Vaccines canceled: Apoorva Mandavilli, Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts, Aug. 5, 2025:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday.
It is the latest blow to research on this technology. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services revoked a nearly $600 million contract to the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine against bird flu.
The new cancellations dismayed scientists, many of whom regard mRNA shots as the best option for protecting Americans in a pandemic.
“This is a bad day for science,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has been working to develop an mRNA vaccine against influenza.
No more nukes: Terumi Tanaka, Eighty Years of Nuclear Weapons Is Enough, Aug. 6, 2025.
Today, the nuclear taboo is on the verge of collapse. The current wars in Europe and the Middle East involving nuclear-armed states, in which there are strong grounds for believing international law is being violated on a regular basis, and threats by the belligerents to use nuclear weapons are weakening the taboo over deploying them. India and Pakistan thankfully did not use their nuclear arsenals in a recent conflict, but the skirmish reminded us how wars between nuclear powers can happen.
Our Nobel Peace Prize sends a message to younger people that they need to be aware that we are facing an emergency — and the need to see a larger movement of young activists working to address the nuclear threat. Even here in Japan, not enough people see this as a pressing issue.
We have the solution in our hands: the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty not only bans nuclear weapons and all activities related to their production, deployment and use, but also mandates that countries that joined the treaty provide support for people harmed by nuclear weapons in the past and for the cleanup of areas that were used for nuclear testing.
Rationalist religion: Cade Metz, The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion, Aug. 4, 2025.
In downtown Berkeley, an old hotel has become a temple to the pursuit of artificial intelligence and the future of humanity. Its name is Lighthaven.
Covering much of a city block, this gated complex includes five buildings and a small park dotted with rose bushes, stone fountains and neoclassical statues. Stained glass windows glisten on the top floor of the tallest building, called Bayes House after an 18th-century mathematician and philosopher.
Lighthaven is the de facto headquarters of a group who call themselves the Rationalists. This group has many interests involving mathematics, genetics and philosophy. One of their overriding beliefs is that artificial intelligence can deliver a better life if it doesn’t destroy humanity first. And the Rationalists believe it is up to the people building A.I. to ensure that it is a force for the greater good. [...]
Many of the A.I. world’s biggest names — including Shane Legg, a co-founder of Google’s DeepMind; Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei; and Paul Christiano, a former OpenAI researcher who now leads safety work at the U.S. Center for A.I. Standards and Innovation — have been influenced by Rationalist philosophy. Elon Musk, who runs his own A.I. company, said that many of the community’s ideas align with his own. [...]
But these tech industry leaders stop short of calling themselves Rationalists, often because that label has over the years invited ridicule. [...]
“Religion is text and story and ritual,” said Ilia Delio, a Franciscan sister and professor of theology at Villanova University. “All of that applies here.”
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