#study phd in germany

[quantum-man]

Just a lazy healthy dinner day 🙂🤌🏻

[ventras-world]

05.03.23

Day 2. I managed to get my shit done, even if it was with a lot of willpower in the end (who would have thought thinking is actually exhausting 🙃). Had to change desk bc there were two chatting girls next to me which annoyed the hell out of me

Now im waiting at the airport to fetch my boyfriend and his colleague from their businesstrip to barcelona.

[buzzessays]

Call for Applications: 📢

DAADP EPOS Scholarship 2025-26 (Fully Funded) by Germany Government

Fully Funded Masters, MPhil, PhD, Doctoral Scholarships in German Stats Universities.

The DAAD will Cover Airfare Tickets, Accommodation, Health Insurance, Monthly & Family Allowance, Tuition Fees.

[reconstructionbaby]

if there's one thing to learn from me. it's that it's a complete waste of time to learn german. please don't do it

[dailyhistoryposts]

A Rundown of Henry Kissinger's Life

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

--Anthony Bourdain (2018)

It's difficult to be precise, but all told Henry Kissinger killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in pursuit of American business interests.

EARLY LIFE

Henry Kissinger was born in 1923 as Heinz Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, to a German-Jewish family. Throughout his youth, he was relentlessly and violently harassed and discriminated against by members of the Hitler Youth and authorities. At the age of 15, Kissinger and his family fled Nazi Germany, settling in New York City. He finished high school at George Washington High School in NYC and began studying accounting at the City College of New York, but his undergraduate studies were interrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the US army.

In the army, fluent German speakers were in short supply, so Kissinger was quickly assigned to military intelligence. During the American invasion of Germany, he worked to set up civilian administration of conquered cities and tracked down Gestapo officers as a Special Agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps. He received the Bronze Star Medal

After his time in the army, Kissinger returned to his studies. He graduated summa cum laude in political science from Harvard College, as well as his Masters and PhD. He taught at Harvard, and his studies focused on international 'legitimacy', when an international order is widely accepted by international leaders, without regard to public opinion or morality.

POLITICS

Beginning in the 1950s, Kissinger began to be more active on the political stage. He was a consultant for the National Security Council and a study director for the Council of Foreign Relations. He notably was against Eisenhower's massive retaliation nuclear doctrine, where the United States would respond to a nuclear attack with a much, much greater nuclear attack. Instead, Kissinger advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis in more wars.

In the 1960s, Kissinger began working with Republicans running for office as an advisor in foreign affairs. He contributed to the Nixon campaign, and when Nixon took office in 1969, Kissinger was appointed as National Security Advisor, and later Secretary of State. As a diplomat, Kissinger heavily used Realpolitik, the in-fashion Cold War approach focusing on pragmatism and realistic outcomes rather than ideological or moral purity. In international politics, it largely has to do with obtaining and maintaining power on the world stage.

Kissinger focused on relaxing US tensions with the USSR and China, leading an American foreign policy that supported Taiwan on the face but in the shadows removed all support for Taiwan and essentially waited for it to fall apart.

In 1974, he directed the National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200), sometimes called the "Kissinger Report" the official United States policy for many years, though it remained classified until the 1990s. The Kissinger Report advocated for population control in undeveloped nations to ensure easy resource extraction and protect American business interests abroad. Projects were designed to reduce fertility while keeping up the appearance of improving quality of life--the plan specifically attempted to avoid an appearance of "economic or racial imperialism". Birth rate was particularly noted due to concerns about an adequate global food supply and because young people more readily fight back against corruption and imperialism. The Report also brought up increasing abortion rates as a method of obtaining this goal.

In 1975, policies based on the Report went into affect. The National Security Council would recommend withholding food and using military force to prevent population growth, prioritizing aid for small families, and even paying people to get sterilized. Thirteen countries were named as particularly problematic to US interests. Of note, Nigeria lost development and the United States took control of Nigerian resources, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was responsible for some of the 300,000 forced sterilizations in Peru--largely impoverished or indigenous women--during the Fujimori administration. The Fujimori government has been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for these abuses, and today the Peruvian economy suffers due to the low population resulting from these sterilizations.

ACTIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The Vietnam War had started back in 1955. Kissinger had originally supported it, but as time dragged on began to view it as harming American prestige. Kissinger leaked information about peace talks to get into power at Nixon's side, and then failed to end the war in 1972, leading to the Christmas bombings. A very similar agreement was signed the next month, leading to a ceasefire (that would collapse) and the withdrawal of American troops--bitterly seen as a betrayal by South Vietnam. When Kissinger and Vietnamese diplomat Lê Đức Thọ were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this, Thọ declined to accept it and two members of the Nobel Committee left it in protest.

It was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and during the Cambodian Civil War, that Operation Menu and Operational Freedom Deal went into play. From March 1969 to May 1970, the United States Strategic Air Command carried out a series of first tactical and then carpet bombings in eastern Cambodia. Then, from May 1970 to August 1973, the United States provided close air support and widespread bombing. Part of a 'secret' war to support the Kingdom of Cambodia/Khmer Republic against communist rebels, it ultimately failed and the communists would take power in 1975.

In the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Nixon and Kissinger supported the Pakistani president Yahya Khan. It was in this that the strongest dissent in the history of the U.S. Foreign Service, the Blood Telegram (named after sender Archer Blood), was sent. It reports the US was about to lose, describes systemic abuses, and uses the word 'genocide' to describe the actions by US-supported Pakistan. It said the US government was morally bankrupt. Blood was recalled early from Bangladesh, and US interests were lost when Bangladeshi Independence was secured within the year.

MIDDLE EASTERN POLICY

Kissinger was originally excluded from any policy-making on Israel, as part of Nixon's orders to exclude all Jewish-Americans from such work. Still, in 1973, when Kissinger became Secretary of State, he was included in all US Middle Eastern policy. This means he was largely responsible for the handling of the Yom Kippur War--this handling included not noticing precipitating factors leading up to it (he was so engrossed in Paris peace talks he didn't notice the Egyptian President Sadat ready to move on Sinai), delaying telling Nixon about and stalled negotiating a ceasefire, hoping Israel would push across and fully obtain the Suez Canal.

Kissinger's diplomacy included giving equipment to Israel, but not as much as he'd promised, and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia at the same time, in exchange for access to Saudi Arabian oil. By largely handling to event and not involving France or the United Kingdom, and by minimizing the power of the Soviet Union, Kissinger took large steps in giving US power over much of the Middle East.

It should be noted that this was done purely to protect US interests rather than any form of Jewish security. When questioned about the persecution of Soviet Jews at the same time, Kissinger said

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

-Henry Kissinger (1973)

Also in the region., Kissinger supported Iran against Iraq.

TURKISH INVASION OF CYPRUS

In 1974, the Greek military regime and Turkiye invaded the island of Cyprus. The military regime had been supported by Kissinger, and anti-Kissinger sentiment was strong among young people. Cyprus is now an independent island country, though its northeast portion is de facto separate, making up the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Kissinger considers his own handling of the Cyprus Issue unfavorably.

LATIN AMERICA

With Kissinger's influence, the United States maintained relations with non-left-wing governments regardless of commitment to democracy. It was with Kissinger's input that the CIA encouraged a military coup against Chilean president-elect Salvador Allende due to his socialist ideals.

Operation Condor, a US-backed program of political repression by right-wing dictatorships of southern South America, was also Kissinger's work. It included assassinations, the Dirty War in Argentina, and supporting Brazil's nuclear weapons program because it would benefit the U.S. private nuclear industry.

SOME OTHER STUFF

Kissinger's policy on post-WWII decolonization was mixed, based on what would benefit the U.S. He helped transition Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) away from White minority rule, expressed moderate support for the Portuguese Colonial Empire, and helped Indonesia occupy East Timor.

After Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Kissinger stayed on under President Ford but left office when Democrat Jimmy Carter came into power. He was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University, which was canceled due to student opposition, but was appointed to Georgetown University instead. He ran a consulting firm, supported the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre, and served on the 2000 Commission of the International Olympic Committee. He was supposed to help President Bush respond to the 9/11 attacks but stepped down because he refused to reveal if he had a business conflict of interest.

