Mold for dinner

An article about gene editing certain molds that we already eat, or use, to make them tastier:

 It’s hearty, it’s meaty, it’s mold

Hacking the genome of fungi for smart foods of the future ....

In their recent paper, publishing on March 14 in Nature Communications, Hill-Maini and colleagues at UC Berkeley, the Joint BioEnergy Institute, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability studied a multicellular fungus called Aspergillus oryzae, also known as koji mold, that has been used in East Asia to ferment starches into sake, soy sauce, and miso for centuries. First, the team used CRISPR-Cas9 to develop a gene editing system that can make consistent and reproducible changes to the koji mold genome. Once they had established a toolkit of edits, they applied their system to make modifications that elevate the mold as a food source. First, Hill-Maini focused on boosting the mold’s production of heme – an iron-based molecule which is found in many lifeforms but is most abundant in animal tissue, giving meat its color and distinctive flavor. (A synthetically produced plant-derived heme is also what gives the Impossible Burger its meat-duping properties.) Next, the team punched up production of ergothioneine, an antioxidant only found in fungi that is associated with cardiovascular health benefits.  

After these changes, the once-white fungi grew red. With minimal preparation – removing excess water and grinding – the harvested fungi could be shaped into a patty, then fried into a tempting-looking burger.

Hill-Maini’s next objective is to make the fungi even more appealing by tuning the genes that control the mold’s texture. “We think that there's a lot of room to explore texture by varying the fiber-like morphology of the cells. So, we might be able to program the structure of the lot fibers to be longer which would give a more meat-like experience. And then we can think about boosting lipid composition for mouth feel and further nutrition,” said Hill-Maini, who was a Fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley during the study. “I'm really excited about how can we further look at the fungus and, you know, tinker with its structure and metabolism for food.”

I have no problem with this...

Americans and their drugs, again

Here's another chapter in "American capitalism seems particularly prone to encouraging the rapid spread of illicit drugs for recreational use":

A national survey of more than 2,000 high school seniors across the country found that more than 11% used a drug called delta-8 THC in the past year.

The psychoactive compound is derived from hemp, and often called "diet weed' or "weed lite." It's milder than its cousin, delta-9 THC, the main intoxicant in marijuana, but has similar effects on the brain and the body.

The percentage of teens using the drug is higher in the 19 states with no regulations around the compound and in states where marijuana has not been legalized....

Products containing delta-8 began to be marketed after the 2018 Agricultural Improvement Act (commonly known as the Farm Bill) included a provision legalizing the sale of hemp-derived cannabis products, containing less than 0.3% of delta-9 THC. This led to the "de facto legalization" of hemp-derived psychoactive delta-8 products," writes Johnson.

But the problem is the lack of oversight around delta-8 products – often sold as edibles or vapes – in many states, says Johnson.

"What is sold is unregulated," she says. "In most states we don't know the potency [of the drug]."

Delta-8 products are made by processing hemp-derived CBD, which can concentrate the drug, she adds. "We're getting higher concentrations of it than we would have ever got in an actual cannabis plant."

Preliminary studies show users reporting adverse health effects, including "cough, rapid heart rate, paranoia, anxiety, breathing problems and seizure," says Johnson.

 

 

 

 

Big (animal) problem

Well, I didn't know this:

Thailand's national animal has become a national problem, as the country deals with an increasing number of deadly encounters between elephants and humans.

Once on the brink of extinction, elephant numbers have now rebounded.

They increased from an estimated 3,000 in 2018 to more than 4,400 in March 2023, according to the latest survey.

But the expansion in numbers has also resulted in more human deaths.

In the same period, 137 people were killed by elephants across Thailand. The Department of National Parks said 12 people have already been killed by elephants this year.

 

Why aren't certain factors in the US Presidential election apparently being reflected in polling?

The current puzzle (beyond the meta puzzle as to why anyone in their right mind has ever voted for him) is that there are clearly certain current factors which should be reflected in Trump's polling, but for some reason they aren't there yet: 

*  I think (I'm having trouble finding the exact figure quickly - thanks Google :( ) the Haley primary vote ran on average at about 30%, for a candidate who had taken to sounding pretty much like a "never Trumper".  (Given the jellyback that it takes to be a Republican politician these days, whether that will hold is an open question.)    

*  Trump's takeover of the RNC and immediately sacking a bunch of people must surely create animosity amongst some formerly loyal and influential party members.

*  Trump is clearly making more verbal fumbles in his speeches than before, and appearing "low energy" at times.  His "greatest hits" style of rambling before cultists (including reverting to patently childish insult) for an hour already feels old, and its wildly unlikely that he is going to change.   

On the Biden side, you have the nutty Left who are swearing they won't vote for him over Israel/Gaza, preferring to sit it out and risk having a president about 300% worse on the issue.  But really, I get the impression that this group is much louder than its actual numbers - much like the whining Bernie Sanders bros who didn't end up being all that influential.

I think - and this is just a hunch - that the anti-Trump wing of the Republicans must be larger, and knows to be discrete if they don't want to be harassed by family and friends - and as such should be much more influential in the final election vote.

But - this doesn't seem to be being reflected in polling.

I wonder why?

Update:  here's an article (not from Nate Silver) looking at the uncertainties in polling at this stage of election cycles.  It's pretty good.

Incidentally, I remain confident that Trump won't win - not only will the "anti Trump" faction of Republicans be important, continuing court battles will be a constant distraction for his campaigning, and if the polling remains close before the election, Democrat motivation (particularly amongst women) to prevent his return should be very high.

Off to the B Ark with these "you too can get rich with AI Youtube content" spammers

There is an annoying quasi-industry of content creators who have set themselves up as content creation "get rich quick" advisers on Youtube and Twitter.

