“Time is a flat circle,” Rust Cohle famously opined. I’ve always taken that as another form of the biblical proclamation that there’s nothing new under the sun. I think about that on New Year’s Day, as we unite in contrived joy at the rolling over of our astronomical odometer.

Declaring today to be no different than yesterday because of an arbitrary date change is neither novel nor insightful. But it might be worth considering in a year when we were once again reminded how craven and unreliable humanity really is—especially in the western world.

One of the great things about education is that it forces you to think about uncomfortable truths—in this case, the classic “trilemma” and the Westphalian model of statehood. Or in layman’s terms...is democracy all it’s cracked up to be? Has our focus on the individual doomed us?

It strikes me that one of our great failings as humans is that of imagination—rather, our consistent inability to imagine the comfortable, constant structures of our personal worlds crumbling. We are prisoners of the present in that way.

If I could back to 2000 and tell you that in 20 years the Twin Towers would be gone, we’d be embroiled in two decades of war, we’d have a President who supports groups that claim “6MWE” and Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island would be one of 250k+ Americans who died of a plague...

1~Consider the gnosis within this thread.

2~

3~

4~From the Flat Earth Podcast App.
See where the Sun is on the hour hand?
Wherever it is at is 12 noon with Sun overhead!
Sun laps Moon every 28 cycles (days).
That's how Moon changes Zodiac Signs
every 28 cycles (days).
I LOVE THIS PLAGAMO!!!

5~More supporting evidence.

Happy 2021! @MBVanElzakker and I are excited to share our new article published in #Immunometabolism: “Pathogens Hijack Host Cell Metabolism: Intracellular Infection as a Driver of the Warburg Effect in Cancer and Other Chronic Inflammatory Conditions”:

2/ In the paper, we detail molecular mechanisms by which #viral, #bacterial, and #parasite intracellular pathogens can induce, or contribute to, a Warburg-like #metabolism in infected host cells in order to meet their own replication and nutritional needs.

3/ We also discuss how host defense towards #infection may impact cellular metabolic changes (including how #mitochondria can participate in the innate immune response towards infection)

4/ We then provide examples of how many of these same intracellular pathogens have been identified in #tumors, atherosclerotic lesions, #granuloma, and other tissues containing cells with a Warburg or altered metabolism.

5/ Last, we examine further trends associated with infection and host cell metabolism, including how #pathogen-driven hijacking of host cell lipid metabolism can support viral, bacterial, and parasite survival and replication.

Finally! Back with another #ScienteaficABC 😁The next in my alphabetical journey through all 128 (currently, anyway) spider families is ANAPIDAE! This family of diminutive spiders contains 58 genera/231 species as of now. (images: Conoculus lyugadinus by Akio Tanikawa, CC)

They occur worldwide, but mostly S. America, Africa, Asia & Australia/NZ. A few species are found in Europe and North America as well. (Image: Micropholcomma sp. by tjeales on iNat, CC)

Interestingly, Anapidae have either 6 or 8 eyes, with the posterior median pair being either reduced in size or totally absent. They do not exceed around 2mm in body length so, as a family, are very small. (Image: Micropholcomma sp. tjeales on iNat, CC)

They have a modification to the carapace giving them a characteristic raised ocular area. They are tiny (<3mm long), w/ rounded or hunched abdomens & quite short legs. They have a light covering of hairs & some species have spines on their legs & even abdomen. (img: tjeales iNat)

An interesting feature that some species exhibit is the presence of hardened, shell-like dorsal &/or ventral scutes on their abdomen, which are useful in identification. You can see more images including some that show these scutes here:

#SackWhitty seems to be trending. It's time to remind you that Whitty has been both working on the wards and leading the UK science response alongside SAGE. It's not his fault that politicians have gotten in the way. Blaming him allows the government to get away with negligence

Like any healthcare professional, I have been quizzical over certain decisions, but I doubt that Whitty has been the problem. We are led by science, but politics delays the response. We should have locked down earlier, opened later, and been more restrictive.

The #eatouttohelpout campaign was a political exercise that led to disaster. The Tier system was recognised early as a bad idea. The push from scientists and medical teams has always been to lock down earlier, restrict more. This is not nice, but nescessary.

It has been Johnson and Co who have delayed everything, tried to have their cake and eat it, sold PPI contracts and track and trace to cronies and friends. It has been certain pundits and commentators that have denied the outbreaks and slowed responses and sowed doubt.

The government will look for a scapegoat, and now they don't have the EU they will blame the 'experts' as per the brexit scheme, no blame can reflect on themselves. Note how this works, if they can't blame Whitty they will blame immigrants and mental health.

