Up From Facebook

  Sanitary sewers, clean water, antibiotics and vaccines have transformed public health wherever they are available. Lamentably, the reach of these life-saving measures doesn't extend equally throughout the world, and millions of premature deaths and unnecessary suffering occur every year because of lack of access. But where vaccines are available, there is no excuse for most people not to be vaccinated, not only for their own well-being but to protect the rest of the community. There are certainly a few cases where people can and should be exempted, but these cases underscore the critical importance of everyone else being vaccinated to provide herd immunity. Sadly, in wealthy western nations in the 21st century, superstition and fake news are gaining ground against vaccines. The public health community must not dignify anti-vaxxer superstition. Your freedom ends where you actions endanger others, and refusing a vaccine without a sound medical reason endangers others. "Accurat...

  Elon Musk hearts carbon capture Humanity is hurtling towards global catastrophe. Long before we reach a new planetary maximum temperature, resource wars will transform and degrade whatever passes for civilization by 2050. There's nothing that conservation can do to change that, it's baked in the cake. The only way to prevent this is through geoengineering or carbon capture. The technology to do carbon capture exists, but so far isn't scalable. While Elon Musk is at best problematic, it's good to see a multibillionaire freebooter pony up for humanity. "The big problem with CCS—aside from the basic one of getting it to work—is that a successful system would have to be enormous. Roughly speaking, the infrastructure for removing carbon would need to be similar in size to the infrastructure for adding carbon. In other words, about the size of the entire fossil fuel extraction industry. Big. "But maybe someone can figure out a better way. Good on Musk for identify...

  Instead of trying to mimic salmon with soy or other plants, the company grows actual fish cells in stainless steel tanks. “The cells we use are really programmed, it’s in their DNA, to organize and mature in the same way that they would within the animal,” says Elfenbein. “We provide them with the same nutrients that the fish would consume in the wild—proteins and fats and carbohydrates and minerals. And essentially have them grow in a system that looks kind of like a beer brewery.” https://www.fastcompany.com/90629099/the-salmon-in-this-sushi-didnt-come-from-the-ocean-it-was-harvested-from-a-bioreactor?partner=feedburner&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=Compass&utm_campaign=eem524%3A524%3As00%3A04%2F27%2F2021_fc&utm_content=feedburner&cid=eem524%3A524%3As00%3A04%2F27%2F2021_fc&fbclid=IwAR0-Rjfq6HBcbxdUieuPY1NG_IpTuywoL-28PZhjHa1t_DdnXBU8C8TRUhA

  Stay careful out there, peeps: "Collectively, these reports provide more assurance that the phase III trial results with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines did not exaggerate their effectiveness and that breakthrough infections remain rare. They're more common, however, among older individuals, and the vaccines do not offer complete protection against serious illness or death. The Kentucky and Rockefeller University reports also suggest that virus variants may escape vaccine-induced immunity to some extent." https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/92204?xid=nl_covidupdate_2021-04-22&eun=g1700464d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyUpdate_042221&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_Daily_News_Update_active&fbclid=IwAR1Hxd1acPQ-chyht3LN83AmsAfdLQLmNwuZNEFk9i5ihbSuevmtsnKU77I

  Of course, many or most rational people don't understand money, even though they've used it all their lives. I recall sitting in the living room of our rental condo in Dillon CO one morning in 1998, listening to the NPR reporter declare "today, the ruble lost 100% of its value." This held a special poignancy for me at that time, since I was flying to Moscow a few days later. In the event, the ruble had only lost 50% of its value that day. Restaurant prices in Moscow were changing hourly, and they shut down the cash machines 24 hrs after I arrived there. I carried some dollars and about $100 worth of German marks. Money, my friends, is a polite fiction. It exists as long as the government that issues it is trusted. ". . . many rational people don't understand Bitcoin. It seems obviously ridiculous. But that's only if you continue to think of it as a new form of money. If, instead, you think of it as a collectible, it suddenly makes a lot more sense. Afte...

