Finally the weekend has arrived and the Old Professor can let it all hang out in doing his usual ‘Dump’….all the news that was most likely missed or not readily available.
Locally–The forecast is out about the coming hurricane season which begins 01 June…..and it is looking a bit dire….2025 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be 125% more active than average.
Predictions released as of May 13 predict an above-normal number of named tropical systems, ranging from:
- Named storms: 13-21
- Hurricanes: 7-10
- Major hurricanes: 3-5
My prep work is finished and all to do now is wait and watch.
Personal–Last Wednesday I had another round of blood letting and scans and doctors….a joyous day altogether….I should know the results when I return to doctor on Monday.
Still trying hard to settle Sue’s estate….it is difficult going for she had so much financial stuff going on…..I spent 3 days on the phone last week talking with this agent or this analyst and still no word on the out come. It is frustrating at best.
Let’s get busy shall we?
Most of us old farts take prescription drugs and we are always seeing ads about those miracle spices that have rejuvenating qualities…..but maybe you should be more careful….
A sprinkle of cinnamon on your porridge, a pinch of turmeric in your curry, or a dash of ginger in your biscuits – these popular spices are kitchen staples around the world. For centuries, spices haven’t just been used to flavour food but also valued in traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine for their healing properties. But could something as innocent as a spoonful of spice interfere with your medication?
Take cinnamon, for example. Sourced from the bark of Cinnamomum trees, it contains active compounds like cinnamaldehyde, eugenol and coumarin. Cinnamon oil, derived from the bark or leaves, is often used in food flavouring, fragrances and herbal remedies.
Cinnamon has been linked to a range of potential health benefits: it’s rich in antioxidants, it may reduce inflammation, it helps regulate blood sugar levels, it lowers the risk of heart disease, and even improves brain function. Traditionally, it’s also been used to ease digestion and ward off infections.
Researchers may have found a better way to get needed drugs into your lungs….
Breathing in medicine-carrying microrobots may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but researchers at UC San Diego are testing a way to send microscopic algae into the lungs to fight disease right where it starts. As a press release from UC San Diego explains, the lungs are constantly exposed to outside threats—think viruses, bacteria, and pollutants—and are also protected by some pretty significant barriers: small hairs in our noses that act as filters, mucus and cilia in our windpipes to capture and push out particles, and macrophages in the lungs that are hellbent on finding and destroying unknown substances. As such, medicines for infections like pneumonia are typically delivered via the bloodstream, requiring higher doses that risk wider side effects.
Enter a team led by Joseph Wang and Liangfang Zhang at the Jacobs School of Engineering, who trialed using microrobots built from green algae as a way to get past these defenses. The choice of algae, instead of metal, comes down to compatibility—they move easily and don’t trigger strong immune responses. Medications like antibiotics are loaded onto the microscopic algae “robots,” which are then packed into aerosols small enough to bypass the nose and throat defenses and reach deep into the lungs. The big innovation: the package of drugs on each robot gets a coating made from normal cell membranes, so when immune cells encounter them, they don’t see a threat—letting the treatment spread evenly through the lungs and do its job before being cleared away.
“Post nebulization, the microrobots retain their motility to help achieve a homogeneous lung distribution and long-term retention exceeding five days in the lungs,” they write in the study published in Nature Communications. In tests on MRSA-infected mice, the technology proved promising: all mice given the microrobot treatment for pneumonia survived, while none treated traditionally or not al all did. CBS8 adds that the technology been used to deliver chemotherapy drugs to mice with metastatic lung tumors. Human trials are “foreseeable,” per the school.
This could be a major step forward for the taking of cancer meds…..
Keeping with the health meme….
This is news on the treatment of diseases of the nervous system…..
Central nervous system (CNS) diseases involve complex pathophysiology, gradual symptom onset, and significant challenges in therapeutic evaluation. Aging populations and increasing life and work stress have contributed to a rising incidence of conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), epilepsy, and depression, which are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality.
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Edible and medicinal fungi have been utilized in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. Certain fungi contain polysaccharides, steroids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and alkaloids with documented antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective effects. Recent studies have examined these bioactive components as potential therapeutic agents for CNS diseases, with specific compounds reported to target oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and neuronal cell survival.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-traditional-chinese-medicinal-fungi-potential.html
This report is for those that suffer from migraines…..
If you’re a migraine sufferer familiar with that early “aura” and other symptoms that pop up before the main pain hits, the latest study may herald relief down the road. A recent clinical trial has found that ubrogepant, an approved medication for the severe, throbbing headache that can last for hours or even days, is not only more effective if consumed when those initial symptoms arise—it may also treat those symptoms as well, which include nausea, dizziness, and fatigue, per IFL Science.
