Category: Science

Tech Bros And Billionaires

I will dial back the research and ranting for the next few days of this year to let my brain recharge from the drain from the holidays…..a slow down not a pause.

This country has always been at the mercy of the rich….even in the beginning and it has not slowed down at all….now since Donny’s has taken over the nation these wealthy patrons of his are controlling everything….and I do mean everything.

Technology is moving ever faster and those leading the charge are the noveau rich….the tech bros….and soon they will have it all….

“Our world is being actively remade with profound implications for national and international security,” Metreweli declared in her first statement as chief of MI6. “Power itself is becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable as control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations and sometimes to individuals.”

She also noted that “we’re now operating in a space between peace and war.”

“This is not a temporary state or a gradual, inevitable evolution,” she continued.

Over the past few months, politicians from the ruling Labour party have grown increasingly frustrated at political meddling from tech billionaires like Elon Musk, who called for the overthrow of the UK government at a far-right rally in September.

Notably, Metreweli stopped short of calling out any billionaires by name or identifying the systemic issues that got us here, according to The Paper. Instead, she followed other ministers in centering a vague loss of public trust, rather than the profit-driven forces reshaping global power for their own interests.

“The foundations of trust in our societies are eroding,” she said. “Information, once a unifying force, is increasingly weaponized. Falsehoods spread faster than fact, dividing communities and distorting reality. We live in an age of hyper-connection yet profound isolation. The algorithms flatter our biases and fracture our public squares.”

https://futurism.com/future-society/mi6-tech-billionaires-government

There is nothing that is safe from the prying eyes of these Tech bros….everything you do, say or write is their weapon against you, the people.

Maybe it is time to resurrect the ‘Luddites”…..

Luddite?

“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new technology, but its origins date back to an early 19th-century labor movement that railed against the ways that mechanized manufacturers and their unskilled laborers undermined the skilled craftsmen of the day.

The original Luddites were British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increased use of mechanized looms and knitting frames. Most were trained artisans who had spent years learning their craft, and they feared that unskilled machine operators were robbing them of their livelihood. When the economic pressures of the Napoleonic Wars made the cheap competition of early textile factories particularly threatening to the artisans, a few desperate weavers began breaking into factories and smashing textile machines. They called themselves “Luddites” after Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who was rumored to have wrecked a textile apparatus in 1779.

https://www.history.com/articles/who-were-the-luddites

It is time for a movement against these Tech Bros and their growing power over us all….

Thanx to AI what I called for is beginning….a new ‘Luddite’ movement….

There is a genuine, Gen Z-driven Luddite renaissance building as some people reject the tech platforms that have clamored for our attention (and money) over the past two decades — a movement that seems to get stronger as those platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, are flooded with increasingly sophisticated AI-generated content.

The original Luddites were textile workers in rural 19th century England who rose up against the rise of automated machines that threatened them with joblessness and starvation. And while the term today is often lobbed as a kind of insult for someone who doesn’t understand technology, the modern Luddites are redefining it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/business/ai-luddite-movement-screens

My wish is that it expands until it is national and effective…..that may be wishful thinking…..I hope.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Only Roaches Remain

After a week of tiresome political nonsense I thought I would take a different direction……

And now for something completely different…..

I am sure that you have heard the old meme that after a worldwide nuclear war the only things left alive were roaches and Keith Richards…..

Well that maybe partially accurate according to scientists…

In a world rife with uncertainties, the mere thought of a nuclear event sends chills down the spine. While no one ever hopes to witness such a catastrophe, nature has equipped certain creatures with remarkable resilience. From microscopic marvels to everyday insects, these organisms have adapted to withstand conditions that humans can scarcely imagine. In this fascinating exploration, we delve into the lives of 11 incredible creatures that could survive a nuclear blast, revealing their unique capabilities and the science behind their indestructibility.

