Tag: Scientific Research

That Old House

This post is for fun since our country is going down in flames I wanted to brighten the day a bit….and change the subject….at least for awhile.

There is a plethora of reality shows that have this person or that chasing down ghosts and haunting….so far I am told they have found nothing after 20+ years of looking….but the hunt goes on and the cash rolls in.

Awhile back I watched a show about a guy who when working in his lab started having what he thought was a haunting….being a scientist he started investigating and after awhile he narrowed down the ‘ghost’….it was the frequency that an old fan was emitting was interfering with his mind.

And now someone has discovered what he learned with his investigations….

Those creepy vibes you get in a creaky old house may have more to do with the boiler than with the beyond. A new study suggests low-frequency “infrasound” from aging pipes, boilers, and ventilation systems can quietly raise stress levels and sour your mood—even though undetectable by human ears, per the Guardian and Gizmodo. Researchers in Canada had 36 volunteers listen to either soothing instrumental tracks or horror-movie-style music, sometimes laced with inaudible infrasound (at or below 20 hertz in frequency) via hidden subwoofers.

Participants couldn’t tell when the infrasound was on, but when it was, they reported feeling more annoyed, saw the music as sadder, and showed higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, according to findings in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. Study author Rodney Schmaltz says that for believers in ghosts, that vague bodily discomfort can become “proof” of a presence. “They attribute the feeling of irritation to a ghost rather than the old, low rumbling pipes in the basement,” the MacEwan University psychologist tells the Guardian. Infrasound also occurs near traffic and industrial machinery, Schmaltz says in a release, suggesting further study on the health effects of prolonged exposure

Let’s be honest all those reality TV shows are money makers not ghost finders….

Unfortunately, the vast majority of paranormal investigations have been of the pseudoscientific variety – based on incorrect, incomplete or misrepresented science, or invalid due to bias, manipulation, assumption or omission.

In these cases, the presented ‘evidence’ doesn’t satisfy scientific rigour, or can also be interpreted in ways that don’t require the paranormal. Other cases can be shown to be fraudulent. So, the conclusions (and methods) of such studies can be safely ignored from a strictly scientific perspective.

Of course, there are some cases of ‘hauntings’ for which there is evidence of some physical phenomena: magnetic, pressure or temperature variations, recorded images, video or audio, for example.

These phenomena don’t prove the existence of the supernatural though, as there’s no logical connection between the evidence and the conclusion. There may well be other, as yet unknown, phenomena that can explain the observations.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/can-science-explain-haunted-houses

If they want me to believe there are ghosts then someone needs to bring a dog (would be cheaper than the psuedoscientific crap they employ) since canine are very perceptive of the world around them I trust them to find these ‘ghosts’.

I hope I did not crap on anyone’s parade….but I will believe when I see one first hand and so far I am still waiting.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Shameful Experimentation

Time for some history….(this is where you can tune out if so desired)….

Most of us old farts remember the horrific medical experimentation done by the likes of Mengele, Eichmann, Himmler, et al.,…these quacks used prisoners as guinea pigs….and they were condemned by the rest of the world as purveyors of genocide.

The sad part is the younger generation cannot seem to come up with one prison camp name…..

In 2025, 48% of Americans ages 18-29 could not name a single concentration or death camp, according to a survey by the nonprofit Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which works to secure compensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors.

Another 53% of surveyed Americans said that they had encountered Holocaust “denial or distortion while on social media.”

Given their ages, approximately 70% of living Holocaust survivors will likely die by 2035. As they do, more and more people will never hear firsthand experiences about the atrocities Nazis perpetuated during the genocide of European Jews.

My research shows that Holocaust education and awareness, though, doesn’t always follow a linear path.

How sad is that?   6 million dead and no one can be bothered to remember them.  But I guess you gotta be old to remember this shit.

The US and others were just as guilty of unethical experiments like Tuskegee Syphilis Trials, the UK’s Porton Down Chemical Trials, and others were also involved…..

