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A TikToker who went viral teaching science videos predicts short-form video will make its way into the national curriculum after 2024 saw him publish a new book and win a TikTok award. Emanuel Wallace, 27, from east London, is better known as Big Manny by his 1.9 million followers on TikTok, where he shares videos explaining various science experiments from his back garden while using Jamaican Patois phrases and London slang. In early December, Mr Wallace won the Education Creator of the Year award at the TikTok Awards ceremony, which he said is a “symbol that anything that you put your mind to you can achieve”. The content creator began making videos during the coronavirus pandemic when schools turned to online learning but has since expanded his teaching from videos to paper after releasing his debut book Science Is Lit in August. He believes his “unconventional” teaching methods help to make his content relatable for younger audiences by using slang deriving from his Jamaican and British heritage. “The language that I use, it’s a combination between Jamaican Patois and London slang because I have Jamaican heritage,” the TikToker, who holds a bachelors and masters degree in biomedical science, told the PA news agency. “That’s why in my videos sometimes I might say things like ‘Wagwan’ or ‘you dun know’. I just want to connect with the young people more, so I speak in the same way that they speak. “The words that I use, the way that I deliver the lesson as well, I would say that my method of teaching is quite unconventional. I speak in a way that is quite conversational.” Examples of his videos include lithium batteries catching fire after being sandwiched inside a raw chicken breast, as well as mixing gold with gallium to create blue gold, earning millions of views. Mr Wallace hopes his content will help make the science industry more diverse, saying “the scientists that I was taught about, none of them look like me”. “Now me being a scientist is showing young people that they can become one as well, regardless of the background that they come from, the upbringing that they’ve had,” he said. “I just want to make it seem more attainable and possible for them because if I can do it, and I come from the same place as you, there’s no reason why you can’t do it as well.” The TikToker has seen a shift in more young people turning to the app as a learning resource and feels short-form videos will soon become a part of the national curriculum in schools. “I’m seeing (young people) using that a lot more – social media as a resource for education – and I feel like in the future, it’s going to become more and more popular as well,” he said. “I get a lot of comments from students saying that my teacher showed my video in the classroom as a resource, so I feel like these short form videos are going to be integrated within the national curriculum at some point in the near future.” He also uses his platform to raise awareness of different social issues, which he said is “extremely important”. One of his videos highlighted an anti-knife campaign backed by actor Idris Elba, which earned more than 39 million views, while his clip about the banning of disposable vapes was viewed more than 4.6 million times. He said there is some pressure being a teacher with a large following online but hopes he can be a role model for young people. “I’m aware that I am in the public eye and there’s a lot of young people watching me,” he said. “Young people can be impressionable, so I make sure that I conduct myself appropriately, so that I can be a role model. “I always have the same message for young people, specifically. I tell them to stay curious. Always ask questions and look a little bit deeper into things.” His plans for 2025 include publishing a second Science Is Lit book and expanding his teaching to television where he soon hopes to create his own science show.

