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The 'Blood Type' Diet Debunked Again

The 'Blood Type' Diet Debunked Again

Dec 07 2020 | comment(s)

Nearly every sort of diet has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list by now, all claiming to have a foundation in science. Yet one key reason some among the public are distrustful of epidemiology statistics on masks and social distancing is that epidemiology is also used to statistically link nearly every food or chemical to harm or longevity.
Gravitational Wave Detection Using A Circular Particle Accelerator.

Gravitational Wave Detection Using A Circular Particle Accelerator.

Dec 05 2020 | comment(s)

Gravitational waves and particle physics experiments being mixed is  something  I  have theorized  about for  a couple of years (1).     Now a new paper by  Suvrat  Rao,  Marcus  Brüggen, and  Jochen  Liske has  taken  this to  another  level (2).   They have worked out and demonstrated in detail how a circular particle accelerator such as the LHC could be used to observe gravitational waves in the mHz range.  This differs from experiments such as LIGO and LISA in the physical mechanism by which the gravitational waves would be detected.  

Young Adults Are A Distinct Cancer Population

Young Adults Are A Distinct Cancer Population

Dec 04 2020 | comment(s)

As medical care has improved, doctors are able to screen for cancer earlier than ever, and that is why cancer cases in young adults and adolescents are prevalent enough that they can be considered a distinct population.

Age remains the biggest factor for everything, of course, if you live long enough you are going to get cancer of some kind, it is built into our biology, but the increase in screening and therefore diagnoses means young adults can be considered distinct from pediatric and adult cancers and have their own middle ground for research.
Carbon Life: Triple-Alpha Reaction Inside Stars May Be Much Faster Than Thought

Carbon Life: Triple-Alpha Reaction Inside Stars May Be Much Faster Than Thought

Dec 04 2020 | comment(s)

Nearly all of the atoms that make up the our planet and us were forged in stars and the carbon most important to life as we know it was made by the triple-alpha process. The process starts with alpha particles, cores of helium atoms, with each alpha particle is made up of two protons and two neutrons. The triple alpha process is just what it sounds like; three alpha particles are fused inside a star, creating a new particle with six protons and six neutrons - the most common form of carbon in the universe - with a surplus of energy, a Hoyle state. That Hoyle state can split back into three alpha particles or relax to the ground state of stable carbon by releasing gamma rays.
E-Waste Is Declining, Government Needs To Change Laws To Keep Up - And Get Out Of The Recycling Business

E-Waste Is Declining, Government Needs To Change Laws To Keep Up - And Get Out Of The Recycling Business

Dec 03 2020 | comment(s)

When your Xbox is a gaming console and a 4K Blu-Ray player, you don't need two devices, and when your phone is a camera and a video recorder, there are two fewer things to buy - and eventually throw away.

As smart devices have become more integrated, and more commodities like a dishwasher than technology events, people own fewer things and keep them longer. That means less electronic waste. Yet the story we get from environmental groups is that e-waste is the fastest growing material pollution and only donations to lawyer-run groups can stop it.
What Will The Smart Money Future Look Like?

What Will The Smart Money Future Look Like?

Dec 03 2020 | comment(s)

In the not so distant future, checkbooks will take their rightful place in museums alongside answering machines, VCRs and folding paper maps. Online bill-paying and Apple/Google Pay have narrowed the times when it’s necessary to resort to the clunky paper-and-pen based payment method, and many growing up today have never touched one at all. It’s clear the way we handle our finances is changing. So why not bring the concept of money itself into the 21st century?

Singapore Approves Lab-Grown Meat

Singapore Approves Lab-Grown Meat

Dec 02 2020 | comment(s)

In the United States, meat substitutes like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are now fixtures in culture. Vegetarians who miss meat want to eat them because they use plants while environmental activists don't want to eat them because they use science. That keeps them in the public eye.
As HIV Has Evolved, Dolutegravin Has Become Less Effective In Sub-Saharan Africa

As HIV Has Evolved, Dolutegravin Has Become Less Effective In Sub-Saharan Africa

Dec 02 2020 | comment(s)

Dolutegravir, the HIV wonder drug and current first-line treatment, is less effective in sub-Saharan Africa, and the reason is as old as evolution itself - mutation. 

