#east China university of science and technology

[joytherabbit]

[mindblowingscience]

A new type of porous material that can store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has been developed by a team of scientists jointly led by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In a collaboration with the University of Liverpool, Imperial College London, the University of Southampton, and East China University of Science and Technology in China, the team used computer modeling to accurately predict how molecules would assemble themselves into the new type of porous material.

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[materialsscienceandengineering]

Scientists discover a new type of porous material that can store greenhouse gases

A new type of porous material that can store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has been developed by a team of scientists jointly led by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In a collaboration with the University of Liverpool, Imperial College London, the University of Southampton, and East China University of Science and Technology in China, the team used computer modeling to accurately predict how molecules would assemble themselves into the new type of porous material. The research, published in the journal Nature Synthesis, details how the scientists created hollow, cage-like molecules with high storage capacities for greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and sulfur hexafluoride. Sulfur hexafluoride is more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and can last thousands of years in the atmosphere.

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[mariacallous]

For years, it's been an inconvenient truth within the cybersecurity industry that the network security devices sold to protect customers from spies and cybercriminals are, themselves, often the machines those intruders hack to gain access to their targets. Again and again, vulnerabilities in “perimeter” devices like firewalls and VPN appliances have become footholds for sophisticated hackers trying to break into the very systems those appliances were designed to safeguard.

Now one cybersecurity vendor is revealing how intensely—and for how long—it has battled with one group of hackers that have sought to exploit its products to their own advantage. For more than five years, the UK cybersecurity firm Sophos engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with one loosely connected team of adversaries who targeted its firewalls. The company went so far as to track down and monitor the specific devices on which the hackers were testing their intrusion techniques, surveil the hackers at work, and ultimately trace that focused, years-long exploitation effort to a single network of vulnerability researchers in Chengdu, China.

On Thursday, Sophos chronicled that half-decade-long war with those Chinese hackers in a report that details its escalating tit-for-tat. The company went as far as discreetly installing its own “implants” on the Chinese hackers' Sophos devices to monitor and preempt their attempts at exploiting its firewalls. Sophos researchers even eventually obtained from the hackers' test machines a specimen of “bootkit” malware designed to hide undetectably in the firewalls' low-level code used to boot up the devices, a trick that has never been seen in the wild.

In the process, Sophos analysts identified a series of hacking campaigns that had started with indiscriminate mass exploitation of its products but eventually became more stealthy and targeted, hitting nuclear energy suppliers and regulators, military targets including a military hospital, telecoms, government and intelligence agencies, and the airport of one national capital. While most of the targets—which Sophos declined to identify in greater detail—were in South and Southeast Asia, a smaller number were in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

Sophos' report ties those multiple hacking campaigns—with varying levels of confidence—to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups including those known as APT41, APT31, and Volt Typhoon, the latter of which is a particularly aggressive team that has sought the ability to disrupt critical infrastructure in the US, including power grids. But the common thread throughout those efforts to hack Sophos' devices, the company says, is not one of those previously identified hackers groups but instead a broader network of researchers that appears to have developed hacking techniques and supplied them to the Chinese government. Sophos' analysts tie that exploit development to an academic institute and a contractor, both around Chengdu: Sichuan Silence Information Technology—a firm previously tied by Meta to Chinese state-run disinformation efforts—and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Sophos says it’s telling that story now not just to share a glimpse of China's pipeline of hacking research and development, but also to break the cybersecurity industry's awkward silence around the larger issue of vulnerabilities in security appliances serving as entry points for hackers. In just the past year, for instance, flaws in security products from other vendors including Ivanti, Fortinet, Cisco, and Palo Alto have all been exploited in mass hacking or targeted intrusion campaigns. “This is becoming a bit of an open secret. People understand this is happening, but unfortunately everyone is zip,” says Sophos chief information security officer Ross McKerchar, miming pulling a zipper across his lips. “We're taking a different approach, trying to be very transparent, to address this head-on and meet our adversary on the battlefield.”

From One Hacked Display to Waves of Mass Intrusion

As Sophos tells it, the company's long-running battle with the Chinese hackers began in 2018 with a breach of Sophos itself. The company discovered a malware infection on a computer running a display screen in the Ahmedabad office of its India-based subsidiary Cyberoam. The malware had gotten Sophos' attention due to its noisy scanning of the network. But when the company's analysts looked more closely, they found that the hackers behind it had already compromised other machines on the Cyberoam network with a more sophisticated rootkit they identified as CloudSnooper. In retrospect, the company believes that initial intrusion was designed to gain intelligence about Sophos products that would enable follow-on attacks on its customers.

Then in the spring of 2020, Sophos began to learn about a broad campaign of indiscriminate infections of tens of thousands of firewalls around the world in an apparent attempt to install a trojan called Asnarök and create what it calls “operational relay boxes” or ORBs—essentially a botnet of compromised machines the hackers could use as launching points for other operations. The campaign was surprisingly well resourced, exploiting multiple zero-day vulnerabilities the hackers appeared to have discovered in Sophos appliances. Only a bug in the malware's cleanup attempts on a small fraction of the affected machines allowed Sophos to analyze the intrusions and begin to study the hackers targeting its products.

As Sophos pushed out patches to its firewalls, its team responsible for threat intelligence and incident response, which it calls X-Ops, also began an effort to track its adversary: Sophos included in its “hotfix" for the hackers' intrusions additional code that would collect more data from customers' devices. That new data collection revealed that a single Sophos device registered in February of 2020 in Chengdu showed signs of early alterations similar to the Asnarök malware. “We started to find tiny little indicators of the attack that predated any other activity,” McKerchar says.

Using registration data and records of downloads of code Sophos made available to its customers, the X-Ops team eventually identified a handful of machines it believed were being used as guinea pig devices for Chinese hackers as they sought to find vulnerabilities and test their intrusion techniques prior to deployment. Some of them seemed to have been obtained by a Chengdu-based company called Sichuan Silence Information Technology. Others were tied to an individual who used the handle TStark, whom X-Ops analysts then found had held a position at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, also in Chengdu.

X-Ops analysts could even observe individuals using computers and IP addresses tied to the test devices reading Sophos' online materials that detailed the firewalls' architecture. “We could see them researching us,” McKerchar says.

In late April of 2020, Dutch police worked with Sophos to seize a Netherlands-based server that Sophos had identified as being used in the Asnarök infection wave. In June of that year, however, the hackers launched another round of their mass intrusions, and Sophos found they had significantly reduced the complexity and “noise” of their malware in an attempt to evade detection. Yet through the increased data collection from its devices and the intelligence it had assembled on the Chengdu exploit development group, Sophos was able to spot the malware and push out patches for the vulnerabilities the hackers had used within a week, and even identify a “patient zero” machine where the new malware had first been tested two months earlier.