Research involving human subjects is littered with a history of scandal that often shapes people’s views of the ethics of research. Often the earliest cited case is English physician Edward Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, where he injected an eight-year-old child with the pus taken from a cowpox infection and then deliberately exposed her to an infected carrier of smallpox.

Although Jenner’s experiment was, fortunately, successful, the method of exposing a child to a deadly disease in this way would undoubtedly nowadays be seen as unacceptable. Perhaps the most notorious cases of unethical research were revealed during the Nuremberg trials concerning Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. This “research” included involuntary sterilisation, inducing hypothermia, and exposing subjects to diseases such as tuberculosis.

There are also examples of government-run research that took advantage of the vulnerability of the subjects to ensure their participation and which resulted in the subjects experiencing severe harms, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis trials or the UK-run Porton Down chemical experiments in which 11,000 military personnel were exposed to mustard and nerve gas between 1939 and 1989.

https://theconversation.com/human-experiments-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-39876

But one of the most horrendous experiments was done by the CIA, the MKULTRA….

MKUltra[a] was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in altering human behavior.[1] The term MKUltra is a CIA cryptonym: “MK” is an arbitrary prefix standing for the Office of Technical Service and “Ultra” is an arbitrary word out of a dictionary used to name this project. The program has been widely condemned as a violation of individual rights and an example of the CIA’s abuse of power, with critics highlighting its disregard for consent and its corrosive impact on democratic principles.[2]

Project MKUltra began in 1953 and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects’ mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals without the subjects’ consent. Additionally, other methods beyond chemical compounds were used, including electroshocks,[3] hypnosis,[4][5] sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, and other forms of torture.[6][7]

Project MKUltra was preceded by Project Artichoke.[8][9] It was organized through the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories.[10] The program engaged in illegal activities,[11][12][13] including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as unwitting test subjects.[11]: 74 [14][15][16] MKUltra’s scope was broad, with activities carried out under the guise of research at more than 80 institutions aside from the military, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.[17] The CIA operated using front organizations, although some top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.[11]

Project MKUltra was revealed to the public in 1975 by the Church Committee (named after Senator Frank Church) of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford‘s United States President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (the Rockefeller Commission). Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA director Richard Helms‘s order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the small number of documents that survived Helms’s order.[18] In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings.[11][19] Some surviving information about MKUltra was declassified in 2001.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

Read this if you are not familiar with the tactics of the CIA and how they manipulated American citizens with horrific experiments.

Do not condemn anyone until you see what the CIA is capable of doing….

Korean prisoners of war in the 1950s were subjected to early MK-ULTRA experiments while in American custody, according to recently declassified CIA documents which confirm these experiments for the first time.

The only reporting that previously referenced Koreans being used as guinea pigs for these experiments was journalist John Marks’s landmark 1979 book, The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate.” Using CIA documents, Marks traced the now-infamous MK-ULTRA project to its start, when it was known as Project Bluebird. In the book, Marks describes how, in October 1950, 25 unnamed North Korean POWs were chosen as the first test subjects to receive “advanced” interrogation techniques, with the overt goal of “controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.”

CIA Ran MK-ULTRA Experiments on Prisoners of War in U.S. Custody, Declassified Docs Confirm

I wish I could say that this type of human abuse has been eliminated but I bet that it still goes on and under tight secrecy……use Iraq as an example.

Before you set about condemning the nazis just look around the US has been no better.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Baloney Detection Kit”

The late scientist Carl Sagan…..Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934–December 20, 1996) was many things — a cosmic sage, voracious reader, hopeless romantic, and brilliant philosopher. But above all, he endures as our era’s greatest patron saint of reason and critical thinking, a master of the vital balance between skepticism and openness.