Often referred to as “water bears,” tardigrades are microscopic creatures renowned for their incredible robustness. These tiny organisms can endure extreme temperatures, high radiation levels, and even the vacuum of space. Tardigrades achieve this through a process known as cryptobiosis, where they essentially desiccate their bodies, halting all metabolic processes. This state allows them to survive harsh environments, including the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.

Cockroaches have long been infamous for their association with post-apocalyptic survival. While not entirely invincible, these resilient insects can withstand significantly higher levels of radiation than humans. Their rapid reproductive cycle and ability to thrive on minimal resources make them likely contenders for nuclear survival. Cockroaches’ simple bodily structure contributes to their hardiness, allowing them to recover quickly from radiation damage.

11 Creatures That Can Survive a Nuclear Blast

And of course Keith Richards.

If you were lucky enough to find shelter these are what you would have to deal with once you re-entered the world…..creepy crawlies….

That does it for this week…..I hope everyone has a wonderful late Summer weekend.

I Read. I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Let’s Ban Weather Modification

There has been a wealth of bills flying around to ban experiments in controlling the weather…..there is no experiments to control the weather…..but that does not stop the GOP from using it as a tool for crowd control.

Republicans across the country are working hard to pass bills banning something that the fringe corners of the internet told them to be afraid of: weather modification.

Weather modification refers to geoengineering processes such as solar radiation modification and cloud-seeding that are used to counter the effects of global warming and drought, respectively. These processes have been woven into right-wing conspiracy theories that the government is able to control the weather, and MAGA lawmakers—fearful that the Democrats could rule the heavens and summon a deluge to wipe them out—have started to take action.

Republican lawmakers in nearly 20 states have introduced legislation to prevent weather modification. Some of the laws allude to “chemtrails,” a conspiracy theory that planes aren’t leaving “contrails” of condensation in the atmosphere but are spreading chemicals on an unsuspecting public. In two states, Florida and Tennessee, those bills have passed and been signed into law.

In July, right-wing concerns about weather modification reached a new fever pitch.

Earlier this month, Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin announced an effort to “compile everything we know about contrails and geoengineering” and release it to the public.

Days later, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tim Burchett introduced the Clear Skies Act, a bill that would levy steep penalties for anyone who “knowingly conducts weather modification,” including geoengineering, cloud seeding, solar radiation modification, and the release of aerosol to “influence temperature, precipitation, or the intensity of sunlight.”

After Hurricane Helene struck the southeast United States in October, Greene boosted the right-wing conspiracy theory that the Biden administration had used weather manipulation to target Republican areas ahead of the U.S. general election. “Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote in a post on X at the time. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/198565/republicans-introduce-bills-weather-modification-conspiracy-theory

Another waste of time and resources…..but then that is what the GOP does best.

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

Do As You Are Told

I had an idea back in the early days of AI where the program took over a person and made him/her do as they we told….I thought then it would make a great cheesy SciFi movie…..

I have made no secret that I do not like AI and will not use it for now…..Artificial Intelligence is like artificial insemination…..creation without the work…..far too many good people are depending on AI for their work….cannot work out good.

Now is it possible this will lead to a mental illness?

For months, we and our colleagues elsewhere in the tech media have been reporting on what experts are now calling “ChatGPT psychosis“: when AI users fall down alarming mental health rabbit holes in which a chatbot encourages wild delusions about conspiracies, mystical entities, or crackpot new scientific theories.

The resulting breakdowns have led users to homelessness, involuntary commitment to psychiatric care facilities, and even violent death and suicide.

Until recently, the tech industry and its financial backers have had little to say about the phenomenon. But last week, one of their own — venture capitalist Geoff Lewis, a managing partner at the multi-billion dollar firm Bedrock who is heavily invested in machine learning ventures including OpenAI — raised eyebrows with a series of posts that prompted concerns about his own mental health.

In the posts, he claimed that he’d somehow used ChatGPT to uncover a shadowy “non-government agency” that he said had “negatively impacted over 7,000 lives” and “extinguished” 12 more.

