Tag: science

📰 The Last Straw

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Humans are technological creatures. We invent new technologies. We embrace new technologies. Quickly. Often before we fully consider the ramifications or consequences. As we’ve seen over the last few years, the Internet is a great example of that. It has enabled marvelous new things. It has allowed us to keep in touch with friends and relatives across the globe, and to write and express our opinions with ease. Perhaps too much. It has also amplified the voices of the haters, enabled them to discover each other and grow their propaganda. It has enabled foreign countries to manipulate our media and propaganda easily to achieve their goals, and we’ve seen who and what those goals have elected to our highest offices, here in America. A two-edged sword indeed — with remarkable benefits, but with a terrifying downside.

But I’m not here to write about the Internet and Trump. I’m here to write about a different technology, one that was immortalized in that famous exchange from The Graduate:

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

Have you ever thought about how plastics have changed the world? Look around you. How much of what you see is made of plastic, or depends on plastic, or has components of plastics? Think about how much of our lifesaving medical marvels depends on plastics, on how much of our technology depends on plastics for cases and insulation and structures. Just imagine what life would be like without plastics — a world where we only had fabric, wood, strone/concrete, metal, rubber/latex, and glass.  Now think about where much of our plastic comes from. Do you know? Petroleum. The big risk of our dependence on oil — a limited resource — is not the fuel for our cars, but that one day we may not be able to make more plastic, or that it will be very expensive. Look around you, and think of that impact the next time you throw away your sandwich baggie.

But our dependence on plastic and our acting like they are an unlimited resource is not the only problem we didn’t consider. There’s also the disposal problem. Plastics last in the environment for a long time. Unless specifically engineering to biodegrade (and that’s a different can of worms, so to speak), plastics will be in landfills for many generations to come. We can’t recover the oil from plastic, just like we can’t recover the sand from concrete. Lightweight plastics find their way to the ocean, together with microplastics from so many cosmetics and containers, and everything we discard in the street that goes down storm drains. There they get smaller and smaller, forming the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and other trash eddies. Sea life eat these and absorb the plastic, and we eat that sea life, and … you get the picture.

This brings us to the actual point of this article: banning straws, and other news about plastics. First and foremost — why are we banning straws? To be precise, they aren’t being banned, but they are moving to “on request only”, as some people need plastic straws due to disabilities (ADA). There are lots of reasons, but the simplest is: it’s a low hanging fruit. Straws and lightweight grocery bags are easy things to ban because reusable alternatives are easily available, or can be made from other substances. They increase visibility of the issue without being a major pain, except from the Conservatives who use the issue to make fun of Liberals. There would be much more impact from banning disposable styrofoam take out containers, disposable cups, plastic eating utensils. But straws and grocery bags are easy. Some companies are even finding ways to thrive.

What may be next? Balloons. True, these are more made of latex or different plastics, but they create significant problems — both for power companies with the mylar metallic coated plastic that causes electrical shorts when they hit power lines, to the traditional balloons that go up so pretty …. and then deflate and come down for animals to eat. There is a move afoot to ban balloons, or to at least ban releasing balloons. Another area of concern is glitter. Glitter is a lot of small pieces of plastic mylar, that easily goes down the drain and to the ocean, to be consumed by animals.

What about all this consumption? We tend to think of plastic as something inert and non-reactive. It isn’t. Research is increasingly showing that using plastic for food — especially heating and microwaving food — is potentially very bad. [ETA: Even supposedly BPA free plastic appears not to be food-safe.] Consider this (from the linked article):

Most of our food containers — from bottles to the linings in aluminum cans to plastic wraps and salad bins — are made using polycarbonate plastics, some of which have bioactive chemicals, like bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates.

These man-made chemicals can leach from the containers or wrappings into the food and drinks they’re holding — especially when they’re heated. Research released earlier this year found that more than 90 percent of bottled water from the world’s leading brands was contaminated with microplastics, sparking a review of plastics in drinking water by the World Health Organization.

The main cause for concern is that these chemicals can mess with our hormones. Specifically, they can mimic hormones like estrogen, interfere with important hormone pathways in the thyroid gland, and inhibit the effects of testosterone.

