Barney Loehnis

President Humanetics Sensors - photonics, fiber optics, lasers & sensors || CMO @HumaneticsGroup | equitable safety #crashtestdummies simulation software

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

Excellent piece from @elvandyke and @nytimes on her experience as a crash survivor & her discovery about women’s safety in crashes.

Her story is enlightening, with lots of horror, history & humor: Why Are Women More Likely to Die in Crashes?

https://t.co/HoyLyfWUzt

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

Interesting take on US bureaucratic culture. I hadn’t thought about it before. The federal overlay can be very prescriptive and in being so dumbs and slows down individual / state /institutional ability to adapt and ad lib. The Federal overlay isn’t needed in smaller countries.

[Nadim Shehadi نديم شحاده @Confusezeus]

@Indian_Bronson @TuckerCarlson I had the exact opposite feeling when I moved to the US, after 38 years in the UK, I felt British for the first time because of the difference with the US. I realized that American culture is German.
https://t.co/AgG7wiuAGC

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

That DeepMind documentary (“The Thinking Game”) now has ~300m views on YouTube.

The most replayed scene is a meeting when someone tells Demis that AlphaFold can “easily” predict all known (1-2B) protein sequences “in a month”.

He looks up from his phone and says “Why don’t we just do that? That’s a great idea. We should just run every protein in existence and then release that.” 

That would ultimately lead to the Nobel Prize.

Interesting backstory from WSJ on how they were able to capture the footage of the meeting: a former NFL Films director (Greg Kohs) had done some commercials for Google and they asked him to do the documentary for the famous 2016 AlphaGo match with Lee Sedol.

After that project, Kohs realized he should just do a documentary on DeepMind (Google would own rights but he had full editorial final cut).

He spent a ton of time with Demis and Co from 2018-2024, and that’s how he got that incredible moment of Demis and AlphaFold (including the moment they released it to the world).

***

More from Ben Cohen at WSJ: https://t.co/snmnkTstiY

[Consumer Reports @ConsumerReports]

A first-of-its-kind advanced female dummy for use in frontal crash testing has been unveiled by the USDOT and NHTSA. See what Consumer Reports’ car safety experts had to say: https://t.co/a4Z5S1fqqK

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@JenniferHomendy @NHTSAgov Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@SecDuffy Reminds me of this vintage insight from Noel Coward…

https://t.co/zdA4yxAsZ7

[Quantinuum @QuantinuumQC]

Today, we launched Helios, a technological marvel redefining the possible. Helios is the most accurate quantum computer in the world, with 98 of the highest fidelity physical qubits ever released, and 48 error-corrected logical qubits.

Learn more: https://t.co/pkvTsS9poF

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@RalphNader Just bought a signed copy. Thank you for your leadership in this space. Amazing to imagine the number of lives your work has impacted. 🙏

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@USDOTRapid @TODAYshow @stephgosk @USDOT @NHTSAgov @SecDuffy Congratulations on the US policy leadership on this topic from @SecDuffy. Once implemented into crash tests, this will save thousands of lives each year and prevent hundreds of thousands of severe injuries.👏👏👏

[U.S. Department of Transportation @USDOT]

.@NHTSAgov introduces the new female crash test dummy! With 150+ sensors and lifelike design, 3x more injury measurement is collected to help accurately account for biological differences.

Understanding how crashes uniquely impact women is essential to reducing traffic fatalities, leads to safer cars, and protects EVERY member of the American family – including women. 🚺

[U.S. Department of Transportation @USDOT]

For too long, the right tools to understand how car crashes impact men and women differently have been missing.

With women being 73% more likely to be injured during a head-on car crash, this advancement will finally help close these safety gaps.

[USDOT Rapid Response @USDOTRapid]

On the @TODAYshow @stephgosk highlights @USDOT and @NHTSAgov’s first ever female crash test dummies.

@SecDuffy is putting the American people — especially women - first!

[David Galbraith @daveg]

Ouch. And presumably since BYDs sell for much more in Europe than China there is a lot of room to continue this no matter what the reprisal.
ht @MichaelAArouet

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@femalequotient That’s fascinating. My GGGrandmother was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917) - Britain’s first “openly” female doctor, admitted to the medical register in 1865—the same year that Margaret Ann Bulkley/James Barry died.

[CBS Mornings @CBSMornings]

Can female crash test dummies improve safety? A bipartisan group of senators push for equality in testing https://t.co/mdrYPG1XeX

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

Great piece from @krisvancleave on @CBSMornings on the She Drives Bill championed by @SenatorFischer @SenDuckworth @PattyMurray @MarshaBlackburn.

Let's hope Congress will finally build momentum to make cars as safe for women and men by using the advanced THOR technology needed to identify impact and injury risk.

https://t.co/QmrHKlPLDl

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

@MarioNawfal @grok what type of fiber optic is used?

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇯🇵 JAPAN’S INTERNET JUST DOWNLOADED NETFLIX WHILE YOU READ THIS

Researchers hit 1.02 petabits per second using a cable the size of a shoelace.

