morganisms

[morganism]

Le Petit Machiavellian Prince: Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values

Humans infected by Toxoplasma gondii express no specific symptoms but manifest higher incidence of many diseases, disorders and differences in personality and behavior. The aim of this study was to compare the political beliefs and values of Toxoplasma-infected and Toxoplasma-free participants. We measured beliefs and values of 2315 responders via an online survey (477 Toxoplasma-infected) using the Political Beliefs and Values Inventory (PI34). This study showed Toxoplasma-infected and Toxoplasma-free participants of our cross-sectional study differed in three of four factors of PI34, scoring higher in Tribalism and lower in Cultural liberalism and Anti-Authoritarianism. We found sex differences in political beliefs associated with Toxoplasma infection. Infected women scored higher in tribalism and lower in cultural liberalism, compared with the Toxoplasma-free control group, while infected men scored higher in economic equity. These results fit with sexual differences in behavior and attitude observed after toxoplasmosis infection. Controlling for the effect of worse physical health and mental health had little impact, suggesting that impaired health did not cause these changes. Rather than adaptation to prevalence of parasites, as suggested by parasite-stress theory, the differences might be side-effects of long-term mild inflammatory reaction. However, to get clear picture of the mild inflammation effects, more research focused on different infectious diseases is needed.

Introduction

Toxoplasma gondii, the parasitic protozoon of cats, infects about one-third of the human population in both developed and developing countries. Infected humans express no specific symptoms of the life-long infection, however, they differ from non-infected subjects by a higher incidence of many diseases and disorders and also by specific changes in personality and behavior.

These behavioral differences are mostly considered to be products or by-products of the manipulative activity of Toxoplasma aimed to increase the chance of transmitting from the infected intermediate host, which can be any warm-blooded animal, to its definitive host, a cat (Webster, 2007). However, Toxoplasma infected animals, including humans, express many signs of the activated immune system. They have increased levels of some proinflammatory cytokines, especially IL-6. It is known that inflammation, and independently also resulting stress have very strong impacts on various motivational, emotional, and behavioral processes.

It was suggested that a large part of the observed toxoplasmosis-associated changes are not the products of the manipulative activity of Toxoplasma but a result of mild chronic stress associated with long-term parasitic infection and resulting health problems. It is known that many toxoplasmosis-associated changes go in opposite directions in the infected men and women, and also that men and women cope with stress in diametrically opposed ways. The stress-coping hypothesis suggests that many toxoplasmosis-associated changes, e.g., higher extroversion in infected women and lower in men, or lower suspiciousness of infected women and higher in suspiciousness of infected men (all in comparison to non-infected peers) can be interpreted as gender-dependent stress coping reaction.

Additionally, the immune response to chronic stress due to parasite infection may elicit a different immune response in the two sexes and lead to different behavioral changes.

The research focused on the role of cytokines in the inflammatory process of the CNS showed the presence of a difference between males and females. The increment of cytokines during toxoplasmosis infection can affect the dopaminergic function and provoke the behavioral change.
 Indeed, many of the behavioral changes associated with toxoplasmosis are correlated with the dopaminergic system in humans and in rats. Therefore, the behavioral differences observed in infected men and women can be a consequence of differences in the immune system, related to the production of cytokines and the function of the dopaminergic system.
Among the traits affected by toxoplasmosis are also such that could affect the political beliefs of infected subjects. For example, infected men have lower superego strength, i.e., the tendency to disregard the rules of society, while the opposite tendency was observed in infected women. Both infected men and women have lower conscientiousness, lower generosity and have lower novelty-seeking. Men express lower and women higher altruism in the dictatorship game. Infected subjects express higher entrepreneurship activity and have a higher tendency for risky behavior, which might explain a higher risk of traffic accidents in the infected subjects. Toxoplasma-infected women have also higher aggression and self-aggression.

Although certain effects of infection by a parasitic disease on political views ought to be expected based on the research summarized above, to our knowledge, no relation of toxoplasmosis (or other parasitic diseases) and political beliefs and values has been reported to date. Moreover, studies focused on possible causal connection between infectious diseases (except for toxoplasmosis) and changes in personality profiles are also few and far between, and focused mainly on diseases causing profound changes in brain, e.g. AIDS or neurocysticercosis.

Regarding the connection between parasite stress and political views, there exists extensive literature describing changes in traits that differ with varied geographical parasite stress levels. All published studies, however, are population-based studies, searching for the difference between populations exposed to different intensity of the parasite stress. While it is possible to consider our data in the context of this parasite-stress theory and it will be done so in the Discussion, this study primarily focuses on association between Toxoplasma status and political beliefs on an individual level. For this purpose, we measured political beliefs and values of 2315 respondents of an internet survey (477 Toxoplasma-infected) using the Political Beliefs and Values Inventory (PI34). To test the hypothesis that the observed changes in three of the factor (Tribalism, Cultural Liberalism, and Anti-authoritarianism), but not the fourth (Economic Equity), are related to stress-coping strategies of men and women, we ran the analyses separately for each sex and to find out whether the observed differences are mediated by impaired health of the infected subjects we also analysed a complex model controlling not only for age, sex, size of place of residence, and level of education but also for physical health and mental health.
Results

 Prevalence of toxoplasmosis was lower in men (19.27%) than in women (28.03%)
Prevalence of toxoplasmosis decreased with size of place of residence from 32.9% in smallest villages to 20.9% in the cities over 500,000 inhabitants.
 No association was observed between toxoplasmosis and education, however, the absence of the association in the whole population was caused by the existence of positive association between toxoplasmosis and achieved level of education in men and negative association between the toxoplasmosis and achieved level of education in women.

Toxoplasma-infected women expressed worse mental and physical health, and Toxoplasma-infected men worse physical health than their Toxoplasma-free peers.
(snip)
The results showed that being Toxoplasma-infected correlated positively with Tribalism and negatively with Cultural liberalism, and Anti-authoritarianism.

Discussion
The present study showed that Toxoplasma-infected and Toxoplasma-free participants of our cross-sectional study differed in three of four factors measured with Political inventory, namely scored higher in Tribalism and lower in Cultural liberalism and Anti-authoritarianism. These results are in line with previous broad research, showing that individuals in parasite affected areas are more likely to be conservative and authoritarian (Murray et al., 2013).
Furthermore, we observed sex differences in the studied factors associated with the Toxoplasma infection. Indeed, Toxoplasma-infected men scored higher in Economic Equity, showing a preference for a more equal and less competitive society, while women infected with toxoplasmosis scored higher in tribalism and lower in cultural liberalism. These associations were not reduced when the effect of worse physical health and mental health were controlled, suggesting that impaired health of infected subjects is not the cause of changes in political beliefs. The same conclusion was also supported by the fact that the changes go in the same direction in men and women, because stress coping-associated behavioral and personality changes mostly go in different directions in men and women.

(edited, removing in line citations, much more discussion in paper)

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14747049221112657

[morganism]

A Bacterial Culprit for Rheumatoid Arthritis
Scientists identified a species of Subdoligranulum that may drive disease.

"Identifying this bacterium was no simple task. First, the research team, a collaboration between scientists at the University of Colorado, Stanford University, and the Benaroya Research Institute, screened blood donated by people at risk for RA or with early-stage RA for RA-related autoantibodies.

Then researchers tested whether any of these autoantibodies also targeted human intestinal bacteria. They mixed the antibodies with bacteria from stool samples donated by healthy people and people with RA. They then sequenced the bacterial species to which the autoantibodies attached. These RA antibodies cross-reacted with many species of bacteria, largely from Lachnospiraceae or Ruminococcaceae, two closely related families.

To study these species in more detail, researchers cultured bacteria from the stool of an individual who had high levels of these two bacterial families present. Two types of Subdoligranulum bacteria, which they called isolates 1 and 7, emerged as potential candidates for driving RA development. Compared to isolate 1, isolate 7 was a more potent activator of T cells in blood from RA patients.
(...)
While other bacteria have previously been associated with human RA, Subdoligranulum is so far unique in its ability to cause RA-like symptoms in mice without the addition of another immune insult (3).

The similarities between the mice and human RA patients extended beyond what could be seen with the naked eye. “There were antibodies getting into the joints, much like we see in rheumatoid arthritis,” said Kuhn. “So, we started to profile the antibodies that were in the serum of the mice and we found that a lot of those antibodies targeted the same proteins that are targeted in rheumatoid arthritis.”

Rabi Upadhyay, a medical oncologist who studies the microbiome, immunity, and cancer at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and was not involved in this work, said that while this study convincingly demonstrated that this species could produce an RA-like condition in mice, it may be too soon to pin all the blame on Subdoligranulum alone, since the study didn’t necessarily rule out other species.

“It's hard to know how big of a player this specific isolate is,” he said. “It could be the dominant player, and that's why they came across it first. But it could be that if they went back and did larger screens, that they would come up with more — that [Subdoligranulum] would be just one of many.”

In keeping with this, the researchers only found this Subdoligranulum strain in 16.7 percent of people at risk or with early-stage RA, indicating that this strain is likely not the sole driver of disease.

Nevertheless, Upadhyay said that it’s still an exciting study. Currently, there are no therapies that can prevent or cure the disease, and the immunosuppressant treatments that alleviate symptoms can have dangerous side effects.

“The reason I think this line of research is particularly exciting is that it could very well get at an actual beginning of the disease, so that we could design therapeutics to perturb the colonization of bacteria… to see whether you can prevent a percentage of disease prevalence by getting rid of colonization. And that would totally change the types of therapies that a rheumatologist could use.”

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/a-bacterial-culprit-for-rheumatoid-arthritis-71088


 Clonal IgA and IgG autoantibodies from individuals at risk for rheumatoid arthritis identify an arthritogenic strain of Subdoligranulum. Science Translational Medicine  14, eabn5166 (2022).




No need for a cold chain with these thin films
Most vaccines and biologics must stay cold until ready for use, but new thin film technology stabilizes these therapeutics for months at room temperature.

https://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/no-need-for-a-cold-chain-with-these-thin-films-15647

[morganism]

'Gluing' soft materials without glue

If you're a fan of arts and crafts, you're likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now have a brand-new way to weld squishy stuff together without the need for glue at all. They've demonstrated a universal, "electroadhesion" technique that can adhere soft materials to each other just by running electricity through them.

There's a glue out there for almost any situation, whether it involves plastic, fabric, wood or beyond. But things get a bit tricky when materials are soft and squishy, like tissues or engineered organs. Strategies including 3D-printing avoid glues altogether by fusing together an entire structure -- such as an organ -- all at once. But this can be slow and laborious, and require advanced technical equipment. Another alternative could be electroadhesion, in which an electric field is used to hold oppositely charged materials together, forming attachments between the materials' components. This can involve chemical bonds, like ionic bonds, or more physical connections, like ensnaring polymer chains together. Plus, it works with little more than a household battery and pencil lead. Previously, Srinivasa Raghavan and colleagues showed that electroadhesion could reversibly hold a gel to a tissue without the need for sutures. But now, they wanted to see if the technique could work for any two materials, given that they had opposite charges, to precisely and reversibly hold them together.

To explore the phenomenon, the team tested a gel in addition to three types of capsules made of alginate or chitosan -- both naturally occurring polymers -- that were either positively or negatively charged. When attached to graphite electrodes and exposed to a 10-V electric field for around 10 seconds, the oppositely charged materials stuck together. This bond was strong enough to withstand gravity, and evidence from previous experiments suggests it could last for years. By reversing the flow of electricity, however, the bond was easily broken. The team assembled chains and even 3D cubes out of individual, spherical capsules. The researchers also used electroadhesion to sort capsules by their charges, either by laying a charged gel on top of several capsules, or by touching them with a fingertip "robot" that adhered the capsules to themselves. The researchers say that this work demonstrates the universality of electroadhesion and could one day be used in robotics and tissue engineering.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230503085337.htm

Video:



Universal Way to “Glue” Capsules and Gels into 3D Structures by Electroadhesion

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.2c20793

We demonstrate the use of electroadhesion (EA), i.e., adhesion induced by an electric field, to connect a variety of soft materials into 3D structures. EA requires a cationic and an anionic material, but these can be of diverse origin, including covalently cross-linked hydrogels made by polymerizing charged monomers or physical gels/capsules formed by the ionic cross-linking of biopolymers (e.g., alginate and chitosan). Between each cationic/anionic pair, EA is induced rapidly (in ∼10 s) by low voltages (∼10 V DC)─and the adhesion is permanent after the field is turned off. The adhesion is strong enough to allow millimeter-scale capsules/gels to be assembled in 3D into robust structures such as capsule–capsule chains, capsule arrays on a base gel, and a 3D cube of capsules. EA-based assembly of spherical building blocks can be done more precisely, rapidly, and easily than by any alternative techniques. Moreover, the adhesion can be reversed (by switching the polarity of the field)─hence any errors during assembly can be undone and fixed. EA can also be used for selective sorting of charged soft matter─for example, a ‘finger robot’ can selectively ‘pick up’ capsules of the opposite charge by EA and subsequently ‘drop off’ these structures by reversing the polarity. Overall, our work shows how electric fields can be used to connect soft matter without the need for an adhesive or glue."

[morganism]

Quantum Entanglement of Photons Doubles Microscope Resolution

Using a "spooky" phenomenon of quantum physics, Caltech researchers have discovered a way to double the resolution of light microscopes.

In a paper appearing in the journal Nature Communications, a team led by Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, shows the achievement of a leap forward in microscopy through what is known as quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two particles are linked such that the state of one particle is tied to the state of the other particle regardless of whether the particles are anywhere near each other. Albert Einstein famously referred to quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" because it could not be explained by his relativity theory.

According to quantum theory, any type of particle can be entangled. In the case of Wang's new microscopy technique, dubbed quantum microscopy by coincidence (QMC), the entangled particles are photons. Collectively, two entangled photons are known as a biphoton, and, importantly for Wang's microscopy, they behave in some ways as a single particle that has double the momentum of a single photon.

Since quantum mechanics says that all particles are also waves, and that the wavelength of a wave is inversely related to the momentum of the particle, particles with larger momenta have smaller wavelengths. So, because a biphoton has double the momentum of a photon, its wavelength is half that of the individual photons.

This is key to how QMC works. A microscope can only image the features of an object whose minimum size is half the wavelength of light used by the microscope. Reducing the wavelength of that light means the microscope can see even smaller things, which results in increased resolution.

