Tag: science

Chemical tweaks to a toad hallucinogen turns it into a potential drug

It is becoming increasingly accepted that classic psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and mescaline can act as antidepressants and anti-anxiety treatments in addition to causing hallucinations. They act by binding to a serotonin receptor. But there are 14 known types of serotonin receptors, and most of the research into these compounds has focused on only one of them—the one these molecules like, called 5-HT2A. (5-HT, short for 5-hydroxytryptamine, is the chemical name for serotonin.)

The Colorado River toad (Incilius alvarius), also known as the Sonoran Desert toad, secretes a psychedelic compound that likes to bind to a different serotonin receptor subtype called 5-HT1A. And that difference may be the key to developing an entirely distinct class of antidepressants.

Uncovering novel biology

Like other psychedelics, the one the toad produces decreases depression and anxiety and induces meaningful and spiritually significant experiences. It has been used clinically to treat vets with post-traumatic stress disorder and is being developed as a treatment for other neurological disorders and drug abuse. 5-HT1A is a validated therapeutic target, as approved drugs, including the antidepressant Viibryd and the anti-anxiety med Buspar, bind to it. But little is known about how psychedelics engage with this receptor and which effects it mediates, so Daniel Wacker’s lab decided to look into it.

The researchers started by making chemical modifications to the frog psychedelic and noting how each of the tweaked molecules bound to both 5-HT2A  and 5-HT1A. As a group, these psychedelics are known as “designer tryptamines”—that’s tryp with a “y”, mind you—because they are metabolites of the amino acid tryptophan.

The lab made 10 variants and found one that is more than 800-fold selective about sticking to 5-HT1A as compared to 5-HT2A. That makes it a great research tool for elucidating the structure-activity relationship of the 5-HT1A receptor, as well as the molecular mechanisms behind the pharmacology of the drugs on the market that bind to it. The lab used it to explore both of those avenues. However, the variant’s ultimate utility might be as a new therapeutic for psychiatric disorders, so they tested it in mice.

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Climate Alarm Has Become a Dangerous Ideology, Says Cambridge Academic

Mike Hulme, Professor of Human Geography at Cambridge University, has come out with a dark warning that the obsession with climate change as the cause of all our ills, and the only problem worth focusing any attention on, has turned ‘climatism’ into an ideology and left the science far behind. The Mail, which interviewed him, has the story:

In his most recent book, Climate Change Isn’t Everything (2023), Hulme argued that belief in the urgent fight against climate change has shot far past the territory of science and become an ideology.

Hulme… dubs this ideology “climatism”, and he argues that it can distort the way society approaches the world’s ills, placing too much focus on slowing Earth from warming.

The problem, he said, is this narrow focus takes attention away from other important moral, ethical, and political objectives – like helping people in the developing world rise out of poverty.

As with other ‘isms’ – like cubism or romanticism – ideologies provide a way of thinking about things, explained Hulme.

“They’re like spectacles that help us to make sense of the world, according to a predefined framework or structure,” he said.

To be clear, Hulme does not claim that all ideologies are wrong.

“We all need ideologies, and we all have them – whether you’re a Marxist or a nationalist, you’re likely to hold an ideology of some form or other,” he added.

As Hulme sees it, many journalists, advocates and casual observers of climate change have become devotees of climatism, inaccurately attributing many events that happen in the world as being caused by climate change.

“No matter how complex a particular causal chain might be, it’s a very convenient shorthand to say, ‘Oh, well, this was caused by climate change’,” Hulme said.

“It’s a very shallow and simplistic way, I would argue, to try to describe events that are happening in the world.”

Hulme doesn’t argue that the effects of climate change are not happening, though, just that stopping climate change won’t stop disasters from happening altogether.

“Fundamentally, we’re going to have to deal with hurricanes, and we’re not going to deal with them just by cutting our carbon emissions,” he said.

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A Compound Discovered On Easter Island Extends Life, Combats Alzheimer’s

Scientists are still uncovering the secrets of a compound discovered 50 years ago on Easter Island. Produced by bacteria there, rapamycin appears to be a powerful life-extender and may be a transformative treatment for age-related diseases.

In 2009, the National Institute on Aging Interventions Testing Program (ITP) published a groundbreaking study indicating that rapamycin extended the lifespan of mice by 9 percent to 14 percent. Experiments conducted by various research institutions worldwide have further corroborated these findings or have found the compound to have significantly greater life-extending effects.

The drug also exhibits rejuvenating effects. For example, it can stimulate hair regrowth and prevent hair loss in a short period. It reduces proteins related to aging in the skin and increases collagen. The drug has even shown positive effects in treating age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, as well as diabetes and heart and muscle conditions.

