Good news on global health, waste reduction, brain research
It’s our good-news Friday, so, as usual, I’ll leave the free section of Fix the News to you and will highlight three of the more than 30 items in its section that requires a subscription.
— “For the first time ever, a full treatment course for drug-resistant tuberculosis now costs less than $300, after a third major price cut this year,” says Fix the News. “That’s an 89 percent drop from a few years ago — and a major boost for global TB elimination goals. The new price, made possible through the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility, is expected to expand access across dozens of low- and middle-income countries.”
— The European Parliament has adopted new legislation to prevent and reduce food and textile waste across the European Union, reports Recycling Today.
Binding food waste reduction targets include a 10 percent reduction from food processing and manufacturing and a 30 percent reduction per capita from food services, restaurants, retail and households by 2030, calculated in comparison to the amount generated as an annual average between 2021 and 2023. On textiles, producers will be asked to cover the costs of collection, sorting and recycling.
— Testing brain activity in mice, researchers have discovered that a specific group of cells receives instructions to make the brain recognize the contours of many illusions, reports Discover Magazine.
“In certain diseases you have patterns of activity that emerge in your brain that are abnormal, and in schizophrenia these are related to object representations that pop up randomly,” says study author Jerome Lecoq, associate investigator at the Allen Institute. “If you don’t understand how those objects are formed and a collective set of cells work together to make those representations emerge, you’re not going to be able to treat it; so understanding which cells and in which layer this activity occurs is helpful.”
Israel military stops nearly all boats in flotilla carrying aid to Gaza, sparking global protests
Trump says U.S. is in ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels, in apparent extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers
Trump is no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses shutdown to further pursue its goals
The looming health insurance spikes for millions that are at the heart of the government shutdown
Watchdog group files complaint against 2 federal agencies over banners on websites blaming Democrats for shutdown
Trump asks 9 major universities to commit to his political agenda in exchange for more favorable access to federal funds
Reuters: Supreme Court expands its ‘emergency’ docket — and Trump’s power
Heather Cox Richardson on FBI/ATF raid on Chicago apartment building, Russell Vought shutdown cuts, more
ProPublica: Musk’s SpaceX took money directly from Chinese investors, company insider testifies
FDA approves another generic abortion pill, drawing outrage from conservatives