There are those who opine that this one reason for the marked decrease in male fertility and births in recent decades. It could also be behind increases in cancer. What ever it is, there are reasons to use glass for food instead. Of course, manufacture of glass requires sand (another limited resource), but glass can be recycled.

Do you feel better now? Do you have a better understanding of why the humble straw is just the tip of the concern?

P.S.: Of course, there’s always more to be worried about. Millennials may killing mayonnaise, and all those pesticides we use on our crops (such as Roundup) may be ending up in our breakfast cereals and granola bars.

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💊 Safe and Effective … Or Perhaps Not

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As I work, between other tasks, to clear out the news chum, here’s a collection of articles related to health, medicine, and drugs:

  • Co-Pay Accumulators. One of the big problems with our medical system in the US today is how we pay for drugs, and a large part of that are the games insurers make us play. Consider co-pay accumulators. These impact use of those coupons drug manufacturer’s provide to make their drugs affordable. Copay accumulators mean that coupons no longer will be counted toward patients’ deductibles. When you use the coupons, you pay a fixed amount. The drugs manufacturer takes care of the difference between that fixed amount and what the drug company charges (or what insurance would pay). More importantly, the coupons are often applied to the insurance deductible (especially for injectable drugs ), speeding up the point where your out-of-pocket max is met. Co-pay accumulators, on the other hand, allow insurers to double dip: They get their full co-pays and they get to extend the duration of patients’ deductibles. The article is an interesting read for the exploration of the pros and cons.
  • Anticholinergic drugs and Depression. Recent studies are showing that some classes of anticholinergic drugs — particularly those used to treat depression, Parkinson’s and urinary incontinence — carry a higher risk of cognition problems or dementia. The concern is those anticholinergics used for depression (e.g. amitriptyline), urinary incontinence (e.g. oxybutynin) and Parkinson’s disease (e.g. procyclidine) were associated with around a 30% increased risk of developing dementia. Amitryiptyline is of interest to me, as it is a common drug used for migraines as well.
  • Depression Drugs and Suicide. More than a third of American adults use medications that list depression as a risk, and a quarter use drugs that increase the risk of suicide. The 203 drugs researchers identified aren’t obscure; they include some of the most commonly prescribed medications around — like birth control, beta blockers for high blood pressure, and proton pump inhibitors for acid reflux. Many are drugs used for migraines. The researchers from the University of Illinois and Columbia University discovered people using these drugs had an elevated risk of depression compared to the general population. And the more medications with depression as a side effect people took, the more their risk of the disease increased. It is certainly something to be aware of. [And while I’m ending a sentence with a preposition, here’s why that is considered bad.]
  • Yogurt and Chronic Inflammation. A recent study provides new evidence that yogurt may help dampen chronic inflammation. The study explored the hypothesis that yogurt may help reduce inflammation by improving the integrity of the intestinal lining, thus preventing endotoxins — pro-inflammatory molecules produced by gut microbes — from crossing into the blood stream. While anti-inflammatory medications like aspirin, naproxen, hydrocortisone and prednisone can help mitigate the effects of chronic inflammation, each comes with its own risks and side effects. There is a need for additional options — particularly safe, gentle, long-term treatments. Researchers have been exploring dairy products as a potential dietary treatment for more than two decades. Findings have been mixed, setting up a scientific debate about whether dairy products are pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory.
  • Baking Soda and Auto-Immune Disease. Here’s another interesting study, this time concerning baking soda (the most effective antacid, in my book). It appears that a daily dose of baking soda may help reduce the destructive inflammation of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. The study is some of the first evidence of how the cheap, over-the-counter antacid can encourage our spleen to promote instead an anti-inflammatory environment that could be therapeutic in the face of inflammatory disease, Medical College of Georgia scientists report in The Journal of Immunology.
  • Dealing with Chronic Pain. We’re all hearing about the opiod epidemic. Yet for those with chronic pain, they are often the only choice. What if they weren’t, and I’m not talking CBD as an alternative. Pain often has a psychological cause or at least a psychological component. There are 100 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain, and an unknown number of them with back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia symptoms, or other forms of pain that have no diagnosed physical cause. There have been numerous studies showing the benefit of placebos — in other words, belief that something will work — and belief is a large component of why prayer works for some. The problem is  the psychological component is often dismissed or never acknowledged. Cognitive behavioral therapy, meanwhile, shows meaningful benefits on chronic pain — both for psychogenic pain, and for pain with a physical cause — according to systematic reviewsof the research. There’s also promising research around mindfulness-based stress reduction and therapies inspired by it.
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Science Saturday – Cleanin’ Out The Chum