He3 devised a way of separating facts from crap…..he called it the ‘Baloney Detection Kit’…..

it contains invaluable tools of healthy skepticism that apply just as elegantly, and just as necessarily, to everyday life. By adopting the kit, we can all shield ourselves against clueless guile and deliberate manipulation. Sagan shares nine of these tools:

  • Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
  • Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
  • Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
  • Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
  • Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
  • Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
  • If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
  • Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
  • (This is my opinion….and this is where the Democrats lose the voter….they offer way too many details and ‘facts’….in other words that give TMI for the voter to grasp.)

It is a shame that more people, especially voters, do not have the mental capacity to test their ‘facts’ out before they act.

It is either they are too confused or lazy and now they let AI do their thinking….after all the attention span of the normal voter is that of a goldfish.

Social media has killed the desire for the truth it is easier to find someone who thinks like the individual and stop there before examine the information provided….I give you, my reader, the current situation in the world….about 70% of the information available is either a half-truth or an outright lie.

If you want to save our republic from collapse then maybe now would be a good time to start paying attention to the crap you fed.

Just a thought!

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”

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”

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”

Want To Live Past 90?

It is another Sunday here on IST and as per my mandate I want to try and make an FYI post….or some historical thingy.

We are told by doctors and such that if we want to live to a ripe old age then we need to eat well and exercise….that may not be entirely true.

While trend pieces that describe which foods to eat or the magic number of steps to walk each day may help curb disease and increase longevity, a key factor to living a very long life isn’t within our control. Per the Wall Street Journal, research on aging increasingly shows that living past age 90 is linked to genetics. “Some people have this idea: ‘If I do everything right, diet and exercise, I can live to be 150,'” says Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group. “And that’s really not correct.” Genetics aids longevity as people grow older: It accounts for 25% of our ability to reach age 90, 50% to reach age 100, and 75% to reach age 106, according to Boston University medical expert Thomas Perls.

But that doesn’t mean lifestyle and modern medicine don’t influence longevity. The Census Bureau projects that 109,000 centenarians live in America today—60% more than 10 years ago, when it was 65,000. Those trusty food, exercise, and diet articles help inform people on what can help them live longer (and healthier) lives. Mental health also plays a role, including one’s outlook on life and strong connections with family and friends. “Keeping in good relationships could be one key to health span,” says neuropsychologist Amanda Cook Maher. That said, people who avoid age-related diseases such as cancer or dementia are more likely to have long lives. Untangling exactly which genes aid longevity is a little tricky, but variants or traits that protect us by repairing DNA or resisting Alzheimer’s disease are up there.

Medical News Today, meanwhile, takes a look at what blood tests have also revealed about longevity. Centenarians tended to have average to lower levels of blood biomarkers like creatinine (a factor in kidney health), glucose, and uric acid. The latter suggests fewer problems with issues such as gout or kidney stones. “It is difficult to say if the absence of extreme values point towards lifestyle. But the findings of overall more favorable values for centenarians, and the fact that these markers are related to diet and lifestyle, it is possible—or perhaps even likely—that such factors have an impact,” said researcher Dr. Shunsuke Murata. The wild card is the interaction with genetic factors.

Just a little something to think about on the Autumn Sunday.

Please enjoy the rest of your weekend….and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All Those School Shootings

There has been a rash…no that is the best word….and epidemic of shootings in our schools with massive deaths and injuries and all ask what the hell has happened?

Today is the anniversary of the horrible Uvalde school massacre….

Why is this happening with such frequency?

That question has an answer….but few will heed or even care as long as daddy gets to strut around wearing his pistol….

This is a study that tries to answer some of the questions (an interesting read but sadly it will go unread) ….

High school students who experience violence or bullying at school are more likely to bring weapons like a gun, knife, or club to school than those who have not experienced violence, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Because weapons increase the potential for injury and death when there is interpersonal conflict, developing a better understanding of the relationship between exposure to violence and weapon carrying is essential for developing effective public health interventions.

