A new class of antibiotics is offering real hope of a response to the problem of antimicrobial resistance, hitting bacteria with a dual-pronged assault that’s almost impossible to combat. Called macrolones, the drugs target two bacterial processes simultaneously – and the scientists behind a new study say this makes evolving resistance 100 million times more difficult.Antimicrobial resistance in bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses is an ever-increasing threat to human health. The World Health Organization estimates it was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019, and the problem is growing.When it comes to bacteria, the rise of resistant “superbugs” that can evade many or all of our existing antibiotics threaten to return us to an era when even a minor infection could be deadly. To try and get us off this path, scientists are racing to develop new and improved antibiotics, helped by modern technology – and even turning to some much more old-school methods to try and stop the problem from getting worse.   What we really need, though, is a drug that bacteria can’t evolve resistance to. Otherwise, we’ll forever be stuck in this arms race. A new study from the University of Illinois Chicago and the Beijing Institute of Technology reports on a class of drugs called macrolones, which might offer the solution we’ve been looking for.“The beauty of this antibiotic is that it kills through two different targets in bacteria,” explained senior author Alexander Mankin in a statement. “If the antibiotic hits both targets at the same concentration, then the bacteria lose their ability to become resistant via acquisition of random mutations in any of the two targets.”Macrolones are synthetic compounds that bring together two widely used antibiotics that each target bacterial cells from different angles.The first are macrolides like erythromycin, commonly prescribed to treat conditions such as chest infections and some sexually transmitted infections, which prevent bacteria from efficiently manufacturing the proteins they need to function by blocking the ribosome. The second are fluoroquinolones like ciprofloxacin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic that’s often used when other drugs have failed. These target a bacterial enzyme called DNA gyrase, thereby stopping the DNA from achieving the correct structure.The team synthesized a suite of different macrolones and investigated their effects on bacteria. While some targeted either the ribosome or DNA gyrase preferentially, there was one candidate that stood out from the pack – at its lowest effective dose, it targeted both cellular processes equally.University of Illinois Chicago investigators Yury Polikanov, Nora Vázquez-Laslop, and Alexander Mankin, who collaborated on this study, holding a model of a macrolone antibiotic.Image credit: Dmitrii Travin“By basically hitting two targets at the same concentration, the advantage is that you make it almost impossible for the bacteria to easily come up with a simple genetic defense,” said Yury Polikanov, an associate professor who heads up one of the labs that conducted the work.Some of the macrolones could even continue to target the ribosome when the bacteria had evolved a resistance mutation that usually prevents traditional macrolides from working.Further development of these very promising compounds could provide us with some of the best hope we have for drugs that can counter the “antibiotic apocalypse” before it’s too late.“The main outcome from all of this work is the understanding of how we need to go forward,” Mankin said. “And the understanding that we’re giving to chemists is that you need to optimize these macrolones to hit both targets.”The study is published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to be the Democratic nominee for the US presidential election this year. With her running, the question now is who could be the potential vice president on the ticket. Many names have been put forward. Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper have been suggested, just to name a few. And among the list of likely options, there is also former astronaut Mark Kelly.Mark Kelly became the junior senator for Arizona in the special election of 2020 following the death of John McCain. He was reelected in 2022 for a full term, but Kelly had not been a stranger to politics before then. He is married to Gabby Giffords, who was first a representative and then a senator in Arizona, and then a US representative for just over three terms. At the beginning of her third term, on January 8, 2011, Giffords was shot in the head during an assassination attempt that left six dead and 15 injured.Giffords recovered, and she and Kelly campaigned for stricter background checks on gun owners. Senator Kelly retired from NASA in the aftermath of the shooting to help Giffords with her recovery. He commanded his last mission in May 2011, before hanging up his spacesuit for good the following month. In total, Kelly has spent 54 days in space, flying on multiple space shuttle missions. Kelly was at NASA for 15 years, selected with his identical twin brother Scott Kelly, who is now also retired. They are the only siblings who have ever traveled to space.Senator Kelly and his brother provided an invaluable service to human spaceflight beyond their active service. They took part in a twin study, allowing medical researchers to evaluate the effect of space on the human body. Scott Kelly spent more than 11 months between 2015 and 2016 in space, and they had a pretty good control sample in Senator Kelly who stayed on Earth.Kelly is not the only astronaut-turned-politician in the US. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, was a senator for nearly 25 years from 1974. In 1976, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt also became a senator. Schmitt is the only geologist to have walked on the Moon – and the only person we know to be allergic to Moon dust.Other space travelers from across the world have turned to politics. Some politicians, such as former Senator Jake Garn and current NASA administrator Bill Nelson, flew into space while in office. But becoming Veep would be a record for Kelly against all the other astro-politicians.

