The Pursuit of Mastery Big Think
Gray wolves are hunting sea otters and no one knows how Science Daily (Kevin W)
Social media is boosting mental health disorders and suicidal thoughts among teens, particularly in girls The Conversation
Genes influence human lifespan far more than thought, new study suggests STAT
COVID-19/Pandemics
📉25% LOWER ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY! Wowzers—one of the largest long-term safety studies ever undertaken—offers the clearest answer yet: “Among 28 million French adults aged 18–59, those who received an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine were less likely to die in the subsequent four years… pic.twitter.com/taR4Dm2v0C
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) January 29, 2026
BREAKING:
Scientists Develop Plant-Based Antiviral Chewing Gum That Neutralizes Over 95% of Flu and Herpes Viruses in Saliva
Building on earlier ACE2-based gum that cut SARS-CoV-2 in saliva by over 95% and is now in trials, the new gum targets a wider range of pathogens. pic.twitter.com/m9Y4SEzgwQ
— SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) (@COVID19_disease) January 29, 2026
Climate/Environment
What happens to forests when the planet warms up too fast Earth
Amazon is getting drier as deforestation shuts down atmospheric rivers New Scientist
HISTORIC HEAT WAVE IN AFRICA
Hundreds of records have been falling allover Africa every day of the month.Incredible "double-double" record again in the CONGOS capitals
36.2C Kinshasa
35.9C Brazzaville
Hottest January day in history for bothThey did the same thing in December! pic.twitter.com/UxGwtQAcaz
— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) January 28, 2026
Drought in the east, floods in the south: Africa battered by climate change Aljazeera
China sees most high temperature days on record in 2025 Reuters
Records fall as Storm Chandra brings flooding to the UK and Ireland Net Weather
National survey finds microplastic pollution around Britain’s coastline could be double than previously recorded University of Portsmouth
China?
I Test Drove a Chinese EV. Now I Don’t Want to Buy American Cars Anymore. Wall Street Journal. Paul R: “Surrender, Elon.”
China reportedly drops rules that sparked property crisis, developer shares surge Reuters
China’s AI Landscape: a free-for-all, not a central plan ChinaTalk
India
India hasn’t even experienced industrialisation in the first place: Ha-Joon Chang Frontline (Colonel Smithers). From last November, still germane.
Southeast Asia
Junta-backed party secures sweeping victory in Myanmar’s ‘sham’ election Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/30/junta-backed-party-victory-myanmar-sham-electionCeasefire with Cambodia still ‘fragile’: Thai foreign minister Nikkei
O Canada
Trump threatens Canada with 50% tariff on aircraft sold in US, expanding trade war Independent
European Disunion
Germany plans satellite missile detection system to cut reliance on US Financial Times
The time has sadly come for a Nordic nuclear weapon Euractiv
Old Blighty
Starmer hits back at Trump’s China criticism Telegraph
Higher food prices ‘inevitable’ due to energy cost shock, growers warn The Grocer
Who secretly owns Britain? Map of hidden UK property owners Tax Policy (Colonel Smithers)
The Palestine Action hunger strikes ended in partial victory Asa Winstanley
Israel v. The Resistance. In our recent Iran War Watch post, we were hugely remiss in not pointing out the factor most likely to constrain Trump: Mr. Market. If investors continue to drive up oil prices, Trump will blink, even if he otherwise would prefer not to. But the buildup continues….
Israel's apologists spent over 2 years sowing distrust in the official Gaza death toll.
Now the Israeli army quietly accepts that it is actually an underestimate.
Eternal shame for the atrocity deniers. They must never be absolved of their guilt. https://t.co/JDZPqbJEoU pic.twitter.com/RhcjtWPY7H
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) January 29, 2026
Full text: Charter of Trump’s Board of Peace Time of Israel (resilc)
* * * The US Navy Faces a Major Challenge in Sustaining Combat Operations off the Coast of Iran Larry Johnson
Iran ready for both war and dialogue, ‘will not accept dictation’: FM Araghchi PressTV. See further in the article. This would seem to mean no use of the big, critical Incirlik airbase, over which Turkiye has stronger rights than most nation do over US installations:
Ankara opposed to military intervention
Fidan, speaking alongside Araghchi, reiterated Ankara’s opposition to military action against Iran. “We have conveyed our opposition to a military intervention against Iran to our interlocutors at every opportunity,” he said.
How can Iranians do that to Iranians? Setareh Sadeqi describes the recent Mossad/CIA riots in Iran Vanessa Beeley
New Not-So-Cold War
Sergey Lavrov: “Our negotiating team remains committed to continuing contacts in any formats. They know what they are doing” International Affairs (Micael T). Lavrov in full on “suffer no fools” mode.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Turkish media (state television channel TRT and newspaper Türkiye), Moscow, January 29, 2026 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Note that another tweet highlights this speech includes Nebenzya saying: “Europe is governed by political pygmies. I’ve been saying this for a long time – it’s a fact. The guiding principle has vanished, and now we see a race of cockroaches.”
