It’s back! The “Dump” returns and we all can be secure to know that there is little useful info included.
Local–We have had a wild week in temps from near 80 too mid 30s…..the Coast is gearing up for Mardi Gras which means there is an ocean of color…purple, green, gold….
Personal–Treatment well….I feel like crap and now I have to for another biopsy on my lung which is always a joy.
We start with advances in mental health….
The guidelines for psychiatric treatment may be in line for a significant update if a sweeping new study holds up. An international team analyzed DNA and medical data from more than 1 million people with one of 14 psychiatric diagnoses and discovered that the ailments share more overlapping genetic roots than previously thought, according to a news release at the University of Colorado Boulder. Rather than 14 separate entities, the genes clustered into five broader groups, the researchers report in Nature. As the Washington Post explains, that raises the possibility for more streamlined treatment—and perhaps fewer different pills.
- Metaphor: “The kind of medical metaphor I’d offer is that if you went to the doctor with a runny nose, cough, and sore throat, and you got diagnosed with runny nose disorder, cough disorder, and sore throat disorder, and prescribed three separate pills, we would consider that sort of a medical misstep,” study co-author Andrew Grotzinger of CU Boulder tells the Post.
- Five groups: The five groups laid out in the study are substance-abuse disorders; compulsive disorders such as anorexia and Tourette’s; “internalizing conditions” such as depression; neurodevelopment issues such as autism; and a fifth category that includes bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which share 70% of genetic drivers. “Genetically, we saw that they are more similar than they are unique,” says Grotzinger.
- Future shift? The findings could eventually push psychiatry toward diagnoses grounded more in biology than in symptoms observed during office visits, but far more research will be needed before that happens. Still, “if you look at what the genes are telling us, it suggests that these different categories are more fundamentally related at the biological level than we had thought,” says another co-author, Jordan Smoller of Mass General Brigham’s Center for Precision Psychiatry in Boston.
Always finding but seldom any action…..
Do you pick your nose?
Researchers are investigating a “potentially scary” link between nose picking and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dirty fingers introduce bacteria into the nose, resulting in infections that could lead to crusting, tissue damage and nosebleeds and now scientists are testing the theory that trauma to the nasal lining may transmit germs to the brain, possibly resulting in inflammation and amyloid plaques being formed, in line with the progressive neurodegenerative condition. Researchers have never been able to pinpoint the exact cause of Alezheimer’s which gradually impairs various brain function such as memory, thinking, reasoning and judgment, and some have shifted their focus to the crucial nose-brain axis, the pathway between the nasal cavity and central nervous system.
The brain’s smelling-processing centers are among the first areas damaged by Alzheimer’s, so researchers have used smell tests as a non-invasive form of screening for the disease’s risk. A 2022 study conducted by researchers at Griffith University in Australia found that nose picking can lead to Clamydia pneumoniae, which is bacteria causing respiratory tract infections into the olfactory nerve in the noses of mice that then travel to the brain, resulting in cells depositing amyloid beta protein. The fragments cling together to form sticky plaques, which disrupt cell communication and can result in brain cell death, memory loss and dementia.
An attack on AI?
To push back against AI, some call for blowing up data centers.
If that’s too extreme for your tastes, then you might be interested in another project, which instead advocates for poisoning the resource that the AI industry needs most, in a bid to cut off its power at the source.
Called Poison Fountain, the project aims to trick tech companies’ web crawlers into vacuuming up “poisoned” training data that sabotages AI models. If pulled off at a large enough scale, it could in theory be a serious thorn in the AI industry’s side — turning their billion dollar machines into malfunctioning messes.
The project, reported on by The Register, launched last week. And strikingly, its members work for major US AI companies, according to The Register’s source, who warns that the “situation is escalating in a way the public is not generally aware of.”
“We agree with Geoffrey Hinton: machine intelligence is a threat to the human species,” reads a statement on the project’s website, referring to the British computer scientist who is considered a godfather of the field, and who has become one of the industry’s most prominent critics. “In response to this threat we want to inflict damage on machine intelligence systems.”
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/poison-fountain-ai
This is the one that I most enjoyed….always with humor…..it seems troops are getting some free stuff….
The owners of a Toronto-based sex toy shop made a bizarre discovery after opening two returned items that were sent back from a US naval base in Bahrain.
