Tag: science

Top Medical Journal Slaps Down Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth For Unscientific Trans Activism

In a shot across the bow against Scientific American’s continued descent into unscientific twaddle, a BMJ investigation documented over a dozen social media posts by editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth promoting transgender care for children, despite scientific evidence showing such treatment has had “devastating consequences” for minors.

“Laws preventing trans kids from getting gender-affirming treatment are dangerous and abusive, as well as against all medical evidence,” Helmuth posted on X in late 2022, one of many examples that The BMJ sent to Scientific American and its publisher Springer Nature, asking them to explain Helmuth’s trans advocacy which runs contrary to medical evidence.

In other social media posts, Helmuth has labeled critics of dangerous trans gender medicine for children “biased,” “bigoted,” “antiscience,” “misinformation,” “cruel,” and compared them to Nazis.

Last year, Helmut promoted false news in Scientific American that argued, “The research is clear and all the relevant medical organizations agree: Gender-affirming care is evidence-based & medically necessary & leads to much better outcomes for trans kids than refusing them care.”

Six days later, The BMJ released an investigation of new research finding that the evidence for trans gender care for children lacked evidence and that medical authorities were urging caution.

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We have every reason to mistrust the “scientific community” but does that mean viruses don’t exist?

In the context of the covid-19 “pandemic,” many people have come to understand that political and scientific authorities have been systematically lying about the origin of the infectious agent, as well as the need for and the safety of mandatory countermeasures, including lock-downs, masks and vaccines. Some sceptics have gone further and begun to question the existence of the virus responsible for covid-19, or even of viruses and pathogenic germs altogether. Here, we put these questions in perspective.

Before we go into any specifics on germs and viruses, we should acknowledge that the public has ample reason to mistrust not only politicians, public officials and the media, but also the “scientific community.” Even before the covid-19 pandemic, several very senior members of that community had drawn attention to the deplorable state of scientific integrity in medical research. Particularly poignant is this quote by a former editor-in-chief of one of the world’s leading medical journals, Marcia Agnell [1]:

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Agnell’s assessment is echoed by The Lancet’s editor Richard Horton [1], leading epidemiologist John Ioannidis [2], and Bruce Charlton, former editor of Medical Hypotheses [3]. And, to be sure, this already precarious state declined even further in the covid-19 “pandemic.” Here are some of the lies regarding covid-19 that were told alike by politicians and their scientific court jesters the world over:

  • the SARS-CoV-2 virus is of natural origin and jumped spontaneously from bats or pangolins to humans;
  • PCR-testing of asymptomatic patients is an appropriate means for tracking the spread of covid-19;
  • the early covid-19 waves threatened to overload the healthcare system to such a degree that it became necessary to destroy the economy in order to “flatten the curve”;
  • general vaccination was necessary to overcome the pandemic;
  • even though the vaccines were “safe and effective,” vaccinated persons were still at risk of being infected by unvaccinated individuals (but not by other vaccinated ones).

These absurd and brazen lies have been dealt with elsewhere, for example by cardiologist Dr. Thomas Binder [4]. We only cite them here to make it clear that we sympathise in principle with the radically sceptical attitude of much of the public. Nevertheless, we think that in some cases this radical scepticism has been taken too far and that the proverbial baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. To support our case, we will survey some of the history of “germ theory” of infectious disease.

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“FOO FIGHTER” EXPERIMENTAL FIRE CONTROL SATELLITE PROGRAM TO DEVELOP NEW GROUND SYSTEM PRIOR TO OFFICIAL LAUNCH

The Space Development Agency (SDA) has announced it is moving forward with the development of a ground system infrastructure for its experimental “FOO Fighter” fire control satellites.

Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems is developing the Fire-Control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter, or FOO Fighter (F2) system. The system will involve an array of eight prototype satellites capable of high-fidelity tracking of adversary missiles and providing precise coordinates to missile defense interceptors.

The program “will accelerate the ability to provide fire-control in support of global detection, warning, and precision tracking of advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems,” according to a draft solicitation released by the SDA last fall. “The F2 system will demonstrate advanced missile defense capability by incorporating fire control-quality sensors into a prototype constellation,” the solicitation adds.

This week, it was revealed that the first request for proposals for the experimental satellites is set to be released on June 18, according to SDA Director Derek Tournear, who spoke with reporters on May 24. The proposal request was first reported by Breaking Defense.

According to its current timelines, the SDA plans to solicit proposals for contractors to develop and manage the ground system backbone for the FOO Fighter program. This initiative marks a significant step toward advancing the U.S.’s satellite-based missile defense capabilities.