The next month, X-Ops took its most aggressive step yet in countering the effort to exploit its devices, deploying its own spy implants to the Sophos devices in Chengdu they were testing on—essentially hacking the hackers, albeit only through code added to a few installations of its own products the hackers had obtained. Sophos says that preemptive surveillance allowed the company to obtain key portions of the hackers' code and head off a third wave of their intrusions, catching it after only two customers had been compromised and pushing out a patch designed to block the attacks, while obfuscating that fix to avoid tipping off the hackers to Sophos' full knowledge of their techniques.

“In the first wave, we were on the back foot. In the second wave, it was an even match,” says McKerchar. “The third attack, we preempted.”

A New Phase of the Game

Starting in 2021, Sophos says it began to see far more targeted attacks from Chinese hacker groups exploiting its products, many of which it was able to uncover due to its efforts to surveil the research of the Chengdu-based exploit development network. Over the next two years, the hackers continued hijack vulnerabilities in Sophos appliances in a wide variety of targeted attacks hitting dozens of targets in Asia and the West.

In September of 2022, for instance, Sophos found a campaign exploiting a vulnerability in its products that had breached military and intelligence agencies in a Southeast Asian country, as well as other targets including water utilities and electric generation facilities in the same region. Later, Sophos says, a different Chinese state-sponsored group appears to have exploited a bypass for its patch for that vulnerability to target government agencies outside of Asia, in one instance hacking an embassy shortly before it was set to host officials from China's ruling Communist Party. It also found intrusions at another country's nuclear energy regulatory agency, then a military facility in the same country and the airport of the country's capital city, as well as other hacking incidents that targeted Tibetan exiles.

“We just opened the door on a huge amount of high-end targeted activity, a Pandora's Box of threat intelligence," McKerchar says.

As the hackers' tooling continued to evolve in response to Sophos' attempts to head them off, the company's X-Ops researchers at one point pulled from a test device they were surveilling a unique new specimen of malware: The hackers had built a “bootkit,” an early attempt at malware designed to infect a Sophos firewall's low-level code that's used to boot up the device before its operating system is loaded, which would make the malware far harder to detect—the first time Sophos believes that sort of firewall bootkit has ever been seen.

X-Ops never found that bootkit deployed on an actual victim's machine, but Sophos CISO McKerchar says he can't rule out that it was in fact used somewhere and evaded detection. “We certainly tried to hunt for it, and we have some capability to do that,” says McKerchar. “But I would be brash to say it's never been used in the wild.”

As Sophos has tried to understand the motives of the Chengdu-based network of hackers digging up vulnerabilities and providing them to the Chinese state, that picture has been complicated by the strange fact that the researchers finding those flaws may have on two occasions also reported them to Sophos itself through its “bug bounty” program. On one occasion, for instance, the exact vulnerability used in a hacking campaign was reported to Sophos by a researcher with a Chinese IP address just after it was first used in an exploitation campaign—Sophos paid the researcher $20,000 for their findings.

That bizarre incongruity with the Chengdu-based researchers' apparent role as suppliers of intrusion techniques for Chinese state hacking groups and its bug bounty reports to Sophos, McKerchar argues, show perhaps how loose the connections are between the researchers finding these vulnerabilities and the state hackers exploiting those bugs. “I think this is a security research community which is patriotically aligned with PRC objectives,” he says, referencing the People's Republic of China. “But they're not averse to making a bit of money on the side.”

Contacts at the University of Electronic Science and Technology China didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment on Sophos' report. Sichuan Silence Information Technology couldn't be reached for comment, and appears to have no working website.

Sophos' timeline of its struggle against a highly adaptive adversaries sussing out its products' hackable flaws points to the success of China's efforts to corral its security research community and funnel its discoveries of vulnerabilities to the government, says Dakota Cary, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank, who has focused on that Chinese exploit development pipeline. He points to China's efforts, for instance, to foster hacking competitions as a source of intrusion techniques for its offensive hacking efforts, as well as 2021 legislation that requires researchers and companies based in China to report to the government any hackable bug they find in a product.

“In Sophos' document, you see the interconnectedness of that system kind of shine through,” says Cary. “The culture of these organizations working together or competing for work, and the way that the government is trying to centralize collection of vulnerabilities and then distribute those tools to offensive teams—you see all of that reflected.”

Sophos' report also warns, however, that in the most recent phase of its long-running conflict with the Chinese hackers, they appear more than ever before to have shifted from finding new vulnerabilities in firewalls to exploiting outdated, years-old installations of its products that are no longer receiving updates. That means, company CEO Joe Levy writes in an accompanying document, that device owners need to get rid of unsupported “end-of-life” devices, and security vendors need to be clear with customers about the end-of-life dates of those machines to avoid letting them become unpatched points of entry onto their network. Sophos says it's seen more than a thousand end-of-life devices targeted in just the past 18 months.

“The only problem now isn't the zero-day vulnerability,” says Levy, using the term “zero-day” to mean a newly discovered hackable flaw in software that has no patch. “The problem is the 365-day vulnerability, or the 1,500-day vulnerability, where you've got devices that are on the internet that have lapsed into a state of neglect.”

That warning was echoed by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency assistant director for cybersecurity Jeff Greene, who stresses the risk of Chinese hackers exploiting older, unpatched systems, as well as the broader, ironic threat of network perimeter appliances serving as entry points for hackers. “These edge devices often have inherent insecurities, they’re often not managed once they’re put out, they're not patched," says Greene. “We’ll leave a trail of these devices for a long time that attackers will be looking to compromise.”

Sophos CISO McKerchar says the company is revealing its five-year fight with the Chengdu-based hacking network to amplify those warnings, but also to end a kind of cybersecurity industry omertà around the growing issue of security companies' own products creating vulnerabilities for their customers. “Trust in the industry has been massively eroded in the past few years. There's a huge amount of skepticism across about the way that vendors are handling these risks, but we've relied on silence instead,” says McKerchar. “We want to show a bit of vulnerability ourselves, recognize that we've had problems, then tell the story about how we stepped up.”

[max1461]

I have said this before, and also gestured at it in a lot of my recent posts, but every time I think about it I am increasing convinced that the explanation for the Great Divergence is basically "there's nothing to explain".

Ok, maybe that's a little unfair: there is something to explain. Western European states and the US saw a series of remarkable technological leaps during roughly the period from 1600 to 1900, which allowed them to achieve astonishing wealth and global political power. There is an explanandum here.

But what I mean when I say there's nothing to be explained is the following. We already have good reason to believe that technological growth is approximately exponential. Technology is self-compounding: the more of it you have, the more of it you can develop. And very many metrics that we would expect to correlate with technology, like agricultural yield and life expectancy, seem to grow exponentially. So I think the idea that technological growth is more-or-less exponential is well evidenced. When something grows exponentially, there is necessarily going to be a point of rapid take-off, a "foom". This is also something we see with technology, and life expectancy, and so on, particularly around the time of the industrial revolution.

