Up From Facebook

I think the Q in QAnon stands for "quantum physics." I will never understand quantum physics and, accordingly, I'll never understand QAnon. Here's the latest in conspiracy theory quantum superimposition: "In yet another sign of an apparently fracturing QAnon movement, extremist attorney and QAnon conspiracy acolyte Lin Wood is now claiming that the “Stop the Steal” campaign complaining of vote fraud in the presidential election is a concoction of the “Deep State.” “After doing the research and connecting the dots, I have reached the conclusion that the Stop the Steal organization is a Deep State organization to raise money for purposes other than to FIX 2020. … WATCH OUT for anyone affiliated with Stop the Steal. Every lie will be revealed,” Wood wrote on the right-wing social media platform Telegram Friday, Rolling Stone and Newsweek reported." "Stop the Steal" is the Schrödinger's cat of conspiracy theories. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/li...

As a geneticist, I am troubled by the promiscuous use of the word "mutation" to describe amino acid or nucleotide differences from a reference sequence. In nearly all cases, there is no known functional significance attached to these differences. Accordingly, the differences are best referred to as "variants," not mutations. I've had my genome sequenced and I have a variant call file based on that sequence. I know all the amino acid variants in my genome compared to the reference human genome, and I've checked for variants associated with risk for disease (mutations); so far, none detected. But our ability to detect variants runs far ahead of our ability to assign significance to them (or alternatively, to confidently say they are neutral). There's a lot of concern and chin scratching over the Omicron variant of COVID that was recently discovered in Africa: "Dr. Dan Barouch, head of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deacone...

“ . . . researchers looked at the average cognition scores of over 30,000 adults in the US aged 50 and older. The scores were then broken down by generations: the Greatest Generation (born 1890 to 1923), the Early Children of Depression (born 1924 to 1930), the Late Children of Depression (born 1931 to 1941), the War Babies (born 1942 to 1947), the Early-Baby Boomers (born 1948 to 1953), and the Mid-Baby Boomers (born 1954 to 1959). “Cognitive sharpness appeared to improve generation after generation, starting with the so-called greatest generation (born 1890-1923) and peaking among war babies (born 1942-1947). However, scores started to slip in the early baby boomers (born 1948-1953) and further decreased in the mid-baby boomers (born 1954-1959). This remained true across people from all races, ethnicities, education levels, and financial wealth.” *snip* “So, what could explain this trend? The researchers suggest that the lower cognition scores among baby boomers in the study were mos...

  I think we should all take a few moments today to remember the -true- meaning of Thanksgiving. How a small group of intrepid people crossed a storm-tossed North Atlantic Ocean in 1776 aboard the SS Minnow under the brave leadership of Captain Merrill Stuebing to finally land and set foot on the Rock of Gibraltar. And how if it weren't for Tonto and his gift of corn, there wouldn't have been any tortilla chips for the salsa to munch on during the football games.

  There have been a few GOP politicians who have been willing to stand up to Trump and his win-at-any-price cult. Most of them are either out of office, announced that they are retiring or refusing to run for Congress. Liz Cheney is a kind of exception, although she voted with Trump over 90% of the time when he was in the WH. Chris Sununu is saying some good words, but since he's opted out of a Senate run, he's an outsider. Until there are Republicans willing to stand for country over party, things won't improve. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/new-hampshire-sununu-republicans-backlash-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-gosar-censure?fbclid=IwAR03Q6-_rvU6GhRNhkmNk4RNo27BHCb2l62k_-JklRKsC-GvE9AChTsYNfA

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) immunotherapies are transforming leukemia therapy. My Lovely And Talented Wife® has been working with the FDA on CAR-T trials at Washington University. Now, they appear to be providing transformative results with autoimmune disease as well: "Following the therapy, the CAR-T cell numbers rapidly increased and remained circulating in her system. This then resulted in a rapid depletion of B-cells and autoantibodies thought to be the cause of the autoimmune symptoms. Just six months after the treatment, Thu-Thao V is in complete remission and has returned to sports, something that she was unable to do while the joint pain, heart palpitations, and renal issues were present. She no longer requires drugs, and all her symptoms have disappeared. "This is a massive breakthrough in immunotherapy, presenting an in vivo use of CAR-T cell therapy to put a young girl with a severe autoimmune disease into complete remission for a long period of time a...

Curious about the supply chain problem? Wonder when it will go away? Read this. Yes, it's long. But if you really want to understand, this will repay the effort. Here's a teaser graf: "People who want their deliveries in a reasonable time are going to have to start paying premium rates. There will be levels of priority, and each increase in rate premium essentially jumps that freight ahead of all the freight with lower or no premium rates. Unless the lack of shipping infrastructure is resolved, things will back up in a cascading effect to the point where if your products are going general freight, you might wait a month or two for delivery. It’s already starting. If you use truck shipping in any way, you’ve no doubt started to see the delays. Think about what’s going to happen to holiday season shipping." https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91