds which had only eaten less than a gram of plastic were already suffering serious consequences. These impacts extended to the brain, where declines in a crucial protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) were similar to levels associated with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and dementia in other animals…Sable shearwaters, a type of seabird, feed this plastic to their chicks, where it clogs their digestive system so there’s less space left for food. The team even named a specific disease, plasticosis, to describe the scarring that plastic causes inside the stomachs of these seabirds.

Beyond these more obvious impacts, plastic also sheds minute fragments that can travel even deeper into the body. These are known as microplastics if they’re less than five millimetres in size, or nanoplastics if they’re less than a micron….

These tiny plastics have been found in every environment, even inside our own bodies. Recent research suggests that our brains contain around a spoon’s worth of micro- and nanoplastics, but the health impacts of this are still not entirely understood.

Excerpt James Ashworth, Natural History Museum (UK) Plastic pollution causing dementia-like signs in seabird chicks, Mar. 12, 2025

The Monetizers: Cook versus Musk

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Apple is clashing with Elon Musk in its push to eliminate cellphone dead spots with satellite technology. The iPhone maker is investing heavily in satellite-based communications that keep users connected in places where traditional wireless signals aren’t available. Musk’s SpaceX, meanwhile, has launched more than 550 satellites that provide cellphone connectivity via its Starlink service. To build capacity, the companies are competing for valuable spectrum rights—airwaves to carry their signals—which are in limited supply. Apple’s outer-space investments have drawn Musk’s ire, people familiar with the matter said. SpaceX has pushed federal regulators to stall an Apple-funded satellite expansion effort. SpaceX recently asked the Federal Communications Commission to dismiss a Globalstar application seeking permission to use certain spectrum for the new network of Apple-financed satellites.. It called the airwaves it uses to carry Apple users’ emergency signals an underused resource.

Excerpts from Drew FitzGerald, Apple and Musk Clash Over Satellite Expansion Plans, WSJ, Mar. 30, 2025

Mining the Seabed: By hook or by crook

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The Trump administration is reportedly considering an executive order that would accelerate deep-sea mining in international waters by allowing companies to bypass a United Nations-backed review process. The order would affirm the United States’ right to extract critical minerals from the ocean floor, enabling companies to seek permits directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), established in 1982 under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—which the U.S. has not ratified—has spent years developing regulations for deep-sea mining.  In 2021, the island nation of Nauru sponsored Canada’s The Metals Company (TMC) to begin deep-sea mining, forcing the ISA to draft rules before any company could start extracting minerals in international waters. The 36-member ISA council has since met repeatedly to finalize regulations. In March 2025, officials gathered in Jamaica to review hundreds of proposed amendments to a 256-page draft mining code, but the session ended without a resolution.

Frustrated by the ISA’s slow progress, TMC in March 2025 formally urged the Trump administration to issue deep-sea mining permits, arguing that “commercial industry is not welcome at the ISA.” “The Authority is being influenced by a faction of States allied with environmental NGOs who see the deep-sea mining industry as their ‘last green trophy,’” TMC chairman and chief executive, Gerard Barron. “They have worked tirelessly to continuously delay the adoption of the Exploitation Regulations with the explicit intent of killing commercial industry.”

Governments interested in developing deep-sea mining within their territorial waters — typically 200 nautical miles from shore — include the Cook Islands, Norway and Japan.

Proponents of seabed mining contend that its environmental impact is lower than land-based extraction. Critics warn that the long-term consequences remain uncertain and advocate for further research before large-scale operations begin.

Excerpt from Cecilia Jamasmie, Trump eyes executive order to fast-track deep-sea mining, Mining.com, Apr. 1, 2025

North Korea: Hacking Superpower — Crypto Billionaire

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At 11:49 a.m. on July 18, 2024, North Korean hackers pounced on a major cryptocurrency exchange handling hundreds of millions of dollars. The hackers slipped into the exchange’s virtual vault, took control and then started pilfering cryptocurrency tokens. Within a little more than an hour, the hackers had disappeared—and with them, more than $200 million for the Kim Jong Un regime. 

The shocking theft at WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, along with several other major recent heists, has made it clear: North Korea is now the world’s most dangerous crypto thief. It has swiped more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency over the past decade—a sum so large that no one else compares. The country’s hackers are both patient and brazen, according to investigators. To get into companies’ computers, they comb through employees’ Facebook and Instagram pages and invent tailor-made stories to trick them into clicking on links with viruses. Some North Korean hackers have even become employees themselves, fooling U.S. companies into hiring them as remote IT workers and gaining access to their networks.

