Category: Science

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”

IS Alt Energy The Answer?

I wrote this draft before the idiot won the election…..and Donny has a hard on for alt energy so this may be a moot point I will make.

We are bombarded daily by ads telling us the strives that big business is making to save the environment…..big oil, auto makers, bottlers, etc…..but are these forward looking business just blowing smoke up the consumers ass?

The latest report on CO2 emissions is not a good one (btw it may be the last report we get for at least 4 years)….

The Met Office has issued a dire warning: global warming is accelerating beyond control, pushing Earth off-track from meeting the 1.5°C (2.7°F) target set in the Paris Agreement.

The latest data shows a rapid rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and record-breaking temperatures – raising serious concerns about the future of our planet.

Scientists warn that without immediate and drastic action, we are heading toward a climate crisis that will be difficult to reverse.

The year 2024 officially became the hottest on record, with global average temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. This milestone highlights the increasing intensity of climate change and the urgent need for action.

https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-is-accelerating-beyond-control-as-co2-levels-rise/

But the problem is the energy production…..trying to solve our energy problem we are embracing alt energy…..or are we?

Rising energy costs, unreliable power grids, and climate change continue to exacerbate the global energy crisis and its impact on both businesses and households.

To be sure, electricity access has been improving, the cost of solar energy has dropped by over 80% since 2010, and renewable energy installations have consistently outpaced fossil fuel developments. But even with all that progress, projections signal a rough road ahead for energy usage around the world—one that will continue to impact families struggling to pay bills, industries facing operational disruptions, and economies hindered by resource instability.

One major contributor to the calamity: the world’s reliance on centralized energy grids. Although centralized grids are pivotal to the generation and distribution of energy across many major cities of the world, a lot of these grids are getting old and outdated, overburdened, and ill-equipped to handle the demands of modern economies.

Fortunately, decentralized grids are emerging to help solve that problem. “The rise of decentralized energy solutions, like microgrids, is a direct response to the limitations of traditional grids,” Gil Kroyzer, CEO of Solargik, tells Fast Company. “Unlike centralized systems, decentralized solutions bring energy production closer to the end consumer, improving reliability and reducing infrastructure stress.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/91257084/can-renewable-energy-really-fix-the-global-energy-crisis

There are no easy answers and kicking the can down the road at every opportunity will do nothing to save the planet.  Plus we have a new admin in DC that hates the environmental oversight and will work tirelessly to overturn any and all progressive we have made as little as it may be.

I am glad I am old and will not see the final destruction of the planet.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Conan The Bacterium

Another Sunday….Christmas draws near….

Since I am not feeling very analytic today I thought I would post on something other than the approaching storm for this country.

I suppose that most everyone, that’s interested, has heard that those poor astronauts that were abandoned at the ISS will have to remain in space until at least March of 2025.

I have been irradiated so I got to thinking about all the cosmic radiation that space travelers will be subjected to as they travel the galaxy.

Then I came upon this story of Conan The Bacterium, as the researchers call it….( I was a huge Conan fan in my youth (the Barbarian not the Talk show host) the name just snap my attention.

Life is often viewed as fragile, especially when compared the vast and seemingly unfeeling infinite that is the ever-expanding universe—but then, you meet Deinococcus radiodurans. Nicknamed “Conan the Bacterium” after the famous beefy boy of comic legend, this extremophile earns its heroic nickname from being able to withstand not just immense cold and heat, but also acid, the vacuum of space, and (as the name radiodurans suggests) some 28,000 times more radiation than it would kill an average human.

D. radiodurans is the definition of peak performance.

Now, a new study led by scientists at Northwestern University investigates exactly how this wonder bacterium can survive so many extreme environments that’d spell the end of any other species. This examination led to a collection of simple metabolites—the end product of biological metabolism—and how they interact with manganese to form a powerful antioxidant.

Inspired by this process, the researchers constructed a synthetic antioxidant called MDP made from manganese ions, phosphate and a small peptide, and found that these components provided incredible radiation protection—far beyond the protection of the manganese paired with only one other component. The results of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“We’ve long known that manganese ions and phosphate together make a strong antioxidant, but discovering and understanding the ‘magic’ potency provided by the addition of the third component is a breakthrough,” Brian Hoffman, senior author of the study from Northwestern, said in a press statement. “This study has provided the key to understanding why this combination is such a powerful—and promising—radioprotectant.”

When analyzing the scenario of D. radiodurans surviving on the surface of Mars, Hoffman and his team measured the amount of manganese antioxidants using an advanced spectroscopy technique, and discovered that the amount of manganese antioxidants and the amount of radiation protection formed a positive correlation—more of one means more of the other.

This could obviously have immense applications for humans as we continue exploring the Solar System and beyond—after all, space tends to be pretty irradiated. So, a “radioprotectant” (as Hoffman calls it) that’s tailor-made for humans—whether used in spacecraft shielding or space suits—could be immensely beneficial.

