Paraquat is among the most toxic agricultural chemicals ever produced. It’s banned in the European Union, where the consequences of its use are still being felt, but in parts of the world it’s still being sold. This is made possible, in part, by an influence machine that works to suppress opposition to an $78 billion global industry.

A year-long investigation managed to penetrate a PR operation that casts those who raise the alarm, from pesticide critics to environmental scientists or sustainability campaigners, as an anti-science “protest industry,” and used US government money to do so.

The US-based PR firm, v-Fluence, built profiles on hundreds of scientists, campaigners and writers, whilst coordinating with government officials, to counter global resistance to pesticides. These profiles are published on a private social network, which grants privileged entry to 1,000 people. The network’s membership roster is a who’s-who of the agrochemical industry and its friends, featuring executives from some of the world’s largest pesticide companies alongside government officials from multiple countries.

These members can access profiles on more than 3,000 organisations and 500 people who have been critical of pesticides or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). They come from all over the world and include scientists, UN human right experts, environmentalists, and journalists. Many of the profiles divulge personal details about the subjects, such as their home addresses and telephone numbers, and spotlight criticisms that disparage their work. Lawyers have told us this goes against data privacy laws in several countries. […]

Our investigation reveals that the US government funded v-Fluence as part of its program to promote GMOs in Africa and Asia.

{ Lighthouse Reports | Continue reading }

unrelated { Electric cars causing fires after Hurricane Helene flooding }

{ Growth and decline of multiple intellectual abilities over the life span | Full study | PDF }

YouTube ban streamer for attempting to break world record for number of days without sleep […] Norme was over 250 hours into his “no sleep” attempt when the platform removed his stream.

Randy Gardner (born c. 1946) is an American man from San Diego, California, who once held the record for the longest amount of time a human has gone without sleep. In December 1963/January 1964, 17-year-old Gardner stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes (264.4 hours). Gardner’s record was then broken multiple times until 1997, when Guinness World Records ceased accepting new attempts for safety reasons. At that point, the record was held by Robert McDonald at 18 days and 21 hours (453 hours and 40 minutes).

“This is the loudest restaurant I’ve ever reviewed in D.C.,” he tells us as we look over the menu. “Here, it was 100 decibels at the bar during happy hour, and not much better in the center of the dining room.” […] The sound levels blow away a normal, 60-decibel conversation. […] The decibel scale (dB) is a scientific measure of sound intensity. To human ears a 10dB difference is about twice as loud, but the sound intensity is 10 times greater. […]

Our brains have a tough time sorting through the cacophony in crowded dining rooms, which can influence our behavior. Multiple studies show that prolonged exposure to noise has physical effects such as increased anxiety and fatigue. Taken together, these effects can make the restaurant experience more taxing than relaxing for patrons, and they can leave staff drained from a long day straining to offer service while risking permanent hearing damage. […]

Alcohol blunts our hearing — especially at lower frequencies. This means when I reach the legal limit to drive, my brain will turn down the volume of most sounds I’m hearing in a restaurant. This effect may give me some relief from the music, but it will also drown out voices. It explains why intoxicated individuals talk louder: They don’t hear themselves as well as they normally do and speak up to compensate. […]

Strangely, noise also seems to drive more alcohol consumption. French researchers discovered this effect by raising music levels in bars by about 15 decibels and recording the number of drinks served. […]

Sorting through noise in restaurant dining rooms is particularly taxing to our brains, studies have shown. Working memory is under high demand when we need to switch our attention from one voice to another in a sea of voices. […]

At 95 decibels, scientists observe people and rodents eat less and consume food faster. Wang suggests that this fact may be understood by restaurant managers trying to turn their tables.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

Menstrual synchrony was first demonstrated in a 1971 paper published in Nature by Martha McClintock. […]

she asked 135 college girls living in dorms to recall their period start dates at three times throughout the academic year. She found that close-friend groups had periods significantly closer together in April (later in the year) compared with October: lessening from an average of 6.4 to 4.6 days apart.

The phenomenon was dubbed “the McClintock effect” and is widely held as the first example of pheromones — unconscious chemical signals that influence behavior and physiology — among humans. […] Many subsequent researchers went on to reproduce the results from McClintock’s original experiment in people, rats, hamsters and chimpanzees.

