We start a new month in no better shape than we were last month….but that does not stop the news or the ignoring of some possible real news….
Local–Starting Sunday the nation’s biggest block party kicks off with registration and the whole host of classic cars arriving and showing off…..events start Monday…..this will be the 30th annual party…..major hotels are already booked solid….and RV parks are getting close to capacity….
Personal–I am finally shaking off the radioactive iodine from the scan…it makes me feel like crap for a day or so….
Looks like the bots have been at it again….I have been getting about 10 times the hits as normal….
Today is a bit of a hodge-podge of news…..
I will lead off with a disturbing report I read….
What’s the most quintessentially American pastime? Baseball? Football? Competitive hotdog eating? No? How about serial murder?
It’s not a dig. The US leads the world in number of known serial killers, and it’s not even close: out of 5,757 cases worldwide, an astonishing 3,803 came from the “land of the free”. That’s almost two out of every three serial killers – twice as many as the entire rest of the world combined.
So, uh. What the hell is going on?
Not a stat that we are proud of having been called out.
Then there is this sexting thing…..
Tech-mediated sexual interactions are a common staple of modern romance in the information age, but are they a healthy way to build a relationship and satisfy those carnal urges? According to a recent study, it depends on how you do it.
Sexting, sending nudes, and other forms of smartphone-enabled intimacy are part of the standard sexual repertoire for many people in the 21st century.
A survey in 2015 found that 88 percent of US participants reported ever having sexted and 82 percent reported they had sexted within just the past year. Around 75 percent of people said they sexted their partner in a committed relationship, while 43 percent said they sexted with their flings and more casual sexual relationships.
These statistics are over 10 years old, but other research has suggested that sexting is on the rise, especially among teens.
Never a good idea.
New tech for monitoring your body…..
By now, millions of people use wearables to track what their bodies are doing, measuring everything from heart rate and sleep to blood oxygen, movement, and more. Medical implants can go a step further, sensing or treating problems from inside the body. But getting all these devices to communicate with one another is surprisingly difficult.
Researchers at Georgia Tech have an idea to bypass that. They want to stop treating the body as an obstacle to wireless communication and start using it as part of the network.
So if, say, a sensor on your arm detects that something has changed in your body, instead of sending the information over Bluetooth, it can send a tiny electrical signal through your tissues. Somewhere else, an implanted device receives the signal and responds, perhaps by stimulating a nerve or eventually releasing a drug.
In a new study published in Science, researchers showed how this could be done, allowing wearable sensors and implanted devices in different parts of the body to exchange simple commands without relying on external channels like Bluetooth.
Speaking of tech….humanoid robots are getting creepier….
Humanoid robots have come a long way from clunky and monotone machines. Today’s models can hold conversations, dance (well, sort-of) and even mimic human facial expressions with unsettling accuracy. The latest addition to this continuously growing list is the Yansyn-X2, a robot that made headlines for something no consumer device has done before: crying on command.
Yes, you read that right. Footage from the 2026 Inclusion Conference in Shanghai shows a demonstrator asking the robot, “Can you shed tears for me?” and then, a few seconds later, a single tear rolls down its face. It’s a striking moment from a technological standpoint, but also one that sparks a lot of unease.
This isn’t just a novelty stunt. There’s a serious engineering effort behind those tear ducts as the research into affective computing amps up in the robotics industry. If you haven’t heard of affective computing, you should know it’s about teaching machines to recognize, interpret and respond to human emotions. The goal isn’t to fool anyone into thinking a robot genuinely feels sadness, but rather to make human-robot interactions feel more natural. Still, watching a machine well up with tears sits in the middle of uncanny valley territory — an utterly uncomfortable space where something looks almost human, but not quite.
https://www.engadget.com/2266933/humanoid-robot-cries-on-command/
I enjoy mushrooms but what if they had another function?