While the drug label for rapamycin currently does not claim to “extend human life,” some people with a strong desire for longevity have already sought this medication from their doctors and take it regularly in small doses.

A study published in 2023 in GeroScience employed a questionnaire to survey 333 adults taking rapamycin off-label, most under the supervision of a physician. The vast majority (95 percent) reported taking rapamycin for “healthy longevity/anti-aging” reasons, almost 19 percent for preventing dementia, and a few for “cardiovascular disease” or “cancer.” However, no one reported taking the drug for its original approved use: prevention of organ transplant rejection.

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There’s Nothing “Scientific” About Climate Models

On Sunday’s BBC Politics, Luke Johnson asked for evidence that the recent Dubai flooding was due to climate change. Chris Packham glibly responded: “It comes from something called science.”

This simply highlighted his poor scientific understanding. The issue is his and others’ confusion over what scientific modelling is and what it can do. This applies to any area of science dealing with systems above a single atom – everything, in practice.  

My own doctoral research was on the infrared absorption and fragmentation of gaseous molecules using lasers. The aim was to quantify how the processes depended on the laser’s physical properties. 

I then modelled my results. This was to see if theory correctly predicted how my measurements changed as one varied the laser pulse. Computed values were compared under different conditions with those observed. 

The point is that the underlying theory is being tested against the variations it predicts. This applies – on steroids – to climate modelling, where the atmospheric systems are vastly more complex. All the climate models assume agreement at some initial point and then let the model show future projections. Most importantly, for the projected temperature variations, the track record of the models in predicting actual temperature observations is very dubious, as Professor Nicola Scafetta’s chart below shows. 

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SOMETHING IS AFFECTING GRAVITY IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, AND ASTRONOMERS SAY IT COULD BE AN UNKNOWN PLANET

In the far reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune, a mysterious and yet-unseen world may be lurking in the darkness. Dubbed “Planet 9,” this hypothetical celestial body has been the subject of intense scientific debate and speculation since its existence was first proposed in 2016.

Now, a new study published to the arXiv pre-print service by a team from the California Institute of Technology, Université Côte d’Azur, and Southwest Research Institute has provided compelling evidence supporting the presence of this enigmatic planet.

The origin of the Planet 9 hypothesis stems from the peculiar alignments in the orbits of several distant trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Astronomers over the years have debated that these orbital anomalies could be explained by the gravitational influence of an undiscovered planet, estimated to be about five to ten times the mass of Earth, orbiting the sun at a distance of hundreds of astronomical units. Simply put, something weird is going on around Neptune.

The astronomical community has been divided on the existence of Planet 9. Some scientists argue that the observed orbital alignments could be the result of observational biases or other factors, such as the self-gravity of a massive disk of planetesimals (which are bits of debris that form discs around planets).

However, the study’s authors, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown disagree. Back in 2015, the pair announced new research that provided evidence of a giant planet tracing an unusual, elongated orbit in the outer solar system. Ever since, they have worked hard to prove that their computer simulations are not only accurate, but reflective of what is happening at the far reaches of our solar system.

“The possibility of a new planet is certainly an exciting one for me as a planetary scientist and for all of us,” said the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Jim Green, back in 2015. “This is not, however, the detection or discovery of a new planet. It’s too early to say with certainty there’s a so-called Planet X. What we’re seeing is an early prediction based on modeling from limited observations. It’s the start of a process that could lead to an exciting result.”

This new study provides a fresh perspective on the Planet 9 hypothesis by focusing on a previously overlooked population of TNOs: long-period, low-inclination, Neptune-crossing objects. Using comprehensive N-body simulations that account for the gravitational influence of all known giant planets, the Galactic tide (a series of forces exerted by objects in our galaxy outside our solar system), and passing stars, the researchers demonstrated that the presence of Planet 9 can naturally explain the observed distribution of these TNOs.

One of the key findings of the study is that Planet 9 can drive the orbits of distant TNOs with semi-major axes greater than 100 AU into Neptune-crossing trajectories, a feat that simulations without Planet 9 struggle to replicate. In short, something out there is causing these effects, and the study argues that the cause of these gravitational shifts is, most likely, a planet.

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Scientific American Claims It Is “Misinformation” That There Are Just Two Sexes

Scientific American has published a piece claiming that “misinformation,” such as the notion that there are only two sexes, is “being used against transgender people” and in order to target “gender-affirming medical care.”

The article states that there are three types of “misinformation,” and they are “oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research, and promoting false equivalences.”

The piece asserts that “Many of the arguments against trans rights center on the idea that transness itself is not legitimate—that there are just two sexes, period.”

There are only two sexes though.