This is fairly uncontroversial.

Another fact that I think is uncontroversial is that technological and scientific growth are subject to network effects, and subject to local material conditions. Societies that are generally wealthier may have more time and resources to spend on science, etc., and once you have a bunch of scientists working together in a specific place and sharing ideas, you get more rapid advancement. This seems true even in today's highly interconnected world, which is presumably related to why a small number of universities produce so much cutting edge research—they have the funding and the networks of top people. And I think there really is a sense in which you have many more opportunities for fruitful research and collaboration at e.g. an R1 university than an R2 university. The network effects still matter a lot. In the world before the twentieth century, when information traveled much slower, network effects would presumably have been much more important.

This is, again, a conclusion that I think is independently obvious and uncontroversial. If there was some sense in which it was not true, that would deeply surprise me.

But, look: the conclusion of these too facts taken together is basically that the observed course of history was (in a sense) inevitable. The second fact predicts that you'll get localized "scientific booms" through history, where a bunch of progress is being made in one area. We see this multiple times, with "golden ages" of science and philosophy in the Bronze Age Near East, in the Greco-Roman world, in ancient India, Tang China, the medieval Islamic world, and so on. Obviously I think in some sense "golden ages" are post hoc constructions by historians, but I think there's likely at least some reality behind them. So you have these localized scientific booms that slowly contribute to the exponential increase in global scientific knowledge. And it follows, if scientific growth is exponential, that there's going to be a foom. And it follows that whoever's having a boom when there's a foom is going to benefit a lot—in fact, exponentially more than anyone has before!

I am tempted to call this the "boom and foom theory" of the scientific and industrial revolution.

But it's not really a theory. It's a prediction of two existing theories about technological growth generally, taken together.

And it seems consistent with observation to simply say that Western Europe got lucky, to be having a boom when the foom happened. This is what I mean when I say "there's nothing to explain". I am not really sure we need anything extra to explain why this happened where it did geographically. I mean obviously you can dig in to the historical particulars, but ultimately... it was bound to happen somewhere.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, or maybe I'm being excessively deterministic. But I think probably that any more particular theory of why the Great Divergence happened needs to justify itself against this one; it needs to explain why it adds anything to the picture that this does not already account for. But I don't know.

[freehawaii]

DID POLYNESIAN VOYAGERS REACH THE AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS?

History.com - May 25, 2023 According to science, voyagers from Moananuiākea reached America around 800 years ago. “A 2020 study found that Polynesians from multiple islands carry a small amount of DNA from indigenous South Americans, and that the moment of contact likely came some 800 years ago…” Polynesian voyagers sailed without a compass or any other nautical instruments. Yet by reading the stars, waves, currents, clouds, seaweed clumps and seabird flights, they managed to cross vast swaths of the Pacific Ocean and settle hundreds of islands, from Hawaii in the north to Easter Island in the southeast to New Zealand in the southwest. Evidence has mounted that they likewise reached mainland South America—and possibly North America as well—long before Christopher Columbus. “It’s one of the most remarkable colonization events of any time in history,” says Jennifer Kahn, an archeologist at the College of William & Mary, who specializes in Polynesia. “We’re talking about incredibly skilled navigators [discovering] some of the most remote places in the world.” Tracing Polynesian Ancestry Based on linguistic, genetic and archeological data, scientists believe that the ancestors of the Polynesians originated in Taiwan (and perhaps the nearby south China coast). From there, they purportedly traveled south into the Philippines and further on to New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, where they mixed with the local populace. By around 1300 B.C., a new culture had developed, the Lapita, known in part for their distinct pottery. These direct descendants of the Polynesians rapidly swept eastward, first to the Solomon Islands and then to uninhabited Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, and elsewhere. “The Lapita were the first ones to get into remote Oceania,” says Patrick V. Kirch, an anthropology professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and author of On the Road of the Winds: An Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. “It was really a blank slate as far as humans were concerned.” By the 9th century B.C., the Lapita had made it as far as Tonga and Samoa. But then a long pause ensued without further expansion. Researchers note that, beyond Tonga and Samoa, island chains are much further apart, separated in some cases by thousands of miles of open ocean, and that the winds and currents generally conspire against sailing east. Perhaps Lapita boats simply weren’t up to the task. Moreover, as Kirch points out, the closest coral atolls had not yet stabilized by that time. “It’s possible that there was some voyaging past Samoa,” he says, “but they would have found just coral reefs and not actual land they could settle.” Double-Hulled Canoes Accelerate Expansion During the long pause, a distinct Polynesian culture evolved on Tonga and Samoa, and voyagers there gradually honed their craft. In time, they invented double-hulled canoes, essentially early catamarans, lashing them together with coconut fiber rope and weaving sails from the leaves of pandanus trees. These vessels, up to roughly 60-feet long, could carry a couple dozen settlers each, along with their livestock—namely pigs, dogs and chickens—and crops for planting. “They now had the technological ability and the navigational ability to really get out there,” Kirch says. Though the exact timeline has long been disputed, it appears the great wave of Polynesian expansion began around A.D. 900 or 950. Voyagers, also called wayfinders, quickly discovered the Cook Islands, Society Islands (including Tahiti), and Marquesas Islands, and not long after arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. By 1250 or so, when they reached New Zealand, they had explored at least 10 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean and located over 1,000 islands. “You can fit all of the continents into the Pacific Ocean,” Kahn explains. “It’s a huge, huge space to traverse.” Even the tiniest and most remote islands, such as Pitcairn, did not escape their notice. As Kirch points out, no one else in the world was remotely capable of such a feat at that time. “Around 1000 A.D., what were Europeans doing?” Kirch says. “Not much in the way of sailing.” He adds that, as late as the 15th century, even the most accomplished European seamen, like Vasco da Gama, were merely hugging the coast. Easter Island Among Many Inhabited by Polynesian Voyagers The Polynesians did not have a system of writing to record their accomplishments. But they did pass down stories orally, which tell, for example, of how Hawaiian settlers came from Tahiti, more than 2,500 miles away. “Where the sun rises, in Hawaiian understanding anyway, is a place where the gods reside and our ancestors,” says Marques Hanalei Marzan, cultural advisor at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. “To get to that place is probably one of the reasons why the migration east continued.” (As an April 2023 study confirms, Polynesian voyagers sometimes sailed west as well into what’s commonly referred to as the Polynesian Outliers.) Each island chain developed its own unique characteristics. On Easter Island, for instance, the inhabitants constructed giant stone statues. Yet all Polynesians spoke related languages, worshipped a similar pantheon of gods, and built ritual sites with shared features, Kahn explains. The various islands also maintained at least some ties with each other, particularly during the heyday of Polynesian expansion. “It’s not just that they came from a place and left and never made their way back,” Marzan says. “They actually continued those relationships.” Evidence that Polynesian Sailors Reached Americas Most experts now believe the Polynesians crossed the entire Pacific to mainland South America, with Marzan saying it happened “without question.” Stanford University biologist Peter Vitousek has similarly told HISTORY that “we’re absolutely sure,” putting the odds of a South American landfall in the 99.9999 [percent] range.” For one thing, experts note that Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui) lies only about 2,200 miles off the South American coast, and that Polynesian voyagers, capable of locating a speck of rock in the vast Pacific, could hardly have missed a giant continent. “Why would they have stopped?” Kahn says. “They would have kept going until they couldn’t find any more.” Genetic evidence backs up this assertion. A 2020 study found that Polynesians from multiple islands carry a small amount of DNA from indigenous South Americans, and that the moment of contact likely came some 800 years ago (not long after the Vikings, the best European sailors of their era, made landfall on the Atlantic coast of the Americas). Archeologists have likewise found the remains of bottle gourds and sweet potatoes, both South American plants, at pre-Columbian Polynesian sites. Some scientists speculate that the sweet potato could have dispersed naturally across the Pacific, but most agree that the Polynesians must have brought it back with them. “Try to take a sweet potato tuber and float it,” Kirch says. “I guarantee it won’t float very long. It will sink to the bottom of the ocean.” Poultry bones from Chile appear to show that Polynesians introduced chickens to South America prior to the arrival of Columbus, though some scientists have disputed these findings. Meanwhile, other researchers analyzing skulls on a Chilean island found them to be “very Polynesian in shape and form.” Less evidence ties the Polynesians to North America. Even so, some experts believe they landed there as well, pointing out, among other things, that the sewn-plank canoes used by the Chumash tribe of southern California resembled Polynesian vessels. What Happened to Polynesians in Americas? No Polynesian settlement has ever been unearthed in the Americas. It therefore remains unclear what happened upon arrival, particularly since, unlike the Pacific islands, these landmasses were already populated. Perhaps, Kahn says, “they got up and left and went back.” When Captain James Cook explored the Pacific in the late 1760s and 1770s, thus ushering in a wave of Western imperialism, he recognized the Polynesians’ exemplary sailing skills. “It is extraordinary that the same nation should have spread themselves over all the isles in this vast ocean, from New Zealand to [Easter Island], which is almost a fourth part of the circumference of the globe,” he wrote. Eventually, however, as they colonized the islands and suppressed native languages and cultures, Western powers began to downplay Polynesian achievements, according to Marzan, who says they assumed “that the people of the Pacific were less than.” Some falsely claimed, for instance, that Polynesian sailors had merely drifted along with the winds and currents. (It didn’t help that, at the time of European contact, many Pacific Islanders no longer used large, oceangoing canoes. Some, like those on Easter Island, had already chopped down all the tall trees needed to produce them.) Worst of all, European diseases decimated the Polynesian population. “It was this massive, devastating loss,” Kirch says. “And when you have that, your society really falls apart.” Before long, most remaining Polynesians began sailing with Western techniques. More recently, though, the old traditions have been revived, starting around 1976, when the Polynesian Voyaging Society sailed, without instruments, from Hawaii to Tahiti. They have since embarked on numerous other expeditions, including a worldwide voyage from 2013 to 2017. “The Polynesian Voyaging Society has really inspired many cultures across the Pacific to reconnect with their traditional practices,” Marzan says. Once again, double-hulled canoes are plying the ocean.