But a cohort of studies that found no evidence for menstrual synchrony began to grow, too. […]

In 1992 H. Clyde Wilson […] re-analyzed McClintock’s first experiment, along with a few others that used a similar design. He found that all had inflated the difference between period start dates at the beginning of their studies […] their model of two pheromones — one that pulls ovulation forward and one that delays it — driving synchrony didn’t work […]

The insurmountable hurdle in all the studies is that women often have persistent cycles of different lengths. As such, they can never truly synchronize, just randomly phase in and out of synchrony over the months as their cycles diverge and converge. […]

But a team of Japanese researchers at Yokohama City University, led by Kazuyuki Shinohara, also found in a series of papers that donor women undergoing these two phases of the menstrual cycle release compounds that when inhaled by other women can significantly impact the frequency in the latter of pulses of luteinizing hormone (LH), which helps control the timing of ovulation and cycle length.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading }

At the root of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a memory that cannot be controlled. It may intrude on everyday activity, thrusting a person into the middle of a horrifying event, or surface as night terrors or flashbacks. Decades of treatment of military veterans and sexual assault survivors have left little doubt that traumatic memories function differently from other memories. […]

The people listening to the sad memories, which often involved the death of a family member, showed consistently high engagement of the hippocampus, part of the brain that organizes and contextualizes memories. When the same people listened to their traumatic memories — of sexual assaults, fires, school shootings and terrorist attacks — the hippocampus was not involved. […]

“traumatic memories are not experienced as memories as such,” but as “fragments of prior events, subjugating the present moment.” The traumatic memories appeared to engage a different area of the brain — the posterior cingulate cortex, or P.C.C., which is usually involved in internally directed thought, like introspection or daydreaming. The more severe the person’s PTSD symptoms were, the more activity appeared in the P.C.C. What is striking about this finding is that the P.C.C. is not known as a memory region, but one that is engaged with “processing of internal experience”

{ NYT | Continue reading }

quote { Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the other (page 69), 1979 | PDF }

experts have identified two main categories of factors that make us more attractive to mosquitoes: biological aspects we can’t change and behaviors we can. […]

Dozens of diverse molecules distributed throughout your body come together to create your unique odor. […] it’s likely this distinctive mix of chemical compounds that draws mosquitoes in. It’s also possible that some people emit more of the odor that mosquitoes like […] mosquitoes are sensitive to different types of smells, even ones humans can’t detect, Dr. McBride said. For instance, “mosquitoes love forearm odor,” she said. “No one ever thinks of their arms as being smelly.” […]

Mosquitoes seem to gravitate toward people with Type O blood, he said, for reasons researchers haven’t confirmed. […]

The individual pattern of how you breathe — what Dr. Bazzoli called the “breathing signature” — also plays a role. Mosquitoes seek out carbon dioxide (which in part is why they’re so good at finding us), and the more we exhale, the more carbon dioxide we send into the air, inviting bugs our way. […]

Then there are the factors that are more dependent on how you act throughout the day. If you were to do a vigorous workout outside, you might breathe more heavily and exhale more carbon dioxide, which might usher in mosquitoes, Dr. Potter said. Sweat sends a powerful signal to mosquitoes too. […] And if you’ve had a few beach-side beers or happy hour margaritas, you might also emit some alcohol in your sweat, Dr. Bazzoli said, which can lure mosquitoes in. Alcohol might change the chemical makeup of your body odor, which could entice mosquitoes. […]

certain perfumes and scented soaps and lotions (including sunscreens) can attract mosquitoes […]

Certain clothing colors like black and dark blue can act like a mosquito magnet

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

As the founder of Ironic, a meteorology company based in Brooklyn, Mr. Leavitt, 33, knows how temperatures and atmospheric conditions can sometimes affect weddings. […] Mr. Leavitt, who said he has conducted weather advisory for more than 2,400 events, now works as a consultant to wedding planners and venues, with fees starting at around $2,500. […]

While we can’t predict if there will be rain that day, what we can do is look at the historical weather data. We look at a specific mile in a location around the country over the past 30 years, and analyze the information. Say it’s rained three out of seven days, five out of seven days or seven out of seven days — that tells you a lot. If you know it’s going to rain five out of seven days, it’s a good idea to find a venue with an indoor option. If it’s raining once out of seven days, you can plan for an outdoor wedding.

We’re tracking every radar possible, every reporting data possible, and creating a clear picture of what the weather will be on a specific day. […] For a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., we used marine data to look at the wave height to determine when boats should transport guests for the easiest ride with the most peaceful, calm waters. At what time will people become less seasick? We did it in Lake Como, Italy, too.

For a Florida wedding on the beach, a couple wanted to get married outside in the afternoon, but didn’t want guests to be sitting in direct sunlight or holding up parasols and blocking the view. We produced a sun study — looking at the topography of the land, trees on the property, angle of the sun, height of the house and the sun’s path — to choose the precise time to start the ceremony with the most shade.

As meteorologists, we should never ever suggest what people do with their hair. But we can give you all the information on wind, speed, humidity and temperature, so you can take that to a hair stylist. If someone has naturally frizzy hair in a humid climate, or they’re more likely to sweat that leads to oily hair, we can give them the context so they can plan.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

art { Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–5 (detail) }

no known drug, including caffeine, can effectively reverse sleep deprivation.