The worst of these are those who claim you can make a lot of money by setting up "faceless" Youtube videos using AI to generate the script (and much of the imagery), and how to "spam" Youtube with such content to make the algorithm push it.   (Typically, you see a thread on Twitter about this, with 50 spammy "great idea, thanks for the advice" comments following.)

The thing is, Youtube content with AI generated content is awful and a waste of everyone's time.   It's recognizable almost instantly, and I find it very hard to believe that most viewers continue watching it once they cotton on that the bland commentary is from ChatGPT or its ilk.  

This is my "the internet has taken an unexpected turn for the worse" bleat for today.....

 

Kidnapping yourself doesn't work in Singapore

Not a very bright scheme, but with some added twists and more incompetent police force, could make a good basis for a movie?  (Or has this been done?   I suspect it has, but can't think of any specific movie.)

SINGAPORE: A 33-year-old man who allegedly faked his own kidnapping to recoup his gambling debts was charged in court on Monday (Mar 11) with attempting to cheat his aunt.

Liu Changjian, a Chinese national, is accused of trying to trick Madam Liu Ya Bo into paying a ransom of 30,000 yuan (US$4,170) for his release.

He had sent threatening messages to his aunt last week while pretending to be his captor, the police said in a news release.

Liu was at the Marina Bay Sands Casino on Mar 7 and Mar 8 when he put his plan in motion, according to court documents.

He pleaded not guilty and will next appear in court for a pre-trial conference on Mar 25.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Liu entered Singapore on Mar 1 as a tourist. He was supposed to return to China on Mar 6 but did not do so, the police said.

His aunt, who was in China, then received text messages through WeChat from an unknown person seeking a ransom of 30,000 yuan for Liu’s release. This person forwarded a photo of Liu’s travel document as proof.

When she alerted Liu’s father to the matter, the older man – who was also in China – called the Singapore Police Force (SPF) for help on the evening of Mar 9.

Officers from the Central Police Division conducted "extensive searches and investigations" to locate Liu, said SPF.

They found him "safe and sound" in the Marina Bay area within three hours of receiving the call for assistance.

Further investigations revealed that he had gambling debts of between S$20,000 and S$30,000, the police said.

He then staged his kidnapping and sent threatening messages to his aunt in hopes of receiving the ransom. However, it was not paid to him or anyone else.

From that account, it seems the "ransom" is sought was only a fraction of his actual gambling debt.  So there is that.

Also, given the many, many surveillance cameras in Singapore, the police can very likely easily tell whether someone is in the company of a kidnapper very quickly.

 

A witty exchange

I say that while not even having seen Memento:

 

Sounds significant

From the Washington Post:

 Adults who use marijuana daily are 25 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those who don’t use it, according to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association and funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The study also found a 42 percent increased likelihood of stroke linked to daily marijuana (cannabis) use.

The findings were based on data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 through 2020 from 434,104 U.S. residents, ages 18 to 74, considered a representative sample of the population. Of the participants, 4 percent were daily cannabis users and 7 percent were nondaily, using it about five days a month.

Relevant information

Hey, I'm in the target audience for this lengthy explanation of increasing night time urination:

Keep waking in the middle of the night to pee? Here’s why – and what to do about it 

It's more detailed than your average discussion of the topic.

Another chicken sauce recipe noted

Here's another simple cream sauce to eat with pan fried breast fillet (although, as this recipe suggests, I normally slice through the fillet to make them a more uniform thickness):  creamy pesto chicken.

In case link rot gets to it:  simply pan fry the seasoned fillets in some olive oil until done, take out and fry a few cloves of garlic (or cheat and use some from the jar - some brands of chopped garlic aren't too bad, but I don't use the cheapest that come from China) and a punnet of halved grape tomatoes.  When the tomatoes are getting a bit squishy, put in 1/4 cup of pesto and 1/2 cup of cream, stir and put the fillets back in to warm up.

Nice.

A couple of recent Biden tweets

On the home front (a modern medicine appreciation post)

My wife had a hip replacement operation a couple of days ago, and although still in hospital, she's doing pretty well and will almost certainly be back home over the weekend.

She had been suffering from an arthritic (right) hip for a good (I would say) 3 years, although the way the pain radiated down the front of the leg, rather than come from the hip itself, it wasn't obvious from the start what the problem was.   X rays confirmed arthritic changes in the hip, and then there was a 12 month wait while our upgraded private health insurance kicked in, but now it's done.

In the big picture, this is one of those things where you have to have lived long enough to fully appreciate how much the world has improved.   According to this report*, this operation was performed over 50,000 times in Australia last year - a number I found surprisingly high - but that's a lot of people getting relief from some pretty serious pain and (usually) being restored to normal mobility each year. 

All this for an operation which just wasn't available when I was a kid.   (It seems it really only started being done in the late 1960's, and became more widespread over the next couple of decades.)    

One other thing that surprised me about it was the way they get patients "mobilised" and on their feet within a mere 2 to 3 hours from the operation.   As I expected, this is a well researched topic - that early mobilisation helps - but I wonder who first decided to test this.  I would bet that there was some time, probably when I was a kid (but maybe earlier), when doctors and nurses would have thought that it was a ridiculous idea to interfere with bed rest and get bodies moving so soon after major surgery.  But someone must have tried it, and kept pushing the timing earlier and earlier, and found it helped.  Did other nurses think that the pioneers in pushing for earlier and earlier mobilisation were cruel?    (I will look more into the history of this soon).

Anyway, all's well that end's well - assuming no problems arise over the next few weeks!

*  Maybe COVID delays account for some of this figure?  Here's the full paragraph:

As devices now last longer, they are going into younger people and the average age of acquiring a device is now 66. In the past decade, joint replacement became more popular. There were 51,894 hip replacements last year, which was a 95 per cent increase on 2002. Knee replacements increased 139 per cent over the past decade to 67,742 in 2022.