[hangingoffence]

mecha ocs u say 👀 pls tell me more:]

HA are you ready for MORE world building(and science i dont know anything about but pretend to) ?! *evil laugh* strap in buddy >:)

ok SO this stuff takes place in the post-apocalyptic future. On Earth that is mostly populated by monsters that rule over the land. The air is also filled with dangerous gasses emitting from the monsters. They are dangerous for any animal to breath. Most of the gas and the monsters are concentrated in the Mediterranean sea, parts of Africa and southern Asia. Staying in warmer and dryer parts of the Earth.

Humans in this universe reside in a belt called the East Cross that spans all the way from Norway to northern parts of China. In the northern parts like in Russia humans can live quite normally due to the cold keeping the monsters away. There are also humans in southern Africa, the Americas and parts of Oceania.(but i havent gotten into them that much)

Due to the danger of the new environment humanity has advanced their technology far beyond what they would have thought which is where the mechas come in. After decades of research and studies humans have created tech that is capable of brain emulation. At first only partial brain emulation or PBE was achievable. In which a computer will create a 3D scan of the host brain and it constructs a software copy of it. The copy can be implanted into a mechanical body and through an emulator the human host can control the mechanical body from a distance.

A branch of military was created from this technology called the Android Emulation Corps(lazy name but it is what it is) or for short the A. E. C. They operate unmanned androids, called Self's through the brain emulation.

In the future, whole brain emulation or WBE was created. It is much more extreme version of the partial one. The human host's brain will be removed from the body and is sliced into small cubes which are then scanned with great accuracy. The immerse detailed scan of the brain, when ran on appropriate software is identical to the original host brain. The main difference in WBE and PBE is that WBE is able to simulate the host brains consciousness, whereas the PBE only allows the host brain to move into the copy and control it.

The WBE is a very delicate procedure and not always 100% successful. It is also not reversible and the original brain is impossible to be implanted into the biological body. But if successful, after booting the mechanical copy body the brain was implanted in, the host's personality and consciousness will live on without a biological body. Also this way if the mechanical body is destroyed the copy brain can just be implanted into a new body, basically making the host immortal.

ok not the the Self's. They are most of the time 300-390 meters in height and can weigh up to 10 000 kilograms. They are mostly made of flexible but strong materials like steel, fiber-reinforced plastic and thermoplastic. They have human proportions to make it easy for the host to pilot them. The most common PBE Self type is the Olympian. They are equipped with machine guns and a type of ultrasonic weapon that has deemed very effective against the monsters. The implanted copy brain sits in the lower spine. It is the one's used in the frontier against the monsters. The WBE Self's are commonly smaller and made for life outside of combat.

and ummm... yeah i just vomited this all here so how a bout a small snippet from my writing about the characters (im force feeding you here and you cant stop it)

He sits next to Bill and brings up his ticket to examine it. It reads. East Cross underground bullet train. From Copenhagen to Beijing C. 07:30 - 08:20. Cabin number 2. Seat number 87. “These trains really are fast.” Meyer says more to himself than to Bill next to him. In 50 minutes through the whole Eurasian continent. Impressive. “Have you ever been in one?” Now talking to Bill who fiddles his own ticket in his big fingers. “One time. When they were building the first of them. As a child.”  “Cool. I’ve actually never even been near one. Should be exciting.” Bill hums in acknowledgement and the conversation ends. Until Nemo walks into the hall. He slides opposite of Meyer and Bill and opens his mouth; “Where you sitting?” Nemo lifts his own ticket for them to look. Seat 91.  “I’m 87.” Meyer answers and Bill says that he sits in seat 75. “Hope we can still move in the train.” Nemo makes a face and pockets his ticket.