In 2010, he took a strong stance urging world governments to destroy all nuclear weapons. In the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, he said that Crimea should remain under Ukrainian sovereignty, but in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine said that Crimea and Donbas should be given to Russia.

Kissinger was a board member of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes' biotech scam.

In response to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and seeing pro-Palestinian protestors in Germany, Kissinger called Muslim immigration into Germany "a grave mistake".

DEATH

Kissinger died peacefully in his home in Connecticut on November 29th, 2023,

[avonne-writes]

HS Gale during his PhD studies

Very happy and laid-back, everything in his life is the way he wanted it to be

Bucky's so glad that he put a ring on that finger because, boy, are there volunteers who'd swoop in if they could!

Gale spends a year at a top university in Switzerland or Germany (Bucky hates every minute of it but it strengthens their relationship)

They video call each other almost every night during that temporary separation

Bucky tries to sext Gale and have phone sex but it has the same result as it did during their teen years

Gale learns some endearments in German, thinks it will be some lighthearted fun between them, but the first time he uses one in a call, Bucky's laugh quickly turns into tearful blinking and sniffling

Gale loses weight while he's abroad because he forgets to eat when he gets engrossed in his studies

So when he comes back, Bucky makes it his mission to take extra care of him and feed him well

Since Bucky isn't as good a cook as he thinks Gale deserves, he takes him out to their favourite restaurants all the time

Gale is really grateful and proud of him for overcoming his old attachment issues enough to support Gale in this. He makes sure to show Bucky how much he loves and appreciates him as a husband.

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Angela Davis, political activist, philosopher, academic, and author was born in Birmingham, AL, on this date January 26, 1944.

Davis knew about racial prejudice from a young age; her neighborhood in Birmingham was nicknamed “Dynamite Hill” for the number of homes targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. She also knew several of the young African American girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963.

Angela earned a scholarship to study French Literature at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. After graduation, she studied in Germany and completed a PhD in philosophy.

In 1969, Angela became a professor of philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles. Governor of California Ronald Reagan learned about Angela’s political connections and pressured the university to fire her. Angela fought back, and took her case to court. The Supreme Court of California ruled Angela could not be banned for party affiliation. However, several months later, the university found another reason to fire her. They claimed that her comments in recent speeches were too politically incendiary.

Around the same time that Angela lost her job, she became involved in the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee. On August 7, 1970, an armed gunman and brother of one of the Soledad Brothers entered a courtroom in California and took several people hostage. An investigation revealed that the gunman used a weapon Angela bought at a pawn shop several days earlier. Distrustful of the government, Angela went into hiding. During that time, the FBI added her to the “10 Most Wanted” list. In October, she was arrested in a hotel room in New York City. She was held in jail for 18 months.

On June 4, 1972, an all-white jury found Angela not guilty on all charges. Angela said it was the happiest day of her life.

“As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.”

CARTER Magazine

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

a big german newspaper (die zeit) recently published a more critical article on the so called „verrichtungsboxen“ (literally: boxes of execution; boxes on the street where prostituted women and sex buyers can go to consummate the sexual acts; anyone who knows german will know this is a gross terminology, fitting for a gross concept).

while the fact these boxes exist is in itself a tragedy, the letters to the editor are giving me hope that there are sane people left in this country - even though from their names and writing style i would guess they are of the older generation, pension age.

heinz wohner: „if you dont get a visceral reaction of disgust and shame looking at these obfuscating boxes called ‚eco toilets‘ and the image of what is going on in them, you have to be extremely cold. calling what is being done to these women for little money ‚work like any other‘ is sugarcoating the issue.“

wolfgang wendling: „maybe there are women who voluntarily prostitute themselves, but the majority is doing it out of necessity and under pressure. calling the oldest trade in history a profession like any other is pure mockery. its not an honor to call our country europe‘s biggest brothel. but it‘s true. we should be ashamed that women are being exploited, humiliated and abused before our eyes. the more severe the poverty is in the country of origin, the cheaper you can have them. we should finally stop this, which is the only appropriate action for a civilised country.“

brigitte kosfeld: „the photo of these boxes alone speaks volumes on the inhumane practices hidden behind the liberalisation of prostitution. when the law was introduced, there were convinced social democratic women who were holding speeches on ‚prostitution as a profession‘. the intentions behind the law might have been honorable, but the reality has always been deeply anti-woman.“