  Yes, they're a thing. The problem is *where* they're driving: "HOUSTON – Two men are dead after a Tesla traveling in Spring crashed into a tree and no one was driving the vehicle, officials say. . . . Harris County Constable Precinct 4 deputies said the vehicle was traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree." https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/04/18/2-men-dead-after-fiery-tesla-crash-in-spring-officials-say/?fbclid=IwAR2ccZs5gY9vmogwppUQyi9KJmfpa6YVStjj9IVqnAEE2umNKPvrmlQk8XQ

  "The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are checking to see if Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccine also might cause the blood clots. Both AstraZeneca's vaccine and the J&J vaccine use common cold viruses called adenoviruses as a carrier and some experts suspect the body's response to those viral vectors might underlie the reaction." Note that neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine use a viral vector. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/health/blood-clots-vaccine-possible-cause/index.html

  I teach medical students and graduate students that when "I don't know" is the correct answer, use it. "Is eight-tenths of a second, on a dark night with a shaky light, enough time for a trained police officer to realize that the gun he saw a moment earlier—which he didn't see being tossed away—is no longer there? I don't know." https://jabberwocking.com/how-long-is-eight-tenths-of-a-second/

  We keep reading about SARS-CoV-2 virus variants that are more contagious, more dangerous for young people and evading some of the vaccines. These variants emerge through infections. Fewer infections, fewer variants. Thus, anything that impedes the process of vaccinating everyone world-wide contributes to the emergence of new and potentially vaccine-resistant COVID-19. "As of this writing in early April, fewer than 600 million vaccine doses have been administered around the world; three-quarters of those in just 10 mostly high-income countries. Close to 130 countries containing 2.5 billion people have yet to administer a single dose. The timeline for supplying poor and middle-income countries with enough vaccines to achieve herd immunity, meanwhile, has been pushed into 2024. These numbers represent more than the “catastrophic moral failure” the director general of the WHO warned about this January. It is a stark reminder than any policy that obstructs or inhibits vaccine product...

  I joined our university rec center a couple years ago and paid for six sessions with a personal trainer to learn how to use the equipment properly so as not to injure myself. When the rec center closed last spring, I was able to recapitulate most of the exercises at home with hand weights and bands. The reason to do resistance training at my age isn't to pick up women, it's to slow the inevitable muscle wasting--age-dependent sarcopenia--that accompanies not dying. When I'm on a regular schedule, I sleep better and enjoy my waking hours more, with more energy, alertness and engagement. Turns out there's another benefit. Another concomitant of aging is immune system dysfunction: immunosenescence and inflammageing. The former is caused by immune cell exhaustion and the latter by disregulation of immune responses. According to this article, another benefit of exercise is improved immune function. You don't have to be a body builder to benefit. https://www.iflscience....

 I'm blocked for 24 hrs on FB for posting: "Sadly, most Americans are as "dumb" as they demonstrate themselves to be." Supposedly, this is a violation of "community standards" for "hate speech." LOL! Apart from the presposterous idea that the word "dumb" is "hate speech," if you read the "community standards," they state that you can quote words without violating community standards." This was not a violation of "community standards." This was a right-wing moderator who objects to my criticism of the right in America. Facebook continues to be a venue that privileges the political right in America. Sad.

  A proposal to develop a tract of land in the East Tennessee town where I grew up for a racetrack (auto and motorcycle) was withdrawn yesterday by the developer. The Energy Dept had to consent, and withheld approval pending an environmental impact statement. The developer says he'll site the track somewhere else in East Tennessee. What puzzles me is why, in the age of global warming, humans believe that spewing more greenhouse gas purely for entertainment is not immoral. Long before large tracts of the earth become uninhabitable because of the heat, humans will be engaged in resource wars for the remaining fresh water and arable land. Auto racing only accelerates that process. Shame. https://www.juancole.com/2021/04/seriously-australia-century.html?fbclid=IwAR00MAX4xcfCkSNVU69IIja7B3Lm_WTWfRHgi6o1A52266k6Y3JBeaYxjBo

  "More generally, the authors conclude that education has a huge impact on COVID-19 mortality rates, as the chart above makes clear. Roughly speaking, high school grads die at a rate 3x higher than college grads, and this is true for every racial group." Click the link. https://jabberwocking.com/new-study-suggests-education-is-key-to-covid-19-mortality/?fbclid=IwAR25AilR9giHysz8hf03iLMvxWRqaMVlPYLAACKxqisCacesWLfdLTXsyYU