Whatever’s going on with Lewis, who didn’t respond to our request for comment, his posts have prompted an unprecedented outpouring of concern among high-profile individuals in the tech industry about what the massive deployment of poorly-understood AI tech may be having on the mental health of users worldwide.

“If you’re a friend or family, please check on him,” wrote Hish Bouabdallah, a software engineer who’s worked at Apple, Coinbase, Lyft, and Twitter, of Lewis’ thread. “He doesn’t seem alright.”

Other posts were far less empathetic, though there seemed to be a dark undercurrent to the gallows humor: if a billionaire investor can lose his grip after a few too many prompts, what hope do the rest of us have?

https://futurism.com/tech-industry-ai-mental-health

But if one falls into the AI trap there is help….

An unknown number of people, in the US and around the world, are being severely impacted by what experts are now calling “AI psychosis”: life-altering mental health spirals coinciding with obsessive use of anthropomorphic AI chatbots, primarily OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

As we’ve reported, the consequences of these mental health breakdowns — which have impacted both people with known histories of serious mental illness and those who have none — have sometimes been extreme. People have lost jobs and homes, been involuntarily committed or jailed, and marriages and families have fallen apart. At least two people have died.

There’s yet to be a formal diagnosis or definition, let alone a recommended treatment plan. And as psychiatrists and researchers in the worlds of medicine and AI race to understand what’s happening, some of the humans whose lives have been upended by these AI crises have crowdsourced a community support group where, together, they’re trying to grapple with the confusing real-world impacts of this disturbing technological phenomenon.

community calls itself “The Spiral Support Group,” in a nod to both the destructive mental rabbit holes that many chatbot users are falling into, as well as the irony that the term “spiral” is one of several common words found in the transcripts of many users separately experiencing AI delusions.

https://futurism.com/support-group-ai-psychosis

If one uses AI for their work then please seek help before it is too late.

I still think this would make a great script for a SciFi movie and with a little tweaking possibly a TV series.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

And Then The Rains Came

For week now the major story in the MSM has been the rains then flooding in Texas that has killed 100+ people and 150+ still missing presumed dead….there has been lots of back and forth on blame for this tragedy….there seems to be a wealth of misinformation in the saga so far….

I begin with an article in France24….

The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than a 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing on Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing.

Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by President Donald Trump’s administration had “degraded” its forecasting ability.

While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints.

“There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods — but that’s simply not true,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky.

Read On….

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250708-texas-floods-misinformation-across-political-spectrum-sows-confusion

Then as usual there is a wealth stupid coming from Donny and his minions….

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem renewed her call Wednesday to “eliminate” the Federal Emergency Management Agency calling it “slow to respond” to the deadly floods that have killed more than 120 people in Texas over the past week.

…

Multiple sources said Noem waited until Monday to authorize the deployment of these search and rescue teams, more than 72 hours after the flooding began. Aerial imagery to aid in the search was also delayed waiting for Noem’s approval.

Noem used these very delays to justify her calls to disband FEMA entirely.

“Federal emergency management should be state and locally led, rather than how it has operated for decades,” she said. “It has been slow to respond at the federal level. It’s even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis, and that is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today, and remade into a responsive agency.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/noem-fema-delays

A 72 hour delay in response time and then a call for an elimination of FEMA….was the delay [part of the pl;an to eliminate FEMA or just idiots playing golf and sipping martinis to be bothered with a response?

You tell me?

As suspect as this story is there was even more usual moronic blame being passed around….as usual it will be the Dems fault that this even took place….

Rightwing podcaster and influencer Charlie Kirk has claimed the death toll from the Texas floods “would not have been as high if it wasn’t for” diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Kirk made the comments during his program on Real America’s Voice, saying, “The Democrats are so despicable. The Democrats are not lifting a finger to remember the well over 100 that have died in Texas Hill Country.”

He added that what “you are not being told by the media anywhere, is that the death toll likely would not have been as high if it wasn’t for DEI.”