Saints assistant Todd Grantham to become defensive coordinator at Oklahoma StateDavid Perry, a longtime urban planner and Chicago professor who focused on strengthening cities and making urban spaces serve residents, has died at age 82. He died Dec. 2 at home following a long illness, according to his family. Mr. Perry was the director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago for nearly 12 years. He was also an urban planning and policy professor at UIC and served as associate chancellor for the Great Cities Commitment. He retired from the university in 2018. He also served on several public projects, including Chicago’s Zoning Reform Commission, the Urban Land Institute’s National Public Infrastructure Committee and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Judith Kossy, his wife of 20 years, told the Sun-Times Mr. Perry had a “profound sense of social justice” and his guiding philosophy was to “live your values.” He was also curious and eager to learn from his students, Kossy said. “David was never the professor who behaved like the font of all wisdom,” she said. “Rather, he treated his students as peers and joined them in exploring key questions, ‘What’s different here, and how does it affect our thinking about cities and the people who live there?’” He championed engaged research, Kossy said. Whenever he would go into a community to research them, he would treat the people he studied as a partner and would share his findings with them to help address the problems facing their community. Mr. Perry wrote and edited over a dozen books and over 150 articles that focused on economic development, race, politics, urban violence, public infrastructure, urban space and the role of universities and community foundations in American cities. Integrating universities with the surrounding community was especially a passion for Mr. Perry. In 2014, he delivered a guest lecture at the University of Washington in Tacoma in which he asserted that “universities need to be community-based organizations.” He pointed to the once-neglected section of the Loop that was transformed into a hub for higher education, including DePaul’s downtown campus, Columbia College and Roosevelt University. “The academic corridor is no longer the desolate hole in the downtown doughnut. It’s a new anchor of Chicago’s development in the Loop,” Mr. Perry said. “It’s a 24/7 educational corridor with clusters in the knowledge economy.” Mr. Perry earned his doctoral degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He taught in the government department at the University of Texas at Austin and chaired the urban planning program at SUNY Buffalo. He was also a senior faculty fellow of New York’s Rockefeller Institute and held joint appointments as professor of Public Administration and professor of Political Science at UIC. Aside from his work, Mr. Perry’s joys were his family and friends, music, skiing and traveling. In addition to Kossy, he is survived by his sons, Clayton Perry and Evan Perry; his daughters-in-law, Jamie Perry and Veronica Perry; and four grandchildren, Sam, Jack, Colin and Dillon.

Bryce Miller was a fourth round pick by the Mariners in the 2021 MLB draft and never appeared higher than 98th on MLB Pipeline’s Top-100 prospect list. Still, he reached the major leagues after just 160 total innings in the minors and enjoyed immediate success. That success faded quickly, but he’s done an incredible job reinventing himself as a pitcher over his brief career and looks to be on the verge of stardom. Here, I’m going to talk about the adjustments he made on his way to breaking out, why they worked, and what to expect from him next season. I’m writing these break out pieces every week. Check out how Hunter Greene is on the path to becoming an ace from last week and how Tarik Skubal became the best pitcher in baseball two weeks ago. Pitching is Easy? Bryce Miller burst onto the scene in 2023 as a fastball-forward, power pitcher who wasn’t afraid to challenge hitters. Initially, that was a great plan. In his MLB debut, he took a perfect game into the sixth inning. Over his first five starts, he had a sparkling 1.15 ERA – lowest in the league – with 28 strikeouts, three walks, and completed at least six innings in each start. At the same time, Miller was throwing his fastball 70% of the time. That was more often than any other pitcher in baseball. And it worked because he came to the majors with one of the most explosive fastballs in the league. It had above average velocity, significantly above average induced vertical break, was difficult to barrel up, and hitters had no answers despite Miller filling up the zone with it. Everything was perfect! Easy, even. Show up and throw a bunch of fastballs in the strike zone. They’ll never hit it, right? This major league baseball thing is simple. Well, that turned out to not be true. The Yankees lit Miller up for eight runs in his next start and he went on to have a 5.31 ERA over his next 20 outings to end his rookie season. He