Indefensible

The recent article in The Guardian about the wildly weird way a retired judge decided to conduct himself is good reading:

 After Lehrmann’s aborted trial, questions arose regarding the conduct of the police, the prosecutor and some politicians. Allegations and counter-allegations. An independent inquiry was the only way to get to the truth. A retired judge, Sofronoff, was appointed.

But things went awry straight away. A connection was made between Sofronoff and a “conservative columnist” at the Australian, Janet Albrechtsen. Albrechtsen had written many, many articles attacking the prosecution of Lehrmann as political and severely criticising Drumgold. It was clear that Albrechtsen had taken a position on the very matters which Sofronoff was supposed to be examining. They went to lunch together in Brisbane and commenced personal contact relating to Sofronoff’s inquiry.

Sofronoff has defended this, saying he was following a practice that commissioners make direct personal contact with the press. Sofronoff might think that, but no lawyer I know agrees with him. Everyone has been shocked by his conduct.

But even so there are varying degrees of personal contact. The constant contact between Sofronoff and Albrechtsen, as set out in the judgment, was pretty striking. It started even before the inquiry opened. It continued with a surprising intensity. Sofronoff and Albrechtsen shared more than 50 telephone calls for over 7.5 hours. They exchanged a huge number of text messages, many in a single day. Some emails were sent “secretively” to a private email address. Much of the traffic was initiated by Sofronoff. Meanwhile, Albrechtsen continued banging out negative articles about Drumgold on a daily basis.

The content of their contact was equally surprising. Even before the hearings started, Sofronoff sent Albrechtsen parts of the evidence with comments critical of Drumgold. During the public hearing, Albrechtsen even proposed to Sofronoff that he put particular questions to a witness – and Sofronoff agreed!

It gets worse. During the crucial phase during which Sofronoff was drafting his report, he was actually sending successive versions to Albrechtsen. Changes were made, but Kaye did not make a finding as to why the changes were made or who suggested them. We do know, however, that Sofronoff’s final report closely matched Albrechtsen’s anti-Drumgold narrative. Kaye found it would be reasonable to think that Sofronoff was under Albrechtsen’s “influence”. 

Lawyers can act very, very stupidly at times...

Update:   Oddly, Bernard Keane gives a quasi-defence of Albrechtsen which is more about admiring her ability as a quasi-journalist to entrench herself so deeply with a source!:

Albrechtsen was, clearly, a player in this inquiry, not a journalist. Nonetheless, she was doing her job of securing access to someone crucial to the issue she was covering. To obtain such high-level access to someone at the very heart of one of the biggest stories of the day was, bluntly, great journalism. I’d wager many journalists around the country can only envy the extent to which she got access to the head of a major inquiry. You can rebuke the use to which she put that access but still marvel that she obtained it.

But on the retired judge, he agrees it is bizarre:

The behaviour of Walter Sofronoff during the inquiry was, we now know, quite extraordinary — possibly unprecedented. It’s hard to recall any inquiry or royal commission in modern times that has been so characterised by such inappropriate contact between the inquiry head and a third party — let alone a member of the media engaged in campaigning directly on the issues being contested by that inquiry. Sofronoff’s justification that it was appropriate for him to have contact with the media doesn’t even come close to covering the sheer volume and time he dedicated to texting and speaking to Albrechtsen, lunching with her, sharing documents and evidence with her and, possibly, obtaining her input to drafts of his report....

Sofronoff, if he seriously thought part of his job was relations with the media — and that’s the first time I’ve heard the head of a major inquiry claim that — had the responsibility of appropriately managing those relations to the benefit of his inquiry, not giving privileged access and, potentially, a drafting role, to one member of the media.

I find it strange that Keane can find any degree of excuse making for Albrechtsen when he writes this as the big problem:

The problem is not with Albrechtsen, engaged in doing her job, so much as her employer. News Corp was — and is — engaged in a campaign of merciless character assassination of Brittany Higgins. It is devoted to the task of exemplary punishment of her for the damage she inflicted on the Liberal party — along with Liberal MPs and senators who continue to pursue her.

But Albrechtsen is one of the key assassins of Higgins.

I think Keane at times just likes to have eccentric takes for the fun of them.

Of course

Musk is greedy/cynical/dumb (take your pick) enough to plough a huge chunk of his wealth towards getting Trump elected.  I've been wondering if he'll post that appeal bond for him as well.  The NYT reports:

Donald Trump, who is urgently seeking a cash infusion to aid his presidential campaign, met on Sunday in Palm Beach, Fla., with Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, and a few wealthy Republican donors, according to three people briefed on the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion.
Mr. Trump and his team are working to find additional major donors to shore up his finances as he heads into an expected general election against President Biden. Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Musk to allies and hopes to have a one-on-one meeting with the billionaire soon, according to a person who has discussed the matter with Mr. Trump.  

Claude is causing a stir

Yesterday, it was this:

From the website she linked to:

Then this morning, this story about its language capacity seems a tad, um, scarily impressive?:

AUKUS doubts

I am easily convinced by the defence analysts who are saying there is a very big chance the AUKUS deal will just fall apart. 

I hate to say it, but Tony Abbott's preference was probably right - we should have gone into a collaboration with the Japanese to buy their submarines.

Beware the rays

I'm a bit surprised about the numbers:

Queensland Health data shows 43 people were admitted to hospitals across the state with stingray injuries in 2023.

That number has increased from 29 admissions in 2022.

Townsville Hospital and Health Service said its emergency department had treated six confirmed stingray injuries and another six suspected stings in the 12 months to January 2024.

Deaths from stingrays are extremely rare.

Most famously, wildlife icon Steve Irwin was killed in 2006 after a barb pierced his chest.

James Cook University stingray researcher Jaelen Myers said stingrays used their barbed tails as a defence mechanism.

