So begins another weekend….when you are retired it is pretty much like this everyday….it is grand to be retired.

Local news (as if anyone cares….but I do)…weather is milder 75 to 80 day 65 night…we lost internet yesterday for some idiot wrecked his car and took out a power pole….

Let’s dive into the world of forgotten news….

I always like (kidding) a new conspiracy….this time it is the moon.

Some seem to think that the Moon is creating it’s own light.

In one particularly obtuse version of the “Moon is not rock” theory, people have gone further and made the claim that “rocks don’t reflect light” and “neither does the Moon”. This is particularly baffling, given that all rocks that you see you can see because light is reflected off them and into your eyeballs. 

A simple test of this theory, if you were inclined to do so, would be to take an ordinary rock into a room with no windows at night and turn the light off. If you can no longer see the rock, that tells you it is because you see it via reflected light, how all vision works. Or, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, you probably guess that the rocks know to turn themselves off when it’s dark.

https://www.iflscience.com/new-conspiracy-just-dropped-the-moon-is-not-a-rock-73266

Some of these just flat out amaze me.

In medical news….LSD has proven effective in some mental disorders using micro dosing.

The FDA has bestowed breakthrough therapy status on an LSD formulation found to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression with a single dose. Mind Medicine’s MM120 (lysergide d-tartrate) is used to treat generalized anxiety disorder. Twelve weeks after receiving a dose in a Phase 2 trial, 48% of patients were in remission and 65% saw significantly improved symptoms, according to the company. “The clinical improvement for many patients was more than double what we see with today’s standard of care,” MindMed’s chief medical officer, Dr. Daniel Karlin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, tells CNN. “This occurred at all levels of anxiety, from moderate all the way up to severe.”

Today’s standard of care includes cognitive behavioral therapy, sedatives, and medications that affect serotonin in the brain, including buspirone and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. But patients may need to experiment with doses, adding time and extra costs to treatment, Karlin says. MM120 works through a single tablet dissolved on the tongue under supervision, but without psychotherapy, per Inc. Indeed, this is the first study to show “a single dose of LSD … can effectively treat generalized anxiety without the adjunct of psychotherapy,” Gabriella Gobbi, a psychedelics researcher at McGill University who was not involved in the trial, tells CNN.

Given the breakthrough status designation, MindMed now “expects to receive an influx of investment to the tune of $175 million,” Inc. reports. The FDA grants the designation to “expedite the development and review” of a drug “that treats a serious or life-threatening condition” and is shown by preliminary clinical evidence to “demonstrate substantial improvement on a clinically significant endpoint(s) over available therapies.” MindMed expects to begin Phase 3 trials before the end of the year.

The research looks promising for help for people suffering from a wide array of mental disorders.

As usual I try to find something about food….I love good food….

Is there future in pond plants?

If you ever watch a duck float across a pond, gobbling up the vegetation coating the surface, that bird is way ahead of its time. The buoyant greenery is azolla, a tiny fern that grows like crazy, doubling its biomass as quickly as every two days to conquer small bodies of water. The duck doesn’t know it—and who could blame it, really—but azolla may soon spread across human civilization, becoming food for people and livestock, fertilizer for crops, and even biofuel.

“I’m not out here saying everybody should go eat this stuff right away,” says research technologist Daniel Winstead, who’s studying azolla at Penn State. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. But boy, it’s got so much potential.”

https://www.wired.com/story/get-ready-to-eat-pond-plants/

Yum does not come to mind.

Bacon!

Okay everything is better with bacon and there is never too much bacon for me…..and there was this report….

A Florida man who went to his doctor complaining his migraine medication wasn’t touching his increasingly frequent and painful headaches was found to have parasitic tapeworm larvae in his brain. After four months of pain, a CT scan revealed fluid-filled sacs throughout the white matter of the 52-year-old’s brain. These turned out to be larvae of the parasitic pork tapeworm Taenia solium, which can trigger headaches, seizures, or stroke, according to Medscape. The odd thing was the man didn’t have the typical risk factors for the condition known as neurocysticercosis, per CNN. He hadn’t visited high-risk areas, had close contact with pigs, or lived amid poor sanitation. But he did admit to a habit of eating undercooked bacon.

The man said he ate “lightly cooked, non-crispy bacon for most of his life,” according to a study published last week in the American Journal of Case Reports. Doctors aren’t sure, but they suspect the man got an intestinal tapeworm from eating undercooked bacon, then, due to improper handwashing, consumed tapeworm eggs excreted in his feces. After the eggs hatched, the young larvae likely passed into the bloodstream and took up residence in the man’s brain, forming larval cysts. He was lucky in the sense that he suffered only headaches. As Live Science reports, up to 80% of patients experience seizures.

The man’s headaches improved as he was successfully treated with anti-inflammatory and anti-parasitic medication, including dexamethasone, albendazole, and praziquantel, the Guardian reports. The report notes that neurocysticercosis, which results in some 1,000 new hospitalizations in the US each year, can “easily be overlooked, especially if there is an underlying known neurological condition such as migraine.” But authors stress the condition is preventable. They add cases of neurocysticercosis “outside of classic exposures or travel” are “very rare” and before now “thought to be nonexistent,” per Live Science.

I like my bacon cooked so this will not take me aback.

The Eewww story of the day comes from my state of Mississippi….

Holding cells aren’t known for their luxe accommodations, but one prisoner reportedly had an especially gross stay during his temporary detention in a Mississippi jail. Court files show that police officer Michael Christian Green has been charged with one federal count of deprivation of rights under color of law, after allegedly forcing a man in his charge to lick urine off the holding cell’s floor at the Pearl police station, reports NBC News.

Per the court papers seen by the Daily Beast, Green was dispatched two days before Christmas to a local Sam’s Club to respond to a call about a family disturbance. The suspect, IDed in the court filings simply as “BE,” was arrested, and Green hauled him into the station, where he was placed in a holding cell. At one point, the filings note, the man knocked on the door to alert Green he had to use the bathroom, but when he got no response, he went and peed in the corner of the cell. When Green went to take the man to the station’s booking section, he apparently didn’t notice the urine on the floor, but another officer soon informed him of the incident. Green then brought the man back to the holding cell with some shocking demands.

“Suck it up,” Green allegedly told the prisoner, who gagged as he tried to comply, the filings notes. “Don’t spit it out.” When BE was brought back to the booking area, he’s said to have thrown up in a trash can. “Green did not have a government interest or law enforcement purpose in ordering BE to lick his own urine,” the court filing (perhaps unnecessarily) notes of the incident, which was caught on security cameras. Green could see up to one year behind bars if convicted.

Disgusting !  His punishment, if found guilty, should be loss of job, heavy fine and made to lick those same floors.

Sorry but that is all the time I have for today….garden awaits and burgers to cook.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”