began to tinker a bit during these struggles by adding a two-seam fastball and sweeper while more changeups, but couldn’t pull himself together. That gave him a new tenacity to attack the offseason with. Thomas Nestico wrote a great thread about how Miller used science to become an ace and this excerpt he used taken from an interview with Brandon Gustafson says it all. Passion, open-mindedness, creativity, desire to be great, whatever you want to call it was at the center of Miller’s breakout. Do the Splits The first step for Miller was finding a better way to attack left-handed batters. Simply put, they torched him during his rookie year. So, he went straight to the lab and was determined to develop a splitter. Here’s a video from his own Twitter account last winter showing his progress with the new pitch. Progression of the splitter continues 🧪 pic.twitter.com/crYPFdVAyK That was on December 22nd and he was already so confident in the pitch that he broadcasted it from his own social channels (shoutout B Money). He even included the pitch’s characteristics that his Trackman captured. By the time the regular season rolled around, his splitter had been featured in countless articles, videos, and even got the Pitching Ninja treatment in spring training . Clearly chomping at the bit, he threw it 20 times in his 2024 debut – 16 of which to lefties – and it forced six whiffs, earned a 40% chase rate, and allowed just one measly single. He also nabbed his first two strikeouts of the season with it as looked downright nasty in the process. Bryce Miller's 3Ks in the 1st. That new Splitter sure looks good (1st 2 Ks) pic.twitter.com/6fAXsfsCOf With the early success, the pitch was still very new and thereby inconsistent. Splitters are often inconsistent by nature, but Miller’s was extreme even by normal splitter standards. Check out the pitch movement chart for Miller’s split compared for Shota Imanaga’s from this past season. David Adler wrote a great piece about this bizarre movement pattern in May and said that Miller basically had three different splitter variations inside the one pitch. Miller told him all he was trying to really do was locate it below the zone and “if it’s moving either direction, or just straight down, that’s fine.” He also said the pitch “kind of has a mind of its own sometimes,” to Adam Jude of the Seattle Times in April. While wonky, the pitch was working. It had a 38.5% whiff rate in April and Miller had a 2.04 ERA at the end of that month. Yet, its effectiveness began to fade as the season wore on. It missed fewer bats in May than it did in April, then fewer bats in June than it did in May. Between those two months, Miller’s ERA spiked to 4.94 and he once again needed to find a new wrinkle to break out of his slump. ‘Death’ to Batters Some pitchers just have a knack for picking up new pitches. Yu Darvish and Zack Greinke seemed to pick up new ones or add variations to their existing ones whenever they felt like it. Miller’s teammates George Kirby and Logan Gilbert have picked up a few each in their short time in the majors, too. Miller is no different. He adapted with his two-seamer as a rookie, his splitter soon after, and then a curveball that would push him towards ace status. The Mariners acquired reliever Mike Baumann from the Orioles on May 22nd. He was designated for assignment on July 19th. In those 50 days, Miller was able to learn his patented ‘spike curve’. “It was like a ten second conversation,” Baumann told Lookout Landing , “and all of a sudden he was throwing it in games.” Uncanny. He debuted the new knuckle curve on June 29th and that started a string of 15 starts to end the season where he had a 1.94 ERA. Interestingly, Miller experimented with a curveball the year before, but it was a more traditional, looping curve and he scrapped it after throwing just 20 in games. Check out the different movement profiles between the old and new curveballs. The new pitch is coming in much harder and moves more straight up and down. That classifies it as a ‘death ball’ shape. Jeff Passan popularized the Death Ball trope last postseason when Jordan Montgomery rode it to World Series glory. All the death ball classification really means is that the pitch is dropping due to its gyro spin rather than falling over itself with top-spin, like most other curveballs. When you hear gyro spin, think about the way a football leaves your hand when you throw a spiral. If I can nerd out for a moment... Death balls are more so a variation of gyro sliders than actual curveballs because they share the same spin characteristics as the gyro slider, just with more drop. Also, the death ball especially kills side-to-side movement and can be thrown much harder, just like those sliders. Miller already threw a gyro slider which is why the death ball likely came easy to him. Lance Brozdowski has a great YouTube Video explaining death balls more in depth if you want to learn more. Don’t worry too much about that death ball moniker, though. It will not be the new