"They don't want to be aggressive toward us in any way – they're very gentle-natured, they just want to mind their own business," she said.

"When they bury in the sediment, which a lot of the time they do, they're hard to see.

"If you're walking around at the beach and you step on one, then it's going to try to get away from you because it's freaked out and it might lash its tail out."

In past years, I had noticed quite a lot of small stingrays in the Noosa River, and close to the swimming area frequented by kids (and their parents.)   Basically, there just seem to be a lot more stingrays around South East Queensland now than when I was a kid. 

But I hadn't really realised that (apparently) even small ones can cause a wound requiring hospitalisation.

 

Why is "non-binary" a thing?

This question arises in my mind (again) while reading a Guardian piece on Hannah Gadsby, which consistently uses the PC approved "they" and "their" pronouns.

The other insistently "non-binary" person I read occasionally is the grievance whirlpool Sandy O'Sullivan (on Twitter), who always seems to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  

Oh, and some female soccer person was in the news recently for "coming out" as non-binary.

What seems very, very clear, is that, not so long ago, these women could simply have called themselves "butch lesbian" (or, if they felt a vague interest in men sexually) "butch bi woman", I suppose.  Everyone would understand that this was an apt descriptor.  That is, a woman sexually attracted to other women, who presents physically (usually deliberately, at least to some degree, in terms of fashion and physicality) as somewhat masculinised, and who likely has a somewhat "non [gender] traditional" mix of interests.  

In other words, everyone would assume that she felt like neither a "typical" female or male.  

It's clear that this can come with the territory of same sex attraction - although everyone also knows that that there can be gay women (and men) who share most stereotypical gender interests - guys only attracted sexually to men but who are heavily interested in cars and motor sports and don't care for the other type of "drag" at all, for example.

Maybe you could say that "non binary" women don't want to use "butch" as a self descriptor because it could be used an insult when it first started being commonly used.  But then, queer people are supposed to be happy about how they've "reclaimed" insult and use such terms with semi ironic pride.   I mean, seriously, if "Dykes on Bikes" has been no insult for the last (I dunno?) 30 years, surely the same can be said about "butch".  

Oh look - here's a painfully long Wiki entry on the use of "butch" and "femme" categories for lesbians.

The point I am trying to make is that it's been obvious for a long, long time that some people (be they gay, bisexual, or even straight) don't feel as if they have the "typical" gender interests, and that early feminism responded to this by critiquing overly conservative attitudes as to what it meant to "act like a real woman" (or man). 

Just thinking out loud here, because I feel there are more important things to spend time reading up on, the new thing in the "gender discourse" seems to be an implicit surrender to conservative attitudes of "this is what it takes to be a 'real' man or woman", and an insistence that not feeling like being able to "fit in" to either category deserves it's own special self identity (and the basis of great insult if people don't share this form of analysis -  including using language in a way it has not been used before.)  

As such, I find it hard to credit that "non-binary" is anything other than an exercise in category building of no use other than attention seeking, and even grievance-mongering.    

Update:  Here's the nonbinary soccer player talking, and SBS trying to explain:

Non-binary refers to people who do not relate to being either exclusively male or female.

Someone who is non-binary may feel like a mixture, somewhere in between the two, or may feel that they have no gender at all.

In a video shared by Adelaide United and Pride Cup, Wilson said their perception of gender "does not fit" the traditional definitions of man or woman. 

[Well, exactly the same as a butch lesbian or fem man doesn't "fit" traditional definition.]

"For me personally, I don't really feel like I'm anywhere near that; I feel like I'm separate from it," Wilson said.

"Other non-binary people may feel between, or they may feel a bit of both, or they may have that fluidity where they flow (between).

"It's really important to understand that every non-binary person experiences this differently and they will all have their own stories and they will all feel it some way differently."

 Wilson, who uses they/them pronouns, said it is important to use the correct pronouns when speaking to people.

"Not every non-binary person is going to use they/them, they might have no preference with pronouns, they might use any.

"It's a really important thing; you don't realise how much of a difference it makes.

"I didn't realise, but finally hearing people refer to me as they/them is this phenomenal, euphoric feeling."

Seems an odd thing to get "a euphoric feeling" about, when it's basically just getting people to conform to your adoption of an invented category that was considered unnecessary until (more or less) yesterday. 

I think it's possible that this is going to go away as a thing in due course.   

Update 2:  I feel a bit guilty in that I once speculated that in trying to understand "transgender", we might be better off allowing for a third category of gender following roughly the tribal idea of "two spirit" people who inevitably feel they are a combination of the two gender "spirits".   If I have some sympathy to people in a traditional quasi-religious system calling themselves "third gender", why should I object to your (typically dismissive of religious belief) modern woman or man using "non-binary" as very similar category?   

I feel there is a difference here, somehow, but have yet to put my finger on it!

A cute idea

A witty start

From the Washington Post review of Dune (part 2):

Imagine a world devoid of color or warmth, foundering amid environmental catastrophe and tribal factions that threaten to bring humanity to the edge of fatal fanaticism.

But enough about election-year politics. Let’s talk about “Dune: Part Two.”

The complaint is entirely legitimate

I know, left wing pundits (on Twitter, at least)  have taken to acting like Right wing pundits in the way they've been claiming too readily for the past 6 months that Trump's verbal stumbles are signs of dementia or other mental health issues.

However, the clips from this recent Trump speech do, to my mind, indicate something is genuinely "up", although personally I would guess that being hyped up on some drug or other might be the most likely explanation.  Does he travel with Junior, because I have a hunch cocaine would explain a lot...

What is 100% clear, however, is that if Biden abandoned a sentence midway with an "..…..ahhh", the NYT and other MSM would be promoting it as a serious, serious reason to be panicked over his capacity to be President.

The double standard is real.

