Thursday, July 14, 2022

Spinal cord repair

Eventually, this may be very useful.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry 

A drug under investigation as a cancer treatment has shown exciting promise in a rather different branch of medical research, with scientists demonstrating how it can promote nerve repair following spinal injury. The breakthrough shows how the drug acts on a DNA damage response mechanism at play in both these unrelated conditions, and triggers a "remarkable" recovery in mice with injured spinal cords.


Monday, July 11, 2022

Watch "Science Proves What We Suspected Was True About Them" on YouTube

It is easy to say that something is wrong with the Political Left if they don't have the same level of disgust that we do, but what if that were the norm?   My tendency toward disgust is pretty high, which is probably why I am the way I am.  However, I might be the abnormal one.

I think that there is a big range of human tendencies.  Everyone feels a little bit of anxiety, depression, fear, neuroticism, and compulsiveness.  It is when one of these normal human traits becomes exaggerated to the point of being a problem that it becomes a mental illness.

On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 9:27 PM  wrote:

Science can be amazing !!!

 

Watch 4  min11 sec. video below until Google censorship takes it down.

 

-Beesley-

 

From: John Coffey
Subject: Re: Watch "Science Proves What We Suspected Was True About Them" on YouTube

 

When I lived in Indianapolis from 1991 to 1992, I made friends with a chess player who was an extreme liberal, likely a Marxist.  He said that he had a very permissive father whereas I had a very restrictive father.  So I valued freedom and he valued government control.

 

On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 11:30 AM Albert  wrote:

Scientist say a brain scan can reveal whether you are a liberal or a conservative. I'm not sure how they tell if you're a libertarian. Lol

 


 

Thursday, July 7, 2022

What the BA.5 Subvariant Could Mean for the United States - The New York Times

The most transmissible variant yet of the coronavirus is threatening a fresh wave of infections in the United States, even among those who have recovered from the virus fairly recently.

The subvariant of Omicron known as BA.5 is now dominant, according to federal estimates released Tuesday, and together with BA.4, another subvariant, it is fueling an outbreak of cases and hospitalizations.

"I think there's an underappreciation of what it's going to do to the country, and it already is exerting its effect," said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, who has written about the subvariant.

BA.5 and BA.4, both subvariants of the Omicron variant that swept the world during the winter, are the most capable versions of the virus yet at evading immunity from previous infections and vaccines. Both variants have mutations in their spike proteins that are different enough from earlier versions of the virus that they are able to dodge some antibodies.

Waves of infection — and the subsequent immunity that comes with them — vary across countries and make for imperfect comparisons. Vaccination rates also vary. But in places where BA.4 and BA.5 have been dominant for weeks or months, the subvariants have caused increases in cases and hospitalizations, despite some population immunity from previous waves

BA.5 causes more severe disease

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Science and human progress

There is very little that we don't currently understand about the laws of physics.  The so-called "Standard Model" can explain almost everything.  I have to admire the brilliance of the people who figured this stuff out because to understand anything more than in general terms requires very many pages of high-level mathematics.

It is not perfect.  Both the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics are incomplete theories.  They don't agree perfectly with each other and they can't explain what happened during the first nanosecond of the Big Bang.  We would need a Quantum Theory of Gravity that we don't have yet.  We don't know yet what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are, although we have some theories.

Some things we might never know.  Subatomic particles behave like waves on a vast ocean.  We may never know what the ocean is made of because it sits beneath our reality.  It is likely beyond our reach.  

But in terms of what makes spaceships travel the path they do, how computers compute, and why socks stick to your clothes when you take them out of the dryer, we understand all that stuff perfectly.  

So besides cosmology and particle physics, what is left to discover?   

1.  We will never have faster than light travel.  It would be a miracle and a monumental and dangerous undertaking if we could reach 10% the speed of light.   Even 1% of the speed of light would be amazing.

2. Our computing technology will soon run into physical limitations where we just can't make the circuits any smaller.  The next step would be light-based circuitry, but the technology is not yet even close.  People make pie-in-the-sky claims about Quantum computers that are a very long way off.  So it seems likely that the advancement in computer technology will slow down in about a decade.  Maybe the next big breakthrough would come from software.

3.  For seventy years people have been predicting that nuclear fusion power is just 30 years away.  They said the same thing 30 years ago.  It turns out that nuclear fusion power is very hard to do and only remotely possible on a massive scale requiring at least billions of dollars to build.  We should have it by the year 2100, which is a good thing because we are going to start running out of some fossil fuels long before then.  We need more nuclear fission plans, and we are predicted to get more in about a decade, but it would be difficult to build enough to power the world.

4.  Renewables are going to be somewhat of a bust.  They are useful on a limited scale, but they require too much land and too much raw material and resources to power the world.

5.  We are seeing advances in nanomaterials that could change the world.  The first graphene batteries are being developed.  This could have a major impact on electric vehicles.

6.  I think that we will see huge advances in biotechnology, not only in our understanding of biology and medicine but in the ability to manipulate genetic code for useful purposes.  We could program microbes to make medicines and materials that we need.  We might be able to cure diseases, improve our health, and increase our lifespans.  Biotechnology could be the next big thing.

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