sweeper. Just a more specific pitch classification that’s meant for players, coaches, and fellow nerds. Anyway, here’s an overlay from Thomas’ thread showing how well the death ball plays off his fastball. When working on his knuckle curveball, Bryce Miller wanted a pitch to specifically play off his fastball. “I’m hoping it looks like a fastball, and then just drops” ( @TheBGustafson ) Let’s see how this interaction worked out against NL MVP Finalist, Francisco Lindor 14/ pic.twitter.com/l7thnHiHiX Pitch shape jargon aside: this is really all that matters: the pitch looks like his fastball and then the bottom falls out. It’s exactly what Miller needed to tie his repertoire together. Results While his season took many twists and turns, it was still very good on the whole. Miller wound up with a 2.94 ERA across 180 1/3 innings with 171 strikeouts for the season. That made him the seventh most valuable starting pitcher for fantasy – better than Seth Lugo and Corbin Burnes – according to FanGraphs’ player rater . If you segment from when he first used his knuckle curve (or death ball hehe), Miller’s 1.94 ERA trailed only Blake Snell, Paul Skenes, and Chris Sale while his 0.91 WHIP trailed only Snell and teammate Logan Gilbert. He was also in the top-20 in SIERA and K-BB%. That is superstar level, SP1 quality with a clear and obvious material change that spurned his success. What’s Next? I’m incredibly bullish on Miller mostly because of how dominant he was once he had both the curveball and splitter at his disposal. Sometimes we can muddy the water looking at splits in our analysis, but Miller had true, material changes that turned him into a stud. Yet, he’s currently the SP13 – between Imanaga and Aaron Nola – in early drafts over at the NFBC. That’s surprising since he beat that price last season, got markedly better, and remains in one of the best situations for a pitcher in baseball with the friendly confines of T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Perhaps his price is relatively low because he’s outshined by teammates Gilbert ad Kirby who are each being drafted inside the top-40 picks overall. Or maybe there’s fear Miller will take another half step back as he’s done each of the first two times he vaulted himself forward. I wouldn’t let either of those dampen the shine of what Miller can do. We have a starter in one of the best pitchers’ parks in baseball with a rock-solid fastball, multiple effective secondaries, and a knack for picking up new pitches whenever the moment strikes. He is a star.

TikToker teaching science hopes short-form video will become part of curriculum

The suspect in the high-profile killing of a health insurance CEO that has gripped the United States graduated from an Ivy League university, reportedly hails from a wealthy family, and wrote social media posts brimming with cerebral musings. Luigi Mangione, 26, was thrust into the spotlight Monday after police revealed his identity as their person of interest, crediting his arrest to a tip from a McDonald's worker. He has been connected by police to the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week in broad daylight, in a case that has laid bare deep frustrations and anger with the nation's privatized medical system. News of his capture triggered an explosion of online activity, with Mangione quickly amassing new followers on social media as citizen sleuths and US media try to understand who he is. While some lauded him as a hero and lamented his arrest, others analyzed his intellectual takes in search of ideological clues. A photo on one of his social media accounts includes an X-ray of an apparently injured spine, though no explicit political affiliation has emerged. Meanwhile, memes and jokes proliferated, many riffing on his first name and comparing him to the "Mario Bros." character Luigi, sometimes depicted in AI-altered images wielding a gun or holding a Big Mac. "Godspeed. Please know that we all hear you," wrote one user on Facebook. "I want to donate to your defense fund," added another. According to Mangione's LinkedIn profile, he is employed as a data engineer at TrueCar, a California-based online auto marketplace. A company spokesperson told AFP Mangione "has not been an employee of our company since 2023." Although he had been living in Hawaii ahead of the killing, he originally hails from Towson, Maryland, near Baltimore. He comes from a prominent and wealthy Italian-American family, according to the Baltimore Banner. The family owns local businesses, including the Hayfields Country Club, per the club's website. A standout student, Mangione graduated at the top of his high school class in 2016. In an interview with his local paper at the time, he praised his teachers for fostering a passion for learning beyond grades and encouraging intellectual curiosity. He went on to attend the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where he completed both a bachelor's and master's degree in computer science by 2020, according to a university spokesperson. While