I am back with the weekly “Dump” and the world continues and the news as well.

Local–Finally we have had some cool nights and cooler days so the A/C has not been on for over a week….I can only hope this lasts….still not rain and it is drier than one would think….and it does not look good for any moisture any time soon.

Personal–Finally it has been decided by my doctors that the second shadow on my left lung is scar tissue from the radiation….not cancer!

 

I will begin as usual with some health news….

An obscure fungus that targets the brain is no longer staying so obscure. A CDC report says cases of Cladophialophora bantiana, a black, melanin-containing mold, have climbed sharply in recent years, and it’s not just hitting people with compromised immune systems, per Fox News. About half of known infections have been in otherwise healthy patients, and the fatality rate hovers between 60% and 70%, even with aggressive treatment. “Where people get it from and why it primarily goes to the brain ‘remain a little bit of a mystery,'” according to Dr. Joshua Lieberman, who helped put together the CDC’s latest report, per MedPage Today.

Data from a University of Washington lab shows detections almost quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, with cases identified in 21 states and Washington, DC, and the highest numbers in California, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The fungus is thought to enter via inhalation or skin wounds, then travels to the brain, where it typically appears as a hard-to-diagnose abscess. The CDC is pushing for national case reporting and urging doctors to consider fungal causes when evaluating patients’ brains.

Oh great first it was a brain eating bug and now a fungus….please do not ask what next….

Dementia is an ever growing health problem….

If current trends hold, the world is heading toward roughly 25 million new dementia cases every year by the year 2050. That’s more than double the 11.4 million people estimated to have developed the condition in 2023, according to a new analysis in JAMA Neurology that tracked more than 38,000 adults across 18 nations, reports USA Today. The spike is largely tied to aging populations, but it won’t hit evenly: Women are developing dementia at higher rates than men, and people in low- and middle-income countries see far more new cases than those in wealthier nations—13.6 vs. 8.3 per 1,000 people, respectively.

Researchers say nearly half of cases may be linked to modifiable factors such as inactivity, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and social isolation, making prevention a central focus. Meanwhile, a geriatrician reveals the No. 1 “modifiable” risk factor for dementia, reports Today: hearing loss.

A recent study also ties napping to dementia risk, per US News & World Report.

My mind is all that keeps working in good order (well most of the time) and I worry that dementia may sneak up on me.

I love my coffee and now there is so weird news….

Margaret Ellison is 64 and has made coffee the same way every morning for over forty years. Open the bag, pour a handful of beans into the grinder, press the button. Two cups, sometimes three.

That morning she opened a fresh bag and poured a handful of beans out next to the grinder. On one of them she noticed something white — a tiny pale speck right in the crease of the bean.

A woman walked into my lab with a paper bag of coffee and two split beans wrapped in a napkin. I expected to tell her it was mould or a roasting defect. It was larvae. Then I put a sample of the ground coffee from her grinder under the microscope. I found eggs.

So we kept going. We bought coffee everywhere people actually get it — supermarket bags, a busy café, a local roaster, a bulk office supply, a gas-station machine, a premium online order. We split the whole beans and examined the grounds. Twenty-two of thirty-one samples came back positive for larvae or parasite eggs.

— But the coffee is ground. Surely the grinder destroys everything?

— The grinder destroys the larvae, yes. It turns them into the same brown powder as the bean, so you never see them. It does not destroy the eggs. A parasite egg is a fraction of the size of a single particle of ground coffee. The blades simply do not hit something that small. The eggs go through the grinder whole and end up mixed into the grounds.

That is the cruel part of it. Grinding does not make the coffee safer — it only removes the evidence. A bean with larvae in it you can at least see. The eggs, after grinding, nobody will ever see.

https://ustrustgo.com/click.php?

I am not sure that this is a ‘real’ story or some fake crap…..

This is for all my tea drinkers….

You might want to let the kettle cool a bit before pouring your next cup of tea. A study tracking nearly 500,000 adults in China for an average of nine years found that drinking tea at least three times a week was linked to an 11% lower overall risk of vascular disease, including stroke and heart attack, with the risk of ischaemic stroke falling by 37% and cerebrovascular disease by 19%, according to the study published Wednesday in the Journal of Internal Medicine. But temperature mattered: tea described as burning hot was tied to a 16% higher risk of vascular disease, per Euronews, a finding that follows research linking very hot drinks to esophageal cancer.

Though the lowest estimated risk was observed with six to eight cups of tea per day (based on self-reported, non-standardized measurements), per the Independent, researchers don’t recommend drinking that much, not least because of the potential caffeine consumption. They view moderately strong, non-scalding tea as best; black tea showed the strongest association, likely due to the anti-inflammatory theaflavins it contains, followed by green. All tea contains natural compounds called polyphenols, which act as powerful antioxidants and may protect the cells lining blood vessels and help arteries expand, an outside expert tells CNN. Researchers say the public can boost heart health by pairing tea consumption with exercise and not smoking.

Just a little FYI….

The big question and a new theory….since humans have been walking upright the question they ask is ‘why do we exist’?

For years, scientists have been troubled by a central question: how matter was able to win out over antimatter, after the Big Bang. Current theories suggest that they each should have annihilated each other after a huge explosion, leaving a universe made up of pure energy.

That clearly did not happen, given that we are here. But physicists have never been able to explain exactly why.

Now, researchers say that a clue might have been hiding in a neutrino, one of the universe’s lightest particles. A neglected relative of those particles – called a ‘decoupled’ heavy neutrino – could have helped matter to survive as the universe was coming into existence.

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/universe-exist-why-neutrino-study-b3070108.html

That does it for me on this Saturday…..I hope everyone has a great day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”