Science 2.0
Study: Organic Food Results In More Toxic Chemicals In Young Europeans
Nicolas A. Van Larebeke, MD, cancer expert at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, was not convinced by offhand claims that organic food must be healthier(1) than food growing using modern tools and sought to find out if such claims were true. Instead of organic food being healthier, his team found that it had more chemical inputs, and those inputs resulted in higher concentrations of lead, arsenic, and organochlorine compounds linked to cancer in young people. The 600 Flemish adolescents in the data who consumed organic food more than 7.5 times a week had concentrations in their blood of toxins from 20% to 40% higher.
Categories: Science 2.0
If Solar Is So Successful, Why Does It Still Need Trillions In Subsidies And Mandates
Solar power is promoted by its lobbyists and marketing departments as a great source of clean, affordable energy, but you don't have to pay people to buy your product if it is both of those things.
Categories: Science 2.0
News Of The Demise Of The Standard Model Were Exaggerated
Each man kills the thing he loves, sang Jeanne Moreau in a beautiful song some thirty years ago. But the sentence is actually a quote from Oscar Wilde - aren't all smart quotes from that amazing writer?
Anyway, in some way this rather startling concept applies to every man except researchers in fundamental physics - both male and female, in fact. There, all of us love our Standard Model - it is a theory so wonderful and deep, and so beautifully confirmed by countless experiments, that it wins you over forever once you reach enough understanding of its intricacies. And physicists have tried, unsuccessfully, to kill the Standard Model for over fifty years now.
Anomaly! Anomaly!
Anyway, in some way this rather startling concept applies to every man except researchers in fundamental physics - both male and female, in fact. There, all of us love our Standard Model - it is a theory so wonderful and deep, and so beautifully confirmed by countless experiments, that it wins you over forever once you reach enough understanding of its intricacies. And physicists have tried, unsuccessfully, to kill the Standard Model for over fifty years now.
Anomaly! Anomaly!
Categories: Science 2.0
Fentanyl Issue - Blaming Big Pharma Or Foreign Crime Rings Tells Us How You Vote
During last evening's Republican National Convention, speakers repeatedly invoked the fentanyl crisis and blamed lax border control and unchecked illegal immigration. Democrats, on the other hand, blame Big Pharma, and argue corporate exploitation of supply chain monitoring loopholes fueled the US opioid epidemic.
They are both right. Every high-profile death related to fentanyl had it purchased illegally, that is due to crime syndicates, while the other side argues that it doctors and pharmaceutical companies caused the addiction which forced them to go the illegal route.
They are both right. Every high-profile death related to fentanyl had it purchased illegally, that is due to crime syndicates, while the other side argues that it doctors and pharmaceutical companies caused the addiction which forced them to go the illegal route.
Categories: Science 2.0
Republicans Shot Trump, Electronic Voting, GMOs - Conspiracy Theories Are Common. Here's Why
Misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories have always been with us. The belief that Republican Vice-President Dan Quayle couldn't spell 'potato' or that Democratic President Barack Obama was not a citizen are common modern ones that still get repeated as facts.
Categories: Science 2.0
Trust: Why Pharmacists Do More To Lower Blood Pressure Than Doctors
A recent paper did something interesting with data from 100 hypertension trials around the world - it compared blood pressure reductions by the type of healthcare professionals who led the interventions.
The results were that pharmacists achieved the greatest improvements, followed by community health workers. The authors believe that, unlike in the government-controlled medical environment, especially if patients are subsidized or free under the Affordable Care Act, doctors and nurses don't spend much time, while pharmacists and community health care workers have calmer, more empathetic demeanors.
The results were that pharmacists achieved the greatest improvements, followed by community health workers. The authors believe that, unlike in the government-controlled medical environment, especially if patients are subsidized or free under the Affordable Care Act, doctors and nurses don't spend much time, while pharmacists and community health care workers have calmer, more empathetic demeanors.
Categories: Science 2.0
Is Hydroxychloroquine The Cure To Alzheimer’s?
Alzhiemer’s, the most common form of dementia, is increasingly prevalent.
Categories: Science 2.0
NASA Continues Its 15 Year Mission Of Failing At Big Science
In 2009, one of the first orders of business for self-proclaimed Scientist-In-Chief President Obama was to cancel NASA's Constellation project.
