We all need a little positivity

Scientists in China have developed a more efficient form of solar desalination that uses 47.4% less energy than alternatives. After the first year of testing, the scientists believe that at scale it would be able to desalinate water more cheaply than producing bottled water.

Article: 👇

I think we're winning 👇

Things are happening 👇

What is Tier 2? 👇

Training classes 👇

4 years ago 👇

How BIG of a business is it? 👇

Trafficking generates $150 billion in illicit profits, and "an estimated twenty-five million people worldwide are victims, a number only growing in the face of vulnerabilities fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic."

Did you notice the dates?

This has been going on for a while. 👇

Just a few hotels that are invovled with Human trafficking 👇

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

Economy Inn

Red Roof Inn

Why so many potential human trafficking cases in the hotel industry that fall on the West Coast? 👆

👆 According to the lawsuit filed Monday in the US District court in Portland, a woman alleged she was trafficked for commercial sex at multiple hotels in Washington and Oregon State back in 2012 and 2013!

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

you can think of this sort of like how water wicks into a paper towel. the water gets stuck to the paper because it's attracted to it via capillary forces, even though there's no chemical reaction going on.

the two main methods used are granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption and ion exchange (IX).

activated carbon is already pretty familiar to a lot of us; it's the stuff in a lot of replaceable water filters. the activated carbon has a huge internal surface area, and that allows for the fairly weak intermolecular forces to add up and allow contaminants to get "stuck" onto the surface of the activated carbon. over time, the activated carbon gets filled with junk, and you have to replace it.

GAC is essentially this, except that the activated carbon is granularized and produced in specific ways to maximize how much it attracts certain chemicals. this can be tuned because activated carbon gets its massive surface area from internal "pores", and various processes will change how large and frequent those pores are.

It's essentially a Russian nesting doll of pores, and controlling the size of the larger pores influences the permeability of the activated carbon and controlling the size of the smaller pores (micropores) influences what exactly is most attracted to the activated carbon.

However, GAC has a few major downsides:

It is not specific to PFAS. This is more of a mixed blessing because it was already frequently used and well understood, and the infrastructure for producing and distributing it already existed. However,

It loses effectiveness over time and must be replaced. This is a continued cost, albeit a low one, but this has one final major issue

As time goes on, the PFAS previously adsorbed to the activated carbon is desorbed and replaced by other things that have a higher affinity for the activated carbon.

As such, ion exchange (IX) was always very compelling. The whole point of it relies on the fact that PFAS molecules are predominantly made of two parts: An acid head group (either a carboxylic or sulfonic acid group) and a perfluorinated tail.

The head groups on the right are what become ionized—or specifically, deprotonated. A hydrogen leaves and is replaced with a metal cation (usually sodium), forming a PFAS salt (chemical meaning of salt!). These are much more soluble in water because of polarity reasons, and so the mobile PFAS molecules are almost always in that salt form.

By passing through these PFAS salts through a permeable polymer matrix that has (1) numerous positively charged groups like quaternary amines and (2) highly mobile negative ions loosely attached to those stationary positive groups (most often chlorides), you can actually get the PFAS to be "stuck" inside the polymer matrix and what comes out is just good ol' sodium chloride, or salt (culinary meaning of salt!).

This shows a version with hydroxide (OH-) ions as the mobile anion, but it's the same idea. The +NR3 in yellow are stuck to the polymer matrix, but the OH- can freely move around. However, without another anion to replace the OH-, the ionic attraction prevents the hydroxides from leaving.

In comes the PFAS. Despite being slightly soluble in water, the anionic PFAS aren't really that mobile, and when they pass through, it's much easier for the hydroxide ions to leave. Another very important effect is that the long perfluorinated tail of the PFAS is attracted to the polymer matrix, whilst the counterions are ONLY attracted via the ionic force. Thus, PFAS would much rather hang out in the polymer matrix.

Of course, IX has its own downsides

These resins are much more expensive, both to manufacture and to transport.

While they can be "regenerated", it's a tricky process that currently requires the use of nearly anhydrous methanol, which is both poisonous and extremely flammable, increasing the operating costs.

As the hydrophobic tail is a key part of allowing the PFAS to stick to the matrix, short-chain PFAS are very poorly dealt with by this system. This is exacerbated by competition between different PFAS molecules, as long-chain ones will cause short-chain ones to desorb.

Overall, the best method appears to be using a series of ion exchange resins followed by an activated carbon filter. The ion exchange will capture the bulk of the PFAS molecules, and the activated carbon will grab any stragglers. Effective filtering of other contaminants prior to the PFAS removal system will also ensure minimal competition in the activated carbon.

Also a welcome reminder that just because a Big Problem doesn't seem practically solvable right now doesn't mean it won't become solvable in the future!

From the article:

"For millions of people managing type 2 diabetes, mornings begin the same way — a needle, a dose, and a quiet mental note to do it all again tomorrow.

That routine just changed.

On March 26, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Awiqli (insulin icodec-abae), developed by Novo Nordisk, as the first and only once-weekly basal insulin ever approved for adults with type 2 diabetes in the United States.

This is not a minor update to an existing drug.

It is the first entirely new class of basal insulin to reach U.S. patients in more than two decades.

Instead of injecting insulin every single day, people with type 2 diabetes using Awiqli will only need one shot per week, on the same day, every week.