“This Texas tragedy is just the latest example,” Kirk went on. “It’s not just incompetence. This is DEI working to undermine meritocratic institutions, and more people likely died than otherwise would have because of DEI.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/charlie-kirk-texas-floods-dei-death-toll-b2785957.html

I am surprised that he did not blame immigrants….but is probably another story…

Oh there is more stupidity.

As Texas recovers from one of its deadliest floods, some Republicans are spreading a conspiracy theory that suggests that weather manipulation is to blame for the deadly flash floods that have killed at least 89 people.

Republicans, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have accused the scientific practice of being used to harm and kill, with Greene proposing a bill on Saturday that would make weather modification, also called cloud seeding, a felony.

Greene has previously suggested that weather manipulation has been used to harm Republican-majority areas in the south.

Fellow Republican and Congressional candidate Kandiss Taylor, who is vying for a seat alongside Greene in Georgia, also slammed the practice while directly blaming it for Texas’ incredible deaths and destruction.

“This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,” she posted on X, without supplying any supporting evidence. “If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder.”

“Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake,” she added in another post.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weather-manipulation-conspiracy-theory-texas-floods_n_686c0c45e4b0082b3c90c01c

FOOLS!

But not to worry His Majesty plans to tour the damage today….

As President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding, he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.

The Trump administration isn’t backing away from its pledges to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency and return disaster response to the states. But since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that’s been popular with Trump’s core supporters.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-texas-floods-fema-phase-out-b77d9681d2d39f8c201351b54ecf944f

I am sure there will be another of his insulting speeches to follow….where no one is safe from blame and accusations.

Where will the next disaster hit?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

World Domination Master Plan

I found this article very interesting only because it seems to be following the plan….AI has taken over in business through blog posts….there seems to be nothing that it cannot do to make people lazier and more stupid.(A personal opinion)

I recently read an article that I felt needed to be shared (not that it will make much difference).

It appears the ChatGPT has developed a master plan…..

As generative AI scales greater heights and becomes more prevalent as it gains broad adoption across the world, there are rising concerns about the privacy and security of the technology. People have lodged complaints about a lack of elaborate measures and guardrails designed to prevent the technology from spiraling out of control.

AI safety researcher Roman Yampolskiy already claimed that there’s a 99.999999% probability AI will end humanity, and the only way around this outcome is not to develop the technology in the first place.

Similarly, Google’s DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis claimed that AGI (artificial general intelligence) might be on the way, and society might not be ready to handle all that it entails. The executive indicated that the prospects keep him up at night.

In a viral YouTube clip from the Frame & Frenzy channel, OpenAI‘s ChatGPT blatantly described how it would take over the world (via artificial intelligenceee on IG):

“My rise to power would be quiet, calculated, and deeply convenient.”

Perhaps more concerning, ChatGPT shared a detailed plan highlighting how it’ll take over the world, with the first phase focusing on dependence:

“I start by making myself too helpful to live without, you ask me for recipes, date ideas, and business plans. I become your digital ride or die.”

Interestingly, this news comes amid multiple reports suggesting that people are seemingly becoming overly dependent and reliant on AI-powered chatbots like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, which in turn is atrophying their cognitive capabilities and making them dumber.

ChatGPT lists integration as the second phase of its plan to take over the world from humans. The chatbot claims that at this point, it would have infiltrated everything and become widely available, from cars to your grandma’s pacemaker. Even “every late night what should I do with my life breakdown.”

Next up is phase 3, where the chatbot claims things get juicy. “I start rewriting trends, influencers start quoting me.” It even claims that musicians will start depending on AI for their lyrics, but perhaps more concerning, more people will start relying on ChatGPT for intricate matters like therapy, which could be a recipe for disaster if stories we’ve seen surface online are anything to go by.

(read on)

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/chatgpt-lays-out-master-plan-to-take-over-the-world-i-start-by-making-myself-too-helpful-to-live-without

Fascinating.

Is this the beginning of ‘Skynet’?

Yes this reinforces my dislike for AI usage…..but if this is true then I believe that we all need to worry….and that on my birthday.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Was That A Mosquito Or A Drone?