at Penn, Mangione co-led a group of 60 undergraduates who collaborated on video game projects, as noted in a now-deleted university webpage, archived on the Wayback Machine. On Instagram, where his following has skyrocketed from hundreds to tens of thousands, Mangione shared snapshots of his travels in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. He also posted shirtless photos flaunting a six-pack and appeared in celebratory posts with fellow members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. However, it is on X (formerly Twitter) that users have scoured Mangione's posts for potential motives. His header photo -- an X-ray of a spine with bolts -- remains cryptic, with no public explanation. Finding a coherent political ideology has also proved elusive. Mangione has linked approvingly to posts criticizing secularism as a harmful consequence of Christianity's decline. In April, he wrote, "Horror vacui (nature abhors a vacuum)." The following month, he posted an essay he wrote in high school titled "How Christianity Prospered by Appealing to the Lower Classes of Ancient Rome." In another post from April, he speculated that Japan's low birthrate stems from societal disconnection, adding that "fleshlights" and other vaginal-replica sex toys should be banned. ia/nro

MrBeast ‘s controversial, lawsuit-ridden Beast Games is premiering next month. On Monday, the YouTuber shared the trailer for the reality competition show and announced it will air on Prime Video on Dec. 19. “I spent over a year creating this 10-episode competition series, breaking 40 world records, building the craziest sets in entertainment history, featuring 1,000 players, and a $5,000,000 grand prize!” MrBeast wrote . “This show will blow your mind.” “Start the timer!” MrBeast declares in a mic before the teaser trailer flashes clips of a Squid Games -esque competition show featuring a thousand contestants as they attempt to win the cash prize. “Witness a competition show like no other.” A post shared by MrBeast (@mrbeast) The teaser reveal comes about two months after five former contestants of Beast Games filed a class action lawsuit against the show’s production company. The lawsuit arrived the same day Rolling Stone published an investigation, where former contestants described unsafe work conditions and chaos. The complaint accused MrB2024 of having “shamelessly exploited the labor” of the hundreds of contestants and mischaracterizing their participation on the show to avoid employment obligations — including fair pay and mandatory meal and rest breaks — under California law. It claimed that contestants suffered “unreasonable, unsafe, and unlawful” work conditions, including being “fed sporadically and sparsely,” and that women were subjected to sexual harassment. Another claim in the suit said that the “insufficient caloric intake” provided “endangered the health” of contestants. (One contestant who spoke with Rolling Stone said they received a single “scoop of rice” on their 15-minute break over a 16-hour shift. Another PA alleged that “catering ran out of food a bunch of times.”)Xavier tries to get right vs. Morgan State before rivalry clashL.A. County Teens Use Tech to Pitch Business PlansCity closes pedestrian bridge over Rideau River for winter use

NEW YORK — A slide for market superstar Nvidia on Monday knocked Wall Street off its big rally and helped drag U.S. stock indexes down from their records. The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, coming off its 57th all-time high of the year so far. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 240 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite pulled back 0.6% from its own record. Nvidia's fall of 2.5% was by far the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 after China said it's investigating the company over suspected violations of Chinese anti-monopoly laws. Nvidia skyrocketed to become one of Wall Street's most valuable companies because its chips are driving much of the world's move into artificial-intelligence technology. That gives its stock's movements more sway on the S&P 500 than nearly every other. Nvidia's drop overshadowed gains in Hong Kong and for Chinese stocks trading in the United States on hopes that China will deliver more stimulus for the world's second-largest economy. Roughly 3 in 7 of the stocks in the S&P 500 also rose. The week's highlight for Wall Street will arrive midweek when the latest updates on inflation arrive. Economists expect Wednesday's report to show the inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling remained stuck at close to the same level last month. A separate report on Thursday, meanwhile, could show an acceleration in inflation at the wholesale level. "Investors should enjoy this rally while it lasts — there's little on the horizon to disrupt the momentum through year-end," according to Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, though he warns stocks could stumble soon because of how overheated they've