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The Kristian Anderson memo to Dr. Fauci is the No. 1 story in the WSJ on June 5. This memo written on Jan 31, 2020 shows the initial reaction of the leader of five virologists to the coronavirus genome. Nicholas Wade writing in WSJ cites this memo as having missed the censors marker as the emails to Fauci were released under the Freedom of Information Act. The initial reaction is cited in the Anderson memo to Dr Fauci as seeing "unusual features" in the virus. These were in a small percentage of the genome, "so that one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered." Mr. Anderson goes on to note that he and his team of virologists 'all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory." What does Anderson mean by this important phrase? Anything inconsistent with evolutionary origin has to be man-made is the conclusion drawn by many virologists including David Baltimore, cited here in the WSJ. Virologist later modified their stand saying it was evolutionary because of professional interest in not starting a what WSJ calls "storm of condemnation" over gain of function research, a exotic name for genetically enhancing the pathogenic power of viruses or increasing its transmissibility effect. Nicholas Wade is a Science writer who has worked for Nature, Science and The New York Times. ...

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Research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows the reduction of serotonin in the gut from coronavirus as a cause of long covid symptoms. This NYT report looks at the research findings.

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A Brookings Institution study finds patents produced in a few cities in the U.S. In addition to Silicon Valley, the area around Santa Clara and San Jose, the study finds Rochester, Minnesota, Corvallis, Oregon, Burlington, Vermont, and Boulder, Colorado, as cities where there is a high degree of patent activity. The IBM research centre in Corvallis, Oregon, is one reason for Oregon being on the list. The greatest importance is having a research university nearby. Government funding of research universities helps fund new research. The study finds strong correlation between patents and innovation.

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Shocking decline in reading in UK- NLT Surveys research of 80,000 young people  in UK shows  of 8-11 years old children girls 36% and boys 26% read actively, 14-16 years girls down to 17% and boys down to 10%. Is a similar pattern evident in the US? This is the root of many of our problems. Reading competes with other activities and screen time leads to a severe loss in reading. Teenage reading is especially fragile. Reading ability and wide knowledge helps build working skills and income generation so that it means more people in this generation are poor than previous generations, a general increase in poverty and lower incomes across neighborhoods and families in the UK and US. This also has correlation with health and mental health so that this means the children and growing young adults are in a fragile group in advanced countries of US and Europe, especially fragile when it comes to knowledge, learning skills, health and incomes. A reverse situation in some Asian advanced countries with a hunger for knowledge means the gap is opening up between the US and Europe and these Asian countries. ...

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Impact of $100-$138 a barrel oil prices from Iran War on US economy is modest - stable unemployment inflation at 2.9% instead of 2.7% and decline by 4 tenths of a percentage point in GDP growth. This is the view of 50 economists at banks, companies and research consulting gorups surveyed by WSJ March 16-18 cited in both the WSJ and her inthe NYT. NYT says unless the prices reach $200 which is unlikely, there won't be a recession. The reason is that the US is self sufficient in oil needs and exports oil and gas to Europe, and now to India and Japan. In fact in the domestic economy oil producing states in the Permian Basin including Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico and state of Alaska will actually see more growth. US will also generate more revenue from oil exports. US will also be able to leverage the situation to bring Venezuelan production with additional investments in upgrading the Venezuelan oil fields from American oil companies. This will be more attractive at higher oil prices and revenue generated will be sent to benefit the Venezuelan people. What it does affect lis ow income people with long commutes to work in the US. ...

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Hindenburg Research is a short seller who launched an attack on the Adani Group of infrastructure companies in India. Adani Group companies lost about 18.5% of their stock value after the attack. Hindenburg Research is based in New York City and was founded by Nathan Andersen in 2017. It has 5 employees.

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In a great success story for Africa and medical research in Africa, Congolese medical scientist Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe's research helps find a solution for tackling the Ebola virus.  The Ebola virus has killed 9 out of ten patients in outbreaks in Africa, particularly in the Congo.  A international coalition of doctors and scientists have proven in clinical trials that new Ebola drugs, a result of Dr. Muyembe's research, work effectively to save lives. Dr. Muyembe was one of the first scientists to identify the Ebola virus. The disease began in 1976 from a remote village near the Ebola river in the Congo. The clinical trials were done in the middle of a war torn country, in the northeast of the COngo, in tent-sided field hospitals that served as Ebola treatment centers. Two treatment centers were set on fire. Ebola patients recovered often after a single intravenous dose.  Dr. Muyembe's scientific research that showed that antibodies or proteins that the immune system produces to fight infections can build up a patient's defenses against Ebola, was initially received with skepticism and doubts by the medical research community. In trials patients given a single anti-body drug  had a 35% mortality rate compared a common 90% mortality rate without treatment. The NAID-led drug , mAb114, was made from an antibody of n Ebola survivor found by Dr. Muyembe who has dedicated his life to fighting Ebola, and is the head of the  Congo National Institute of Biomedical Research. The WHo and NAID, organized the clinical trials. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has developed a drug based on this research REGN-EB3 which shows 34% mortality rate and better results when patients received the treatment soon after the illness.  About 240,000 people in the northeastern Congo have received vaccination for Ebola to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading. ...

