Researchers from the nation that likely unleashed COVID-19 unto the world have transformed mosquitoes into flying syringes.

Some researchers, including a group at the Bill Gates Foundation-backed Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, have already attempted in recent years to fashion mosquitoes into flying vaccine delivery systems with human targets in mind.

‘Mosquitoes bite many things other than bats.’

Now, scientists at the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences — an institution that has a strategic partnership with the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences — have targeted bats, purportedly designing mosquitoes to instead deliver recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus-based rabies and Nipah vaccines to the flying mammals.

Like rabies, Nipah virus is a potentially deadly virus found in animals. Whereas rabies has nearly a 100% fatality rate in humans once symptoms manifest, the estimated case fatality rate for Nipah virus ranges from 40% to 75%.

The Chinese scientists’ study, published on March 11 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, noted that bats, “representing ~22% of all mammalian species, are natural reservoirs for a wide range of zoonotic viruses, including coronaviruses, rhabdoviruses, and paramyxoviruses. Their unique physiological and immunological traits enable them to harbor pathogens without showing clinical symptoms, making them critical players in the emergence of infectious diseases.”

The scientists claimed that immunizing bats, especially in the wild, could possibly prevent transmission of the rabies and Nipah viruses to humans and other animals but acknowledged that “achieving this goal presents substantial challenges due to the wide geographic distribution, diverse diets, and large colony sizes of bat populations.”

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Photo by Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Recognizing the impracticality of individually jabbing multitudes of bats and ruling out bat-culling as “counterproductive,” the Chinese scientists instead created vaccines using a weakened form of the vesicular stomatitis virus that can infect insects and mammals alike.

They fed vaccine-laden blood to lab-adapted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and subsequently detected the vaccine both in the whole mosquitoes and in their salivary glands for over two weeks. The vaccine-laden mosquitoes reportedly delivered the vaccines as intended and provided test bats and rodents with immune protection.

The study claimed that “this innovative approach offers a scalable and efficient solution for immunizing wild bats, addressing critical challenges in disease control and bat conservation.”

Through this experiment, researchers hope that there will be reduced spillover of the Nipah and rabies viruses from bats to humans or livestock.

Aihua Zheng, a Chinese virologist who worked on the study, told NPR, “The advantage is if we immunize the population, the transmission of the virus will be decreased or eventually eliminated.”

However, that outcome is by no means certain. Plus, there are other problems associated with such vaccine-infused mosquitoes.

Daniel Streicker, a professor of viral ecology at the University of Glasgow who was not involved in the study, expressed concern to Chemical and Engineering News over possible risks of such proposed vaccination initiatives.

“Mosquitoes bite many things other than bats, including humans,” Streicker said, adding, “There’s still an issue that you’re removing individual consent.”

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​Mosquito, Mosquitoes, Insect, Virus, Pathogen, Science, Bats, Vaccination, Vaccine, Flying vaccines, China, Covid-19, Politics, Biowarfare 

At the Munich Security Conference in February, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) suggested that once Donald Trump leaves office, things can return to normal — back to whatever existed before Trump.

While other Democrats eyeing the White House struggled to distinguish themselves, Newsom revealed a different problem. They looked unready to lead. He looked unwilling to lead at all.

The question isn’t whether Donald Trump disrupted a prior equilibrium. It’s whether those who seek to lead are prepared to lead amid friction, scarcity, and opposition.

Munich isn’t a campaign stop. It’s a security summit. Leaders gather there to talk about cyber warfare, artificial intelligence in military systems, energy instability, supply chain fragility, and the security posture of the West.

Threats don’t wait for electoral cycles.

Newsom’s implication was simple: Wait this out. Wait for a different administration. Wait for political alignment. Wait for conditions to improve.

But what, exactly, are we waiting for?

Are adversaries pausing their ambitions until our politics settle? Are supply chains stabilizing on their own? Does instability take a sabbatical while we sort out elections?