Quantum entanglement is not the only way to reduce the wavelength of light being used in a microscope. Green light has a shorter wavelength than red light, for example, and purple light has a shorter wavelength than green light. But due to another quirk of quantum physics, light with shorter wavelengths carries more energy. So, once you get down to light with a wavelength small enough to image tiny things, the light carries so much energy that it will damage the items being imaged, especially living things such as cells. This is why ultraviolet (UV) light, which has a very short wavelength, gives you a sunburn.

QMC gets around this limit by using biphotons that carry the lower energy of longer-wavelength photons while having the shorter wavelength of higher-energy photons.

"Cells don't like UV light," Wang says. "But if we can use 400-nanometer light to image the cell and achieve the effect of 200-nm light, which is UV, the cells will be happy, and we're getting the resolution of UV."

To achieve that, Wang's team built an optical apparatus that shines laser light into a special kind of crystal that converts some of the photons passing through it into biphotons. Even using this special crystal, the conversion is very rare and occurs in about one in a million photons. Using a series of mirrors, lenses, and prisms, each biphoton -- which actually consists of two discrete photons -- is split up and shuttled along two paths, so that one of the paired photons passes through the object being imaged and the other does not. The photon passing through the object is called the signal photon, and the one that does not is called the idler photon. These photons then continue along through more optics until they reach a detector connected to a computer that builds an image of the cell based on the information carried by the signal photon. Amazingly, the paired photons remain entangled as a biphoton behaving at half the wavelength despite the presence of the object and their separate pathways.

Wang's lab was not the first to work on this kind of biphoton imaging, but it was the first to create a viable system using the concept. "We developed what we believe a rigorous theory as well as a faster and more accurate entanglement-measurement method. We reached microscopic resolution and imaged cells."

While there is no theoretical limit to the number of photons that can be entangled with each other, each additional photon would further increase the momentum of the resulting multiphoton while further decreasing its wavelength.

Wang says future research could enable entanglement of even more photons, although he notes that each extra photon further reduces the probability of a successful entanglement, which, as mentioned above, is already as low as a one-in-a-million chance.

The paper describing the work, "Quantum Microscopy of Cells at the Heisenberg Limit," appears in the April 28 issue of Nature Communications.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230502132244.htm

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/quantum-entanglement-of-photons-doubles-microscope-resolution

(and they say you cant send info in entanglements...)

[morganism]

Metal-filtering sponge removes lead from water
Reusable sponge can capture and recover critical metals and heavy-metal pollutants

Northwestern University engineers have developed a new sponge that can remove metals — including toxic heavy metals like lead and critical metals like cobalt — from contaminated water, leaving safe, drinkable water behind.

In proof-of-concept experiments, the researchers tested their new sponge on a highly contaminated sample of tap water, containing more than 1 part per million of lead. With one use, the sponge filtered lead to below detectable levels.

After using the sponge, researchers also were able to successfully recover metals and reuse the sponge for multiple cycles. The new sponge shows promise for future use as an inexpensive, easy-to-use tool in home water filters or large-scale environmental remediation efforts.

Rinse and repeat

To tackle this aspect of the issue, Dravid’s team, again, turned to sponges coated with an ultrathin layer of nanoparticles. After testing many different types of nanoparticles, the team found that a manganese-doped goethite coating worked best. Not only are manganese-doped goethite nanoparticles inexpensive to make, easily available and nontoxic to human, they also have the properties necessary to selectively remediate heavy metals.

When submerged into contaminated water, the nanoparticle-coated sponge effectively sequested lead ions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that bottled drinking water is below 5 parts per billion of lead. In filtration trials, the sponge lowered the amount of lead to approximately 2 parts per billion, making it safe to drink.

From there, the team rinsed the sponge with mildly acidified water, which Shindel likened to “having the same acidity of lemonade.” The acidic solution caused the sponge to release the lead ions and be ready for another use. Although the sponge’s performance declined after the first use, it still recovered more than 90% of the ions during subsequent use cycles.

This ability to gather and then recover heavy metals is particularly valuable for removing rare, critical metals, such as cobalt, from water sources. A common ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, cobalt is energetically expensive to mine and accompanied by a laundry list of environmental and human costs.

If researchers could develop a sponge that selectively removes rare metals, including cobalt, from water, then those metals could be recycled into products like batteries.

“For renewable energy technologies, like batteries and fuel cells, there is a need for metal recovery,” Dravid said. “Otherwise, there is not enough cobalt in the world for the growing number of batteries. We must find ways to recover metals from very dilute solutions. Otherwise, it becomes poisonous and toxic, just sitting there in the water. We might as well make something valuable with it.”

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/05/metal-filtering-sponge-removes-lead-from-water/


Nano-SCHeMe: Nanomaterial Sponge Coatings for Heavy Metals, an Environmental Remediation Platform

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsestwater.2c00646

[be cause]

kombucha works too .. including internally .

[morganism]

Benchtop DNA printers are coming soon—and biosecurity experts are worried
Report calls for better safeguards to prevent bioterrorists from weaponizing new technology

Biologists who have been obtaining DNA sequences online from companies will soon have a more convenient option: benchtop machines that can print all the DNA they need. But this technology brings with it new risks by circumventing how synthetic biology companies now screen for would-be bioterrorists. A report released yesterday by a Washington, D.C., think tank urges companies and governments to revamp existing screening to prevent someone with malign motives from making a toxin or pathogen.

The current screening system, which is voluntary, “could be upended by benchtop DNA synthesis,” says report co-author Jaime Yassif, vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “Governments, industry, and the broader scientific community need to put stronger safeguards in place to ensure this technology is not exploited by malicious actors and that it doesn’t lead to a catastrophic accident,” she says.

https://www.science.org/content/article/benchtop-dna-printers-are-coming-soon-and-biosecurity-experts-are-worried

and this is cool, and using AI for good...


The groundbreaking plan to map the entire human immune system
The Human Immunome Project is one of the most ambitious projects in biology, and it could transform human health.

This prompted Koff to launch the Human Immunome Project, a groundbreaking plan to use artificial intelligence to create a virtual simulation of the human immune system — in all its complexity — over the next decade. If it succeeds, the potential impacts could be enormous, from improving the effectiveness of cancer therapies to shedding new light on the ongoing mystery of Long Covid.

https://www.freethink.com/health/human-immunome

https://www.humanimmunomeproject.org/


A deep learning approach reveals unexplored landscape of viral expression in cancer

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36336-z

[Renerpho]

Le Petit Machiavellian Prince: Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values

Like with so many papers, the title isn't supported by the small print:

The associations found in the present study are based on correlations and we cannot infer the direction of causality. It cannot be ruled out that the explanation of the effect is in the opposite direction, that e.g., higher tribalism itself, by an unknown mechanism, increases the chance of being infected by Toxoplasma gondii.

[morganism]

Causal evidence that herpes zoster vaccination prevents a proportion of dementia cases

The root causes of dementia are still largely unclear, and the medical community lacks highly effective preventive and therapeutic pharmaceutical agents for dementia despite large investments into their development. There is growing interest in the question if infectious agents play a role in the development of dementia, with herpesviruses attracting particular attention. To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual's exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine. By using country-wide data on all vaccinations received, primary and secondary care encounters, death certificates, and patients' date of birth in weeks, we first show that the percentage of adults who received the vaccine increased from 0.01% among patients who were merely one week too old to be eligible, to 47.2% among those who were just one week younger. Apart from this large difference in the probability of ever receiving the herpes zoster vaccine, there is no plausible reason why those born just one week prior to September 2 1933 should differ systematically from those born one week later. We demonstrate this empirically by showing that there were no systematic differences (e.g., in pre-existing conditions or uptake of other preventive interventions) between adults across the date-of-birth eligibility cutoff, and that there were no other interventions that used the exact same date-of-birth eligibility cutoff as was used for the herpes zoster vaccine program. This unique natural randomization, thus, allows for robust causal, rather than correlational, effect estimation. We first replicate the vaccine's known effect from clinical trials of reducing the occurrence of shingles. We then show that receiving the herpes zoster vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis over a follow-up period of seven years by 3.5 percentage points (95% CI: 0.6 - 7.1, p=0.019), corresponding to a 19.9% relative reduction in the occurrence of dementia. Besides preventing shingles and dementia, the herpes zoster vaccine had no effects on any other common causes of morbidity and mortality. In exploratory analyses, we find that the protective effects from the vaccine for dementia are far stronger among women than men."

(more)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.23.23290253v1


https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176


    Published: 10 May 2021

The viral hypothesis: how herpesviruses may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01138-6

[morganism]

Caitlin Moran: what’s gone wrong for men – and the thing that can fix them

The feminist author has spent years writing about how to be a woman. Now she’s turning her eye on the opposite sex

tldr: they need feminism)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/01/caitlin-moran-whats-gone-wrong-for-men-and-the-thing-that-can-fix-them

[morganism]

Virus-like transposons cross the species barrier

Nailing down a culprit: Mavericks as vectors of HGT

"Mavericks were already known as a class of transposons, but our work links them to HGT for the first time," says IMBA group leader Alejandro Burga, the study's corresponding author. "We knew that HGT did take place between animal species, but we had no idea how. This is the first time that we could definitively nail down a culprit," adds co-first author Sonya Widen, a postdoctoral fellow in the Burga lab.

When Mavericks were discovered in the mid-2000s, they were initially thought to be large transposons, selfish genetic elements that jump and self-propagate in the genome at the expense of their host. Mavericks were quickly reported in most branches of eukaryotes, including humans, thus establishing that they originated a long time ago.
Transposons and viruses, nature's melting pot?

Soon, evidence that Mavericks contained genes encoding viral elements, such as a capsid and a DNA polymerase, started to surface. "The evolution of transposons and viruses is tightly intertwined," says Burga. However, the capsid and the DNA polymerase are not enough to allow a transposon to jump from its host's genome and infect the cells of a completely different host.

Now, the IMBA researchers found the missing link: Mavericks in worm genomes have acquired a so-called fusogen protein, a transmembrane protein that mediates membrane fusion between different cells. By acquiring a fusogen, the authors hypothesize that worm Mavericks became capable of forming virus-like particles that can fuse with another organism's cell membranes and infect them.

"To our knowledge, no fusogen has been reported in Mavericks before. Thus, we think that worm Mavericks might have picked up their sequence from a virus," says Widen. "Transposons and viruses can be thought of as nature's melting pot. Their union can have unpredictable repercussions and lead to genomic innovation," says Burga.

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-virus-like-transposons-species-barrier.html


Virus-like transposons cross the species barrier and drive the evolution of genetic incompatibilities

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade0705

Horizontal gene transfer occurs when DNA from one species is nonsexually integrated into the germline of another. In studying the nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae, Widen et al. identified a toxin-antidote system with an origin that can be traced back to an ancient virus–like transposon called Maverick. The authors elucidated the mutations responsible for the toxin’s action and identified a complicated pattern of horizontal gene transfer between deeply diverged nematode species. These transfers have resulted in the exchange of several genes, often in the proximity of Mavericks, suggesting that these transposons may act as vectors for horizontal gene transfer in animals more broadly."

[morganism]

Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging (cocktails)

All the efficacious reprogramming chemical cocktails included these compounds, suggesting that these components together are potent contributors to the cellular rejuvenation in the treated cell populations. Various research groups have observed that chemical cocktails containing CHIR99021 and E-616452 can induce direct reprogramming between differentiated cell states. This is important because it suggests that the processes involved in both rewriting and replacing cellular epigenetic identity are affected by the additive effects of these chemical compounds. Moreover, independent studies have found associations with individual chemicals and reprogramming in various contexts, indicating that each component likely contributes to rejuvenation through a broad range of mechanisms.

Valproic acid is a well-known broad-spectrum histone deacetylase inhibitor that leads to a rapid and dramatic spread of histone acetylation marks across the genome. The fact that valproic acid is a critical component of many of the successful cocktails indicates that the spread of euchromatin may be an important component of partial epigenetic reprogramming. Sodium butyrate is another histone deacetylase inhibitor that was effective in both human and mouse cocktails. It has been reported to improve the expression of genes associated with reprogramming, supporting the model that the regulation of histone acetylation marks is crucial for rejuvenation via reprogramming. The final chemical in our most efficacious C1 cocktail, forskolin, is an activator of adenylyl cyclase that has been shown to drive reprogramming and trans differentiation, depending upon the combination of other compounds present. While the mechanism of action of forskolin in the context of rejuvenation remains to be identified, increasing cellular levels of cAMP and the triggering of signal cascades that are critical for adaptations in cell identity may be key.

This study focused on physiological rejuvenation and analysis of specific and well-established epigenomic signatures of aging. Whether chemical reprogramming can attenuate or reverse other hallmarks of aging and how effective it is on non-senescent cells and different cell types, tissues, and species, require additional exploration. Experiments are in progress to determine the persistence of the rejuvenative effect after reprogramming concludes and the mechanisms by which chemical EPOCH (cEPOCH) works.

