May 9, 2026

Health

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1 antibody neutralizes a bunch of COVID virus variants

From www.futurity.org
2021-08-27 15:26:02
Tamara Bhandari-Washington University
Excerpt:

Researchers have identified an antibody that is highly protective at low doses against a wide range of variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.

The virus today is not the same as the one that first sickened people back in December 2019. Many of the variants circulating now are partially resistant to some of the antibody-based therapeutics that were developed based on the original virus. As the pandemic continues, more variants inevitably will arise, and the problem of resistance will only grow.

The newly identified antibody attaches to a part of the virus that differs little across the variants, meaning that it is unlikely for resistance to arise at this spot.

The research, which appears in the journal Immunity, could be a step toward developing new antibody-based therapies that are less likely to lose their potency as the virus mutates.

 

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Afghanistan Almost Beat Polio. Now the Future Is Uncertain

From www.wired.com
2021-08-25 11:00:00
Maryn McKenna
Excerpt:

 

For more than a week, global attention to Afghanistan has focused on the Taliban’s stunningly swift return to power, and the international airlift that is getting diplomats, Western workers, and refugees out. But a small cohort of disease experts is riveted by the political turnover for another reason: They worry it could undermine the long campaign to eradicate polio, which hinges on that country—and where, after years of disappointments, success now seems close.

Since 1988, a dogged and very expensive international campaign has chased polio from most of the world. Afghanistan is one of only two countries in which the circulation of wild poliovirus has never been interrupted; Pakistan, with which it shares a long border, is the other. Case counts have ebbed and spiked as religious and political factionalism interrupted delivery of vaccines to children, and they surged again last year, to 140 cases in the two countries, after the Covid pandemic forced a three-month halt in the…

 

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Convalescent plasma offers little benefit in treating COVID-19

From www.futurity.org
2021-08-26 15:23:35
Stanford
Excerpt:

 

A new paper details how convalescent plasma, once considered a promising way to treat people with mild to moderate COVID-19, did not prove effective.

In February, the National Institutes of Health terminated an ambitious clinical trial to study the effectiveness of COVID-19 convalescent plasma because the treatment showed little benefit in an interim analysis.

COVID-19 convalescent plasma refers to blood plasma derived from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 and, as a result, have developed antibodies. Although forms of convalescent plasma therapy have been used as therapy for other infections since the early 1900s, few…

 

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Covid “Third Shot” Shows Signs of Hope in Early Studies

Emerging Data on Booster Shots

From talkingpointsmemo.com
2021-08-24 21:11:35
Josh Marshall
Excerpt:

 

The short version is that initial data out of Israel appears to show dramatically increased protection both against infection and disease from a third dose. But there are at least some questions about the data and what they actually mean.

There are two studies or at least two sources of data. One is from Maccabi Health Services, one of the four HMOs that makes up the Israeli national health care system. They looked at 149,144 people who had gotten a third booster and 675,630 who had two shots. Only 37 people in the first group had gotten infected compared to 1,064 of the latter. The booster shot cut the risk of infection by 86% and the risk of severe disease by 92%.

 

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Wuhan Lab Leak Theory Called “Scapegoating” by Chinese Press

China criticises US ‘scapegoating’ as COVID-19 origin report to be released

From www.channelnewsasia.com
2021-08-25 14:25:00

Excerpt:

 

BEIJING: China criticised on Wednesday (Aug 25) the US “politicisation” of efforts to trace the origin of the coronavirus, demanding a US military laboratory be investigated, shortly before the release of a US intelligence community report on the virus.

The US report is intended to resolve disputes among intelligence agencies considering different theories about how the coronavirus emerged, including a once-dismissed theory about a Chinese laboratory accident.

“Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the US,” Fu Cong, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ arms control department, told a briefing.

The US report was due to be completed by a Tuesday deadline but it would take a few days to prepare an unclassified version for public release, the White House press secretary said this week.