That means reducing from 365 injections a year down to just 52.

For anyone who has ever felt the weight of that daily ritual — the anxiety of forgetting, the physical discomfort, the constant reminder that their body needs help — this approval represents something much bigger than a dosing schedule.

It represents relief.

How the Drug Actually Works

Understanding why this injection lasts a full week requires a quick look inside the body.

Most traditional basal insulins are absorbed into the bloodstream and begin breaking down within 24 hours, which is why patients need a fresh dose every day to maintain stable blood sugar levels.

Awiqli works differently.

Its active ingredient, insulin icodec-abae, is engineered to loosely attach to a blood protein called albumin, which is found naturally and abundantly in the bloodstream.

This attachment creates a slow-release reservoir.

Instead of flooding the system and fading fast, the insulin releases gradually and consistently over an entire seven-day period, keeping blood sugar in a healthy range around the clock...

The FDA reviewed and ultimately declined to approve it for people with type 1 diabetes, citing concerns about a modestly increased risk of hypoglycemia in that population specifically.

Some regulatory agencies in other countries, including the European Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan, have approved Awiqli for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, but for now the U.S. approval is limited to type 2...

What Comes Next

Awiqli is not standing alone in this space for long.

Eli Lilly is developing its own once-weekly basal insulin, called efsitora alfa, which is currently in late-stage clinical trials.

If that drug also earns FDA approval, it would give patients and doctors two once-weekly options to choose from, allowing for personalized decisions based on a patient’s health profile, insurance coverage, and individual response.

The broader direction of travel in diabetes care is unmistakable.

Fewer injections, smarter formulations, and better integration with digital tools like continuous glucose monitors and insulin-tracking apps are all converging toward a future where managing diabetes requires less daily mental effort without becoming any less medically precise...

A Small Shot With Large Implications

It is easy to look at a once-weekly injection and see only a scheduling change.

But the science behind Awiqli, the scale of the ONWARDS trials, and the consistent satisfaction reported by patients all point toward something that matters far more than convenience.

Diabetes management has always asked a lot of people.

It asks for daily vigilance, daily discipline, and a daily willingness to confront one’s own condition, sometimes in uncomfortable or inconvenient circumstances.

Anything that reduces that load, without reducing the quality of care, is worth taking seriously.

For the more than 37 million Americans living with diabetes, and the hundreds of millions more around the world, a simpler weekly routine could mean the difference between a treatment plan that works on paper and one that actually works in a person’s life.

That is the real significance of what the FDA approved on March 26, 2026.

Not just a new drug.

A new way of keeping people healthy, one week at a time."

Most countries have followed a similar trend in energy usage as they industrialize, dramatically increasing their use of the dirtier fossil fuels, especially coal. Although they are now building out renewables faster than anywhere else on Earth, China is the biggest recent example of this.

However, India seems to be taking a different path--one that has recently become viable with the dramatically dropping prices of solar and battery storage. India's economy is now growing faster than China's and they are fueling this growth mostly with renewables.

This would make India the first major country to power it's industrialization with renewable energy, essentially skipping the step between coal and transitioning to cleaner forms of energy.

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

A random influencer decided he'll listen to an anti cancer song on loop. People liked it enough times he ended up listening for 9 days.

He raised 90 million in these 9 days, and then 160 million more over the last 10 hours, for a total of 250 million.

Hundreds and thousands of people signed up to donate marrow.

Hundreds of celebrities shaved their heads in solidarity.

The Foundation receiving this money had to create a special commission to figure out how to distribute the money.

The national TV stations got highjacked to stream this for hours because it was better news than anything happening in the world.

Because we broke and DOUBLED the world record for this kind of thing.

They raised about as much as the biggest running charity event in Poland did in a whole year with three decades of tradition and a goddamn army of people.

Łatwogang refuses to collab with companies that only reached out to him now because of popularity or give interviews. He said any medals people wanna give them should go to the doctors and nurses and the cancer patients.

Someone offered to renovate that shabby little flat for him as a thank you. He refused.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/polish-nine-day-charity-stream-breaks-records-support-kids-with-cancer-2026-04-27/

Just love this headline phrasing.

From the article:

Researchers at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Brazil have conducted a 2-year testing on second-life polycrystalline solar modules deployed at their campus and have found that they can still ensure “stable” behavior, with performance consistent with annual degradation rates of up to 0.44%. “Despite the many aspects making it a difficult sell, circular economy and sustainability issues might work in favor of second-life photovoltaic modules, due to the huge amount of panels that will become available with the exponential growth this technology is undergoing for nearly a decade,” the research's lead author, Ricardo Rüther, told pv magazine. 

This is so cool! They found that solar panels over two decades old still retain 87-88% of their original functionality.

From the article:

stop buying into the idea that nonviolent activism is useless, rather than (by far) the most effective form of protest

stop falsely claiming that BLM accomplished nothing and that most citizens “don’t care” when people are murdered by the state

start understanding that most of your neighbors care about your rights, and their own

Video from Aaron Parnas on Instagram.

Government controlled media is already reducing it to "hundreds" of people in the streets today, but rest assured it is tens of thousands of Minnesotans marching through downtown. Local folks on bluesky were saying all the buses were full, the metro trains were all full, the highways were empty on a Friday.