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’ve been really busy the last few weeks, and the chum has been accumulating. So I decided it was time to clean some clutter out of the bookmarks. Here’s a collection of science and medicine related articles that I found of interest:

  • Rheumatoid Arthritis. My wife, unfortunately, gets to deal with RA. Quite a few weeks ago, I learned about an article that explored the relationship between bacteria in beef and milk and RA: In particular, a strain of bacteria commonly found in milk and beef may be a trigger for developing rheumatoid arthritis in people who are genetically at risk, according to a new study from the University of Central Florida.
  • Artificial Sweetner and Crohns Disease. Another immune system disease, like RA, is Crohns. In another study,  researchers have found that, given over a six-week period, the artificial sweetener sucralose, known by the brand name Splenda, worsens gut inflammation in mice with Crohn’s disease, but had no substantive effect on those without the condition. I’m curious is there is any impact on RA. My wife only uses Stevia.
  • Going Gluten Free. We all know that if you are Celiac (as is my wife), you need to go on a gluten-free diet. Well, it turns out that might not be enough. There are reports on some extreme cases of cross contamination, and there are now tests sensitive enough to test for it. Cross-contact can start at the farm, where gluten-free crops might be grown adjacent to, or rotated with, gluten-containing crops. It can also occur anywhere down the line in processing, packaging and shipping. When Thompson reported the study on her Facebook page, which has over 17,000 followers, worried comments spooled out, ranging from concerns about airborne gluten from the bakery section of supermarkets, to cross-contact from wheat-eating family members, to a report from one woman with a gluten-detection dog able to reportedly detect down to 1 part per million (the dog alerted her to gluten on her shopping cart). A lament from one person with celiac disease seemed to sum it up: “There is no safe place in this world for a celiac. It breaks my heart.”
  • Case in Point: Oat Milk. It appears that a new artificial mylk is about to hit the market: Oat Milk.  They are predicting it will be the next big thing. Oat milk is made by milling oats with water to create a squishy texture. The resulting starch is broken down by added enzymes like malt sugar, which acts as a sweetener. That blend is then sifted to remove whole oat shells, leaving a creamy liquid that’s pasteurized and packaged. It even foams, thanks to a little canola oil. However, whether oats are gluten-free is iffy, and the malt sugar could also be a problem.
  • Having a Heart Attack. Here’s an interesting human interest story about a nurse in the Australian Outback that diagnosed their own heart attack, and saved their own life. Alone at his station, more than 600 miles from the city of Perth and 100 miles from any hospital at all, the 44-year-old man experiences a sudden bout of dizziness and severe chest pain. What he does next is remarkable, life-saving and — to a considerable degree — instructive.
  • Germicide Resistant Computers. Computers are a big problem in hospitals, because they can’t be sterilized or dipped in germicide. Enter HP: with new germicide resistant computers for hospitals.There are three products. There’s HP’s EliteOne 800 Healthcare Edition All-in-One desktop, there’s the 27-inch HP Healthcare Edition Clinical Review Display, and there’s the EliteBook 840 Healthcare Edition notebook. The laptop lets you disable the keyboard and touchscreen while cleaning, so that nothing is accidentally inputted. All three products are built to withstand deterioration from being cleaned with germicidal wipes, which may help reduce the spread of health care-related infections.
  • ADD/ADHC: How the Symptoms Shape Your Perceptions. In this interesting article, it is noted how the textbook symptoms of ADD — inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity — fail to reflect several of its most powerful characteristics; the ones that shape your perceptions, emotions, and motivation. The article then goes on to explain how to recognize and manage ADHD’s true defining features that explain every aspect of the condition: 1. an interest-based nervous system; 2. emotional hyperarousal; and 3. rejection sensitivity.
  • Night Owls. I get up early; my wife is a night owl. According to a recent study, that’s bad for her. A new study of mortality rates of nearly half a million people finds that individuals who strongly preferred to stay up late were more likely to be dead at the end of a six-and-a-half-year period. The findings, described in the journal Chronobiology International, offer the first study linking mortality risk to night-owl sleep habits, according to the authors. The results could help researchers better understand another aspect of the role that circadian rhythms play in human health. Then again, I’ve got the big belly, which is bad for me.
  • After Death. So what do you do with your body after you die, especially if you don’t want the “hole in the ground” that wastes resources and doesn’t decompose. Here are some eco-friendly alternatives.
  • Eyebrows. I find the human face and head fascinating. Especially the odd things, like the shape of our ears (quite ugly, when you think about it), and our eyebrows. There’s some new research out on eyebrows, and how they served to separate us from our Neanderthal brothers. The brow ridge is one of the most distinctive features that mark out the difference between archaic and modern humans. The theory is that eyebrows are a canvas upon which our eyebrows can paint emotions. And as we became an increasingly social species engaged in increasingly sophisticated communication, they helped us survive.
  • Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. A collection of scientific news chum wouldn’t be complete without a belated tribute to Tom Lehrer on his 90th birthday.
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Health and Medical News of Note