 

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Opinion

An allegedly American publication that claims to be literally for the national interest, called National Interest, has published an opinion piece by anti-Americanist Eleanor Lopatto, who, mercifully for National Interest, appears to have only written just this one article for the publication.  What she writes is nothing but CCP-styled anti-american agit prop aimed at vilifying more than half of Americans, subhumanizing people who are skeptical about the efficacy and safety of vaccines, and feeding the enemies of the Ameircan people outside our soils the grist they need to propagandize this anti-American hate on our own social media platforms, and to even sue us out of existence for the damage this insane woman would have you believe they committed.

The ‘writer’ (content marketer for the CCP’s little bro, the DNC) has claimed that the resistance to the vaccine worldwide, especially in the Balkans,can be laid squarely at the feet of America, the evil Empire that allows disinformation on its platforms.  This is the safety first, liberty non-existence type person we’ve all seen far too often get the limelight in a world where freedom is defined as being obedient and subservient to the experts, be they scientists, teachers, or government officials.  This is Chinese Communist thinking, not American Bill of Rights thinking, and this woman just outed herself as a hater of the very nation-state that made her protected, privileged little life possible in the first place.

You will see more stories like this, as first their low-ranked sycophants test the tolerance of anti-American narratives on the general public.  If there is no great outrage, MSNBC and CNN will be speaking the same language as this anti-Americanist, the seditionist-at-heart, Eleanor Lopatto, a woman who makes a very dangerous neighbor to anyone she lives next to, for she is the type that would turn in Anne frank for violating the law, being Jewish while being alive.

Not only is this woman creating narratives our enemies can use against us (including using our own courts to sue the allaged offenders), but she’s also pushing the narrative that Chairman Xi would dearly love to be pushed, that freedom is dangerous, and free speech and free press are too much for the weakminded many masses to have access to, or participate in.  And she does so on a publication that LITERALLY calls itself “National Interest” while publishing what could EASILY have been CCP agit prop.

As a matter of fact, the particular style is remarkably similar to that of CCP agit prop aimed at destroying America and American morale, so much so that one would not be suprirsed to learn she was writing from her Uncle’s CCP basement in China, using an American psuedonym to hide her CCP agent identiy.  I mean, I don’t really think that’s the case, but, it certainly is possible.

American-Born Disinformation is Harming U.S. Allies—Just Ask the Baltics.

From nationalinterest.org
2021-08-24 18:12:41

Excerpt:

 

There’s a saying that when the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold. Now some of the world’s most robust immune systems are struggling with a bad case of QAnon.

The three Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—are some of the best-prepared on Earth to defend against the evolving threat of modern information campaigns. Their governments, businesses and civil societies honed their skills against Russian information and cyber warfare for nearly a decade before the United States uncovered evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The coronavirus panedemic was a major stress test for the Baltics, forcing intelligence and strategic communications analysts to reconfigure their Russia-centric threat models in order to face a tsunami of misleading information coming not just across their Eastern border, but from every corner of the Earth. The Latvian Strategic Coordination Department coordinated crisis communications while also…

 

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Augmenting and Understanding Your Brain Power with Neurograins

Ivo Fysic- Scientists are working on being able to place a small microprocessor in your brain, a neorograin, that will allow them to fully map out the way your brain works.   Researchers from Brown University have developed the new tool, a brain computer interface, that is light years ahead of the bulky solutions of today.

‘Neurograins’ Could Record Brain Activity From Thousands of Locations

From singularityhub.com
2021-08-23 14:00:24
Edd Gent
Excerpt:

 

Today’s brain implants are bulky and can typically only record from one or two locations. Now researchers have shown that a network of tiny “neurograins” can be used to wirelessly record and stimulate neurons in multiple locations in rat brains.

Researchers have been experimenting with brain computer interfaces (BCIs) that can record and stimulate groups of neurons for decades. But in recent years there has been growing interest in using them to treat diseases like epilepsy, Parkinson’s, or various psychiatric disorders.

