AI videos getting better

“I don’t believe anything I see online, unless it’s on *Ars Technica*.”

Full eight-second video: Click on the pic or here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/A_candid_interview_202505261604-1.mp4.

The above video was in fact generated by an AI video program. Can you see anything that clearly shows it to be computer-generated? This article (3,300 words) shows several AI-generated videos that are very good and would need careful examination to find flaws (also several videos that still have serious flaws).

This has serious implications for political or criminal misuse… maybe generate a video “Show current president declaring war on Australia”…

But there’s still good news from Fix the News:

Global suicide rates have declined by 29% since 2000, marking a major but often overlooked public health success. Narrative violation alert: the drop has been most pronounced in high-income countries, with more gradual progress in others. The trend reflects expanding access to mental health care, public awareness efforts, and means restriction—but further gains will require deeper investment and cultural shifts, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. WHO

Experts on preventing cancer

Despite the fact that one in two people will get cancer, many of us are ill informed about what we can do to prevent it. How do oncologists live their lives based on what they know? Doctors share the secrets of living healthily and the risks worth taking – or not.

Roughly 40% of cancers are preventable. Topics (each with more detail):

1. Don’t smoke
2. Try to maintain a healthy weight
3. Reduce your meat intake
4. Avoid ultra-processed foods
5. Drink less alcohol
6. If you notice anything you are worried about, see a doctor
7. Keep up to date with screenings
8. Get physical
9. Wear sunscreen
10. Manage stress
11. Look into genetic risk
12. When faced with a diagnosis, knowledge is power
13. Don’t fear treatment
14. Talk about it
15. Live life to the full

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/11/the-experts-oncologists-on-the-simple-doable-everyday-things-they-do-to-try-to-prevent-cancer: 2,300 words.

And good news from Fix the News:

CRISPR treatments are ready for prime time: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has created the first custom CRISPR therapy to save an infant named KJ with a rare metabolic disease, while in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a biotech startup has used a flexible form of CRISPR editing called prime editing to restore the immune functions of an immunocompromised teenager suffering from chronic granulomatous disease.

White and Nerdy

A song by Weird Al Yankovic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw. 2 minutes 51 seconds. Lyrics and detailed explanation: https://genius.com/Weird-al-yankovic-white-and-nerdy-lyrics.

I’m just too white and nerdy
Really, really white and nerdy

It’s a parody of Charmillionaire’s Ridin’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwJvgPJ9xw):

They see me rollin’, they hatin’
Patrollin’ and tryna catch me ridin’ dirty…

I particularly like at 24 seconds, where Key and Peele lock the car door… of an open convertible. Also Donny Osmond’s dancing is excellent:

And the fake Trivial Pursuit card at 1:10 (for about 1 second):

And good news from Fix the News:

“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Bill Gates has announced plans to give away nearly $200 billion between now and 2045, after which the Gates Foundation will permanently close its doors. In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times (gift link), he explains why this is the time to go all in given Trump’s assault on global health, the promise of more lifesaving innovations in the near future, and the potential impact of AI.

The Philosophy of Liberty

This is a long (10,000 words) and excellent review of how we have (mostly?) moved from governments that are simply the tool of a king to governments that are tools of, by, and for the people. Fascinating from a historical and political perspective! Read the entire thing…

What I mean when I say liberalism is its original (and broadly international) meaning: the political philosophy which first emerged fully in the early modern period and which places individual freedoms – liberty – as its central, defining value. This is the ideology of the Declaration of Independence and the political theory upon which – however imperfectly – the United States was predicated….

And it is that distinction that brings us usefully to the particular kind of freedom: liberalism is a political philosophy which recognizes, indeed which chiefly values, individual freedom from communal constraints.

We are often so used to liberal societies – or illiberal ones that use liberalism’s language as a mask – that we miss the radicalism of that vision. As Patricia Crone notes, traditional pre-modern societies, by and large, have little space for the individual…

It is, I think, all too easy once again to miss the radicalism of this moment. In 1776 there were no governments founded on liberal ideas. ((The Declaration of Independence)) was, among other things, a radical enough document to have its publication suppressed by various European monarchies for decades; the text of the thing was banned in Russia for eight decades and in Spain for nine. In asserting the fundamental equality of mankind, in denying the divine right of kings – who only, in the document, derive their just authority from the consent of the governed – the Declaration presented an explosive set of ideas. Indeed, a set of ideas that would explode in France not too many years later.

Link: https://acoup.blog/2024/07/05/collections-the-philosophy-of-liberty-on-liberalism/.

And good news from Fix the News:

The Paris region has cut air pollution by over 50% in two decades, saving thousands of lives. Fine particulate and nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 55% and 50% respectively since 2005, reducing pollution-related premature deaths by one-third over a decade; Europe’s strict 2030 air quality standards are now being met across most of the region. Air Parif

COVID versus cancer (in mice)

During the pandemic, some doctors anecdotally began noticing that some people with cancer who got very sick with COVID-19 saw their tumors shrink or grow more slowly…

Typically, monocytes, as part of the immune system, cruise the bloodstream and alert other immune cells to the presence of foreign cells or pathogens; some monocytes can attract cancer-killing immune cells to tumors, but others aren’t as effective in doing so. That’s because in some cases, cancer cells can co-opt monocytes —“like a demon summoning forces” —and form an immune wall protecting the tumor from being discovered and attacked by additional immune defenses.

But during a COVID-19 infection, SARS-CoV-2 attaches itself to these monocytes, and by doing so reverts them back to doing their original job: defending the body against cancer…

By analyzing the receptor on the monocytes that the COVID-19 virus attached to, Bharat found a compound that currently isn’t used to treat any disease but is a close mimic of the COVID-19 virus in the way that it binds to the monocyte to induce the cell’s transformation into a cancer-fighting cell…. In animal tests, the compound—called muramyl dipeptide (MDP)—reduced tumors by 60% to 70% in mice with human cancers including breast, colon, lung, and melanoma.

Full article: https://time.com/7176558/covid-19-virus-cancer-monocytes/ (approx 763 words).

And good news from Fix the News:

The EU is in the midst of finalizing a plan to completely end imports of Russian fossil fuels; the European Commission first pledged to quit Russian fossil fuels in 2022 as a response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The imports won’t completely end until 2027, but in the meantime, Czechia has achieved full independence from Russian oil for the first time in its history; the country now receives no supplies through Russia’s Druzhba pipeline, ending a 60-year dependency. This is significant because Czechia previously received half its oil from Russia and had an EU exemption from the 2022 Russian oil ban.