Lugh

"The aircraft, a converted Cessna Caravan, performed autonomous taxiing, takeoffs, route navigation, and landings under remote supervision from Joby’s Autonomy Headquarters in California and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, up to 2,323 miles away. The journey demonstrated the operational capabilities of Joby’s autonomy technology across a range of environments, supporting applications in commercial freight, medical transport, disaster response, and defense logistics."

We can see 2 ways future air travel may get much cheaper now that electric powered flight is becoming a reality for smaller/mid-sized planes. Cheap fuel (electricity) & much lower staffing costs thanks to self-flying tech.

Will there one day be an airline that is 100% electric and only self-flying? Probably. This strikes me as a great option for people who live in more sparsely populated areas. They are not economical for the big airlines, but they may be for an all-electric self-flying airline.

Joby Completes First-Ever Fully Autonomous Flight Across the United States

“While early, these results are highly encouraging after delivering just a single, off-the-shelf administration of VNX-101, which enables the body to produce a CD19/CD3 T-cell–engaging protein,” said Samit Varma, Chief Executive Officer of Vironexis. “These three patients have tried multiple lines of therapy and, sadly, exhausted available treatment options. We believe the depth, consistency, and emerging durability of these responses provide important clinical validation of our in vivo therapeutic proteinplatform, and compelling proof of concept for its potential to transform the body into a meaningful, durable source of highly active cancer therapeutics.”

As ever, caveats apply from such a small sample. However, this is a highly encouraging demonstration of this new approach.

Vironexis Announces Complete and Durable Responses in Relapsed/Refractory ALL Patients Treated with VNX-101

"German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that the plan "combines independence, affordability and climate protection.........It is not just extreme weather events around the world that demonstrate how urgently we need to do more to protect the climate," he said. "If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz determines whether people can still afford their daily commute to work, that is not a good state of affairs."

If there's been an upside to the Middle East War, it's that it's been a giant advertisement for renewable energy. Not just cheaper, cleaner, & better, crucially it means energy-independence, too.

Smart move by Germany. Their industrial and manufacturing base is getting clobbered by China because they stuck with the dying fossil fuel paradigm for too long. Every other EU nation has committed to ending fossil fuel use, hopefully this further accelerates their efforts, too.

Germany sets out plan to phase out fossil fuels by 2045

"There are few limits to the service. The teen account must be connected to a parent or guardian, but once activated, teens can hail autonomous rides anywhere in Waymo’s service area in Nashville — and bring their friends along. Waymo told TechCrunch that teen account holders can bring up to three guests ages 13 to 17…….. it may also be part of the appeal for parents who would rather their kids pile into a Waymo than in a vehicle driven by a teenager. "

Waymo's charges are variable, so it's hard to directly compare the costs of exclusively using it versus car ownership. However, for most young drivers, car ownership costs are probably north of $10k per year, perhaps nearer $15k. That means for the lighter/less frequent drivers, Waymo is probably cheaper. Plus, robotaxis are only going to get cheaper. The day will come when it will be the more economical option for almost all urban drivers.

Another plus point, especially for parents, is how much safer they are. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. What premium is there for avoiding the life-changing nightmare of your child dying in a traffic accident?

Once widespread robotaxis were a sci-fi hypothetical, but now it's becoming real. If robotaxis are finally becoming widespread, why learn to drive at all? It will be interesting to see if there's a falloff in the rate of driving tests among the young in Nashville.

Waymo’s latest expansion strategy: teenagers

US DoT Fatality Stats - PDF 6 pages

AI's hallucination problem still hasn't been solved, which means the rational choice is to second guess everything it says. In which case, is all the extra work generated worth the time?

AI is vulnerable to manipulation via data poisoning, and as Big Tech is so opposed to safety regulation, we've no idea how much this is happening. It would be in some countries' interest to spark a major security confrontation between China and America. That may not be what happened here, but there are surely people thinking and acting along these lines.

US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say

There's a famous quote from the Economist John Maynard Keynes: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." I wonder what he'd make of the current AI stock bubble.

You know what other advantage open-source AI has? No enshittification. OpenAi has already started selling ads alongside ChatGPT responses. We all know how that led Google to destroy the best search engine ever. No thanks.

I think all this matters. A world where most AI is decentralized & open source, sounds far better than the various visions of dystopia Big Tech offers.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash achieved 98% of top-ranked GPT-6 Astra’s average score, at just 1% of its average cost

The good news is that all of these forces will be going into reverse for fossil fuels, and simultaneously cascading their decline.

The report identifies 5 key areas renewables have self-perpetuating feedback loops.

• Clean electricity as the master cascade. Solar and wind have crossed positive tipping points in many markets; further scaling is now self-propelling.

• Commodity supply chain transformation.

• High-quality marine protected areas, locally managed marine areas and fisheries co-management. Well-designed and well-enforced ocean conservation produces visible recovery of fish stocks and biodiversity within years

• Clean cooking and clean household energy. Around 2.1 billion people still rely on solid fuels for cooking.

• Adaptation enablers. Things like anticipatory action, adaptation finance and climate-resilient infrastructure. Also, governance, monitoring and social tipping, climate-resilient health systems are explicitly identified as enablers of self-propelling adaptation.

Positive Tipping Points: Accelerating system change to repair our planet was developed by the University of Exeter’s Green Futures Solutions team, in collaboration with The Earthshot Prize

"Mice that took semaglutide also did better than control animals on tests that evaluated coordination, muscle function and how the body processes sugar. Moreover, when the researchers investigated a set of cellular and molecular changes thought to drive ageing in the body — including inflammation — they found that their effects were dampened in treated mice compared with untreated ones."

In most rich developed countries average lifespan is about 83 years. If this GLP-1 effect holds true for humans, that would bring their lifespan to 93. Furthermore, the GLP-1 drugs improved the quality of those years.

Taking 65 as a retirement age, then this might double the amount of time a pension could be paid out. People already worry about supporting an aging population in the future, now this "problem" could be more acute. But of all the problems facing humanity, this is one of the best to have. 9 extra years of life is overwhelmingly good news, and we'll learn to adapt, as humans always do.

Can GLP-1 drugs slow ageing? Mouse study shows promise