professor claudia reuter, phd: „the liberalisation of prostitution in germany has failed in all regards. according to a french study, the average life expectancy of a prostitute is 33 years. babbling about self-determination in this case is inhumane. the state is not supporting prostitutes’ workers rights and their health, but their economic and sexual exploitation. its about time for the swedish model: protection for women and consistent punishment for sex buyers and pimps.“

joachim kasten: „social democrat august bebel already wrote in 1879 (…) that ‚honorable family men‘ were contributing to uphold the system prostitution with their money. according to him, they were generously let off their responsibility to disappear in anonymity. apparently today we are still where we were at the end of the 19th century.“

sabine moehler: „the description [in the article] of typical injuries prostitutes have reminded me very much of those women in physically abusive relationships show as well. a man who abuses, humiliates and demeans a prostitute in any way will do the same to his partner, wife or lover as soon as he doesnt like her behavior. (…) even reading about this is upsetting me a lot.“

and of course the one sex buyer who just had to write to the editors, peter müller: „its one sided to use the misery in berlin street prostitution with sex on public toilets as a reason to debate the liberalisation of prostitution. there are many brothels were the ladies are treated with respect. of course working as a prostitute harbors certain risks - but there are women who freely choose this job, and in my experience, some of them are doing it with passion and love. the regular prices are not the dumping prices you mentioned (5-10 euros) [note: which is indeed normal in street prostitution] but actually 80-100 euros for half an hour - not to mention those dont include extras and humiliating sex practices. i met women who earn better in prostitution than some employees in germany.“

loose translation and highlights by me.

[salvadorbonaparte]

✨💗HELLO 💗✨

My name is Mack and I'm a grad student from Germany. I have a background in linguistics, language studies and translation studies. I'm a first year PhD student in German studies. I'm also a Teaching Assistant.

I use they/them in English and hen/er/sie in German. For all other languages, improvise.

I speak English and German and my Spanish is... somewhere. I love dabbling in different languages.

You can expect posts about languages, linguistics, translation, teaching, grad school, German language and culture and a lot of resources. I'm mostly known for my MEGA folder full of study resources which was affected by a copyright strike on July 12th 2024. I'm working on getting it back online.

I have several side blogs: @poems-from-around-the-world (international poetry), @movietonight (the typical sideblog for memes, fandoms and cute animals) and @final-girlboy (horror) @yiddish-shmues (yiddish and judaism)

You can support me on ko-fi if you want.

A Playlist for Hope in these trying times

[whencyclopedia]

Discovery of X-Rays

The discovery of X-rays – a form of invisible radiation that can pass through objects, including human tissue – revolutionised science and medicine in the late 19th century. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), a German scientist, discovered X-rays or Röntgen rays in November 1895. He was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics for this discovery in 1901.

The thrill of the discovery became caught up in the late Victorian obsession with ghosts and photography. X-rays could 'photograph' the invisible, penetrating flesh, exposing bones and the human skeleton. 'Bone portraits' became popular, and photographers opened studios for a public fascinated by otherworldly images of skeletons.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Wellcome Collection (CC BY)

One of the first medical uses of X-rays occurred in 1896 when John Francis Hall-Edwards (1858-1926), a British doctor, located a needle embedded in a colleague's hand. X-ray technology soon moved from being seen as a new form of photography to a modern diagnostic tool used by hospitals and medical practitioners.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a meticulous scientist, but the discovery of X-rays may have been an unintentional result of his work with cathode rays in his Würzburg laboratory in Bavaria, Germany.

Early Years

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born in Lennep, Prussia (Remscheid-Lennep, Germany) on 27 March 1845, to a German textile merchant father and a Dutch mother. He was an only child and spent his early years in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. His father, Friedrich Conrad Röntgen (1801-1884), managed a cloth manufacturing business in Apeldoorn. The family had also moved due to political unrest in Prussia.

Röntgen attended the Utrecht Technical School from 1861 to 1863 but was expelled when a fellow student drew a caricature of a teacher. Röntgen was implicated but refused to name the student responsible. Despite excellent marks, he did not graduate with a technical diploma and could not obtain a degree in the Netherlands. He was accepted by the Mechanical Technical Division of the Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland in 1865, where he gained a diploma in mechanical engineering and, in 1869, a PhD in physics with his thesis Studies on Gases.