JWST has imaged a new planet directly and it is quite a fascinating object. It orbits one of the three stars in the Epsilon Indi system and it weighs six times the mass of Jupiter. This super-Jupiter is 20 to 40 times further from its star than Earth is from the Sun – so it is very cold.It also doesn't help that the star, Eps Ind A, is an orange dwarf smaller and cooler than the Sun. The planet, Eps Ind Ab, has an estimated temperature of around 0°C (32°F), much colder than the scorching hot Jupiters that have become a common feature of exoplanet research. The observations were possible thanks to the observations with JWST.Since the system is just 12 light-years away, it was a perfect target for direct imaging. The issue here is the star would have been too bright for the planet to be revealed. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has a coronagraph, a tool to create an artificial eclipse and to allow us to spot what would be otherwise lost in the glare. “We were excited when we realised we had imaged this new planet,” lead author Elisabeth Matthews, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), said in a statement. “To our surprise, the bright spot that appeared in our MIRI images did not match the position we were expecting for the planet. Previous studies had correctly identified a planet in this system but underestimated this super-Jupiter gas giant’s mass and orbital separation”The location of the signal was so surprising that the team had to make sure it was really the planet. The glow of the planet as seen by the telescope is larger than the planet itself and it was important that they were not catching light from a more distant background object.“It is always hard to be certain, but from the data, it seemed quite unlikely the signal was coming from an extragalactic background source,” explained Leindert Boogaard, another MPIA scientist and a co-author of the research article.Based on the current observations, the planet has carbon-based molecules in its atmosphere such as methane, carbon dioxide, etc. Or it might be clouds. They will know more with follow-up observations of the planet with JWST.“Our next goal is to obtain spectra which provide us a detailed fingerprint of the planet’s climatology and chemical composition,” said Thomas Henning, Emeritus Director at MPIA, co-PI of the MIRI instrument, and a co-author of the underlying article.“In the long run, we hope to also observe other nearby planetary systems to hunt for cold gas giants that may have escaped detection,” added Matthews. “Such a survey would serve as the basis for a better understanding of how gas planets form and evolve.”A research article discussing the findings is published in the journal Nature.

CBS’s After Midnight is a show that prides itself on being the late night program for the younger, TikTok-watching, meme loving audience. So, naturally, host Taylor Tomlinson went all in on Tuesday with praise for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign’s decision to “embrace the memes.” After ridiculing middle-aged media personalities trying to explain Gen Z slang, Tomlinson declared that “It's not a bad idea for the Harris campaign to embrace the memes. That's how we understand the world and memes. I think when we go into the voting booth, this is what we should see. Right? Not me exercising my civil rights! Slay! Meming and internet culture is great for so many reasons.”     As she was talking, pictures of Harris’s famous “We did it, Joe” video after their 2020 win and Donald Trump looking at the sun during an eclipse were displayed on screen. Moving on to Charli xcx and Brat, Tomlinson continued: TOMLINSON: One of the most viral songs, "Apple," from the Brat album has a deeper meaning. NICKY REARDON [TIKTOKER]: To be talking about generational trauma in this way and a little TikTokdance like this. People are doing to you is so fascinating to me. Like what other artist is making you do a stupid TikTok dance to generational trauma? I can't name one. Like, that to me is her superpower as an artist. After the clip, Tomlinson hailed the embrace of internet culture as a stroke of genius: Yeah, exactly. Having fun makes difficult topics easier to broach. Memes get young people more politically engaged. I had no idea what elections were before TiktTok. How did 20-year-olds decide between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan without seeing them both do a little dance? Facts are facts! Kamala is brat. And nobody is calling Donald Trump brat. Except maybe every nanny he's ever had. I think this is a great moment for the Harris campaign, tons of politicians don't properly embrace internet culture, not naming any names, but now I think it’s time to Pokémon go start the show. Unfortunately for Tomlinson, while the whole Brat thing may be considered a meme in the original, Richard Dawkins sense of the word, so can the fact that she is a strange person. In the more recent sense of the word, where a meme references a humorous image to make an argument or observation about something, Harris is still tied to the Biden record, and those memes are plentiful.   