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As I continue to clear out the links, here is a collection of articles with some interesting health and medicine news:

  • Colds and Flus. A few articles related to the cold and flu season. First, here’s a useful chart of how to pick the right medicines for that cold or flu that you have. The key tip: Know your ingredients, what they do, and go for single-ingredient generics. Next: If you haven’t gotten that flu shot yet, GO GET IT. Anything you read about the dangers is only fear-mongering. Perhaps you think you shouldn’t get it because it isn’t fully effective. Even less effective, it is important to get it.  Think about it this way: seatbelts and air bags aren’t fully effective — people still get into accidents and die. But if you get into an accident, seatbelts and airbags reduce the amount of damage you will incur. Flu shots are like that:  you might still get sick, but it will likely be less severe. Better to be in bed for a few days than in the hospital or dead.
  • Tide Pods. They won’t go away, will they? Here’s an interesting infographic on the chemistry behind laundry pods, demonstrating succinctly why should should never never never put one in your mouth. You shouldn’t even eat real foods made to look like Tide Pods, so you don’t confuse the gullible and stupid out there.
  • Better Medical Testing. You might have heard about the recent Ikea advertising for women: they would pee on the ad, and it would reveal a discount on baby furniture if they were pregnant.  But it turns out that’s just the beginning, and the Ikea technology could save your life if you where having a heart attack. How? The cited article explores the technology behind the ad, and notes that the developer of the ad is now working on developing a type of synthetic paper that could combine all of those characteristics, and be used to develop diagnostic tools to detect certain types of heart diseases. Heart attacks, for instance, are very hard to diagnose from symptoms alone, like chest pain. But if, say, paramedics in an ambulance had a tool that can pick up certain biomarkers from plasma, just like the ad picks up the pregnancy hormone from the urine, they could quickly determine whether someone is having a heart attack. That would allow patients to receive immediate treatment, which is key to survive a heart attack. Oh, and someone else is working on a quick and easy blood test to detect cancer. The test, detailed in the journal Science, could be a major advance for “liquid biopsy” technology, which aims to detect cancer in the blood before a person feels sick or notices a lump. That’s useful because early-stage cancer that hasn’t spread can often be cured.
  • The Alien. I have an odd problem. When I essentially do a sit up (i.e., lie on my back and curl up), I get a belly bulge. My internist thinks it is a form of hernia (muscles separating), and although it can be fixed surgically, such fixes aren’t all that effective. Reading an article the other day, I found an interesting explanation of what I’ve got — which is oddly a post-pregnancy belly problem called diastasis recti.  Doctors diagnose diastasis recti when the distance between the two sides of the rectus abdominis muscle gets to be two centimeters or more. DR can affect anyone — women, men, and children. “Coughing, laughing, pooping, breathing, birthing, and moving (i.e., your posture and exercise habits) are all things that can change the amount of pressure in your abdomen” and can, over time, cause DR. As the article notes: “DR can give the belly a soft, protruding appearance. It can push the bellybutton out, or look like a visible gulch at the midsection when a [person] bends or does an abdominal curl.” For me, it seems to only be there when I move like a sit-up; for others, it is much more common post pregnancy due to the pressure of the baby. Alas, the cited article notes there are no good solutions to the problem yet, and exercise done wrong can make it worse.
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Thanksgiving and Black Friday News Chum

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Ah, Thanksgiving is over. People can start putting up their holiday decorations, and oh the shopping at those Black Friday sales. Have we got a bargain for you here on this blog: A sale on some slightly used news chum, cleaning out the inventory with a Thanksgiving and Black Friday theme. Shall we start?