As HIV copies itself and replicates, its genetic code (RNA) can change. While a drug may initially be able to suppress or even kill a virus, certain mutations can allow the virus to develop resistance to its effects. If a mutated strain begins to spread within a population, it can mean once-effective drugs are no longer able to treat people.
Cholestyramine Taken With Daptomycin Prevents Antimicrobial Resistance

Cholestyramine Taken With Daptomycin Prevents Antimicrobial Resistance

Dec 01 2020 | comment(s)

Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem. Nature constantly evolves new ways to kill, which means pathogens will develop new methods of resistance to current treatments, but pharmaceutical companies also have little incentive to develop new antibiotics. Instead, they have obstructions when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will require a billion dollars in expenses, 10 years of regulatory approval, and then grandstanding politicians will demand it immediately be generic and cost a dollar. 
Sanfilippo Syndrome: Childhood Dementia May Be Detectable In The Eyes

Sanfilippo Syndrome: Childhood Dementia May Be Detectable In The Eyes

Dec 01 2020 | comment(s)

A new paper finds that widely available retinal imaging techniques may help reveal more about brain disease and monitor treatment efficacy, including a currently untreatable form of childhood-onset dementia, Sanfilippo syndrome.

Sanfilippo syndrome is one of a group of about 70 inherited conditions which collectively affect 1 in 2800 children in Australia, and is more common than cystic fibrosis and better known diseases. Around the world 700,000 children and young people are living with childhood dementia. The researchers studied Sanfilippo syndrome in mouse models, discovering for the first time that advancement of retinal disease parallels that occurring in the brain. 
COVID-19: The Immune Systems Of The Overwhelming Majority Do Quite Well

COVID-19: The Immune Systems Of The Overwhelming Majority Do Quite Well

Dec 01 2020 | comment(s)

Early in the pandemic, many researchers feared people who contracted COVID could be reinfected very quickly. This was because several early studies showed antibodies seemed to wane after the first few months post-infection.

It was also partly because normal human coronaviruses, which are one cause of common colds and are cousins of SARS-CoV-2, do not generate long-lasting immunity, so we can get reinfected with them after 12 months.

COVID-19: What Do Viral Shedding And Reinfection Mean? What's The Difference?

COVID-19: What Do Viral Shedding And Reinfection Mean? What's The Difference?

Dec 01 2020 | comment(s)

Over recent weeks and months, we’ve heard of several COVID cases in which people have tested positive after previously clearing the virus.

Scientists are hopeful being infected with COVID-19 confers immunity for a length of time. But some of these instances have raised concerns about reinfection. Although rare, it seems to be possible.

The other thing which could be at play in many of these cases is “prolonged viral shedding”.

AI May Help Predict Real Risk For Breast Cancer

AI May Help Predict Real Risk For Breast Cancer

Nov 30 2020 | comment(s)

Modern science can tell us so much about the hazards of the world that it has become difficult for most people to understand absolute and relative risk. Environmentalists claim they need money to pay lawyers to ban chemicals, even if they are a drop in 160 Olympic-sized swimming pools while epidemiologists can statistically link any common food or product to cancer.
What Is A LHC Signal More Cool Than The Higgs? Two Higgses

What Is A LHC Signal More Cool Than The Higgs? Two Higgses

Nov 30 2020 | comment(s)

That's right - I finally hit the ground with my creativity, and my jokes are starting to use old material for my post titles. Yet producing a pair of Higgs bosons in a proton-proton collision is seriously cool indeed. The Higgs boson in fact is one of the few particles that does a trick called "self-coupling": in a sort of ermaphroditic act it is capable of giving birth to a pair of objects identical to itself. 
Quick Positive Results For RNA-Based Pfizer And BioNTech CoVID-19 Vaccine Doesn't Mean It Was Rushed

Quick Positive Results For RNA-Based Pfizer And BioNTech CoVID-19 Vaccine Doesn't Mean It Was Rushed

Nov 27 2020 | comment(s)

Recently, Pfizer and BioNTech released promising preliminary results of their clinical Phase III trials with 40,000 participants for their RNA vaccine candidate. This report suggests 90% efficacy for protection against SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes the CoVID-19 disease. However, there is no peer-reviewed publication on this yet.

Feeding The World For Thanksgiving 2050: New Wheat And Barley Genomes

Feeding The World For Thanksgiving 2050: New Wheat And Barley Genomes

Nov 26 2020 | comment(s)

The 10+ Wheat Genomes Project, led by University of Saskatchewan Professor Curtis Pozniak, and the International Barley Pan Genome Sequencing Consortium, led by Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research Professor Nils Stein, have sequenced a suite of genomes of wheat and barley, opening up genetic variations for both.
Understanding The Appeal Of Alternative Medicine Can Help Protect The Endangered Species It Puts At Risk

Understanding The Appeal Of Alternative Medicine Can Help Protect The Endangered Species It Puts At Risk

Nov 26 2020 | comment(s)

Alternative Chinese medicine harms endangered species like pangolins, tigers and rhinos, but deniers of evidence-based medicine are often part of the same political tribe as professional conservationists. That confirmation bias about alternative medicine has limited conservation gains.

The use of endangered species in traditional Chinese medicine threatens species' survival. Noting inefficacy and providing various forms of scientific evidence are not influencing decisions and behaviors. Especially because environmentalists often use the same anti-corporate tropes that convince deniers of vaccines that science is a conspiracy.

The Dinosaurs Of Ireland

The Dinosaurs Of Ireland

Nov 25 2020 | comment(s)

Most of Ireland’s rocks are the wrong age for dinosaur fossils, either too old or too young. That doesn't mean dinosaurs weren't there, it means fossilization is a true anomaly and finding fossils makes it even more challenging to have hard evidence.

That has now been achieved. Two fossil bones found by the late citizen scientist Roger Byrne, and donated along with many other fossils to Ulster Museum, have been confirmed as early Jurassic rocks found in Islandmagee, on the east coast of County Antrim.
Cooking With Wood Increases Pollution: Real Pollution, Not The PM2.5 Virtual Kind

Cooking With Wood Increases Pollution: Real Pollution, Not The PM2.5 Virtual Kind

Nov 25 2020 | comment(s)

In 2013, the U.S. government told the World Bank they would not help fund centralized energy in developing nations unless it used their pet projects, wind and solar. Which developing nations could not use much less afford.

We set back sanitation and hygiene in places that need it most and forced them to continue doing what they had been doing; burning wood and dung for energy, including in home for cooking. Billions of people still do that because they lack centralized energy and the environmental costs are enormous. Even if those people had been allowed to switch to coal, emissions would plummet and they would be healthier.
SARS-CoV-2 Mutations Have Not Been Evolving To Increase Transmissibility

SARS-CoV-2 Mutations Have Not Been Evolving To Increase Transmissibility

Nov 25 2020 | comment(s)

After originating in Wuhan, China in late 2019, the latest form of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its third pandemic of the last 17 years, has spread COVID-19 across the globe. Some countries claim fewer cases, like China, while some can't know figures, like Brazil, but one thing is clear; the half the world that interacts with China even indirectly has it, and it has mutated along the way. The California version which came from Asia is different than the New York version that came from Europe.

Fortunately, none of the mutations have increased transmissibility, according to a new paper which looked at virus genomes from over 46,000 people with COVID-19 from 99 countries.