Week of July 8th, 2024
The Independence Day parade in Towson, Maryland, is a live postmodern Norman Rockwellesque affair. A cross-section of America -- politicians and candidates, local businesses, volunteer organizations, and police/fire equipment move to the rhythms of marching bands in 95-degree heat. This year, the Bearded Builders (a local contractor) had all their female employees wearing fake beards, the Republican Woman of Maryland had a 25% increase in their numbers (there were 5 of them as compared to last year's 4), and the parade organizers (accidentally?) but the Democratic and Republican Maryland senatorial candidates (and their numerous supporters) next to each other in the parade. I don't love parades, but I go to support members of my family who do. However, I also find comfort in a large group of strangers who are peaceably congregating and celebrating our country. (Though the mild irony of seeing politicians throwing DumDums at children still stokes my cynicism and amuses me.)
Patriotic demonstrations come in many forms.
Glacier View Alaska launches cars off cliffs for the 4th of July.
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1809305162072355127
Thanks to a loyal reader, I now know precision lawn chair teams are an increasing staple of many local Fourth of July Parades. Towson has yet to have a group with this talent.
(Vail, CO) https://youtu.be/GKPjiSoKJYQ?si=GRb494FjoJvIFT2E
(Howard County, MD) https://www.baltimoresun.com/2015/07/02/from-lawn-chair-dads-to-vintage-cars-howard-county-celebrates-the-fourth-of-july/
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Wastewater levels nationally are plateauing. I suspect there is high regional variation, and anecdotal data would imply there are still high rates of COVID in various places. Knowing what is going on is difficult without consistently reporting test positivity and hospitalizations.
Eric Topol and others cover the emergence of the latest variants:
https://x.com/erictopol/status/1809294778477301768
The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) website uses wastewater levels to forecast 4-week predictions of COVID rates.
https://pmc19.com/data/
based upon https://biobot.io/data/
Wastewater Scan offers a multi-organism wastewater dashboard with an excellent visual display of individual treatment plant-level data.
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
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COVID articles
NIH is opened Phase 1 nasal COVID vaccine trials. I wonder if a nasal vaccine would be more acceptable to the anti-vax crowd.
https://x.com/nohaaboelatamd/status/1808321978132259219
I finished Anthony Fauci's memoir last week. The insider insights on the HIV pandemic, ebola, and coronavirus are well worth reading. The book's subtexts include a fantastic description of being effective while working in a bureaucratic system bound by laws and regulations. His summation in the epilogue resonates with me: "At times, I am deeply disturbed about the state of our society. But it is not so much about an impending public health disaster. It is about the crisis of truth in my country and to some extent throughout the world, which has the potential to make these disasters so much worse. We are living in an era in which patently untrue information gets repeated enough times that it becomes part of our everyday dialogue and starts to sound true and in a time in which lies are normalized and people invent their own set of facts. We have seen complete fabrications become some people's accepted reality."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/207689829-on-call
For some excellent examples of the weaponized ignorance implied by his quote, read the 1-star reviews on Amazon
https://a.co/d/02wdLnC8
Related: a fantastic discussion about a common bias humans default to—trusting intuition over data. "[Here is a meta-analysis of 59 studies covering 72,000 people: When basic math refutes their intuition, many cling to intuition and ignore the facts."]. Conversely, actively questioning your assumptions seems to engender being right more often.
https://x.com/adammgrant/status/1809613682546184372
Medical Trends and Technology
Last week, researchers published the first paper describing non-gastrointestinal side effects associated with GLP-1 drugs (semaglutide - AKA Ozempic). The study, a retrospective analysis, reported that some patients using semaglutide experience sudden blindness called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. Several physicians chimed in regarding flaws in the data, including a fantastic discussion of immortal time bias, a somewhat complex but meaningful source of error in science papers. It is an excellent example of why well-designed studies are critical and how easy it is to misapply anecdotal or poorly analyzed data. (See the Fauci biography on the story behind hydroxychloroquine in COVID data and why data quality and quantity is important).
https://x.com/venkmurthy/status/1808964951622504933
and
https://x.com/drjohnm/status/1808904486519517584
and
https://catalogofbias.org/biases/immortal-time-bias/
I strongly recommend you take an hour to listen to Dr. Eric Topol's podcast interview with Stanford's new Department of Medicine Chair, Dr. Euan Ashley. Dr. Ashely is a genomics and translational science researcher. The interview covers his research into the physiologic impact of exercise and the NIH-funded multi-center Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC), looking at the proteomic reactions to routine physical activity. Moreover, he discusses today's data about exercise's value (Ashley cites data that indicates one minute of exercise buys five minutes of extra life!). While the data and articles cited are still mostly lab-based, it is easy to see how this could scale to more treatments and interventions.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/evan-ashley-exercise-may-be-the-single
Infographics
An infographic on the value of using infographics. How recursive.
https://kinocreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/kino-infographic-about-infographics-2015-final-large.jpg
from
https://www.kinocreative.co.uk/blog/responsive-infographics-the-benefits-our-work-infographic/
Things I learned this week
Ants amputate the legs of their wounded colony mates, which increases survival (due to reduced infection). However, scientists observed that amputations are most successful in proximal, not distal, and ant leg injuries. Ants know this and adapt treatments depending on wound type – ants will either perform wound care or amputation, depending on their fellow ant’s leg injury location. Given their numbers, I could see an enormous market for entomologic orthopedics and trauma surgery if someone could figure out how to sell health insurance to ants.
See "Wound-dependent leg amputations to combat infections in an ant society."
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00805-4
I found a 2005 New York Times article highlighting behavioral economics research introducing money for food in a group of monkeys. Researchers then created varied experiences with money-adjusted prices, gambling, and related economic changes. The monkeys adapted in various ways - they were willing to gamble, started stealing, and one monkey exchanged money for sex (with another monkey). "When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex. In other words, they behaved a good bit like the creature that most of [the researchers] more traditional study: Homo sapiens."
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/monkey-business.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U0.JR-b.vqxo6SqBpzP2&smid=url-share
Living with A.I.
A wide range of A.I. tools this week.
Stanford biophysicist Dr. Varun Shanker explains how using LLMs allowed for the more rapid discovery of monoclonal antibodies that are more effective in various circumstances, including antivirals and other therapeutic activities. This discussion is an excellent example of how generative A.I. will change science.
https://x.com/varunrshanker/status/1808964526278152312
Conversely, American Rounds (an ammunition company https://americanrounds.com/) is installing A.I.-enabled vending machines that verify customers' identities to dispense bullets. Food stores in Oklahoma and Alabama currently house these vending machines. I have two thoughts: 1) I did not appreciate that bottlenecks in ammo sales required vending machines in food stores. 2) I wonder where these machines' customers fall in the Venn diagram of distrust of technology and gun rights advocacy.
https://gizmodo.com/oklahoma-alabama-now-have-ai-powered-vending-machines-that-sell-bullets-2000377093
To round out the A.I. articles, I'll let this headline speak for itself, "Mind-Reading A.I. Recreates What You're Looking At With Amazing Accuracy."
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/07/mind-reading-ai-recreates-what-youre-looking-at-with-amazing-accuracy.html
A.I. art of the week (A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter).
In a photorealistic style (like Norman Rockwell), generate a parade of ants, some dressed as surgeons, some playing in a marching band, some with beards, and some holding signs running for political office. Ants are watching on the side of the parade. An injured ant is off to the side, attended to by other ants dressed as doctors. Put a few monkeys exchanging money and some hydrangeas in the picture.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TjcuDuacrQUH223qvFSfw9pTcb4pFV6r/view?usp=sharing
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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