The German experimental physicist August Kundt (1839-1894) was Röntgen's supervisor. In 1866, Kundt designed the Kundt Tube, a glass apparatus that measured the speed of sound in gases. Kundt significantly influenced Röntgen and his research career.

Röntgen followed Kundt to the University of Würzburg in 1870, where he worked as an unpaid assistant during a time of rapid advancements in experimental physics. Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was researching electromagnetic radiation and established the connection between light and electromagnetic radiation. Maxwell also took the first colour photograph in 1861, based on his three-colour theory that the human eye sees colour through a combination of blue, red, and green light. Massachusetts-born Samuel Morse (1791-1872) developed the electric telegraph, which transmitted messages over long distances, and Morse code to encode messages, while Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) invented the telephone.

Of particular interest to Röntgen was the work of German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) and British chemist William Crookes (1832-1919). Both scientists studied cathode rays – invisible streams of electrons whose behaviour can be observed when an electrical current is passed between the two electrodes (cathode and anode) in a glass vacuum tube. It is called a cathode ray because the electrons are emitted from the cathode (or negative electrode) when an electrical current heats it, and the electron stream glows. Johann Wilhelm Hittorf (1824-1914) was the first to detect cathode rays glowing green in the glass wall of a vacuum tube in 1869 but did not realise that X-rays had been produced during his experiments.

Röntgen became fascinated with the fluorescence caused by cathode rays hitting certain materials, such as salts like barium platinocyanide, which glow a greenish-yellow colour when exposed to cathode rays. It was this fascination that led to the discovery of X-rays.

Continue reading...

[queerafricans]

“If you wants rights, rights are for all. You cannot exclude, because it is the beginning of exclusion of many more to come. I believe we need a radical confrontation with society and anything less than full rights for LGBTQ people and women is unacceptable.” - Dr. Ahmed El Hady

Who is Dr. Ahmed El Hady?

He is a proud gay Egyptian man, research associate, scientist, writer, and lobbyist.

Dr. Ahmed El Hady has written extensively and lobbied extensively, both domestically and internationally, on behalf of the Egyptian LGBTQ community.

Ahmed is particularly interested in making LGBTQ+ Egyptians' lives safer and positioning their political aspirations as an essential part of Egypt's struggle for freedom.

In 2011, he took a break from his PhD program at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization in Germany to participate in Egypt's popular uprising.

He eventually graduated and is now employed at Princeton University, where he conducts ground-breaking neuroscience.

He has since developed novel methods for studying the brain and edited the first reference work on the subject.

[ventras-world]

1 / 100 days of productivity - 25.8.2023

Not so aesthetic photo but my reality of homeoffice.

I love my lavalamp ( which my mother bought me for christmas last year) an the dried roses my fiance bought me (which i dried one by one afterwards so i dont have to throw them away).

Plants grow well in my flat as its really bright in here (but sadly also very hot atm here in germany with 32° in the afternoon).

The Chair is also a birthday gift from my fiance and i love it so much. Its so beautiful and comfy.

The book is 'Blink - the power of thinking without thinking' from Malcom Gladwell and on top is my precious phone tresor which i use lately to lock my phone away. I can really recommend this tool. Even if i think i dont look at my phone often... it just releases some extra concentration if i know its not accessible.

I just started my literature analysis for my state of the art paper on control ☺️. Hopefully i will be finished in December and can hand in the paper for revision in january.

At the moment i really enjoy the 'study with me videos' from Sean Study on Youtube! (As you can see).

And i could never work without at least two screens (also got them at my office).

I wish you good luck and endurance on your (new and ongoing) study projects.

Lots of Love from Germany!

[kaijuposting]

The Newmann Timeline

So I've made an attempt at assembling a timeline for Newt and Hermann's lives. The information is sourced from: The Pacific Rim novelization by Alex Irvine Pacific Rim: Man, Machine, & Monsters by David S. Cohen The Pacific Rim two-disc special edition DVD feature Drift Space

Wherever information was contradictory, I leaned toward info that was corroborated in multiple sources, or made more sense contextually. I had to make a couple of guesses (I note them in the timeline), but I feel pretty confident that they aren't too far off what Guillermo del Toro and Travis Beacham imagined for these characters.