Mercury in tuna still a thing for some time yet

The New York Times reports:

In the 1960s and 1970s, the horrors of mercury poisoning in Japan and elsewhere shocked the world into curbing releases of the toxic metal. Since then, mercury pollution from human activities, like burning coal and mining, has declined in many parts of the world.

But when a team of French researchers analyzed thousands of tuna samples from 1971 to 2022, they found that mercury levels in the fish remained virtually unchanged.

That’s most likely because “legacy” mercury that has accumulated deep in the ocean is circulating into shallower depths where tuna swim and feed, the researchers posit in a study published this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Using modeling, they predicted that, even with the most stringent mercury regulations, it would take an additional 10 to 25 years for mercury concentrations to start falling in the ocean. Drops in mercury in tuna would follow only decades after that.

 

Have we seen peak gaming?

I noticed this story on NPR:

Close to 1 in 5 American gamers identify as LGBTQ+, according to new research from GLAAD. But LGBTQ+ gamers often face harassment in gaming communities and games with voice chats that anybody can join — common in multiplayer, team-based games.

The research indicates that 52% of LGBTQ+ gamers faced harassment while playing online, and 42% have avoided a game due to anticipated harassment.

"It's difficult when you're trans to hop on voice chat with random people because you open yourself up to criticism or potential harassment," said Veronica Ripley, also known as Nikatine, a full-time Twitch streamer and founder of the Discord community Transmission Gaming for trans gamers.

I guess this feels not so surprising:  it kind of aligns with my expectation that people who identify as queer are likely overrepresented in the cosplay community.  As explained further in that NPR story:

"A lot of folks in our community use video gaming to see that representation and want to see themselves in characters," said Ray Lancione, president of Qweerty Gamers, streamer, and former video game community manager. "Our community [uses] it to find each other ... finding people that are like-minded or similar sexualities, genders."

But it all makes me wonder, too: have we already reached "peak gaming"?   We always seem to be hearing of smaller games companies winding up, and bigger companies laying off staff.  And it feels like a long time since there seemed to be much excitement about forthcoming games.   (Not that I go looking for game trailers or anything.  And also, it does seem that the odd phenomena of Twitch streaming of game play is still very popular - but I wonder if that phenomena itself makes people feel less need to play the game themselves?)   I also wonder whether the rise in queer presence make bro boys question their own interest in gaming?   

This is not an important topic, but just wondering.  

Buzzing away Alzheimers?

This is a rather odd science story:

 How 40Hz sensory gamma rhythm stimulation clears amyloid in Alzheimer's mice

Studies at MIT and elsewhere are producing mounting evidence that light flickering and sound clicking at the gamma brain rhythm frequency of 40 Hz can reduce Alzheimer's disease (AD) progression and treat symptoms in human volunteers as well as lab mice.

In a new study in Nature using a mouse model of the disease, researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory of MIT reveal a key mechanism that may contribute to these beneficial effects: clearance of amyloid proteins, a hallmark of AD pathology, via the brain's glymphatic system, a recently discovered "plumbing" network parallel to the brain's blood vessels.

"Ever since we published our first results in 2016, people have asked me how does it work? Why 40 Hz? Why not some other frequency?" said study senior author Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience and director of The Picower Institute and MIT's Aging Brain Initiative.

"These are indeed very important questions we have worked very hard in the lab to address."

The new paper describes a series of experiments, led by Mitch Murdock when he was a Brain and Cognitive Sciences doctoral student at MIT, showing that when sensory gamma stimulation increases 40 Hz power and synchrony in the brains of mice, that prompts a particular type of neuron to release peptides.

The study results further suggest that those short protein signals then drive specific processes that promote increased amyloid clearance via the glymphatic system.

I just had a look around on the web to see if anyone has produced a page showing what a 40hz light looks like, but the problem is if your screen is 60hz you can't.  (A fancier phone than mine with adjustable Hz rate should make it easy, though.)  

Still, it's kind of hard to believe that this works, but it appears to on mice at least.   

 

 

This seems odd

I don't understand the point of ASIO making this announcement (of a retired politician who had been "cultivated" by foreign spies) without naming him.  Or perhaps more to the point, I don't understand how ASIO would think they can say this without causing political intrigue that will fester away for some time.

Here is what some Labor people are saying:

Defence Minister Richard Marles said there may have been good reasons not to name the retired politician.

"I respect what ASIO have done here in terms of putting this story into the public domain but also maintaining the confidentiality of the facts around this, and there could be a whole lot of reasons why that should happen," he said.

"We've got among the best agencies in the world dealing with this, the specific facts which underlie this scenario for good reason are not in the public domain."

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, a cabinet minister in the Albanese government, said she was not aware of who the compromised politician was and only knew what had been publicly reported.

She said it was concerning to think she may have worked alongside the politician, but it was not for her to know who it was.

"I think that's really a matter for the ASIO boss. I imagine there's a reason they haven't named the person or taken further action, I think the point is to give a public warning this is a risk," Ms Plibersek told Sky News.

"I have to say anybody who works with foreign agents of influence to pass on information to a foreign government is a traitor."

I agree with the view that the Coalition's reaction seems to indicate that they are pretty confident it's not one of their retired politicians, but I would add that this is probably nothing to be too proud of, in that what self-respecting foreign power would think one of their useless retired pollies is worth cultivating?  :)

 

Surely Google has to act on its rapid reputation decline, soon?

It seems that for a good few months now I am forever reading about how bad Google search has become, and how the company is freely fiddling with functionality (such as dropping "news" as a category in search is a recent experiment for some users, I hear).   All with apparently zero concern as to how users feel about the changes.

This latest story in the Washington Post, for example:

People searching Google for airline contact information when they have a problem occasionally find bogus customer service phone numbers listed at or near the top of Google.

