How To Control A Population in Six Easy Steps

We have really got this thing figured out. And by we, I mean not you:

Coding differences in Medicare Advantage plans led to $33 billion in excess revenue to insurers

Apr 2025, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-coding-differences-medicare-advantage-billion.html

The analysis found that because of coding differences, the average Medicare Advantage risk score in 2021 was 0.19 higher than the average Traditional Medicare risk score and Medicare Advantage plans received an estimated $33 billion in additional revenue, with $13.9 billion, or 42% of the total, going to UnitedHealth Group. 

MA plans are paid more for sicker members and less for healthier members, providing an incentive for MA plans to report as many diagnoses as legitimately possible. 

("As many diagnoses as possible") 

The researchers found that the average MA risk score was 18.5% higher than the average TM risk score. 

Differential coding resulted in an estimated $33 billion in additional payments to MA plans in 2021, a $1,863 increase in revenue per UnitedHealth member, and substantially greater than the industry average of $1,220. 

Data came from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Chronic Conditions Data Warehouse from 2015 to 2020 and the Master Beneficiary Summary Files from 2015 to 2021. The core analytic sample included 697 contracts that were active in 2021.

via Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, University of California San Diego, and Actuarial Research Corporation: More information: Insurer-Level Estimates of Revenue From Differential Coding in Medicare Advantage, Annals of Internal Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.7326/ANNALS-24-01345

https://dx.doi.org/10.7326/ANNALS-24-01345

Read further, the editorial: www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-00549

Image credit: AI Art - Two Hands Sharing a Book Like Michelangelo's - 2025

Quantum Phone Calls

AKA Schrodinger's Hype

Quantum hype will continue to appear in the news and advertising as if it were here already, and although it's not really "here", it sure is somewhere:

Researchers demonstrate the UK's first long-distance ultra-secure communication over a quantum network

Apr 2025, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-uk-distance-ultra-communication-quantum.html

Lists all the other quantum networks:

• China recently set up a massive network that covers 4,600 kilometers by connecting five cities using both fiberoptics and satellites. (more details on this one below)
• In Madrid, researchers created a smaller network with nine connection points that use different types of QKD to securely share information.
• In 2019, researchers at Cambridge and Toshiba demonstrated a metro scale quantum network operating at record key rates of millions of key bits per second.
• In 2020, researchers in Bristol built a network that could share entanglement between multiple users.
• Similar quantum network trials have been demonstrated in Singapore, Italy and the U.S.
• And now, from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge and the Quantum Communications Hub project have created a long-distance network that can handle both types of QKD, entanglement distribution, and regular data transmission all at once.

via Universities of Bristol and Cambridge: R. Yang et al. A UK Nationwide Heterogeneous Quantum Network. Paper presented at the 2025 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC): 

https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/schedule/

Image credit: AI Art - Woman Yelling Into a Telephone - 2024

Intercontinental!

World's first quantum microsatellite demonstrates secure communication with multiple ground stations

Mar 2025, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-world-quantum-microsatellite-communication-multiple.html

The team successfully launched Jinan-1, the world's first quantum microsatellite, on July 27, 2022. Additionally, the team developed compact optical ground stations in Jinan, Hefei, Nanshan, Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, in China, and Stellenbosch in South Africa. The satellite transmitted approximately 250 million quantum photons per second. For each satellite pass, the system generated up to 1 Mbits of secure keys. Using the satellite as a trusted relay, the team demonstrated successful secure key sharing and encrypted communication between Beijing and Stellenbosch—two cities separated by 12,900 km.

via University of Science and Technology of China, Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Stellenbosch University of South Africa: Yang Li et al, Microsatellite-based real-time quantum key distribution, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08739-z

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08739-z

This one uses regular telecom infrastructures: 

Quantum messages travel 254 km using existing infrastructure for the first time

Apr 2025, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-quantum-messages-km-infrastructure.html

Their system uses a coherence-based twin-field quantum key distribution deployed over three telecommunication data centers in Germany (Frankfurt, Kehl and Kirchfeld), connected by 254 km of commercial optical fiber.