“With 93 school shootings in the US just the 2020-21 period alone, and an average school shooter age of 19.7 years (in since 1970), the issue of school violence couldn’t be more pressing. The occurrence of violence in is an urgent and complex public health problem,” explained lead investigator Richard Lowry, MD, MS, Office of the Director, National Center for Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, U.S..

“Our research examined the link between exposure to violence and weapon carrying. We found students who experienced violence at school were much more likely to carry weapons than those who had not experienced violence,” he noted.

Data on 28,442 participants from the CDC’s National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 2017 and 2019 were analyzed to calculate sex-stratified, adjusted prevalence ratios, which were also adjusted for race/ethnicity, grade, , current substance use, suicidal thoughts, and history of concussion. The research is novel because it used recent data available, has results for males and females, and is adjusted for important demographic factors.

Overall, 3.3% of US carried a weapon at school. Among all students, 6.6% were threatened or injured with a weapon at school, 19.3% were bullied at school, 8.3% were in a physical fight at school, and 7.7% were absent from school due to safety concerns.

Nearly half of males (48.8%) who experienced all of these forms of violence, and nearly a third of females (31.4%) who did, carried at school. Males and females were respectively 3.5 and 3.9 times more likely to carry a weapon if they had been threatened or injured with a weapon at school, and 3.4 and 3.7 times more likely following a physical fight at school. Males who felt unsafe were twice as likely to miss school, while females were three times more likely than those who didn’t report feeling unsafe.

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-reaction-school-violence-compounds-crisis.html

Did this answer any of your questions about schooling shootings?

Another post on the mass shootings will be forthcoming….watch for it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Saturday News Dump

Another Weekend begins (the last before Spring)  and as usual I have some news that did not make the front pages in the past week so as usual the old Professor is here to right that wrong.

My better half suffers from crippling migraines she has found that the Botox injections help a lot…..but not e everyone has that option so is there any anyone working on a help in dealing with these problems?

A new nasal spray from Pfizer has just been OKed by the Food and Drug Administration, and the company hopes it will be a game changer for the nearly 40 million migraine sufferers in the US. Reuters reports on the FDA’s Friday approval of zavegepant, sold under the brand name Zavzpret, for migraines with and without aura after a late-stage study showed the drug performed very well compared with a placebo. One of its apparent benefits: how fast it takes effect, with the study showing pain relief as soon as 15 to 30 minutes after using the spray, and a return to normal activities shortly thereafter. Of the 1,400-plus subjects who took part in the study between October 2020 and August 2021, nearly a quarter of those who used Zavzpret reported being symptom-free after two hours, compared with 15% of placebo takers.

The drug also showed more efficacy than a placebo at treating symptoms of a migraine—defined as at least five bouts of headache lasting four to 72 hours, according to the National Headache Foundation—up to 48 hours later. Zavegepant falls under a class of drugs called calcitonin gene-related peptide inhibitors, and treatments are already available from such companies as AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Amgen. Pfizer is hoping its entry will beat the rest on speed. “Fifteen minutes is very quick, even for other nasal sprays,” Dr. Kate Mullin of the New England Institute for Neurology & Headache, who also served as the lead investigator during the zavegepant trial, tells USA Today.

Angela Hwang, Pfizer’s chief commercial officer and president of its global pharma business, calls zavegepant a “significant breakthrough for people with migraine who need freedom from pain and prefer alternative options to oral medications,” per a release. Mullin notes that those alternatives come in especially handy when migraine sufferers can’t take meds orally due to migraine-induced nausea and vomiting. The release notes zavegepant “was well tolerated” during its clinical trials, with common side effects after using the nasal spray including a bad taste, nasal discomfort, and nausea. Some patients with a hypersensitivity to the drug reported hives and facial swelling. Zavzpret’s price, “expected to be comparable in price to other FDA-approved migraine medicines,” according to Pfizer, will be announced at the drug’s launch in July, reports Reuters.

I try to include a little FYI in the weekend posts….