That’s fast enough to download Netflix’s entire library in one second and still have time to blink.

Too bad it’s still stuck in a lab – but hey, it’s a peek at the internet of the future.

Source: How Everything Works

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

A Princeton professor had his students complete an assignment using A.I. It became “the most profound experience” in his teaching career. https://t.co/WLXiD2x7zi

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

Things are evolving fast. As you know, business is very action oriented and pragmatic.

In brief, the less regulated sectors can make switches faster (obviously). But the mindset-impact on more regulated, hi tech industries, is already seismic. We are seeing a paradigm shift in supply chains that will have decade long commercial and geopolitical impacts. The US, Europe and China are domesticating their supply chains to ensure mission critical components have R&D and production in region. Even if tariffs vaporize, the strategic national security interest has been invoked, and this will result in more hi tech manufacturing happens within each region. This will trigger innovation and stimulate industrial and manufacturing sectors.

More broadly, some context: we are an industrial technology company. We operate in a global market with manufacturing and assembly facilities in all regions. We work across multiple industries like aerospace, automotive, defense, biomedical, micro electronics, energy and industrial. We produce both sub components that are sold into larger components, systems and end products; we also manufacture and assemble complete end products. Our end customers are in every market.

For components (eg PCB boards, connectors) and imports to US: components that can be dual sourced are switching from China to lower tariff rate markets, (many of which will still be quite high if imposed after 90 days) eg India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mexico etc. At the level of some tariffs, in the long term, it could be possible to source from US, and maybe dual-source supply chains will take one US supplier and one lower cost? Either way, for the foreseeable future, the US sources aren’t available to fulfill demand. So we’re looking at higher prices, lower profits, and therefore maybe a squeeze on jobs?

Also important to remember that in critical regulated industries (like aerospace, defense, biomedical, energy, micro electronics), components require rigorous qualification and approval that can take many months to change (and impose a significant cost burden).

For exports from US to China, to avoid Chia tariffs, customers are considering whether to move manufacturing and assembly out of US factories and use facilities in Asia and Europe. Ironically that would result in job losses for the US, especially as the US policy is combating every global market… it only leaves the US market to stimulate demand for US manufacturing.

If Europe imposes tariffs on US after 90 days, customers will demand that more manufacturing volume will have to shift to Europe to avoid the tariffs.

We also see China shifting away from US companies to Europe; or, as has been the pattern for 5+ years, domesticating supply within China.

In the meantime we see much US-China trade at a complete standstill pending tariff outcomes as products cannot compete with such penal policy.

[Barney Loehnis @Barneylo]

Great overview. We see many orders from multiple industries on total hold pending an outcome in tariff negotiations.

[EndGame Macro @onechancefreedm]

🛥️ A 90%+ Collapse in US-Bound Chinese Container Traffic Is Not Just Trade Data It’s Strategic Signaling

We are witnessing a massive systemic contraction in real-economy flows: a 90–94% collapse in container shipments from China to the U.S. This is not a marginal trade dip this is the arteries of globalization choking in real time. Combine that with Foxconn halts in Chengdu and factory shutdowns across Guangdong and Jiangsu, and we’re likely observing deliberate state-level economic decoupling under the guise of tariff response.

Interpretation:
This isn’t just a reaction to tariffs this is phase one of “supply-side economic warfare.” China appears to be strategically constraining outbound flows to test how quickly U.S. inventories deplete, particularly in electronics and critical components. By halting factories and pulling logistics volume, Beijing may be signaling to Washington: “We can escalate too and we don’t need to fire a shot to do it.”

Institutional & Behavioral Implications:
Markets are not pricing this correctly yet. Equities are still trading on AI/tech optimism while containerized trade the physical backbone of the supply chain is imploding. The behavioral lag is dangerous. If inventory drawdowns accelerate without replacement, expect margin shocks, just-in-time failure cascades, and earnings guide-downs in Q3/Q4 across semiconductors, consumer electronics, and auto supply chains.

Historical Analogues:

•1973 OPEC embargo: The West misread supply discipline as economic fragility. It wasn’t. It was leverage.

•WWII-era industrial mobilization: When supply chain interruptions were not accidental they were coordinated attrition campaigns.

•Cold War Cuba playbook: Strategic disruptions cloaked in sovereign narrative management.

Where I Could Be Wrong:
If this is purely retaliatory and not sustainable from China’s domestic growth perspective, the production halts may reverse quickly. But if Beijing is shifting from “factory of the world” to “gatekeeper of inputs,” the low-visibility slow-roll could persist longer than Western markets can tolerate. That’s the unknown tail risk.

⸻

Base Case:

We’re likely at the beginning of Stage Two in the U.S.–China economic war. Stage One was tariffs. Stage Two is logistics strangulation. China is no longer trying to out-export us they’re testing what happens when the world’s factory slows to a crawl on purpose. U.S. companies that rely on just-in-time imports from Asia could feel this in weeks. Retailers, electronics giants, and auto OEMs should be on red alert.

Watch inventory levels, shipping rates, and input costs. A storm is forming in the real economy while markets remain distracted by AI.