(10/01/2018) Human 2.0 Is Coming Faster Than You Think. Will You Evolve With The Times?

(01/24/2019) Chinese scientists cloned gene-edited monkeys, with horrifying

(08/05/2019) Spanish scientists are making 'very promising' human-monkey chimeras in

(09/15/2019) Three-Year-Olds Might Become Eligible for Sex Changes at UK Clinic. NHS Plans Referrals for 3-year-olds Struggling with Gender

(10/29/2019) Scientists Demonstrate Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in

Today we report the use of base editing in patient-derived cells and in mice to correct the most common cause of progeria, the devastating rapid aging disease. Progeria is typically caused by a dominant negative C•G-to-T•A point mutation in LMNA. 1/11 https://t.co/O7dkEYpndg

The mutation (discovered by @NIHDirector’s lab in 2003) results in progerin, a toxic protein that damages nuclei. So providing more healthy LMNA is not a solution, and cutting the mutated gene with nucleases is also challenging due to indel mixtures & similarity with wt LMNA.2/11

We used an adenine base editor to convert the T•A that causes progeria back to C•G at the key position in LMNA. Base editing in cells from progeria children corrected the mutation efficiently (~90%) with minimal indels or off-target edits, and restored nuclear morphology. 3/11

We then performed in vivo base editing of a mouse model of human progeria developed by @NIHDirector’s lab. These mice have two copies of the mutated human LMNA gene, and develop heart disease, age rapidly, & die early (~7 mo.), resembling symptoms of the disease in children. 4/11

A single injection of AAV9 (10^11-10^12 total vg) encoding the base editor into the circulatory system of these mice resulted in ~10-60% correction of the mutation in various organs, corrected the RNA missplicing of LMNA, and reduced progerin protein levels in tissues. 5/11

@Profepps @VolokhC Garrett, I'd be happy to send you all sorts of scientific citations from my forthcoming chapter on the issue, but I'm not convinced you would understand them, or if you did, whether you'd be willing to understand them.

@VolokhC Ah, what the hell, just in case someone out there wants to do some actual research instead of being obnoxious and snarky.

@VolokhC Javier Perez-Rodriguez & Alejandro de la Fuente, Now is the Time for a Postracial Medicine: Biomedical Research, The National Institutes of Health, and the Perpetuation of Scientific Racism, 17 Am. J. Bioethics 36, 41 (2017).

@VolokhC Norman G. Osborne & Martin Feit, The Use of Race in Medical Research, 267 J. Am. Med. Assoc. 275 (1992).

@VolokhC Dorothy Roberts, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century 72 (2011).

A short thread on what I think is particularly useful intuition for the application of computational statistics.

Deterministic methods, like variational Bayes, utilize _rigid_ approximations. Ultimately these methods try to find the best way to wedge an approximating solid into the desired solid. If the two shapes are close enough then you can get a good fit.

But this rigidity also means that the approximating solid can't always contort to fit into the desired solid. If the two shapes don't match up well enough then we will end up in lots of awkward configurations no matter how hard we push.

In particular it's hard to quantify how good the fit of the approximate solid into the desired solid might be without knowing the shape of the desired solid already, which isn't possible in practice. This is one reason why these methods have such limited empirical diagnostics.

Stochastic, methods, on the other hand, utilize more fluid approximations that are able to take the shape of their container given enough time. In this respect we can think of them like a liquid or gas filling the desired shape.

https://t.co/0BbPc11eTD
The Top 10 Psilocybin Research Papers of 2020
- FS Barrett, MK Doss, ND Sepeda, et al. – Emotions and brain function are altered up to one month after a single high dose of psilocybin. @FredBarrettPhD 1/10

SB Goldberg, BT Pace, CR Nicholas, et al. – The experimental effects of psilocybin on symptoms of anxiety and depression: A meta-analysis. “meta-analysis of studies using psilocybin along with behavioral interventions to treat elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression.” 2/10

GI Agin-Liebes, T Malone, MM Yalch, et al. – Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer. “follow-up approx 3.2 and 4.5 years later, w/ 15 of the 16 participants still alive” 3/10

F Blei, S Dörner, J Fricke, et al. – Simultaneous production of psilocybin and a cocktail of β‐carboline monoamine oxidase inhibitors in “magic” mushrooms “paper was chosen for Psychedelic Science Review’s 2020 Editor’s Choice Award for best study on psychedelics and nature” 4/10

J Sloshower, J Guss, R Krause, et al. – Psilocybin-assisted therapy of major depressive disorder using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a therapeutic frame “lays out how to combine therapy using antidepressant medication (like psilocybin) w/evidence-based psychotherapy” 5/10