After grabbing their bounty, North Korean hackers are masters at escaping. At WazirX, investigators believe they used algorithms to spread funds through global crypto networks faster than any human could, making it almost impossible for authorities to catch up. Once the crypto is dispersed, North Koreans often lie low until investigators lose interest and move on, waiting months or years to convert their haul into traditional money that can be spent….Pyongyang’s crowning achievement came in February with a $1.5 billion raid of Bybit, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, in the largest-ever such heist. That followed several hackings in 2024, when North Korea stole more than $6 out of every $10 lost by the cryptocurrency industry, according to Chainalysis, which tracks crypto theft.

North Korea’s success reflects the major resources dedicated to the task. The regime commands more than 8,000 hackers as though they were in a military unit, with the country’s brightest minds. State support means its hackers can wait months or years to exploit a single slip in a company’s digital security. Pyongyang’s desperation for cash, and its lack of concern for diplomatic blowback, have fueled its drive to be better than anyone else. 

Excerpts from How North Korea Cheated Its Way to Crypto Billions, WSJ, Apr. 3, 2025

The Undeclared War in the Baltic

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In January 2025, NATO launched the operation, dubbed Baltic Sentry, after a string of undersea cables and pipelines were damaged by ships—many with links to Russia—that had dragged their anchors.  “We are functioning as security cameras at sea,” said Kockx, the Belgian commander, whose usual duty is clearing unexploded mines from the busy waterway… New undersea drones are keeping a watchful eye on pipes and cables. NATO surveillance planes from the U.S., France, Germany and occasionally the U.K. take turns scanning the seaway from high above. NATO has also strengthened its military presence on the Baltic…NATO’s goal is to prevent more damage to subsea infrastructure and respond faster if something occurs…

The Baltic, a central theater in two world wars, is littered with wrecks and explosives that still pose danger. Surrounding NATO members are world leaders in finding and disposing of sea mines, officials say….Commercial traffic on the Baltic ranks among the world’s densest, with more than 1,500 ships plying its waves on any day, so policing it all is difficult. Further complicating NATO’s sentry duty initially was a lack of comprehensive information about all the critical infrastructure snaking across the sea’s muddy bottom. Details of pipes and cables have traditionally been kept by national governments or private companies. Nobody had a picture of everything...NATO’s new undersea infrastructure center in 2024 assembled the first unified map of the Baltic’s floor.

Excerpt from Daniel Michaels, How NATO Patrols the Sea for Suspected Russian Sabotage, Mar. 31, 2025

The Cat-and-Mouse Game: US-China, Chip Giants

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The U.S. on March 28 2025 added dozens of Chinese companies to a trade blacklist over national security concerns. American businesses seeking to sell technology to these companies will need approval from the government. Among those added were subsidiaries of Inspur Group, China’s largest server maker and a major customer for U.S. chip makers such as Nvidia, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Companies linked to China’s largest supercomputer maker, Sugon, were also added…

Nearly 80 companies were put on the Commerce Department’s blacklist, known as the entity list…including the U.S. server maker Aivres Systems that is wholly owned by Inspur Electronic. The latter is one-third owned by Inspur Group, according to corporate records. Aivres has been assembling high-end artificial-intelligence equipment for Nvidia. The AI-chip giant has said that Aivres will make servers using chips in the Blackwell family, Nvidia’s newest and most powerful processors.  Aivres advertises on its website that it sells servers and infrastructure powered by Blackwell chips, which are banned from sale into China…About two months after Inspur Group was added to the trade blacklist in March 2023, California-based Inspur Systems changed its name to Aivres Systems.

Excerpts from Liza Lin, Trump Takes Tough Approach to Choking Off China’s Access to U.S. Tech, WSJ, Mar. 26, 2025

Mapping the Seafloor: Why Is It Important for War?

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China’s fleet has triggered protests from Japan, India and others, but that hasn’t stopped Beijing from launching long missions to map the sea floor. The data they obtain has numerous applications, from science to the emerging industry of deep-sea mining, but it is the Chinese government’s commandeering of civilian research for military use that threatens American allies.

India’s navy drove a Chinese research ship away in 2019, but more have returned. In recent weeks, two of China’s most advanced research vessels, the Xiang Yang Hong 01 and the newer Dong Fang Hong 3 have conducted lawnmower-style sweeps across vast stretches of the eastern Indian Ocean.

Chinese civilian vessels are pursuing expeditions around the world—there are as many as a dozen or so active at any given time. The data they gather, including on currents, temperature and salinity, can have an array of applications. Detailed scanning of the seabed, for instance, can provide information about the visibility of naval mines and the accuracy of sonar.  The surveys can also help determine what minerals could be extracted…Recent missions have spurred complaints by at least half a dozen governments. China says its marine research activities fully comply with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international treaty that established the legal regime for the world’s oceans….