Tournear explained on Friday that a pre-RFP announcement had been posted on the SAM.gov website, detailing the SDA’s solicitation for an integrator to develop and manage the ground system for the FOO Fighter program.

The first solicitation, called the “Advanced Fire Control Ground Integration,” is looking for contractors to lay the groundwork for the program through the establishment of a developmental operations center (DOC) at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

The development of the system’s DOC will include the construction of ground entry points for data downlinks, cloud hosting for computing, and providing the IT resources that will support the FOO Fighter program during its initial stages, as well as later providing support for other fire control demonstrations.

This will be followed by a second solicitation, the “Advanced Fire Control Mission Integration” (AFCMI), later this summer. This solicitation will secure a contractor to oversee ground-based operations for the management of incoming data from the FOO Fighter and future demonstrations, helping to propel the program toward eventual use with military operators.

Originally, the SDA had envisioned hiring a sole contractor to oversee all of the program’s demonstration satellites under the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) Futures Program (PFP). This included the T1DES (Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System) project and the T2DES (Transport Layer Tranche 2).

Following additional feedback from industry stakeholders, an additional draft solicitation was issued last month, prompting SDA to take a slightly different approach.

The April 30 solicitation announced an award “using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) with a total potential value of approximately $414 million to build eight satellites, for launch in first quarter fiscal year 2027,” revealing that the fixed-price agreement had been awarded to California-based Millennium Space Systems, Inc.

“The FOO Fighter program will provide an operational demonstration of fire control efforts separate from, but complementary to, our missile warning/missile tracking and missile defense efforts already underway in the tranches,” Tournear said, accompanying the solicitation’s release.

“We look forward to working with Millennium, a new teammate in the expanding marketplace of performers innovating to deliver the PWSA for the warfighter,” Tournear said.

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World’s first bioprocessor uses 16 human brain organoids for ‘a million times less power’ consumption than a digital chip

A Swiss biocomputing startup has launched an online platform that provides remote access to 16 human brain organoids. FinalSpark’s Neuroplatform is claimed to be the world’s first online platform delivering access to biological neurons in vitro. Moreover, bioprocessors like this are claimed to “consume a million times less power than traditional digital processors.”

FinalSpark says its Neuroplatform is capable of learning and processing information, and due to its low power consumption could reduce the environmental impacts of computing. In a recent research paper about its developments, it claims that training a single LLM like GPT-3 required approximately 10GWh – about 6,000 times greater energy consumption than the average European citizen uses in a whole year. Such energy expenditure could be massively cut following the successful deployment of bioprocessors. 

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World’s first transgenic cow can produce human insulin in her milk

Diabetes happens when the body doesn’t have enough insulin, also called Type 1 diabetes, where the body’s own immune system damages cells in our body’s insulin-making machine called the pancreas.

Diabetes can also happen when the body gets insulin but doesn’t know how to use this insulin properly. This is called Type 2 diabetes, where the body becomes resistant to insulin, and the pancreas can’t make enough to keep up.

Both lead to high blood sugar levels

Although scientists have found ways to make insulin using different methods, such as E coli and yeast, researchers at the University of Illinois aim to make insulin in cow’s milk.

This is because they produce much milk, and milk is an everyday product in most homes. 

The researchers explain in their paper that they used special techniques to put human insulin genes into cow cells so that the cows produce milk containing human insulin. This milk can, in turn, make insulin for people.

“Mother Nature designed the mammary gland as a factory to make protein really, really efficiently. We can take advantage of that system to produce a protein that can help hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” said Matt Wheeler, professor of biotechnology and developmental biology at the University of Illinois and co-author of the study.

Wheeler and his team used somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which was previously used to create transgenic animals, like sheep, cows, and pigs, that can produce specific proteins, like insulin. 

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Mothers Exposed to Fluoride Birth Brain Damaged Babies — Study

A study published Wednesday has found that pregnant women with higher levels of the drug fluoride in their bodies give birth to children with higher rates of neurological-based behavioral problems.

“These findings suggest that prenatal fluoride exposure may increase risk of neurobehavioral problems among children living in an optimally fluoridated area in the US,” the study said in the ‘Meaning’ section.

The data indicates that with certain levels of fluoride, mothers basically double the risk of having clinically-damaged, misbehaving children. This is the first study on U.S. specific outcomes of prenatal fluoride exposure and the effects it has on children’s neurobehavioral outcomes.

“In this cohort study of 229 pregnant women and their children, a 0.68 mg/L (ie, 1 IQR) increase in specific gravity–adjusted maternal urinary fluoride during pregnancy was associated with nearly double the odds of T scores for total child neurobehavioral problems being in the borderline clinical or clinical range,” the study said in the ‘Findings’ section.

