Science 2.0

The number of people with multiple booster shots versus the original vaccines is marginal - and new survey results may tell us why. I don't recall ever having any issue from a flu vaccine, maybe it is in people's heads, but there are so many stories of increasing side effects with each new COVID-19 booster taken that some are worried that a harmless flu vaccine may get worrisome if taken in conjunction.

I don't know how biologically plausible that is but all bets are off with COVID-19. Prior to 2021, California and other progressive states were way out in front in vaccine denial(1) and that only changed once Republicans didn't want the COVID-19 vaccine.

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In "Science Left Behind", Dr. Alex Berezow and I recounted the numerous ways that science denial and acceptance solidly came down along political lines. With minor exceptions, if you found someone who denied climate change, you were going to find a Republican. If you found an anti-vaccine type, or anti-nuclear, or anti-GMO, you were going to find a Democrat.

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There is no truly positive thing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but at least it exposed European hypocrisy when it comes to science. Experts knew most of their energy was coming from Russia, not domestic solar power, and their "organic" food was also labeled such from the east.

Or from countries forced to use an inefficient process or be blocked out of European stores - all so Europe could compete without paying higher subsidies. Former colonies of Europe were banned from sale unless they obeyed Europe when it came to food.

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It used to be common for physicians to give common-sense advice to patients; lose weight, drink less alcohol, stop smoking.

Such shaming may reflect an unequal power relationship, according to a paper in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications which also argues that such shame may create a barrier to accessing services, a fear of being judged, circumstances, coping behaviors, body, illnesses, along with other vulnerabilities.

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In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton did something for his constituents that had a devastating effect on public trust in science - he exempted the supplements market from real FDA oversight, as long as they wrote in small print that their supernatural claims had not been evaluated by FDA and therefore had no scientific backing.(1)

Supplements are not always garbage, if you have a diagnosed vitamin D deficiency those supplements help you, but most of the time when they do something beneficial, it is only because they contain real medicine illegally. And the "endurance" market, natural supplements claiming to reduce erectile dysfunction, are only ever working when they contain real medicine illegally. 

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Data from 513 households and 2,053 people participating in the Coronavirus Household Evaluation and Respiratory Testing (C-HEaRT) study from August 2020 to August 2021 in Utah and from September 2020 to August 2021 in New York City, plus data from the SARS-CoV-2 Epidemiology And Response in Children (SEARCh) study in Maryland, with data collected from November 2020 to October 2021, reveal that isolating from infected family members (separate room) and getting a vaccine helped prevent  severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections.

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If you are in a business where costs are both fixed and high, but your number of customers is slashed due to government regulations and public concern about leaving the house, it may not be worthwhile to continue. In more heavy-handed states like California, thousands of restaurants went out of business. In some places, so did doctors.

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors faced reduced revenue, staff who stopped wanting to work, and decreased morale, according to an analysis of billing claims data. The work found that nearly twice as many family physicians stopped work in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years.

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In a recent post in this blog I discussed the idea of exploiting the properties of negative muons for a new kind of imaging technique of unknown volumes of material. The idea is based on the fact that negative muons stopped inside matter have a lifetime that is modified by nuclear interactions, so that a precise detection of their lifetime and point of decay becomes a means of inferring the composition of unknown volumes. Here, I want to offer the results of a quick simulation of the processes, to show that the idea is not so far-fetched.

Different techniques for muon tomography

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Land mammals such as horses experience ‘pulses’ in their blood when galloping, where blood pressures inside the body go up and down on every stride. In all mammals, average blood pressure is higher in arteries, or the blood exiting the heart, than in veins. This difference in pressure drives the blood flow in the body, including through the brain. Locomotion can forcefully move blood, causing spikes in pressure, or ‘pulses’ to the brain.

The difference in pressure between the blood entering and exiting the brain for these pulses can cause damage. Long-term damage of this kind can lead to dementia in human beings while horses deal with the pulses by breathing in and out.

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A recent survey found that even if the cost was 10X as much (though still a small amount), users would pay more if they liked the feel of a smartphone cover. This means designers might benefit more factoring that into product design.

The caveat; this was a small number of students and Hiroshima University staff so not representative even of Japan. Still, it showed willingness to pay more when the reference smartphone cover price was 100 yen and 1000 yen. The covers were differentiated by surface smoothness, height, slipperiness, dampness, granularity, stickiness, and dryness.

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Environmental groups who spent a lot of time and money promoting a Beepocalypse (and blaming it on a class of modern targeted pesticides called neonicotinoids) are getting really desperate to shore up their campaign.

They have been promoting a 1994 quote from physicist Albert Einstein who worried about the loss of bees.

Einstein died in 1955.

But that is just a detail when the goal is saving Gaia. The ends justify the means and all that. 



“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.” 

Wait, what? 

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The way Chief Justice Roberts tosses red herrings, he could get a job at Seattle’s Pike Market. The court may make unpopular decisions, he says, but that’s no reason to question the Supremes’ legitimacy. He’s right, but he’s right in a way that totally misses the point.

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What correlation giveth, correlation can taketh away. Statins, taken by some 40 million Americans, may not be helping a lot of them.

Statins are used to lower cholesterol levels and reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke. They are endorsed by medical groups and the American Heart Association, but many won't benefit from these drugs based on new research. Basically, healthy people with high cholesterol aren't gaining anything.

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If Product A and Product B are identical in every meaningful way, and Product A is unavailable, is there any reason the government should make it illegal to buy B?

No, but that is government. The Biden administration first created an infant formula shortage by overreacting to contamination in a small batch. Then the president said he didn't know his actions would create a shortage. Then after he was reminded the companies who make formula told him his actions would create a shortage he replied that they knew, but he didn't.

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Since 2017, avowed socialist António Guterres has led the United Nations. That means he has led the organization that has never once defended people in Taiwan or Mongolia but defended communist China when it was clear they were the source of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

The UN even did as told when China weirdly said to blame the COVID-19 pandemic on American frozen food. Rather than the Wuhan lab which deleted its coronavirus database after the pandemic raged, scrubbed the nearby Wuhan market clean, and only let UN investigators onsite for four hours, during which they were allowed to ask no questions the Communist Party had not pre-approved.

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Do you believe the telegraph was giving telegraph operators cancer? If not, it's only because there was no Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or US Right To Know group promoting fear and doubt about it the way they do vaccines, food, and cell phones.

On May 24th, 1844 a telegram was sent from the Capitol because Samuel Morse, the inventor, wanted a government contract. Because he was diplomatic, he let the daughter of Henry Ellsworth, first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, draft the message. And because young people need to Live In Important Times, the message proposed by young Annie was "What Hath God Wrought.” (1)

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Creativity occurs whenever novel connections are made, and often, this occurs by accident.

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England is in crisis. They lost a beloved figurehead this month but for decades prior were losing scientific ground. If you look for the home of the modern organic food and anti-vaccine movements, you find their nexus in 1990s England.

The primary royal behind those beliefs is now King Charles III. 

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Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, from school closures to lockdowns, were important for health officials and implemented even after factoring in concerns about long-term psychological effects.

If results from 2015-2020 surveys are an indication, depression cases may go up sharply in future data. In 2020, past 12‒month depression was prevalent among nearly 20 percent of adolescents and young adults, and almost 10 percent of Americans.  

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'Keeping time' is easy for humans, but not all can keep time equally. Some great drummers, and even more guitarists, use a device like a metronome to keep them on a precise beat, while others seem to do it effortlessly.

A new study finds human capacity to move in synchrony with a musical beat may be partially coded in the human genome.

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