Although the potential of these and other combinations of chemicals to achieve cEPOCH is great, from treating blindness to liver failure and skin damage, in light of the toxic effects of expressing all four Yamanaka factors in mice [22], it is critical that the safety of chemical rejuvenation cocktails is tested rigorously in mammalian animal models before human trials are initiated. Although transcriptomic analysis did not indicate any developing pluripotency, based on the absence of mRNA for pro-tumorigenic genes such as NANOG and by RNA-seq analysis looking for pluripotency signatures, the only way to assess the full safety of these and other rejuvenative cocktails is to test their effects in multiple animal models, paying particular attention to signs of tissue dysplasia or cancer.

https://www.aging-us.com/article/204896/text

[morganism]

Saline Survivance: The Life of Salt and the Limits of Colonization in the Southwest

Native peoples in the southwest have long attached intrinsic value to salt resources. This includes the Zuni Salt Lake, a uniquely revered resource among many pueblos in present-day New Mexico and Arizona. According to one explanation, the Salt Woman (named Ma’lokyattsik’i, Mawa-sitsa, or Ma/k/nan/e in modern Zuni accounts) once resided at Black Rock near the Pueblo of Zuni, but wasteful Zunis who polluted her home prompted her departure. As punishment, Zunis would have to make an arduous trek from the pueblo to a remote volcanic maar some forty miles southward. Another narrative introduces the Salt Woman as a person “made of white powder” who visited the pueblos “to spread her mucous over the food,” a service shunned by the people. She then strayed far from the pueblos and allowed salt collecting rights “only to men who show respect for her.” Other pueblos articulated an affinity for salt resources in similar yet still distinctive ways. During a feast at Santa Clara Pueblo, Salt Old-Woman took human form and donned a white manta, white doeskin boots, and a white abalone shell. The feast, according to the diners, had not been properly seasoned, and so the Salt Old-Woman “rose and blew her nose into the food to salt it.” When the people refused to eat the food, she informed them “that their nearby salt lake would dry up and they would be forced to travel many miles to obtain salt” before vanishing. The Salt Old-Woman went east, past the Manzano Mountains, to live in the Estancia Valley, where over a dozen alkali and saline lakes blanket an ancient seabed. These histories may refer to pressure early Spanish colonization placed upon Puebloan peoples and the salt resources in their homelands, or they might harken to pre-colonial Puebloan pasts during which access to salt was a right to be earned through responsible stewardship. Whatever their exact origin, still-told Puebloan histories of the Zuni Salt Lake, Estancia Valley, and other resources explain the depth, delicacy, and dynamism of salt’s place in the southwest.
(snip)
In 1540, when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition attacked and occupied the Zuni village of Hawikku, the colonizers “found what [they] had more need of that gold silver,” as one account put it, “that is, a great quantity of corn, beans, [. . .] and the best and whitest salt I have seen in my whole life.” The invaders soon found the salt’s source, the Zuni Salt Lake. Coronado himself felt the lake—and its superior salt—worthy enough to bring to New Spain’s first viceroy Antonio de Mendoza’s attention. After seizing control of the pueblo, Coronado wrote to the viceroy of the Zuni’s “finest order and cleanliness” in their preparation of food and the “excellent granular salt that they bring from a lake one day’s journey” from the village. Still in search of gold, Coronado pushed northeastward, past Tiguex and onto the high plains. In the summer of 1542, led by Teyas guides, expeditioners reported that “neither gold nor silver was seen among those people, nor [was there] news of it,” but there “were many salt lakes which had [salt] in great quantity.” Exposed to the summer sun and heat, evaporated salt lakes and flats yielded slabs of salt “four and five fingers thick and larger and table-tops.”

By the start of the seventeenth century, Spanish colonizers accumulated and appropriated much knowledge about the location and abundance of salt resources north of Mexico. After becoming governor of New Mexico in 1598, Juan de Oñate leveraged this information to legitimize his effort to colonize and control local peoples and resources. “The wealth of the abundant salines,” Oñate reported in 1599, was among a few “very great treasures”—including some silver mines, Native laborers, and their material tribute payments—that might fill royal coffers. To verify salt’s abundance and its commercial viability, Oñate explained to imperial officials that “salt is the universal article of traffic of all these barbarians.” “Indian herdsmen” from the Salinas district often travelled northwest to Taos and Picuris, “where they sell meat, hides, tallow, suit, and salt in exchange for cotton blankets, pottery, maize, and some small green stones.” The sellers most certainly provisioned their salt from the lakes in the Estancia Valley, which according to Oñate “consist of white salt [and] . . . are seven or eight leagues in circumference.” Salt harvesting could be strenuous, but labor would be no issue; Oñate assured the viceroy that “the said pueblos of the salines and Xumanas [Jumanos] all rendered obedience to his majesty.”

Through the seventeenth century, Spanish officials mobilized the Spanish crown’s absolute sovereignty to incorporate salt resources into the imperial economy. To work these resources, officials used the encomienda, a system of land and labor redistribution that extracted tribute from Native peoples. Between 1659 and 1660, New Mexico governor Bernardo Lόpez de Mendizábal ordered Tewas and Tompiros living in the Salinas district to haul salt from the Estancia Valley’s lakes to the Rio Grande and eventually to northern Mexico—shipments and labor that went uncompensated by the Spanish state, presumably by virtue of the legalities surrounding mineral resources within Spanish territorial claims. Harvesting and hauling salt—especially commercial quantities—demanded long hours of physical labor, often conducted during warmer, dryer months when salt lakes and flats reached peak evaporation. Even after Lόpez’s especially exploitative tenure ended, salt trafficking between the Estancia Valley and northern Mexico seemed to have continued through at least 1668. In Parral and at other silver manufactories across northern Mexico, New Mexican salt was used as one of several chemical additives to refine silver ores.

The introduction of livestock to the northern Mexican borderlands further expanded colonial exploitation of salt resources. This was because animals, too, need salt to survive. Sheep flocks in Cerralvo, Neuvo Leόn (near the present-day Texas-Mexico border) strayed from haciendas and “in the midst of the indigenous nations of those frontiers,” where “fine water holes, springs, pastures, and salt licks” were apparently more abundant. That Spanish flocks drifted toward Native-controlled resources concerned some colonial administrators. To manage and secure settler property, Don Antonio Ladrόn de Guevara recommended that provincial officials “distribute the land and water rights to the settlers, and [. . .] gather each Indian nation under the direct of the settlers;” Ladrόn further advised that “the salt produced on the lands of the heathen tribes [. . .] be used to support” settler commerce, the construction of presidios, and the provisioning of Spanish livestock. To administrators like Ladrόn, the management of salt resources and the animals that depended on them hinged upon “[luring] these Indian nations [. . .] to reduction and quietude.”

But Native peoples proved resistant to reduction. Consequently, salt resources became sites where Indigenous nations and agents of the Spanish state asserted increasingly competitive sovereignties. This was especially true in New Mexico’s Salinas district, where the salt flats of the Estancia Valley attracted contention among local salt collectors, expanding Apaches, and exploitative missionaries. By the early 1670s, mounting tensions between Apaches and Spaniards jeopardized saline commerce in and beyond the valley. Tewa salt collectors allegedly complained to missionaries that Apache combatants attacked people travelling to and from the valley’s salt marshes. Apaches also held up southbound Spanish salt shipments as early as 1670. Rather than offering increased protection to Salinas residents, the missions increased tribute demands to ensure their own survival. Overburdened and under protected by Spanish rulers, Piro, Tompiro, and Tewa salt collectors abandoned the valley. Missionaries soon followed, and the salt flats fell out of regular use for the first time in seven centuries.

The abandonment of the Salinas district signaled a potential end to Spanish rule over the Puebloan world. The 1680 rebellion rocked the upper Rio Grande and the southwestern borderlands at large. At stake was Puebloan religious, political, economic, and territorial autonomy. The participating pueblos made clear that cooperation—not conquest—would dictate Spain’s place in New Mexico. In the years following the Pueblo Revolt, Spanish officials attempted to re-establish some authority by overhauling the tribute system, transferring greater administrative power to alcalde mayors, and issuing new land grants. Yet Spain remained reluctant to relinquish royal control over New Mexico’s few mineral resources. In 1689, Governor Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate issued a land grant to the Pueblo of Zuni that encompassed economically and religiously significant sites in the Zuni Mountains and the far eastern Salt River Valley. The grant did not include the Zuni Salt Lake, the home of the Salt Woman and several shrines and sites central to Zuni subsistence. This omission precipitated several legal struggles by Zunis to protect the lake from repeat colonial encroachments, the most recent of which concluded in 2003 when the Pueblo successfully shut down a strip-mining project that would have disrupted the lake’s aquifer and killed the Salt Woman.

Figures 3a and 3b: Zuni Salt Lake in western New Mexico, circa 1950. A still-sacred resource to Zuni and other Indigenous peoples in western and central New Mexico, the Zuni Salt Lake attracted considerable attention from Spanish and, eventually, American colonial entities who sought to exploit the lake’s quality salt. Still, the Pueblo of Zuni has successfully fought to maintain deep connections to the lake and its salt. Twenty years ago, in the lake’s more recent past, the Pueblo of Zuni won a major legal victory in defeating a strip mine proposal that would have disrupted the lake’s aquifer. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons and Zuni Salt Lake. Netherzone, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Spain could—and did—dispossess Puebloan peoples of salt resources by claiming those resources as crown property. But claiming salt did not easily equate to controlling it. Through the early eighteenth century, Spanish officials struggled to establish security along the Camino Real del Tierra Adentro; this primary commercial corridor linked remote resources, colonial commerce, and Spanish settlements to Mexican industries and enclaves. But the rise of Comanche and Apache power suffocated Spanish expectations on all sides. Following the abandonment of the Salinas pueblos, Apaches controlled the valley, its resources, and its roadways, definitively foreclosing future colonial efforts to revive the export of salt to Parral. Apache control over salt resources also stymied Spanish survival at El Paso del Norte, where salt flats at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains supplied the small settler enclave. In April 1692, New Mexico Governor Diego de Vargas reported to Viceroy Gaspar de la Cerda that Apaches had taken possession of a local saline, a freshwater well, and the roads that connected both resources to the settlement at El Paso. “The saline,” Vargas explained, was “much needed in this neighborhood”; nearby settlers seemingly depended upon it to store food through the winter, sustain livestock, and more. The flats north of El Paso del Norte were indeed well suited to settler sustenance. After an Apache prisoner-of-war led Vargas and a party of scouts to the flats earlier in 1692 for inspection and assessment, Vargas reported that the salt crusts reproduced themselves only a few days after mining. But settlers were reluctant to make the journey into Apache territory. In the spring of 1709, Spanish administrators at El Paso del Norte reported that 35 “friendly Indians”—escorted by local presidio soldiers—were the sole volunteers for a salt gathering expedition bound for the Hueco Mountains.
(snip)
Once highly valuable, salt affords a new look at life, environment, and sovereignty in the southwest borderlands. Though Spanish entradas claimed to “discover” potentially productive salt flats and lakes, Indigenous—especially Puebloan—peoples possessed deep knowledge about and attachments to life-giving salt resources. Spanish colonialism did, however, alter many Indigenous peoples’ existing relationships to salt resources in their homelands. Exploiting law, labor, and land, Spanish colonizers tried to control salt resources and harness the profits of their products to stabilize Spanish sovereignty. But rarely did dependence ensure domination. Through much of the Spanish colonial period in the region, Indigenous pasts, peoples, and power dictated Spanish access to salt resources and, therefore, the future and failures of Spanish colonization. And while veritably ancient, the history of salt in the southwest is kept alive by Zuni, Hopi, and other Native peoples today. Thanks to them, Ma’lokyattsik’i lives on.

http://commonplace.online/article/saline-survivance/

[morganism]

The Psychotherapy Myth

Contrary to the claims of the psychotherapy myth, humans can be resilient and tough-minded; they can suffer the slings and arrows of life without expensive interventions from “experts.”

https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-psychotherapy-myth

(...)
Of course, the primary claim made on behalf of psychotherapy is that it works: It improves mental health. Indeed, many people, from counselors and social workers to patients and ordinary citizens, believe that therapy is helpful and effective. And the painful symptoms of those who attend therapy for mood (often depression, which we will focus on in this article) and anxiety disorders are often alleviated. However, many things may cause this improvement, such as:

    The natural course of the disease. Depressive episodes wax and wane depending upon both external and still unknown internal factors. If a person experiences one or more stressful life events (e.g., the death of a loved one or the loss of a job), he or she is more likely to go to therapy. As distance from the stressful event grows, the symptoms tend to subside. Hence, a person who went to therapy immediately following a catastrophic life change may believe that his or her better mood six months later was at least partially caused by the therapy, post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

    Spontaneous remission. Depression is often a chronic ailment with remission, relapse, recovery, and recurrence. Therefore, many individuals who do not seek treatment will experience remission (whose precise mechanisms are unknown). In one meta-analysis, for example, researchers found that 23% of cases of untreated depression will remit in 3 months; 32% will within 6 months; and 53% will within 12 months. Thus, 52% of patients from a random selection who attend therapy for a year will experience remission. And this would seem to be impressive evidence of the efficacy of therapy, post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

    The Hawthorne effect. The Hawthorne effect describes a phenomenon whereby the behavior of observed individuals is changed by the knowledge of being observed. For a crass example, on reality television shows, the behavior of the participants is likely altered (often significantly) by the knowledge that they are being observed by camera and crew. This is important in more refined and consequential cases as well. In a therapeutical study, for example, the patient and the therapist may change their behavior simply because they know they are being observed, leading to greater perceived efficacy of therapy.

    The placebo effect. A placebo effect is an effect produced by a drug or treatment that cannot be imputed to the medicinal properties of the drug or treatment and thus must be imputed to the beliefs of the patient in the efficacy of the treatment. In depressed patients, for example, the expectation or hope of improvement or confidence in the effectiveness of therapy (or of an antidepressant) may significantly alleviate the symptoms of depression. The remedial effect is not caused by the specific components of therapy (or medicine), but by the psychological states of the patient. These effects can be quite large. For example, in antidepressant trials, the average symptom change on the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) in the placebo group is roughly 9 points. In comparison, the change in the antidepressant group is 11 points. How much of this effect is an actual placebo versus other nonspecific treatment effects, spontaneous remission, and regression to the mean is unclear.

Furthermore, some scholars argue that hope and treatment expectations are legitimate common factors and that therefore a therapy without a placebo effect is an unnecessarily etiolated version. Nevertheless, if the claims of many therapists and the psychotherapy myth are correct, then the specific components of psychotherapy should have potency beyond the placebo effect. That is, if the therapist is more than a handsomely remunerated social partner or an expensive hope-generating machine, then the therapy itself should matter.

This complexity raises a troubling problem: How can we know how effective therapy is? Are we compelled to rely upon the self-interested testimony of therapists and the therapy industry? Or the potentially misguided or mistaken testimony of patients?