The importance of this study stems from the fact that other research out of Canada and Mexico has indicated that children exposed to fluoride in the womb have poorer neurodevelopment characteristics than non-fluoridated children. This study specifically looks at the U.S. population.

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Microplastics found in every human testicle in study

Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men.

The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample.

The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs’ testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination with PVC. The study demonstrates a correlation but further research is needed to prove microplastics cause sperm counts to fall.

Sperm counts in men have been falling for decades, with chemical pollution such as pesticides implicated by many studies. Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood, placentas and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people’s bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory.

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THE SEARCH FOR ALIEN TECHNOLOGY MAY HAVE ACTUALLY FOUND SOMETHING

Astronomers scanning distant star systems for signs of alien technology say they have found 60 candidates, including seven M-dwarf stars giving off unexpectedly high infrared heat signatures, which may be surrounded by orbiting extraterrestrial power plants known as Dyson Spheres (DSs).

First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson back in 1960, confirmation of these aptly named devices would not only represent the first verifiable signs of life beyond Earth but would likely indicate a species that is more technologically advanced than humans since constructing a Dyson Sphere is still well beyond our current capabilities.

The team behind the tantalizing findings says that more follow-up analysis of the data is planned. However, their initial readings appear to be consistent with the presence of alien technology orbiting at least seven of these stars.

HOW TO SPOT ALIEN TECHNOLOGY LIKE A DYSON SPHERE

Since humanity’s most powerful telescopes cannot image objects orbiting distant stars directly, researchers Matías Suazo at Uppsala University in Sweden and Gaby Contardo at the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy knew they would have to analyze light spectrum data emitted by millions of stars across the galaxy to search for signs of alien technology. In the case of Dyson Spheres, the team would need to look for an ‘unnatural’ imbalance between the visible light and the infrared light emitted by a distant star.

That’s because, as proposed by Dyson, the more technologically advanced a species becomes, the more energy it needs. If they become advanced enough, a species could, in theory, surround an entire star with a “sphere” designed to capture all of its emitted energy. The Debrief previously covered the science fiction origins and viability of Dyson Spheres in 2021.

A fully completed Dyson Sphere would be almost impossible to detect from such a long way away since all of its visible light would be captured by the sphere. However, either an incomplete sphere or a swarm of satellites known as a partial Dyson Sphere or a Dyson Swarm would still allow some of the visible light through for Earth’s telescopes to capture. At the same time, the sphere would radiate an excess of heat energy in the infrared spectrum as it captures the star’s radiated energy and then releases it into space.

Suazo and Contrado proposed that if the ratio between visible light and infrared light coming off of any particular star is just right, it would represent compelling evidence for the presence of a Dyson Sphere.

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THIS NASA-FUNDED PULSED PLASMA PROPULSION SYSTEM COULD CARRY HUMANS TO MARS IN JUST TWO MONTHS

A groundbreaking new pulsed plasma propulsion system could soon enable faster and safer crewed missions to planets like Mars, according to a leading developer of novel technologies aimed at advancing the next stages of human space exploration.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based space technology developer Howe Industries recently announced that its Pulsed Plasma Rocket (PPR) could represent a game-changer in advanced propulsion for space travel, allowing crewed missions to significantly reduce the travel time required to reach Mars.

According to current timelines, NASA aims to send the first crewed missions to Mars within the next two decades using habitat-like spacecraft paired with hybrid propulsion capabilities that combine chemical and electrical forms of propulsion to enable such long-duration missions.

Enter Howe Industries and the PPR’s unique combination of high thrust and specific impulse energies. The technology is an outgrowth of the Pulsed Fission Fusion (PuFF) concept, which employs a modified z-pinch device to compress a fission-fusion target within a liquid lithium sheath. The resulting thrust is produced as combustion propagates and expands against a magnetic nozzle through a process known as deflagration, which involves electrical discharges that create strong magnetic fields and produce high plasma densities and temperatures.

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A better way to challenge scientific consensus

Executive summary

In this article, I suggest a simple way to resolve scientific disagreements on important issues.

The method is simple:

  1. The two parties mutually agree on a series of experiments to resolve the conflict.
  2. The experiments are designed so the results are reproducible, for example, by having several independent efforts doing the same thing.
  3. Win or lose, the “mainstream view” party (who should be led by a prominent scientist in the field being explored) agrees to write up the results of the experiment(s) and submit it to a prominent peer-reviewed technical journal.
  4. The “mainstream” party gets a large monetary award (a research grant) upon publication. The more prestigious the author, the higher the reward.
  5. We pay all costs in addition to the reward for people’s time and to fund the experiment(s).
  6. The idea is to make this “an offer that nobody can refuse.”

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