The U.S. Navy also carries out maritime surveys for military purposes…. Under the U.N. convention, coastal states have jurisdiction over research in their exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 miles from the coast. The U.S., which recognizes but hasn’t ratified the convention, argues that military surveys are exempt and U.S. Navy oceanographic ships regularly conduct studies near China. China appears to be moving closer to the American stance, “as they’re doing more oceanographic research without the permission of coastal states.”

Excerpts from Austin Ramzy, China Is Mapping the Seabed to Unlock New Edge in Warfare, WSJ, Mar. 12, 2025

Mourning the Loss of Dark and Quiet Sky

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The number of working satellites has soared in the past five years to around 11,000, mostly because of constellations of orbiters that provide Internet connectivity around the globe. Just one company, SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, has more than 7,000 operational Starlink satellites, all launched since 2019; OneWeb, a space communications company in London, has more than 630 satellites in its constellation. On paper, tens to hundreds of thousands more are planned from a variety of companies and nations, although probably not all of these will be launched.

Satellites interfere with ground-based astronomical observations, by creating bright streaks on images and electromagnetic interference with radio telescopes. The satellite boom also poses other threats, including adding pollution to the atmosphere…

Before the launch of Starlinks, astronomers had no centralized reference for tracking satellites. Now, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has a virtual Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS), which serves as an information hub…One of the centre’s tools, called SatChecker, draws on a public database of satellite orbits, fed by information from observers and companies that track objects in space. Astronomers can use SatChecker to confirm what satellite is passing overhead during their observations…Tools such as SatChecker help telescope operators avoid problems by allowing them to target a different part of the sky when a satellite passes overhead or by simply pausing observations as it flies by. It would aid astronomers if SatChecker had even more accurate information about satellite positions, but there are constraints on improving the system. SatChecker data come from the US Space Force, which draws on a global network of sensors that tracks objects in orbit and issues updates on satellite locations as often as several times a day. The frequency of these updates is limited by factors such as how often a sensor can observe an object and whether the sensor can distinguish what it’s looking at.

Excerpts from   Alexandra Witze, Swarms of satellites are harming astronomy. Here’s how researchers are fighting back, Nature, Mar. 18, 2025

 

World Reeling, Trump Mining

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The two oldest sons of President Trump are investing in a bitcoin-mining company, adding to the Trump family’s expanding portfolio of cryptocurrency businesses.   Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s American Data Centers will merge with and take a 20% stake in American Bitcoin, a mining operation majority-owned by Hut. Together, they aim to create the world’s largest miner of the digital currency, with designs on building its own “bitcoin reserve.”

In a matter of months, the Trumps started a decentralized-finance, or DeFi, project called World Liberty Financial, said their social-media company would invest in bitcoin and other digital assets, launched meme coins to capitalize on the popularity of the president and his wife and announced plans to issue a World Liberty dollar-backed stablecoin. And in his return to the White House, President Trump has said he aims to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.” …As part of the deal, Hut 8 will shift nearly 61,000 of its specialized bitcoin-mining machines to American Bitcoin in exchange for an 80% ownership in the new entity. The companies said no cash changed hands in the deal…

The business of mining new bitcoin has grown more challenging as new companies have sprung up to capitalize on rising prices and the number of unmined tokens has dwindled. Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, capped the digital currency’s supply at 21 million, and more than 90% of those tokens have already been released. Critics also raised concerns about the environmental impact of bitcoin mining, pointing to the massive amounts of energy required to run mining operations.

Excerpt from The Trump Family Advances Its All-Out Crypto Blitz, This Time With Bitcoin Mining, WSJ, Mar. 31, 2025

Rich get Richer while “the Others” Hit the Floor

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The potential for capital markets to expand prosperity is the theme of 72-year-old Fink’s latest annual letter to shareholders, which touches on topics ranging from retirement policy to building out the electrical grid. He details two approaches to broadening access: helping current investors reach parts of the market previously restricted to them, and enabling more people to become investors in the first place.

“The country focuses heavily on preventing people from hitting the floor, as we should. But the U.S. needs to put just as much effort into helping people climb to the ceiling—through investing,” Fink wrote….“Assets that will define the future—data centers, ports, power grids, the world’s fastest-growing private companies—aren’t available to most investors,” he wrote. “They’re in private markets, locked behind high walls, with gates that open only for the wealthiest or largest market participants.”

Excerpt from Jack Pitcher, Larry Fink Says Regular Americans Need Private Assets Too, WSJ, Mar. 31, 2025

Will Bacteria Save the Earth?

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Microorganisms have shaped Earth for almost four billion years. At least a trillion microbial species sustain the biosphere — for instance, by producing oxygen or sequestering carbon. Microbes thrive in extreme environments and use diverse energy sources, from methane to metals. And they can catalyse complex reactions under ambient temperatures and pressures with remarkable efficiency.

