Well the news has been as boring as boring can get…..we have wars raging with NO end in sight, we have celebs wearing their underwear our in public as a fashion statement and attention getter….and most everything after that is mindless dribble as far as the news goes….enter the ‘news dump’….

Locally we had an idiot that stole $3.2 million from a non-profit and deposited it into his personal account….and he got caught (go figure). Just Can’t Fix Stupid.

The big news was the the FDA has okayed a gene therapy for sickle cell….

Two gene therapies for sickle cell disease received government approval on Friday, one of which could represent a major turning point in medical treatments. To combat the blood disorder, the Food and Drug Administration for the first time endorsed gene editing therapy for humans, the New York Times reports. The other sickle cell treatment approved uses conventional gene therapy. The development brings hope to 100,000 American patients, their families, and their doctors. “I’ve been taking care of kids with sickle cell for over 30 years, and I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a long, long time,” said Lewis Hsu, chief medical officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, per the Washington Post.

One treatment, called Lyfgenia, uses a harmless virus to place a gene in a patient’s stem cells. It’s approved for patients 12 and older with repeated instances of pain. The risk of cancer means the treatment will come with the FDA’s top-level warning, a black box. The gene-editing treatment, Exa-cel, uses the brand name Casgevy. In that method, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing tool, CRISPR, is used on bone marrow cells. The patients later receive the edited cells, which produce fetal hemoglobin. There are obstacles to the treatments for the patients, most of whom have African ancestry, dealing with a disease that can cause great pain, strokes, and organ damage.

“It is practically a miracle that this is even possible,” said another expert, adding, “I am very realistic about how hard this is.” The companies that developed the treatments estimated their wholesale prices at $2.2 million and $3.3 million. That’s against the lifetime average of $1.7 million spent on patients with the disease who have commercial insurance, and the $44,000 the patients pay out of pocket. The editing process could be a breakthrough for treating other diseases, as well. “We are very gratified and celebrating,” Hsu said, “but at the same time we have to roll up our sleeves and figure out how to make it happen.”

I think it is great that they have found something to treat sickle cell….but be warned editing genes could lead to something more dangerous….think Khan.

Do you like your corn flakes for breakfast…..they were not originally made for the meal…..read about 15 foods that were not made for what we think….

As soon as a thing is born into the world, it begins to mutate, changing at a sometimes exponential pace, to the point where it might turn into something else entirely. Food, of course, is no exception. From humble beginnings as medicinal aids or as items that were not even destined for human consumption, these foods have undergone a real metamorphosis.

Take the supposedly innocent graham cracker, for instance. You would never know it to look at it, but it was invented to help people become masters of their own domain, if you catch our drift, while today it is primarily used by children, of all people, to hold together their s’mores. Similarly, Worcestershire sauce originally came together as an attempt to mimic an Indian condiment, whose true identity we may never know, but after a happy accidental fermentation, it became the umami goo we know and love today. So let us embark on a culinary journey to unravel the stories of foods (or even non-foods) that have strayed from their original purposes and onto (or in some cases off) our plates.

Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/1455799/foods-we-dont-use-as-intended/

Is the concept of ‘Skynet’ getting closer to reality?

Researchers at Western Sydney University in Australia have teamed up with tech giants Intel and Dell to build a massive supercomputer intended to simulate neural networks at the scale of the human brain.

They say the computer, dubbed DeepSouth, is capable of emulating networks of spiking neurons at a mind-melting 228 trillion synaptic operations per second, putting it on par with the estimated rate at which the human brain completes operations.

The project was announced at this week’s NeuroEng Workshop hosted by Western Sydney’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS), a forum for luminaries in the field of computational neuroscience.

Once operational in April of next year, DeepSouth could provide researchers with an unparalleled look at how the human brain processes information.

“Progress in our understanding of how brains compute using neurons is hampered by our inability to simulate brain like networks at scale,” said ICNS director and Western Sydney professor André van Schaik in a statement.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-computer-neural-human-brain

I am not so sure that this is a good thing…..you?

Researchers are zeroing in on just how much longer we humans have on this planet…..

The Doomsday Argument by Brandon Carter from 1983, which provides such predictions, is based on a fundamental assumption, Focus reports. This assumption is that we humans as observers do not occupy a prominent position, but are here purely by chance. This idea is also known as the ‘Copernican principle’ and is often used in cosmology. It is used to argue that our environment is nothing special and is more common in space.

According to Focus, scientists are now 95 percent certain that we humans will inhabit this planet for another 17,100 years at most before we disappear from its surface.

As we all know, there were far fewer people living on Earth in the past than there are today – currently there are around 8.03 billion. At some point, humanity will perish, that much seems certain. We will either destroy ourselves or die at the hands of the sun, which will have used up its fuel and subsequently swallowed up the earth.

https://www.ohmymag.co.uk/explore/stories/mathematicians-claim-the-end-of-the-world-is-coming-sooner-than-expected_art20460.html

I have my rations stocked up how about you?

The Japanese have a crappy way to launch a rocket into space…..

Japanese engineers have successfully test-fired a space rocket engine, which runs on — not even joking — locally-sourced cow poop.

A Japanese startup called Interstellar Technologies Inc. trumpeted in a statement that the company was able to kickstart ZERO, its space rocket engine, in a 10-second “static fire test” in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island prefecture. And powering up the rocket’s engine is liquid biomethane, derived from cow dung sourced from Hokkaido dairy farms.

Video on the social media platform X shows the engine firing up and shooting a super-hot jet of blue, horizontal flame.

The company, which plans to perform more tests fires into the month of January, is positioning the rocket to be used to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/japan-tests-rocket-engine-cow-dung

I will bet it is cheaper than what Musk is charging the US government for launching stuff into space.

My Saturday is done…..that is the best I could sort out of the news no one can use….I hope everyone has a lovely Weekend and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”