California sits on enormous capacity that intersects directly with these challenges — from artificial intelligence to aerospace to energy systems. If it were its own nation, its economy would rank among the largest in the world.

In that room, Newsom had a chance to say something simple: We can help today.

He could have said: We have political frictions, yes — but here’s what California can put on the table right now. Here’s what’s on the showroom floor and what’s in the stockroom.

Leadership doesn’t wait for better conditions. It works with the conditions at hand. That isn’t political. It’s true.

Trump has faced headwinds since re-entering politics in 2015: media opposition, legal battles, congressional resistance, impeachments, cultural hostility — even a bullet. Whatever one thinks of his tone or policies, he didn’t suspend action until the pressure eased.

Resistance didn’t become an excuse.

George Washington didn’t wait for favorable conditions before leading a fragile Continental Army. He faced shortages, division, and superior opposition. Conditions were rarely ideal. Resources were rarely sufficient. He acted anyway.

Entrepreneurs launch in recessions. Athletes train in bad weather. Reformers work when opposition is loudest.

Adversity doesn’t excuse stagnation so much as it reveals character.

Years ago, I knew a pastor who believed his preaching would rise once he moved into a larger sanctuary. His pitch to the building committee was brazen and simple: “Frame me better, and my sermons will improve.”

They didn’t. His messages were weak before the new building, and they stayed weak afterward. The platform changed. The man did not.

Conditions don’t create conviction. They reveal it.

RELATED: I walked away from California Democrats to keep my sanity

Photo by Julia Beverly/WireImage

I see the same instinct in family caregivers walking through chronic impairment: “We just have to hold on.” “Once this season passes.”

The assumption stays the same: When hardship lifts, life begins.

But for many, this is the life.

Waiting for better conditions is surrender, not strategy.

The apostle Paul wrote large portions of the New Testament from prison. Confinement didn’t suspend his calling. Chains weren’t an excuse. He didn’t wait for a “new Caesar.” He wrote anyway.

That’s the dividing line.

One posture says: Once the obstacle is removed, I’ll begin.

The other says: I’ll begin here. Now.

Newsom’s remarks reveal more than a political calculation. They expose a familiar instinct: the belief that productivity begins once hardship fades. But adversity rarely fades on schedule.

History doesn’t pause. Adversaries don’t pause. Life doesn’t pause.

The question isn’t whether Trump disrupted a prior equilibrium. It’s whether those who seek to lead are prepared to lead amid friction, scarcity, and opposition — or whether they are waiting for a version of normal that isn’t coming back.

Leadership shows up in the arena — or on the battlefield — but rarely in the green room.

​Gavin newsom, Donald trump, Foreign policy, Democrats, Leadership, Iran war, 2028 election, Opinion & analysis, Munich security conference 

Netflix’s five-part sci-fi series “Stranger Things” — a twisted tale of undercover government experiments, evil supernatural creatures, and a sinister parallel dimension — is one of the streaming service’s most successful and profitable shows in its history.

Despite its heavy supernatural horror elements, occult-adjacent references, and gory violence, “Stranger Things” has been popular among some Christian audiences that appreciate its spiritual warfare parallels, good vs. evil themes, and subtle nods to biblical concepts like sacrifice and resurrection.

But are these Christians just inventing a loophole to participate in sinful entertainment?

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” BlazeTV host Rick Burgess addresses this controversial subject.

The answer to whether Christians should watch “Stranger Things” is a complicated one.

“Is the show satanic or demonic? Not really, because the separation of good and evil seems to be there pretty clear,” Rick says, “but it can be troubling because there are some scary things in it.”

Additionally, the show includes profanity and language that takes the Lord’s name in vain.

“But do they mock Jesus? Not really,” Rick says. “There’s actually an episode when they discuss getting the church involved against this evil force that they’re fighting against.”