It then turns to ‘scientist’ Simón(e) Sun, a self described trans(sexual) ándrógýne \ (neuro)biologist, pronouns in bio person and notes “You describe this idea as ‘sex essentialism.’ Can you explain that term, and talk about how it shapes the debate.”

They/she then states “Essentialism is the idea that you can take any phenomenon that is complex and distill it down to a particular set of traits. In the case of sex essentialism, the idea is that you can sufficiently describe sex by a few particular characteristics. In this debate, it used to be chromosomes, now it’s gametes (egg and sperm cells).”

Yeah, that is biology 101 and no matter how many times they/she says it’s changed and that anyone who doesn’t agree is a ‘transphobe’, it hasn’t.

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Two lifeforms merge into one organism for first time in a billion years

For the first time in at least a billion years, two lifeforms have merged into a single organism.

The process, called primary endosymbiosis, has only happened twice in the history of the Earth, with the first time giving rise to all complex life as we know it through mitochondria. The second time that it happened saw the emergence of plants.

Now, an international team of scientists have observed the evolutionary event happening between a species of algae commonly found in the ocean and a bacterium.

“The first time we think it happened, it gave rise to all complex life,” said Tyler Coale, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the research on one of two recent studies that uncovered the phenomenon.

“Everything more complicated than a bacterial cell owes its existence to that event. A billion years ago or so, it happened again with the chloroplast, and that gave us plants.”

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NASA VETERAN’S PROPELLANTLESS PROPULSION DRIVE THAT PHYSICS SAYS SHOULDN’T WORK JUST PRODUCED ENOUGH THRUST TO OVERCOME EARTH’S GRAVITY

Dr. Charles Buhler, a NASA engineer and the co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies, has revealed that his company’s propellantless propulsion drive, which appears to defy the known laws of physics, has produced enough thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity.

A veteran of such storied programs as NASA’s Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), The Hubble Telescope, and the current NASA Dust Program, Buhler and his colleagues believe their discovery of a fundamental new force represents a historic breakthrough that will impact space travel for the next millennium.

“The most important message to convey to the public is that a major discovery occurred,” Buhler told The Debrief. “This discovery of a New Force is fundamental in that electric fields alone can generate a sustainable force onto an object and allow center-of-mass translation of said object without expelling mass.”

“There are rules that include conservation of energy, but if done correctly, one can generate forces unlike anything humankind has done before,” Buhler added. “It will be this force that we will use to propel objects for the next 1,000 years… until the next thing comes.”

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Virologists Have ‘Resorted to Anti-Scientific Practices to Make Their Claims.’

The realisation that the ‘whole Covid situation’ was fraudulent in early 2020 led to a ‘deep dive’ and the realisation that the fraud surrounding virology had actually been occurring for more than a century for doctors Sam and Mark Bailey. The couple had both previously been trained in the conventional medical system, had conventional beliefs and thought they knew all about microbiology and germs. However, due to the fact that things did not ‘add up’ in the Covid era they began their own indepth research which resulted in their own books – such as The Final Pandemic – An antidote to medical tyranny, – and papers that Mark Bailey says expose why the virus model is ‘completely fraudulent’ and why viral pandemics are not ‘a thing.’

According to the doctors Bailey, they have spent the last four years with their allies dismantling every aspect of the virus model whether it concerns “isolation”, antibodies, genomics, PCR, proteomics, electron microscopy, or animal and human studies. Additionally, in recent webinars Dr Mark Bailey has discussed with Dr Tom Cowan, the concepts of independent variables and controlled experiments, among other areas. Mark says ‘Clearly the virologists have resorted to anti-scientific practices to make their various claims including the foundational claim of virus existence.‘

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‘WARP FACTORY’ SIMULATOR FROM PHYSICS THINK TANK TO AID CREATION OF STAR TREK-STYLE WARP DRIVES

International Thinktank Applied Physics (AP) has released its “Warp Factory” simulator and toolkit to help scientists and engineers move closer to building a real-world Star Trek-style warp drive. Having already established itself in the nascent field of warp mechanics with the previous release of its “physical warp drive” design in 2021, AP is now offering its expertise to the broader community to advance the development of existing and future warp drive concepts.

The Public Benefit Corporation is also putting its money where its mouth is by offering warp field theorists a chance at $500,000 worth of grant money, a commitment the organization describes as an example of its “firm grounding in humanitarian and commercial scientific solutions.”

“Warp Factory serves as a reality check for warp drive designs,” explained AP’s Dr. Christopher Helmerich in an email to The Debrief. “By analyzing designs in a comprehensive and automated manner, we can identify unphysical characteristics more efficiently than ever before. This means we can steer the development of warp drive technology toward designs that can, hopefully, be built and operated in the future.”

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