“This new understanding of MDP could lead to the development of even more potent manganese-based antioxidants for applications in health care, industry, defense and space exploration,” Michael Daly, a co-author of the study from Uniformed Services University, said in a press statement.

Maybe this mighty bacterium’s name is a compliment to Conan the Barbarian, rather than the other way around.

(popularmechanics.com)

Now we have our own version of ‘Starship Troopers’ that eventually venture into space to face the evils that threaten the earth….this process could save lives lost to radiation.

Maybe not earth shattering but interesting…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Which Came First?

It is Sunday and a day for me to enlighten my reading audience into some mysteries of life and thought….I try to avoid the mundane boredom that comes with US politics on the weekends.

Now it is time to expand the mind….throughout the ages man has asked the difficult questions….what is life?  What is love?  Where are we in the universe?

But in all that time there has been one gnawing question that no answer has been formulated…..which came first the chicken or the egg?

Now an answer has been presented…..

Was it the egg and then the chicken? Or the chicken and then the egg? Well, a group of scientists have suggested a new theory as to eggs-actly which came first.

Before we reached an age where we had so many other deliberations to worry about – taxes, electricity bills and what we’re actually going to do with the rest of our lives – there was nothing better than the biggest questions on our minds being what we would have for dinner, when our next playdate was or what came first – the chicken or the egg.

So, a team at the UK‘s University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences decided to find out once and for all.

Some argue the eggs came first – laid by dinosaur ancestors of the fluffy, squawky bird that funds establishments such as KFC. Others have argued a chicken popped out of nowhere and then proceeded to lay an egg.

And in a study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, a team of scientists decided to take 51 fossil species and 29 living species and split them into two categories for examination: oviparous (laying hard or soft shelled eggs) and viviparous (giving birth to live young – like us humans do).

The study found the early reptilian ancestors of chickens were viviparous – they gave birth to live animals and didn’t lay eggs.

And while both the teams at Bristol and Nanjing University in China noted that animals laying hard-shelled eggs have been one of the greatest innovations, this research is particularly noteworthy.

The team explained the research implies extended embryo retention (when the mother retains their young before birthing) was the ultimate protection for this group of animals in particular – so basically, way back then, birthing a live chicken was safer than laying an egg.

https://www.unilad.com/news/what-came-first-chicken-egg-science-debate-304414-20240913

So did that paper truly give a definitive answer to which came first?

Your input would be welcomed.

That is my Sunday offering I hope you were entertained and/or educated….go out and have a wonderful Autumn day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Has AI Peaked?

Lots has been written in the past months about AI….some positive and some negative.

I have noticed that in the past month or so the posting on AI has declined to the point that it is barely mentioned….so does that mean that it has become acceptable?

Since I am not AI’s biggest fan I still read stuff about what is going on with the social monster.

One of the most popular platforms is ChatGPT…..and what’s going on with it…..

If you think AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT seem dumber than before, you aren’t alone.

In a blistering opinion column for Computerworld, writer Steven Vaughan-Nichols says he’s noticed that all the major publicly-accessible AI models — think brand-name flagships like ChatGPT and Claude — don’t work as well as previous versions.

“Indeed, all too often, the end result is annoying and obnoxiously wrong,” he writes. “Worse still, it’s erratically wrong. If I could count on its answers being mediocre, but reasonably accurate, I could work around it. I can’t.”

In a Business Insider article that he flagged, users posting to the OpenAI developer forum had also noticed a significant decline in accuracy after the latest version of GPT was released last year.

“After all the hype for me, it was kind of a big disappointment,” one user wrote in June this year.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-dumber

With that said….is AI slowly killing itself?

AI-generated text and imagery is flooding the web — a trend that, ironically, could be a huge problem for generative AI models.

As Aatish Bhatia writes for The New York Times, a growing pile of research shows that training generative AI models on AI-generated content causes models to erode. In short, training on AI content causes a flattening cycle similar to inbreeding; the AI researcher Jathan Sadowski last year dubbed the phenomenon as “Habsburg AI,” a reference to Europe’s famously inbred royal family.

And per the NYT, the rising tide of AI content on the web might make it much more difficult to avoid this flattening effect.

AI models are ridiculously data-hungry, and AI companies have relied on vast troves of data scraped from the web in order to train the ravenous programs. As it stands, though, neither AI companies nor their users are required to put AI disclosures or watermarks on the AI content they generate — making it that much harder for AI makers to keep synthetic content out of AI training sets.

“The web is becoming increasingly a dangerous place to look for your data,” Rice University graduate student Sina Alemohammad, who coauthored a 2023 paper that coined the term “MAD” — short for “Model Autophagy Disorder” — to describe the effects of AI self-consumption, told the NYT.

https://futurism.com/ai-slowly-killing-itself

Since I am not lazy enough to use AI I ask if anyone here has any thoughts about these two reports?

Let us know.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”