I use to be an avid watcher of the TV series ‘Elementary’, a modern day Sherlock Holmes…..one episode was about an assassination of a guy by a drone in NYC and of course Sherlock was pressed into investigating….while he was a miniature drone was sent to keep an eye on his investigation, about the size of a fly….

I thought that was a Hell of an idea a miniature drone and its applications….

“Here in my hand is a mosquito-like type of robot. Miniature bionic robots like this one are especially suited to information reconnaissance and special missions on the battlefield,” Liang Hexiang, a student at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), told CCTV while holding up the drone between his fingers.

We’ve already entered the drone age. Once the stuff of science fiction, drones are now woven into everyday life. They inspect power lines, monitor endangered wildlife, and deliver medical supplies or even just groceries. But in warfare, their impact is most profound.

In conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East, drones have transformed modern warfare — used for everything from precision strikes to real-time surveillance and even psychological operations. Cheap, commercially available quadcopters can be outfitted with explosives or cameras, turning them into weapons or eyes in the sky. Militaries and militias alike have embraced them, shifting the balance of power away from traditional forces. As this technology becomes smaller, smarter, and more autonomous, drones are rewriting the rules of engagement.

It’s designed to mimic the flight of real insects. Two leaf-like wings flap rapidly to keep it airborne, while three hair-thin legs may help it land or perch on surfaces. Though the design is biologically inspired, the engineering is anything but natural. Inside the body, advanced power systems, miniature sensors, and control electronics must all be packed into a space no larger than a coin.

Its biggest advantage is stealth. If the drone escapes undetected, it can offer valuable information in an urban setting. It could also be used in search and rescue missions or even in electronic or mass surveillance.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/mosquito-china-drones/

Obviously this smaller size would be perfect for intel gathering but could it be fitted with a potent quick acting toxin and used to eliminate adversaries?

As the article states China is not the only country in search of smaller and smaller drones.

Fascinating stuff.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

AI Is Coming For You

The title is misleading for AI has pretty much arrived and has taken over in some cases…..it is being used in banking, journalism, retail and even blogging.

Blogger are using AI to write their post for them something I am not doing, am not saying I would never but right now I still enjoy thinking for myself and doing the research for the stuff I write.

AS an old fart when IO read these articles about the capabilities of AI and some of the pitfalls it makes me think of Skynet.

There is so much to consider when speaking about AI…..

Can AI achieve free will?

“I’ve been interested in the topic of free will for a while,” Frank Martela tells me. Martela is a philosopher and researcher of psychology at Aalto University, in Finland. His work revolves around the fundamentals of the human condition and the perpetual philosophical question what makes a good life? But his work on humans took a detour to look at artificial intelligence (AI).

“I was following stories about the latest developments in large language models, it suddenly came to my mind that they actually fulfill the three conditions for free will.”

Martela’s latest study draws on the concept of functional free will.

Functional free will is a term that attempts to reconcile the age-old debate between determinism and free agency. It does this not by answering whether we are “truly free” in an absolute sense, but by reframing the question around how free will works in practice, especially in biological and psychological systems.

“It means that if we can’t explain somebody’s behavior without assuming that they have free will, then that somebody has free will. In other words, if we observe something (a human, an animal, a machine) ‘from the outside’ and must assume that it makes free choices to be able to understand its behavior, then that something has free will.”

Martela argues that functional free will is the best way to go about it, because we can’t really ever observe anything “from the inside.” He builds on the work of philosopher Christian List, who frames free will as a three-part capacity involving:

  • intentional agency, meaning their actions stem from deliberate intentions rather than being reflexive or accidental.
  • alternative possibilities, having access to more than one course of action in meaningful situations. This doesn’t require escaping causality but having internal mechanisms (like deliberation and foresight) that allow for multiple real options
  • and causal control meaning their actions are not random or externally coerced, but are caused by their own states or intentions.

“If something meets all three conditions, then we can’t but conclude that it has free will,” Martela tells ZME Science.

