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The Dose Makes The Poison - And That Is Why Venom May Soon Be A New Medicine

The Dose Makes The Poison - And That Is Why Venom May Soon Be A New Medicine

May 16 2022 | comment(s)

In the 16th century, it was shown by Paracelsus that 'the dose makes the poison' - too much medicine or anything else could kill while too little did nothing. In the 21st century activists have sought to dispel that. They claim homeopathic effects from chemicals at safe doses, endocrine distuption and u-shaped curves, but science knows better.
How Inconsistent Really Are The W Mass Measurements

How Inconsistent Really Are The W Mass Measurements

May 16 2022 | comment(s)

The recent precise measurement of the W boson mass produced by the non-dead CDF collaboration last month continues to be at the focus of attention by the scientific community, for a good reason - if correct, the CDF measurement in and of itself would be the conclusive proof that our trust in the Standard Model of particle physics when producing predictions of particle phenomenology needs a significant overhaul. 
First Public Comments On NASA’s Draft Plans To Keep Earth Safe For Its Mars Sample Return In 2033 - Now Closed For Commenting

First Public Comments On NASA’s Draft Plans To Keep Earth Safe For Its Mars Sample Return In 2033 - Now Closed For Commenting

May 14 2022 | comment(s)

This was an opportunity for the public to give your feedback to NASA about their Mars sample return mission plans - can submit your comments to NASA here as a public comment.

This is for their draft environmental impact statement which they plan to submit later this year.

My comment is here

. Comment Submitted by Robert Walker

Comments were open to 11:59 May 15, ET, 2022. They got 170 comments (with some duplication). I

Is Gene Therapy The Future Of Medicine?

Is Gene Therapy The Future Of Medicine?

May 12 2022 | comment(s)


Robert F Kennedy's Environmental Health Trust Are Modern Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theorists

Robert F Kennedy's Environmental Health Trust Are Modern Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theorists

May 12 2022 | comment(s)

Once upon a time vaccine deniers were on the left and conspiracy theorists who felt government was out to control us using radio waves were on the right.

Now they have flipped. Welcome to political intelligence.

Environmental Health Trust, the brainchild of discredited zealot Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., thinks Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and especially 5G cell phone signals are killing us. The most bizarre part is he thinks cell phones were safer in the 1990s, when they emitted more radiation with more power.
Event Horizon And Sgr A*: For The First Time We Can 'See' The Black Hole At The Center Of Our Galaxy

Event Horizon And Sgr A*: For The First Time We Can 'See' The Black Hole At The Center Of Our Galaxy

May 12 2022 | comment(s)

At the centere of our galaxy, the Milky Way, there exists what must be a black hole. But detecting it has been challenging because of the cosmic dust around it.

Now, for the first time, a group of radio antennas knows as the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole four million times more massive than our Sun.

known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced "sadge-ay-star") it obviously can't be seen, that is built into the black hole name, but it can be inferred thanks to a dark central region (called a “shadow”) surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. The new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole.
Experiments Find That The W Boson Is Heavier Than Expected, Challenging The Standard Model

Experiments Find That The W Boson Is Heavier Than Expected, Challenging The Standard Model

May 12 2022 | comment(s)

Despite shutting down its operations in 2011, data from an old experiment at the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) has pushed scientists to further rethink the Standard Model.
The Event Horizon Telescope Image of Sagittarius A* And It's Likely Effect On General Relativity Research. UPDATE

The Event Horizon Telescope Image of Sagittarius A* And It's Likely Effect On General Relativity Research. UPDATE

May 12 2022 | comment(s)

As a test of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity the Event Horizon Telescope image shows us an extreme example of light being bent by the mass of a black hole. General Relativity (GR) predicts that solar mass objects will do this to some degree which is very hard but not impossible to measure. In the case of a black hole it predicts what Event Horizon Telescope saw to within the measurement precision of the EHT. Any modified theory of gravity that stands a chance would have to match these observations.

Fed Is Best - During A Formula Shortage, It Is Time For Mommy Shaming Like 'Breast Is Best' To Stop

Fed Is Best - During A Formula Shortage, It Is Time For Mommy Shaming Like 'Breast Is Best' To Stop

May 11 2022 | comment(s)

As a new century dawned just over 20 years ago, a new war began, this one on expectant mothers. Companies, and their paid influencers, began to trot and even fund "studies" which correlated whatever they were selling to some positive outcome. Organic food meant better grades, abstaining from coffee meant higher IQ, you name it and someone was blastly already worried mothers will fear and doubt.
'The Yellow Brick Road' to Atlantis Spotted In The Pacific Ocean

'The Yellow Brick Road' to Atlantis Spotted In The Pacific Ocean

May 11 2022 | comment(s)

In the Liliʻuokalani Ridge in the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM) in the Pacific Ocean, the exploration ship Nautilus, operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, caught sight of an odd formation that looks like a cobblestone road.

"It's the road to Atlantis," one explorer jokes, before another one asks, "The yellow brick road?"


The Largest Earthquake On Mars Ever Detected

The Largest Earthquake On Mars Ever Detected

May 11 2022 | comment(s)

Mars doesn’t have tectonic plates like Earth, but it does have volcanically active regions that can cause rumbles, and one way to develop a better understanding of Mars’ mantle and core is to examine seismic active. In March, NASA’s InSight lander detected two strong, clear quakes originating in a location of Mars called Cerberus Fossae – the same place where two strong quakes were seen earlier in the mission. Those quakes have magnitudes of 3.3 and 3.1; the previous quakes were magnitude 3.6 and 3.5.