You can grow a computer on your kitchen counter. Well, sort of. That’s the radical implication of new research from The Ohio State University, where scientists have turned humble shiitake mushrooms into living electronic devices that can remember information.
In their new study, psychiatrist and research scientist John LaRocco and colleagues describe a fungus-based computing system that mimics how neurons process information.
“Being able to develop microchips that mimic actual neural activity means you don’t need a lot of power for standby or when the machine isn’t being used,” said LaRocco. “That’s something that can be a huge potential computational and economic advantage.”
https://www.zmescience.com/future/ordinary-shiitake-mushrooms-into-living-computers/
For decades some have been saying that the population of the planet is getting out of hand and will lead to disaster….
The crisis of overpopulation has been debated for nearly 250 years. In 1798, English economist Thomas Robert Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population outlined an idea later dubbed the “Malthusian catastrophe” where population growth outpaces agricultural production. In 1968, these longstanding concerns bloomed into full-blown overpopulation fears following the publication of The Population Bomb by Paul and Anne Erlich. Just five years later, when Earth’s population was only 3.9 billion, the movie Soylent Green depicted a world that essentially collapsed under the collective weight of humanity.
Fast-forward half a century, and food is thankfully not yet made of people, but the crisis of an ever-growing population remains.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a73895126/overpopulation-climate-change/
In today’s world hypertension is a growing problem….this is a sort of treatment….
f your blood pressure is spiking, Mozart might help—at least for a few minutes. A Turkish study of 130 ER patients with dangerously high blood pressure (hypertensive urgency) found those who were given virtual reality headsets showing a river flowing through a forest, paired with classical music by the likes of Bach and Mozart, saw their readings drop 4 to 5 mmHg more within 15 minutes than patients who only received standard medication, per the Telegraph. Anxiety also dropped to a greater degree, per New Scientist. Since all patients received blood pressure drugs, researchers stress that the music-plus-VR combo is a supplement, not a replacement, and its edge faded within an hour.
Lead researcher Dr. Safa Donmez says the chaotic, stressful ER environment can fuel anxiety and drive blood pressure higher, making any safe tool that speeds early stabilization useful. A release notes that this one is inexpensive and easy to use, with no side effects. The findings, presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress, echo earlier Oxford research suggesting certain slow, regular classical pieces—think Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”—can nudge blood pressure and heart rate down, regardless of whether listeners enjoy them. Rock and pop did little or even raised blood pressure in that study, suggesting that for cardiovascular calm, a peaceful virtual forest and some Puccini may beat your favorite playlist.
I do not need the VR thingy…..I put on classic guitar and relax for about an hour.
Noah’s Ark has been found….how many damn times have you heard that crap? Well the are at it again….
It’s been revealed that scientists are now drilling into a mysterious boat-like structure located in the mountains of eastern Turkey.
Researchers have previously suggested that the use of an underground robot could help to uncover the answer to one of the Bible’s biggest questions.
In fact, members of the Noah’s Ark Scans expedition say that the Durupinar formation, which is near Mount Ararat, may be the final resting place of the famous vessel from the Old Testament.
The discovery in Turkey could help to significant evidence for the existence of Noah’s Ark, with the strange rock formation first being identified in 1959.
Andrew Jones, a researcher with Noah’s Ark Scans, and his team have conducted further research, suggesting through ground-penetrating radar scans and soil samples that there are ‘corridors’ underground.
https://vt.co/news/world/noah-ark-site-turkey-formation-drilling-expedition
A misleading title….it should say they are praying they find the Ark.
I admit it I enjoy wine from time to time (not that my doctors approve)….it appears that the California wine industry is having a bit of a crisis…..
It’s harvest time in California wine country, but many growers are struggling to sell their grapes as changing drinking habits have caused demand to plunge. The decline is forcing some growers to tear out vineyards their families have grown for generations, reports the AP. Wine sales have decreased by more than 20% over a five-year period, causing prices paid for grapes to drop and prompting California growers to take roughly a quarter of the state’s vineyards out of production. Many growers are having to decide whether to harvest at a loss, leave grapes on the vine, or replace vineyards with crops more in demand such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and olives.