No. Instead, we can rely upon one of the most powerful designs in medical science: The randomized control trial (RCT)

[morganism]

North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns

"This is just a hobby of mine, that I thought might be interesting to a lot of people. Some people collect stamps. Others collect coins. I collect dialects."

https://aschmann.net/AmEng/

[morganism]

An electrogenetic interface to program mammalian gene expression by direct current

In a proof-of-concept study in a type 1 diabetic male mouse model, a once-daily transdermal stimulation of subcutaneously implanted microencapsulated engineered human cells by energized acupuncture needles (4.5 V DC for 10 s) stimulated insulin release and restored normoglycemia. We believe this technology will enable wearable electronic devices to directly program metabolic interventions.
(moved)
Stimulation of subcutaneously implanted engineered cells with(WHO)-approved and (FDA)-licensed acupuncture needle electrodes at 4.5 V DC for 10 s once per day triggered the production of sufficient insulin to attenuate postprandial glycemic excursions and restore normoglycemia.
(snip)
In humans, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced by electron-transfer reactions during respiratory processes in the mitochondria and peroxisomes, during mitochondrial cytochrome P450 activity in steroidogenic tissues and by NADPH oxidase in immune cells during immune responses34. The Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1) is an important tumor and metastasis suppressor that also acts as a native ROS biosensor35. Under quiescent conditions, KEAP1 sequesters and primes the nuclear factor erythroid 2 p45-related factor 2 (NRF2) for proteasomal destruction35. In the presence of elevated ROS, KEAP1 releases NRF2, which translocates to the nucleus to coordinate antioxidant and anti-inflammatory responses by binding to antioxidant-response elements.
(more)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-023-00850-7?error=cookies_not_supported&code=66f42f5a-f31b-45f0-a4ee-0aa991a42c97


(really interesting that DC v below 5v did have the effect, and AC damaged the cell cultures too..)

[morganism]

The Underworld of Hydrothermal Vents

Here, on the East Pacific Rise, an underwater robot was able to turn over sections of volcanic crust to reveal a new-to-science ecosystem teeming with worms, snails, and chemosynthetic bacteria that are seemingly thriving despite living in 25°C (75°F) water. It changes the way we now view hydrothermal vents, adding a whole new dimension with ecosystems existing both on their surface and underneath.

“On land, we have long known of animals living in caves underground, and in the ocean of animals living in sand and mud, but for the first time, scientists have looked beneath hydrothermal vents,” said SOI’s Executive Director, Dr Jyotika Virmani, in a statement sent to IFlScience. “This truly remarkable discovery of a new ecosystem, hidden beneath another ecosystem, provides fresh evidence that life exists in incredible places.”

The underside of a section of volcanic crust reveals some of the species living under the surface of hydrothermal vents.



It’s the first time life has been found underneath hydrothermal vents, which are hot volcanic springs found along the seabed. The team also found evidence that surface species like tubeworms can travel underneath from the surface using vent fluid, enabling them to expand their range.

New hydrothermal vents can appear when tectonic activity sees the plates on Earth’s crust shift and crack. These cracks fill with seawater that gets heated by the magma, making it rise back to the seafloor.

We’ve long understood how new hydrothermal vents appear, but what had people scratching their heads was how the ecosystems that live on them emerge so rapidly. One of the foundational animals of these ecosystems is the tubeworm, but we’ve rarely found its young on hydrothermal vent surfaces.

This new and pivotal discovery about how tubeworms can travel beneath the hydrothermal vent surface goes some way to explaining how they colonize new habitats. They were able to reach their conclusions with the aid of the underwater robot, ROV SuBastian, which glued boxes over cracks in the Earth’s crust and was able to collect some of the animals living below the surface."

https://www.iflscience.com/life-has-been-found-beneath-hydrothermal-vents-for-the-first-time-70178

https://schmidtocean.org/cruise/underworld-of-hydrothermal-vents/

[morganism]

Betwixt

Your mind is an adventure waiting to be explored
Become the hero of an interactive story that takes you on an epic journey to clarity, resilience and self-insight

Discover the magic of who you (truly) are

The world of the In-Between is personal to you – it responds to your thoughts, ignites your imagination and guides you to unique insights. You already have the answers. It’s time to unlock them.

https://www.betwixt.life/

(no idea, but playstore and ios)

[morganism]

Vinod_Florian magneto-optical research

Light trapped inside a magnetic crystal can strongly enhance its magneto-optical interactions.

A new study led by Vinod M. Menon and his research group at The City College of New York shows that trapping light inside magnetic materials may dramatically enhance their intrinsic properties. Strong optical responses of magnets are important for the development of magnetic lasers and magneto-optical memory devices, as well as for emerging quantum transduction applications.

In their new article in the journal "Nature," Menon and his team report the properties of a layered magnet that hosts strongly bound excitons -- quasiparticles with particularly strong optical interactions. Because of that, the material is capable of trapping light -- all by itself. As their experiments show, the optical responses of this material to magnetic phenomena are orders of magnitude stronger than those in typical magnets. "Since the light bounces back and forth inside the magnet, interactions are genuinely enhanced," said Dr. Florian Dirnberger, the lead-author of the study.  "To give an example, when we apply an external magnetic field the near-infrared reflection of light is altered so much, the material basically changes its color. That's a pretty strong magneto-optic response."

"Ordinarily, light does not respond so strongly to magnetism," said Menon. "This is why technological applications based on magneto-optic effects often require the implementation of sensitive optical detection schemes.”

https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/ccny-scientists-trap-light-inside-magnet


Magneto-optics in a van der Waals magnet tuned by self-hybridized polaritons

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06275-2

[morganism]

The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in America for $15

This is the result of a secret weapon criminals are selling access to online that appears to tap into an especially powerful set of data: the target’s credit header. This is personal information that the credit bureaus Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion have on most adults in America via their credit cards. Through a complex web of agreements and purchases, that data trickles down from the credit bureaus to other companies who offer it to debt collectors, insurance companies, and law enforcement.

A 404 Media investigation has found that criminals have managed to tap into that data supply chain, in some cases by stealing former law enforcement officer’s identities, and are selling unfettered access to their criminal cohorts online. The tool 404 Media tested has also been used to gather information on high profile targets such as Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and even President Joe Biden, seemingly without restriction. 404 Media verified that although not always sensitive, at least some of that data is accurate.
(snip)
Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement that “These companies have demonstrated that they can't control who has access to their data products. The government needs to stop these companies from packaging and selling our personal information, and the senior executives that put profit over national security and Americans' safety should be punished accordingly.

https://www.404media.co/the-secret-weapon-hackers-can-use-to-dox-nearly-anyone-in-america-for-15-tlo-usinfosearch-transunion/

[morganism]

(destroys biofilms that cause dental caries)

3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM): A Potential Therapeutic Agent against Cariogenic Streptococcus mutans Biofilm


Abstract
: Indole, a metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan, has been proven to act as a signal molecule in bacteria, acting in different aspects of biofilm formation. The oral biofilm is a type of biofilm that has consequences for human health. It is a complex, three-dimensional structure that develops on the surface of teeth via the attachment of primary microbial colonizers. Many oral infections are caused by an imbalance occurring in the microorganisms naturally found in oral biofilms and are considered major public health concerns. In this study, we test the effect of a natural bis-indole, 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM), in mitigating the pathogenicity of the oral biofilm inhabiting bacterium Streptococcus mutans, a bacterium that is considered to be a principal etiological agent in dental caries. Our study found that DIM was able to attenuate S. mutans biofilm formation by 92%. Additionally, treatment with DIM lowered extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) production and decreased its durability significantly under acidic conditions. Therefore, the anti-biofilm and anti-virulence properties of DIM against S. mutans bacteria in an “oral setting” provides evidence for its usefulness in reducing biofilm formation and potentially for caries attenuation.

 1. Introduction
Oral microbial biofilms are known to contribute to infectious diseases and are a major public health concern. Oral biofilms are complex three-dimensional structures that develop from a conditioning saliva-derived film, also known as a pellicle, forming on the surface of the teeth. The formation of the pellicle is followed by the attachment of primary microbial colonizers, which are characterized by receptor molecules that are present in the developing pellicle. These early colonizers promote subsequent interactions with secondary colonizers that join the growing biofilm, creating a mature multispecies microbial community [1,2]. One key bacterial component of these biofilms, Streptococcus mutans, is considered a principal etiological agent of dental caries [3]. Dental caries is associated with the bacterial metabolism of carbohydrates, leading to prolonged periods of plaque acidification and demineralization of the tooth enamel [4]. Bacterial virulence factors that contribute to dental caries result in stable biofilm formation, acid tolerance, and acid production from carbohydrate metabolism [3].
The major virulence factor for S. mutans is its ability to form a biofilm framework that is mainly composed of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) produced via sugar metabolism [5]. Once S. mutans participates in the differentiated community, EPS production promotes a cohesive three-dimensional network. The EPS is a glue-like structure consisting of polysaccharides, extracellular DNA, acids, and proteins [6]. The secretion of EPS by oral bacterial species, including S. mutans, mediates bacterial adherence onto the tooth surfaces, thus contributing to the formation of dental plaque biofilms [7]. Another virulence factor includes a membrane-bound F1Fo-ATPase system that pumps protons from cells, while maintaining the internal bacteria’s pH value, resulting in S. mutans’ acid tolerance [8].
Since biofilm formation by S. mutans plays a crucial role in caries promotion, its disruption and removal may be crucial in oral hygiene. Currently, several strategies have been developed against each stage of biofilm formation, including tooth coatings that prevent bacterial attachment and EPS production in addition to mechanical elimination and/or chemical controls [9]. The most common strategy to treat cariogenic biofilms is based on non-specific mechanical brushing and flossing in concert with the use of toothpastes and mouthwashes [10,11] containing antiseptic compounds such as chlorhexidine, fluorides, essential oils, and cetylpyridinium chloride. These treatments result in non-selective oral flora eradication [9,12].
A novel strategy to prevent or diminish dental plaque derived from S. mutans biofilms is the use of natural anti-biofilm agents. Indole is known as a metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan produced by many gut and environmental bacteria [13]. Indole is a key player that has been proven to participate in interspecies and interkingdom signaling as well as bacterial pathogenesis [13,14,15]. It affects biofilm formation [16], virulence [17], and the antibiotic resistance of a number of pathogens [18]. A number of indole derivatives, including naturally occurring and synthetic ones, have been reported to act as signaling molecules that affect the behavior of different bacteria [14]. In addition, several indole derivatives have been reported to have more potent antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activities than a basic indole such as 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM) [19,20,21,22]. Furthermore, recent evaluations of a number of natural compounds that affect S. mutans biofilm and virulence factors have suggested that these indole compounds may have therapeutic properties [23,24,25,26]. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the possibility of harnessing DIM as a therapeutic anti-biofilm and anti-virulent compound against S. mutans, allowing evaluation of its potential implementation in mitigating pathogenic biofilm and caries in the oral cavity."
(more)

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/12/6/1017

(seems like once every decade, someone patents a bacterial wash that stops caries by replacing the bact families in the mouth. And every time, the ADA buys the patent, and locks it away.
This way may be different. Using the indoles may be too cheap and easy to stop it.)

[morganism]

TSMC Arizona chip plant will be a paperweight, says analyst


The TSMC Arizona chip plant is behind schedule, over budget, and the subject of contention in online forums – and now an analyst says that it will be little more than a useless paperweight, even when it does finally begin production.

Not only will it only make chips for older Apple devices, but it can’t even complete the process of making those without sending them back to Taiwan for final assembly …
The TSMC Arizona chip plant story so far

This whole thing was supposed to be a win-win. The US CHIPS Act successfully persuades TSMC to build a chipmaking plant in Arizona, and it makes chips for Apple devices (albeit only older ones). TSMC gets a chunk of cash to subsidize a new plant; Apple gets positive press for buying US-made chips; and jobs are created for US workers.

None of which is going well. TSMC wants bigger subsidies and fewer rules. The project is behind schedule, and over budget, with production already pushed into 2025, from 2024. There is talk of US-made chips costing more than those made in Taiwan, which would mean Apple would likely buy only a token number of them.

US job creation has been brought into question as TSMC wants to bring in around 500 Taiwanese workers to speed up construction work. American unions are naturally unhappy about this, and are petitioning for Taiwanese worker visas to be denied. Finally, the whole controversy now appears to be creating bad blood between American and Taiwanese citizens.
Final chip assembly will be done in Taiwan

A new report in The Information says while Apple chips may be made in the US, they will still need to be sent back to Taiwan before they get anywhere near an Apple device.

    The Arizona factory—which has been a focal point of the Biden plan and will cost $40 billion to build—will do little to make the U.S. self-reliant in chips. That’s because many advanced chips made in Arizona for Apple or other customers such as Nvidia, AMD and Tesla will still require assembly in Taiwan in a process known as packaging, according to interviews with multiple TSMC engineers and former Apple employees.

Packaging is the name given to the process of placing the various circuit boards as close together as possible before encapsulating them into a single chip. For example, in the iPhone, the memory is placed directly on top of the processor to improve performance and reliability.

Packaging is a highly advanced process, where TSMC has a massive lead over its competitors, but the process can only be done in the sophisticated facilities which only exist in Taiwan.
That makes the plant a useless paperweight, says analyst.

 https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apples-plan-to-make-chips-in-arizona-tsmc-nvidia-amd-tesla?rc=x5svxc

[morganism]

Turning an old car into a powerful generator
Arduino Team — September 20th, 2023

Generators are expensive pieces of equipment. You can get a small low-quality model for a few hundred dollars, but powerful high-quality generators cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Old cars, on the other hand, can be very cheap — especially if they aren’t roadworthy anymore. Jake von Slatt has a video series explaining how you can convert an old car with a working engine into a powerful generator.

Most of the cost of a generator is from the engine, and alternator or dynamo with inverter. In this case, the engine is in a Toyota Sienna minivan. The vehicle isn’t worth keeping on the road, but the engine still runs well. And that engine has plenty of power for a generator. The alternator came from a Harbor Freight generator that had a bad engine. To keep the AC voltage output at the steady 60Hz needed for household appliances and tools, von Slatt utilized an Arduino.

The Sienna has a cruise control system that actuates the throttle in an attempt to keep wheel speed consistent. But in this case, von Slatt needed it to keep the engine stable at 3600rpm to maintain 60Hz. So he built a simple circuit around an Arduino Nano Every board and an H-bridge. The Arduino controls the cruise control actuator’s servo motor through the H-bridge while monitoring the alternator output voltage (stepped down to 5V) frequency. If the frequency is too low, the Arduino rotates the cruise control actuator to increase engine speed until the frequency is exactly 60Hz. If the frequency is too low, it does the opposite.

https://blog.arduino.cc/2023/09/20/turning-an-old-car-into-a-powerful-generator/

[morganism]

This is LandChad.net, a site dedicated to turning internet peasants into Internet Landlords by showing them how to setup websites, email servers, chat servers and everything in between.