“Charlie, what happened to pubic hair?” (a line from two and half men)

Pubic hair grooming behaviors can differ by gender, nationality, religion, relationship status, and more. Additionally, trends in public hair grooming, like many other forms of aesthetics and hygiene, can change significantly over time. A study published in Anzjog explores the reasons members of both sexes utilize pubic hair grooming.

Pubic hair grooming is a very personal choice that can influenced by many factors, such as trends, sex, age, time period, and more. Additionally, pubic hair can affect a person’s self-esteem, with previous suggesting that engaging in this grooming is related to higher genitalia satisfaction for women.

Another relevant factor is that removal of pubic hair can have health implications, such as removing hair to avoid pubic lice or skin irritation associated with waxing or shaving. Most research about pubic hair grooming habits have focused on women, and this study seeks to expand the body of literature by also including men.

For their study, Rebecca Deans and colleagues utilized 1,560 young adult participants to serve as their sample. All participants were aged 18 to 25 years old. Data was collected for two similarly aged cohorts, occurring in 2014 and again in 2021. Participants were recruited through the university and social media platforms.

New research explores attitudes and habits related to pubic hair grooming among young adults

A little something for the men….

Hate those pesky swimsuit tan lines you get while sunbathing? If you’re planning an upcoming vacation in Berlin, you won’t have to worry about that, if you’re not too modest. That’s because authorities in the German capital announced Thursday that they support the concept of “Freikoerperkultur,” or “free body culture”—meaning anyone is free to go topless in the city’s public swimming pools, reports the BBC. Previously, women who showed their breasts while visiting Berlin’s public pools were sometimes asked to cover up or leave, and some were barred from ever coming back, per the AP.

One of those women decided to file a complaint after being booted. The legalities around this seem murky, but topless swimming or sunbathing by women appears to have not been outright unlawful in the city’s public pools, per the Washington Post. In a statement, the Berlin state government noted that while pools do have requirements for “all bathers” to wear “standard swimwear,” such as swim trunks, swimming shorts, bikinis, and, burkinis, the rules don’t specify what gender has to wear what.

Which is why Berlin’s public pools operator says it’s now going to make sure to apply those rules across the board. This will “[establish] equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female, or nonbinary,” as well as “[create legal certainty for [pool] staff,” says the head of Berlin’s ombudsperson’s office for equality and anti-discrimination, per the Post. In other parts of Germany, the issue doesn’t seem to be as closely regulated: The BBC notes that “foreign visitors to Germany are often surprised—and sometimes downright disconcerted—by the sight of naked Germans frolicking in its lakes, snoring in its parks, or sweating in its saunas.”

That news ought to bring the social media addicts spring into action….or maybe tourism will pick up.

Next is an environmental portion….there are some ‘forever chemicals’ that leach into our ecosystems that could do a lot of damage….ever hear of PFAS?

You may not realize it, but various everyday products like adhesives, food packaging, and cookware contain certain chemicals called per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to make them resistant to heat, oil, grease, or water. More than 9,000 PFAS have been identified so far, which are used in a wide range of industrial and commercial applications. 

Despite their important function in various consumer products, they have a serious downside. PFAS don’t break down easily in the environment due to their chemical structure that resists biodegradation. This explains why they’re often called “forever chemicals.”

“Their unique structure allows them to also move through surface and groundwaters and persist in soils and sediments,” says Allen Burton, a professor of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan whose research deals with environmental toxicology. “They bioaccumulate in humans and wildlife and are so common their ingestion cannot be easily avoided.”

PFAS can leach into soil, air, and water, and they’re already found in humans’ blood and urine. Studies also report that PFAS are ubiquitous in municipal wastewater—not only in those with direct sources like textile mills or papermaking operations, but also in non-industrial wastewater like septic tanks and office buildings. Some suspect it comes from the microfibers in water-resistant clothing during laundry or from human excrement. However, new research reveals another potential source: toilet paper.

Toilet paper may be a major source of ‘forever chemicals’ in wastewater

Some possible good news for us peasants that live in a hurricane region….