And bacteria or fungi are already being used to produce materials, fuels and fertilizers in ways that reduce energy consumption and the use of fossil-fuel feedstocks, as well as to clean up waste water and contaminants…For instance, a start-up firm called Carbios, based in Clermont-Ferrand, France, has developed a modified bacterial enzyme that breaks down and recycles polyethylene terephthalate (PET), one of the most common single-use plastics. Another company — Oil Spill Eater International in Dallas, Texas — uses microbes to clean up oil spills, and large waste-management corporations in North America are using bacteria called methanotrophs to convert the methane produced from landfill (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into ethanol, biofuels, polymers, biodegradable plastics and industrial chemicals….The company Floating Island International in Shepherd, Montana, is even building artificial floating islands on lakes and reservoirs that have been polluted by excessive nutrient run-off, so that methane-metabolizing microbes (which colonize the underside of the islands) can remove methane originating from lake sediments. The goal in this case is to transform inland lakes and reservoirs from net methane sources into carbon sinks…

Finally, microbes could be used to make food production less reliant on chemical fertilizers and so more sustainable. Many bacteria and archaea can be used to produce nitrogen fertilizer with much lower greenhouse-gas emissions than synthetic fertilizers…Several companies are now selling biofertilizers, which are formulations containing bacteria called rhizobia or other microbes that can increase the availability of nutrients to plants. A growing number of microbial biopesticides are also offering food producers a way to control crop pests without harming human or animal health or releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere8..

Many solutions, such as using bacteria to degrade crude oil or plastics, have been shown to be effective and safe in a laboratory setting. Yet scaling up their use to the levels needed to reduce global emissions or global biodiversity loss could lead to unforeseen complications. Certain safeguards — designing bacteria that can persist in an ecosystem for only a short time or that can exist under only specific environmental conditions — are already being developed and applied. 

Excerpts from Rino Rappuoli, et al., Microbes can capture carbon and degrade plastic — why aren’t we using them more?, Nature, Mar. 25, 2025

The Drone Experiment of Ukraine

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U.S. startups have spent billions of venture-capital dollars in hopes of developing the small drones that the Pentagon says it needs for future conflicts, but many have produced only expensive aircraft that don’t fly very well. Ukrainian drone makers, meanwhile, have mastered mass-producing drones despite limited resources and are looking for new customers and capital…

“No U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine,” said CX2 co-founder Nathan Mintz. “You know their stuff works. They’ve got the ultimate high-stakes laboratory meant to battle-proof all this stuff.”

The U.S. has the capacity to build up to 100,000 drones a year, according to one Defense Department estimate. In 2024, Ukraine built more than two million drones. Some of the Ukraine-built drones that the Defense Department wants can fly hundreds of miles with explosives and have been used in attacks inside Russia…“Ukraine has made it pretty clear that they intend on being the drone capital of the planet once this war is over,” said Derek Whitley, co-founder of startup Vivum, which sells its AI software for autonomous systems to the Defense Department.

Ukrainian drones often sell for one-tenth the price of American options. They have proven on the battlefield that they can work when radio and satellite communication is blocked by electronic jamming…American startups are slower to build, deliver and update their drones, which also have often failed to weather severe electronic warfare. Many U.S. companies that brought their drones to Ukraine watched them fall out of the sky or fail to complete missions.

Excerpt from Heather Somerville, America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones, WSJ, Mar. 11, 2025

 

To Own Means Nothing-To Do Means More: Metals and Minerals of the World

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Trump wants to secure the minerals the U.S. needs for everything from smartphones to jet fighters by striking deals in Ukraine, Greenland and even Russia. But even if the Trump administration secures more mines for American companies through agreements like the mineral-rights deal being discussed with Ukraine, it may have to send much of the minerals to China—its main geopolitical rival—to be processed…

In truth, the U.S. already has abundant supplies of rare earths, but it relies on China to refine them. That is because the U.S. has lost much of its capacity to process minerals, while China has become the world’s dominant refiner of rare earths, cobalt, copper and many other metals.

Until the 1990s, the U.S. was a major refiner of minerals and metals. But then China emerged as the dominant player, powered by its cheap labor force and looser environmental regulations of a sector that can be highly polluting. The voracious need of Chinese manufacturers for raw materials during the country’s years of explosive growth was also a boon for Chinese refiners. Today, the sheer scale of China’s refining industry makes it difficult for others to compete. According to industry estimates, the cost of building a refinery plant in China is a third of the cost in the U.S.

Excerpts from  Jon Emon, How China Beat Out the U.S. to Become the Top Player in Rare-Earths Refining, WSJ, Mar. 25, 2025