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Dire wolf reportedly brought back from extinction

 https://www.newsnationnow.com/science/dire-wolf-brought-back-from-extinction/

AI is changing how we do science! Dire wolf brought back from extinction! All scientific breakthroughs and how science is done or even thought about doing science has changed! Dire wolfs today and a new AI scientific workforce next.

This is more good news about vaccines

There is a growing body of evidence that shingles vaccines are protective against dementia..,

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emerging-topics/shingles-vaccine-recipients-less-likely-develop-dementia-study-shows

Savings are being wiped out

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14571907/wall-street-stock-market-crash-trump-tariffs.html

"Americans watch in horror as savings are WIPED OUT as Wall Street chaos sees trillions more dollars evaporate."

That was from a few days ago, try checking the market Monday morning.

Drop of 15% in a week. Maybe not wiped out but that is not good for retirement funds. Who knows how far this could drop 25% is now very feasible
especially if China and Europe just screw the US but I would not be surprised if it goes way lower. Bitcoin is down 27% Since Jan.

Not looking good. Also do I have to pay 25% for my next Ferrari?

US scientists brain drain

75% of US scientists considering leaving the country in poll:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/5218404-scientists-poll-leaving-us-poll/

https://eos.org/research-and-developments/majority-of-polled-scientists-considering-leaving-united-states-signaling-brain-drain

Bay Area Sales Taxes

If the BART/Muni 0.5% added sales tax passes, Alameda County sales taxes will go up to 11% +. Ridership is down due to concerns of health, lack of parking, panhandling, and assaults. Will these issues be resolved before they try to throw more money at the problem? How many LLNL employees and retirees actually use BART?

Bay Area leaders pitch sales tax to save BART, Muni, regional transit

https://sfstandard.com/2025/03/24/bart-muni-sales-tax/

California Sales and Use Tax Rates by County and City

https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/TaxRatesbyCountyandCity.pdf

Question About LLNL Retiree Senior Advantage Plan (TCP1)

I'm turning 65 and signed up for Kaiser Permanente Senior Advantage through Empyrean benefits services. I noticed that I’m being billed $290 per month for KP Senior Advantage by going through Empyrean, whereas I can pay either $0 or $70 per month (depending on the tier of coverage) by just going to Kaiser Permanente directly. Granted, the Empyrean option sets up an HRA for me with an annual funding of $2450 by the Lab, but that would still mean my having to pay a net cost of about $1000 per year for signing up through Empyrean rather than going directly to Kaiser for their Senior Advantage plan.

Anyone know what's going on here? Is there any advantage to signing up for KP Senior Advantage by going through Empyrean as opposed to dealing directly with Kaiser?

AI is getting better

 These are interesting articles from a few weeks ago, AI is getting better at solving hard problems:

https://fortune.com/2025/02/12/openai-deepresearch-humanity-last-exam/

https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/could-you-pass-humanitys-last-exam-probably-not-but-neither-can-ai