Science & Technology

More evidence lockdowns don't work

Toby Young
Lockdown Sceptics
Thu, 24 Dec 2020 19:24 UTC

According to an end-of-year report by Neil Ferguson et al, introducing the first national lockdown a week earlier than March 23rd would have saved 21,000 lives. But would it? As we've documented many times on Lockdown Sceptics, the evidence that lockdowns significantly reduce virus transmission - or mortality - is threadbare at best. Which makes the Government's strategy of constantly ratcheting up restrictions rather nonsensical.

I'll give three examples to illustrate the point.

First, let's look at the rise and fall in daily cases in North and South Dakota. Both states have imposed some of the least severe restrictions in the US, according to the Blavatnik School of Government's stringency index. Yet in both states, daily cases have begun to decline organically as we head towards Christmas.

France, China developing biologically engineered supersoldiers: report

Paula Froelich
NY Post
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 03:31 UTC

Just two weeks after it was announced China was developing biologically enhanced super soldiers, France has joined the fray in creating terminator troops that can be "bred to kill" according to a new report.

Last week, France gave the go-ahead for augmented soldiers, and some fear the super troopers could be the new norm in the recent future.

The French seek to improve "physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities," and could allow for location tracking or connectivity with weapons systems and other soldiers. Among the ministry's research were drugs to keep troops awake for long periods of time and combat stress, and even surgery to improve hearing.

The new species of augmented soldiers, dubbed "homo robocopus" could also have altered DNA to give them enhanced speed and strength as well as robotics.

Bumble bees lacking high-quality habitat have higher pathogen loads

Chuck Gill, Pennsylvania State University
Phys.org
Tue, 22 Dec 2020 12:00 UTC

© David Cappaert, Bugwood.Org
Researchers found that bumble bees in landscapes that lacked quality nesting sites and spring flowers for forage had higher levels of pathogens. Their results can inform management practices to support the conservation of bee species that provide essential pollination services, they said.

Bumble bees found in low-quality landscapes — characterized by a relative lack of spring flowers and quality nesting habitat — had higher levels of disease pathogens, as did bumble bees in areas with higher numbers of managed honey bee hives, according to research led by Penn State scientists.

The results of the study, which examined how a variety of environmental and landscape characteristics influence infectious disease prevalence and bee health, can be used to inform management practices to support the conservation of bee species that provide essential pollination services in natural and agricultural ecosystems, the researchers said.

Comment: It's not just bumble bees that are suffering ill health because of an unnatural and unusual environment:

Christmas trees can stay green because of a photosynthetic short-cut

Umea University
Phys.org
Wed, 23 Dec 2020 20:28 UTC

How can conifers that are used for example as Christmas trees keep their green needles over the boreal winter when most trees shed their leaves? Science has not provided a good answer to this question but now an international team of scientists, including researchers from Umeå University, has deciphered that a short-cut in the photosynthetic machinery allows the needles of pine trees to stay green. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

In winter, light energy is absorbed by the green chlorophyll molecules but cannot be utilized by the downstream reactions in the photosynthetic machinery as freezing temperatures stop most biochemical reactions. This is especially a problem in the early spring when temperatures can still be very low, but sunlight is already strong, and the excess light energy can damage the proteins of the photosynthetic machinery. The researchers showed that the photosynthetic apparatus is wired in a special way which allows pine needles to stay green all year long.

Comment: See also:

Pair of brown dwarfs found in the constellation Ophiuchus

Rebecca Boyle
Inside Science
Tue, 22 Dec 2020 15:19 UTC

© Universität Bern / University of Bern, Illustration: Thibaut Roger
Artist's composition of the two newly discovered brown dwarfs.

Pluto is not a planet, according to the vast majority of astronomers. While it orbits the Sun and is mostly round, it does not orbit alone, instead traversing the solar system accompanied by several moons, including a companion almost half its size. This is the main reason for its demotion in 2006.

A few holdouts continue to debate this definition, but they may have a new epistemic challenge to contend with: What makes a star? When a distant object is too small and too faint to be a star, but also too big to be an exoplanet, and is not solitary, how can you be sure what it is?

Astronomers recently found a most mystifying example of such in-between objects: a pair of planetlike orbs, some 450 light-years away, that aren't bound to any host star and travel the void together. They are brown dwarfs, which are dim not-quite-stars that never grew large enough to fuse hydrogen. But they are tiny, even by brown dwarf standards, and they look more like planets than anything stellar, according to Clémence Fontanive of the University of Bern in Switzerland, the astronomer who discovered them. The larger brown dwarf of the pair sits along the boundary astronomers use to differentiate stars from planets, around 13 times the mass of Jupiter. The smaller one weighs in at only eight times the size of Jupiter.

"According to that definition, it should be a planet. But if you define that a planet should form around a star, then it's not really a planet, either," Fontanive said. She calls them "planetary mass brown dwarfs."

Interarm blood pressure difference linked to greater death risk

University of Exeter
Mon, 21 Dec 2020 19:58 UTC

Robust evidence from a large international study confirms that a difference in blood pressure readings between arms is linked to greater risk of heart attack, stroke and death.

Led by the University of Exeter, the global INTERPRESS-IPD Collaboration conducted a meta-analysis of all the available research, then merged data from 24 global studies to create a database of nearly 54,000 people. The data spanned adults from Europe, the US, Africa and Asia for whom blood pressure readings for both arms were available.

Funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and published today in Hypertension, the study is the first to conclude that the greater the inter-arm blood pressure difference, the greater the patient's additional health risk.

