It's all part of a quest to discover the best ways to send messages through human bodies instructing those bodies to perform in whatever way they are ordered to do.
Just when you thought you'd heard the last of the Covid vaccines — those mRNA vaccines you've come to "know and love" as MIT so endearingly puts it — there's a new version in town.

Welcome to the next generation of self-amplifying Covid vaccines, also known as replicons.

No, they aren't "replicants" like in my favorite movie, Blade Runner (the original from 1982).

Although, in a way, it is disturbingly like that. Except they're replicating inside our bodies. Like a photocopy machine. Yeah, inside our bodies.

Whatever will they think of next?

Japan just announced it's become the first country in the world to approve the new vaccine, called LUNAR-COV19.

FYI, I found it interesting that they named it LUNAR and introduced it at the same time as Japan's LUNAR landing touched down on the Moon just days ago.

Talk about synchronicity — or good marketing.

The collaborations on these vaccines get a little complicated but to break it down, Meiji Seika Pharma is the company that obtained exclusive rights to distribute Kostaive (LUNAR) from CSL Seqirus. They are collaborating with ARCALIS INC. to establish integrated mRNA vaccine manufacturing capabilities from drug substance to drug product.

Now, I know that's a boring read. But I include the information to emphasize a point. If I were to list all the companies involved in this type of research, production and manufacture, the list would be almost endless — and even more endlessly boring.

That list would also be extremely incestuous. For example, Bill Gates invests billions of dollars in multiple rival companies, in anticipation that a few will stick. In this race, only the most powerful can enter and the stakes are high. Astronomical amounts of money, beyond what we can imagine, are invested into these technologies. Not to cure us of anything — how absurd! But to make even more astronomical amounts of money for the men behind the technology.

None of these powerful players — I mean none of them — is going to let these vaccines fail. Even if they do fail — they won't. Do you get what I'm saying? This is as obvious as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Those who dare dispute the wonder and magic of these vaccines are often discredited or worse.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's continue.

Argentina's Health Ministry on Sunday reported five people have died from Western Equine Encephalitis virus amid 39 cases of infection registered in five of the South American country's 24 provinces.

Cases have been concentrated mainly in the central region of the country, with 38 of the 39 infections registered in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Rios and Cordoba, and one case in the northern province of Santiago del Estero.

Are twin measles outbreaks on both sides of the Atlantic laying the groundwork for a new vaccine push?
Measles outbreaks hit the headlines in the both the US and UK this week.

The UK is allegedly in the middle of a serious measles outbreak centred on Birmingham. The BBC reports:

Birmingham Children's Hospital has been inundated with the highest number in decades of youngsters with measles

The West Midlands has reportedly seen as many as 167 measles cases in total, the BBC claiming "low vaccination rate has been attributed to the rise." (pretty sure they mean "the rise has been attributed to the low vaccination rate" but you never go to the BBC for accuracy.)

167 cases may not seem like a lot, but it towers over Philadelphia's "outbreak", where 8 WHOLE ENTIRE PEOPLE have tested positive for measles, according to NBC:

At least eight people have been diagnosed with measles in an outbreak that started last month in the Philadelphia area. The most recent two cases were confirmed on Monday.

Just like the BBC, NBC is quick off the mark when it comes to assigning blame:

"None of the people in Philadelphia who've been diagnosed [ever] got a measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine".

The NB and BBC reports were published just hours apart, about two different "outbreaks" in two different countries, yet both hit the exact same talking points.

Dangerous fungi in the soil of the Gaza Strip have caused the death of an Israeli soldier and the hospitalisation of at least 10 others earlier this month, Israeli media reported on Monday.

The Israeli soldier who was taking part in the ground assault on the besieged Gaza Strip was battling an infection in hospital for several days before succumbing to "serious injuries" resulting from different fungi infections, KAN News reported.

The following is a commentary posted by Künstliche Intelligenz at X. I've translated it in English below.

It sums up well what's going on when it comes to corona and climate and what to expect in 2024.

"Corona, climate narrative and opportunity costs

After the first vaccination campaigns in the corona pandemic, it was reasonable to assume that people would ask themselves questions after the third, fourth or, at the latest, after the fifth vaccination. But this rational assumption cannot be applied when we are dealing with a faith-based model.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Anyone who got Covid after the initial double vaccination could have told themselves the vaccination doesn't work, so I can go without it in future. However, after three years, many vaccinations, lockdowns and countless masks, it is now very difficult to 'opt out'. The opportunity costs are high because you would then have to admit that you had been fooled for years."