If you call, crooks posing as airline reps try to persuade you to pay to rebook a flight or another task. Your money goes poof.

No one knows how often this scam happens. But this airline customer service misdirection is common knowledge in the travel industry and among people who know Google.

In researching this article, I found an apparent scam number highlighted by Google when I searched “JetBlue contact customer support.”

Google has the power to ensure that it shows the correct airline contact information, according to three experts in the inner workings of web searches. In their view, Google chooses not to fix the problem.

I don't really understand how Google can ignore the outcry.

 

On a musical note

I only recently noticed (via Youtube) Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox (it's been around for 10 years now), and while I'm not always in the mood to listen to modern songs transformed into an alternative, older style, some entries really hit the spot.   (It is also easy to imagine going to a concert by them as being a very enjoyable night out for which the word "sophisticated" would seem apt.)

I really like the minimalist approach to the edit free videos, too, and wonder about how many takes the average song needs.

Anyhow, I will post two that I was watching last night, and liked a lot.   The first makes a melodramatic song fun:

 

The second one features a gay American Chinese guy (Kenton Chen) who seems to have a diverse career in LA as an actor and singer in various groupings.  As many people say in the comments (it has 38,000 - all of them swooning over the performance, and the video has had 35 million views) his voice is just wonderful.  I said to my daughter it's very "clean" - by which I meant precise, I guess.  She said "so in tune" which I suppose is a more accurate way of putting it:

 

There are other videos of him (appearing much "gayer") including a funk style cover of Hey Jude which I thought was pretty good, actually. (I'm not the biggest fan of the original.) But in every song, his vocal performance is just so good I feel he ought to be more famous.

Hope this is true

Funniest comment following:

I'm not sure how I feel about this!

Hmmm:

Reddit strikes $60M deal allowing Google to train AI models on its posts

On a related matter, for some reason as I walking between my car and my office this morning, I had an idle thought about how fear of a smarter-than-any- human Artificial General Intelligence that will destroy humanity might have an analogue with the start of fear of God at the very beginning of theism?   If so, are we going to develop an idea of sacrifices to keep AGI on side?   What type of sacrifice might we now perceive a silicon AGI to desire?

[Really, this is a very "thoughts in the shower" line of thinking - but I was fully clothed at the time.]

Update:  It has since occurred to me that it would be funny if the AGI demands that Elon Musk be thrown in a volcano as an act of appeasement.  Can't say I would be too upset.

I can only imagine how irritating this would be...

A somewhat amusing account about what it was like for one audience member at a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney:

The sound of the 80,000-strong crowd were deafening as Swift finally took to the stage for our show. It was adulation bordering on hysteria: Phones held aloft (to capture stunning footage of … the phones held up in front of them), young fans crying, thunderous applause.

But, as Swift began her opening song, the moody ballad Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, one voice in our area rose above the masses.

A fan in the row behind me, screaming every. single. lyric in a voice that could only be described as heavily indebted to the vocal stylings of Cannibal Corpse singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher.

And on it went, for the full three-and-a-half hour show. Our own personal death metal concert (Taylor’s Version). And before you come for me for yucking some poor fan’s yum, I implore you to watch the video at the top of this story. That was the sound we were dealing with for the whole show.

What was weirdest was that these demonic screams were the loudest not during the show’s bigger, singalong production numbers – undeniable bangers like Shake It Off or Ready for It that had every man woman and child singing the lyrics back at Taylor– but during the quiet, sparse piano ballads like My Tears Ricochet or the ironically named Tolerate It.

Nothing but the sound of Taylor, her piano, and a deranged gremlin.

For one brief, beautiful song, death metal banshee took a short break, perhaps to use the bathroom or have emergency vocal chord surgery.

It was then that I could enjoy the concert as it was intended: Cheering fans, singalongs, but also a clearly audible Taylor Swift.

Hearing Taylor Swift sing a Taylor Swift concert – imagine that!

And it seems the fans exhibiting this behaviour are well aware of just how irritating – if not concert-ruining – their screams are to those around them.

Rather than being filmed by other annoyed fans, these concert caterwaulers are posting their efforts on social media themselves, usually with captions joking that they sure feel sorry for anyone unlucky enough to be sat near them. Indeed – if only there was a solution to this seemingly unfixable problem!

 How did he manage to not tell her to shut up, at least after the first 30 minutes....

British decline, illustrated

I really was put off that Bald and Bankrupt guy on Youtube when he did a trip through Vietnam, and seemed to act quite obnoxiously to the locals.   (I figure that he is OK with interacting with locals when he knows some of the language - but when he knows none of it, he's a wisecracking "ugly" tourist.)   He has also always been too much on the "lads being lads" side of things, and I forget who did an explanation about his seedy side. 

However, he has lately taken to putting some videos about visits to some decrepit towns of Britain, and I'm there for that kind of content!   They really, really make the country look like a lost cause.  (Actually, there is another British vlogger who has been putting similar content, visiting "high streets" in many British towns, and decrepit residential areas, and showing how depressing they look.)   

Also, I sometimes watch videos where British migrants (or even tourists) talk about Australia and what it's like to live or visit here, and I have noticed that the great majority of the comments from British viewers are along the lines of "oh my God, it makes Britain look like a third world country".     

So, if you want to see some very awful parts of Britain (which, incidentally, seem extremely easy to find) have a look at this video:

 

To be fair, although I don't want to be, some people in comments after the video point out that you can find decrepit areas in many European cities (and someone said even in Vancouver!)     But there are aspects to the British decline that  are very self-inflicted, and I think that's what makes it "special" (in a bad way).   And also, make me feel how very lucky Australia is to never have developed quite the same level of urban decay, virtually anywhere (except for some smaller outback towns, I guess).

