Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Monday, January 12, 2026
Large-scale Vitamin D study on Telomeres, an important Marker of Aging
0 seconds ago
I'm concerned that the study doesn't control for the Omega-3 intake, although taking both sounds like a good idea. I'm already taking Vitamin D. However, I'm not a doctor nor a medical expert.
I'm also concerned that he doesn't provide a link to the study. I found the article on the The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition website: https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(25)00255-2/abstract
I believe in, "Trust, but verify". I would like to see more studies.
According to Google AI...
"Yes, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) is a highly reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing primary research, considered a top source in nutrition and dietetics, though it's published by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), which receives funding from food/beverage industry partners, a point some critics raise regarding potential influence. Its high impact factor and publication of rigorous studies on topics like obesity, metabolism, and vitamins underscore its scientific standing. "
Sunday, January 11, 2026
94% of the Universe is Gone Forever
It seems pointless to talk about 2 trillion years from now. Fifty thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, humans appeared to get smarter, inventing new tools and the first permanent structures. A million years ago our ancestors were Homo Erectus.
A million years from now, and maybe much sooner, humans will look different and most likely be adapted for a new kind of existence, such as space travel. A million years is enough time to evolve into a new species.
There is no guarantee that we will survive that long, but I have faith that people will find a way. The Earth will only be able to support life for about a billion years.
Friday, January 9, 2026
Thursday, January 8, 2026
Re: Evolution Tells Us We Might Be The Only Intelligent Life in the Universe
I agree.
Given the conditions for life to develop it did so. Those conditions might be rare, but the galaxy is a very big place and the universe is for all practical purposes infinite.
On Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 11:55 PM Grant wrote:
I believe the universe is teaming with life. However, who's to say that intelligent life elsewhere, even worries about radio transmissions?On Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 9:33 PM John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com> wrote:I only watched the first 2.5 minutes. He said that we have no evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, as if this were an important part of his argument. Although that statement is technically correct, the distances involved are so vast that it is unlikely we could detect their radio signals—or that they could detect ours.If we look at the evolution of life on Earth, we see incredible resilience. Once life starts, it finds a way; it adapts.
There are many examples of convergent evolution, where unrelated species independently evolve similar traits. For example, complex eyes evolved multiple times in different lineages, and several unrelated species independently evolved crab-like body plans.
What evolution shows us is that it adapts to incentives. Creatures become faster because they need to. Animals that benefit from greater intelligence evolve it. Only a few species are intelligent, while most are not, for the simple reason that they do not need to be. Intelligence is energetically expensive, and it is often more efficient not to have it.
Once life begins, I think it has the potential to produce intelligence. If we could travel to another world with life, we would likely see an enormous variety of organisms. Some of them would look familiar, because the patterns that work here could also work elsewhere.
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Evolution Tells Us We Might Be The Only Intelligent Life in the Universe
I only watched the first 2.5 minutes. He said that we have no evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, as if this were an important part of his argument. Although that statement is technically correct, the distances involved are so vast that it is unlikely we could detect their radio signals—or that they could detect ours.
If we look at the evolution of life on Earth, we see incredible resilience. Once life starts, it finds a way; it adapts.
There are many examples of convergent evolution, where unrelated species independently evolve similar traits. For example, complex eyes evolved multiple times in different lineages, and several unrelated species independently evolved crab-like body plans.
What evolution shows us is that it adapts to incentives. Creatures become faster because they need to. Animals that benefit from greater intelligence evolve it. Only a few species are intelligent, while most are not, for the simple reason that they do not need to be. Intelligence is energetically expensive, and it is often more efficient not to have it.
Once life begins, I think it has the potential to produce intelligence. If we could travel to another world with life, we would likely see an enormous variety of organisms. Some of them would look familiar, because the patterns that work here could also work elsewhere.
The $200M Machine that Prints Microchips: The EUV Photolithography System
The first 12 minutes cover the basics. The next ten minutes get into how the light is generated.
The degree of precision of these machines seems almost impossible. It shows that if there is a financial incentive, the free market will find a way.
There are not many companies that have these capabilities, and a manufacturing plant costs billions of dollars to build.
I saw a headline today about the first 2 nanometer chip being manufactured. From what I understand, we are approaching the limits of what physics will allow.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Monday, January 5, 2026
Thursday, January 1, 2026
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Windfall
When I hear the word "windfall", I think of a big pile of cash. However, that wasn't its original meaning. If a storm were to knock down a tree, the wood would be easier to harvest, so it is called a windfall. Likewise, fruit that falls from a tree is easier to harvest, so it is called a windfall.
