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Homeostasis And The Math Of Human Biology

Homeostasis And The Math Of Human Biology

Mar 04 2021 | comment(s)

Outside extreme temperature environments, our body temperatures remain around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how hot or cold the. For most people, the sugar levels in our blood remain fairly constant even after drinking a glass of orange juice, which is essentially a vitamin-fortified sugar-filled soda. Most of us keep the right amount of calcium in our bones and out of the rest of our bodies.

Our bodies are good at that kind of self-regulation, known as homeostasis, and scientists have a good handle on the biological reasons why that regulation happens: Certain systems in our bodies have to remain constant in order to function and keep our bodies alive. 
Domination In Chess: A Miniature

Domination In Chess: A Miniature

Mar 03 2021 | comment(s)

I have put this post under the "psychology" category, although it discusses a chess game, for one important reason. Chess is a game, an art, a sport - you can categorize it in many different ways. However, what characterizes chess the most, in my opinion (an educated one, as I am an amateur with a long past of chess tournaments)  is the chance it gives to the players to mess up with each other's mind.
Do We Want President Biden To Be Scientist-In-Chief Or Let Junk Science Promoted By Political Allies Dictate Policy?

Do We Want President Biden To Be Scientist-In-Chief Or Let Junk Science Promoted By Political Allies Dictate Policy?

Mar 01 2021 | comment(s)

In Issues&Insights, I note that that activist groups are demanding the administration replace evidence-based research with activist-backed junk science. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), among others, is demanding a ban on 11 critical pesticides that farmers have relied on to feed the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These are all products that have been thoroughly evaluated by career scientists - not political appointees - at U.S. regulatory agencies numerous times, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. They are safe. And they are essential to keeping food affordable.
Do We Want President Biden To Be Scientist-In-Chief Or Let Junk Science Promoted By Political Allies Dictate Policy?

Do We Want President Biden To Be Scientist-In-Chief Or Let Junk Science Promoted By Political Allies Dictate Policy?

Mar 01 2021 | comment(s)

In Issues&Insights, I note that that activist groups are demanding the administration replace evidence-based research with activist-backed junk science. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), among others, is demanding a ban on 11 critical pesticides that farmers have relied on to feed the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These are all products that have been thoroughly evaluated by career scientists - not political appointees - at U.S. regulatory agencies numerous times, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. They are safe. And they are essential to keeping food affordable.
LA Now Knows PM2.5 Scaremongering Made No Difference, Ozone And Heat Waves Are The Real Air Problem

LA Now Knows PM2.5 Scaremongering Made No Difference, Ozone And Heat Waves Are The Real Air Problem

Mar 01 2021 | comment(s)

The pandemic of 2020 caused a lot of people to rethink science beliefs that were more luxury than reality. Did you want your family protected by some stuff that claimed to be organic and natural or did you want Clorox, Lysol, and Purell that actually worked? Did you want Peruvian tree bark sold by Chris Cuomo and his wife or a COVID-19 vaccine?
Why Hasn't Solar Power Become More Widely Adopted?

Why Hasn't Solar Power Become More Widely Adopted?

Feb 28 2021 | comment(s)

With the climate crisis being a consideration at the forefront of energy generation today, it's no surprise that solar power is receiving so much good press. However, despite that, there's very slow adoption of the alternative energy source. In the US, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy mentions that there's enough solar power generation to power twelve million American households. Yet, in a country with over three hundred million residents, this seems like a drop in the bucket. Why has solar not garnered the sort of traction one would expect for a population that's so involved in changing over to alternative fuels?

A New CMS Discovery: The Xi_b** Baryon

A New CMS Discovery: The Xi_b** Baryon

Feb 28 2021 | comment(s)

Wait, I can almost hear you say it: "Xi_b what? Let's move on, where's the sports section?" Ok, if you need to, please go. But do not underestimate excited Xi_b baryons. They are a helluva lot of fun to watch as they pop into existence and then decay in stages, as if stripping piece by piece, throwing out opaque layers of matter one by one, and finally exposing their naked beauty in full bloom.