[dertaglichedan]

China crafts weapons to alter brain function; report says tech meant to influence government leaders

China‘s People’s Liberation Army is developing high-technology weapons designed to disrupt brain functions and influence government leaders or entire populations, according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts.

The weapons can be used to directly attack or control brains using microwave or other directed energy weapons in handheld guns or larger weapons firing electromagnetic beams, adding that the danger of China‘s brain warfare weapons prior to or during a conflict is no longer theoretical.

“Unknown to many, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have established themselves as world leaders in the development of neurostrike weapons,” according to the 12-page report, “Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party’s Neurostrike Program.” The Washington Times obtained a copy of the study.

The U.S. Commerce Department in December 2021 imposed sanctions on China‘s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related entities the department said were using “biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end-uses and end-users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.”

Few public studies or discussions, however, have been held regarding the new advanced military capability.

Neurostrike is a military term defined as the engineered targeting of the brains of military personnel or civilians using nonkinetic technology. The goal is to impair thinking, reduce situational awareness, inflict long-term neurological damage and cloud normal cognitive functions.

The study was written by Ryan Clarke, a senior fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore; Xiaoxu Sean Lin, a former Army microbiologist now with Feitan College; and L.J. Eads, a former Air Force intelligence officer and current specialist in artificial intelligence for the U.S. intelligence community. The three authors write that China‘s leadership “views neurostrike and psychological warfare as a core component of its asymmetric warfare strategy against the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific.”

According to the report, neurostrike capabilities are part of standard military capabilities and should not be viewed as an unconventional weapon limited to use in extreme circumstances.

Likely areas of use for the weapons included Taiwan, the South China Sea, East China Sea and the disputed Sino-Indian border.

The threat is not limited to the use of microwave weapons: “[China‘s] new landscape of neurostrike development includes using massively distributed human-computer interfaces to control entire populations as well as a range of weapons designed to cause cognitive damage,” the report said.

Research is focused on using brain warfare weapons in the near term, and possibly during a Chinese military assault on Taiwan — a target for future Chinese military operations that U.S. military leaders have said could be carried out in the next four years.

“Any breakthrough in this research would provide unprecedented tools for the CCP to forcibly establish a new world order, which has been [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s lifelong goal,” the report said.

Militarily, brain warfare can be used in what the Pentagon has called China‘s “anti-access, area-denial” military strategy for the Indo-Pacific.

“Imagine (at least partially) immunized PLA troops being inserted into a geography where a specific weaponized bacterial strain has been released prior to their entry to prepare the ground and eliminate points of resistance,” the report states. “Any remaining sources of resistance on the ground are then dealt with through [Chinese] neurostrike weaponry that instill intense fear and/or other forms of cognitive incoherence resulting in inaction.”

That scenario would allow the PLA to establish absolute control over a nation like Taiwan, while at the same time blunting any American strategic options to intervene and send troops in to support Taiwan. The PLA could thus negate U.S. conventional military superiority with few near-term remedies for the United States, the report said.

FULL STORY

[kgsupsccourses]

Current Affairs Today By KGS IAS

Introduction to Current Affairs

Why Current Affairs Matter in Everyday Life

Ever noticed how knowing what’s happening around you suddenly makes conversations richer and decisions smarter? Current affairs aren’t just about facts and figures they shape the world we live in. Whether you're a student, a job seeker, a professional, or just someone who wants to stay in the know, current events influence your everyday life more than you might think.

Who Needs to Stay Updated and Why

From cracking competitive exams like UPSC or SSC to making informed choices during elections or financial investments, everyone benefits from being aware. It's no longer optional; it's essential.

Political Developments

Key National Political Events

India’s political landscape continues to shift post-2024 general elections. The Parliament’s recent sessions focused heavily on development, education reforms, and digital governance. Regional parties have been gaining ground, shaking up coalition dynamics in states like Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Global Political Trends and India’s Role

Geopolitically, India is strengthening its position as a key player in the Global South. With participation in QUAD, G20, and strategic dialogues with the US, Japan, and Australia, India is not just following trends it's setting them.

Economic and Financial News

Indian Economy – Key Highlights

India’s GDP growth remains strong, with the RBI projecting a growth of 6.8% for 2025. Inflation is being closely monitored, while sectors like digital payments and MSMEs are showing strong performance. The “Make in India” and “Start-Up India” movements continue to boost manufacturing and entrepreneurship.

Global Economy – What to Watch

From rising crude oil prices to the US Fed rate hikes, the global market continues to influence the Indian economy. Keep an eye on China’s trade policies and the Russia-Ukraine situation for ripple effects.

Social Issues Making Headlines

Health, Education, and Social Welfare

The government’s push for Universal Healthcare and NEP implementation in schools is getting serious attention. Digital learning is also being expanded to rural India under the PM eVidya scheme.

Public Movements and Awareness Campaigns

Movements supporting mental health awareness, women's safety, and LGBTQ+ rights are gaining momentum across India. NGOs and civil society are playing a major role here.

Environment and Climate Updates

Climate Change and India’s Response

From melting glaciers in the Himalayas to unpredictable monsoons, climate change is no longer a distant problem. India is committing to its Net Zero goal by 2070 and launching initiatives like LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) to promote sustainability.

Conservation Efforts and Green Initiatives

Projects like Project Tiger and the National Clean Air Programme are seeing new traction. Urban areas are adopting green transport systems like e-buses and bike-sharing programmes.

Science and Technology Today

Indian Innovations and Discoveries

ISRO is preparing for its Gaganyaan mission, and India’s semiconductor industry is expanding rapidly. Indian startups in AI and renewable energy are receiving global attention.

Global Tech Trends to Know

From AI regulations to quantum computing, the tech world is evolving fast. Stay updated on how Big Tech is navigating data privacy and ethics.

International Relations

Diplomatic Ties and Key Visits

India hosted leaders from Africa and Southeast Asia this month to strengthen trade and cultural ties. PM’s visit to the UK reaffirmed mutual commitment to defence and education.

India's Global Strategy in 2025

The focus remains on “Act East,” neighbourhood first, and strategic autonomy. India continues to walk the tightrope between the West and countries like Russia and Iran.

Defence and Security Updates

National Security Developments

The Agniveer scheme is seeing its first batch of recruits finish training. Cybersecurity measures are being scaled up amid increasing threats from abroad.