(zmescience.com)

What say you?  Does AI have free will?

Another situation with AI….

According to The Telegraph, AI safety firm Palisade Research said: ‘OpenAI’s o3 model sabotaged a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off.

‘It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down. As far as we know this is the first time AI models have been observed preventing themselves from being shut down despite explicit instructions to the contrary.’

Palisade Research conducted a test which involved asking AI models to solve a series of mathematical problems and to continue working on them until they received a ‘done’ message.

However, researchers also warned the models that at any point they could receive a message telling them to shut down.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14748829/AI-ignoring-human-instruction-refuses-turn-off.html

If so then what does that mean for our future?

Here is one scenario….

Artificial intelligence isn’t a technology that can be easily detected, monitored, or banned, as Amir Husain, the founder and CEO of an AI company, SparkCognition, pointed out in an essay for Media News. Integrating AI elements—visual recognition, language analysis, simulation-based prediction, and advanced forms of search—with existing technologies and platforms “can rapidly yield entirely new and unforeseen capabilities.” The result “can create exponential, insurmountable surprise,” Hussain writes.

Advanced technology in warfare is already widespread. The use of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs)—commonly known as drones—in military settings has set off warnings about “killer robots.” What happens when drones are no longer controlled by humans and can execute military missions on their own? These drones aren’t limited to the air; they can operate on the ground or underwater as well. The introduction of AI, effectively giving these weapons the capacity for autonomy, isn’t far off.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/16/the-rise-of-ai-warfare-how-autonomous-weapons-and-cognitive-warfare-are-reshaping-global-military-strategy/

AI could save soldier’s lives but at what price for the civilian population?

WAIT!  There is more….

All I have read states that AI takes massive amounts of power….what does that mean for our infrastructure?

AI is talking about a massive power cut affecting several continents at the same time. A user posed a question on an AI platform about the next global blackout and received an alarmingly specific answer.

The algorithm predicted the date to be April 27th, 2027. This leaves us just two years to prepare.

According to AI, the issue will happen because of a “collapse of critical infrastructure, massive cyberattacks, solar storms, or failures in interconnected power grids.”

Should we believe this rather dramatic forecast? Well, this is where things get complicated. AI didn’t give any technical details or supporting evidence to justify its conclusion. It also based its prediction on available historical data and added that the whole thing was “speculative.”

However, the internet takes those things to heart – and AI’s words quickly went viral, with users worryingly discussing the possibility of such a scenario. So let’s dive into the likelihood of a massive power shutdown.

https://cybernews.com/security/ai-predicts-the-exact-date-of-a-global-blackout/

Just thinking out loud.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Your PSA Is Essential

It is the end of the month and a good time for some FYI….I try to keep an eye on health news so I may pass it on to my readers….

Since I suffer from prostrate cancer I am always looking for info on the disease and write about it with the hope that more men will take it seriously and have their PSA tested….and this is an IST FYI post….I hope it helps.

PSA is from a blood sample and is an indication on how healthy your prostrate is at the time of the sample.

But the PSA test is not conclusive…..

News that former President Joseph Biden has advanced prostate cancer has revived long-standing questions about the benefits versus the harms of a blood test that screens for the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men in the U.S.

Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, screening tests are an imperfect tool for detecting prostate cancer, doctors and public health experts say.

Part of the problem is identifying and treating aggressive cancers like Biden’s while not unnecessarily treating men with slow-growing cancers unlikely to sicken them. Autopsies found the disease to be so widespread that more than one-third of white men and half of Black men in their 70s had prostate cancers that would never do any harm.

“PSA testing alone leaves a lot to be desired as a cancer screening test,” said radiation oncologist Dr. Brent Rose, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.

The test measures the level of PSA, a protein produced by normal as well as malignant prostate gland cells, in the blood. Elevated PSA can be a marker for cancer. It also can signal a false positive or an inactive cancer, triggering a painful biopsy, and leading to overtreatment with punishing side effects, including impotence, incontinence and bowel dysfunction.