Starting a website is something that can be done in a lazy afternoon and costs pocket change.

Most of the internet’s problems could be solved if more people had their own personal platforms, so the objective of this site is to guide any normal person through the process of installing a website.

https://landchad.net/

[morganism]

(someone else noticed the patent probs with the dental caries bacteria issue....listed above)


Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

Cavities were cured in 1985, and, no one knows it yet.

It is possible to genetically engineer Streptococcus mutans, the dominant human mouth bacteria, to produce ethanol instead of cavity-causing lactic acid. Further modifications cause it to outcompete native mouth bacteria, without spreading outside of the mouth. All research suggests that a one-time brushing of this GMO strain onto the teeth will dramatically reduce, or entirely eliminate, dental caries.

A variant of this organism was first created in 1985, and volunteers deliberately inoculated themselves with the modified strain. This has, to our knowledge, caused no ill effects since.
If you share our vision of a world without cavities, we invite you to join us in our mission.

This bacteria has been stuck in patent hell, and FDA hell, for decades. Our plan is to get this cure for cavities back on track to a worldwide rollout.

Whether you’re a VC, a wet lab wizard, or a particularly altruistic dentist, we welcome your contributions. Reach out to us through our Connect form, drop us a line on social media, or sign up below for email updates.

https://www.lanternbioworks.com/

[morganism]

(i thought i saw this at the end of last year, Japan is moving quick on this)

Japan pharma startup developing world-first drug to grow new teeth

KYODO NEWS KYODO NEWS - Sep 24, 2023 - 12:17 | All, Japan

A team of scientists led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup has been working on a drug to stimulate the growth of new teeth in what would be a world-first, aiming to put it on the market by around 2030.

Toregem Biopharma Co., funded by Kyoto University, is expected to begin clinical trials on healthy adults in around July 2024 to confirm the drug's safety, after the team succeeded in growing new teeth in mice in 2018.

Most people have "tooth buds" that have the potential to become a new tooth, in addition to baby and permanent teeth, although the buds usually do not develop and subsequently disappear.
Photo shows a new tooth grown in a ferret's mouth after it was administered a new drug to stimulate the growth of tooth buds.

The team created an antibody drug that inhibits the protein that suppresses the growth of teeth. The drug works on these buds and stimulates their growth.

In 2018, the team also administered the drug to ferrets, which have both baby and permanent teeth similar to humans, and new teeth grew.

The team plans to hold a clinical trial for the drug from 2025 for children between 2 to 6 years old with anodontia who are born without some or all permanent teeth. The children will be injected with one dose to induce their teeth growth.

There are also hopes to utilize the drug in the future for adults who have lost teeth due to cavities.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/09/d56fb464a52b-japan-pharma-startup-developing-world-first-drug-to-grow-new-teeth.html

[morganism]

The point of a game is not to win, and you shouldn't even pretend that it is

This post started out as a supporting point for another post about games. It developed into a bit of a practical philosophy post.

Why do boardgames generally end by declaring just one absolute winner? There are many reasons, most bad, I'd argue. One reason, probably a major factor in their spread, is that it seems to make it easier to teach the game. One-winner games are familiar, they also allow the game to proceed without confronting a somewhat counterintuitive, but foundational, insight about the purpose of play. We actually need that insight, even in one-winner games, so I'm going to articulate it here.

You have a play objective within the game, and somehow, pursuing that objective is supposed to attain some other real objective that exists outside of the game, in real life.
Usually a game wont articulate the real objective, preferring to convey a sense of it through play, through art and theme. Other games deliberately addle you into forgetting your real objective, hoisting the play objective up as if it were the real, as if we pursue it for its own sake, but try as we may, we can never truly escape our real objectives, and the distinction will impose itself upon us.

Sometimes the distinction between play and real objectives is clear, though. When you deliver a package in Death Stranding, you're not doing it because you actually believe you're delivering vital resources to remote communities. Death Stranding is a weird, messy, artsy game so voicing the real objective is going to be difficult but I'll give it a shot: Your real objective is to better know The Global Industrial Machine. You're here to experience the way the machine realizes good or bad outcomes through humans, to reckon with both the vitality and catastrophe it generates, its human and inhuman parts. You're here to find the empowerment in it. The game doesn't tell you that explicitly. (I wonder why. I guess it's probably mostly because every artful and convincing work, is a work of apologia, to explain its purpose would require wholely translating it into an essay, the author, expert in one medium, may not know how to translate it, and its translation would always be weaker.)
So, play and real objectives are obviously very different here. You can't really confuse them. In contrast:

In a one-winner boardgame, Winning happens to be a simple play objective that is not obviously distinct from your real objective. Most players actually do pretty directly enjoy being found best. Even if nothing else happens that night, beating everybody will make you feel pretty good about yourself. That spares the game leader from having to acknowledge or explain the distinction between play and real objectives and explain both of them separately, and it spares players from having to practice this tricky frame of mind where we keep our subgoals and supergoals in mind at the same time to avoid getting lost in stale subgoals. We can just say "The point is to win", and that will seem true enough.
But we should go deeper than that. For most games, the real objective is learning about each other, or about the game, or about some other real or abstract thing the game is evoking. That is a different goal and sometimes gives different instructions. An important thing that we must learn about games (or classes, or jobs, or conversations) is that monofocally trying to win this round, focusing entirely and exclusively on this subtask, is usually not best. If you understand that subtask's role in the broader objective, you can usually do better. The real objective and the play objective sometimes come into conflict. Consider; experimenting with wild new strategies, or sharing your understanding of the game with other players. Both of those activities would undermine your chances of winning this game now, while strongly helping the real objective of learning and improving at the game (or winning later).
Set your competitive impulses aside, save them for the war. In the dojo, they're a distraction. Your real goal is not to win. Your real goal is to grow.

It never could have really been all about winning: We often play games where we lose most of the time and where we know we'll never be number one. We could win more if we played against less skilled players, but we don't seek out weaker players. We move towards our zone of incompetence instead of away from it. Wins are not what most of us seek.

I should emphasize, the tragically elegant thing about "the point is to win" is that winning now is a real world goal that abased hearts do sometimes actually harbor, but it's perilous as a monogoal, because if you feed that impulse, it leads you to diminish your friends and to avoid making friends of people who intimidate you. Better advice is "try to be the dumbest person in the room," which is a paraphrasing of fristonian learning process (avoid darkrooming, maximize knowledge by entering the domains where you least have it), and it is the better way to live.

I wouldn't have been able to find joy in Chess (where I'd usually be the worst player in the room) or in Pandemic (same, plus quarterbacking problem) if I had not learned when to let the real objective supersede the play objective.
In Chess I will ask the opponent how they see the game and tell them how I see it too. I'll tell them when they make silly moves and welcome them to retract if they want to explore the other more interesting branches our game could have gone down. Our intention is just to explore chess. We have more fun and we learn more.
And in Pandemic, a purely cooperative game, I will try to learn from better players' (the quarterbacks') suggestions. If their lessons do not come easily to me — if I do not immediately understand the reasoning underlying their commands — I will not obey! :3 I will turn to whatever teacher is best, and if you fail me, oh quarterback, I will instead turn to the game itself, and I will just do whatever makes sense to me and face the consequences, and learn in the most natural way, even if that means we lose this time. (Your challenge, as a more experienced player, includes communication.)

So remember, the play objective is not the point of play, and while you should bear it in mind, the real objective sometimes requires you to diverge from it.

https://makopool.com/subgoals.html

[morganism]

Aphantasia technique that can help with falling asleep too....



What I definitely could not see was any sort of shape, color or image.

What Is Aphantasia?

I’ve only recently heard the term ‘aphantasia.’ It is a neurological condition in which a person is unable to recall memories as pictures or create images in their imagination. I have no idea whether I would have been diagnosed with aphantasia, or whether what I went on to be taught is a cure.

All I know is that I was never able to see images in my mind’s eye. Now, after practicing the technique that I’m about to share with you, I can.

It’s also interesting that I was never able to recall dreams. I would tell people that I do not dream. Now, since practicing this technique, I regularly experience and recall strong, vivid dreams.
My Trip to London

Ten to fifteen years after leaving college I happened to attend an eight day training course in London, England. I didn’t go because I thought I had aphantasia (the term hadn’t even been invented then). The course was part of my regular personal development regimen.

Some of the techniques we were taught required us to close our eyes and make the images that we saw grow bigger or smaller, brighter or dimmer, and bring them closer to us or take them further away.

I couldn’t do this. It frustrated me. I mentioned to several of the assistant tutors that I couldn’t see images when I closed my eyes. They told me that I was wrong. ~They said that I could see images!

When I insisted, I was told that everyone sees pictures in their heads. One of them, trying to be helpful said, with a hypnotic tone in his voice, “Imagine what it would be like … if you could see images in your mind.” After a few minutes, he gave up. I had no comprehension of what it would be like.

Several days in to the course one of the Lead Tutors, a man named Michael Neill, asked whether there was anyone in the audience who couldn’t see images in their mind’s eye. Many hands when up—I wasn’t unusual after all!
Image Streaming

Mr Neill invited a member of the audience to go up to the stage and started to explain and demonstrate a technique he called ‘Image Streaming‘.

I couldn’t wait to try it. After a few months of daily practice, this technique affected me in two ways:

    First, if I was aphantasic, Image Streaming cured it. I could see bright, vivid images in my head. I haven’t practiced the technique in years—but I still see beautifully clear images in my mind’s eye.
    Second, it improved my photography like nothing else I’d ever done. From that point on I didn’t need to construct a set, find models or leave the house to play with composition or photo ideas. I could just sit back, relax and close my eyes. Image Streaming helped me become a better photographer from the comfort of my armchair.

Today I can close my eyes and see detailed images that are pretty close to what I’d see if I had my eyes open and was looking at a TV or cinema screen. I can freeze motion, move props and models, add new items and change the lighting.

As someone who couldn’t ever do this before it still amazes me when I close my eyes and create something beautiful. This is something I’ve learned to do—I definitely wasn’t born with it.

And, as a bonus, a really useful side effect of Image Streaming is that it can help you fall asleep at night (more about that in the FAQ section below).
How to Image Stream

It’s easy to learn. Play this video to find out how.

One thing, before you do: I have found that many people give up. They try it once or twice and, when nothing happens, they decide it doesn’t work.

It took me about a month to get really good results (although I noticed changes earlier.) I would urge you to practice for 10 continuous minutes, at least once a day, for at least a month. It doesn’t work with everyone. If you’re one of the luck ones, you could soon be seeing images in your mind’s eye.

Watch this video
FAQ

Many people have contacted me about this over the past few years. Here are answers to the most common questions:
Q. How long should I rub my eyes for and how hard?

Just a few seconds and not at all hard. Most people I’ve spoken to about this have experienced seeing ‘golden dots’ inside their eyelids after rubbing them for a few seconds. It’s something people sometimes do naturally after waking-up in the morning. The objective is to get you started—give you something to begin describing. If you don’t see the golden dots from gently rubbing your eyes, try one of the other 24 backup techniques mentioned in the link at the bottom of this page. You should NOT be rubbing your eyes for more than a few seconds.
Q. How long do I have to do Image Streaming for before I’ll see results?

Somebody on Reddit (link below) posted results saying that it worked for them within seven to nine days. If you read the comments (below) from readers of this page, you’ll see that some people see an improvement within 20 minutes. Others need a few weeks and, for some, it doesn’t work at all. I can’t promise a cure but I do feel that some people give-up too quickly. My suggestion is that you do it for at least 10 continuous minutes, at least once a day, for at least a month before deciding that it doesn’t work for you.
Q. Can I do Image Streaming without speaking the words out-loud?

Not if you want to be able to improve your ability to see images in your mind’s eye! As described further down this page, speaking inside your head while doing Image Streaming is likely to send you to sleep.
Q. All I see is black. How can I describe what I see when there’s nothing to see?

If you can’t see the ‘golden dots’ after rubbing your eyes gently for a couple of seconds, try some of the 24 backup techniques mentioned in the Further Reading section at the bottom of this article.
Q. If I use a voice recorder, do I have to listen back to what I’ve said?

No. I’m not going to pretend that I understand why but it seems that your mind just needs to know what the words are being recorded. You can, of course, listen to the recordings if you want to. Personally, I didn’t bother.
Q. By the time I’ve begun describing something, it’s gone and something else is there instead.

Yep, that’s exactly what happened to me at first. For me, there came a time when I could concentrate on the things I was seeing and I could make them stay. Until then, just keep up as best you can.
The Early Days

The sound clip that I’ve included within that video is from a very early Image Streaming session. I have become much better with practice. Images now come easily, clearly and quickly. For me, at least, it really has been worth the effort of dedicating time every day to practicing streaming images in my mind. (I don’t know whether it’s improved my IQ though.)
Do You Have Trouble Getting to Sleep?

There’s a super useful bonus reason to learn how to image stream. Not only can it improve your photography and potentially improve your intelligence it can help you fall sleep more easily!

To quickly and easily fall asleep, perform the technique in the way described in the video with one exception—rather than speaking the detailed descriptions of what you see out loud—say the words inside your head while you lie in your bed.

There’s no need for a voice recorder or friend! Doing image streaming in this way will send you to sleep quickly.
Can Image Streaming Cure Aphantasia?

If I had known that there is a ‘condition’ called aphantasia while I was college I would have asked to be tested for it. Its description seems to fit my experience.

However, the fact that I do now have a functioning mind’s eye means that either Image Streaming cured my aphantasia or I was never truly aphantasic. All I know is that I was never conscious of being able to see images in my mind’s eye until I practiced Image Streaming. Related or not, I was never conscious of dreaming when I was asleep either. I am now.

I’d love for this article to reach some true aphantasics and for them to practice the technique to see if it offers them any solutions. The great thing is that you don’t need to be able to see images to practice Image Streaming!
Further Reading

Michael Neill cited Win Wenger, PhD as the inventor of Image Streaming.

Here are links to the Image Streaming section of his website and to the 24 back-up techniques that he lists which can help those people who can’t see the ‘golden dots’ when rubbing their eyes. I’ve also included some other links that you may find interesting.

    Dr Wenger’s website page explaining Image-Streaming
    Dr Wenger’s 24 Tested Back-Up Techniques to Help Start a Flow of Images
    Aphantasia article on Wikipedia
    A discussion on aphantasia (including James Somerset’s contribution) on Quora
    Someone on Reddit sharing their experience of learning Image Streaming from this page

https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photographers/

[vox_mundi]

Pandora in your backyard ...

