This year, we captured our @Stanford @BrOrganogenesis hand-on workshop on human stem cell models course in action. Every year here on campus, we share methods developed in our lab for generating and applying neural #organoids# and #assembloids#. Mornings are devoted to lectures, while afternoons are spent at the bench: going from building assembloids to imaging them and recording their electrical activity. Throughout the week, students also work together in small groups on a project. This year, by popular demand, we focused on assembloids This spring, 22 students came from around the world. They returned to their institutions and labs taking these methods with them and adapting them to their own research. For us, the course is an invigorating lab-wide effort that we prepare for months in advance. This year it was superbly organized by three outstanding scientists: Merve Avar, Sabina Kanton, and Rebecca Levy (who recently started her own lab at Stanford!). One of the best weeks of the year for us in lab. A glimpse of it in the video below.

An intricate tubing system, consisting of more than 300 assemblies, will move oxygen, water, coolant, and propellant throughout Haven-1. Each one is designed, bent, welded, inspected, and tested, then installed on the flight vehicle at our Long Beach headquarters.

Neutron’s Stage 2 and Thrust Module have arrived to Virginia. After a short barge ride from the Neutron Factory, these major assemblies have now been offloaded on Wallops Island and are going through arrival checkouts. Next up: integrated fluids testing and launch mount interface checkouts for the Thrust Module, with Stage 2 to follow on the test stand beside it soon after.

The Indian Army, in association with SIDM, organised a symposium at CAFVD Kirkee, Pune, on **“Enhancing Indigenous Manufacturing of Imported Spares and Assemblies to Boost Atmanirbharta.”** Mr Arun T Ramchandani, SIDM President, highlighted key MSME challenges in scaling from samples to serial production, emphasising streamlined testing, predictable procurement, timely access to specifications and an enabling policy framework. The session was also addressed by Lt Gen Amardeep Singh Aujla, PVSM, UYSM, YSM, SM, VSM, Master General Sustenance, Indian Army; Lt Gen Deepak Ahuja, DGOS; and Brig K Shri Ram Kumar, Controller CQA (HV). The symposium reinforced Army–Industry collaboration and advanced India’s defence indigenisation and self-reliance goals. #SIDM# #IndianArmy# #AtmanirbharBharat# #DefenceManufacturing# #Indigenisation# #MSMEs# #MakeInIndia#

Check out my new post! The 2022 Zero-COVID lockdowns weren't public health—they were a test of wartime mobilization. See how active PLA cadres in regional assemblies dismantle civil oversight, ensuring the CCP can trigger total social control anytime.

Global Times: It’s reported that since the Takaichi administration came to power, a total of 82 local assemblies across Japan including those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have submitted written opinions to the central government or the parliament urging the administration to uphold Japan’s three non-nuclear principles or enshrine them into law. The Japan Innovation Party of the governing coalition advised to the Japanese government to discuss the revision of the three non-nuclear principles. What’s China’s comment? Lin Jian: Japanese local assemblies strongly call for upholding the three non-nuclear principles — a clear sign that the people want peace. Tokyo’s rush to abandon the pacifist Constitution and remilitarize the country at a faster pace is out of step with the public. We urge the Japanese authorities to stop going further down the wrong path and not to stubbornly go against the overwhelming trend on the nuclear issue. Since Takaichi came into office, Japanese right-wing forces have laid bare their intention of reviving militarism, breaking free from the three non-nuclear principles, seeking to possess nuclear weapons and speeding down the wrong path. If the Japanese authorities stick to their miscalculation on the nuclear issue, push to revise the three non-nuclear principles, and deploy allies’ nuclear weapons in Japan, they not only gravely challenge the postwar international order and the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, but also breach the commitment to peace, defy what the Japanese people want and will eventually pay heavy price for it. As a non-nuclear-weapon party state to the NPT, Japan bears indisputable, undeniable and non-negotiable obligations under international law to refrain from receiving, manufacturing, acquiring or transferring nuclear weapons. Takaichi in February this year reiterated the commitment to the three non-nuclear principles. Japanese delegates attending the Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT this May reaffirmed the stance of making no changes to the three non-nuclear principles. The world will wait and see whether Japan could honor its words that are still ringing in our ears. China calls on the international community and all peace-loving people in Japan to urge the Japanese authorities to earnestly abide by its NPT obligations, completely abandon remilitarization and the intention to possess nuclear weapons, stop pushing to revise the three non-nuclear principles, stop the so-called “extended deterrence” cooperation with other countries, not to seek the introduction of allies’ nuclear weapons to Japan and immediately take effective steps to address the great imbalance between the supply and demand of sensitive nuclear materials so as to earn trust from its Asian neighbors and the international community with concrete actions.

TDK Corporation and NHK Spring Co., Ltd. are facing a major U.S. class-action lawsuit accusing them of working together to fix prices on hard disk drive suspension assemblies for more than 10 years. These suspension assemblies are tiny mechanical arms inside traditional hard drives that hold and move the read/write heads with high precision. According to the lawsuit, the companies secretly coordinated prices, shared confidential business information, and divided customers and markets between 2003 and 2016. The lawsuit says this affected about 97% of hard drives sold worldwide during that time. The higher costs were allegedly passed on to companies such as Seagate Technology, Western Digital, and Toshiba, and eventually to consumers who bought computers, servers, and external hard drives. A U.S. federal court has approved the case to move forward as a class action for indirect purchasers in many states. Public notices were issued this week, and eligible consumers are automatically included unless they opt out by August 23, 2026. People may qualify if they bought products containing traditional hard drives during the covered years in eligible states.

Experiments at Site 300 are an essential part of the Lab's mission. Here, our researchers can safely formulate, fabricate and test high-explosive assemblies to assess the performance of non-nuclear weapon prototypes and components.