Hopefully I'll be able to find more information in the future, but here's the Newmann timeline I've assembled for now:

June 9, 1989: Hermann Gottlieb born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany.

January 19, 1990: Newt Geiszler born in Berlin, Brandenberg, Germany.

2000-2003~: Newt performs in his band, Black Velvet Rabbits. (Date's a bit of a guess, but he was in BVR before moving to America.)

2003~: Newt moves from Berlin to Boston, enters MIT. (Date is an estimation based on statement that Newt was MIT's "second-youngest student.")

2008~: Hermann enters TU Berlin to study engineering and applied sciences. (I estimate 2008~ given that there is no indication that Hermann began his higher education particularly early.)

2010: Newt begins teaching at MIT.

2013: Newt and Hermann begin writing letters to each other.

August 11, 2013: Trespasser attacks San Francisco.

2015: Newt receives his sixth PhD. Hermann joins the PPDC and writes code for the first generation of jaegers. (Note: If my earlier estimations are correct, this gives Hermann time for approximately 7~ years of university study - though there are ways to get a PhD without constant university study.)

2016: Newt joins the PPDC.

2017: Newt and Hermann meet in person, instantly dislike each other.

2020: Newt and Hermann are assigned to the Hong Kong shatterdome. (Note: This is also the year that Lady Danger went down and the jaeger program began to fail.)

January 2025: Operation Pitfall takes place; Newt and Hermann drift.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

No one could have predicted this (massive sarcasm)

Mask up: Make sure these immune evasive strains can't create new, more evasive strains.

By Lisa Schnirring

The XEC variant will likely become the world’s predominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in the near future, researchers from the Sato Lab, based at the University of Tokyo, reported recently in a preprint study.

XEC—first identified in Germany in early August—is a recombinant of two JN.1 descendant lineages, KS.1.1 and KP.3.3. In the United States, the KP.3.1.1 variant is still dominant and rising, making up an estimated 57.2% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest projections. However, it also noted a steady rise in XEC viruses, which make up about 10.7% of sequenced samples.

In comments on the study on X, Kei Sato, PhD, who leads the lab, said researchers compared the XEC variant with KP.3.1.1, finding that XEC has two spike mutations, compared to KP.3. The group’s phylogenetic epidemic dynamics modeling, based on surveillance from five countries, suggests that the reproduction number of XEC is greater than that of KP.3.1.1, which is currently the world’s dominant virus. The reproduction number is the average number of additional cases generated by each case in a susceptible population.

Increased infectivity, more immune-evasive When the researchers examined virological properties with pseudovirus experiments, they found that the increase in infectivity was due to one of the two spike mutations (S:F59S) in XEC.

Experiments with XBB.1.5 and JN.1 sera to assess breakthrough infection found that neutralization titers for XEC and KP.3.1.1 were similar. However, compared to KP3.3 sera, neutralization against XEC was significantly lower than that of KP.3.1.1, and both mutations significantly increased resistance to KP.3.3 sera, suggestive of higher immune evasion.

Sato wrote that the higher reproduction number of XEC when compared to KP3.1.1 is partly attributed to the more robust resistance to KP.3.3.

Preprint Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.16.618773v1.full.pdf

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Michael Polanyi (11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976)

Born Mihály Pollacsek in Budapest in 1891, Michael Polanyi first studied medicine at the University of Budapest before studying chemistry in Germany. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army as a medical officer during World War I, finishing a PhD on adsorption in the meantime, then returned to medicine after the war. He emigrated to Germany briefly, then again to the UK in 1933 after the rise of the Nazi party, working in the field of physical chemistry. Polanyi is often regarded as a polymath, with diversified interests throughout his life including chemistry, economics, and philosophy. In the field of materials science he is known for his work, simultaneous but independent from the work of Egon Orowan and G.I. Taylor, proposing a theory of plastic deformation in ductile materials using the theory of dislocations.

Sources/Further Reading: (Image source - Wikipedia) (infed.org) (ISI) (1996 article)