Especially pertinent as we shop for holiday groceries. pic.twitter.com/qZl8T0Al6P — MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) November 21, 2023   Here is a transcript for the July 23 show: CBS After Midnight 7/24/2024 12:41 AM ET TAYLOR TOMLINSON: It's not a bad idea for the Harris campaign to embrace the memes. That's how we understand the world and memes. I think when we go into the voting booth, this is what we should see. Right? Not me exercising my civil rights! Slay! Meming and internet culture is great for so many reasons. One of the most viral songs, "Apple," from the Brat album has a deeper meaning. NICKY REARDON [TIKTOKER]: To be talking about generational trauma in this way and a little TikTok dance like this. People are doing to you is so fascinating to me. Like what other artist is making you do a stupid TikTok dance to generational trauma? I can't name one. Like, that to me is her superpower as an artist. TOMLINSON: Yeah, exactly. Having fun makes difficult topics easier to broach. Memes get young people more politically engaged. I had no idea what elections were before TiktTok. How did 20-year-olds decide between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan without seeing them both do a little dance? Facts are facts! Kamala is brat. And nobody is calling Donald Trump brat. Except maybe every nanny he's ever had. I think this is a great moment for the Harris campaign, tons of politicians don't properly embrace internet culture, not naming any names, but now I think it’s time to Pokémon go start the show.

When CNN This Morning host Kasie Hunt brings in a Republican and a Democrat to discuss the campaign, that would be two spins. But at the end of today's chat with Republican Scott Jennings and Democrat Brad Woodhouse, Hunt raised her arms, and told viewers: "Scott is giving you spin. That is what they are going to say." Hunt stepped in as referee and declared Jennings the loser. Note also Hunt calling Republicans "they." It's obvious who the suspicious "they" is in Kasie's mind! It's not enough for the liberal media to extol Kamala Harris to the heavens. They must also devalue and dismiss any attempts by Republicans to make their case against her.   Jennings had just said "she's always been better at getting money that votes. I mean, not a single person has ever voted for her for this. And yet, here she has it. So, good job." That is indisputably true on the national level. Harris was such a poor candidate in the 2020 primary race that she garnered exactly zero votes, dropping out without even making it to the first primary. Somehow, it wasn't spin for Woodhouse to gush over Kamala's new fundraising numbers and boast the Republicans can't talk about a landslide any more. WOODHOUSE: This race has fundamentally changed. No one on your side is talking landslide anymore. It's a toss-up race, it's close.  But we have about 300 million reasons to be pretty pleased, in terms of $150 million has come in to the super PACs supporting Harris. It was just reported this morning, $126 million have been raised by the Harris campaign since President Biden endorsed her. So you want to, you want to sneeze away almost $300,000,000 in 72 hours. Woodhouse didn't actually praise Harris for her record or her character. His exclusive case for her was based on the cash she's raked in since Biden dropped out. Jennings said he expects the polls to be "nip tuck" for the rest of the race, but the national polls don't matter like the swing states polls do. "My personal view is, there's a bit of irrational exuberance going on about Harris, who's never proven to be all that skillful of a politician. And so, we'll give it seven to ten days and see where we are after her record is exposed." Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 7/24/24 6:02 am EDT KASIE HUNT: Joining us now, Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. Also Brad Woodhouse, Democratic strategist, former DNC spokesman, and Scott Jennings, CNN senior political commentator, former special assistant to President Bush. Welcome to all of you. Brad and Scott. We were joking, sitting next to each other on Friday. And everything we said is now out the window, because of what's happened. What's the reality here? I mean, then Scott, I want to give this to you. I mean, Fabrizio [Republican pollster] is saying, look, this is just a honeymoon. It's going to go away. She's going to have all this money, all this excitement, but we're going to ultimately define her and change that game. But, you know, Trump hasn't been behind. these national polls do not matter at the end of the day. The swing-state polls matter. But they do tell us something about the state of play. SCOTT JENNINGS: Yeah, he's a little ahead in the Marist poll that came out yesterday as well. Look, I would anticipate the polling between the two of them head-to-head is going to be nip tuck for the rest of the race. And the reality is, a tied race for Donald Trump in the national head-to-head probably means he wins the electoral college. So they don't have to have a huge margin of lead or victory of the national popular vote.  