But even if the show leans more into sci-fi than true paranormal horror and uses secular language without overtly blaspheming Christ, does that mean Christians should watch it?

For younger kids, Rick’s answer is no.

“If the kid is younger than 15, probably not,” he states.

For one, the show features characters and concepts that could be deeply unsettling and terrifying to a younger audience — “monsters … that could cause nightmares,” he warns.

Second, there are LGBTQ+ themes, as two of the main characters are homosexual and embraced for their lifestyles.

Third, “astral projection” — the occult belief that a person’s consciousness or spirit can intentionally separate from their physical body and travel through an astral plane or other dimensions — is part of the “Stranger Things” plot line.

For these reasons, younger audiences are better off keeping their distance from the show, according to Rick.

But what about older kids and adults? Can they watch this popular series without opening themselves up to demonic forces?

“I would say it should be under a yellow flag caution more than a red flag,” Rick says, suggesting that participation or avoidance should be determined by personal conviction.

Citing Brent Crowe’s book “Chasing Elephants,” he says, “When dealing with what entertainment we allow in our lives from a spiritual standpoint, there’s questions to ask,” the most important being: “Does it have any redeeming quality?”

“You have to be careful being really legalistic about, ‘If it’s R, I’m not watching it.’ Well, then you wouldn’t have watched ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ Why is it rated R would be kind of the road you would go down,” he advises.

To hear more of Rick’s biblical wisdom regarding what kinds of entertainment Christians should and should not partake in, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Strange encounters, Strange encounters with rick burgess, Rick burgess, Stranger things, Netflix, Spiritual warfare, Entertainment, Blazetv, Blaze media, Demonic oppression 

For millennia, we have all more or less understood one thing about forgiveness: You cannot demand it.

You can ask for it. You can plead for it. You can try to earn it. But the moment you insist that someone owes it to you, you have misunderstood the thing itself.

You can command a Christian to forgive because he has been given a new heart. You cannot litigate him into loving his enemy.

Sam Ridge, a philosopher at the University of California San Diego, thinks that conventional wisdom is wrong. In a recent paper, he argues that there are cases in which a wrongdoer has “a right to be forgiven by their victim.”

In other words, forgiveness can be understood as a claimable moral asset — not just something one hopes for, but something one may, under certain conditions, press for. That may sound tidy in a philosophy seminar. It sounds far less plausible beside a bloodstained cross and wounds that still bear a name.

Promise ring

Ridge’s argument begins with promises. “Promises generate rights,” he writes. And since “we can promise to forgive,” it follows that “we can have a right to be forgiven.”

He then pushes beyond explicit promises. Long habits of forbearance, he argues, can create expectations and implicit commitments inside relationships. Over time, those too may harden into something like a right. Philosophers, he says, have been wrong to treat forgiveness as if it were always the victim’s exclusive property.

From a Christian standpoint, there is something here to appreciate. Ridge is at least pushing back against the modern cult of grievance, where outrage becomes a vocation and to forgive is to cede power. He is right to insist that resentment cannot simply be nursed forever. He is also right to note that relationships impose real obligations and that promises are not decorative sounds. In a culture that treats every vow as provisional, the suggestion that words bind has the ring of sanity.

But having glimpsed the truth that forgiveness cannot be purely discretionary, Ridge reaches for the bluntest tool in the secular toolbox: rights language.

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Eudist Servants of the 11th Hour

Forgiveness fix

The move also fits a broader cultural drift. In recent years, forgiveness has steadily been reframed in therapeutic terms. Harvard researchers now explain that “forgiveness is good for us,” meaning it lowers stress, improves mental health, and stabilizes relationships.

In popular self-help language, the advice is even simpler: Forgive so you can heal; forgive so you can move on.

Once forgiveness is treated primarily as a psychological good, it becomes easy to assume that people ought to supply that good to one another. Ridge’s argument may simply be the next step in that progression: If forgiveness benefits everyone, why shouldn’t the offender have some claim to it?