What's BETWEEN the Atoms? Feynman's Answer Will Break Your Brain
I knew all this but I like the way he explains it.
In 420 BC Democritus argued for the existence of atoms.
"Democritus's argument for the existence of atoms hinged on the idea that it is impossible to keep dividing matter infinitely - and that matter must therefore be made up of extremely tiny particles"
Democritus thought that the universe consisted of atoms and the voids between them.
Until relatively recently, people thought that atoms were invisible. J.J. Thompson, Marie Curie, and Earnest Rutherford showed that atoms could be divided. It took a while to discover protons and neutrons, and people thought that these were also indivisible. It was later discovered that protons and neutrons were made of up and down quarks.
One could argue that quarks and electrons are the smallest (fundamental) units of baryonic (quark) matter, but this is misleading. Every type of subatomic particle has a field associated with it. A field is something that has a value at every point in space. That value represents that amount of excitation of the field at a particular point. There is likely some energy everywhere, because the fields have been shown to be like tiny ripples on a vast ocean, but if the energy is low at any point in space then not much happens. However, if the energy reaches a certain threshold, then a particle exists at that point.
The Standard Model of Particle Physics has 17 fundamental fields. (There is recent new evidence that Dark Matter may be an unknown type of particle. If so, it might require a new type of field.) Some of these fields interact with each other like the way the electric and magnetic fields can make particles move. These interactions between the fields create the laws of physics, although there is currently no quantum theory of gravity.
Friday, December 26, 2025
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Friday, December 19, 2025
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Stanford study reveals why COVID vaccines cause rare heart inflammation
Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, occurs in about one in 140,000 people who receive the first dose of the vaccine and one in 32,000 after the second dose, according to a Stanford press release. Among males 30 and younger, that rises to one in 16,750.
Symptoms of the condition include chest pain, shortness of breath, fever and palpitations, which can occur just one to three days after vaccination. Another marker is heightened levels of cardiac troponin, which indicates that the heart muscle has been damaged.
They found that those with myocarditis had two proteins in their blood, CXCL10 and IFN-gamma, which are released by immune cells. Those proteins then activate more inflammation.
"We think these two are the major drivers of myocarditis," said Wu. "Your body needs these cytokines to ward off viruses. It's essential to immune response, but can become toxic in large amounts."
"One of the most striking findings was how much we could reduce heart damage in our models by specifically blocking these two cytokines, without shutting down the entire (desired) immune response to the vaccine," Wu told Fox News Digital, noting that a targeted, "fine‑tuning" immune approach might be enough to protect the heart.
"This points to a possible future way to prevent or treat myocarditis in people who are at the highest risk, while keeping the benefits of vaccination," he added.
The findings were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
"This is a very complex study," Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel told Fox News Digital. "Myocarditis is very rare, and the immune mechanism makes sense."
"Myocarditis is worse with COVID — much more common, and generally much more severe." Wu agreed, adding that COVID infection is about 10 times more likely to cause myocarditis compared to mRNA-based vaccines.
The researchers emphasized that COVID-19 vaccines have been "heavily scrutinized" for safety and have been shown to have an "excellent safety record."
In rare cases, however, severe heart inflammation can lead to hospitalizations, critical illness or death.
"mRNA vaccines remain a crucial tool against COVID‑19, and this research helps explain a rare side effect and suggests ways to make future vaccines even safer, rather than a reason to avoid vaccination," Wu said.
"The overall benefits of COVID‑19 vaccination still clearly outweigh the small risk of myocarditis for nearly all groups."
Symptoms of the condition include chest pain, shortness of breath, fever and palpitations, which can occur just one to three days after vaccination. Another marker is heightened levels of cardiac troponin, which indicates that the heart muscle has been damaged.
They found that those with myocarditis had two proteins in their blood, CXCL10 and IFN-gamma, which are released by immune cells. Those proteins then activate more inflammation.
"We think these two are the major drivers of myocarditis," said Wu. "Your body needs these cytokines to ward off viruses. It's essential to immune response, but can become toxic in large amounts."
"One of the most striking findings was how much we could reduce heart damage in our models by specifically blocking these two cytokines, without shutting down the entire (desired) immune response to the vaccine," Wu told Fox News Digital, noting that a targeted, "fine‑tuning" immune approach might be enough to protect the heart.
"This points to a possible future way to prevent or treat myocarditis in people who are at the highest risk, while keeping the benefits of vaccination," he added.
The findings were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
"This is a very complex study," Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel told Fox News Digital. "Myocarditis is very rare, and the immune mechanism makes sense."
"Myocarditis is worse with COVID — much more common, and generally much more severe." Wu agreed, adding that COVID infection is about 10 times more likely to cause myocarditis compared to mRNA-based vaccines.