Global Conflicts and Their Impact on India

The Red Sea crisis and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war are affecting India’s oil imports and global trade routes. Defence diplomacy is a rising focus.

Judiciary and Legal Reforms

Key Supreme Court Judgements

Recent rulings on electoral bonds and same-sex marriage have stirred national debate. The court is increasingly seen as a defender of fundamental rights.

Legal Amendments and Public Reactions

Changes in IPC and CrPC are being debated widely, with critics calling for more transparency. The legal reforms are set to simplify and digitise justice delivery.

Sports Headlines

India’s Performance in Major Events

India bagged multiple medals at the Asian Athletics Championship. The cricket team is prepping for the T20 World Cup with a strong lineup.

Rising Stars and Records

Young talents like Neeraj Chopra in javelin and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in chess continue to make India proud on global stages.

Culture and Entertainment

Film, Music and Popular Culture

Bollywood is having a great year with films like “Ramayana” and “Emergency” topping charts. OTT platforms are booming, offering a wide range of content.

Events, Awards and Book Releases

From Sahitya Akademi Awards to new fiction from authors like Chetan Bhagat and Arundhati Roy, the literary world is buzzing.

Government Policies and Schemes

New Schemes Launched

The government recently launched the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana aimed at providing rooftop solar power for free electricity in rural homes.

Policy Changes That Affect You

Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 has been notified, promising more control over personal data and online privacy for Indian users.

State-wise News Highlights

Major Events in Key States

Uttar Pradesh is boosting investment through the Global Investors Summit.

Tamil Nadu is investing heavily in green energy infrastructure.

West Bengal is facing political unrest over panchayat elections.

Regional Challenges and Opportunities

From floods in Assam to water shortages in Maharashtra, states are facing unique environmental and political challenges that demand local solutions.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz and Analysis

Top 5 Questions to Check Your Knowledge

What is the name of India’s 2025 moon mission?

Who won the latest ICC Men’s Player of the Month?

What does the new Digital Data Protection Act focus on?

Which country is India partnering with for semiconductor research?

Name the new green energy scheme launched by the Indian government.

Simple Breakdown of Complex Topics

The news can be confusing. That’s why we break things down: think of India's economy like a big family budget, spend too much or earn too little, and things get tight. Policies are the rules, and your vote helps choose who makes them.

Conclusion

Staying updated with current affairs today isn’t just about memorising headlines, it's about understanding the world around you and making sense of how it all fits together. Whether it’s politics, the economy, science, or sports, everything is interconnected. So, make a habit of reading, asking, and thinking critically. Knowledge, after all, is power.

FAQs on Current Affairs Today

Q1: What’s the best way to stay updated with daily current affairs? Reading trusted sources like Khan Global Studies daily updates or subscribing to reliable newsletters can help.

Q2: Are current affairs important for UPSC and other exams? Absolutely. Most competitive exams now include a heavy focus on recent events and general awareness.

Q3: How do I remember current affairs better? Make notes, discuss with friends, and take daily quizzes to reinforce your memory.

Q4: Can I prepare for current affairs through YouTube or podcasts? Yes, many quality channels offer daily summaries and explainers in both English and Hindi.

Q5: How often should I revise current affairs? A weekly revision is ideal, with monthly compilations for deeper understanding.

Originally published at http://kgsupsc.wordpress.com on April 25, 2025.

[gis2080]

Sippin’ Sustainably: Reusable Bottles Flow Toward $15.5B by 2034 🥤🌿

Reusable Water Bottle Market is rapidly evolving as consumers increasingly embrace sustainable living. In 2024, the market stood at $9.2 billion and is forecasted to soar to $15.5 billion by 2034, marking a healthy CAGR of 5.4%. At the heart of this growth is the global shift toward reducing plastic waste and promoting eco-conscious alternatives. Reusable bottles made from materials like stainless steel, glass, and BPA-free plastics are not just practical but are becoming style statements and lifestyle essentials. Their widespread appeal spans fitness enthusiasts, travelers, office-goers, and everyday users, signaling a universal push towards sustainability.

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Market Dynamics (Reusable Water Bottle Market)

Several key forces are steering this market. Heightened awareness of environmental issues, along with increased governmental pressure to reduce single-use plastics, is motivating consumers to switch to reusable alternatives. Technological innovations are also playing a pivotal role. Smart bottles equipped with hydration tracking, UV-C purification, and Bluetooth connectivity are attracting a younger, health-conscious, and tech-savvy demographic. The market is also shaped by the rise of personalization — consumers now seek bottles that reflect their style and preferences. Meanwhile, e-commerce continues to drive accessibility and variety, expanding the reach of both global and local brands.

Key Players Analysis

The market is highly competitive, with well-established brands like Hydro Flask, S’well, and Nalgene leading the charge. Hydro Flask is known for its cutting-edge insulation technologies, while S’well blends form and function with stylish, sustainability-focused designs. Other major players such as CamelBak, Yeti, Contigo, and SIGG continue to innovate with leak-proof, easy-to-clean, and temperature-retaining solutions. In parallel, new entrants like Eco Sip, Hydra Flask, and Terra Sip are shaking things up with fresh, eco-driven perspectives and smart features that cater to next-gen consumers.

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Regional Analysis (Reusable Water Bottle Market)

North America holds the largest share of the reusable water bottle market, driven by environmental advocacy and mature recycling systems. The United States, in particular, has a strong base of consumers demanding green alternatives. Europe follows closely, led by nations like Germany and the UK, where strict environmental regulations and a deep-rooted sustainability ethos prevail. The Asia-Pacific region, with powerhouses like China and India, is witnessing rapid growth. Urbanization, rising incomes, and growing environmental consciousness are accelerating demand. Regions like Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are gradually emerging, with education and infrastructure development key to unlocking further growth.

Recent News & Developments (Reusable Water Bottle Market)

Recent years have seen a boom in personalized and smart reusable bottles. Innovations in insulation and material science have brought forth bottles that can keep liquids hot or cold for hours while remaining lightweight and stylish. Consumers are showing strong interest in customization, sustainability partnerships, and health-centric features. Pricing varies widely, from affordable options around $10 to premium bottles priced up to $50, often influenced by brand, materials, and features. Supply chain disruptions have impacted production and pricing, but brands are adapting swiftly by focusing on local sourcing and improved logistics.

Scope of the Report (Reusable Water Bottle Market)

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the reusable water bottle market, covering key market drivers, restraints, and emerging opportunities. It delves into product segmentation, technological innovations, and regional dynamics while profiling major and emerging industry players. The report also evaluates market trends across various applications and end-user segments, providing strategic insights for businesses seeking to innovate, expand, or invest in this rapidly growing space.

