2019年7月9日
Australian researchers just released the world's first AI-developed vaccine
A team at Flinders University in South Australia has developed a new vaccine believed to be the first human drug in the world to be completely designed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky said: “We had to teach the AI program on a set of compounds that are known to activate the human immune system, and a set of compounds that don’t work. The job of the AI was then to work out for itself what distinguished a drug that worked from one that doesn’t.”
“We then developed another program, called the synthetic chemist which generated trillions of different chemical compounds that we then fed to SAM so that it could sift through all of these to find candidates that it thought might be good human immune drugs.” The team then took the top candidates SAM identified, synthesised them in a lab and tested them on human blood cells to see if they would work.
The research received funding from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – part of the country’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and has begun 12-mont clinical trials across the US. The new vaccine comes at the same time as a high number of influenza-related cases in Australia. Before June 2019, 228 people had died from flu related complications.
Petrovsky hopes this vaccine will prove to be more effective than the existing vaccines and will go on to complement or replace them as the standard seasonal flu shot. “Australia has a great record at publishing basic medical science and has a poor track record of developing new drugs or treatments,” he said. “As an act of desperation, I took a grant application rejected by NHMRC and submitted it to the US NIH (National Institute of Health) as a last-ditch attempt to save my career in research. Much to my surprise and joy, the original US grant application was successful, allowing my research to survive.” Petrovsky has since received more than 10 NIH grants and supplements totalling more than US$50 million. He said that even by US standards, it was an “extraordinary outcome”. “I think this is because the US system values ambitious, innovative and futuristic research whereas Australian funding bodies are highly conservative and only fund me-too incremental research where the outcome is largely already known,” he said.
Australian properties are reselling at losses not seen for six years
Nearly one in eight Australian properties were sold at a loss in early 2019, marking the worst reselling conditions in six years. 12% of all properties sold in the first quarter of 2019 went for less than they were bought for. That’s well up from 10.5% in the previous quarter and 9% in the same quarter last year.
“In a falling market, owner-occupiers may be more prepared to sell at a loss if they are purchasing their next home at an equivalent or greater discount,” CoreLogic analyst Cameron Kusher wrote in the report.“Conversely, investors, because of taxation rules, would seemingly be more prepared to incur a loss because they (unlike owner-occupiers) can offset those losses against future capital gains.”
In context, however, the $486.8 million that was collectively lost by resellers over the period is small change compared to the $14.3 billion made in gross profits nationally. That trend is being led by souring conditions in Australia’s two largest markets, Sydney and Melbourne, where nearly a third of homes are selling at a loss in some areas.
Firebrand Philippine president pushes the US to send the entire 7th Fleet into the South China Sea
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a strongman leader known for his rough-and-tumble rhetoric, dared the US on Monday to send the entire 7th Fleet, roughly 70 to 80 ships and submarines, into the South China Sea to drive out the Chinese military.
“I have a proposal,” Duterte said. “If America wants China to leave, and I can’t make them … I want the whole 7th Fleet of the armed forces of the United States of America there.” He added, “When they enter the South China Sea, I will enter. I will ride with the American who goes there first. Then I will tell the Americans, ‘OK, let’s bomb everything.'” Duterte appears to be suggesting that if the US wants a confrontation in the South China Sea, it better be prepared to lead the charge and go all in rather than put the burden of responsibility on its allies and partners in the region.
“We can never win a war with China,” he said. “There is always America pushing us, egging us … making me the bait. What do you think Filipinos are, earthworms? Now, I say, you bring your planes, your boats to South China Sea. Fire the first shot, and we are just here behind you. Go ahead, let’s fight.” The US and the Philippines are bound together by a mutual defence treaty, but Manila has begun expressing concerns about what the agreement could mean for the future of the country.
Duterte personally has doubts about America’s willingness to come to his country’s defence. “America said, ‘We will protect you. We will – your backs are covered, I’m sure.’ I said, ‘It’s ok,'” he said in March. “But the problem here is … any declaration of war will pass Congress. You know how bulls— America’s Congress is.” While the Philippines has long been a close US ally, Duterte has been deeply critical of the US, while forging closer ties with Moscow and Beijing, often backing down in the face of aggressive or coercive acts by Chinese military and paramilitary forces in the region.
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