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The options facing Research in Motion's Blackberry as sales spiral downwards. Factors affecting sale of the company to buyers and valuations.

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Research in Motion puts together a Blackberry smart phone in June 2012 by combining a patchwork of licensed technologies.

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Climate change study from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published in Nature magazine retracted in December 2025. The study is an example of how such research when not done right can misrepresent situations leading to policy errors. Policy error under such misrepresentation can lead to errors such as a policy that excludes adjustments and a dual response to climate change and cost of living crisis attacking both on two fronts necessary today so soon after a disastrous pandemic and people living in scarcity not able to meet heating bills. What happened is that the study made predictions for 2100- which is impossible to do. Studied 1600 regions in the world. Showed decline of economic output by 62% in 2100. Did not mention that excluding Uzbekistan would make the reduction in growth 23%. It shows how overzealous work in one direction or the other can actually hurt the fight to address climate change and also tackle everday concerns like cost of living crisis. Recent reports in WSJ show how the approach of single focus has hurt economic growth in Germany and hobbled its industries. Other reports show how deprived and less deprived areas in the UK (also in the US) sit by side showing how decades of neglect of manufacturing and outshoring of factories have destroyed jobs and destroyed communities across Europe and the US, making them open to scourge such as fentanyl in the Nation's neighborhoods, and creating a climate of despair that feeds into other fears. Such as the fears of the surge of illegal migration promoted by traffickers and the influx of drug trafficking gangs in the Nation's neighborhoods. Such reports are then used by the World Bank and the Congressional Budget Office and central banks of 90 counties in the coalition Network for Greening of the Financial System, leading to distortions in policy actions, destroying the social consensus needed among wide sectors of the population in democracies in the EU and US and worldwide to address climate change and cost of living crises.  Leonie Wenz, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany says-“We broadly agree with the issues raised, and have made corrections to the underlying economic data and to our methodology to address them. These changes are too substantial for a correction of the original article in Nature.”   ...

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The amazing story of Katalin Kariko who came to the US from Budapest, Hungary, in 1989 taking a position as research assistant professor at the UPenn Medical School.The work of Katalin Kariko in mRNA vaccine research that led to the discovery of mRNA vaccines was derided at first at Penn leading her work to be shunted to a lab on the outskirts of town and having her pay cut in a demotion, says this WSJ report. It won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2023. Universities are not places where new ideas can get a boost when there is much skepticism and constant pressure for research funding on more conventional lines. Less opportunity for experimentation that can lead to new discoveries that revolutionize science and medicine.  Kariko and others working as research assistant professors were shunned at Penn and referred to as "aliens" because inthe interests of research they took lower paid positions. As it turns out Kariko felt liberated during the period of her being demoted, to work even more patiently on the mRNA molecule, one that was more difficult than the DNA molecule most researchers had focused on. This report in WSJ shows a picture of a Budapest street with a large mural of Kariko. Unfortunately few people in her adopted country know about the work of this remarkable scientist to whom is owed so many millions of people's protection with mRNA vaccines. ...

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This article in The Guardian on the lifting of the ban on a kind of risky research on virus in labs that involves increasing the power of pathogenic virus, first appeared on March 9, 2016. It is called gain of function research. The ban was lifted in 2018. It shows how fiercely this decision was opposed in the scientific community, even as some virologists and bureaucrats went ahead. An agency National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, going by the acronym NSABB would make the recommendations to National Institutes of Health or NIH agency, and the Health Ministry in the US called the HHS.

 

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Paul Krugman says the movie Oppenheimer reminds him of the role played by immigrants and intellectuals in the scientific part of the war effort, in radar and atomic research. He describes the role of Isaac Rabi in the cutting edge research at MIT's Radiation Laboratory that gave the US a radar system the German submarines could not detect, leading to protection of the sea lanes and winning the Battle of the Atlantic in 1943. 

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Value of a college degree in US not what it once was. Pew Research shows dissatisfaction among young people and the young vote evenly divided between the two main parties in the US in 2025.

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About 8% of Americans are multiracial, and 10% of 1 year olds are multiracial, a Pew research report released in 2015 shows.

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How Google searches by Supreme Court justices brings up information used in deciding cases before the Supreme Court. The widespread use of searches in research by justices.