gotten. On Wall Street, Interpublic Group rose 3.6% after rival Omnicom said it would buy the marketing and communications firm in an all-stock deal. The pair had a combined revenue of $25.6 billion last year. Omnicom, meanwhile, sank 10.2%. Macy's climbed 1.8% after an activist investor, Barington Capital Group, called on the retailer to buy back at least $2 billion of its own stock over the next three years and make other moves to help boost its stock price. All told, the S&P 500 fell 37.42 points to 6,052.85. The Dow dipped 240.59 to 4,401.93, and the Nasdaq composite lost 123.08 to 19,736.69. In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rallied 1.7% to settle at $68.37 following the overthrow of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, who sought asylum in Moscow after rebels overthrew his regime. Brent crude, the international standard, added 1.4% to $72.14 per barrel. The price of gold also rose 1% to $2,685.80 per ounce amid the uncertainty created by the end of the Assad family's 50 years of iron rule. Get local news delivered to your inbox!MANILA, Philippines — People using deepfake technology to post content on social media are required to clearly disclose that the material is not real or they could face prosecution under the cybercrime law, an official from the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) warned on Wednesday. In a television interview, Mary Rose Magsaysay, the CICC’s deputy executive director, acknowledged the challenges of curbing the spread of deepfakes, especially in relation to next year’s midterm elections. But she stressed that the government has the tools and expertise to identify and pursue those responsible for creating and distributing deceptive content. READ: Comelec, DICT urged to act on ‘deep fakes’ “The word is—we cannot prevent anyone from using it and surely it will be used, but we can also assure the public that the government will run after cybercriminals who use it because we can detect deepfakes,” Magsaysay told “Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon.” “We urge—not just appeal to—the public that whenever they are posting something with deepfakes, they must put a caveat (warning) there to inform the public that the post is not real; otherwise, we can have them charged,” she added. According to Magsaysay, the CICC has been buying and developing its anticybercrime tools that allow all law enforcement agencies to track down cybercriminals. “We are in collaboration with all the [telecommunications companies] as well as the [electronic wallet platforms], and even all the agencies are helping one another day in and day out,” she said. The CICC also has a “very close relationship” with Meta, the company that owns Facebook, which is the world’s biggest social media platform with approximately 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide as of 2023. “All that [netizens need to do] is dial 1326 because we recoup your Meta or Facebook accounts outright to stop hackers from continuing with their fraudulent activities,” she said. The CICC official also cautioned social media users against posting materials not meant to be public. “Please don’t post pictures of your children. But if you can’t help it, you make it private, you choose your friends well because you cannot choose your enemies,” she said. Subscribe to our daily newsletter By providing an email address. I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy . An attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the CICC is responsible for all functions related to cybersecurity, including the formulation of the National Cybersecurity Plan.

Musician Ed Sheeran has apologised to Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim after gatecrashing his post-match interview after Sunday's 1-1 draw with Ipswich Town . Amorim was being interviewed on Sky Sports after the match at Portman Road when Sheeran interrupted to speak with pundit Jamie Redknapp. Sheeran has faced criticism on social media after the incident, and took to Instagram to apologise to the United boss. "Apologies if I offended Amorim yesterday, didn't actually realise he was being interviewed at the time, was popping in to say hi and bye to Jamie," Sheeran said. "[Obviously] feel a bit of a b------ but life goes on. Great game though, congrats on all involved x." Editor's Picks Amorim: United set for long period of suffering 14h Mark Ogden Man United's draw at Ipswich reveals enormity of Amorim's task 11h Mark Ogden Transfer rumors, news: Arsenal, Chelsea battle for Isak 7h ESPN Sheeran, who is fan of Ipswich and has a minority stake in the club, is also the front of shirt sponsor for the club. He was on hand to watch as Kieran McKenna's side came from behind to earn a point against United in Amorim's first match in charge after taking over from Erik ten Hag. Amorim's first game at Old Trafford comes against FK Bodø/Glimt in the Europa League on Thursday, while Ipswich travel to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Saturday.

HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) — Khaden Bennett's 23 points helped Quinnipiac defeat Sacred Heart 83-73 on Sunday. Bennett added five rebounds for the Bobcats (5-5, 2-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference). Amarri Tice added 19 points while shooting 6 for 16 (2 for 11 from 3-point range) and 5 of 5 from the free-throw line while they also had five rebounds and eight steals. Paul Otieno shot 5 of 9 from the field and 2 of 4 from the free-throw line to finish with 12 points, while adding three blocks. Amiri Stewart led the Pioneers (4-6, 1-1) in scoring, finishing with 18 points, eight rebounds and three steals. Anquan Hill added 15 points for Sacred Heart. Bryce Johnson also had 11 points. Quinnipiac plays Tuesday against Holy Cross at home, and Sacred Heart hosts Albany (NY) on Wednesday. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

Renowned visionary English physician William Harvey wrote in 1651 about how our blood contains all the secrets of life. “And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent,” he wrote. “So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general ... but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.” Dr. Kevin Watt, team leader of the Heart Regeneration and Disease Laboratory at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, understands this concept deeply. He lives it every day, as he and his fellow researchers study and reprogram the potential of the blood to treat disease, specifically heart failure in children. Building on the work of Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan, who discovered that specialized cells could be reprogrammed back to immature stem cells, Watt and his collaborators have taken this work several steps further. They have used small molecules to turn these new stem cells from the blood into heart cells. Small heart organoids are developed in the lab — which can then be injected into the failing hearts of children. Relying on the philanthropic support of the Murdoch Institute, the work is progressing rapidly and has been shown to be effective already in mice, pigs and sheep. Clinical trials in humans will be starting soon, and as Dr. Watt told me in an interview from Australia, “Large sheets of heart tissue will be stitched into the failing heart.” Congenital heart failure as well as side effects of chemotherapy in children will be targets for this miracle therapy. Millions of children around the world suffer daily from these conditions. Watt said that certain chemotherapy (anthracyclines) have a higher risk of heart failure – up to 15% of the time – and this treatment may be useful to protect the heart. Watt said, “Heart failure remains an urgent, unmet clinical challenge across the world. While we have made significant advances over several decades in managing the disease, we lack targeted therapies to treat these devastating conditions.” He added, “More than 500,000 children around the world live with advanced heart failure that requires transplantation. The vision of our research is to develop new therapies that can transform the lives of children with heart failure.” To achieve this, he said, “we use a technology called induced pluripotent stem cells, where we can convert blood or skin cells of patients with heart failure into stem cells that we then turn into heart cells ... or even make engineered heart tissues that can be stitched onto the patient’s heart to help it pump.” The cells that are targeted in the blood are known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). They are “pushed back in time to an earlier time before they became differentiated into heart or kidney cells,” he said. Then they can be pushed forward to become healthy heart cells or mutations — or other abnormalities can be corrected. While the team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is making heart cells from stem cells in the blood for clinical use, it’s also using these stem cells to figure out new drugs to treat heart failure directly. Said Watt, “Using stem cells from patients with heart failure caused by chemo, we are actively developing new drugs and cell-based treatments that we believe will transform the lives of patients with these conditions ... Our research group has pioneered methods to turn these stem cells into miniature heart tissues that can be used to model disease-in-a-dish, to identify new drug targets for the development of new therapies.” These treatments are personalized and highly expensive, but they’re also highly effective. Correcting heart failure in young children is only a few years away from becoming a reality. It’s a Christmas miracle that relies on the kind of philanthropic support that MCRI is famous for arranging. “Philanthropic support plays a critical role in accelerating the development of these new, transformative treatments,” said Watt, “and this support will be essential as we work toward bringing stem cell-based precision therapies for heart failure to every child who needs it.”Analysis: Assad was a brutal dictator. Will Syria's new leaders be any better?