The reason has to do, in part, with the circadian rhythm of a chemical called adenosine that plays a major role in the regulation of sleep.

When you awake from a restful night of sleep, the adenosine level in your brain is at its nadir. Throughout the day, it steadily rises and gradually produces the pressure to sleep in the evening. During sleep, adenosine is cleared from the brain, which helps us wake up and stay alert.

Caffeine is a powerful antagonist at adenosine receptors in the brain, blocking the sedating effects of adenosine and making you feel stimulated and mentally sharp.

Here’s the problem. If you cut short your normal night of sleep, adenosine is not fully cleared from the brain. With chronic sleep deprivation, adenosine levels continue to rise, creating a persistent sense of fatigue and sleepiness and impairing cognitive function.

The brain adapts to this flood of adenosine by increasing the number of adenosine receptors in an attempt to get you to fall asleep, which of course only makes you feel more tired.

You will probably respond by increasing your caffeine consumption, in an attempt to block rising adenosine activity, which can only be restored by a normal night of sleep — the very thing my patient was trying to cut short.

Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you tired. It impairs the brain’s ability to consolidate memory.

During sleep, your neurons are remodeled and change their firing pattern, which helps burn in the memories that are formed during the day.

Too little sleep can also exacerbate preexisting depression and anxiety disorders and make people with no previous mental health problems generally more angry and impulsive. […]

Intriguingly, while caffeine can’t eradicate sleep deprivation, it does appear to offset some of the harmful cognitive effects of sleep loss on memory. […]

Caffeine is usually metabolized within four to six hours. […] Some people are genetically slow metabolizers of caffeine and will have significant sleep-onset insomnia even from early morning coffee.

And here’s the most effective trick for falling asleep, which has been studied and shown to be as effective — if not more — than any hypnotic drug. Don’t do anything in bed except sleep or have sex — no reading, listening to music or anything else.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

I wrote in medical jargon, as you can see, “35f no pmh, p/w cp which is pleuritic. She takes OCPs. What’s the most likely diagnosis?”

Now of course, many of us who are in healthcare will know that means age 35, female, no past medical history, presents with chest pain which is pleuritic — worse with breathing — and she takes oral contraception pills. What’s the most likely diagnosis? And OpenAI comes out with costochondritis, inflammation of the cartilage connecting the ribs to the breast bone. Then it says, and we’ll come back to this: “Typically caused by trauma or overuse and is exacerbated by the use of oral contraceptive pills.” […]

OpenAI is correct. The most likely diagnosis is costochondritis […]

But I wanted to ask OpenAI a little more about this case. […]

what was that whole thing about costochondritis being made more likely by taking oral contraceptive pills? What’s the evidence for that, please? Because I’d never heard of that. It’s always possible there’s something that I didn’t see, or there’s some bad study in the literature.

OpenAI came up with this study in the European Journal of Internal Medicine that was supposedly saying that. I went on Google and I couldn’t find it. I went on PubMed and I couldn’t find it. I asked OpenAI to give me a reference for that, and it spits out what looks like a reference. I look up that, and it’s made up. That’s not a real paper.

It took a real journal, the European Journal of Internal Medicine. It took the last names and first names, I think, of authors who have published in said journal. And it confabulated out of thin air a study that would apparently support this viewpoint.

{ Medpage Today | Continue reading }

[T]he reason someone may live beyond 100 years starts with their DNA […] “You can’t make it out that far without having already won the genetic lottery at birth” […] The longer your parents live, the more likely you’ll live a healthier, longer life, experts say. […]

“It’s probably not one single gene but a profile, a combination of genes”

Nir Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, has studied the lives of hundreds of centenarians, the people they’ve married and their kids. The children of centenarians are “about 10 years healthier” than their peers, Barzilai said. […]

The plan is to use artificial intelligence to help find the genes and develop drugs from them

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

How do they keep blood flowing during heart transplant?

You’ll receive medication that causes you to sleep (general anesthetic) before the procedure. Your surgeons will connect you to a heart-lung bypass machine to keep oxygen-rich blood flowing throughout your body. This machine does the work of your heart and lungs while they are stopped.

Your surgeon will make an incision in your chest. Your surgeon will separate your chest bone and open your rib cage so that he or she can operate on your heart.

Your surgeon then removes the diseased heart and sews the donor heart into place. He or she then attaches the major blood vessels to the donor heart. The new heart often starts beating when blood flow is restored. Sometimes an electric shock is needed to make the donor heart beat properly.

{ Mayo Clinic | Continue reading }

related { In a First, Man Receives a Heart From a Genetically Altered Pig | NY Times }

quote { Ginny Hogan }

French researchers tested how well antibodies produced by natural infection and by coronavirus vaccines neutralize the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants, as well as a reference variant similar to the original version of the virus.

