Yankees Sign Blackburn, China Tech Advances

The New York Yankees have re-signed Paul Blackburn to a one-year, $2 million contract with possible $500,000 in incentives. Blackburn is a versatile pitcher who can start or provide innings out of the bullpen. The signing is seen as a low-cost move that adds depth and flexibility to the Yankees' roster, but may not satisfy fans who are looking for bigger moves. Blackburn's deal includes incentives based on the number of innings he pitches, and he is expected to compete for a starting role in the Yankees' rotation.

Leading mRNA vaccine scientist Hu Haitao has left the US for China, citing personal and family reasons for his decision to give up his tenured position at a US research institute. Hu, who studied under Nobel laureate Drew Weissman, has joined the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Microbiology as a principal investigator. He noted that the US academic environment has become increasingly uncertain, with reduced support for biomedical research, making his decision to leave less surprising than it would have been a year ago.

Chinese chip designer Moore Threads Technology has unveiled two new chips, Huashan and Lushan, to challenge US chip-making heavyweights Nvidia and AMD. The Huashan chip is designed for AI training and inference, while the Lushan chip is for gaming. Moore Threads claims that Huashan's performance exceeds that of Nvidia's Hopper series in computing power, memory bandwidth, and capacity. The company, hailed as China's 'little Nvidia', has gained significant attention since its initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on December 5, with its shares gaining over 480%.