Tag: Scientific Research

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”

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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”

 

That Anti-Science Movement

I am sure you know someone who explains everything away as ‘false science’…..if not then you are very fortunate for they are everywhere and rattling on about everything.

How do these ‘people’ come by their misguided belief that all science is ‘false’ of ‘fake’?

Anti-science beliefs are built on four foundations, or bases, the authors said. These foundations are: thinking scientific sources lack credibility; identifying with groups that have anti-science attitudes; a scientific message that contradicts a person’s current beliefs; and a mismatch between how a message is presented and a person’s style of thinking.

“What all four of these bases have in common is they reveal what happens when scientific information conflicts with what people already think or their style of thought,” said co-author Richard Petty, professor of psychology at Ohio State.

For starters, industries are degrading trust in science by hijacking scientific credentials, using “sciency” sounding claims to bolster their clout for profits; pharmaceutical companies have most certainly given us plenty of reasons not to trust them. What’s more, science doesn’t always get things right, and large factions of the media are stoking sentiments against “elitist” experts and bolstering anti-science views.

All this doubt, conflict, and information overload are eroding people’s trust in scientists, and those of us often responsible for conveying scientific information to the public, like the media and government officials, are fairing even worse on the trust scales.

This distrust of the source of information is one of the four main barriers to accepting science Philipp-Muller and colleagues identify in their review.  

When information challenges a person’s core beliefs, challenges the group they identify with, or doesn’t match their learning style are the other main barriers the team highlighted.

“What all four of these bases have in common is they reveal what happens when scientific information conflicts with what people already think or their style of thought,” explains Petty.

https://www.sciencealert.com/distrust-in-science-is-causing-harm-but-these-researchers-have-a-plan

We need to fight for the science….but this will be an uphill battle for social media is a powerful tool to be used by the anti-science faction.

All we can do is ask question….question everything and look for the answers….not just something that agrees with your misguided perceptions….

Do you want to know what is true?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Are The Biggest A/Holes?

Now there is a probing question for the age.

And as usual a little FYI for your weekend enjoyment.

My daughter thinks Boomers are the biggest a/holes because they gave us the Tea Party and the presidency of Donald the Orange…..

Me? I think Millennials are the biggest……. because all they seem to care about is what play station they have, their energy drinks and hot pockets….or their obsession with make-up, fashion and influencers….the rest of the country and the planet can go to Hell as long as they know who is wearing the latest bathing suit…..

But which of us is correct?

Big news……

Thank goodness for science. It reveals mysteries of the universe and, sometimes, confirms what we already know…like new research stating that middle-aged men are the biggest A-holes.

Yes, there was actually a study done at the University of Georgia on this very topic. And the results were astounding. Researchers asked almost 400 people were asked who was the most aggressive, entitled, and manipulative person they knew. Overwhelmingly, the respondents named men with an average age of 42.71 years. The assholes in question spanned the gamut, from bosses and co-workers to friends or romantic partners. If the relationship was defunct, people were more likely to identify their ex-whatevers as assholes.

What makes an asshole an asshole? Well, to be scientific about it, these disagreeable folk were generally described as devoid of empathy, lacking modesty, and being uncooperative. But wait! That’s not all! Assholes were also identified as anti-maskers, Trumpers, alcoholics, eye-rollers, and animal or child abusers. (Real gems, clearly.)

Some of these traits you may recognize as also being similar to people with psychopathic, antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders, though the researchers were quick to point out that just because someone is an asshole doesn’t mean they’re a diagnosable asshole.

Unsurprisingly, participants had little trouble pinpointing the biggest assholes in their lives.

Middle-Aged Men Are the Biggest A-Holes, Says Study That Gives Us Something to Look Forward To

According to science we both are wrong…..but I will stick with my choice for I have seen nothing that would change my mind about Millennials.

Any thoughts on your part?

Let me know about the a/holes in your life.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Sunday Sciencey Stuff

It is the weekend and as my usual thing I try to give my readers something to think about that they have never had a thought about in the past…..most of it is worthless news…..but that is the point try to take the reader out of their comfort zone.

First…..xenobots……

Tiny “living machines” made of frog cells can replicate themselves, making copies that can then go on to do the same. This newly described form of renewal offers insights into how to design biological machines that are self-perpetuating.

“This is an incredibly exciting breakthrough,” for the field of biologically based robotics, says Kirstin Petersen, an electrical and computer engineer at Cornell University who studies groups of robots. Robots that can copy themselves are an important step toward systems that don’t need humans to operate, she says.