The result is philosophically clever and spiritually tone-deaf.

Debt relief

The trouble with Ridge’s proposal appears in at least three places.

The New Testament does not picture forgiveness as a debtor’s legal claim against the heart of his neighbor. It presents forgiveness as an act flowing from divine mercy: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Christian forgiveness is commanded, yes, but it is not coerced. It grows out of a heart that knows it has been forgiven more than it will ever be asked to forgive.

That is the first problem with Ridge’s view. He treats forgiveness as a morally chargeable transaction. I promised; therefore you can bill me. We have a pattern; therefore you can invoice me again. But Scripture treats forgiveness not as a payable debt but as the fruit of regeneration. You can command a Christian to forgive because he has been given a new heart. You cannot litigate him into loving his enemy. You can wring out an apology. You cannot compel the release of a grudge.

Your word and God’s word

The second problem is more basic. Ridge blurs the line between keeping one’s word and performing a spiritual act. If a father tells his daughter, “I promise to forgive you,” then yes, he has taken on a real obligation. He ought to master his anger, repent of bitterness, and restore goodwill where he can.

But it does not follow that the daughter acquires a standing right to demand what only grace can genuinely produce. Ridge’s own formula — “We can promise to forgive. Therefore, we can have a right to be forgiven” — slides too quickly past that distinction. The pressure falls first on the father’s conscience before God, not on the daughter’s ability to cash a promissory note.

His friendship examples make the same mistake in softer form. Old friends do owe one another patience, mercy, and readiness to reconcile. If a man refuses forgiveness after decades of mutual forbearance, then yes, something real has broken down. But what has broken down is not best described as a hidden contract. It is a failure of charity, of character, of fidelity to the shape of friendship itself. Friendship is sustained by habits of mercy, not by enforceable claims.

Crucifying pride

The third problem is where Ridge’s framework leads, once applied to what he calls “moderate wrongdoing,” the ordinary failures “we have all committed and, regrettably, will commit again.” Those are precisely the daily arenas in which Christ calls people to crucify pride and extend mercy before they feel like it. Once those moments are reframed in the language of rights, forgiveness begins to sound less like grace and more like entitlement: I repented; I made amends — now you owe me.

That posture may satisfy a theorist. It corrodes the virtue itself.

The philosophers Ridge is pushing against — figures like Lucy Allais, Cheshire Calhoun, and Charles Griswold — were right to sense the danger. Many of them describe forgiveness as supererogatory: admirable, fitting, sometimes morally beautiful, but not something the offender may demand as a matter of right. As Ridge himself notes, there is “near universal agreement” on this point. They understood something Ridge does not fully reckon with: Forgiveness can be morally urgent without becoming something the offender may properly claim. The instant it hardens into entitlement, something essential has already been lost.

More demanding, more humane

To be fair, Ridge does try to hedge the claim. He confines it to a certain band of offenses. He concedes that some acts may be unforgivable in practice. He also insists that victims retain “leeway” and cannot be pushed into immediate or shallow reconciliation. Those are sensible guardrails. But his own framework undermines them. Once forgiveness is grounded in rights talk, the victim’s conscience becomes one more obstacle to be managed, pressured, and eventually treated as suspect for failing to deliver on schedule.

The Christian alternative is both more demanding and more humane.

It says to the wrongdoer: You are not entitled to your neighbor’s forgiveness; you are entitled only to throw yourself on the mercy of Christ.

It says to the victim: You are not entitled to nurse hatred forever; you are commanded to forgive as you have been forgiven.

But that command comes from God, not from the person who hurt you.

And it reminds both parties that a wounded relationship is not a contract to be litigated, but a place where grace, repentance, truth, and sometimes hard boundaries must coexist — not a ledger of claims and entitlements.

​Forgiveness, Christianity, Philosophy, Sam ridge, Lifestyle, Sin, Faith