First Nation Shell Middens And True Oysters
Something Happened In Silicon Valley
Epidemiologists Blame 15th Century Science...
The Probability Density Function: A Known Unknown
Urban beards are all the rage this decade, often worn by men in Euroweenie... Read >
The French look at not owning air conditioning as a point of pride, and it... Read >
One key hallmark of being human is walking on two legs. It was a seismic... Read >
Cocaine toxicosis in animals is a real thing. You shouldn't do cocaine, even... Read >
Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers... Read >
One of my institute’s projects is gaining too little traction with its target... Read >
Searching For Impossibly Rare Decays
I recently ran into a description of the Mu3e experiment, and got curious about it and the physics it studies. So after giving it a look, I am able to explain that shortly here - I think it is a great example of how deep our studies of particle physics are getting; or, on the negative side, how ...
A Remarkable Graph: The Full Dalitz Plot Of Neutron Decay
The neutron is a fascinating particle, and one which has kept experimental physicists busy for almost a century now. Discovered by James Chadwick in 1932 in a cunning experiment which deserves a separate post (it is a promise, or a threat if you prefer), the neutron has been all along a protagonist ...
Now For Something New Around Uranus
There us something new to talk about around Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun. Uranus is a “sideways planet” due to its extreme axial tilt, and the ice giant owes its cyan-color to a deep atmosphere composed of hydrogen, helium and methane. And it has moons. Lots of moons. ...
Some Thoughts On Co-design For Tracking Optimization
These days I am organizing a collaborative effort to write an article on holistic optimization of experiments and complex systems. "So what is the news," I could hear say by one of my twentythree faithful readers (cit.) of this blog. Well, the news is that I am making some progress in focusing ...
How The Ancient Volcanoes Of Ultima Thule Impacted Climate Then And Now
Some sixty million years ago a fountain of hot rock that rises from Earth’s core-mantle boundary unleashed volcanic activity across a vast area of the North Atlantic, from Scotland to Greenland. We can detect the effects in spectacular basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.But why ...
How European Forests May Look By The Year 2100
A new computer simulation says that climate change may may ruin the tall beech trees common in Europe. Unfortunately, many other simulations already said it was too late to curb runaway emissions by India and China as of 2016.For the last 2,000 years, the area from southern Sweden to central France ...
USDA Results Show Science Can Feed The World If Governments Get Out Of The Way
Until the 1980s, the modern-day Malthus acolytes like Drs. Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren predicted Population Bombs and advocated for government-mandated sterilization and abortion to prevent it.(1)Science didn't buy into the doomsday narrative and the poor have benefited.Rather than the world ...
California Wildfires Linked To Suicide And Harms From PM10
California has an environmental problem. The state is overwhelmingly desert and rain is scarce for 10 months out of the year. Water instead arrives from the mountains. Yet the state legislature and government are allied with environmentalists. They want dams torn down, which means water from the ...
No Sense Of Smell? Try Radio Waves
We usually associate smell with bad things, like body odors or fire or a gas leak, but a keen sense of smell helps us enjoy food and other pleasures in life. Many things cause loss of smell; aging is number one, but also brain injuries and loss of smell was a common complaint about COVID-19 infections ...
Inflammatory Bowel Disease May Accelerate Dementia
You have probably heard the phrase “follow your gut” – often used to mean trusting your instinct and intuition. But in the context of the gut-brain axis, the phrase takes on a more literal meaning. Scientific research increasingly shows that the brain and gut are in constant, two-way communication ...
RFK Jr Is Wrong About MRNA Vaccines - They Make COVID-19 Less Deadly
US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has announced he is cancelling US$500 million (£374 million) of research into mRNA vaccines, citing unproven concerns about their safety and long-term effects.Kennedy has claimed that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics” ...
RSV Vaccine For Pregnant Women Leads To 72% Fewer Babies Hospitalized With The Virus
Real world data show that the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine rolled out for pregnant women in the UK last year has already resulted in a 72 percent drop in babies being admitted to the hospital among women who took it. Experts predict that as more women take it, England is ...