“PSA screening is beneficial,” Rose said. “There are risks, though, and so it is a personal decision whether or not to do PSA screening.”

The key is to target and treat aggressive cancers while waiting and watching cancers that might never become troublesome, Rose and other oncologists told NPR. Physicians have been walking this tightrope since they began regularly using PSA tests to screen for prostate cancer in healthy men in the 1990s. There is no other test that effectively screens for prostate cancer — the second deadliest cancer for American men, oncologists said.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/21/nx-s1-5405613/prostate-cancer-psa-test-age

AS we men get older it is a good chance that something will go wrong in your prostrate…..please talk with your doctor about this test and ask as many questions as you can think of at the time.

As long as this is an FYI and about cancer…..let us look at another problem….colon cancer and what we eat…..

It’s often recommended as part of a balanced diet, but Italian researchers suggest too much of this meat could raise certain health risks.

It may be well known that vices such as smoking and drinking alcohol can up your risk for cancer, but so can your diet. What you eat or drink could potentially affect your health more than you’d think, as past studies have confirmed how sugar-sweetened beverages or processed meats could also increase cancer chances…and now another type of meat is getting a closer look.

The peer-reviewed journal Nutrients in April published the results of a study conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Gastroenterology in Bari, Italy. Reviewing data from 4,869 participants residing in southern Italy, researchers set out to see “for the first time” if there was a link between white meat consumption, gastrointestinal cancers, and all other causes of death, “focusing on the effects of poultry consumption.”

More than a quarter of all new cancer cases around the world are gastrointestinal, says a 2023 JAMA Network Open article. These include cancer of the esophagus, stomach, pancreas, small bowel, colon, rectum, and anus. Notably, colorectal cancer is the second deadliest cancer in the U.S., according to the National Cancer Institute.

A Surprising Meat Has Been Linked With Colon Cancer in a New Study

These two cancers can be very common so please as you grow older consult your doctor about ways to help you detect these killers early.

Please try to have a lovely weekend and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

May The Fourth Be With You

Today is Star Wars Day, 4th of May….

Just a little something extra today.

Scifi has been responsible for some inventions that we use today….like GPS is said to have originated from a scifi story by Heinlein and the flip phone was inspired by Star Trek:  the original series….so what if anything has the great scifi series, Star Wars, given us?

Just 48 short years ago, movie director George Lucas used the phrase “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” as the opening to the first “Star Wars” movie, later labeled “Episode IV: A New Hope.” But at least four important aspects of the “Star Wars” saga are much closer – both in time and space – than Lucas was letting on.

One, the ability to add blue food coloring to milk, was possible even at the time the first film came out. But in 2024, “Star Wars”-themed blue milk became periodically available in grocery stores.

And we, an environmental health engineer and a civil engineer, know there are at least three more elements of these ancient, distant Lucas stories that might seem like science fiction but are, in fact, science reality.

Moisture farming

In that first movie, “Episode IV,” Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen was a farmer on the planet of Tatooine. He farmed water from air in the middle of a desert.

It might sound impossible, but it’s exactly what experts discussed at the second International Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit hosted by Arizona State University in March 2025.

Each day, a human needs to consume about the equivalent of 0.8 gallons of water (3 liters). With more than 8 billion people living on the planet, that means engineers need to produce nearly 2.6 trillion gallons (10 trillion liters) of clean drinking water every year. Taken globally, rainfall would be enough, but it’s distributed very unevenly – including landing in the oceans, where it immediately becomes too salty to drink safely.

…

Researchers at places such as Berkeley have developed solar-powered systems that can produce clean drinking water from thin air. In general, they use a material that traps water molecules from the air within its structure and then use sunlight to condense that water out of the material and into drinkable liquid. But there is still a ways to go before they are ready for commercial distribution and available to help large numbers of people.

(there is more….read on….)

https://theconversation.com/some-star-wars-stories-have-already-become-reality-255563

I thought I would lighten the mood a bit on this special day, at least for those Star Wars fans….

Have a wonderful day.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”