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Natural Zinc Sulfides Are Ruining The Mary Rose, But Science Can Fix It

Natural Zinc Sulfides Are Ruining The Mary Rose, But Science Can Fix It

Nov 17 2021 | comment(s)

As the crown jewel of Henry VIII’s, its flagship, the Mary Rose, patrolled the Atlantic with her heavy cannons for 34 years. It then spend 437 more buried beneath the turbulent English Channel before being recovered and placed on display at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England. 

The Mary Rose sank during a naval battle with France in 1543 and was excavated in 1982, along with 19,000 objects from the Tudor period. There remains one thing the 510-year-old English warship can't defeat; nature.
The Biden CDC Wants To Blame The Trump CDC For The Pandemic, But It's The Same CDC

The Biden CDC Wants To Blame The Trump CDC For The Pandemic, But It's The Same CDC

Nov 16 2021 | comment(s)

If you are old enough to vote, you should know that government agencies do not fire entire departments when the White House changes residents. Instead, most are career staffers and it does not matter who the president is, they are doing their jobs, and many do them quite well.
The Supply Chain Impact On Thanksgiving

The Supply Chain Impact On Thanksgiving

Nov 16 2021 | comment(s)

In 1958, shortly after passage of a misguided law related to chemicals and food - a problem that haunts trust in science like vaccines even today - America got its first government-created chemophobia craze. In cranberries.

The poorly worded Delaney Clause specified that any trace of an artificial chemical that had been linked to cancer - even if it was just epidemiological correlation or in a mouse and regardless of dose - had to be pulled from shelves. It was bizarre because the actual chemical did not matter, a natural version of the same chemical at 100X the dose was considered okay, it only mattered that it was artificial.(1)
Farmers Can Get Infrastructure Funds From The Government Now Also - But You Have To Apply By Nov. 22

Farmers Can Get Infrastructure Funds From The Government Now Also - But You Have To Apply By Nov. 22

Nov 16 2021 | comment(s)

While you may believe the worse thing to do to leave the "stagflation" we are experiencing is more government spending directed at other government union employees, it isn't all going to them and their politically allied contractors.

About 0.5% is allocated toward the groups who kept America from descending into anarchy over the last two years - government regulated food producers, processors and growers - can get new funding if they apply by November 22nd. Sorry, organic farmers, you have exempted yourself from government oversight so you may have a more difficult time.
How To Define Systems That Defy Newton's 3rd Law

How To Define Systems That Defy Newton's 3rd Law

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

Many physics students would tell you immediately off the bat what Newton's Third Law of Motion states.
Organic Is Just A Label, Trade Groups And Lobbyists Prevent Testing, And That Is Why Fraud Is Easy

Organic Is Just A Label, Trade Groups And Lobbyists Prevent Testing, And That Is Why Fraud Is Easy

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

Imagine you have a magic rock and you claim the magic rock helps people sleep. You get a President in office who believes in your magic rock and so allows the government to give you a special exemption from government rules which say magic rocks aren't real.

Then you begin to sell special magic rock labels touting that government halo, and soon groups line up to sell your magic rock labels to magic rock manufacturers for a fee. Along the way you redefine certain periods when you are awake as actually being asleep so you can include even more magic rocks.
Not Supplemental: Omega-3 Fatty Acids Make No Difference In COVID-19

Not Supplemental: Omega-3 Fatty Acids Make No Difference In COVID-19

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

Even at prescription strength doses, purified omega-3 fatty acid did not reduce incidents of hospitalizations and/or deaths among people with COVID-19, according to results from Scientific Sessions 2021. 
Dyslexia Affects Visual Processing Beyond Just Reading

Dyslexia Affects Visual Processing Beyond Just Reading

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

Dyslexia is well-known to impact reading ability but it has been unclear which brain processes are affected by the condition. Whether dyslexia is, at its core, a visual processing disorder is hotly debated among researchers. With reading and writing a key challenge among children with dyslexia, increasing understanding of its effects on the brain might improve existing interventions. 
China Is A Tough Quarantine During COVID-19 - Especially When The Government Kills Your Pets

China Is A Tough Quarantine During COVID-19 - Especially When The Government Kills Your Pets

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

When China makes the news with SARS-CoV-2 quarantines, it is never good. The first time was because the government had arrested Li Wenliang, a whistleblower who sounded the alarm that something pretty awful was spreading through Wuhan, and he died in early February of 2020.

They kept him in jail for 30 days while they told the WHO to tell the world that there was nothing to fear. American journalists and social media dutifully repeated it and even said the US government was racist for wanting to cut flights from China in early 2020. Li was long dead by then. Soon, millions followed while the communist dictatorship scrubbed 15,000 coronaviruses in databases from its Wuhan labs and closed the wet market where they assured WHO the disease could not have originated.
Cleopatra Had No Eggs, But She Had Pearls

Cleopatra Had No Eggs, But She Had Pearls

Nov 15 2021 | comment(s)

In the new Netflix film "Red Notice", the hijinks for the core of the film revolve around the eggs that Roman General Marc Antony gave Egyptian Queen Cleopatra at their wedding. The history of those two is complex and their relationship has been dissected/speculated beyond what I can do here, but I was fascinated by the three eggs he gave her.

Why had I never read that? It turns out I had never read it because it was entirely made up. You will like the film or not on other merits but the eggs had an air of "truthiness" because both Egypt and Rome were wealthy nations then, and they loved to impress each other.
Health Disinformation Didn't Start With COVID-19, Lessons From The Past Can Help Combat It

Health Disinformation Didn't Start With COVID-19, Lessons From The Past Can Help Combat It

Nov 14 2021 | comment(s)

Anti-vaccine sentiment is not new but from the 1950s until the late 1990s it was isolated small pockets of deniers. With claims that MMR vaccines, and then preservatives in vaccines, caused autism, the west coast of America became overrun with vaccine denial. In 2021, anti-vaccine sentiment switched to middle America with COVID-19. 