The researchers emphasized that COVID-19 vaccines have been "heavily scrutinized" for safety and have been shown to have an "excellent safety record."
In rare cases, however, severe heart inflammation can lead to hospitalizations, critical illness or death.
"mRNA vaccines remain a crucial tool against COVID‑19, and this research helps explain a rare side effect and suggests ways to make future vaccines even safer, rather than a reason to avoid vaccination," Wu said.
"The overall benefits of COVID‑19 vaccination still clearly outweigh the small risk of myocarditis for nearly all groups."
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
At that moment...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJyYVwP99cA
Yes, most dinosaurs went extinct around 66 million years ago due to a massive asteroid impact, but birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs and are technically living dinosaurs, meaning dinosaurs as a group are not entirely gone, just the non-avian ones.
At two meters tall, this thing is a freaking dinosaur.
There has been much speculation about dinosaurs being multicolored, which wouldn't show up in the fossil record. Some dinosaurs had feathers for warmth.
Theropod dinosaurs are closely related to birds, and had traits in common with birds.
According to Google AI...
Friday, December 5, 2025
Grizzly Vs. Gorilla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQu5YnZ6b8E
I am more afraid of bears than any other animal, at least in North America. In North America, I'm not likely to run into a komodo dragon.
If you act passive and don't make eye contact with a gorilla, it is unlikely to attack you.
A former coworker was hiking in Yellowstone National Park when a bear followed him on the trail. He got off the trail and the bear continued on.
My late stepdad co-owned a small farm with some friends. They would mostly use it for get togethers. It was very close to Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge where a bear had been spotted. Bears are rare in Indiana, but this particular bear had been spotted multiple times, first swimming the Ohio River from Kentucky to Indiana. It covered much ground because it had been spotted in multiple places, including Salem, Indiana where I was born. It would have had to cross highways to cover this much ground.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
The 1970s Cooling Scare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdDdmQCneQA&t=139s
This has not changed. The Earth is halfway between its maximum tilt and its minimum tilt, which we will reach in roughly 11,000 years. A period of mass glaciation is inevitable, but we are not likely to see a change in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we should be in the cool-down period. Our warming of the Earth is temporary since we have limited fossil fuel reserves.
We could avoid the next period of mass glaciation by either increasing the CO2 level, by getting it from limestone, or we could find ways to destroy the advancing glaciers.
Monday, December 1, 2025
Whale swallows two Women in Kayak and then......
1 year ago
Marine biologist here: Baleen whales can't actually swallow anything larger than a softball. They take a huge mouthful of water into their mouths (usually full of tiny critters like krill, which are tiny versions of shrimp, and maybe some small fish), and use their tongues to push the water back out of their mouths while filtering out the krill with their baleen plates (they don't have teeth). Then they swallow all the krill that the baleen trapped. If they accidentally get larger animals in their mouths (like seals or such, which has been witnessed to happen), they reopen their mouths pretty quickly and let them out because they can't swallow them.
@rita1259-y5c
3 years ago
What bragging rights they had afterwards! You could say " Well, this day might be bad, but not as bad as the day I got swallowed by a whale!"
3 years ago
What bragging rights they had afterwards! You could say " Well, this day might be bad, but not as bad as the day I got swallowed by a whale!"
Saturday, November 29, 2025
Friday, November 28, 2025
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Sunday, November 23, 2025
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Friday, November 21, 2025
Infected
Although my forehead scanner never showed a fever, my temperature at the Doctor's office was 100. My normal is 97 and change.
I still feel sick. For now I don't feel as bad as the last two days. Two days ago I had intense shivering.
My doctor thinks that I am fighting a viral infection. Everybody tells me, "there is stuff going around." People have told me that either they or a family member have been sick.
I didn't trust the expired COVID tests that I used two days ago. One of the tests initially showed a solid color on the line that shows that you are infected, but then the line became clear. This is odd, and in my mind made the test invalid. This created some confusion on my part as to whether or not I have COVID.
Yesterday I bought a new COVID test that also tests for two kinds of flu. The results were negative for COVID and the flu.
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Sunday, November 16, 2025
How Does Bent Time Make Gravity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_sI9agWmEw
I have a hard time accepting the concept of "space-time." To me, space and time seem like fundamentally different things. We can't move through time the same way we move through space.
The video says that time bends more than space. The time dilation we experience on the surface of planet Earth is around 0.00000001%. Is this insignificant bending of time enough to cause 1G acceleration?
General Relativity is a useful model. But if we follow it blindly, we might be ignoring other possible models.
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