Russia’s Nebenzya Smashes EU Leaders’
"Peace is more dangerous than war in Ukraine" explains the madness of the EU.
Disband NATO and Brussels,they failed NATO failed.
Europe ruled by ‘MOST DANGEROUS OF FOOLS’ in continenthttps://t.co/iVaNtxCQ8b
— Politics Polly (@PoliticsPolly1) January 30, 2026
SITREP 1/30/26: Putin Flatters Trump With Kiev-Energy Ceasefire Simplicius. Note that Alexander Mercouris disagrees with this take.
NATO creating bank to prepare for war with Russia – media RT (Kevin W)
Chinese satellite reveals US military location amidst threats of US-Iran war Janta Ka Reporter, YouTube
Why it would be a big mistake for the US to go to war with Iran The Conversation (Kevin W)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Important. And why I do nothing on my phone save make a very very few calls and hail rideshares and keep it mainly in a Faraday bag.
🇬🇧 A new British police tool is capable of downloading all information from your smartphone, including deleted messages, deleted browsing history & private conversations — BBC
The device is capable of downloading:
– call logs,
– chats,
– cookies,
– device notifications,
-… pic.twitter.com/WuCNvudXiJ— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) January 30, 2026
Read the manual for a Palantir-ICE app 404 Media
Imperial Collapse Watch
New (Old) Paradigm with John Mearsheimer and Alastair Crooke CrossTalk, Rumble
How the tariff war shock affected the ‘safe asset’ privilege of US Treasuries VoxEU
Trump 2.0
Trump to Attend Screening of ‘Melania,’ a Film Heavily Promoted by Amazon New York Times (resilc)
Roaming Charges: Bored of Peace CounterPunch
Shutdown
Senate passes massive government funding package, sending it to House The Hill
L’affaire Epstein
Department of Justice Publishes 3.5 Million Responsive Pages in Compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act Department of Justice
Elon Musk Emailed Extensively With Jeffrey Epstein, Asking to Visit His Notorious Island Futurism
Stunning Epstein twist as Ghislaine Maxwell claims 29 friends cut ‘secret deals’ with DOJ Daily Mail (resilc)
MAHA
An Unknown Commission Could Destroy the Vaccine Market Eric Feigl-Ding (Dr. Kevin)
U.S. Has No Backup Plan if Foreign Generic Drugmakers Bow Out, Senator Says MedPage Today
Fed
What Does Kevin Warsh’s Nomination Mean for the Fed? Bloomberg
A Bad Heir Day at the Fed Paul Krugman
ICE Rampage
Former CNN host Don Lemon arrested after anti-ICE protests at Minnesota church BBC
Judges across the country rebuke ICE for defying court orders Politico (MJS)
Democrats say they are seeing signs of a fundraising boost amid outrage over ICE The Hill
Our No Longer Free Press
YouTube Leads All Media Barry Ritholtz (resilc)
St. Luigi
Federal judge in NYC spares Luigi Mangione the death penalty, drops murder and firearm charges Gothamist
Economy
Global Oil Discoveries Are Badly Lagging Consumption OilPrice
Mr. Market is Giddy
Gold and silver prices plunge as rally goes into reverse Financial Times
CHART: Friday massacre for mining stocks but copper price pulls out of nosedive Mining.com
Tungsten rises to record highs as export curbs turn up supply heat Reuters
AI
How the A.I. Boom Could Push Up the Price of Your Next PC New York Times
Guillotine Watch
Tim Cook’s parties with Trump hours after Pretti killing Oligarch Watch
Class Warfare
The average 50-something American is now worth $1.4 million USA Today (resilc)
Nike Says Its Factory Workers Make Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. In Indonesia, Workers Say, “It’s Not True.” ProPublica (Robin K)
THE MEANS-TESTING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Luke Farrell
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus:
The chicken that believed it was a duck is now facing the truth.
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) January 31, 2026
A second bonus:
Orange cat behavior.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/4fV2U0IvjM
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) January 20, 2026
And a third:
Fennec fox, tiny body, endless cutenes
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) January 29, 2026
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“The average 50-something American is now worth $1.4 million”
It would have been more interesting to know the mean value of a 50-something American as average means nothing. As an illustration – twenty people are sitting in a bar when in walks Jeff Bezos. At that point, the average bar-fly in that place is now a billionaire. At least this article has the decency to talk about the medium value of a 50-something American but I have the impression that this article had a lot of AI input. And what should also be mentioned about these financial figures is how the goal posts are being moved all the time so what is possible for a 30-something to earn right now might not be possible in ten or twenty years time.
Excellent antidotes today, thank you. I do particularly love orange cats. And a swimming chicken, lol.
“Elon Musk Emailed Extensively With Jeffrey Epstein, Asking to Visit His Notorious Island”
I use to think of Elon Musk as a sort of billionaire serial pest going out of his way to get people noticing him through his love of showmanship and antics. But with this article, Musk has now slid into just being pure creepy. Just like Bill Gates. Wealthy people who have it all and could make a big difference to society but cannot resist the urge to have a fling with underage girls on a secluded island. I will never look at him the same way again – as in never forgive and never forget.