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The new head of Roche, Severin Schwan, sees a huge opportunity in the current state of pharmaceuticals. He says drugmaking is still "so crude," because half of all known diseases cannot be treated at all, and the drugs for the diseases that are being treated don't work as well as they should and with a lot of side effects that make serious drawbacks in using them. He compares this state of affairs to acar that starts only half of the time and has brakes that don't always work. What gets hime excited is the rapid advances in diagnostics, genomics and biotechnology that can bring a"brand new revolution" in personalized medicine. He is pushing forward in the areas of biotechnology with the $47 billion deal that integrates Genentech into Roche, and in molecular diagnostics with the integration of 454 Life Sciences and Ventana. Doubts were raised during the integration of Genentech into Roche about whether the research climate at Genentech could be preserved and whether research scinetists would leave. But most have stayed. With the resources of a larger company behind Genentech and the patient approach that a firm with a founding family controlling the firm can take under a leadership determined to invest in research, experts like Tim Anderson of Bernstein Research see Roche well positioned to grow by aquarter over the next five years....

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This WSJ report is part of its ongoing investigation of the origins of the coronavirus and the role of a risky coronavirus research study in Wuhan, China.

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A sign of irrelevant factors intruding into political discourse is this lawsuit challenging the TikTok ban in Texas saying that it prevents academic research. TikTok as a social media app was never known for its use in academic research. A lot has been written about its harmful effects on teenagers. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed this lawsuit making this bizarre, as it brings a large east coast university into this discourse, that does nothing to address the harmful effects of social media when two thirds of fourth graders in the US are not proficient in reading.

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Over the last 5 years 2021-2025 Americans who are more excited than concerned about AI has dropped from 18% to 10%, and Americans who are more concerned than excited has grown from 37% to 52%, in Pew Research surveys. Showing that self-interested tech companies such as Microsoft and OpenAI, Google are making loud claims for AI that do not reflect the views of the American people as a whole in 2025.

Americans by large margins in Pew Research believe AI will help in day to day tasks from weather forecasting to inventing new medicines. And by large margins of 40% Americans think AI will hurt ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships and by 20% will hurt for making difficult decisions. This shows Americans -similar to people in China as reported- believe in using AI for ordinary day to day routine tasks, and are wary of AI and aware that AI's usefulness is limited to such routine tasks only.

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Visionary physicist Charles Townes conducted the breakthrough research that led to the development of the laser in a long career that spanned several decades of work as a professor at Columbia University, a researcher at Bell Labs, and at MIT and UC Berkeley.

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Anti Immigration sentiment is not new - it has just changed racial stereotypes from arguing against southern and eastern Europeans and barring Asians for "quality" in 1890-1970 to today's heated debates about Latin American nationalities.  Pew Research ( and the adjoining MPI) show highly relevant US Immigration history. Pew Research shows the foreign born share of the American population is at 13.8 percent. It reached 14.8% percent by 1890,  brought down in the interwar period by 1970 to 5 percent. It has gone back up- the wave of immigration blocked from successive Acts keeping out Chinese (1882), Japanese (1924) and all Asians(1924) has changed to include Asian migration under policies of John F. Kennedy. Pew Research shows in 2022  10.6 million immigrants living in the US were born in Mexico, making up 23% of all immigrants. This is 3.2% of the US population of 335 million in 2024 according to the Census Bureau. The promise of president Harris to sign the legislation negotiated with Republicans in Congress (Senator Lankford) in March to close the Border would remove this distraction from cost of living, housing, and climate challenges. ...

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Britain's prime minister spent 3 nights in intensive care for coronavirus. He said the "development of a vaccine is the most urgent shared endeavor of our lifetimes." He will confirm Britain's pledge of 388 million pounds for vaccine research, tests and treatments, part of 744 million pounds to the the global effort against coronavirus. "The more we pull together and share our research the faster our scientists will succeed."

An online pledging conference will take place on Monday as part of the vaccine fundraising drive of the European Union and other countries. The initiative from the EU and president of the EU Ursula von der Leyen, is to raise 7.5 billion euros for vaccine research and development of a vaccine for coronavirus. It has the support of Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Japan, Canada, and other countries. The month long investment drive will go on till the Global Vaccine Summit on June 4.

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Silicon Valley R&D at Google X, Microsoft Research and other creative labs. How this is different from R&D at Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, which gave an impetus to work at Apple and Fairchild Semiconductor during the the era of the sixties and seventies. Claire Miller poses the question what happens to basic research done at government research labs and places like Bell Labs, PARC, in today's world where moonshot research efforts could mean Google Glass, and where many of the new products or apps are acquired such as Google's Maps. These acquired companies lack the resources for basic research and are for the most part smaller efforts. Is what is done now adequate? Apple has many efforts in-house and invested in developing the iPad and iPhone, including coming up with the new concept and taking it to commercialization on a global scale. The Google X draws media coverage, yet basic and applied research is going on all the time in labs from Boeing's airplane research to Apple's new product from scratch efforts building on prior research and developments in each field....