This is BIG (potentially)

 

Covid-19 was a big scare a couple of years ago, and killed numerous people.  Vaccines were developed that saved numerous lives. Influenza (the flu) kills lots of people every year, but getting the flu shot can save your life. Everybody is really scared of Ebola.  If bird flu mutates, it could be really, really dangerous.

So malaria tends to be forgotten, because it's not a First World problem, in general. In the Third World, primarily Africa, it is estimated to kill around 600,000 people, predominantly children, every year. Furthermore, if you go to a place where malaria is endemic and you don't take your malaria prevention pills, you could catch it, like Cheryl (Cole) did.  And clearly getting it is NOT fun.

So news about a malaria vaccine tested in humans should be really BIG news, right?

I can't understand why it's not.

OK, it's not quite a vaccine. It's a monoclonal antibody treatment. Maybe that would be a little more difficult to administer all over Africa.

But still  -- it works.

New Malaria Antibody Yields Full Protection in Human Trial

"Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are laboratory-made protein clones that mimic the body’s natural immune defenses. MAM01 targets a highly conserved region of the Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein — a protein on the parasite’s outer surface — to block infection before it reaches the bloodstream.

The Phase 1, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 38 healthy adults aged 18 to 50 with no prior malaria exposure. Participants received one dose of MAM01 or a placebo, and were then exposed to mosquitos carrying malaria, several months after dosing. This was done under carefully controlled conditions known as a challenge study. After the malaria challenge, none of the participants who received the highest dose of the monoclonal antibody developed infection, compared to all the participants in the placebo group."

I emphasize the words "none" and "all" in the above. That's like a perfect test  - that's phenomenal.

See why I said it's big?  Now, I don't know if there are special storage or preservation procedures that make this hard to distribute or administer, but it sure sounds like a potential game-changer in the malaria battle.

Reference: Lyke KE, Berry AA, Laurens MB, et al. Human monoclonal antibody MAM01 for protection against malaria in adults in the USA: a first-in-human, phase 1, dose-escalation, double-blind, placebo-controlled, adaptive trial. Lancet Infect Dis. 2025:S1473-3099(25)00481-5. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00481-5

Kill the blue blobs. All of them.

Lighthouse of the Week, January 25 - 31, 2026: Cabo San Jorge, Argentina

 

For historical reasons, I was poking around the coast of Argentina recently. So even though this Lighthouse is a bit late for last Week, I'm still going to use it.

Argentina has quite a few lights, but from what I can see in the Directory, not a lot of them are the traditional tower variety.  Many of them are the skeletal kind, or little boxes.

However, this one is quite handsome.  So as is my habit, first the location, which is here on the coast of Argentina.  It's "in the middle" of the coast, well south of Buenos Aires.

So now about the lighthouse, let's learn:

"1925 (Santiago Orengo). Active; focal plane 78 m (256 ft); four white flashes, separated by 5 s, every 32 s. 27 m (89 ft) square brick tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; lantern and gallery painted black. ... Located about 13 km (8 mi) north of Comodoro Rivadavia, the southernmost city of Chubut."

I acquired three pictures and a video, which are shown below. The video shows that the lighthouse is breathtakingly isolated.

I just found this out

 

I watched a Julie Andrews biography a few days ago, and near the end, it showed scenes of her voice-over work, most notably Gru's mother in the Despicable Me series. I was curious what else she's done, and so I looked at her IMDb biography.  I noticed that she was listed in the cast of Aquaman as Karathen. I couldn't remember who that was, so I looked it up, and this is who Karathen is.

If you don't remember, or don't care, or didn't see the movie, Karathen is the gigantic sea creature that guards the Trident of Atlan.  For those who might possibly see the movie who have not done so to this point, that's about all I can say. 

But I can say that the voice is suitably imposing, though pretty much unrecognizable as Julie Andrews. I guess she should have sung a stanza of "The Sound of Music". 

He's an article about her role:  Julie Andrews Is Baffled By Her Aquaman Voice Role

I think this one is real

 

Just drawing note to a model on Instagram with the handle "kristinarii", who appears to be named Krissy Airi.  It's hard to be sure.  Now, she caught my eye because of one stunning black-and-white photograph, which I provide below, along with a more "normal" recent photo.

It was dark

 

I couldn't pass up this article about a possible sighting of dark matter by astronomers. I provided their description of it as the title of the post.

After a Century of Searching, We May Have Finally Seen Dark Matter

"Many researchers believe dark matter consists of WIMPs, weakly interacting massive particles, perhaps 500 times heavier than protons. Theory predicts that when two WIMPs collide, they annihilate each other and release gamma rays with specific energies.

[Prof. Tomonori] Totani and team found exactly that signature in Fermi telescope data, gamma rays with 20 billion electronvolts of energy forming a halo structure extending toward the galactic center. The shape matches theoretical predictions for dark matter distribution. The energy spectrum matches WIMP annihilation models and the frequency of collisions falls within predicted ranges. Crucially, more common astronomical phenomena can't easily explain these gamma rays. Other known sources don't produce this energy signature in this distribution pattern."

The rest of the article basically indicates that more research is needed.

How to make a caldera

 

This is a really great demonstration. I want to do it myself. Unfortunately, I think if I did, I'd make a mess in the kitchen and waste a lot of flour.  So I guess I'll leave it to the geology classes.

So, one of the most famous calderas in the USA and the world is Crater Lake in Oregon.  I'll provide a picture.

One of the notable aspects of Crater Lake is that it's really deep. The bathymetry map below shows how deep that is.

So the light blue to dark blue shades indicate depths of 400+ to 550+ meters (1300-1800 feet).  It's the deepest lake in the USA, of course.

So why did I do that?  Well, a big caldera means that a lot of magma was erupted.  The eruption of Mount Mazama was so big that it became a Native American tale told around the campfire or on a fishing trip.  There's a really common painting of the eruption, but I found a different one.  More fun than that, I found a drawing of what Mazama might have looked like before it became a caldera with a lake in it.  Check out the pictures.

The largest calvary charge in history

 

I truly just learned about this. In the battle that broke the siege of Vienna by troops of the Ottoman Empire in 1683, the largest calvary charge in history took place.

Initially, the siege and the battle that ended it might have seemed a huge mismatch:  supposedly the Ottomans had 180,000 troops against a defending force of 15,000 or so. But a relief army was raised from Poland and surrounding countries/fiefs/kingdoms/whatever the social borders were back then, and the Ottoman troops were unreliable (the Tatars), sick (disease killed a lot of them), and sick of sitting in the summer heat while besieging Vienna (thus, a lot of desertions).  So the battle wasn't as much of a mismatch as the initial numbers might have indicated.

You can read more on Wikipedia -- The Battle of Vienna.  There are probably several military history sites in the Webiverse that have detailed descriptions, too.

So, about the charge. The battle that broke the siege culminated with a charge of 18,000 calvary troops, which induced the final retreat of the losing Ottoman side.

Below is an artistic depiction of the battle. There are many.  There's even a movie! But I don't think it's easy to find for viewing. The trailer is on YouTube, though.