Secret documents show that then taoiseach Albert Reynolds sought to rely on “custom and practice” to explain the controversial appointment of Attorney General Harry Whelehan as a High Court judge in 1994. State papers released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule offer insight into the political controversy that would lead to the collapse of the Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition government after just two years in power. They reveal how Mr Reynolds sought to justify pushing ahead with Whelehan’s appointment as a judge, despite the move being opposed by Labour leader, Dick Spring. The government ratified his formal nomination at a Cabinet meeting on November 11, 1994, which was not attended by his coalition partner’s ministers. Paedophile priest The Attorney General had been under criticism at the time over his mishandling of the extradition of a notorious paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth, to Northern Ireland to face child abuse charges. Whelehan had claimed the delay in extraditing Smyth was due to the fact that it was the first case of its type that was covered by new legislation. Beef Tribunal and the X Case The former Attorney General had already been involved in a number of other controversies in his role as the government’s top legal advisor, including his intervention in the Beef Tribunal to prevent minister Ray Burke from being questioned about Cabinet discussions on the beef industry on grounds of breaching Cabinet confidentiality. Whelehan had also sought an injunction in 1992 to prevent a teenager who was pregnant after being raped from travelling to Britain for an abortion in what became known as the X Case. Fr John Duggan case Following his appointment to the High Court, however, his replacement as Attorney General, Eoghan Fitzsimons, dropped a bombshell when he revealed that there had been a previous similar case to Fr Brendan Smyth in 1992 which had been personally dealt with by Whelehan. Mr Reynolds accused Whelehan of seriously misleading the government and stated he would not have proposed or supported his appointment to the judiciary if he had been aware of the earlier case which related to Fr John Duggan. Collapse of coalition Although the taoiseach expressed regret at the appointment in an attempt to repair relations with Labour, Mr Spring collapsed the coalition and formed a new government with Fine Gael and Democratic Left, while Whelehan resigned as a judge a few days later after coming under intense pressure to relinquish his post. Newly-released State papers show that a senior civil servant advised the taoiseach that Whelehan’s appointment could be explained on the basis that it was “custom and practice” by referencing a long-standing tradition of appointing former attorney generals to the judiciary. Records showed that 14 out of the 22 attorney generals in the history of the State had gone on to take up judicial roles. They reveal that in preparation for a Dáil confidence debate on November 16 and 17, 1994, Mr Reynolds was advised to emphasise the historical precedent for such appointments. Draft speech notes prepared for him included references to briefing materials dating back to the tenure of Éamon de Valera with regard to the promotion of an attorney general. Mr Reynolds said he had relied on a briefing note prepared by the government secretary which had in fact first been drawn up when his predecessor was taoiseach and which had been “carried forward in that format and context for almost forty years”. The Fianna Fáil leader said the real point what not what the briefing note said “but the custom and practice which has operated since the foundation of the State”. The draft note concluded with the Latin phrase: “Res ipsa loquitur” which translates as “the thing speaks for itself”.MEXICO CITY (AP) — Over 18,000 people in Mexico have registered online to run for Supreme Court seats and federal judgeships in the country’s contentious new selection process, but a random drawing in the end will determine who gets on the ballot, officials said Monday. The ruling party pushed through to make all federal judges stand for election, replacing the system where court employees and lawyers mainly move up through the ranks. Current court employees and their supporters have staged dozens of demonstrations against the reforms, calling them part of a ruling-party campaign to weaken checks and balances and eliminate independent regulatory and oversight bodies. Now, candidates for Supreme Court seats and federal judgeships need only a law degree, a grade point average of 3.2, “five years of professional experience” and five letters of recommendation from neighbors or friends. That, and some luck in the final drawing. Officials rejected criticism that has called the process rushed or amateurish for the often highly technical posts that can hear cases including intellectual property, organized crime and Constitutional law. “The results have been spectacular,” said Arturo Zaldivar, a top advisor to President Claudia Sheinbaum. According to the plan, evaluation committees will have just over a month to review thousands of resumes and whittle the field to about 10 candidates or less for each for the 881 judgeships and Then 1,793 names chosen at random from those selected will appear on the ballot on June 1. Critics warn that many who land on the ballot will be unknowns who perhaps have never argued a case in the courts they seek to run. “You don’t elect a doctor or a surgeon for an operation based on their popularity, you elect them based on their technical expertise, their ability, their knowledge,” said Sergio Méndez Silva, the legal coordinator for the civic group Foundation for Justice. “That also applies for a judge.” With candidates now having to run election campaigns, critics warn there’s a chance drug cartels or political parties could finance them to get friendly judges onto the bench. There are also concerns that the evaluation committees deciding who makes the cut for the selection to appear on ballots may not be impartial. Most committee members were appointed by the legislative or executive branches, controlled by the ruling Morena party. Some critics argue that the current justice system, which is riddled with nepotism, corruption and a lack of accountability, needs to be changed. “We need a justice system that gives results,” said Martínez Garza, an academic and former head of the human rights commission in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon who has registered to run for a Supreme Court seat. Trials in Mexico can last for years, and the ruling party has added to meaning that a large percentage of the prison population is people awaiting trial.