Week of August 19, 2024
Both of our kids are heading to college over the next two weeks. While we are not unique to empty nesting, we will undoubtedly "make it our own." How different will my wife and I be when our kids return for the winter? Communal living, multi-level marketing, adult lemonade stands, and making large-scale kinetic sculptures are among our many new life choice possibilities. Whatever happens, I will aspire to avoid the pursuits of my parents (and their friends) after I moved out in the 1990s - commentary on amateur dinner theater buffet food and cable news-saturated ranting.
We must consider differentiating ourselves in the expanding adult lemonade stand market (perhaps by incorporating MLM distribution and moving sculptures?).
https://wapo.st/4cxrWDR
---
COVID-19 infections in the U.S. continue to be very high (1 in 34 individuals, as imputed from wastewater levels).
Long COVID (including neurologic damage) is still a possible outcome of even mild COVID infection. However, thanks to repeated infections (i.e. antibodies) and vaccination, mortality rates for COVID are decreasing. (Though 50,000 people have died of COVID over the last 12 months.)
https://x.com/jpweiland/status/1824630174320660551
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/
------
Infectious Disease Articles
The prevalent diabetes drug metformin appears to reduce the likelihood of long COVID when used during an acute COVID infection. The anecdotes of physicians using metformin like this are intriguing; however, I STRONGLY suggest speaking with your physician before taking any therapy.
https://www.thelancet.com/jouMetformininf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00299-2/fulltext
and
https://x.com/DavidFajgenbaum/status/1824390762798129375
Monkey Pox (renamed MPox) is back in the news with a somewhat unexpected urgency. A new, more virulent, and transmissible variant is circulating in Africa. A small volume of cases occurring in Europe are related to the new variant. [FYI, MPox genetic variants are described using the word clade, with the latest variant called clade I and the 2022-23 variant called clade II.] Scientists are unclear how much airborne spread the new clade I MPox is capable of. However, skin-to-skin, surface-to-skin, and close (droplet) contact are the known common routes of contagion. Vaccine manufacturers in Europe are ramping up MPox vaccine production. [The reports of low-level MPox DNA in U.S. wastewater samples seem to be the older clade II.]
The WHO 2023 FAQ is helpful. Airborne spread may be more likely than in 2023
https://www.who.int/multi-media/details/mpox-what-we-know
and
https://x.com/ashishkjha/status/1825179169010970966
and
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/health/mpox-emergency-vaccines-treatments.html
and other random bits of Twitter knowledge on MPox
https://x.com/krutikakuppalli/status/1824843338425700552
Medical Trends and Technology
Here are three recent articles I found on proteomics and aging. All of them highlight how A.I. is impacting biology research. Using A.I., researchers can look at the impact of aging and other environmental factors (like diet) on the patterns of proteins expressed by various cells. The ultimate goal is to work backward - look at an individual's pattern of proteins expressed and determine how old (or not) an individual is.
A few observations from this collection - alcohol consumption is harmful, infections (of a wide variety) increase the risk of dementia, and personalized risk/assessments of aging are coming.
Eric Topol offers an in-depth analysis of 3 recent articles on measuring proteins to determine specific organs' damage. The conclusions are worth the read.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-emergence-of-protein-organ-clocks
The Washington Post offers a consumer-readable analysis of 1 recent study on the proteomics of aging. Our mid-40s and early 60s seem significant "steps down" in biological functioning.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/08/14/midlife-change-aging-study/
For those who like research, here is a study looking at the relationship between common infections during life (UTIs, influenza, etc.) and the onset of dementia via imaging and protein analysis. Much like all my COVID comments, it's better not to get infections.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00682-4
Infographics
I found this infographic of the ideal distances between sofas and large-screen televisions of various sizes. I don't know how the ratio of 22.22222 (T.V. size in inches per meter of sofa distance) became the ideal for determining how far seating should be from a T.V., but this infographic relies on it. Extrapolating from this infographic, you would need a T.V. about 8.5 billion inches in size placed on the Earth to be seen comfortably from a sofa on the moon (384 million meters away). I am also slightly irritated that the T.V. size is in inches and the distance to the couch is in meters.
https://x.com/cooltechtipz/status/1824020299328725365/photo/1
Let us recall the Mars Climate Orbiter and the perils of mixing S.I. and Imperial units of measure. (Quite frankly, I like to measure the distance between my T.V. and the sofa in furlongs. I have an 85-inch T.V. that is 0.01898907 furlongs from my Ikea sofa, which is about 200cm wide).
https://www.simscale.com/blog/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metric/
Or I could measure in Smoots.
https://www.larsondesigngroup.com/understanding-smoot/
Things I learned this week
I learned that Mongolian heavy metal music is a thing. The band The Hu is the most known in the U.S., but many others exist, including Hurd, Altan Urag, and Nine Treasures.
https://x.com/brianroemmele/status/1824081267614498831
and
https://www.loudersound.com/features/best-mongolian-metal-bands-the-hu
and, for Spotify listeners,
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0nRvo5VYGGmKYV0RRmzIGW
Party like it's 1787. I found several articles from 2022 describing the preserved bill for a 1787 party thrown for George Washington (right after the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention). Food, drink, and music (when updated for inflation) cost between $15,000 and $20,000 for 55 attendees and the musicians. Pennsylvania soldiers (the First Troop of Philadelphia City) sponsored the event and (apparently) did not have an issue with approximately two bottles of various alcohol per attendee. I wonder how the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry handled reimbursable "business" expenses and related costs in the 1780s. (What was their travel and entertainment budget?)
https://americanfounding.org/entries/washingtons-city-tavern-bill/
and
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/01/20/fact-check-george-washingtons-expensive-bar-tab-real/5947984001/
I was a week or two late learning about The Pig Olympics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Olympics
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4914320.stm
Living with A.I.
Last year, a loyal reader shared his hypothesis (with me) that Elon Musk ultimately aims to own an A.I. ecosystem. Let your mind wander to what's possible when building tech intermingling social media data, Tesla driving data, autonomous driving technology, satellite internet, high-density energy storage, rocketry, brain-I.T. interfaces, and robotics. Author Ashlee Vance is hinting that others are thinking this too. How his Boring company flamethrowers play into all this is unclear, but it can't be good.
https://x.com/ashleevance/status/1824578351635501552
and
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/10/17445838/boring-company-flamethrower-elon-musk-tweets-party
(See flamethrowing robot dogs from the June 10 WAiR newsletter - Living with A.I. section
http://www.whatadamisreading.com/2024/06/what-adam-is-reading-week-of-6-10-24.html)
Wired offered an entertaining review of ChatGPT's new advanced voice mode - "a more natural, real-time conversations that pick up on and respond with emotion and non-verbal cues." Currently, in a limited alpha on iOS and Android, it is a multilingual vocalization of ChatGPT that can affect the voices of famous actors, cartoon characters, and various accents.
https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-advanced-voice-mode-first-impressions/
and
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9617425-advanced-voice-mode-faq
A.I. art of the week (A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter).
Men dressed in 1780s clothing are drinking from beer mugs while watching pigs perform gymnastics on a pommel horse. In the background, musicians with guitars are wearing traditional Mongolian outfits. Satellites are visible at the top of the image. Robots are carrying trays of food to the men.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vurWwzhlLoG7ZGW7NGzR2c5T2hwSPkfy/view?usp=sharing
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
Comments
Post a Comment