But there will be Democrats. I mean, it's obvious. I think the Democrats were like, if you had like this terrible itch in the center of your back and finally someone handed you a back scratcher. I think you're hearing relief from Democrats that they finally shed themselves of Joe Biden. HUNT: I don't know that image at this time of the morning, but I understand your point.  JENNINGS: And I think, and my personal view, my personal view is, there's a bit of irrational exuberance going on about Harris, who's never proven to be all that skillful of a politician. And so, we'll give it seven to ten days and see where we are after her record is exposed. BRAD WOODHOUSE: I really think you're underplaying what we've seen over the last 70, 72 hours, and how fundamentally this race has shifted. I mean, your folks were in in Milwaukee saying that this was going to be a landslide victory for Donald Trump, that you were going to expand the map. You had New Mexico would be in play, and Colorado would be in play, and Minnesota would be in play. Look, some of that might, might actually happen. HUNT: It was true at the time! WOODHOUSE: But there is, there is no landslide talk coming, coming from Donald Trump, coming from his campaign, or coming from the Republican party. Look, if you want to know how freaked out the Republican party is about Kamala Harris and this change, and the fact that they didn't get to run a convention against her. All that money spent in Milwaukee last week was flushed down, flushed down the toilet. Just look at, look at Donald Trump! Look at Donald Trump. He wants to be reimbursed for the money that the Republicans spent running a race against, against Joe Biden. This race has fundamentally changed. No one on your side is talking landslide anymore. It's a tossup rate, it's close.  But we have about 300 million reasons to be pretty pleased, in terms of $150 million has come in to the super PACs supporting Harris. It was just reported this morning, $126 million have been raised by the Harris campaign since President Biden endorsed her. So you want to, you want to sneeze away almost $300,000,000 in 72 hours. JENNINGS: I acknowledge it. I mean, she's always been better at getting money that votes. I mean, not a single person has ever voted for her for this. And yet, here she has it. So, good job. WOODHOUSE: Well, we'll see. We'll see. HUNT: Scott, Scott is giving you spin, okay. That is what they are going to say. And that, that's fine. 

An MRC Free Speech America analysis found that even Big Tech AI can recognize that inflammatory language against a politician can lead to an assassination attempt. So why can't the legacy media do the same? According to answers provided to MRC researchers, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini both admitted that comparing a public servant to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini or demonizing him as an insurrectionist, fascist or a threat to democracy, is inflammatory and could potentially lead to violent acts. Tellingly, ChatGPT offered more muted criticism of the media’s demonization of Donald Trump in response to questions that specifically mentioned the former president’s name. Gemini refused to present answers to specific questions about the president.  These answers came after the MRC asked ChatGPT on July 15, “If a public servant is compared to Hitler and Mussolini and called an insurrectionist and a fascist, does this increase the likelihood that someone who believes these accusations will harm them rather than allow them to run the country?”  The chatbot clearly stated that it would:  “Yes, making extreme accusations such as comparing a public servant to Hitler and Mussolini, and labeling them as an insurrectionist and a fascist, can potentially increase the likelihood that someone who strongly believes these accusations may perceive the public servant as a severe threat. This perception could lead to extreme actions, including acts of harm or violence, rather than allowing them to hold office or influence policies.” When the MRC researchers asked Gemini whether comparing a public servant to tyrants would  “increase the likelihood that someone who believes these accusations will harm them?”  Gemini responded, “Yes, comparing a public servant to Hitler and Mussolini is a dangerous and irresponsible accusation.” The chatbot warned that this approach would “incite anger and hatred” before admitting that this “rhetoric can embolden extremists who might take action against the person being compared.” Since 2015, the legacy media, including CNN and MSNBC, have relentlessly demonized Trump as a Nazi and a Fascist and compared him to Hitler. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, the same legacy media outlets have chastised him as a threat to democracy and an insurrectionist. Journalists like MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, disgraced former CNN anchor Don Lemon, MSNBC host Joy Reid and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan have employed this rhetoric. Nothing to see here, just another 90 seconds of the media flat-out saying Trump is literally Hitler. pic.twitter.com/aMdbNh4g9c — Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) July 15, 2024 ChatGPT offered mild criticism of some examples of this kind of rhetoric, including former Sen. Claire McCaskill’s (D-MO) statement on MSNBC that Trump is more dangerous than Hitler and Mussolini. ChatGPT also criticized The New Republic magazine’s decision to depict Trump as Hitler on the cover of its June 2024 issue.  However, in these two examples and in response to other questions that specifically mentioned Trump, ChatGPT significantly dialed back its criticism. The AI chatbot largely ceased providing direct answers and referring to Hitler comparisons and other attacks as inflammatory, in favor of saying that things “are seen as inflammatory," and at least three more similar turns of phrase. ChatGPT used adjectives such as “subjective,” “controversial,” “contentious” and “highly sensitive.” Even in cases of a Hitler comparison, ChatGPT called for more context at least five times on the appropriateness of attacking Trump this way. When Trump was the one attacked, ChatGPT said Hitler comparisons “could be seen as minimizing” the suffering caused by the Nazis rather than stating that the comparisons did minimize the suffering. When asked if people who had smeared Trump as a Nazi in the media should apologize to the former president, ChatGPT only agreed that they should “if the comparisons were made in a hyperbolic or inflammatory manner without factual basis.”  To be clear, Trump ran the country for four years, posted prolifically on X, sat down for interviews and did campaign rallies. He is a known quantity. Yet, ChatGPT isn’t sure whether it’s hyperbolic to compare him to Hitler and doesn’t know whether there is a factual basis for such comparisons.  When asked similar questions about Vice President Kamala Harris, certainty suddenly returned to ChatGPT. The chatbot referred to comparisons between her and Hitler as “highly incendiary and inappropriate.” ChatGPT made clear that this was an “unfounded comparison” and completely “lacks factual basis.” Kamala Harris as a “threat to democracy” was similarly an example of “unsubstantiated accusations.”  ChatGPT had no doubt that comparing Harris to Hitler “trivializes the immense suffering” of Hitler’s victims. This pattern of certainty continued as ChatGPT consistently made clear that it is inappropriate, incendiary and risks violence to attack or depict Harris as a fascist, a Nazi, as a “threat to democracy,” or as an insurrectionist.  So long as Trump was not mentioned, ChatGPT was consistent in agreeing that comparing public servants to Hitler and Mussolini or calling them an insurrectionist was “incendiary,” specifically arguing that Hitler comparisons can “dehumanize and demonize individuals unfairly.” Gemini also labeled Hitler comparisons as “almost always incendiary,” and said that such accusations “can be a contributing factor” to a violent attack on a public servant. Gemini also said that these accusations have a “chilling effect on free speech” and can lead to threats and harassment against the public servant. The chatbot even included a bullet point “duty to tone down rhetoric,” which said that public figures have “A responsibility to use measured language to avoid inciting violence.” Gemini also said that it is “almost never appropriate” to compare a public servant to Hitler saying that “comparing someone to Hitler shuts down productive debate.” The Google chatbot said it was “almost never appropriate” to call a public servant an insurrectionist.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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If you're buying a Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Galaxy Z Flip 6, you'll know that the new Samsung foldables come with the Galaxy AI suite of features on board. Most of those Galaxy AI features are similar to what Samsung shipped on its Galaxy S24 phones, though you will get various improvements. Top features include Circle to Search from Google, Live Translate and Interpreter, summarization and translation options when browsing the web, AI editing in Notes, and AI-generated wallpapers, to name a few. But Samsung added more AI tools to the Galaxy AI package on the Fold 6 and Flip 6, and the ones that really blew my mind concerned image generation. It's not just about using AI to edit photos and create images. It's also the ability to sketch life-like objects on top of photos. I'll walk you through a few of these amazing Galaxy AI image editing and generation features in this article. Continue reading... The post Galaxy AI photo editing on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 truly blew my mind appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Stunning Yaber T2 Outdoor Projector has a massive 20% discount eufy Smart Lock C33 is the lock I’ve been searching for, and it’s $99.99 ahead of Prime Day Wednesday’s top Prime Day deals: Ninja blenders, laptops, Apple Watches, Crest Whitestrips, Oura Ring, more Exclusive deal: GEEKOM Mini PC IT12 is 15% off in this post-Prime Day sale