An alarming spike in pneumonia cases among children has been detected in the Netherlands, mirroring a similar surge in China.

Dutch health experts say a striking number have been sickened since rates began soaring in August, with most cases among those aged five to 14.

Surveillance data shows rates of the illness, which can prove life-threatening, are already nearly twice as high as the peak recorded last year.

Scientists today called for vigilance and transparency from China amid reports of a mystery pneumonia outbreak - which has eerie similarities to the early Covid outbreak.

Hospitals in Beijing and 500 miles northeast in Liaoning are among those 'overwhelmed with sick children' with unusual symptoms that include inflammation in the lungs and a high fever, according to local news reports.

Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician who is part of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program, said on X (formerly Twitter) that the illness 'could be anything' as China did not reveal what they have tested for.

Dr Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told DailyMail.com that more transparency is needed from China to avoid repeating the attempted cover-up of the Covid pandemic in 2019.

In March 2023 the UK and in September 2023, the US, delivered shells filled with depleted uranium to Ukraine, or maybe they delivered it before already, we don't know, usually when they announce something it already happened!

Depleted uranium can be used to reinforce armour-plating on tanks but is favoured for weapons because of its extreme density and ability to pierce conventional tank armour. These types of shells sharpen on impact, which further increases their ability to bore through armour, and they ignite after contact.

In September 2023 after the delivery of these shells filled with depleted uranium, the Russian Ministry of Defence stated that it carried out strikes on warehouses where Ukrainian troops stored these depleted uranium shells and UK-made long-range Storm-shadow missiles.

"Last night, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with high-precision long-range air-based weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles at the storage sites of Storm-shadow cruise missiles and depleted uranium ammunition," the ministry said in a statement back in September 2023.

Although the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi, said that there is no danger to public health in using depleted uranium, the Washington Post and other so-called quality newspapers however, said that there is a real danger to public health. The UK was the first to start deliveries of depleted uranium shells and long-range Storm-shadow missiles to Ukraine in March 2023, also ammunition with depleted uranium for the British tank Challenger 2. The US announced on 6 September 2023, that it would send depleted uranium ammunition and cluster bombs to Ukraine.

In May 2023, information emerged about a powerful explosion in one of the warehouses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the city of Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine. Most likely due to a rocket attack by the Russian forces, a warehouse for British uranium-filled grenades was hit. According to some reports, another warehouse containing depleted uranium ammunition was also hit by Russia in the Ternopil region.

This caused panic among the residents of Western Ukraine, but also in the borderlands of Ukraine like Poland. In the Ukrainian media information emerged about an increase in the level of gamma radiation after the destruction of both storage sites. Scientists said a fairly small dose of gamma radiation came from the depleted uranium in the ammunition; a large increase indicates the destruction of a very large number of munitions with depleted uranium, thereby increasing the level of radioactive material in the air.

UK government advisers have called for a vaccination programme to target the growing threat of a biblical disease that has hit a record high in the 21st-century.

The latest NHS data shows that there were more cases of gonorrhoea, the ancient sexually transmitted infection, in England in 2022 than at any time since records began more than 100 years ago. The number of cases of gonorrhea in Wales has also risen massively in the last decade. In 2013, there were just 998 cases recorded, which had risen to 3,918 last year - nearly four times as many. Men are far more likely to catch the disease than women and the bulk of cases are in the 15 to 24 years old age group. The disease is most prevalent in the Cardiff and Swansea areas.

Researchers at Mainz University are investigating the jet stream to assess how its decadal variations could affect the occurrence of weather extremes in Europe.
Heavy precipitation, wind storms, heat waves — when severe weather events such as these occur they are frequently attributed to a wavy jet stream. The jet stream is a powerful air current in the upper troposphere that balances the pressure gradient and Coriolis forces. It is still not known whether the jet stream is really undergoing changes at decadal timescales and, if so, to what extent.

"There are various theories as to what we can expect from the jet stream in future. However, these are all based on highly idealized assumptions," said Dr. Georgios Fragkoulidis of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). "Although it is quite clear that carbon dioxide emissions make a direct contribution to the global mean temperature, changes in the atmospheric circulation are highly uncertain due to the chaotic processes that govern its evolution."