Currently, international blood pressure guidelines advise health professionals to measure blood pressure in both arms when assessing cardiovascular risk,- yet this is widely ignored. The new study provides a new upper limit of 'normal' for an inter-arm difference in blood pressure, which is significantly lower than the current guidance. The research could lead to a change in international hypertension guidelines, meaning more at-risk patients could be identified and receive potentially life-saving treatment.

In a methodology that put patients at its heart, working with a patient advisory group at every step of the research, the team analysed data on inter-arm blood pressure difference, and tracked the number of deaths, heart attacks and strokes that occurred in the cohort over 10 years.

7 billion-year-old stardust is oldest material found on Earth

Geology In
Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC

Scientists recently identified the oldest material on Earth: stardust that's 7 billion years old, tucked away in a massive, rocky meteorite that struck our planet half a century ago.

Stars have life cycles. They're born when bits of dust and gas floating through space find each other and collapse in on each other and heat up. They burn for millions to billions of years, and then they die. When they die, they pitch the particles that formed in their winds out into space, and those bits of stardust eventually form new stars, along with new planets and moons and meteorites. And in a meteorite that fell fifty years ago in Australia, scientists have now discovered stardust that formed 5 to 7 billion years ago -- the oldest solid material ever found on Earth.

"This is one of the most exciting studies I've worked on," says Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum, associate professor at the University of Chicago, and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These are the oldest solid materials ever found, and they tell us about how stars formed in our galaxy."

Psychopathic traits may have distinct neurobiological correlates in youth

Eric W. Dolan
Psypost
Sun, 13 Dec 2020 00:44 UTC

Different dimensions of psychopathic traits are associated with different brain abnormalities in youth, according to new research published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

"As a neuropsychologist, the neuropsychology of psychopathy has been one of my research interests. More importantly, prior studies have largely focused on adult psychopathy and whether the same brain correlates apply to adolescents whose neuropsychological functioning is drastically changing over time warrants investigation," said study author Bess Yin-Hung Lam, a research assistant professor at The University of Hong Kong.

In the study, the psychopathic traits of 29 children living in Brooklyn, New York, were assessed when they were 7 to 10 years old. Four years later, the participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain to assess gray matter volumes.

Plants can be larks or night owls just like us says new research

Earlham Institute
Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:37 UTC

Plants have the same variation in body clocks as that found in humans, according to new research that explores the genes governing circadian rhythms in plants.

The research shows a single letter change in their DNA code can potentially decide whether a plant is a lark or a night owl. The findings may help farmers and crop breeders to select plants with clocks that are best suited to their location, helping to boost yield and even the ability to withstand climate change.

The circadian clock is the molecular metronome which guides organisms through day and night - cockadoodledooing the arrival of morning and drawing the curtains closed at night. In plants, it regulates a wide range of processes, from priming photosynthesis at dawn through to regulating flowering time.

These rhythmic patterns can vary depending on geography, latitude, climate and seasons - with plant clocks having to adapt to cope best with the local conditions.

Researchers at the Earlham Institute and John Innes Centre in Norwich wanted to better understand how much circadian variation exists naturally, with the ultimate goal of breeding crops that are more resilient to local changes in the environment - a pressing threat with climate change.

To investigate the genetic basis of these local differences, the team examined varying circadian rhythms in Swedish Arabidopsis plants to identify and validate genes linked to the changing tick of the clock.

New study shows mask mandates had zero effect in Florida or nationwide, but the lie continues

Scott Morefield
Townhall
Mon, 21 Dec 2020 21:20 UTC

Obviously, no amount of evidence, data, trends, facts, studies, or science will ever convince most 'public health officials' that masks aren't doing squat to stop the spread of COVID-19. Cases and deaths continue to spike (yes, many of these are super-sensitive PCR test-driven numbers, but still) despite the fact that well over 90% of the country are complying with their absurd mandates. Yet, predictably, the virus keeps going right on virusing, as highly contagious respiratory viruses, unfortunately, tend to do, especially once cold weather hits.

Nevertheless, those of us who are mask skeptics have a difficult chore in front of us. Given that most of the country is under a mask mandate of some form or another, we can point to spikes all day AFTER these mandates were put in place only to have our opponents simply say, "Look how bad it would have been WITHOUT masks!"

It's a tough argument to counter given the fact that our overlords have sold masking as a low-cost, easy "solution" that's totally worth it even if they "save one life," or something (nevermind the health risks - let's censor docs who talk about those!). So, how DO we prove that things wouldn't have been worse without masks? One way is to look at data from the few free states remaining.

In Florida, for example, most counties have so far bravely refused to implement mask mandates while others, usually in high population centers, have done so. Justin Hart and the team at Rational Ground (follow them on Twitter here - it's worth it) just released a comprehensive data analysis of masked vs non-masked counties in the state. A total of 22 of 67 counties in the state have implemented a mask order at some point during the period of May 1 through December 15. It may not sound like many, but these include almost all of Florida's largest metro areas. To be more than fair, if an area added a mask order at some point during the outbreak, the study's authors gave a 14 day period to allow time for cases to begin subsiding. "Cases were summed for both mandate and non-mandate jurisdictions and adjusted per 100,000 people for days the mandates were or were not in effect," wrote the authors, describing the methodology used.

Comment: Here's Hart's Twitter thread laying out the findings:

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Science & Technology

More evidence lockdowns don't work

France, China developing biologically engineered supersoldiers: report

Bumble bees lacking high-quality habitat have higher pathogen loads

Christmas trees can stay green because of a photosynthetic short-cut

Pair of brown dwarfs found in the constellation Ophiuchus

Interarm blood pressure difference linked to greater death risk

7 billion-year-old stardust is oldest material found on Earth

Psychopathic traits may have distinct neurobiological correlates in youth

Plants can be larks or night owls just like us says new research

New study shows mask mandates had zero effect in Florida or nationwide, but the lie continues

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