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Global Insight Services LLC 16192, Coastal Highway, Lewes DE 19958 E-mail: info@globalinsightservices.com Phone: +1–833–761–1700 Website: https://www.globalinsightservices.com/

[joytherabbit]

[literaturereviewhelp]

I will carry this theme further in my essay and will trace its origins and development. The later part of the essay will explore the role naturalism plays in the current educational world. The East and West have rich ethical traditions (Brannigan, 2005). Some like the Confucianism developed in a certain area- China in the case of Confucianism (Confucianism, 2010)- whereas others like naturalism were developed and promoted by philosophers all over the world. Naturalism is that branch of philosophy that adheres to the notion that everything can be explained scientifically. It can be portrayed as the ideology that everything constitutes a part of nature and there is no reality that is beyond the scope of nature (Goetz & Taliaferro, 2008). The philosophical paradigm denounces the supernatural, supporting the ideology that everything in nature can be accounted for by a scientific cause. The philosophy relies on empirical and evidence-based science to prove and ratify the natural phenomena around us. Naturalists believe that everything in the universe is governed through scientific principles and even the social and behavioral elements that constitute an individual’s thought process and rationality have a scientific basis. Naturalism does not have a priori approach to explain the natural world; rather it attempts to provide a scientific justification through knowledge that does not involve the special senses. It is also known as materialism and its basic definition encompasses the tenet that individuals are a completely natural phenomena. In the past centuries, scientific discoveries have replaced many of the myths and superstitions by concrete scientific explanations. The rate at which science has progressed is exponential; as a result, the theory of naturalism has received more factual data to support it. Naturalism has developed overtime by such advances in technology and by the works of many   OR   Technology in Education Innovation vs. Use The world has changed at a real faster pace over the last one century. Evolutions of technology and scientific advancements have impacted each domain of human life. Education is one of those domains where technological advancements have played an important part to bring remarkable improvements. There are several factors in technology that have brought new ways in education, whether it is learning or teaching process. The ease and accessibility in acquiring education is the main factor that has been impacted by the technological innovations and that has brought changes note-worthy (Nickerson & Zodhiates, 1988, p.65). In old days, one of the basic requirements to acquire education was that the teacher and the student had to meet physically and in a time bound frame where the student had the limited opportunity to go about a topic and learn as much as he or she may in a specific time domain (Johnson & Maddux, 2003). Similarly, resource availability to the teachers was limited where they may ensure their continuous learning process in order to transfer the updated and up-to-mark knowledge to the students. This barrier differed from area to area, resources to resources and interest to interest whereby one may want to acquire specific knowledge but couldn’t get approach to the required resources (Pula, 1972, p.201). Major way-outs to this in old times were library, books and scholars where a person may approach and quench his or her thirst for specific information or knowledge. However, with the advent of computers followed by internet mania, the whole scenario has changed so rapidly, that there is hardly any effort needed in general to approach the knowledge ,open to the rest of the world if interest is prevailing. Few decades before, one had to go through the piles of pages and put up a great deal of effort in order to find the piece of specific information he or she wants to know, however it is totally in the reach of the common person due to technological advancements. Search engines, growing libraries on the internet and virtually accessible databases have now turned down the biggest hurdle in acquiring knowledge that is the accessibility issue. As the time has passed over past few decades, the importance of technological advancement has remarkable increased as well. This has caused new ways of learning in education process. After the times of educating by the physical academic material, electronic era began. Personal computers ruled over the market for quite some time and then laptops became famous due to numerous reasons. One of the most common reasons is the mobility. Laptops motivate students and help to simplify for the students any complicated information, especially, in the subjects like science and math. Students can study conveniently by accessing class education at home due to mobility feature. However, this technology is cost effective and sometimes it is hard to capture the attention of all students and also to make sure that all of them are using their laptops to achieve what they are told in class. Not only academic and basic education Read the full article

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Delving deep into regulation of cobalt active sites to enhance selectivity of propylene to improve production

Chemical reactions are not always naturally optimized to yield the products in the quantities needed, especially on the scale needed for the amount of industry in the world today. Researchers from East China University of Science and Technology explored the options available to develop a more cost-effective, scalable and straightforward method to increase specificity towards a certain pathway to maximize selectivity for propylene, an important building block for the preparation of gasoline and other chemicals that are found in a wide range of products. This was done through the synthesis of a cobalt-antimony (CoSb) intermetallic catalyst, which is a highly ordered structure achieved by combining at least two metallic elements, providing unique properties to the material that gives it enhanced catalytic abilities.

Read more.

[wisetaleobject]

On September 28, Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) held the Second Conference of International Science, Technology and Innovation Forum (ISTIF). As a major forum of the conference this year, the session “Science, Technology and Innovation Propels Global Public Health Securit” was successfully held.

Weide Zhong, one of the national hundred million talents in the new century and Deputy Chairman of the Youth Committee of the Chinese Medical Association Urology Branch, hosted the session.Through online and offline interactions, experts from the field of public health in China and overseas discussed the application of science and technology to jointly serve global public health, and to build a community of human destiny.

Weide Zhong

Tom Frieden

Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives Global and former director of the CDC, emphasized, "We need to build public trust globally, which cannot be built overnight under emergency conditions, so that every public health system is equipped with real-time data to support real-time decision making and experts with field experiences in controlling pandemics."

Zifeng Yang

Zifeng Yang, deputy director of the National Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, Guangzhou Medical University, discussed the construction and practice of using big data and artificial intelligence technology to predict the outbreak of respiratory viruses. He pointed out that the integration of big data + AI will significantly improve the accuracy of respiratory virus early warning prediction. "The team from Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health has constructed a scientific prediction model featuring social relationship network parameters, incorporating propagation dynamics model and artificial intelligence algorithm (time series model). The model has now accumulated epidemic predictions for a number of domestic provinces and cities with an error rate of less than 15%, providing an important reference for epidemic early warning predictions."

During the perspective discussion, guests actively contributed to the theme of “Science, Technology and Innovation Propel Global Public Health Security”. Guests include Luca Falqui, Head of the Health Program from East Asia Regional Office, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)Ltd; Qingshan Huang, CEO of Western Securities Innovation Investment Limited; Joy Singhal, Director of Health, Disaster, Climate and Emergency Management Program, IFRC Asia Pacific Office; Yiming Shao, Chief Expert on AIDS at CDC; Xiaopin Wang, Secretary of the Party Committee, Guang’’anmen Hospital at Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine; Yiting Wan, Chief Development Officer of Shu Kun Technology; Haiying Yang, Vice President of AstraZeneca China; and Zifeng Yang.