Earlier this year, researchers described the behaviors of the lab-made living robots, called xenobots (SN: 3/31/21). Plucked out of frogs’ growing bodies, small clumps of skin stem cells from frog embryos knitted themselves into small spheres and began to move. Cellular extensions called cilia served as motors that powered the xenobots as they cruised around their lab dishes.

Tiny living machines called xenobots can create copies of themselves

All the talk these days is about abortion….like when is the embryo a person?  Then there is this news…..

The stem cells were no more than a week old when scientists moved them from their slick-walled plastic wells into ones lined with a thin layer of human endometrial tissue. But in that time, the cells had multiplied and transformed, organizing themselves into semi-hollow spheres. Per the instructions of the chemical cocktail in which they’d been steeping, they were trying to turn into embryos.

Video cameras captured what happened next: The balls of cells rotated until they were cavity-side-up, before finally touching down and grabbing onto the endometrial layer, a cellular proxy for a human uterus. Days later, when the scientists dipped paper test strips into the wells, pink lines appeared. Their Petri dishes were pregnant.

“These experiments clearly point out the fact that we are able to model in the dish the first touch between the embryo and the mother,” stem cell biologist Nicolas Rivron told reporters at a press conference.

Most advanced lab-grown human embryos prompt a pressing question: Are they getting too real?

Now this is a subject that needs debate.

Man’s search for nuclear fusion is coming to a head…..

he ancient village of Culham, nestled in a bend of the River Thames west of London, seems an unlikely launching pad for the future. But next year, construction will start here on a gleaming building of glass and steel that could house what many people consider to be an essential technology to meet demand for clean energy in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Long derided as a prospect that is forever 30 years away, nuclear fusion seems finally to be approaching commercial viability. There are now more than 30 private fusion firms globally, according to an October survey by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) in Washington DC, which represents companies in the sector; the 18 firms that have declared their funding say they have attracted more than US$2.4 billion in total, almost entirely from private investments (see ‘Fusion funding’). Key to these efforts are advances in materials research and computing that are enabling technologies other than the standard designs that national and international agencies have pursued for so long.

https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html

Mars has long been a source of fascination….a shame that it cannot support life as we know…..but that may not be completely true….

Any long term human presence on Mars — colonization, research, visit and travel — that didn’t confine settlers to airtight compounds would rely on a stable atmosphere that doesn’t lose too many particles or fry human bodies with too much radiation.

Now, scientists from a star-studded list of universities and organizations, including NASA’s own chief scientist James Lauer Green, are suggesting that we protect humans on Mars from deadly atmospheric conditions by jumpstarting the planet’s magnetic field.

“For a long-term human presence on Mars to be established, serious thought would need to be given to terraforming the planet,” the team wrote in a new paper that will print in the journal Acta Astronautica in January 2022, first spotted by Universe Today. “One major requirement for such terraforming is having the protection of a planetary magnetic field which Mars currently does not have.”

https://futurism.com/scientists-propose-jumpstarting-mars-magnetic-field

I saved the best news for last….hopefully the reader made it this far…..

The US Air Force will receive an improved in-flight bladder relief device early next month, helping fighter pilots, especially females, to urinate more easily.

A sortie can be up to 10 hours long, F-35A Lightning II pilot Maj. Nikki Yogi said, approximating the duration between her Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, and Guam. 

Having had a poor experience with her device while deployed as an A-10 pilot in 2017, Yogi added, “A pilot should be focused on taking the fight to the enemy, not on whether their bladder relief device is going to work or be comfortable to use.” 

US Air Force Develops Improved In-Flight Peeing Device

This could be a commercial moneymaker….gamers will spend their hard earned money to go through a game without a pee break.

That wraps up the most worthless news available…..you may thank me later.

Have a good day and be well and safe…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–15Nov21

For decades scientists have been chasing the elusive power source known a nuclear fusion…..chasing and never seemingly close to a break through…..and then the Chinese release news that their scientists have made an astonishing discovery…..

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of energy production. If cracked, the tech could provide us with unlimited clean and cheap energy. But cracking it has been hard to do so far. Many have announced breakthroughs in the field, there’s even a supposed race to crack nuclear fusion, and yet the field never seems to advance in a substantial way.

Now, Chinese scientists in Shanghai have been working on a project to replicate the sun’s energy process with a comparatively low-cost approach and, after a year of experiments, the technique has shown promise, according to the South China Morning Post.