The promising blue pill

I remain a bit puzzled about why the first stories about this, which appeared at the end of 2021 (as a result of a different study), did not seem to result in a plethora of jokes on talk shows or elsewhere.   But here's a detailed article in the Washington Post about a new study with similar results:

Why Viagra has been linked with better brain health

One bit:

The findings are based on a massive study of nearly 270,000 middle-aged men in Britain. Researchers at University College London used electronic medical records to track the health of the men, who were all 40 or older and had been diagnosed with erectile dysfunction between 2000 and 2017. Each man’s health and prescriptions were tracked for at least a year, although the median follow-up time was 5.1 years.

During the study, 1,119 men in the cohort were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers noticed a distinctive pattern. The men who were prescribed Viagra or a similar drug had an 18 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, compared with men who weren’t given the medication.

The researchers also found an even larger difference in men who appeared to use Viagra more often. Among the highest users, based on total prescriptions, the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s was 44 percent lower. (Men with erectile dysfunction are instructed to only take Viagra before sex, and no more than once a day.)

And yeah, there is a question of causation or correlation, but as the article notes, there is reason to suspect its more than mere correlation.

Update:  well, in more oddball viagra news I just noticed -

A priest in Spain has been arrested for allegedly running a Viagra trafficking operation from his home.

The unnamed clergyman was detained alongside another man on suspicion of selling the medication, as well as "other powerful aphrodisiac substances", according to El Pais.

He was arrested in Spain's western Extremadura region and has appeared in court charged with a criminal offence.

The priest's lawyer told local media the allegations were unfounded.

More "but he's old"

 

Here's a bit of context from the WAPO.

Trust Americans to come up with a new thing to overdose on

I hadn't even heard of the pain relief herb kratom before, but it's causing deaths in Americans:

A Washington Post review of federal and state statistics shows that medical examiners and coroners are increasingly blaming deaths on kratom — it was listed as contributing to or causing at least 4,100 deaths in 44 states and D.C. between 2020 and 2022. The vast majority of those cases involved other drugs in addition to kratom, which is made from the leaves of tropical trees. Still, the kratom-involved deaths account for a small fraction of the more than 300,000 U.S. overdose deaths recorded in those three years.

Dozens of wrongful death lawsuits involving kratom have been filed nationwide — including by Geers’s mother, who in February sued a Nevada retailer. The suits illustrate increased scrutiny of deaths involving products made from kratom, which is banned in six states but remains widely available online and in vape and convenience stores despite health warnings from federal authorities.

Here's a gift link to the Washington Post story.

A bad review noted

You don't often seem to see really bad reviews in The Guardian of theatre that comes from (what might be called) lefty source material, but this is quite a savage one of the musical Rent being staged in Melbourne.

I am not surprised that it sounds like I would really dislike it as a musical, as I was very underwhelmed by the same writer's Tick Tick...Boom which was made into a movie on Netflix.   Yeah, it's sad that he died young and before he could develop more, but still...

They seek it here, they seek it there...

From PhysOrg:

A study recently submitted to The Astronomical Journal continues to search for the elusive Planet Nine (also called Planet X), which is a hypothetical planet that potentially orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system and well beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet, Pluto.

The goal of this study, which is available on the pre-print server arXiv, was to narrow down the possible locations of Planet Nine and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the makeup of our solar system, along with its formation and evolutionary processes....

Dr. Brown tells Universe Today, "This would be the 5th largest planet of our solar system and the only one with a mass between Earth and Uranus. Such planets are common around other stars, and we would suddenly have a chance to study one in our own solar system."

Scientists began hypothesizing the existence of Planet Nine shortly after the discovery of Neptune in 1846, including an 1880 memoir authored by D. Kirkwood and later a 1946 paper authored by American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, who was responsible for discovering Pluto in 1930.

More recent studies include studies from 2016 and 2017 presenting evidence for the existence of Planet Nine, the former of which was co-authored by Dr. Brown.

This most recent study marks the most complete investigation of narrowing down the location of Planet Nine, which Dr. Brown has long-believed exists, telling Universe Today, "There are too many separate signs that Planet Nine is there. The solar system is very difficult to understand without Planet Nine."

He continues by telling Universe Today that "…Planet Nine explains many things about orbits of objects in the outer solar system that would be otherwise unexplainable and would each need some sort of separate explanation."

 

Some very random stuff

*   Hollywood's Edward Zwick (director/producer - and writer?) teased us with tweets about the movie making business for a couple of years, it seemed, while he was writing a book about it.  The book is now released and is getting good reviews.  He also has this interview at the NYT.   He seems a likeable guide to when Hollywood made better movies than it does now.  

You know, one thing that puzzles me a bit about Hollywood is that movies or shows that feature heavily story lines about how awful the acting/production business is - the most recent example that brought this to mind is the series Barry - always seem very convincing, yet the shows are made by Hollywood producers. Every decade we do have movies or TV shows which say "this business is awful and full of awful people", but it doesn't seem to change much regardless.   Isn't that a little odd?

*  I'm old enough to remember when shave gels first came on the market - I would guess the early 1980's? - and I have always liked them for the way they transform.   But I have been using shave soaps for quite a while - they are fun in their own way.  (And a tube of the cheapo Palmolive Lather Shave and a shaving brush is the best for travel shaving.)   

But a certain laziness meant that I have recently starting using gels again, and can now say for sure - Shick's Hydro Gel is better to use than Gillette's equivalent.  

*  Are modern sausages made much saltier than they used to be?  We don't eat a lot at our home, but that is often the impression I get - and I don't buy the cheapest, either.

Generally speaking, buying German style sausages is the best way to go - the brand at Aldi is especially good.  It's the only thing worth preserving about German cuisine, I reckon.

*  I take it as a sign that Elon is having a lot of trouble selling advertising on X/Twitter that my feed has been chock full of advertisements for "toe mushrooms" - nails with fungal infections - for a week or more now.   And it's not just me, I saw someone else say "why am I seeing 50 pics a day of gross toe nails?"