InSight has recorded over 1,300 quakes to date, but nothing like the magnitude 5 temblor that occurred on May 4, 2022. That is a medium-sized earthquake on Earth, they happen 5 times each day, but it is a size researchers only hoped to get during this mission on Mars.
Event Horizon Telescope Images Will Not Look Like Artist Representations And That's OK.

Event Horizon Telescope Images Will Not Look Like Artist Representations And That's OK.

May 10 2022 | comment(s)

Real astronomical images rarely look like their artist representations.  The images produced by the Event Horizon Telescope will be no different.  That said, an image of the light near the event horizon of the black hole at the center of our galaxy will be many times more detailed than the famous image of a similar black hole from the galaxy M87.  The main reasons for this are distance and improvements in the instrument.  M87 is about 53 million light years away.  While the center of our own galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is just about 26,000 light years away.  
Organic Food Mandates Caused Sri Lanka's Economic Collapse - Now They Face Civil War

Organic Food Mandates Caused Sri Lanka's Economic Collapse - Now They Face Civil War

May 10 2022 | comment(s)

Sri Lanka is in the midst of a rebellion bordering on civil war, and as these things often go, it resulted from leaders out of touch with the people.

Last year, the government of Sri Lanka, with European environmental Wormtongues whispering in their ears, showed what anti-science activists called "leadership" and banned any process that was not "certified organic." 

The collapse of the country was so sudden, a few months, it can be taught in political science classes for how not to govern. Even socialists in Venezuela had to be shaking their heads and wondering what Sri Lanka was thinking.


Space Is Cold, The Linac Coherent Light Source X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Is Colder

Space Is Cold, The Linac Coherent Light Source X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Is Colder

May 10 2022 | comment(s)

A half-mile-long stretch of tunnel in California is now colder than most of the universe. It contains a new superconducting particle accelerator, part of an upgrade project to the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser, one of the last milestones before LCLS-II will produce X-ray pulses that are 10,000 times brighter, on average, than those of LCLS and that arrive up to a million times per second – a world record for today’s most powerful X-ray light sources. 

Crews have successfully cooled the accelerator to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit – or 2 kelvins – a temperature at which it becomes superconducting and can boost electrons to high energies with nearly zero energy lost in the process.
COVID-19 Telemedicine Caused The Racial Gap In Completed Doctor Visits To Disappear

COVID-19 Telemedicine Caused The Racial Gap In Completed Doctor Visits To Disappear

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

Seeing a doctor can be crucial to managing and preventing chronic disease but there has long been a racial gap in routine visits that can't be explained by racism or income. 

Maybe people didn't like like going to the doctor because the COVID-19 pandemic caused use of telemedicine to rise sharply, and as that happened gaps in visits disappeared for black patients at Penn Medicine. 

Once “normal” in-office appointments returned, previous inequities stayed erased, indicating that telemedicine wasn’t just a stopgap solution but a potential long-term tool for equity. 
Now The WHO Has Endorsed Acupuncture And Powdered Rhino Horns As COVID-19 Therapy

Now The WHO Has Endorsed Acupuncture And Powdered Rhino Horns As COVID-19 Therapy

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations World Health Organisation told the Trump administration not to cut travel from Wuhan, they insisted that there was no pandemic at all, and then that SARS-CoV-2 could not be transmitted from human to human.

A year later they repeated the communist dictatorship's claim that COVID-19 might have been caused in the US and shipped to China in frozen food, and finally corporate journalists started to believe what independent people in science media had been saying for a decade - the WHO has a Chinese influence problem.
What Is The Event Horizon Telescope And What Happens Thursday?

What Is The Event Horizon Telescope And What Happens Thursday?

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

Astronomers have been assuming that real new knowledge of black holes might have to wait until 2030, when/if NASA’s gravitational wave detector, LISA, launches into space.

The Event Horizon Telescope may have something else in mind. They have called a press conference for Thursday and speculation is rampant about what it might mean.
You Can't Touch The Void, But You Can Measure It With Black Holes

You Can't Touch The Void, But You Can Measure It With Black Holes

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

By looking at the ‘shadows’ of two supermassive black holes in the process of colliding, astronomers may have a way to measure black holes in distant galaxies and test competing theories of gravity.

Three years ago, the first ever image of a black hole, at the center of galaxy Messier 87, came into focus thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, a global network of synchronized radio dishes acting as one giant telescope.

Now a new imaging technique could allow astronomers to study black holes smaller than M87’s, a monster with a mass of 6.5 billion suns, harbored in galaxies more distant than M87, which at 55 million light-years away, is still relatively close to our own Milky Way.
The Secret Role I Played In 'Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness'

The Secret Role I Played In 'Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness'

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

You never want to introduce a spoiler into an article so I am warning you now, before you read any farther, that a spoiler is inevitable if I am going to talk about the secret role I played in the new Disney MCU film "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."

If you haven't seen it because you thought the first was rather generic, I am with you but you should go. It is completely bananas, in the way a Doctor Strange film should be. It has Sam Raimi written all over it and that makes it a blast.
Antisemitism Reached A New High Globally In 2021

Antisemitism Reached A New High Globally In 2021

May 09 2022 | comment(s)

In 2001, after the US World Trade Centers were destroyed in a terrorist attack, assaults on middle-eastern buildings and people in San Francisco went up. Yet the middle eastern people attacked were Jewish, not Muslim. A common sentiment among intelligentsia was that the attacks were due to Israel being created by the United Nations in 1948.

Anti-Semitism has gotten worse rather than better since, despite governments creating laws against hate crimes, according to the 28th Annual Report on Antisemitism Worldwide.