After three nasty years, the La Nina weather phenomenon that increases Atlantic hurricane activity and worsens western drought is gone, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. That’s usually good news for the United States and other parts of the world, including drought-stricken northeast Africa, scientists said. The globe is now in what’s considered a “neutral” condition and probably trending to an El Nino in late summer or fall, said climate scientist Michelle L’Heureux, head of NOAA’s El Nino/La Nina forecast office. “It’s over,” said research scientist Azhar Ehsan, who heads Columbia University’s El Nino/La Nina forecasting. “Mother Nature thought to get rid of this one because it’s enough.”

La Nina is a natural and temporary cooling of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide. Studies have shown that in the United States, because La Nina is connected to more Atlantic storms and deeper droughts and wildfires in the West, La Ninas often are more damaging and expensive than their more famous flip side, El Nino, the AP reports. Generally, American agriculture is more damaged by La Nina than El Nino. If the globe jumps into El Nino it means more rain for the Midwestern corn belt and grains in general and could be beneficial, said Michael Ferrari, chief scientific officer of Climate Alpha, a firm that advises investors on financial decisions based on climate.

This particular La Nina, which started in September 2020 but is considered three years old because it affected three different winters, was unusual and one of the longest on record. It took a brief break in 2021 but came roaring back with record intensity. “I’m sick of this La Nina,” Ehsan said. L’Heureux agreed, saying she’s ready to talk about something else. The few other times that there’s been a triple-dip La Nina have come after strong El Ninos and there’s clear physics on why that happens. But that’s not what happened with this La Nina, L’Heureux said. This one didn’t have a strong El Nino before it.

Enjoy your Saturday and be well and safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2022 Scientific Breakthrough

The ‘Holy Grail’ for scientist has been the search for ‘fusion’ reactor and the 2022 big news is that finally a breakthrough by some brainiacs in California….

But is it all that and a bag of chips?

There was great hoopla—largely unquestioned by media—with the announcement this week by the U.S. Department of Energy of a “major scientific breakthrough” in the development of fusion energy.

“This is a landmark achievement,” declared Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Her department’s press release said the experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California “produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it” and will “provide invaluable insights into the prospects of clean fusion energy.”

“Nuclear fusion technology has been around since the creation of the hydrogen bomb,” noted a CBS News article covering the announcement. “Nuclear fusion has been considered the holy grail of energy creation.” And “now fusion’s moment appears to be finally here,” said the CBS piece.

But, as Dr. Daniel Jassby, for 25 years principal research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab working on fusion energy research and development, concluded in a 2017 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, fusion power “is something to be shunned.”

Fusion. Really?

Some are saying do not believe the hype.

In a dramatic scientific and engineering breakthrough, researchers at the Bay Area’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab recently achieved the long-sought goal of generating a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than was directly injected into a tiny reactor vessel. By the very next day, pundits well across the political spectrum were touting that breakthrough as a harbinger of a new era in energy production, suggesting that a future of limitless, low-impact fusion energy was perhaps a few decades away. In reality, however, commercially viable nuclear fusion is only infinitesimally closer than it was back in the 1980s when a contained fusion reaction – i.e. not occurring in the sun or from a bomb – was first achieved.

While most honest writers have at least acknowledged the obstacles to commercially-scaled fusion, they typically still underestimate them – as much so today as back in the 1980s. We are told that a fusion reaction would have to occur “many times a second” to produce usable amounts of energy. But the blast of energy from the LLNL fusion reactor actually only lasted one tenth of a nanosecond – that’s a ten-billionth of a second. Apparently other fusion reactions (with a net energy loss) have operated for a few nanoseconds, but reproducing this reaction over a billion times every second is far beyond what researchers are even contemplating.

Nuclear Fusion:  Don’t Believe the Hype!

So my question is….was this the ‘big’ story that it was hyped up to be?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”