40% Of Advanced Cancer Patients Are Ignored On Their Care Goals
Advanced cancer often brings preparation for the worst and proponents of the modern health care system use terms like "advocate" and "empowered" when everyone who isn't part of the system knows patients have trouble doing the former and certainly are not the latter.Government, health insurers, ...
New Vaccine For 21 Strains Of Pneumococcal Disease
A new international, randomized clinical trial is evaluating a vaccine developed to protect against 21 strains of pneumococcus, up from the current 13 strains covered now. That means greater protection to babies against the common infection that causes pneumonia, sinusitis and meningitis.Pneumococcal ...
Blocking IL-23 May Keep HPV From Helping Cancer Grow
The most common cancer-causing strain of human papillomavirus, HPV16, can reprogram immune cells surrounding the tumor to help cancer grow, and new work in mice blocking this process helped treatments prevent the spread of cancer.HPV is common in humans and in most cases clears naturally but HPV16 ...
Age 60 And Up: Walk Faster To Reduce Risk Of Stroke
Epidemiologists correlate inputs to outcomes by looking at surveys and diaries and then seeing what foods, products, or behaviors to outcomes, like better or worse health.It isn't science and is often exploited but it has led to big public health wins, like showing that cigarettes and alcohol cause ...
Adam Smith And The Transactional Fallacy
A guest on NPR’s Morning Edition (August 26) mis-characterized pioneering economist Adam Smith as a pure transactionalist. Smith’s metaphorical “invisible hand,” the guest asserted, suggested self-interest drives our every action. It’s a big deal – in fact, a revelation! – she continued ...
Trump's 'No Surprises Act' Reduced Patient Out-Of-Pocket Expenses
Health care is expensive. If you are convinced that donating blood is a community service and do it for free, the Red Cross sells it for up to $200 per pint. If you need a transfusion, each pint will cost $1,000 and up. That is paid for by insurance. What isn't covered by insurance will be passed ...
We Won't Lose Vaccine Leadership Due To Less Government, Government Has Always Done Little
"If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine." - Dr. Samuel Broder, M.D., former Director of the National Cancer InstituteIt's become a popular ...
The Mysterious Humans Near ‘Hobbit’s Island'
Over 1 million years ago, early hominims made a treacherous deep sea crossing to reach the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and in a modern corn field local people discovered what looked like stone tools in the sedimentary layers and called in archaeologists.What they found in the Early Pleistocene ...
Knucklehead Democrats
"Knucklehead" and “Wimp” were the toss-up for titling today’s column.A few Democrat politicians are almost heroic as they respond to the current sh*tshow in Washington: Corey Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Robert Reich, JB Pritzker, Melanie Stansbury, AOC, and even Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin ...
So Good Badminton Banned It: The Spin Serve Gets A CFD Analysis
In all racket sports, a well-executed serve can establish a real advantage. Badminton is played by around 220 million people across the globe and a“spin serve” took badminton by storm when a Danish player at the Polish Open 2023 badminton tournament used it to dominant effect. Like in table ...
How Trump Is Making Taiwan Safe(r)
Let’s write a letter to Donald Trump. Trigger warning: Lots of sarcasm here.
Not-so-dear Don,
Well, Don, those “sh**hole” countries are not “eating” the tariffs as ...
A Sad Semiconductor Circus
Donald Trump, alleged by many to be President of the United States, has demanded that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan resign immediately. Thanking the American public for our “attention to this matter,” Trump claims Tan is “conflicted” due to his investments in China.I dare suggest that Tan respond ...
Air India Crash: Update #5 - It's Dust, Not SmokeA few media content creators and commenters keep... more »
Eric Weinstein's theory of Geometric Unity is wrong. So is every other so-called theory of everything... more »
In the past few years my activities on this site - but I would say more in general, as the same... more »
This came up on 2nd November 2024 (give or take a day), a broadcaster objecting to a carbon capture... more »
Sheer beauty — a beautiful Euhoplites ammonite from Folkstone, UK. These lovelies have a pleasing... more »