The names change but health disinformation remains the same, as are ways to combat it. A recent study looked at combating typhoid misinformation in Sierra Leone and found that explicitly addressing falsehoods seems more effective in busting misbeliefs than simply stating scientific facts.
Homeschooled Kids Become Adults With Greater Character Strengths And Fewer Risky Health Behaviors

Homeschooled Kids Become Adults With Greater Character Strengths And Fewer Risky Health Behaviors

Nov 12 2021 | comment(s)

What do Taylor Swift, the Jonas brothers, and Miley Cyrus share in common? They're all great musicians and nice people. They were also home schooled. 

A new study examining how homeschooling affected adolescents’ character, health and well-being found that adolescents who are homeschooled are more likely to report greater character strengths and fewer risky health behaviors later in life, but are less likely to attain a college degree. 
Sharpless 2-302: The Snowman In The Southern Sky

Sharpless 2-302: The Snowman In The Southern Sky

Nov 12 2021 | comment(s)

Over 6,000 light-years away from earth, in the constellation Puppis in the southern sky, is an emission nebula.

Emission nebulae are diffuse clouds of gas that have become so charged by the energy of nearby massive stars that they glow with their own light. The radiation from these massive stars strips electrons from the nebula’s hydrogen atoms - ionization. As the energized electrons revert from their higher-energy state to a lower-energy state, they emit energy in the form of light, causing the nebula’s gas to glow.
Your Pet Cat Is Spreading The Toxoplasma Parasite To Wildlife

Your Pet Cat Is Spreading The Toxoplasma Parasite To Wildlife

Nov 11 2021 | comment(s)

A recent paper examined 45,079 cases of toxoplasmosis in wild mammals—a disease that has been linked to nervous system disorders, cancers and other debilitating chronic conditions—using data from 202 global studies and found wildlife living near dense urban areas, where there are lots of cats carrying the pararsite, were more likely to be infected.

One infected cat can excrete as many as 500 million Toxoplasma oocysts (or eggs) in just two weeks. The oocysts can then live for years in soil and water with the potential to infect any bird or mammal, including humans. Toxoplasmosis is particularly dangerous for pregnant women.
Military Veteran Deaths Went Up In 2020 As You'd Expect, But Less Than The General Population

Military Veteran Deaths Went Up In 2020 As You'd Expect, But Less Than The General Population

Nov 11 2021 | comment(s)

Suicides and other mental health issues, as well as general deaths, went up during the pandemic in 2020 and veterans were not excluded. But they fared better than the general population, which is good news for Veteran's Day.
Not A 'Public Nuisance' To Sell Painkillers - Court Overturns $465 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson

Not A 'Public Nuisance' To Sell Painkillers - Court Overturns $465 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson

Nov 10 2021 | comment(s)

In America, anyone can sue over anything and when it comes to a jury trial, facts and the law matter a lot less than emotion.

Though spectacular jury verdicts get the media attention, it's in the appeals process that science and precedent enter the picture. So a gigantic award resting on the allegation that a pharmaceutical company violated the state's public nuisance law because they marketed opiods - as required by federal law, because consumer groups claimed a few decades ago that sales reps talking to physicians directly removed consumer choice - and that it was wrong for J&J to be held liable on those grounds. 
The Liao River Valley Is The Birthplace Of 100 Trans-Eurasian Dialects And Languages

The Liao River Valley Is The Birthplace Of 100 Trans-Eurasian Dialects And Languages

Nov 10 2021 | comment(s)

A new paper reaffirms how humankind's embrace of agriculture, and resulting lower 'cost' of food, led to a cultural boom that resulted in mass migration and many of the world's major language families.

If you speak modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian, you have a connection to neolithic millet farmers from the Liao River valley - Inner Mongolia and the provinces of Liaoning and Jilin in China. People speaking nearly 100 dialects and languages across 5,000 miles have a shared genetic ancestry stretching back 9,000 years, the research found.
For Alzheimer's Patients, Familiar Music Helps

For Alzheimer's Patients, Familiar Music Helps

Nov 10 2021 | comment(s)

You may not want to hear the same song over and over, but for patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease, repeated listening to personally meaningful music induces beneficial brain plasticity, according to a new study.

It found that changes in the brain’s neural pathways correlated with increased memory performance on neuropsychological tests, supporting the clinical potential of personalized, music-based interventions for people with dementia.
Steamdeck Delayed Until At Least February of 2022 - So Assume July

Steamdeck Delayed Until At Least February of 2022 - So Assume July

Nov 10 2021 | comment(s)

Valve, of Steam gaming platform fame, has announced that its Steamdeck portable gaming device has been delayed, until at least February of 2022. Which means for nearly everyone who made a preorder reservation, July or later.

Why is that unclear? Well, because even this may be optimistic.



This isn't as huge surprise, when even big guns like Microsoft and Sony can't make the new Xbox Series X or Playstation 5 in stores.
Electric Car Batteries Are An Expensive, Energy Intensive Headache To Recycle - And That Is Not Going Away

Electric Car Batteries Are An Expensive, Energy Intensive Headache To Recycle - And That Is Not Going Away

Nov 09 2021 | comment(s)

Riding a wave of government mandates and subsidies, and ignoring that fossil fuel usage to create electricity is identical to what it was before a trillion dollars in additional subsidies for solar and wind alternatives, electric cars are now everywhere.