Thanksgiving Music

Reading the social networks yesterday, the music of choice is that classic about T-Day Turkeys: Alice’s Restaurant. Here’s an interesting article on the Jewish connections of the song,  including the connections between Alice’s Restaurant, Meir Kahane, and Donald Trump.

The Stuffing

Stuffing is typically made from bread, so here are two interesting articles related to the Gluten-Free lifestyle. The first talks about the increasing growth in people going gluten free, when in reality the problem might not be gluten — it might be fructans instead. The second looks at some recent genetic engineering that aims at developing a gluten-free from of wheat.  I’d be too worried about cross-contamination in that case.

The Dessert

Ah, the dessert. A sugar high from all those pies. But we now know that the real culprits in our diets might not be the fat, but all that sugar. Further, we’re just learning that the sugar industry took lessons from big tobacco, and tried to hide the truth from us.

Cleaning Up Afterwards

Three articles related to cleaning up after that big dinner:

Going Shopping

Going shopping afterwards? Here is some useful information:

 

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Chum Stew: Interesting Links and News You Can Uze … and a bit more

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Observation StewI’m home today with a cold, and I have loads of interesting news chum links that have no coherent theme, so let’s just get them out there (h/t to Andrew Ducker for a few of these). Oh, and with each, you’ll get a little bit more.:

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Let Me Explain It To You

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Continuing to clear the news chum, here are some interesting “explanations” I’ve found of late:

 

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I Didn’t Know That!

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

This week’s news chum brings together a number of articles that present facts that you might not have known, but that are fascinating to read. Shall we begin? I quote a bit more from the first article, simply because the words crack me up every time I read them.

  • Fighting Capitalism. As you may have just read, Hasbro has dropped three timeless Monopoly tokens — the thimble, the boot, and the wheelbarrow — and replaced them with a T. Rex, a Penguin, and Rubber Ducky. Some speculate that this is further evidence that what was once a game that protested capitalism is being further eviscerated to celebrate it instead. After all, all three tokens eliminated fit into the theme of capitalism and its discontents: the railway baron’s top hat, the worker’s thimble, the boot with the strap by which to pull one’s self up, and so on. But after Parker Bros purchased the game, it has slowly and surely been turned into a game demonstrating how fun it is to make lots of money and bankrupt your friends. But fear not. A wonderful Vox article identifies the hidden anti-capitalist meanings behind the new tokens: (1) The T. Rex stands for the inherent predatory nature of capitalism. When you use the token, you’re saying, “Behold, I devour all that stands before me, just as capitalism devours the rights of the workers.”; (2) The Penguin. It carries a double meaning. It stands for the coldness of Wall Street, and also for the profit-driven destruction of the polar ice caps. Plus it was a classic Batman villain. (3) The Rubber Ducky. It seems to say, “Much like water off of this duck, the inhumanity and decadence of late capitalism just rolls off my back.”
  • Time Zones. You’ve heard of “fun with flags”; here’s fun with time zones. Some timezones have 1/4 and 1/2 hour offsets. Some are next to each other, but when you cross only the date changes. Some even allow you to go back in time.
  • Chemistry and Ironing. Here’s why your shirts come out of the dryer wrinkled, the easy way to unwrinkle them, and the chemistry behind no-wrinkle fabrics and treatments.
  • Making Lemonade. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When genetics gives your vitilgo, turn it into art.
  • Pennnnnnnnnnnnnies. Here’s a history of coin-elongation machines,  which you’ve probably seen, but never thought about.
  • Decluttering. Here’s why it is so hard to let go of stuff.

 

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