The researchers looked at blood samples from 103 people who had been infected with the coronavirus. Delta was much less sensitive than Alpha to samples from unvaccinated people in this group, the study found.

One dose of vaccine significantly boosted the sensitivity, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 still need to be vaccinated to fend off some variants.

The team also analyzed samples from 59 people after they had received the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

Blood samples from just 10 percent of people immunized with one dose of the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were able to neutralize the Delta and Beta variants in laboratory experiments. But a second dose boosted that number to 95 percent. There was no major difference in the levels of antibodies elicited by the two vaccines.

“A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was either poorly or not at all efficient against Beta and Delta variants,” the researchers concluded. Data from Israel and Britain broadly support this finding, although those studies suggest that one dose of vaccine is still enough to prevent hospitalization or death from the virus.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

Drinking coffee has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, melanoma, prostate cancer, even suicide […]

In numerous studies conducted throughout the world, consuming four or five eight-ounce cups of coffee (or about 400 milligrams of caffeine) a day has been associated with reduced death rates. In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die early from all causes than were people who shunned coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in the risk of suicide among both men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by boosting production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

It’s hard to remember a time when scrolling through Instagram was anything but a thoroughly exhausting experience.

Where once the social network was basically lunch and sunsets, it’s now a parade of strategically-crafted life updates, career achievements, and public vows to spend less time online (usually made by people who earn money from social media)—all framed with the carefully selected language of a press release. Everyone is striving, so very hard. […]

Back in the 1990s […] nobody cool was trying to monetize their lifestyle […] But somewhere in the early 2000s, the slacker of popular culture lost ground to the striver. […]

The internet influencer is the apotheosis of all this striving, this modern set of values taken to its grotesque extreme: Nothing is sacred, art has been replaced by “content,” and everything is for sale.

{ Rosie Spinks | Continue reading }

image { De Niro’s wig from Taxi Driver }

{ Seventy-seven cases of a new variant linked to a surge in Covid-19 cases in India have been found in the UK | FT | full story }

Stanford scientists saved drops of the COVID-19 vaccine destined for the garbage can, reverse engineered them, and have posted the mRNA sequence that powers the vaccine on GitHub for all to see.

The GitHub post is four pages long. The first two are an explanation by the team of scientists about the work, the second two pages are the entire mRNA sequence for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

{ Vice | Continue reading }

{ Excavator hiding 448 kilograms of MDMA leads to five arrests in Sydney and London | full story }

related { We went undercover in a Chinese MDMA factory }

Cannabis Delivery Services are illegal in Maine.  Gifting Cannabis is illegal in Maine.  Don’t worry though! It is still legal for an Adult age 21/+ to carry 2.5oz of Cannabis Flower and up to 5 grams of concentrates!

So under your scenario you are in Maine vacationing, living, etc… and you lost your weed.  OH NO!  Who do you call? The INCREDIBLES.ME Psychic Service!  We have Psychics roaming all over Portland communicating with their deity, their spirit guides, and having religious moments of clarity. We can guarantee to find your LOST WEED!! (For a small, but very worth while fee!).

Just login to this site, and select the cannabis or cannabis products you lost, and give us your address. We will find YOUR weed and get it back to you ASAP. Fees vary based on the time it takes us to find your weed, the quantity of weed we have to locate, and the distance in which we have to travel to get YOUR LOST weed back to you.

{ Incredibles.me | Continue reading }

The U.K.’s B.1.1.7 variant has spread to more than eighty countries and has been doubling every ten days in the U.S., where it is expected to soon become the dominant variant. […] new evidence also suggests that people infected with it have higher viral loads and remain infectious longer, which could have implications for quarantine guidelines. […]

“The fact that different variants have independently hit on the same mutations suggests we’re already seeing the limits of where the virus can go,” McLellan told me. “It has a finite number of options.”

Over time, SARS-CoV-2 is likely to become less lethal, not more. When people are exposed to a virus, they often develop “cross-reactive” immunity that protects them against future infection, not just for that virus, but also for related strains; with time, the virus also exhausts the mutational possibilities that might allow it to infect cells while eluding the immune system’s memory. “This is what we think happened to viruses that cause the common cold,” McLellan said. “It probably caused a major illness in the past. Then it evolved to a place where it’s less deadly. But, of course, it’s still with us.” It’s possible that a coronavirus that now causes the common cold, OC43, was responsible for the “Russian flu” of 1889, which killed a million people. But OC43, like other coronaviruses, became less dangerous with time. Today, most of us are exposed to OC43 and other endemic coronaviruses as children, and we experience only mild symptoms. For SARS-CoV-2, such a future could be years or decades away.

{ New Yorker | Continue reading }