Startup to Begin Selling Bioluminescent Petunias in 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/science/startup-to-begin-selling-bioluminescent-petunias-in-2024



https://light.bio/

Idaho-based biotechnology startup, Light Bio, has officially received approval from the Department of Agriculture to sell genetically engineered, bioluminescent flowers here in the United States. Shipments are expected to start in early 2024.

Light Bio’s otherworldly products take inspiration from naturally bioluminescent insects, marine life, fungi, and other species. These glow when oxygen interacts with luciferin, the product of an enzyme called luciferase. This interaction is thought to produce energy that manifests in the form of light, resulting in that lit-from-inside effect we’ve come to love in fireflies and jellyfish.



https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info/sa_by_date/sa-2023/rsr-light-bio-petunia

[morganism]

Those would be interesting to plant among moth pollinated flowering succulents...

and

quiverquantitative's

I built a trading bot that buys stocks that are being bought by politicians.It is up 20% since it launched in May 2022.The market has been flat during the same time period.Here are some of the strategy’s most successful moves:

https://www.threads.net/@quiverquantitative/post/CzcB-Gsgqow

edit:website

https://www.quiverquant.com/

[morganism]

New Chemical Scissors Will Enable Some Drugs to Be $3 Instead of $3200
December 1, 2023 by Brian Wang

UCLA chemists have made dramatic improvements in organic chemistry. They use oxygen, copper ‘scissors’ to make cheaper drug treatments possible.

Zhiqi He et al, Aminodealkenylation: Ozonolysis and copper catalysis convert C(sp 3 )–C(sp 2 ) bonds to C(sp 3 )–N bonds, Science (2023).

Editor’s summary
Reactions that form carbon–nitrogen bonds most often target carbon centers that are either single bonded to a halogen or double bonded to oxygen or another carbon. He et al. present an alternative sequence that targets a carbon–carbon single bond adjacent to an olefin. Treatment of the allylic carbon compound with ozone followed by copper catalysis formally displaces the pendant olefin with an amine. The reaction can introduce nitrogen into a wide variety of complex terpenes, among other compounds.

Key takeaways

* UCLA researchers have devised a way to produce chemicals used in medicine and agriculture for a fraction of the usual cost.
* Using oxygen as a reagent and copper as a catalyst to break organic molecules’ carbon-carbon bonds and convert them into amines, which are widely used in pharmaceuticals.
* Traditional metal catalysis uses expensive metals such as platinum, silver, gold and palladium, but the researchers used oxygen and copper — an abundant base metal.

One chemical used in some anti-cancer drugs, for example, costs pharmaceutical companies $3,200 per gram — 50 times more than a gram of gold. The UCLA researchers devised an inexpensive way to produce this drug molecule from a chemical costing just $3 per gram. They were also able to apply the process to produce many other chemicals used in medicine and agriculture for a fraction of the usual cost.

This feat, published in the journal Science, involves a process known as “aminodealkenylation.” Using oxygen as a reagent and copper as a catalyst to break the carbon-carbon bonds of many different organic molecules, the researchers replaced these bonds with carbon-nitrogen bonds, converting the molecules into derivatives of ammonia called amines.

Because amines interact strongly with molecules in living plants and animals, they are widely used in pharmaceuticals, as well as in agricultural chemicals. Familiar amines include nicotine, cocaine, morphine and amphetamine, and neurotransmitters like dopamine. Fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides also contain amines.

Industrial production of amines is therefore of great interest, but the raw materials and reagents are often expensive, and the processes can require many complicated steps to complete. Using fewer steps and no expensive ingredients, the process developed at UCLA can produce valuable chemicals at a much lower cost than current methods.

“This has never been done before,” Kwon said. “Traditional metal catalysis uses expensive metals such as platinum, silver, gold and palladium, and other precious metals such as rhodium, ruthenium and iridium. But we are using oxygen and copper, one of the world’s most abundant base metals.”

The new method uses a form of oxygen called ozone, a potent oxidant, to break the carbon-carbon bond in hydrocarbons called alkenes, and a copper catalyst to couple the broken bond with nitrogen, turning the molecule into an amine. In one example, the researchers produced a c-Jun N-terminal kinase inhibitor — an anti-cancer drug — in just three chemical steps, instead of the 12 or 13 steps previously needed. The cost per gram can thus be reduced from thousands of dollars to just a few dollars.

In another example, the protocol took just one step to convert adenosine — a neurotransmitter and DNA building block that costs less than 10 cents per gram — into the amine N6-methyladenosine. The amine plays crucial roles in controlling gene expression in cellular, developmental and disease processes, and its production cost has previously been $103 per gram.

Kwon’s research group was able to modify hormones, pharmaceutical reagents, peptides and nucleosides into other useful amines, showing the new method’s potential to become a standard production technique in drug manufacturing and many other industries.

455 page supplemental information.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/12/new-chemical-scissors-will-enable-some-drugs-to-be-3-instead-of-3200.html#more-189990

[morganism]

Volunteering at ENGin

Can you help change a life from the comfort of home?

​We're looking for volunteers to serve as conversation partners for Ukrainian youth. This is a flexible and unique opportunity to make a huge impact while discovering a new culture and meeting a new friend.

​No prior experience or knowledge of Ukrainian is required - all you need is an internet connection. The commitment is just one hour a week for a minimum of 10-12 weeks (you choose the day and time). We provide training, support, and materials to guide your conversations.

​Below, we share the benefits of volunteering with us, details about eligibility, and an overview of the volunteer registration process. When you're ready to start, just click here!
Why volunteer with ENGin?

01 Make an impact without leaving home. ENGin offers a unique opportunity to make a difference in a Ukrainian's life, all from your laptop or phone.

03  Connect with people across the globe. Learn about a new culture and share stories about your own life.

02  ENGin offers volunteers maximum flexibility. You decide when to schedule speaking sessions with your student.

​04 Gain new skills. With resources and support from our team, you'll gain valuable communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills.

https://www.enginprogram.org/volunteer


How long does the program last?
You can volunteer with us as long as you want! At a minimum, it takes about 3 months for students to see improvement, so we ask you to commit to at least that period of time.
 
Why does ENGin operate in Ukraine? Are you planning to expand to other countries?
Ukraine ranks 30th of 35 European countries in English proficiency, even though most students study English in school. Ukrainian schools often focus on grammar and vocabulary, and students have few opportunities to actually speak English. At the same time, spoken English fluency is essential for many academic and professional opportunities - particularly now, with the job market in flux due to the war and many Ukrainians displaced. By helping Ukrainian students learn to speak fluently, we can have a huge impact, truly changing their life trajectories.

 But we're also working to move beyond individual impact and use our program to transform an entire country. One day, we hope to serve 100,000 students in Ukraine. This will create a critical mass of young Ukrainians who can speak English fluently and are connected to their peers across the globe. This will create a "new normal" in Ukraine, accelerating economic development and connecting Ukraine to the global conversation in business, science, culture, and beyond. We want to transform Ukraine into a country like Norway or the Netherlands, which are already reaping the benefits of widespread English fluency. Because our mission is countrywide change, we are focusing our resources on reaching as many Ukrainian students as we can.

 What are ENGin students like?
Our students are from all over Ukraine. Some live in cities, others in small towns. Some have evacuated outside Ukraine. All have some prior experience studying English, but we have a wide range of levels.

 When do sessions usually happen?
Many sessions happen on weekends because volunteers are busy during the week. Some sessions happen on weekdays, in the afternoon and evening Ukraine time.

 If you are located in North or South America, please note that Ukraine is 7-10 hours ahead of your time zone, so you will need to schedule sessions in the first half of the day (otherwise, students will be asleep!)

 If you are located in Asia, Ukraine is several hours behind. And if you're in Europe, time zone differences will be minimal, so we will be able to find a student to accommodate almost any schedule!

 We match you with students who are available at the same times you indicate on your application form. Exact session times are determined directly with your student.

https://www.enginprogram.org/englishfaq

https://www.enginprogram.org/volunteer-handbook

[morganism]

Innovative solar-powered clothing offers dynamic temperature regulation

In a significant advancement for wearable technology, researchers have developed a novel solar-powered clothing system capable of providing personal heating and cooling. This groundbreaking innovation, detailed in a recent study, integrates a flexible solar cell with an electrocaloric device to dynamically adapt the body's temperature to changing environmental conditions. This technology is poised to enhance human comfort and safety in fluctuating temperatures and could be particularly beneficial in extreme environments, including outer space and other planets.

Traditional clothing has primarily been designed to either warm or cool the wearer, but it often struggles to adapt quickly to rapid temperature changes, especially in harsh climates like polar regions, deserts, or the vacuum of space. Current thermoregulatory clothing technologies fall into two categories: passive systems, including radiative cooling and phase change systems, and active systems that offer rapid temperature adjustments but at the cost of high power demands and bulky equipment.

Addressing these limitations, the team led by Ziyuan Wang has developed an innovative all-day, solar-powered bidirectional thermoregulatory clothing system. Wang et al.'s design ingeniously combines an organic photovoltaic module with a bidirectional electrocaloric unit into a single, flexible device. This integration allows the system to be woven into conventional clothing, eliminating the need for additional power sources as it is self-powered through sunlight.

This new clothing technology offers substantial benefits in temperature regulation. On hot days, the device can cool the skin by 10.1 Kelvin (K), while at night or in dark conditions, it can provide an additional 3.2 K of warmth. Impressively, it maintains human skin temperature within the comfortable range of 32.0C to 36.0C, even when environmental temperatures vary between 12.5C and 37.6C. The device's high efficiency ensures 24-hour controllable thermoregulation with just 12 hours of sunlight energy input.

Xingyi Huang and Pengli Li, in a related Perspective, emphasize the potential of Wang et al.'s integrated device. They note that it "opens many possibilities for developing actively controlled, self-powered and wearable localized thermal-management systems" and underscores its role in "expanding human adaptation to harsh environments." They also speculate on a future where such technology not only provides all-weather thermal management but could also harness extra energy to power electronic devices under special conditions.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj3654

[morganism]

Federal court decides in favor of retired engineer told by state to not talk about math in public

Nutt used his experience as an engineer to give his opinions about the designs of public works on the internet.

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Chief Judge Richard Myers ruled on Wednesday that the state violated the First Amendment when it told retired engineer Wayne Nutt to stop expressing his opinions about engineering without a state license, per an Institute for Justice announcement.

Nutt used his experience as an engineer to give his opinions about the designs of public works on the Internet. The NC Board of Examiners and Surveyors claimed that this was punishable by a misdemeanor unless he obtained a professional engineer’s license from the state.

“This is a win for more than just me,” said Wayne. “There are a lot of people in the same situation—people who have expertise that they’ve been blocked from talking about. This decision is an affirmation that the First Amendment protects all of our rights to share what we know.”

https://www.wect.com/2023/12/20/federal-court-decides-favor-retired-engineer-told-by-state-not-talk-about-math-public/

https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Nutt-v.-Ritter-opinion.pdf

(...)
IV. Conclusion

At its core, this case concerns the extent to which a law-abiding citizen may use his
technical expertise to offer a dissenting perspective against the government. Stating that dissent
required the speaker to use his expertise in several ways. He had to do some math. He had to
apply recognized methodologies. He even had to write a report memorializing his work. Some of
that work may plausibly be considered conduct. But it ends up providing him the basis to speak
his mind. Thus, although the government may properly exercise its interests in policing the use of
technical knowledge for nonexpressive purposes, those interests must give way to the nation's
profound national commitment to free speech in this case. At the very least, the government had
to show that it seriously considered less restrictive alternatives before targeting pure speech.

[morganism]

The fountain of youth is … a T cell?  https://www.cshl.edu/the-fountain-of-youth-is-a-t-cell/

Anti-Aging Elixir on the Horizon? Revolutionary Cell Therapy Works with One Treatment

https://studyfinds.org/anti-aging-elixir/

(...) Enter CAR T-cells, a type of therapy initially developed for cancer treatment. These cells are engineered to seek out and destroy specific targets. In this case, the target is a protein called uPAR, found on the surface of senescent cells. By targeting uPAR, these CAR T-cells can effectively locate and eliminate senescent cells.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this therapy is its long-term effectiveness. Traditional treatments often require continuous administration, but in this case, a single dose of CAR T-cells continues to work over time. This is a significant advantage, as it could potentially reduce the cost and inconvenience of frequent treatments.



Prophylactic and long-lasting efficacy of senolytic CAR T cells against age-related metabolic dysfunction
....
Perhaps the most striking observation of the current work was the ability of uPAR CAR T cells to act prophylactically to blunt age-induced and diet-induced metabolic decline. Unlike senolytic approaches based on small molecules, uPAR CAR T cells have long-lasting effects after the administration of a single low dose, causing a marked impairment in age-induced or HFD-induced metabolic syndrome when mice were treated during youth or administration of HFD, respectively. Our findings are consistent with those of an earlier study that explored vaccination against GPNMB on senescent cells to address age-related pathology34, although with our cellular therapy, both effect sizes and duration were substantially larger. In fact, our results demonstrate a protective effect for over a year in the context of physiological aging in the laboratory mouse, a species with an average lifespan of around 2 years.

While the mechanism of action of most current small molecules is often inferred or poorly understood, senolytic CAR T cells have a clear underlying rationale based on the expression of a specific surface antigen. While toxicity issues are invariably a concern, cellular therapy harbors the versatility to simultaneously target several surface antigens through AND gate approaches11, modulate persistence through different CAR designs39 and/or incorporate safety switches40, all of which provide avenues to mitigate side effects that are not possible through vaccination strategies or small-molecule approaches40. Indeed, another recent report reveals that mice and primates tolerate CAR T cells that target a natural killer cell ligand that is upregulated on senescent cells and other cell types41. Taken together, these efforts could result in the identification of tissue-specific senolytic antigens that could be targeted with cellular therapy to treat different age-related phenotypes. The persistence of the uPAR-targeted CAR T cells and the durability of the effects after a single low-dose treatment highlight the clinical potential of the senolytic CAR T cell approach for the treatment of chronic pathologies.
(plenty more)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-023-00560-5

[morganism]

(Han dynasty continues its search for eternal life)

(...)
In 2022, the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium, a global community effort to assemble the human genome, presented a complete sequence of the human genome, called T2T-CHM13.