via Germany: Mirko Pittaluga et al, Long-distance coherent quantum communications in deployed telecom networks, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08801-w

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08801-w

What Does It Mean To Be a Thing

For every thing, there is a fake. And for everything else, we just change the definition of what it means to be artificial until the fake thing is no longer considered fake:

Preventing counterfeiting by adding dye to liquid crystals to create uncrackable coded tags

Aug 2024, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2024-08-counterfeiting-adding-dye-liquid-crystals.html

They're creating anti-counterfeiting labels for high-value goods by mixing fluorescent dyes with cholesteric liquid crystals, which causes their helical structure to twist either left or right, thereby determining how the crystals reflect light, and producing a specific "light signature." Precise control over the twisting and the resulting light patterns makes these labels almost impossible to counterfeit.

via Nagoya University: Jialei He et al, Circularly Polarized Luminescence Chirality Inversion and Dual Anticounterfeiting Labels Based on Fluorescent Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Particles, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsami.4c08331

https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c08331

Image credit: It's actually real - Golden bug eggs on a sage leaf - Jochen Stern Nikon Small World - 2024 [link]

'World first' ruby grown in jewellery setting in lab

Sep 2024, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93pnxngpevo

A tiny fragment of real ruby is grown in a furnace, and take just days and only "five hours of energy" to be developed.

"These lab-grown gemstones are not artificial. They mimic what grows over thousands of years in the earth, so they are a more affordable alternative to mined stones."

Sure they're not. What does artificial mean again? (artifice = making, crafting, skilled work)

Fighting honey fraud with AI technology

Apr 2025, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-honey-fraud-ai-technology.html

Until now, authenticating honey has been done through pollen analysis, a technique that fails after honey is processed or filtered. The new approach uses high-resolution mass spectrometry to scan honey at a molecular levelto create a unique chemical "fingerprint." Machine learning algorithms then read the fingerprint to verify the honey's origin.

via McGill's Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry: Shawninder Chahal et al, Rapid Convolutional Algorithm for the Discovery of Blueberry Honey Authenticity Markers via Nontargeted LC-MS Analysis, Analytical Chemistry (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c01778

https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.4c01778

Following Layoffs, Automattic Employees Discover Leak-Catching Watermarks

Apr 2025, 404 Media

https://www.404media.co/automattic-wordpress-p2-watermark-leakers/

Cool (not cool) - "If, for example, a journalist published a screenshot leaked to them that was taken from P2, Automattic could theoretically identify the employee who shared it." ...Curious as to why can't we do this w AI and authorship?

 

When the Actual Science Just Isn't Enough

 

Scientists genetically engineer wolves with white hair and muscular jaws like the extinct dire wolf

Apr 8 2025, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-scientists-genetically-wolves-white-hair.html

Read ^this headline above, read it twice, then read the headlines below, because it's a good way to understand how news media works:

• Dire wolves are back from extinction. Here's how, Yahoo News
• The dire wolf, which went extinct 12,500 years ago, revived by biotech company, CBS News
• Scientists say they have resurrected the dire wolf, CNN News
• Scientists say they revived dire wolf through biotech company's de-extinction process, ABC News
• Scientists revive dire wolf species from 'Game of Thrones' in world's first known 'de-extinction', New York Post
• Does Colossal Biosciences' dire wolf creation justify its $10B+ valuation? TechCrunch
• Scientists Warn Dire Wolf Could Bring 'Unintended Consequences', Rolling Stone
• Scientists Revive the Dire Wolf, or Something Close, New York Times

And here's other, more sober, soundbites:

• Scientists genetically engineer wolves with features like extinct dire wolf, The Hill 
• Has the Dire Wolf Truly Been Resurrected? We Asked the Experts, Gizmodo
• Scientists say they 'de-extincted' dire wolves. Experts at La Brea Tar Pits are skeptical, LA Times
• Colossal's de-extincted 'dire wolf' isn't a dire wolf and it has not been de-extincted, Live Science
• (another one from phys, about a week later)

Partially related image credit: AI Art - Young Adult Manager Inspired By Success - Dec 2024