It its peak during the pandemic, California had almost 600,000 acres of vineyards, but farmers have removed or stopped actively growing wine grapes on roughly 25% of that land, said Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers. This year, about half of California’s wine grape crop entered the harvest season without contracts with buyers, compared with 70% to 80% with contracts in a typical year, Bitter said. If they’re lucky, growers can sell their uncontracted grapes at a loss to buyers making concentrated syrup.
The downturn is a dramatic shift for the wine industry in California, which produces more than 80% of US wine due to its unique geography and Mediterranean climate. Wine sales peaked during the pandemic in 2021, when restaurants were closed and social gatherings restricted; people stocked up on wine and drank more at home. But over the past five years, wine sales have declined sharply, and they’re expected to fall further this year. There are a variety of forces driving the decline in wine sales. Baby boomers are aging out of the market, while young people are drinking less alcohol due to health and money concerns. Wine faces competition from craft beer, liquor, and canned cocktails, as well as cannabis.
That is ad news….I am not the biggest fan of California wine, I prefer a Malbec from Argentina, but I hate that this problem is hurting a good industry….how many will go belly up?
Finally I enjoy food but there are some things that I find disgusting and will refuse to eat….this is 8 foods that are, in my opinion are disgusting….
Everyone likes to eat good food, but what good food means varies from culture to culture and from person to person. The Romans used to enjoy flamingo tongue as a delicacy, but that’s not eaten at all in modern times. Likewise, delicacies from some part of the world could be absolutely disgusting to other people.
Here are eight foods that can seem particularly confronting if you didn’t grow up eating them.
https://www.zmescience.com/other/weirdest-delicacies-food-rep/
What is wrong with people? I find these disgusting except for the corn fungus….I have eaten it in a taco with pico de gallo and queso fresco….it was unusual but not at all bad.
That is all I have for this Saturday….I hope everyone has a lovely and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Iodine… it was iodinated contrast media that caused me to have a severe allergic reaction during a CT scan two months ago. I’m happy to say that I’ve never sexted with anyone in my life. The overpopulation issue is a basic mathematical problem; that is, how many people can be sustained by Earth’s natural resources and our ability to produce food from it. Technology has delayed the inevitable, but for how much longer?
Here’s my view of America’s increasingly violent society, from: https://thesecularjurist.wordpress.com/2023/05/19/american-society-is-sick-and-its-prognosis-is-terminal/
This “growing sickness” in the U.S. is manifesting itself in multiple ways. The mass shootings are a just a bloody symptom. Americans are actively dividing themselves along demographic and philosophical lines which are segregating rich from poor, rural from urban, old from young, white from non-white, the fanatically Christian from other faiths and the irreligious, the militant from the peaceful, the greedy from the generous, the intolerant from the tolerant, the callous from the compassionate, the ignorant from the educated, and the reactionary from the progressive. All these delineations arise from emotion and human nature, and are not pure abstractions such as the traditional intellectualizations which have defined the nation’s two major political parties and their perceived differences. Consequently, it is the reason why the current cultural discord in America is so dangerous. At no other time in its history has the U.S. come as close to destroying itself as it nearly did during the Civil War.
It’s not a dig. The US leads the world in number of known serial killers, and it’s not even close.
*
Silence of the Lambs (1991) won the Oscar for “Best Picture”.
A psychological horror thriller based on Thomas Harris’s novel, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Hopkins played the “brilliant” manipulative psychiatrist and cannibal serial murderer Hannibal Lector), and is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. (Wikipedia)
Those who’ve read Tolstoy’s nonfiction book What is Art? will have a big problem with films like Silence of the Lambs gaining such misplaced appreciation or adoration, – namely, because the film was – according to Tolstoy’s sane way of thinking – total counter-productive-to-society garbage.