Are you getting aroused yet? we are talking about a haDR-on here, don't be mistaken, but the matter is not less sexy than the stuff you'd get on the sports section anyway. For, you know, there is simply so much we still do not know about how quarks can create excited states of nuclear matter, that one cannot ignore any new development. 
Did COVID-19 Kill The Anti-vax Movement?

Did COVID-19 Kill The Anti-vax Movement?

Feb 26 2021 | comment(s)

In past years there has been ongoing concern that not enough people got the annual flu vaccine.

Some of it was laziness, some of it was lack of education. There were few outright deniers that flu was a problem. Instead, it seemed to be the opposite. If someone had a bad cold they still said they had the flu, and some said they think they might have the flu, which led most doctors to remind people that if you think you have the flu, you don't have the flu.

The real vaccine deniers were more coastal elites who believed a discredited former doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who was interested in selling a competitor to existing vaccines, and used a tiny sample of hand-picked kids to claim that vaccines caused autism in a paper that was then retracted.
Organic Consumers Association And Joe Mercola Have A COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory - The Wealthy Got China To Do It

Organic Consumers Association And Joe Mercola Have A COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory - The Wealthy Got China To Do It

Feb 25 2021 | comment(s)

For much of 2020, it looked like media was trying to pivot the anti-vaccine movement from being predominantly left wing to one afflicting right. More right-wing people than left in America didn't want to wear masks, after all, so it seemed easy to claim they would be less likely to take a vaccine.
The COVID Impact on Colorectal Cancer Screening

The COVID Impact on Colorectal Cancer Screening

Feb 25 2021 | comment(s)

The current pandemic has changed the way we live our lives. Every aspect of human interaction has been affected. Our daily lives have undergone dramatic adjustments that may have been hard to imagine in the period prior to the pandemic.

Colon cancer screening has been witnessing a change in the midst of this pandemic. COVID-19 has resulted in a drop in screening rates for colorectal cancer. Not just in the US but in other countries across the globe. An opinion piece in JAMA elaborated on the use of fecal immunochemical testing or FIT kits to screen for colon cancer in the United States.
The Biden Administration Is Blaming Trump For EPA Siding With Environmentalists Against Agricultural Science

The Biden Administration Is Blaming Trump For EPA Siding With Environmentalists Against Agricultural Science

Feb 24 2021 | comment(s)

A small fish in central Texas, a freshwater mussel in the Mobile River basin, and another mussel in Alabama’s Coosa and Cahaba Rivers have something strange in common; they appeared on an EPA list of threatened species “likely to be adversely affected” by a popular herbicide named atrazine.

I don't see how could things get worse for the San Marcos gambusia, the Upland Combshell and the Southern Acornshell. They're all extinct. I lived in the southern US in the early 1970s and never saw a Southern Acornshell. It would have been impossible, it was gone by then.

New RAND Paper Argues Government Control Of Health Care Pricing Will Reduce Costs Better Than Competition

New RAND Paper Argues Government Control Of Health Care Pricing Will Reduce Costs Better Than Competition

Feb 23 2021 | comment(s)

Rather than making affordable health care reality, the Affordable Care Act sent costs for many privately-insured people up as much as 700 percent. The federal government allowed insurers to pass through their new losses to everyone else and even with that, many insurers fled states due to the program being insoluble.

Perhaps the solution is not to have people pay 700 percent more, but to force hospitals to be transparent about costs. And that would mean more realistic pricing without a reduction in quality.
Is God “Bound” By The Laws Of Physics, Or Can Physics Disprove Her?

Is God “Bound” By The Laws Of Physics, Or Can Physics Disprove Her?

Feb 22 2021 | comment(s)

I still believed in God (I am now an atheist) when I heard the following question at a seminar, first posed by Einstein, and was stunned by its elegance and depth: ‘If there is a God who created the entire universe and ALL of its laws of physics, does God follow God’s own laws? Or can God supersede his own laws, such as traveling faster than the speed of light and thus being able to be in two different places at the same time?’ Could the answer help us prove whether or not God exists or is this where scientific empiricism and religious faith intersect, with NO true answer? David Frost, 67, Los Angeles.

