China announced Monday the discovery of a crude oil reserve estimated at 100 million tons in the northeastern part of the South China Sea, according to a statement from the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

The reserve was located at the "Huicou 19-6" oil field, situated approximately 170 kilometers off the coast of Guangdong province in southern China. The field lies in waters averaging 100 meters in depth.

CNOOC said test drilling at the site yielded 413 barrels of oil and 68,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day.

As US President Donald Trump prepares to announce reciprocal tariffs on April 2, which he calls “Liberation Day,” attention is turning to the potential impact on global trade.

Trump’s tariff plans remain a major source of global uncertainty, with fears that countermeasures from other countries could deepen trade tensions.

His announcement that the US would impose 25% tariffs on car imports has brought renewed attention to Türkiye’s automotive exports to the American market.

According to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), the US remains a key destination for Türkiye’s automotive sector.

https://archive.ph/H5h3n

Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe asteroid 2024 YR4, which earlier this year seemed to be at risk of hitting Earth in 2032. Earth is now safe, but astronomers are cheering on a possible collision with the moon

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE have begun dismantling the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), beginning with stated plan is to cut half of the agency’s workforce.

Their biggest cuts appear to be in the Large Business and International division, which audits wealthy individuals and companies with more than $10 million in assets. These are essentially the workers that make sure billionaires and corporations pay their taxes.

Musk and Trump claim to be sage businessmen, but it would be hard to find a business owner in America that would dismantle their accounts receivable department when their wealthiest clients still owe them money.

So make no mistake: These cuts will cost taxpayers a lot more than they save.

The coronavirus membrane protein (M) is the main organizer of coronavirus assembly1,2,3. Here, we report on an M-targeting molecule, CIM-834, that blocks the assembly of SARS-CoV-2. CIM-834 was obtained through high-throughput phenotypic antiviral screening followed by medicinal-chemistry efforts and target elucidation. CIM-834 inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 (including a broad panel of variants) and SARS-CoV. In SCID mice and Syrian hamsters intranasally infected with SARS-CoV-2, oral treatment reduced lung viral titres to nearly undetectable levels, even (as shown in mice) when treatment was delayed until 24 h before the end point. Treatment of infected hamsters prevented transmission to untreated sentinels. Transmission electron microscopy studies show that virion assembly is completely absent in cells treated with CIM-834. Single-particle cryo-electron microscopy reveals that CIM-834 binds and stabilizes the M protein in its short form, thereby preventing the conformational switch to the long form, which is required for successful particle assembly. In conclusion, we have discovered a new druggable target in the replication cycle of coronaviruses and a small molecule that potently inhibits it.

We show that the human brain contains diverse mitochondrial phenotypes driven by both topology and cell types. Compared with white matter, grey matter contains >50% more mitochondria. Moreover, the mitochondria in grey matter are biochemically optimized for energy transformation, particularly among recently evolved cortical brain regions. Scaling these data to the whole brain, we created a backwards linear regression model that integrates several neuroimaging modalities11 to generate a brain-wide map of mitochondrial distribution and specialization.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20241729

Rice University researchers have developed an innovative solution to a pressing environmental challenge: removing and destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly called “forever chemicals.” A study led by James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and graduate student Phelecia Scotland unveils a method that not only eliminates PFAS from water systems but also transforms waste into high-value graphene, offering a cost-effective and sustainable approach to environmental remediation. This research was published March 31 in Nature Water.

Schools cannot withhold documents that discuss a child’s gender identity from parents, the U.S. Department of Education said in a Dear Colleague letter to educators.

The Friday letter said many schools and states have misinterpreted federal student privacy laws in ways that prevent parents from knowing when their child is going by a different name or pronouns at school.

Advocates for LGBTQ youth say that most schools try to involve parents but not all parents are safe or supportive.

Following months of testing, Plex has started to roll out its redesigned mobile app to Android and iOS devices, and it will arrive to everyone within the next week. The new app comes with an updated navigation system that should make it easier to access different parts of the app and find content to watch, along with a dedicated tab for centralized media libraries.

It also has a button in the top-right corner of the screen for your Watchlist and more artwork across detail pages for shows and movies, as well as cast and crew profiles. In a post on the Plex forum, the company outlines a ton of improvements it has made to the app since the preview, including faster load times and scrolling, the addition of a sleep timer, and picture-in-picture support.

Education officials in Maine declared this week that they will not sign a compliance agreement with the Trump administration, continuing the state’s standoff with President Trump over his political fixation on transgender girls in school sports.

On March 17, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated in a press release that both the Maine Principals’ Association and Maine School Administrative District No. 51 (MSAD 51) had violated Title IX civil rights law by allowing trans girls to compete with cisgender girls in the same school sports leagues. The release said both entities would be offered “an opportunity to voluntarily commit within 10 days to resolve the matter through a signed agreement or risk referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for appropriate action.”

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Money that had been allocated to state and community health departments and other groups for COVID-19 response is being cancelled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The cancellation of $11.4 billion in grants awarded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, first reported by NBC News, is the latest in a series of funding cuts that have been implemented at federal health agencies by the Trump administration since January. The funds were primarily being used by states to support COVID testing and vaccination, as well as an initiative to put more trained community health workers in communities that have been most affected by COVID-19 and an effort to address COVID-19 health disparities.

Termination notices began on March 24, according to an official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).