He said he wanted to 'go bigger' but given the hostility of his campaign, politically agnostic people knew what it meant - he was no Nixon, he was never going to allow a program with his predecessor's name on it to get off the ground, so the Constellation had to die to spite Bush. NASA has never really recovered from such overt politicization of science but the problems were evident before that.
He said he wanted to 'go bigger' but given the hostility of his campaign, politically agnostic people knew what it meant - he was no Nixon, he was never going to allow a program with his predecessor's name on it to get off the ground, so the Constellation had to die to spite Bush. NASA has never really recovered from such overt politicization of science but the problems were evident before that.
Categories: Science 2.0
Just Correlation, Not Science: Ozempic 'Leads' To Less Dementia
If epidemiologists were held accountable for the high costs, drug shortages, and food and chemical misinformation they cause, nonsense like claiming a type 2 diabetes drug that is popular off-label for weight loss in rich people also prevent dementia would stop.
Yet the reason so many "studies" by epidemiologists are being pushed onto the public now is because it is a fad. Fads, creating them or capitalizing on them, is big business for lawyers on one side and corporations on the other, and epidemiologists capitalize on that.
Yet the reason so many "studies" by epidemiologists are being pushed onto the public now is because it is a fad. Fads, creating them or capitalizing on them, is big business for lawyers on one side and corporations on the other, and epidemiologists capitalize on that.
Categories: Science 2.0
Biden EPA Continues Its War On American Farmers
Ask a farmer what their most important asset is and they will tell you it's their land. Without it, nothing happens.
Yet the Biden EPA has shown breathtaking hostility to American farmers, insinuating by regulation that not only do American farmers not care about their most important asset, they are systematically destroying it.
It makes no sense but neither does the method EPA is using to undermine American science; namely that they are doing no science at all. Instead, they have stuffed panels with epidemiologists who don't need evidence, they have correlation. Then they use correlation to invoke other regulations and claim it is the Constitution at war on American agriculture, not generational bureaucrats who only even touch grass in photo-ops.
Yet the Biden EPA has shown breathtaking hostility to American farmers, insinuating by regulation that not only do American farmers not care about their most important asset, they are systematically destroying it.
It makes no sense but neither does the method EPA is using to undermine American science; namely that they are doing no science at all. Instead, they have stuffed panels with epidemiologists who don't need evidence, they have correlation. Then they use correlation to invoke other regulations and claim it is the Constitution at war on American agriculture, not generational bureaucrats who only even touch grass in photo-ops.
Categories: Science 2.0
Twice As Many Trans People Get Cirrhosis
A new analysis has found that cirrhosis, a liver disease that occurs when scar tissue prevents the liver from functioning normally, occurs twice as often in trans adults as those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
Categories: Science 2.0
Some Additional Tests Of The RadiaCode
In the previous post I have described some of the main functionalities of the RadiaCode 103 radiation spectrometer, which the company graciously made available for my tests. Here I want to discuss some additional tests I have done, using radioactive samples from my minerals collection as well as a couple of test sources we have in our Physics department in Padova.
Categories: Science 2.0
The Duck Curve: California Learns The Awful Secret About Solar Power
California mandates and subsidizes solar power, but the money for that isn't from all taxpayers, it is instead taxes and fees tacked onto the bills of people who use conventional energy - people in apartments, renters, and anyone who can't afford solar installations.
Worse, solar owners, already privileged, also 'sell electricity back at the same rate they buy it', which everyone knows is impossible. Utilities have employees, infrastructure, and repairs, so without a markup to cover those, they'd be out of business. Thanks to a bulletproof-majority in state politics, science is pushed to the side, and conventional energy users pay even more to so the state can engage in fiscal magic.
Worse, solar owners, already privileged, also 'sell electricity back at the same rate they buy it', which everyone knows is impossible. Utilities have employees, infrastructure, and repairs, so without a markup to cover those, they'd be out of business. Thanks to a bulletproof-majority in state politics, science is pushed to the side, and conventional energy users pay even more to so the state can engage in fiscal magic.
Categories: Science 2.0
Study: Diet Soda Has No Negative Effects - And Aspartame Has One Additional Big Positive
It is routinely claimed by trial lawyers and their allied epidemiologists that diet soda has lots of nasty effects on humans. Science has never found that but that is why epidemiology is invoked. If an epidemiologist with an agenda looks at enough rows of diseases and enough columns of foods people claim they ate, it is easy to claim meat causes cancer. Or prevents cancer. Just like organic food causes autism and DDT improves male fertility.
Categories: Science 2.0
Eco-Terrorist Attack Causes Italy To Extend GMO Policies
Eco-terrorists perhaps thought Italy was like other European countries and destroying a CRISPR food test plot would make the government apologize and change their evil science ways.
Categories: Science 2.0
Sickle Cell Disease: A Pill Cure In Mice And Monkeys
Scientists led by Dr. Pamela Ting have reported the discovery and characterization of the first molecular glue degraders of the WIZ transcription factor for fetal hemoglobin derepression in Sickle Cell Disease, which means a pill-based therapy for humans could begin development.
Sickle Cell Disease is a genetic life-threatening condition caused by mutation in β-hemoglobin. Inducing fetal hemoglobin safely has been the goal for years but has remained out-of-reach. The discovery of dWIZ-1 and dWIZ-2 molecular glue degraders of the WIZ transcription factor that induce HbF in erythroblasts is a milestone toward a pill for therapy. The authors say WIZ is a previously unknown repressor of HbF.
Sickle Cell Disease is a genetic life-threatening condition caused by mutation in β-hemoglobin. Inducing fetal hemoglobin safely has been the goal for years but has remained out-of-reach. The discovery of dWIZ-1 and dWIZ-2 molecular glue degraders of the WIZ transcription factor that induce HbF in erythroblasts is a milestone toward a pill for therapy. The authors say WIZ is a previously unknown repressor of HbF.
Categories: Science 2.0
Your Portable Radiation Spectrometer - The Wondrous Radiacode 103
A few days ago I put my hands on a RadiaCode 103, a pocket radiation counter, dosimeter, and spectrometer that has recently appeared on the market. The company that produces it, RadiaCode, is located in Cyprus (see https://radiacode.com). The instrument is a portable device that pairs up with a smartphone or a PC for maximum functionality, but can well operate as a standalone unit to provide quite a bit more functionality than the standard monitoring and dosimeter capabilities of other instruments.
Here is the unit as it comes, packaged in a style similar to that of smartphones. The package contains the unit and a USB-C cable, plus a card with a QR-code link to the manuals and software.
Here is the unit as it comes, packaged in a style similar to that of smartphones. The package contains the unit and a USB-C cable, plus a card with a QR-code link to the manuals and software.
Categories: Science 2.0
The Oldest Profession May Be Fashion Design
There are five professions(1) but lots of occupations and trades lay claim to being the oldest one despite predating the concept by millennia.
Farming is around 14,000 years old but a new study reveals one less-considered trade predates it by tens of thousands of years: fashion.
Humans wore clothing prior to that, but fashion is a different animal skin. It is clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to clothes as an expression of identity. Paleolithic eyed needles are now known to be as old as 40,000 years, and with it came the evolution of dressing.
Farming is around 14,000 years old but a new study reveals one less-considered trade predates it by tens of thousands of years: fashion.
Humans wore clothing prior to that, but fashion is a different animal skin. It is clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to clothes as an expression of identity. Paleolithic eyed needles are now known to be as old as 40,000 years, and with it came the evolution of dressing.
Categories: Science 2.0
Exchange Sac In Blitz
Time and again, I play a "good" blitz chess game. In blitz chess you have 5 minutes thinking for the totality of your game. This demands quick reasoning and a certain level of dexterity - with the mouse, if you are playing online as I usually do.
My blitz rating on the chess.com site hovers around 2150-2200 elo points, which puts me at the level of a strong candidate master or something like that, which is more or less how I would describe myself. But time is of course running at a slower, but more unforgiving pace in my life, and I know that my sport prowess is going to decline - hell, it has already. So it makes me happy when I see that I can still play a blitz game at a decent level. Today is one of those days.
My blitz rating on the chess.com site hovers around 2150-2200 elo points, which puts me at the level of a strong candidate master or something like that, which is more or less how I would describe myself. But time is of course running at a slower, but more unforgiving pace in my life, and I know that my sport prowess is going to decline - hell, it has already. So it makes me happy when I see that I can still play a blitz game at a decent level. Today is one of those days.
Categories: Science 2.0
It Took Biden Abuse Of Science To Get 'Chevron Deference' Limited But SCOTUS Finally Did it
In 1984, a court much farther to the left than today's is to the right made arguably its worst 'social justice living document' ruling - they found that an agency controlled by the president could create new regulations that act as laws if those regulations were in the agency's "mandate." All a president had to do was broaden an agency's mandate, or have a Congressional law written poorly, and anything was possible.
Categories: Science 2.0