“Our goal is to achieve sustainable fusion,” project lead Zhang Zhe from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics in Beijing said in a phone interview to SCMP.

What does this new process consist of? The scientists are firing powerful laser beam pulses at a tiny pair of gold cones with narrow ends which face each other and emit a plasma of hydrogen. The collision of these two hot gas streams achieved at precisely the right time and place, and in the right manner, could result in nuclear fusion.

How will this project be adapted for power generation? Well, according to Zhe “the cones can be mass-produced and loaded as bullets in a machine that will rotate and fire like a Gatling gun.”

Three relatively successful tests have been conducted thus far by Zhe’s team and another is scheduled for next month. And although the work has not been without its fair share of challenges, initial results indicate the theory works.

“We are making progress one step at a time,” Zhe concluded. Could his team actually be the one who wins the nuclear reaction race? Only time will tell.

The team’s results thus far have been published in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Acta Physica Sinica.

(Interesting Engineering)

If fact then they deserve a huge ‘atta boy’…..

If true what will it do to power generation and the profits made?

Any Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Weekend Report

The news is so damn redundant these days…abortion, Congressional antics, idiotic ramblings, etc…..for that reason I try to give my readers some news that may have been forsaken for the sensationalism….

We live in an age of flavored drinks, well flavored everything, and plant-based food, a fancy cutesy name for vegan or vegetarianism, even to the point of meat grown in labs……

For years, the former pharmaceutical industry executive watched from the sidelines as biotech startups raked in venture capital, making bold pronouncements about the future of meat. He was fascinated by their central contention: the idea that one day, soon, humans will no longer need to raise livestock to enjoy animal protein. We’ll be able to grow meat in giant, stainless-steel bioreactors—and enough of it to feed the world. These advancements in technology, the pitch went, would fundamentally change the way human societies interact with the planet, making the care, slaughter, and processing of billions of farm animals the relic of a barbaric past.

It’s a digital-era narrative we’ve come to accept, even expect: Powerful new tools will allow companies to rethink everything, untethering us from systems we’d previously taken for granted. Countless news articles have suggested that a paradigm shift driven by cultured meat is inevitable, even imminent. But Wood wasn’t convinced. For him, the idea of growing animal protein was old news, no matter how science-fictional it sounded. Drug companies have used a similar process for decades, a fact Wood knew because he’d overseen that work himself.

Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.

Since I am a meat eater I will be long dead before we are forced to grow our meat in labs.

I will admit that in my younger days, 6-s and 70s, I was an experimenter with drugs of all sorts….’shrooms were a favorite…..now there is medical evidence that these have some therapeutic benefits…..

Large quantities of psilocybin – the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms – can be produced in a rudimentary “homebrew style environment” that doesn’t even need to be sterilized, according to a new study in the journal Bioengineered. While recreational users will still find it easier to obtain the psychedelic drug by growing or hunting mushrooms, the development of moonshine psilocybin (shroomshine?) could enable the production of large quantities of the compound for clinical use.

A swathe of recent studies have hinted at the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, primarily as a treatment for depression and other mental health disorders. However, growing and harvesting magic mushrooms is not considered an economically feasible means of meeting clinical demand, due to the slow production process and high product variability.

For this reason, scientists have spent the last few years creating genetically engineered microorganisms that can synthesize psilocybin quickly and cheaply. Last year, researchers revealed that they had successfully created the compound using yeast, although the complexity and cost of the process left room for improvement.

Building on this previous work, the authors of the new study claim to have developed an extremely cheap method of producing psilocybin using a genetically edited strain of the E. coli bacteria. Magic mushroom genes that code for the biosynthesis of psilocybin were first inserted into the microbe’s genome, before the researchers set up their own homemade lab with which to manufacture the compound.

https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/homebrew-psilocybin-created-by-scientists-using-widely-available-materials/

Ever heard of ‘restless leg syndrome’?

How about ‘restless anus syndrome’?

Yes my friends that is not a gag…..it is a real thing.

If it seems like every day you’re reading headlines about new and potentially scary COVID-19 side effects, you might not want to hear the latest story coming from a coronavirus patient in Japan. The male patient has been suffering from something called “restless anal syndrome” after contracting the virus. But before you panic, know that this seemingly rare after-effect has only been reported in this singular patient thus far, and a gastroenterologist is here to explain why there’s truly no need to worry just yet.