As CTV News reports, cofounder Grace Bennett recalled discovering two letters from the Pentagon, which effectively told her business to — in her words — “stop sending butt plugs to Bahrain.”
And while it may sound like the Pentagon was acting out of sexual shame, the issue instead stemmed from “pornographic materials or devices” not being “allowed into the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
Most puzzlingly of all, Bennett’s business, a sex toy store called Bonjibon, doesn’t even send its products to Bahrain due to local laws and regulations. She suspects somebody had forwarded the packages to Navy personnel stationed in Bahrain from abroad roughly a month apart.
https://futurism.com/future-society/pentagon-butt-plugs
As a cancer patient I am always looking for some good news…..
Seven out of 10 Americans diagnosed with cancer now make it at least five years, a threshold experts say marks a turning point in the disease’s grip on the country. The American Cancer Society’s new annual report finds five-year survival has climbed from about 50% in the 1970s and 63% in the mid-1990s to 70% for patients diagnosed between 2015 and 2021. In most cases, the risk of cancer recurring falls dramatically after five years. The group estimates 4.8 million cancer deaths have been averted since 1991, largely because of better treatments, earlier detection, and fewer people smoking, reports NBC News. “Now we’re seeing the fruits of those investments,” said lead author Rebecca Siegel.
Two treatment shifts are leading the charge: immunotherapies, which train the immune system to identify and attack tumors, and drugs that target specific cancer-driving genes or proteins. Myeloma’s five-year survival rate has nearly doubled since the mid-1990s, from 32% to 62%, Siegel said, calling immunotherapy “game changing” for that blood cancer. Targeted and immune-based drugs have also pushed five-year survival for regional lung cancer to 37%, up from 20% in the mid-1990s, per a release.
The outlook is far from uniformly bright. Though cancer mortality rates are falling, incidence rates for many common cancers, including breast cancer, are on the rise, per ABC News. The ACS projects more than 2.1 million new cancer cases and over 626,000 deaths in the US this year, with obesity perhaps playing a role. Siegel also warns that cuts to federal cancer research funding, widening racial disparities in cancer burden, the expiration of some Affordable Care Act subsidies, and pandemic-era interruptions in screening could slow or reverse gains. Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee reported a 31% decrease in cancer research grant funding in the first three months of 2025, compared to January-March 2024.
Do you buy Eco-friendly TP?
Toilet paper, a product used for a few seconds before being disposed of forever, is typically made with trees, energy-intensive manufacturing processes, and chemicals that can pollute the environment. Experts say more consumers are seeking toilet paper made from recycled content or sustainable materials, but as the AP reports, it can be hard to know what to look for. Sustainable toilet paper often costs more, but can have significant environmental benefits. According to the Environmental Paper Network, a coalition of nonprofits, more than 1 billion gallons of water and 1.6 million trees could be saved if every American used one roll of toilet paper made from recycled content instead of a roll made from forest fibers. Some recommendations for reducing your TP-print:
- Toilet paper from recycled fibers: North American toilet paper has traditionally been made of fibers from trees in Canada and eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. Pulp from the trees is bleached to create a bright white color, but the chlorine that’s often used can hurt the environment. Large amounts of electricity and heat are used to remove moisture and form square sheets. Increasingly, manufacturers are making toilet paper from recycled paper products, which avoids material from freshly cut trees, and are using chlorine-free bleaching techniques.
- Evaluating sustainability claims: A life cycle assessment calculates the environmental impacts from when a tree is a seedling to when its fibers are converted into toilet paper. Some companies add those labels to packaging to show that their processes have been vetted. The Natural Resources Defense Council also publishes an annual report that grades toilet papers from A+ to F. Aria, Green Forest, Natural Value, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods 365 100% Recycled received the highest letter grade in 2025.
- Bamboo: Alternative materials such as fast-growing bamboo are often billed as more sustainable than trees, but consumers should focus on toilet paper made with recycled materials instead, said Ronalds Gonzalez, an associate professor at North Carolina State University. Pollution from manufacturing processes can reduce the benefits of using bamboo.
- Bidets: Bidets allow people to rinse after using the bathroom so they can reduce or avoid wiping. Bidets are a sustainable alternative to conventional toilet paper because “you’re not using any sort of logging, it’s water that’s already coming to your household and it’s very little water,” says Kory Russel, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Oregon.
That wraps up this week’s dump….I hope everyone has a great Saturday and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”