The research published Monday in the journal Nature involved 438 subjects who were frequently slammed by migraines, and who experienced some of the telltale early warning signs hours before the migraine itself actually began. The experiment didn’t directly pit ubrogepant, sold under the brand name Ubrelvy, against a placebo or other anti-migraine drug. Instead, each subject received two pills: once when the warning signs of a migraine started emerging, and another when the next bout of symptoms began. One pill was ubrogepant, the other a placebo, and the participants weren’t clued in on which was which.
The subjects then had to rate on a five-point scale how much their activity was restricted due to the migraine. Two hours after taking the first pill in their two-pill regimen, subjects who took the ubrogepant first, then the placebo were 73% more likely to say they could go about their business normally than those who took the placebo first. Those who took ubrogepant first also saw their initial symptoms subside more quickly: For example, nearly 29% of the ubrogepant-first group reported that their neck pain died down within three hours, while only about 16% of the placebo-first group noted the same.
Sue suffered from debilitating headaches…..so if that is your problem please read this and then discuss it with your doctor.
Moving on now…..I was a big fan of the Razr back in the day and I have been considering the possibility of buying a new folding smart phone…..then I saw this report and now I am reconsidering my choice….ifr you are thinking about a foldable phone then this report should be informative.
I love foldables. After taking a break from smartphones, foldables caught my eye and led me back in. But there are downsides—some I reflected on, and some I didn’t!
The first foldable I owned was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. The first I reviewed was the 2024 Moto Razr+. In both cases, I found that the screen resolutions were not quite the same as what you have in traditional phones.
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The promise of flip-foldables is that these clamshell devices unfolds into regular smartphones. That’s not quite true. They’re close, but they’re a bit too tall.
I have long fingers, yet I found the Razr tall enough that I had to shimmy my hand to swipe down notifications. Plus, the placement of the hinge right in the middle means the volume buttons also need to go higher than expected.
https://www.howtogeek.com/unexpected-downsides-of-foldable-phones/
Unlocking your mental power….
Do you believe in out-of-body experiences?
For most scientists, consciousness and the brain are inextricably linked—and for good reason. The brain is the synaptic center where our biological selves make sense of the world around us. But this approach only explains certain aspects of consciousness, like information processing and memory storage. The “hard problem,” as famously stated by the Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers, is explaining why these physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience.
And it is indeed a hard problem, one that philosophers, theologians, neuroscientists, and biologists have pondered for millennia. Because knowledge abhors a vacuum, many theories of consciousness have filled the void. Some have even explored the highly controversial idea of non-local consciousness—that is, a consciousness that exists beyond the confines of our physical skulls. This might seem counterintuitive to your lived experience, which feels very internal. But for years, some have analyzed the perplexing phenomenon of the out-of-body experience (OBE) as potential evidence for this controversial theory.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a64784235/consciousness-out-of-body-experience/
How about any sexual fantasies you may have during a surgery?
Under the haze of anesthesia, some patients undergoing surgery experience something you wouldn’t expect in this tense setting — vivid, sometimes disturbing sexual fantasies. In rare but striking cases, these dreams and hallucinations have blurred the lines between reality and delusion, leaving behind confusion, distress, and in some instances, legal fallout.
A growing body of literature is shedding light on an unsettling phenomenon: certain sedative and hypnotic drugs, especially those used in anesthesia, can provoke sexual hallucinations. These are not idle daydreams. They unfold with startling clarity, often in a logical sequence, and some patients recall them with an eerie sense of certainty.
It can expand your mind and love your consciousnesses….turn on, tune in and drop out.
Under the care of a traditional Peruvian healer, serial entrepreneur Mark Gogolewski took a powerful Amazonian psychedelic as part of his healing process from alcoholism. As the Ayahuasca ceremony deepened, Gogolewski felt himself pulled to the brink of death, but also felt an encouragement to just let go and jump, he says. But something caught him—and it was “infinite love,” he says. “Like, you can imagine anything you might want—the beautiful, loving light, the source, whatever word you use—we touch it. It’s not just ineffable. It’s everything. … And I will never forget it, because it was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I can’t give you exact words, but I remember the feeling of those words.”
Gogolewski’s struggle to put the experience into words touches on a larger mystery: why do so many people who undergo altered states of consciousness find themselves unable to explain what they felt? Studies are revealing that these states may be fundamentally outside the bounds of human language. Or perhaps language itself is a filter—a cage, even—that blocks us from grasping deeper truths.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a64636206/altered-consciousness-psychedelic/
Maybe Timothy Leary was not as whacked out as we first thought.
That is enough mind numbing stuff for this Saturday…
Enjoy your day and if you are out and about then….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”