Here’s the scoop: A recent report published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Infectious Diseases detailed the case of a 77-year-old man who was hospitalized for 21 days with COVID-19. After being discharged, however, he began to experience “restless, deep anal discomfort” between his anus and genitals, and an incessant feeling of the need to poop, according to the case report. (ICYDK, there are lots of reasons you might have an itchy butt or genital itching.)

https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/restless-anal-syndrome-is-the-latest-side-effect-linked-to-covid-19

There you have it…the most worthless news of the day…..

Go out and have a good day…..make someone smile…..

Be Well….Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Latest On Climate

The clock is ticking!

TICK TOCK

The UN has released its report on the condition of the planet with climate change…..not at all a glowing report…..

The new week begins with grim reading from a landmark UN report about the state of the planet. The 3,000-plus page assessment of the climate concludes that while things are bad now—witness the extreme weather unfolding around the globe—they are certain to get worse in the coming decade. However, the authors say it’s possible to stave off the most dire scenarios, essentially a planet unrecognizable from the one we know today, though only if nations take immediate steps to start reining in greenhouse gas emissions. Coverage:

  • The report: Read it here. Produced by the International Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was written by more than 230 scientists and based on more than 14,000 studies. It’s a “code red for humanity,” says the UN, per the AP.
  • New rate: Extreme heat waves that used to hit once every 50 years now happen once a decade, say the authors, per Reuters. And that rate will almost certainly get worse. The same general trend applies to droughts and heavy rains.
  • The warming: The world has warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century, and the authors say it is almost certainly too late to avoid reaching the Paris accord threshold of 1.5 degrees by 2040, reports the New York Times. At that mark, the world becomes an even more dangerous place, with more than 1 billion at risk from frequent heat waves.
  • Bleak quotes: “We can expect a significant jump in extreme weather over the next 20 or 30 years,” says Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, one of the authors. Another co-author, Linda Mearns of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, tells the AP: “It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse. I don’t see any area that is safe.”
  • Longer term: The report lays out five scenarios, and in three of them, the world surpasses 2 degrees Celsius warming by mid-century. On these tracks, it’s possible the mark could surpass 3 or even 4 degrees. In the rosiest scenario, an immediate shift away from fossil fuels would enable the rise to level off at about 1.5 degrees.
  • One forecast: A rise of 2 degrees “could trigger the inexorable collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and more than six feet of sea-level rise that could swamp coastal communities,” per the Washington Post. “Coral reefs would virtually disappear.”
  • Blame: The report says it’s “unequivocal” that human behavior has warmed the planet. As for current events: “Extreme events, heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation: When we see these things in the news, they really are a result of climate change and the science is really able to detect that,” says co-author Jessica Tierney, of the University of Arizona, per Quartz. “You can always get an extreme flood or drought by chance, but now we can show that the chances of some of these events happening would have been almost nil.”

The planet is burning and the best we can do is ignore the coming problems.

Time is running out!

TICK TOCK

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Covid ‘Jabs’

Since the program of vaccinations began there has been lies, and more lies….but there is ‘proof positive’ that these shots work and can save lies…..

Fully vaccinated people can catch the coronavirus, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been saying all along that the COVID-19 vaccines prevent deaths among those patients. The CDC now has released data to back that up, showing that fewer than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people die of COVID-19. And not 0.004% of fully vaccinated people who are infected need hospitalization, CNN reports. As of July 26, when 163 million people in the US were fully vaccinated, the CDC totals for breakthrough cases show:

  • 6,587 infections.
  • 6,239 hospitalizations.
  • 1,263 deaths.
  • About three-fourths of the cases are among patients 65 and older.

Most new cases reported across the country are among the unvaccinated. Or, put another way by a health spokesman for one state, per NBC: “99.9 percent of Minnesotans who are fully vaccinated have not contracted the virus.” Still, the CDC wants everyone to mask up, after earlier relaxing its recommendations. That’s partly because of the realizations that even fully vaccinated people are spreading the troublesome delta variant. The CDC cautions that it relies on voluntary reporting by local governments, so the numbers aren’t complete; the agency calls them a snapshot. The CDC uses the data to spot patterns, and it says it’s seen nothing unexpected in the breakthrough cases so far. As the delta variant receives attention, the CDC says vaccinations are up 26% nationally in the past three weeks

I know nothing I say or write will change anyone’s mind…..

Sadly when it comes to health care….you cannot fix stupid.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”