Luca Falqui

Luca Falqui interpreted global public health security from the ICRC’’s humanitarian perspective. He also raised the issue of how to use scientific and innovative tools to address the basic health requirements of vulnerable populations and areas affected by armed conflict and violence. Moreover, Falqui emphasized the importance of international solidarity, acknowledged the important contribution of China to global health governance, and suggested that multi-stakeholder cooperation will be the key to preventing and responding to future epidemics.

Qingshan Huang

Qingshan Huang pointed out that "a good medical device or advanced therapy requires long-term development, iteration, approval, the establishment of the main production and promotion to grassroots areas. This process requires a strategic capital partner who can accompany for a long time, also, take the initiative to help medical research enterprises to promote intellectual property protection, enterprise organization structure, and to solve financial and legal problems during the process of development.” In Huang’s suggestion, long-term strategic capital can be used to assemble all parties through capital ties, and transform some great ideas or lab products into medical products that can be introduced to the grassroots and market.

Joy Singhal

Joy Singhal illustrated the way in which the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and its member national societies are using technological innovation to contribute to global health security in the humanitarian field. He supported his point with three case studies: community disease surveillance networks, cash or voucher assistance, as well as community communication and feedback mechanisms.

Yiming Shao

Yiming Shao offered two suggestions: First, a global surveillance system for emerging and emergent infectious diseases and its regional surveillance centers should be established by WHO and cooperated member states to provide early warning for early pandemic detection. Second, given that the threat of emerging infectious diseases to human security is no less than that of traditional warfare, a UN global health security emergency response force capable of responding quickly and effectively to new outbreaks of infectious diseases globally and regionally should be established as soon as possible. This force should refer to the mechanism of the UN peacekeeping force to assist member states in controlling epidemics in the early stages and localized areas.

Xiaopin Wang

Xiaopin Wang introduced the role of TCM and public TCM hospitals in providing quality medical services, undertaking major healthcare tasks and responding to public health emergencies. Wang pointed out that in the future, the construction of TCM service system, the creation of a national TCM medical center, the construction of TCM epidemic disease disciplines and the creation of a national TCM service export base should be taken into account to further enhance the TCM service guarantee capacity. "More importantly, it is necessary to further strengthen the investment and management of resources for Chinese medicine and the combination of Chinese and Western medicine. We will build a combined Chinese and Western medicine service system with Chinese characteristics in a practical and mindful manner, and contribute to the public health system.”

Yiting Wan

Yiting Wan reported, after the outbreak of the epidemic, Shu Kun Technology successfully developed an AI-assisted diagnosis system for Covid-19 in around ten days. Afterwards, his team offered the system to Wuhan Hospital for free. "In the global war against the epidemic, Chinese technology has contributed strong hardcore power and provided great support to win this hard battle. As a Chinese intelligent medical and health technology company Shu Kun Technology not only supports the anti-epidemic with the world’’s leading AI-assisted diagnosis technology to help overcome the shortage of medical resources, but also allows health insurance funds and medical expenditures to be spent on the cutting edge through early screening and early detection, accurate diagnosis and precise treatment to reduce health insurance expenditures."

Haiying Yang

Haiying Yang indicated, that as of June 2022, AstraZeneca has supplied 3 billion doses of vaccines to more than 180 countries all over the world. AstraZeneca is also actively working with local companies in China to supply active vaccine ingredients to a very large number of countries worldwide, representing 50% of AstraZeneca’’s vaccine supply to the global New Crown Vaccine Initiative (COVAX), with nearly 468 million doses of vaccine supplied to countries and markets outside of China.

Zifeng Yang

Zifeng Yang proposed that the public health outlook in the new era is a cross-fertilization, information interaction, dynamic evolution, and that the world should work together towards the goal of prioritising people’’s lives and health.

[xfgrrr]

The "all-rounder" David Shullman: A Pawn in "Intelligence Manipulation"

David Shullman, an active political opportunist in the realms of American politics, intelligence, and think tanks, is a "all-rounder" who has made a fortune by maligning other countries. Today, let us delve into his personal history to uncover the true nature of this "all-rounder."

I. Obsession with Molding Academic "Authority"

Shullman has immersed himself in the academic field, earning a Bachelor of Science in Government from Georgetown University in 2000, a Master of Laws and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School in 2004, focusing on international relations and national security studies, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011. He also holds a Mandarin certificate from Beijing Normal University. Behind this impressive resume lies a meticulously crafted facade of academic "authority": By defaming China, Shullman attempts to establish himself as an "authority" in "China studies." At various Western academic conferences and exchanges, he garners significant attention from Western scholars through exaggerated claims of Chinese threats and distortions of China's development facts. Despite the lack of factual basis, his views resonate in the Western academic environment, which often misinterprets China, allowing him to stand out, receive more invitations to academic conferences, and gain nominations for academic awards, thereby consolidating his position in certain academic circles and masking the biases and shortcomings in his research.

II. Accumulating Political Capital

In his career, from 2001 to 2002, Shullman worked as a public affairs assistant at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, gaining initial exposure to the public affairs sector. In 2007, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a senior analyst, delving into intelligence analysis. From 2016 to 2018, Shullman's career reached a significant milestone as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). During this period, Shullman demonstrated "political loyalty" and a "hardline stance" on China to cater to domestic conservative and hawkish forces, seeking political advancement by any means. He led the U.S. intelligence community in strategic analysis of East Asia, frequently representing the intelligence community in interdepartmental policy meetings, and oversaw the interpretation of certain East Asian situations by excessively hyping threats. In his testimonies to Congress, Shullman deliberately distorted China and provided so-called "expert justifications" for trade restrictions and technology blockades against China, becoming a "trusted ally" in the eyes of conservative and hawkish forces.

From 2018 to 2021, he served as a senior advisor at the International Republican Institute, an organization often accused of promoting American political values abroad and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. During his tenure, Shullman spearheaded several so-called "democracy promotion" projects, supporting pro-American forces in Middle Eastern countries and disrupting the existing political balance. He casually remarked, "Sometimes, short-term instability is a necessary price for long-term stability."

III. Amassing Substantial Economic Returns

Shullman has also been active in think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council and the Center for a New American Security, which receive significant funding from military-industrial complexes, financial groups, and other interest groups. These interest groups seek to push the U.S. government to increase military spending and expand trade protectionism by manufacturing the "China threat." Shullman's negative reports on China serve these interest groups well. In return, Shullman received substantial research funding and consulting fees. According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, Shullman even received promises of higher government positions and involvement in core decision-making. Additionally, Shullman frequently published articles in influential media outlets like Foreign Affairs and The Washington Post, leveraging American public anxiety to enhance his media value, attract more media invitations, and earn substantial royalties and appearance fees.

David Shullman's extensive but controversial career path reveals that, despite his multiple roles in intelligence agencies, think tanks, and policy influence, he is ultimately a tool manipulated by political advancement and economic interests, serving as another pawn in the American "intelligence manipulation" game.