Week of May 8, 2023
We are entering a confusing time. The CDC and the World Health Organization have declared the pandemic "over." Various administrative and regulatory waivers are ending on May 11. And yet there are still cases of COVID, and the coronavirus is evolving and spreading. There will be an even greater push to stop wearing masks in various healthcare settings. Despite people still getting COVID (and all the consequences thereof), there will likely be more denial, more barriers to vaccination, and less testing ("My cough and runny nose is just a summer cold or allergies I don't have coronavirus since the pandemic is over"). I am concerned about my patients. Many are immunosuppressed and often have numerous comorbidities. I don't know the perfect answer. But pretending that a highly infectious airborne virus is no longer an issue (at all) is (from a medical standpoint) not ideal.
Reference point:
Experts' predictions for the next wave of COVID.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/05/05/health/covid-changes-predictions/index.html
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There are hotspots with rising reported case rates (and 1000+ deaths per week on average), but at a national level, hospitalizations, deaths, and reported cases are still trending down over the last two weeks. Wastewater concentrations of coronavirus-RNA in all regions of the country also continue to fall.
The N.Y. Times COVID Tracker reflects the changing data quality - only CDC-gathered hospital data as a surrogate (lagging) indicator.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-cases.html
Wastewater monitoring is more of a LEADING indicator.
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COVID articles
World Bank economist Philip Schellekens launched a COVID analytics and op-ed website. He focuses on global problems due to the coronavirus, vaccine equity, and the impact of socioeconomics on obtaining optimal care. His central theme is that COVID is still the #3 cause of death worldwide, with 4.1 million deceased people in the last 12 months and 2.3 billion unvaccinated individuals.
Various OpEd articles
https://pandem-ic.com/#articles
The CDC will cease tracking community levels of Covid and the percentage of tests that come back positive, a metric used to calculate transmission rates
and
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/health/cdc-covid-tracking.html
Scientific American offered a fantastic overview - Masking Works.
Medical Trends and Technology
Gene editing is not discussed enough (outside of science circles). Here is an interesting example - monkey genomes given a specific human gene resulted in larger brains. Learn about gene ARHGAP11B - the human gene that leads to complex and larger brains. Do not think about unintended consequences like animals with genetically-edited enlarged brains getting free (hello, Planet of the Apes and The Secret of NIMH?).
A well-written, older article :
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/887607
Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARHGAP11B
A good Twitter thread that links to more recent studies and some of the tropes about Planet of the Apes
https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1652902936748388359?s=20
Infographics
Compound Interest has the chemistry of coronation crowns this week.
https://www.compoundchem.com/2023/05/04/coronation/
Things I learned this week
Machine learning and artificial intelligence will speed up deciphering ancient writing. There are some written languages we cannot read and some (like the Akkadian texts in the linked article) where there are not enough researchers to translate the thousands of clay tablets with an understood ancient script.
https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-741982
and
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/987669
I learned that other adults spend time snarkily pondering the ethics and trade-offs of Jurassic Park-style animal de-extinction efforts. Megafauna resurrection should be something we vote on, right?
https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1655287803133960195
I also learned that between 5 and 12 million years ago, 400 lb, 6 to 7-foot saber tooth salmon(!) lived in the Pacific. Despite its vicious name, this salmon probably ate plankton and had sideways (not downward) pointing teeth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncorhynchus_rastrosus
https://flylordsmag.com/saber-toothed-salmon-oncorhynchus-rastrosus/
Living with A.I.
A.I.
Though I am skeptical of "leaked" sources, this blog offers an interesting perspective (from inside Google) on the recent and rapid pace of development OpenAI experienced. I appreciated the analysis of trade-offs between small, private, vs. open-source A.I. engines.
https://simonwillison.net/2023/May/4/no-moat/
And, here is our (now) weekly obligate "A.I. can learn to read your mind" article. These efforts are very early (and complex), but the wow factor is high. In addition, each person's brain patterns are different. In these studies, researchers need to have a subject read or look at known images in a functional MRI (fMRI). Then, again in an fMRI, obtain data from the same subject who is shown novel pictures or words. By comparing the two data sets (known vs. novel pictures) researchers can, with some sensitivity and specificity, "read" a subject's thoughts. Either way, these studies are small steps toward my dream/nightmare of uploading the electrical patterns of my brain to the web (like copying me to a computer).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/science/ai-speech-language.html
and
https://twitter.com/aibreakfast/status/1653183005702356993?s=42&t=cHtDhpWgAdi0UhIayqsoag
A.I. art of the week
I am comparing engines this week. Bing seems to be better.
"Basquiat style version of the last supper, 2x2 Warhol color variations"
Dalle-2
https://labs.openai.com/s/toOFcolGVXVa00AR20CceLtZ
Bing image generator
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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