This assembled genome addressed the gaps left from the human genome first sequenced two decades earlier, and reached “its highest level of continuity and accuracy after 20 years of effort”, the paper said.

CHM13 is expected to replace the US-based reference genome, GRCh38, that is the standard in research and medicine.

However, while the assembly of T2T-CHM13 was “a remarkable scientific achievement”, it did not represent the genome of a “real human individual”, the paper said.
Hong Kong’s DNA pioneers launch blood tests to find cancer

That is because it originated from a “hydatidiform mole” – a non-viable fertilised egg with no maternal chromosomes, that instead has two sets of duplicated paternal chromosomes.

This also means that T2T-CHM13 is a “haploid genome”, containing only one set of chromosomes, with no Y chromosome.

But it is still considered a complete, gapless genome since it sequenced chromosomes from telomere to telomere – or tip to tip.

The Chinese team’s reference is a diploid genome, reflecting the actual human genome, containing both sets of chromosomes as well as the Y chromosome.
‘Highly qualified as a reference genome’

The villager who gave the blood sample lives near the ruins of the ancient capital built by Tang Yao, said to be one of China’s earliest emperors. So, the team called the reference genome T2T-YAO.

“The quality of T2T-YAO is much better than all currently available diploid assemblies,” the paper said, adding that even the haploid version of the genome was higher quality than T2T-CHM13.

“All the assessments of T2T-YAO ensure that it is highly qualified as a reference genome”, that is an accurate representation of a real human being, the team wrote.

The Y chromosome of this particular reference represented much of the Chinese population, excluding people in areas like Xinjiang and Tibet, Kang Yu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science Beijing Institute of Genomics and co-lead of the research, told Science and Technology Daily.
Science journal will weigh in on whether Chinese team made genetic engineering breakthrough

After comparing T2T-YAO with T2T-CHM13, the researchers found that it had around 330 megabases of exclusive genetic sequences, 3,100 unique genes and tens of thousands of nucleotide variations.
The clear genetic variation between the reference genomes highlighted “the necessity of a population-stratified reference genome”, the team wrote.

By comparing the sequenced genetic data of patients with a reference genome “healthcare providers can tailor personalised treatments according to an individual’s genetic make-up and specific disease risks”, Zhang wrote.

This approach to medicine, also called precision medicine, was still a developing field, Zhang said, but “the potential benefits of precision medicine are enormous”.
Understanding ‘the Chinese people’

T2T-YAO could also help us better understand inherited and observable characteristics of disease, “especially within the context of the unique variations of the Chinese population”, the paper said.

Cheng Jing, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering who was not an author of the paper, told Science and Technology Daily that the assembly of T2T-YAO could even help answer the question of who Chinese people were at the genetic level.

“Due to the limitations of sequencing technology, constructing high-quality T2T diploid genomes of a real individual remains challenging even after the completion of T2T-CHM13,” Zhang wrote.

While T2T-YAO took only two years to assemble, the previous most detailed genome was the result of three decades of work led by US-based scientists.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3250784/china-builds-worlds-most-detailed-human-genome-enormous-implications-disease-treatment


(no journal link)

[morganism]

How to Make a Gravilaser

One class of possible solutions to the equations describing this spacetime allows for scattering of GWs and EM waves. These solutions have an instability, which means that the result is highly dependent on initial conditions: a small change can lead to a very different outcome. The authors then try to work out the implications of this on the electromagnetic and gravitational fields.

What they find is that when a certain resonance condition– more complicated than the resonance condition in the FEL– is met, electromagnetic energy is transferred to the gravitational field (Figure 3). This energy transfer is coherent in the sense that the increase in a component of the gravitational field and decrease in a component of the EM field happen at the same frequency. And, similar to the FEL, the frequency of the gravitational component is tunable by adjusting components of the EM field.
Prospects & Applications

This work points out that an intense “beam” of GWs can be generated by the conversion of EM energy into gravitational energy if a certain resonance condition is met. This is in some ways similar to coherent emission of photons by a FEL, which also relies on a resonance condition. The authors indicate two reasons why this is interesting. First, it offers hope (even if very remote) that a gravilaser could be generated in a laboratory. Currently we rely on sources from space for detectable GW signals. Second, this idea may help in the detection of GWs from an astrophysical source. In the case that we already know the frequency of the wave we are trying to detect, EM energy could be pumped in to enhance the amplitude of the GW signal, thus enhancing the ratio of the signal over the noise, improving and or allowing for the detection of very faint signals.

https://astrobites.org/2024/01/27/how-to-make-a-gravilaser/

(this would be really interesting hooked up to a wakefield accelerator...)

[morganism]

Breakthrough in Battling Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

Summary: Researchers made a significant discovery in the fight against noise-induced hearing loss, identifying a molecular mechanism linked to cellular damage from excess zinc in the inner ear. The study demonstrates that drugs acting as zinc sponges can either restore hearing or protect against hearing loss if administered before exposure to loud sounds.

This innovative research not only advances our understanding of hearing loss biology but also paves the way for developing new treatments to prevent or mitigate this common condition.

Key Facts:

    The study identifies excess zinc in the inner ear following loud noise exposure as a key factor in noise-induced hearing loss.
    Treatment with a compound that traps excess zinc can prevent or reduce hearing loss in mice, suggesting a potential new therapy for humans.
    The research team is working towards developing this treatment into an over-the-counter medication to protect against hearing loss from loud noise exposure.

Anyone who has ever been to a loud concert knows the feeling of ringing ears. Some people experience temporary or even permanent hearing loss or drastic changes in their perception of sound after the loud noises stop.

Thanos Tzounopoulos, Ph.D., director of the Pittsburgh Hearing Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has focused his scientific career on investigating how hearing works and developing ways to treat tinnitus and hearing loss.

In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Tzounopoulos and his Pitt collaborators Amantha Thathiah, Ph.D., and Chris Cunningham, Ph.D., discovered a molecular mechanism of noise-induced hearing loss and showed that it could be mitigated with medication. 
This shows an ear.
Researchers say such noise-induced hearing loss can be debilitating. Credit: Neuroscience News

The study showed that noise-induced hearing loss, which affects millions of Americans, stems from cellular damage in the inner ear that is associated with the excess of free-floating zinc – a mineral that is essential for proper cellular function and hearing.

Experiments in mice showed drugs that work as molecular sponges trapping excess zinc can help restore lost hearing or, if administered before an expected loud sound exposure, can protect from hearing loss.

“Noise-induced hearing loss impairs millions of lives but, because the biology of hearing loss is not fully understood, preventing hearing loss has been an ongoing challenge,” said senior author Thanos Tzounopoulos, Ph.D., endowed professor and vice-chair of research of otolaryngology at Pitt.

While some experience noise-induced hearing loss as a result of an acute traumatic injury to the ear, others notice a sudden hearing impairment after being continuously exposed to loud noise, for example in a battlefield or at a construction site. Others notice their hearing deteriorating after attending a loud music show.

Researchers say such noise-induced hearing loss can be debilitating. Some people start hearing sounds that aren’t there, developing a condition called tinnitus, which severely affects a person’s quality of life.

Tzounopoulos’ research, which focuses on the biology of hearing, tinnitus and hearing loss, strived to determine the mechanistic underpinnings of the condition in the effort to lay the groundwork for the development of effective and minimally invasive treatments in the future.

By performing experiments in mice and on isolated cells of the inner ear, researchers found that hours after mice are exposed to loud noise, their inner ear zinc level spikes. Loud sound exposure causes a robust release of zinc into the extra and intracellular space which, ultimately, leads to cellular damage and disrupts normal cell to cell communication.

Thankfully, this discovery opens doors for a possible solution. Experiments showed mice who were treated with a slow-releasing compound that trapped excess free zinc were less prone to hearing loss and were protected from noise-induced damage.

Researchers are currently developing a treatment to be tested in preclinical safety studies with the goal of making it available as a simple, over-the-counter option to protect oneself from hearing loss.

https://neurosciencenews.com/zinc-noise-hearing-loss-25602/

(paper to be published @ PNAS)

[morganism]

How Geobacter Microbes Produce Electricity - YouTube  (edit: with puppetry!)

Trailblazing microbiologist Gemma Reguera introduces us to her favorite microbe, the electricity-producing Geobacter, and describes how her research opened the door to a new field of study:...

[morganism]

(another article on aphantasia, nice descriptions here)

I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual

People with aphantasia can’t mentally visualize things. Mental imagery is a spectrum, and we lie outside it, in the dark
(...)

I discovered I had aphantasia by accident. When you live your entire life without a “mind’s eye”, it seems completely normal to visualize nothing when remembering people and places, or imagining the future.
(snip)
There’s been a surge of research on how aphantasia affects our lives. There are probably different subtypes of aphantasia, as Pearson and his colleagues showed in a recent paper: for some it affects images alone; some can’t imagine other sensory information, like sounds. Some people with aphantasia have visualizations when they dream (I do), and others don’t. There’s evidence that it can make it harder for people to recall visual details, though other studies show that aphants perform better on some memory tests unrelated to imagery. “I remember stories, facts and trivia about my own life, but I can’t experience it in any way,” said Tom Ebeyer, the founder of the Aphantasia Network. “It also makes it difficult to properly sequence and remember lots of specific details.”
(snip)
For instance, visualizers might imagine their work before they begin. “Aphantasics, myself included, tend to have a general ‘sense’ or idea of what they want to create,” Ebeyer said. Ebeyer begins working, then edits and refines until he is satisfied. He often hears from other artists with aphantasia when they’re in the process of making art: I know it when I see it. This teaches us that imagination extends beyond mental imagery.

Zeman has written that people with aphantasia may have more of an interest in the visual arts, because their minds are devoid of it.

I love visual art – I originally majored in art history alongside journalism – but it makes sense to me that my medium is words. They suit my internal sense-making best, as well as the concepts and monologue that constitute my daily experience. In October, the writer John Green tweeted about the red apple test, revealing that he can’t see mental imagery either. “I always thought ‘visualize’ meant thinking of the words/ideas/feelings associated with a thing, not actual visuals,” he wrote, adding that his choice of profession aligned with this. “For me everything has always been made out of language, so language is a natural fit.”

This has revealed itself in other preferences too: I seem like someone who would love science fiction novels, but growing up I found books with lengthy visual descriptions of scenery or characters boring. As a journalist, when reporting, I have to make sure to take photographs of everything I’m seeing so that I can refer back to it later. It’s not my instinct to describe physical details in my writing – it’s something editors often have to remind me to do. What someone looks like, what they are wearing – it’s not as interesting to me as what they are feeling, or the ideas that they have.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aphantasia-like

[morganism]

(interesting paper on gendanken experiment showing mass and momentum are actually in two different phys locations. A variation of the Shrodingers Cat thought experiment.Time is not a thing at quantum)

Separating a particle's mass from its momentum


    The Quantum Cheshire Cat experiment showed that when weak measurements are performed on pre- and post-selected system, the counterintuitive result has been obtained that a neutron is measured to be in one place without its spin, and its spin is measured to be in another place without the neutron. A generalization of this effect is presented with a massive particle whose mass is measured to be in one place with no momentum, while the momentum is measured to be in another place without the mass. The new result applies to any massive particle, independent of its spin or charge. A gedanken experiment which illustrates this effect is presented using a nested pair of Mach-Zehnder interferometers, but with some of the mirrors and beam splitters moving relative to the laboratory frame. The analysis of this experiment using the counterparticle ontology of Aharonov et al. is also given.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.10408.pdf

[morganism]

My Favorite Math Jokes
Tanya Khovanova

    For many years, I have been collecting math jokes and posting them on my website. I have more than 400 jokes there. In this paper, which is an extended version of my talk at the G4G15, I would like to present 66 of them.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.01010

I like humor, but I didn’t have enough of it around me. So I started collecting jokes and
posting them on my website.

Currently, I have more than 400 jokes. Here is a classic one.

A topologist is someone who doesn’t know the difference between a coffee cup and a
doughnut.

and

Heisenberg gets pulled over on the highway.
Cop: “Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”
Heisenberg: “No, but I know exactly where I am.”

After my talk at the G4G15, David Albert sent me a sequel to this joke.

Heisenberg gets pulled over on the highway.
Cop: “Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”
Heisenberg: “No, but I know exactly where I am.”
Cop: “You were going 85 miles per hour”.
Heisenberg: “Oh great—now I’m lost!”

https://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/2022/08/the-big-point-theorem/

[morganism]

UFO report is out

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF

[morganism]

(this popped up on Hnews again, so am posting it here for search and history)

Why So Many Top Hackers Hail from Russia
June 22, 2017

Conventional wisdom says one reason so many hackers seem to hail from Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union is that these countries have traditionally placed a much greater emphasis than educational institutions in the West on teaching information technology in middle and high schools, and yet they lack a Silicon Valley-like pipeline to help talented IT experts channel their skills into high-paying jobs. This post explores the first part of that assumption by examining a breadth of open-source data.

The supply side of that conventional wisdom seems to be supported by an analysis of educational data from both the U.S. and Russia, which indicates there are several stark and important differences between how American students are taught and tested on IT subjects versus their counterparts in Eastern Europe.

Compared to the United States there are quite a few more high school students in Russia who choose to specialize in information technology subjects. One way to measure this is to look at the number of high school students in the two countries who opt to take the advanced placement exam for computer science.

According to an analysis (PDF) by The College Board, in the ten years between 2005 and 2016 a total of 270,000 high school students in the United States opted to take the national exam in computer science (the “Computer Science Advanced Placement” exam).

Compare that to the numbers from Russia: A 2014 study (PDF) on computer science (called “Informatics” in Russia) by the Perm State National Research University found that roughly 60,000 Russian students register each year to take their nation’s equivalent to the AP exam — known as the “Unified National Examination.” Extrapolating that annual 60,000 number over ten years suggests that more than twice as many people in Russia — 600,000 — have taken the computer science exam at the high school level over the past decade.

