May the odds be ever in your favour.
New York Post- NASA’s odds of ‘city-killing’ asteroid hitting Earth just went up — the highest probability ever
Update: Kate asks Grok, “If asteroid YR4 2024 makes a direct hit on Ottawa, how wide would be the blast zone, outside of which one could expect to survive?”
Gout is often associated with drinking too much or not eating healthily enough, but research suggests genetics play more of a factor in developing the arthritic condition than previously thought.[…]
“Gout is a chronic disease with a genetic basis and is not the fault of the sufferer – the myth that gout is caused by lifestyle or diet needs to be busted,” said epidemiologist Tony Merriman from the University of Otago in New Zealand, when the study was published last year.
This is better than porn. (Threadroll)
Birthing persons and trans-kids hardest hit.
Confusion and anxiety is rippling through the US health-research community this week following Donald Trump taking office as the 47th US president. His administration has abruptly cancelled research-grant reviews, travel and trainings for scientists inside and outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public biomedical funder. Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site.
The cancelling of meetings and travel is part of a pause in external communications issued on 21 January by the NIH’s parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Researchers who spoke to Nature say that although a short, daylong pause in communications at US agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started, to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump team’s — it is set to last until at least 1 February — is unprecedented. Without advisory-committee meetings, the NIH cannot issue research grants, temporarily freezing 80% of the agency’s US$47-billion budget that funds research across the country and beyond.
Related savagery: Questioned by reporters in North Carolinaabout the removal of Anthony Fauci’s security detail – “He made a lot of money. He can pay for his own security.” Will you feel responsible if something happens to him? – “No.”
Bret Weinstein(Darkhorse podcast) vs Jacqui Wakefield (BBC disinformation team)
Alternate title- When Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors Haven’t Got a Clue How Things Actually Work In The Real World
Daily Sceptic- Dozens of British Women Have Seen Their Breasts Grow After the Covid Jab
The revelation comes days after shocking images showed how a 19 year-old Canadian woman’s breast quadrupled in size in what experts believe is a rare reaction to Pfizer’s Covid jab dubbed the “Pfizer boob job”.
National Review- Pay Up, Mr. Mann
For more than eight years, the climate scientist Michael Mann harassed National Review through litigation over a blog post — until, eventually, the First Amendment brought an end to his attack. This week, a court in our nation’s capital ordered Mann to pay us $530,820.21 worth of attorney’s fees and costs, and to do so within 30 days. It is time for him to get out his checkbook, and sign on the dotted line.
My word shall be taken as gospel. An absolute. Not to be questioned.
Science- Scientists as political advocates
Daily Sceptic- The Appalling Treatment of Covid Vaccine Whistleblower Dr. Byram Bridle
We do not do this to appear victims, there were many of those but not the two old geezers. But there is one particularly vile form of abuse that is so base to be considered criminal. That was suffered by Dr. Byram Bridle, a viral immunologist from the University of Guelph in Canada and his family.
For those wondering how long the Santa Ynez Reservoir has been empty the answer is June 2009.
Gobekli Tepei, the pyramids, ancient technology and Wikipedia assholery: Three hours of afternoon entertainment for our New Years Day couch adventurers.
National Post- Ottawa-funded social justice research isn’t science
The now-widespread practice of requiring researchers to submit statements affirming their commitment to DEI with their applications for jobs and grants incentivizes lying, Prof. Geoff Horsman, a Wilfrid Laurier University biochemist, told the committee in early December. Some grant applications even evaluate socioeconomic and environmental impacts — which is open to the interpretation of those granting the funds.
The Strange Physics Principle That Shapes Reality
Glenn Harlan Reynolds- Elon Unbound
There are lots of consequences to this week’s election, ranging from economics, to diplomacy, to outright freedom. But I want to focus on one in particular, what it means for Elon Musk.
@kevinnbass: Ladies and gentlemen, the editor-in-chief of Scientific American
UCLA chemists have discovered a major flaw in a fundamental rule of organic chemistry that has held for 100 years. They say it’s time to rewrite the textbooks.
Organic molecules, which are primarily made of carbon, have specific shapes and arrangements of atoms. Molecules called olefins contain double bonds, or alkenes, between two carbon atoms. Typically, these atoms and their attached groups lie in the same 3D plane, and deviations from this structure are rare.
The rule being questioned, known as Bredt’s rule, was established in 1924. It asserts that molecules cannot have a double bond at the “bridgehead” position—the junction of a bridged bicyclic molecule—because this position would distort the geometry of the double bond. Bredt’s rule has constrained the design of synthetic molecules by preventing chemists from creating certain structures. Since olefins play a critical role in pharmaceutical research, Bredt’s rule has limited the types of molecules that scientists could envision, potentially holding back innovations in drug discovery.