More speculatively, some think they could soon be implanted in healthy people to help us monitor our brain function and even boost it. Last year, Elon Musk said brain implants being built by his startup Neuralink will one day be like “a Fitbit in your skull.” First, though, they will have to get much more accurate and far less obtrusive.

New research led by a team at Brown University has made significant strides on that latter problem…

 

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A Gene That Causes Humans to Become Obese Can Also Grow Big Potatoes

University of Chicago Scientists have used a human gene associated with obesity to produce massively huge potatoes, opening up the possibility of using other types of animal and human genese to engineer more efficient grown foods for humans.

Scientists Splice Human Gene Into Potatoes to Make Them Grow Huge

From futurism.com
2021-08-23 17:47:29
Dan Robitzski
Excerpt:

A team of scientists found an unusual trick for growing bigger, heartier crops: inserting a human gene related to obesity and fat mass into plants to supersize their harvest.

Splicing potatoes with the human gene that encodes a fat-regulating protein called FTO, which essentially alters the genetic code to rapidly mass-produce proteins, made otherwise identical potato plants grow crops that were 50 percent larger, Smithsonian Magazine reports. By growing more food without taking up more space for agriculture, the scientists say their work could help fight global hunger — without adding to its climate impact.

“It [was] really a bold and bizarre idea,” University of Chicago chemist Chuan He, coauthor of a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, told Smithsonian. “To be honest, we were probably expecting some catastrophic effects.”

 

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Police State Informant Shuts Down Australian Church Over Covid Lockdown

Anonymous tipster calls police on Sydney church service. Officials slam worshippers for violating lockdown

From www.theblaze.com
2021-08-23 20:33:59
Chris Pandolfo
Excerpt:

 

Police in Sydney, Australia, broke up a church gathering and handed out the equivalent of more than $25,000 USD in fines to congregants for violating the city’s COVID-19 lockdown on Sunday.

An anonymous tipster reported the illegal service to New South Wales police, who found 60 people worshipping at Christ Embassy church in Blacktown at 7:30 p.m. local time, according to 9News Sydney.

The police arrived a few hours before a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew went into effect for this area, which is designated as a high-risk local government area.

The church service was being livestreamed on social media before police put a stop to it. The 9News report notes that the musicians leading worship were performing without masks.

The church’s pastor, Marvin Osaghae, earlier that day delivered a sermon praying…

 

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A Water Crisis Threatens the People of the Middle East

PGC – The bloom of the Middle and Near East in the 20th Century that has become the spectacular urban expansion of the 21st century may be built on sand that is running out water beneath it.  As populations have expanded, growing states in this region have been relying on pumping water from underground to match the rain shortfalls the region is now experiencing as far as sustaning human life at this expanded populated level.

The nations are choosing to keep pumping from below, but the waters are running out as rain fails to replenish what was taken out.  The added concern for this region comes from the potential for climate change to drive the temperatures up even higher, and also what would be the expected prolonged droughts from such a change.  It could well be that these regions simply will not be able to provide for the amount of humans that live here, with our best technology, and our best planning factored in.

The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable. : Futurology

From www.reddit.com
2021-08-22 14:07:31
/u/filosoful
Excerpt:

 

Such problems are familiar in many parts of the Middle East — where water is simply running out.

The region has witnessed persistent drought and temperatures so high that they are barely fit for human life. Add climate change to water mismanagement and overuse, and projections for the future of water here are grim.

Some Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, Iraq and Jordan, are pumping huge amounts of water from the ground for irrigation as they seek to improve their food self-sufficiency, Charles Iceland, the global director of water at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told CNN. That’s happening as they experience a decrease in rainfall.

“They’re using more water than is available routinely through rain. And so groundwater levels are consequently falling because you’re taking water out faster than it’s being replenished by the rainfall,” he said.

That’s what’s happening in Iran, where a vast network of dams sustains an agricultural sector that drinks up about 90% of the water…

 

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