* There's a long, magazine style article from the Washington Post about the losses of Catholicism to Evangelical churches in Brazil - in particular, the isolated parts of the Amazon, where sometimes a priest would only turn up once a year.   All pretty interesting, although I didn't get to the end yet.

Tuck's incredibly shrinking credibility

Well, it was already in the negative range, but now it's in freefall:

 Update:  one of the Right-iest writers at Hot Air attacks Tucker hard.

Powerline calls him "stupid".

PJ Media says he is "wrong".

It's hard to find any right wing outlet that doesn't criticise this pathetic exercise...

Frankenrice

 Well, this is interesting:

Rice has been used as a scaffold to grow beef muscle and fat cells, resulting in an edible, “nutty” rice–beef combo that can be prepared in the same way as normal rice.

The study, published today in Matter¹, uses manufacturing methods similar to those for other cultured meat products, in which animal cells are grown on a scaffold in a laboratory, bathed in a growth medium. Using rice as the scaffold has the benefit of adding nutrition to the rice, with the beef–rice having a slightly higher fat and protein content than standard rice.

The team of South Korean researchers behind the project hopes that the beef–rice will find use as a supplement for food-insecure communities or to feed troops, and will reduce the environmental impact of rearing cattle for beef. “Finding alternative protein sources or making conventional livestock production more efficient is critical,” says Jon Oatley, an animal biotechnologist at Washington State University in Pullman. “It’s probably one of the most important things facing the future of the human race.”

I guess it gets over the "how do we make the texture like real meat" issue with growing a bunch of meat cells in a lab, but it still sounds like an expensive way to increase protein and fats.  And if the rice is sitting in liquid for a week, while cells grow on it, what sort of texture does it end up with?  Mush?  No, according to this, it's harder?   How does that work?

...the researchers found that coating the rice in fish gelatin and the widely used food additive microbial transglutaminase improved cell attachment and growth. After glazing uncooked rice grains with the gelatin–additive mix, the team seeded the grains with bovine muscle and fat cells. Then, the cells sat in the growth medium for around a week.

After the culturing period, Park washed and steamed the beef-infused rice as she would conventional rice. “It was definitely different from regular rice,” she says. “It was more nutty and harder.”

And I'm sceptical about the cost claim:

The team estimates that 1 kilogram of the rice as it’s made now would cost US$2.23, comparable with normal rice ($2.20/kg) and far less than beef ($14.88/kg). And the study estimates that hybrid rice will have a lower emissions footprint than farmed beef.

We will see if this goes anywhere, but I have my doubts!

Too smart to recognise the damage he's causing?

I happened to see that Jon Stewart's reappearance as a (once a week) host of the Daily Show was on YouTube last night, and he put in a disappointing performance.  I agree with most of the takes here:

Yes, he really lost me, and struck me as kinda stupid, when he mocked the answer Biden gave on Gaza at his press conference:  the very answer I praised the other day!  It was in fact another case of editting to hide the big picture - he showed Biden's caution at the start of the answer, while he was clearly thinking how to diplomatically express himself, and painted it as a sign of Biden feebleness.  

Really, that's pretty disgraceful, and Stewart deserves to be attacked for it.

I don't doubt he's smart, but seemingly not smart enough to see the harm he is doing in encouraging cynicism among voters who don't get their preference to see a younger candidate.

Time for some light relief

I thought that this sketch from last week, which was a "cold opener" for an interview Colbert did with director Christopher Nolan, was very witty.  He has pretty great writers:

Why let a lie be repeated so often?

We are at the anniversary of my post saying this, after watching much of Biden's State of the Union address (in which he painted an optimist picture for the USA, and which, economically at least, has been proved correct since then):

But the thing that struck me most is, once again, how utterly stupid the Right wing commentariat looks for their years of claiming Biden is virtually a demented nursing home candidate, all based on brief video edits of no consequence.

As I have complained many times, anyone who has first hand experience of actual dementia decline in a parent, if they are honest, knows that someone with serious issues cannot handle themselves in public speaking in the manner that Biden does. 

But the mainstream media has let the nutjob Right repeat it to itself a million times, and rarely comments how this is pure, offensive, propaganda that, by rights, should remove all credibility on every issue.

And here we are again, with the media frothing about his mental abilities.

AGAIN, so much of this is due to people not watching more than propaganda edits, or mindless media (even mainstream media) repeating of what Right wing propaganda says we should be thinking.   (And then they have the hide to do subsequent reports on "polling indicates voters very worried about Biden's mental health.)

The actual press conference is here, and what is remarkable is:

a.    the screeching, undignified, harassing nature of the press behaviour - by rights he should have walked out until they agreed to ask questions in an orderly fashion;

b.    more importantly, for the purposes of this post, is that  it's from about the 9 minute mark where he takes a completely off the cuff question about the Gaza situation, comes back to the podium, and speaks (off the cuff) in a completely cogent and compassionate and careful manner about what he has been doing and trying to achieve.   This has been completely overwhelmed by the misnaming of a leader - a mistake he been making for decades, according to some tweets I have seen, and which Trump has been doing himself repeatedly, and recently.

It is literally absurd for Right wing pundits to claim this is proof of dementia.   

His answer, as a whole, shows the exact opposite of how it is being portrayed, and it is an appalling failure of the main stream media to be aiding this propaganda rather than attacking it, as the New York Times has been particularly inclined to do (the promotion of propaganda, I mean).  As with "but her emails" and "Hilary is on her death bed" propaganda of 2016, the Right has become so enamoured of telling itself lies and twisting truth into pretzels they just can't stop now.   And MSM helps by not attacking it.

Here's the video: 

 

 

And here are some tweets of note on this: