Drug issues noted

This story on the ABC this Easter weekend seemingly came out of nowhere.  It's on a topic we very rarely hear about:  people who have persistent perception/mental health issues after the use of hallucinogenic drugs:   

Sheree da Costa lost her son Joey to suicide and believes he would still be alive if he hadn't developed hallucinogenic persistent perception disorder (HPPD) as a teenager.

"That was the actual tipping point for Joey," she said.

HPPD results in disturbed vision, where a sufferer may constantly see visual snow, haloes or trails.

Many also experience out-of-body sensations and extreme anxiety.

It's triggered by the use of psychedelic drugs and has been described as the "trip that never ends".

With the use of illegal drugs on the rise and the emergence of psychedelics in the treatment of mental health disorders, there are calls for greater awareness and more research into the condition.

Sheree said her son's experience of HPPD was "a living hell".

Joey developed HPPD after taking a psychedelic drug at the age of 17 when he was in his final year at school, affecting his vision.

"Where school was concerned words were starting the slide off the page so he couldn't study, he couldn't read, and reading was something that he was very good at," she said.

Joey dropped out of school and eventually told his parents, who tried to help as much as they could.

"But to be honest we were in the dark as well until we started to do research of our own," Sheree said.

"Even to us it seemed hopeless because, where do you go? Especially here in Australia."

Ms da Costa said she and Joey often talked about raising awareness about HPPD together.

Now she is advocating on his behalf to call for more research into the condition.

Well, yeah, I knew that some hippy LSD users going nuts and never recovering in California in the 1960's was a real thing (and led to its criminalisation - while others call it a mere "moral panic" that wasn't justified), we all know that in recent years a "pro-psychedelics" push back has been happening.   Yet in this article, we have a couple of researchers (father and daughter, actually) talking about HPPD as a significant issue:

Researcher Anneliese McConnell said HPPD was reported to affect about 5 per cent of hallucinogen users, but she thinks the real numbers are much higher.

"It's not a small population we're talking about," Dr McConnell said.....

Much of the existing research on HPPD is focused on describing the condition.

Psychiatrist Harry McConnell said a lot more research needed to be done into the basic mechanisms of how it occurred, who was at risk and treatments.

He and his daughter Anneliese McConnell — a researcher at the Western Sydney University School of Medicine — have looked into whether HPPD is associated with other disorders such as migraines accompanied by visual auras or tinnitus.

"It's difficult to get funding in this area. I think it's difficult to get funding in a lot of areas related to drug and alcohol use and HPPD is no exception here," he said.

It's seems that while it has been known about for a long time, it's been only gradually getting more attention: 

To get some more detail on prevalence, I'll quote a 2021 review article:

Of the various health issues caused by the steady, worldwide increase in illicit drug use, HPPD is an underreported and still poorly understood condition (UN Office on Drugs Crime, 2019). Sound prevalence rates are lacking, but the DSM-5 suggests that 4.2% of all hallucinogen users experience HPPD-like symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In their literature study, Halpern and Pope (2003) estimate that such symptoms emerge in <5% of all patients treated with LSD-assisted psychotherapy but in up to 50% of polydrug users. Sometimes two subtypes of HPPD are distinguished based on their severity and comorbidity. Type 1 is considered to be the milder variant, where perceptual symptoms are infrequent and barely affect general functioning, with the experiences being predominantly denoted as pleasant (and occasionally as “free trips”). The prognosis is said to be good, with the course often being self-limiting and not requiring professional help (World Health Organization, 2018). Type-2 HPPD, however, is described as causing significant impairment in daily and occupational functioning, while the prognosis is poor, with symptoms lasting up to years or even decades, albeit that large-scale follow-up studies to back this up are scarce (Noushad et al., 2015).

Although it is unknown what proportion of those experiencing HPPD seek professional help, only a small group manages to procure the help they need. This is at least partly due to a lack of knowledge of HPPD among general practitioners and medical specialists. It is widely believed that pharmacological treatment regimens and psychotherapy have little to no effect on HPPD (Lerner et al., 2014c). Since evidence-based treatment guidelines are still to be developed, patients often receive practice-based interventions with off-label medications such as adrenergic agonists, antidepressants, antiepileptics, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, beta blockers, calcium-channel blockers, catechol-o-methyl transferase inhibitors, and opioid receptor antagonists. The evidence for the effects of these treatments is lacking since they have only been described in case reports and open-label treatment studies.

This seems to be another case where my innate leeriness of recreational drug use finds some evidence falling into its lap, so to speak.  

I also find it a bit odd that the ABC seems to be quite open to running cautionary stories about hallucinogens lately.   (Is there some story commissioning producer there who has a relatively conservative attitude to illicit drug use?)  I say this because don't think I ever got around to noting here this story that appeared on 7.30 in February that highlighted psychiatrists who worry that people are getting entirely the wrong impression from the TGA's decision to legalise the use of psilocybin and ecstasy under strict guidelines:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) says people may be getting the wrong impression about the availability of some psychedelic drugs, following an historic 2023 decision to take them off the prohibited drug list.

"There's a definite risk of patients having significantly elevated expectations," says the chair of RANZCP's Psychedelic Steering Group, Professor Richard Harvey.

"Some of the marketing, what we see on the web … is suggestions that these are treatments or substances that everybody should use, that all psychiatrists should be prescribing — there's absolutely not, by any means, the evidence that is the situation."...

The drugs are only available for therapeutic use in conjunction with intensive therapy carried out by authorised practitioners.

7.30 can only confirm two cases of psychedelic drug prescriptions since the TGA's decision came into effect in July last year.

Dr Cassidy says the process was complicated and expensive.

But the information in the story that most caught my eye was this:

Professor Susan Rossell from Swinburne University of Technology says there's a trend across published psilocybin studies.

"About a third seem to have some very positive effects, a third nothing really, and a third do have some negative long-term consequences about the so-called bad trip," she said.

Professor Rossell's team is trying to find out what are the predictors of success.

"We know this intervention is going to be really expensive, it involves a lot of therapy.

"So if we can make some predictions as to who it's going to benefit the most, wouldn't that be the best way forward?"

About a third can have negative long term consequences!   We don't see that talked about much, if at all.    I mean, I get that people who are going to try it are probably doing so as something of a last resort, but nonetheless, her comments indicate that there is still a very significant risk of making their problems worse.  How many treatments are allowed with a risk profile that high?

Anyway, in other odd drug news this Easter, it was surprising to read that the victims of a drug overdoes on the Gold Coast were a group or women in their early 40's - not the typical age range or gender group you expect to be going on a recreational drug binder.  (Well, unless they are rich and doing cocaine.)    But it turns out that the woman who died was a new age eccentric:

Known as a “Shamanic medicine woman” on her social media, Whittaker proudly worked to “build an army of courageous, empowered, soul driven women who are here to create change and make magic”.

Her work revolved around New Age spirituality.

As to the drugs that killed her (and sent her friends to hospital too), it's not yet known for sure, but:

...early reports have referred to the substance as a "drug cocktail," including ketamine, GHB or fantasy. 

And in yet more drug use news, it was widely reported that Queensland had decided to allow pill testing at a music festival for the first time.   The TV news reports showed it to be a very modern hippy-ish style where the point of being there is to be off their collective faces.

I don't know - I would prefer to deal with the problem by banning festivals I don't like the look of!  But I would say that, wouldn't I...  

 

A distinctive image

Update:  Some context.  This was an artwork that was in a side room at the cable car station at the top of the ride from Kobe to Mt Rokko, when I was there last year.   I never found out the details, but there were artworks (temporarily, I think) around several spots on Mt Rokko, not all disturbing like this one.

I think the photo came out in very remarkable fashion - something about the lighting makes it look artificial, and (to my mind) a bit like the cut out animation artwork that featured in Monty Python. 

I thought, as it gives a general impression of suffering, it was apt to post it on Good Friday.

I must get around to posting other photos taken on the Mt Rokko area.  They have sat on my phone for a long time, but I finally transferred them to the laptop, where I find it easier to post and edit photos.

An odd fellow

So, out of sordid curiosity I did read that profile of Andrew Huberman, who I had briefly watched on Youtube, but only once or twice.  Here's how Daily Beast starts its description of the article:

Andrew Huberman is a straight-talking science podcaster known for his hours-long episodes about biohacking, and for having muscles almost as big as his brain. But the new-media darling has a secret mental asset revealed Monday by New York Magazine’s Intelligencer: the flexibility and logistical acuity to manage multiple concurrent affairs with women spread across the continental U.S.

He certainly seems a very odd man, and the oddest thing in the article was his claim (made through a spokesman, apparently) that the long term girlfriend whose story is the backbone of the article was going through IVF with him not to necessarily have children, but to create embryos together.  What sense does that make?  IVF is no walk in the park, by all accounts, and doing it to only "make embryos" just doesn't make much sense.  (Unless he thought he could sell them via his Youtube videos, or something!) 

There was also a comment following the article (which I can't copy now, as it has gone behind a paywall) from some woman who claimed she had some dates with him, before soon deciding he was such a weirdo that she (a bit facetiously, I think) feared for her life if she slept over at his place.  Seemed to me a bit "brave" of the magazine to leave that comment there.   

Anyway, it's interesting that many on the Right think he is the victim of a "witch hunt" because he has been on shows like Joe Rogan.   Apparently, though, he generally has avoided politics in his podcast career, but it seems he is pretty popular with at least part of the (what?) "self improvement bro community". 

I don't know:  if a person is going to make a career, and a lucrative one, out of self improvement advice (an article says his podcast topics include: fitness, learning, creativity, hormones, fertility, grief, trauma, and happiness) I think there is a legitimate public interest if his own life is something of a complex mess, relationship wise.

I mean, I'm sure a lot of Right wingers enjoyed Paul Johnson's book Intellectuals (I know I did!) which was entirely about (mostly) Left leaning public intellectuals whose personal life was in complete contradiction to their public views.   

Sure, Johnson did only deal with people who were already dead:  but if you are going to try to juggle not just 2 or 3, but 5 girlfriends at once while being media famous, you have to expect public exposure if caught out.

Responsible leadership needed

There is a surge again in news about regional aboriginal lawlessness (particularly amongst youth).  The ABC notes:

• In short: Widespread unrest broke out in Alice Springs on Tuesday, including an attack on a pub by people throwing bricks at doors and windows.
• The incidents occured after a ceremony and funeral for a teenager who died when an allegedly stolen car crashed two weeks ago.
• What's next? The Alice Springs mayor is calling for the federal government to step in to address social problems in the town.

And on 7.30 the other night, they did a story on aimless youth getting into trouble in Moree.

The problem here has been a long time brewing:   the relatively moderate aboriginal leadership figures are ageing and seemingly lost influence.  They placed all their eggs for future change into the one mechanism - The Voice - which may have been well intentioned, but failed due to appearing to moderates as pretty much a mere re-run of a bureaucratic approach that had failed before, and to the young radical activists as insultingly inadequate as a power sharing arrangement. 

And of course, when the Voice failed, it meant that there was virtually uniform criticism within aboriginal advocacy of "the system" - apart from the handful (if that!) of Right wing aboriginal figures (Mundine, Price).

Given that Mundine and Price seem to be too "political" in a self interested way, and don't seem to have much of a following within aboriginal communities broadly, the end result is a real vacuum where there needs to be responsible, moderate aboriginal leadership that should be sending the right messages to aboriginal youth - that their best future lies in getting ahead in the modern world they find themselves in, regardless of historical wrongs, and this means being part of the modern economy, and all that goes with it - get a reasonable education, respect property rights, and other people of all races.  

Instead, the radical aboriginal advocacy which is currently in the ascendancy is emphasising grievance and cultural pride, which is not the messaging needed to stop crime and anti-social behaviour.  

It's unfortunate that its a Labor Party federally that is caught with this problem.   

It's also unfortunate that, as the messaging I am suggesting is easily painted as "right wing", the Right in politics just has a tainted reputation at the moment for sounding reasonable on nearly anything.   

So I think it is from the mainstream Left that there needs to be some bravery here - to try to get aboriginal leadership to break the emphasis on grievance (and cultural re-writing, such as the dubious attempt of academia to try to re-write pre-Colonial aboriginal society as something with equivalence to other technologically advanced societies), and more emphasis on the "join us" messaging.   

Of course, it is also easy to point to Labor Left apologies for past wrongs - going back to Paul Keating - as having encouraged the "pro-grievance, 24/7" style of radical aboriginal advocacy to take hold.   But this is why I say the course correction has to come from the Left too - at least they can argue in good faith that they did acknowledge past wrongs, but now is the time to move past the emphasis on that.  The Right - in figures such as Dutton and other - are easily dismissed due to never having joined the attempt to acknowledge past wrongs.  

Dumb takes noted

 

Update:  on a not so dumb note (because it's me!) - surely I'm not the only person thinking that the protective side barriers (that stop vehicles toppling off the bridge) look unusually low and inadequate for a modern bridge??

Healthier to be with a Democrat, obviously

I don't normally like to post photos of politicians, or people associated with them, looking grim and out of sorts.  I mean, you get no context and it can be quite unfair.

BUT:   it's impossible to resist it this time, given this dire recent appearance of Trump Jnr's girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle:

 

I mean, honestly: having Morticia Addams as a make up and style consultant would give a less disturbing result.   Of course it's not the first time I have noticed her increasingly harsh look in the years since she threw her lot in with the Trumps.   But to my surprise, when I was looking for past photos to compare (many have used those from when she was at Fox News, but I was looking for something different) I learned that she used to be married to Gavin Newsom!   I didn't know that:

 

They were married from 2001 to 2006.

This is like the reverse of what Republicans like to think - that their typical follower is a wholesome Mom from the suburbs, and that trashy woman dressed and made up like a sex doll must be a liberal.  

Weird!

Local politics is often the nuttiest politics

From the Guardian:

Backed by 5G truthers, exiled from One Nation, banned from parliament – now Troy Thompson looks set to be Townsville’s mayor

Pisto and pesto

From "recent recipes successfully tried" files:

a.    hadn't heard of pisto before (a Spanish vegetable stew - although this recipe ups the protein with a chorizo topping), but this came out very nice.  Here's the Guardian's photo:

and here's my real life version:

 

Would have looked better in a smaller bowl, and the egg yolk broke and I flipped it, but it was still runny inside, honest.

Anyway:  yes, I did the cubed pumpkin in the airfryer first to get it a bit Maillard reacted on the outside. I also skipped the sage - it's not a herb I care for, much, to be honest.

As for pesto:   I followed a Youtube short for making a prawn pesto pasta, and I can't even find it again. I've forgotten the exact details, but I think it was prawns fried (with garlic? or was that after the prawns?) with a squeeze of lemon.  Added some halved grape tomatoes too - that wasn't in the video.  Remove from frying pan, put chicken stock in frying pan and cook the spaghetti in that (I used 100 g per person, it worked well.)   Drain spaghetti, add pesto and the prawns and tomatoes and mix around, maybe adding lemon and salt to taste.   Came out a bit dry, but next time I will just add back in more of the pasta water.

 

Is there something like an ontological argument for free will?

Let's kick off the week with something like a shower thought: the kind that is sometimes embarrassing to ask openly, because of the degree to which it can show the writer's unfamiliarity with aspects of philosophy.

But the question in the post title occurred to me this weekend when reading this short interview with Robert Sapolsky, who currently is the most prominent figure arguing that free will does not exist, and (to give him some credit) discussing the consequences of that view.  (I think far too many people - like Sabine Hossenfelder - just shrug their shoulders about the real life consequences of the belief in no free will.)

Anyway, as I have mentioned before, when it comes to the free will argument, I keep on having difficulty with grasping how lack of free will copes with the concept of a mere idea that comes from outside a person changing a person's behaviour in reaction to that idea.   The fact that a person can, for example, be given concepts that may help them climb out of depression seems to indicate that something ephemeral, like how they should analyse themselves and their present situation, does change a person internally because they have accepted the ephemeral idea is true. 

The somewhat novel extension (to me, anyway) of that line of thinking that has occurred to me is this:  "does the mere concept of free will and people's ability to believe in it mean that free will does indeed exist - much like the ontological proof for the existence of God."

Now, I certainly don't believe the ontological proof of God is convincing, but the idea that an idea can indeed change behaviour seems more plausibly like a possible proof that the idea itself is real.

Don't come back at me and say "of course believing in a false idea doesn't prove the false idea is true."   Yeah, sure.  I guess I would try to get around that obvious argument by saying this is an idea about reasoning and ideas themselves.   Not about factual matters like (to use an example) "Trump won the last election", or for that matter "God is real".  

A quick Google hasn't shown up an exact replication of my suggestion - but it would have to be likely someone has run at least something close to this argument before.  (I have thought briefly about how similar it is to "I think therefore I am" - and I'm not sure that it's quite the same.)

I don't mind this guy's post on the whole subject of free will (who is he?), but I will have to keep looking.     

Musk on your mind

Here's a lengthy article at Vox about what Musk is trying to achieve with his Neuralink implants.  (A technology which, I reckon, is not going to go far because of its invasive nature.)

Not many articles are free at Vox anymore (such that I barely check it), so I hope this one stays free.

Seems under-reported to me

I was watching video of Biden promoting a new semi conductor plant to be built in Arizona this morning, and as usual, he gave a prepared speech flawlessly and sounded completely engaged and sensible.  (And again, when he walked off, it was with his stiff gait that seems common now.)   Once again, I felt the twinge of infuriation that mainstream media has let Right wing media (both corporate - Fox, Newsmax,  and smaller scale operations) brainwash (I don't know) 30%? of the population to genuinely believe he has dementia and barely knows where he is until an aide gives him his drugs.   If you ignore nonsense, nonsense grows, I reckon.

(I also again wondered how much of the Biden frailty meme is based around video of his stiff gait - if there is an explanation for that, I reckon they should be giving it.)

In any case, this is the story, and it seems pretty big, really; but also not given the attention it deserved in US media:

Biden administration awards $8.5 billion for computer-chip manufacturing

A massive grant for Intel will support factory construction in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Oregon. The award is the largest yet from legislation aiming to re-shore manufacturing.

"Acting out" dreams is a really bad sign

Here's a surprising bit of health news:   people who start "acting out" dreams (physically moving in bed as part of a dream) can be on the way to Parkinsons.  As explained in the Washington Post:

In 1986, Schenck and his colleagues first described RBD in four men and one woman, ages 60 or older. Most had long histories of injuring themselves or their bed partners with aggressive behaviors while asleep. One patient had attempted to strangle his wife while dreaming of fighting a bear, while another knocked over furniture during his dream of being a football player. The researchers noted that RBD is distinct from sleepwalking, which originates from non-REM sleep.

Dream enactment behavior has also been documented in severe obstructive sleep apnea, as it causes people to abruptly stop breathing for brief periods during sleep and partially awaken. Since these breathing cessations are most common and severe in REM sleep, they may act out their dreams, mimicking the symptoms of RBD, Schenck said.

About 39 million U.S. adults have obstructive sleep apnea, according to the National Council of Aging, but how many of these adults enact their dreams is not known.

Similarly, those with PTSD may show signs of reliving their trauma through dream enactment. Approximately 70 percent of patients with PTSD report sleep disturbances, and up to 70 percent have recurrent nightmares. However, no data exists on the prevalence of dream enactment behavior in PTSD, Schenck said.

For those with RBD, the risk of Parkinson’s is staggeringly high. Individuals ages 50 and older with idiopathic RBD — that occurs spontaneously with no other health complaints or recent medication changes — have a 130 times greater likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease compared with someone without the sleep condition.

“There’s nothing like this. … 80 percent of people who have this condition develop Parkinson’s disease 15 to 20 years later,” said Ronald Postuma, director of neurology at McGill University Health Centre.

RBD is 10 times better than any other clinical marker — for example, abnormal motor exam or loss of sense of smell — at predicting the eventual onset of Parkinson’s. RBD is strongly associated with other synucleinopathies, too, a group of diseases that includes Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy.

Remarkable.

I woke myself up moaning due to a nightmare sometime in the last 6 months, but that's about the closest I've ever got to this behaviour.  Let's hope it stays that way.

 

I'm imagining Elon Musk with a headache all the way to Mars....

The list of health things for which hanging around in zero G seems to be bad continues to grow.  I hadn't heard of this before:

In a study tracking astronaut health, 22 of 24 International Space Station (ISS) visitors suffered headaches almost three times as frequently as when on Earth. Even some astronauts with no history of headaches may experience migraine and tension-type headaches during stays of 10 days or longer in space, reported a new study published in Neurology....

The astronauts from the European Space Agency, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency underwent health screenings prior to their missions. They also completed questionnaires documenting their headache history. Once in space, they completed the questionnaires for the first seven days and weekly thereafter.

The contrasts were striking. Before their ISS trip, nine astronauts reported no headaches over the past year. Only three mentioned experiencing a headache that interfered with their lives during that period. None had a history of recurrent headaches or had been diagnosed with migraines.

The astronauts reported 378 headaches while in space. Of the total headaches, 170, or 90 percent, were tension-type and 19, or 10 percent, were migraine. Once back on Earth, none reported headaches the first three months after their return.

It's a pity that early science fiction optimism about the fun of being in zero G just isn't really reflected in reality.  Although low gravity, like on the Moon, might still be a lot of fun.   I have a hunch that the first extensive use of the Moon might be more for the money to be made from a low gravity sports arena than from anything to be manufactured there!   

Ketamine explained

An article in Nature about the use of ketamine to treat depression.  (Written because of Musk's disclosure of how he uses it.)  

A minor bleat: can the commissioning producers at the ABC please stop funding Miriam Margolyes content?

I find it hard to believe that Miriam Margolyes has found yet more queer and eccentric Australians to hang out with and hug as a fellow queer and eccentric (and very unhealthy looking) character.

But according to promos on the ABC, yes, there is yet another series of the same stuff.   

Look, she can be a mildly amusing raconteur, but there is such a repetitive sameness to this type of content (she has done the same in visiting Scotland, and America) that it really is pretty tedious. 

While I am in the mood to criticise the love affair that a certain social class (I don't even know how to categorise them) has with queer comedy, I have been meaning to note that Hannah Gadsby has been running a short season of a new stand up stage show, and I have seen exactly one review for it (in The Guardian, of course) that seemed to be struggling a bit to be encouraging.  Here, for example:

Woof! is a mixed experience, partly because Gadsby is chasing their new topic of interest and working out bits onstage; there’s even standard comedy gear still waiting for their Gadsbian spin; at one point, they actually do compare their recent misfortunes to a country song. Gadsby’s shows are typically written to tight narrative complication and subversion, seeding setups for punchlines an hour later, and that keen narrative structure and craft isn’t fully developed here.

But maybe that’s the point. For a show built on resistance and refusal, there’s a surprising amount of openness to form, structure, and play. They’ve been microdosing testosterone, and their voice has changed; we’re seeing them find new ways to experiment with tenor and tone and cadence. And for a show about worry, there are clear attempts to combat the gloom.

As a long term skeptic of the quality of Gadsby's work (so I would say this wouldn't I?), it does seem to me that she has "peaked"; but also, she seems such a clear example of the "stand up comedian who does stand up as a form of public therapy that doesn't actually help in the long run" that I feel a tad sorry for her. 

Singaporean defence: "Just do it"

Here's a shortish video about the huge effort Singapore puts into defence:  8 submarines; F 35s; highways designed to be back up runways; secret code on the TV to call up the reserve. 

It made me think about all the faffing about that goes on in Australian defence acquisitions and planning.  The Singaporean attitude in comparison is "Just do it".   Love it.

 

Trump and "bloodbath"

A pretty good summary here of why it's ridiculous to argue that Trump was just innocently using the word "bloodbath" in the context of tariffs.

Excuse making for Trumpian rhetoric is just pretty pathetic, given the events of Jan 6.   

Of course he uses violence encouraging rhetoric, regularly.  

As someone else explains:

Yanis and technocapitalism

To be honest, I have never quite understood Yanis Varoufakis - on some interviews he has seemed to sound reasonable, but nothing much about what he says has ever stuck in my mind for long.  I'm not sure why.   I mean, I "get" the basic  messages of some other high profile economists - say, Krugman,  Stiglitz (or even Piketty) pretty easily - but the details in what Varousfakis argues end up somewhat opaque to me.

Anyway, I'm writing about him because of a Washington Post review of his new book "Technofeudalism - What Killed Capitalism".   I also see that he touched on its themes in a very wide ranging talk at the National Press Club, and the transcript is here.

He still confuses me.

  

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.