In “A National Talent Strategy,” an in-depth analysis from Microsoft Corp. on the outlook for information technology careers, the authors warn that despite its critical and growing importance computer science is taught in only a small minority of U.S. schools. The Microsoft study notes that although there currently are just over 42,000 high schools in the United States, only 2,100 of them were certified to teach the AP computer science course in 2011.
A HEAD START

If more people in Russia than in America decide to take the computer science exam in secondary school, it may be because Russian students are required to study the subject beginning at a much younger age. Russia’s Federal Educational Standards (FES) mandate that informatics be compulsory in middle school, with any school free to choose to include it in their high school curriculum at a basic or advanced level.

“In elementary school, elements of Informatics are taught within the core subjects ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Technology,” the Perm University research paper notes. “Furthermore, each elementary school has the right to make [the] subject “Informatics” part of its curriculum.”

The core components of the FES informatics curriculum for Russian middle schools are the following:

1. Theoretical foundations
2. Principles of computer’s functioning
3. Information technologies
4. Network technologies
5. Algorithmization
6. Languages and methods of programming
7. Modeling
8. Informatics and Society
SECONDARY SCHOOL

There also are stark differences in how computer science/informatics is taught in the two countries, as well as the level of mastery that exam-takers are expected to demonstrate in their respective exams.

Again, drawing from the Perm study on the objectives in Russia’s informatics exam, here’s a rundown of what that exam seeks to test:

Block 1: “Mathematical foundations of Informatics”,
Block 2: “Algorithmization and programming”, and
Block 3: “Information and computer technology.”

The testing materials consist of three parts.

Part 1 is a multiple-choice test with four given options, and it covers all the blocks. Relatively little time is set aside to complete this part.

Part 2 contains a set of tasks of basic, intermediate and advanced levels of complexity. These require brief answers such as a number or a sequence of characteristics.

Part 3 contains a set of tasks of an even higher level of complexity than advanced. These tasks usually involve writing a detailed answer in free form.

According to the Perm study, “in 2012, part 1 contained 13 tasks; Part 2, 15 tasks; and Part 3, 4 tasks. The examination covers the key topics from the Informatics school syllabus. The tasks with detailed answers are the most labor intensive. These include tasks on the analysis of algorithms, drawing up computer programs, among other types. The answers are checked by the experts of regional examination boards based on standard assessment criteria.”
Image: Perm State National Research University, Russia.

Image: Perm State National Research University, Russia.

In the U.S., the content of the AP computer science exam is spelled out in this College Board document (PDF).

US Test Content Areas:

Computational Thinking Practices (P)

P1: Connecting Computing
P2: Creating Computational Artifacts
P3: Abstracting
P4: Analyzing Problems and Artifacts
P5: Communicating
P6: Collaborating

The Concept Outline:

Big Idea 1: Creativity
Big idea 2: Abstraction
Big Idea 3: Data and Information
Big Idea 4: Algorithms
Big idea 5: Programming
Big idea 6: The Internet
Big idea 7: Global Impact
ADMIRING THE PROBLEM

How do these two tests compare? Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute — an information security education and training organization — says topics 2, 3, 4 and 6 in the Russian informatics curriculum above are the “basics” on which cybersecurity skills can be built, and they are present beginning in middle school for all Russian students.

“Very few middle schools teach this in the United States,” Paller said. “We don’t teach these topics in general and we definitely don’t test them. The Russians do and they’ve been doing this for the past 30 years. Which country will produce the most skilled cybersecurity people?”

Paller said the Russian curriculum virtually ensures kids have far more hands-on experience with computer programming and problem solving. For example, in the American AP test no programming language is specified and the learning objectives are:

“How are programs developed to help people and organizations?”
“How are programs used for creative expression?”
“How do computer programs implement algorithms?”
“How does abstraction make the development of computer programs possible?”
“How do people develop and test computer programs?”
“Which mathematical and logical concepts are fundamental to programming?”

“Notice there is almost no need to learn to program — I think they have to write one program (in collaboration with other students),” Paller wrote in an email to KrebsOnSecurity. “It’s like they’re teaching kids to admire it without learning to do it. The main reason that cyber education fails is that much of the time the students come out of school with almost no usable skills.”
THE WAY FORWARD

On the bright side, there are signs that computer science is becoming a more popular focus for U.S. high school students. According to the latest AP Test report (PDF) from the College Board, almost 58,000 Americans took the AP exam in computer science last year — up from 49,000 in 2015.

However, computer science still is far less popular than most other AP test subjects in the United States. More than a half million students opted for the English AP exam in 2016; 405,000 took English literature; almost 283,000 took AP government, while some 159,000 students went for an AP test called “Human Geography.”

A breakdown of subject specialization in the 2016 v. 2015 AP tests in the United States. Source: The College Board.

This is not particularly good news given the dearth of qualified cybersecurity professionals available to employers. ISACA, a non-profit information security advocacy group, estimates there will be a global shortage of two million cyber security professionals by 2019. A report from Frost & Sullivan and (ISC)2 prognosticates there will be more than 1.5 million cybersecurity jobs unfilled by 2020.

The IT recruitment problem is especially acute for companies in the United States. Unable to find enough qualified cybersecurity professionals to hire here in the U.S., companies increasingly are counting on hiring foreigners who have the skills they’re seeking. However, the Trump administration in April ordered a full review of the country’s high-skilled immigration visa program, a step that many believe could produce new rules to clamp down on companies that hire foreigners instead of Americans.

Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players are urging policymakers to adopt a more forward-looking strategy to solving the skills gap crisis domestically. In its National Talent Strategy report (PDF), Microsoft said it spends 83 percent of its worldwide R&D budget in the United States.

“But companies across our industry cannot continue to focus R&D jobs in this country if we cannot fill them here,” reads the Microsoft report. “Unless the situation changes, there is a growing probability that unfilled jobs will migrate over time to countries that graduate larger numbers of individuals with the STEM backgrounds that the global economy so clearly needs.”

Microsoft is urging U.S. policymakers to adopt a nationwide program to strengthen K-12 STEM education by recruiting and training more teachers to teach it. The software giant also says states should be given more funding to broaden access to computer science in high school, and that computer science learning needs to start much earlier for U.S. students.

“In the short-term this represents an unrealized opportunity for American job growth,” Microsoft warned. “In the longer term this may spur the development of economic competition in a field that the United States pioneered.”

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/06/why-so-many-top-hackers-hail-from-russia/

[morganism]

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science
(...)
To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution to the West.

Today, however, the spirit of science in the Muslim world is as dry as the desert. Pakistani physicist Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy laid out the grim statistics in a 2007 Physics Today article: Muslim countries have nine scientists, engineers, and technicians per thousand people, compared with a world average of forty-one. In these nations, there are approximately 1,800 universities, but only 312 of those universities have scholars who have published journal articles. Of the fifty most-published of these universities, twenty-six are in Turkey, nine are in Iran, three each are in Malaysia and Egypt, Pakistan has two, and Uganda, the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, and Azerbaijan each have one.

There are roughly 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, but only two scientists from Muslim countries have won Nobel Prizes in science (one for physics in 1979, the other for chemistry in 1999). Forty-six Muslim countries combined contribute just 1 percent of the world’s scientific literature; Spain and India each contribute more of the world’s scientific literature than those countries taken together. In fact, although Spain is hardly an intellectual superpower, it translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years. “Though there are talented scientists of Muslim origin working productively in the West,” Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has observed, “for forty years I have not seen a single paper by a physicist or astronomer working in a Muslim country that was worth reading.”
(snip)
Given that Arabic science was the most advanced in the world up until about the thirteenth century, it is tempting to ask what went wrong — why it is that modern science did not arise from Baghdad or Cairo or Córdoba. We will turn to this question later, but it is important to keep in mind that the decline of scientific activity is the rule, not the exception, of civilizations. While it is commonplace to assume that the scientific revolution and the progress of technology were inevitable, in fact the West is the single sustained success story out of many civilizations with periods of scientific flourishing. Like the Muslims, the ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations, both of which were at one time far more advanced than the West, did not produce the scientific revolution.
(snip)
In its place arose the anti-rationalist Ash’ari school whose increasing dominance is linked to the decline of Arabic science. With the rise of the Ash’arites, the ethos in the Islamic world was increasingly opposed to original scholarship and any scientific inquiry that did not directly aid in religious regulation of private and public life. While the Mu’tazilites had contended that the Koran was created and so God’s purpose for man must be interpreted through reason, the Ash’arites believed the Koran to be coeval with God — and therefore unchallengeable. At the heart of Ash’ari metaphysics is the idea of occasionalism, a doctrine that denies natural causality. Put simply, it suggests natural necessity cannot exist because God’s will is completely free. Ash’arites believed that God is the only cause, so that the world is a series of discrete physical events each willed by God.

For example, Mohammed Yusuf, the late leader of a group called the Nigerian Taliban, explained why “Western education is a sin” by explaining its view on rain: “We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.”
(plenty more)

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science

[SteveMDFP]

Microsoft is urging U.S. policymakers to adopt a nationwide program to strengthen K-12 STEM education by recruiting and training more teachers to teach it. The software giant also says states should be given more funding to broaden access to computer science in high school, and that computer science learning needs to start much earlier for U.S. students.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/06/why-so-many-top-hackers-hail-from-russia/

Strategically, it makes obvious sense that more teachers are needed K-12 in computer science.  Unfortunately, K-12 teachers of all subjects tend to be rather poorly paid in the US.  The teachers who would be most capable of providing this education can often earn far more in industry, with the same knowledge and skill base.

Abundant anecdotal reports suggest the task of teaching is becoming steadily more frustrating.  Frustration with student behavior, parent behavior, and administrative burdens seems to be increasing.  What rational, technically-skilled person would choose to go into a classroom?

[morganism]

(a paper by a couple folk with aphantasia, interesting to me as i have been there since childhood.)

Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influence from priors or inhibitory feedback?

The authors are both self-described congenital aphantasics, who feel they have never been able to have volitional imagined visual experiences during their waking lives. In addition, Loren has atypical experiences of a number of visual phenomena that involve an extrapolation or integration of visual information across space. In this perspective, we describe Loren’s atypical experiences of a number of visual phenomena, and we suggest these ensue because her visual experiences are not strongly shaped by inhibitory feedback or by prior expectations. We describe Loren as having Deep Aphantasia, and Derek as shallow, as for both a paucity of feedback might prevent the generation of imagined visual experiences, but for Loren this additionally seems to disrupt activity at a sufficiently early locus to cause atypical experiences of actual visual inputs. Our purpose in describing these subjective experiences is to alert others to the possibility of there being sub-classes of congenital aphantasia, one of which—Deep Aphantasia, would be characterized by atypical experiences of actual visual inputs.
Introduction

Most people can generate images that they experience in their mind’s eye. We authors cannot, and do not believe we have ever been able to. We can be described as Congenital Aphantasics (Zeman et al., 2015). We each obtain the minimum possible score on the VVIQ2 questionnaire (Marks, 1995), which measures the subjective intensity of imagined visual experiences. But there are large differences between our subjective imagined experiences. Derek can have detailed imagined audio experiences (hearing snippets of symphonies at will), and his dreamt audio and visual experiences seem fully realistic (like most Congenital Aphantasics). Loren, however, reports that she cannot have imagined audio experiences, has no inner monolog, and she does not have audio or visual experiences while dreaming. Loren can experience imagined tastes and tactile sensations, Derek cannot.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1374349/full

[Sigmetnow]

Abundant anecdotal reports suggest the task of teaching is becoming steadily more frustrating.  Frustration with student behavior, parent behavior, and administrative burdens seems to be increasing.  What rational, technically-skilled person would choose to go into a classroom?

Perhaps accelerating a switch to education via AI rather than human teachers.

[SteveMDFP]

Abundant anecdotal reports suggest the task of teaching is becoming steadily more frustrating.  Frustration with student behavior, parent behavior, and administrative burdens seems to be increasing.  What rational, technically-skilled person would choose to go into a classroom?

Perhaps accelerating a switch to education via AI rather than human teachers.

Well, yes, that would be the logical solution.  But I'm skeptical that current or immediately foreseeable technology will succeed at a critical function of human teachers -- inspiring learners.  I think a core psychological element of the teaching process, when it comes to inspiring people, is that learners come to realize "hey, I could take a similar work path as my teacher, advance important things, and also teach and inspire others." 

Even if the technology could accurately emulate an inspiring style of teaching, it will always be clear to learners that they couldn't hope to mimic the work of the teachers.

[morganism]

An Ozempic baby boom? Some GLP-1 users report unexpected pregnancies.

Across social media, women who have used Ozempic or similar medications for diabetes or weight loss are reporting an unexpected side effect — surprise pregnancies.

The Facebook group “I got pregnant on Ozempic,” has more than 500 members. Numerous posts on Reddit and TikTok discuss unplanned pregnancies while on Ozempic and similar drugs which can spur significant weight loss by curbing appetite and slowing the digestive process. The drugs are known as “Glucagon-like peptide 1” or GLP-1 drugs.

The reports of an Ozempic baby boom are anecdotal, and it’s not known how widespread the phenomenon is. Experts say significant weight loss can affect fertility. Others speculate that the GLP-1 drugs could interfere with the absorption of oral contraceptives, causing birth control failures.

“I got pregnant on a GLP-1,” posted Deb Oliviara, 32, on her @Dkalsolive TikTok account, which has 36,000 followers. She had noted in another video that she’d previously suffered two miscarriages and a stillbirth.

Oliviara, who lives in Michigan, said in a direct message that she had been using Ozempic for three months before getting pregnant. “I was three weeks along when I found out,” Oliviara said. “I am now 3 months pregnant, and baby is doing amazing.”

“My little Mounjaro baby is almost 6 months old after trying for over 10 years with PCOS!” another woman commented on the post, referring to polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal health condition that is a leading cause of infertility.

Paige Burnham, 29, who lives in Louisville, had lost about 80 pounds while using Ozempic, also known as semaglutide, for Type 2 diabetes when she began feeling nauseous on a trip to Disney World. She assumed the symptom was due to the drug. “My most typical Ozempic side effect was nausea,” she said.

But she learned the symptom was actually morning sickness due to pregnancy — a surprise since she and her partner had tried for four years to conceive. She stopped taking Ozempic and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Creed, in March 2023.
A lack of research on pregnancy and GLP-1 drugs

Little is known about the effects of Ozempic and similar drugs on women who want to get pregnant or who become pregnant while taking the drugs because they were specifically excluded from early clinical trials of the drug.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/04/05/ozempic-babies-weight-loss-fertility/