Trophy Hunting Delivers Environmental And Social Benefits, Finds Study

Trophy Hunting Delivers Environmental And Social Benefits, Finds Study

Feb 22 2021 | comment(s)

The Pennsylvania Game Commission manages 1.5 million acres of land for its citizens and all "public land owners" are able to use it for hiking, hunting and various activities.

Despite such an enormous responsibility, the Game Commission receives no General fund appropriations. The Game Commission and state biologists instead get to be stewards of nature thanks to nearly all of its $120,000,000 in funding coming from licenses like deer hunting. 
Old Time Seed Breeding Benefits From A Science Boost

Old Time Seed Breeding Benefits From A Science Boost

Feb 18 2021 | comment(s)

Once upon a time, it was important that farmers - the first agricultural scientists - create seeds that were larger, more nutritious, and more resilient to environmental stress. Nature might bring rain, it might not, pests were going to eat their way through whole fields if they could. 

As agriculture improved, civilization followed. Seeds such as wheat, rice and corn directly provide about 70% of the calories eaten by people every day. What isn't directly eaten is still contributing, either by providing feed for livestock or by being grown into fruits and vegetables. 
Coca-Cola And Disney Succeeed Because They Have Linguistically Feminine Names, Says A New Paper

Coca-Cola And Disney Succeeed Because They Have Linguistically Feminine Names, Says A New Paper

Feb 17 2021 | comment(s)

Coca-Cola and Disney do not simply share being on Interbrand's Global Top Brands, says a new paper, they also share linguistically feminine names, and that helps their success with men and women. In fact, the highest-ranking companies have, on average, more feminine names than lower-ranked companies, they claim.
The Biden Administration Should Eliminate EPA's Strange New Unscientific Approach To Pesticide Evaluations

The Biden Administration Should Eliminate EPA's Strange New Unscientific Approach To Pesticide Evaluations

Feb 16 2021 | comment(s)

Imagine you hire a plumber and he needs to work on your plumbing and instead of coming over to fix that he sends his cousin who owns a lawn service.

That is analogous to what is happening at EPA regarding a common herbicide (the second most popular in the U.S.) named atrazine.

There is nothing wrong with it scientifically, it is causing no harm, but EPA is still going to hand it over to a group like the US Fish and Wildlife Services and let them just decide whether or not it might harm endangered species. No science needed.

They are even blaming it for extinctions that occurred nearly 50 years ago.

The Forever War on Science story has been in development...forever...but this is the first time they introduced time travel.
Fast Answers Are More Likely To Be Believed

Fast Answers Are More Likely To Be Believed

Feb 16 2021 | comment(s)

'The right thing, the wrong thing, do it with authority is a common' is a common statement for leadership behavior.

Humans take comfort in confidence. Even in things like facts; the faster the answer the more likely others will believe it. 
Cosmic Messengers (Part 2): A Multi-Dimensional View Of The Universe

Cosmic Messengers (Part 2): A Multi-Dimensional View Of The Universe

Feb 16 2021 | comment(s)

[This is the second part of a two-part article on Cosmic Messenger astrophysics. For part 1, please click here.]

We can also "see" showers of secondary particles from cosmic rays thanks to the Cherenkov light they produce. Cherenkov light is emitted when charged particles travel in a medium at speeds higher than the speed of light itself! Light, in fact, slows down a little when it traverses a medium; energetic particles do not, so they create a conic "shock wave" similar to the boom of supersonic airplanes. 
Why Did It Take Dinosaurs 15 Million Years To Reach The Northern Hemisphere?

Why Did It Take Dinosaurs 15 Million Years To Reach The Northern Hemisphere?

Feb 15 2021 | comment(s)

In the age of the dinosaurs, you could have walked from one pole to another. At that time, the continents were all joined together, forming the supercontinent Pangea. 

Yet they didn't.Though sauropodomorph dinosaurs first appeared in Argentina and Brazil about 230 million years ago, it took them 15,000,000 years to migrate to the northern hemisphere.