A new rapid blood test for newborns could potentially detect genetic mutations linked to thousands of rare diseases all at once, greatly improving on current inefficient detection methods, according to a study to be presented Monday.

The new test developed by Australian scientists has proven highly accurate in identifying gene mutations associated with many rare, inherited diseases, all from just a minimally invasive blood sample taken from infants and children, the authors say.

The study, being unveiled at the European Human Genetics Conference in Milan, Italy, demonstrated that a single, untargeted test capable of analyzing 8,000 human proteins at once was able to correctly identify 83% of people with confirmed rare, inherited diseases.

The "proteomics" test was also able to differentiate between parental carriers of the mutations, who only have one copy of the defective gene, and the affected child, who carries two copies.

Those encouraging results are raising hopes for a new era in which screening infants and children for suspected inherited rare diseases can be accomplished quickly and efficiently for the first time, and that testing can be extended to many more of the estimated 300 million people worldwide affected by these genetic mutations.

Testing for suspected inherited diseases has traditionally been a time-consuming, costly and sometimes painful process that required different procedures for different suspected mutations. But that paradigm could be about to change, the study's lead author says.

Daniella Hock, a senior postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne, told UPI that if the test is implemented in clinical labs, "it can potentially replace multiple functional tests. This can potentially reduce the diagnostic time for patients and families and healthcare costs.

"The test only requires only 1 milliliter of blood from infants, and results can be achieved in less than three days for urgent cases," she said.

In what must be the week's best fun news story, we learn that the new pope, Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is a fitness fanatic.

His personal trainer and the founder of his gym had details for the Italian press about how then-Cardinal Prevost worked out at their local gym in Rome, running on the cardio machines and bench pressing like anyone else in his plain gym clothes, putting in those hours to keep himself fit, sound mind, sound spirit, sound body, in a piece since picked up by Catholic News Agency:

“The then-Cardinal Prevost — who, as is well known, is also a tennis player — spent his free time on the cardio machines, his favorite exercise. He sometimes also used the stationary bikes and treadmills designed to improve cardiovascular endurance and burn calories.

Omega Gym founder Alessandro Tamburlani related, ‘He was a person like so many other members. He dressed like everyone else, in simple gym clothes’.”

So in other words, he was just a dude, going to the gym to keep fit, same as millions of others do.  Pope Leo is MAHA – RFKII should have been with Rubio and Vance when they met him in the Vatican last Sunday.

Former FBI boss James Comey posted an image of seashells forming “86 47” but quickly claimed, “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” The Secret Service has good reason to take it as a threat.

“86” is code for “get rid of,” quite possibly in a permanent way. Comey knew exactly what he was doing, Trump said, that the “dirty cop” was calling for the assassination of the president. Comey was aware that Trump had survived two assassination attempts and was lobbying for another. As the people should know, the FBI is also in the “86” business.

In August of 2023, an FBI SWAT team shot and killed Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old woodworker for threats against Joe Biden he allegedly made on the internet. Threats to the president are normally handled by the Secret Service, but this was an FBI operation all the way.

James Comey made no statement or post on the killing that anybody can find. As he had to know, deadly force is a longstanding FBI practice.

Current FBI Director Kash Patel is closing down the agency’s Washington, DC, mothership office and moving at least 1,500 employees out of the DC area to regional offices.  The decision was not just Patel’s.

During the Biden Administration, it was determined that the 50-year-old Hoover building headquarters was structurally decrepit. More germanely, no prior FBI director had ever explained why nearly a third of the FBI workforce was centered in offices in Washington, far from where most of the serious crime in America occurs.

The news is welcome for reasons well beyond the safety of agents in an apparently unsafe headquarters.

It is no exaggeration to state that most of the FBI scandals of the last decade were born in the Hoover building headquarters, suggesting that the agency had long become top-heavy, politically weaponized, and deeply embedded in and compromised by the Washington apparat. Here is a summary of the last ten years of FBI corruption.

China is the original riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. A country striving for modernity but feudal in its treatment of its citizens, Beijing's economic identity is a combination of Communist orthodoxy and crony capitalism.

As you might expect, the two don't work well together.

On the outside of the riddle, China is booming, the people are subservient and happy, and the government is looking to the future with confidence. This is the picture the Chinese Communists paint for the world to see. The reality is much different.

China is being crushed by debt, has become dependent on high levels of debt, and has created a humongous bubble in several sectors, like housing and household goods.

One noted Chinese economist says, “Basically, China’s economy is all built on speculation and everything is over-leveraged.”  Yet it's not just the debt that's pulling China down. It’s much worse than that.