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Big Cutback Announcement I've Avoided Most of "The News" for Days I feel very guilty, but greatly de-stressed.  Ahhhhh. Oh, them golden skippers... NO NEWS IS GOOD. PERIOD. (Just for a short break when you need it.) I know I'm ignoring frightening threats. I'm skipping my civic duty, and ghosts of conscience chase me down the street, howling, "It's your RESPONSIBILITY to suffer through the awful diet of daily downers." Well, no it's not. I have walked away from TV newscasts as they become too irritating  I have been reading Science News instead of Salon, Phys.org instead of the Washington Post, which is a hearse full of frights every day. (I do sneak back and look at Toles and Telnaes.) I've been listening to audiobooks (Iain M. Banks; Frank Herbert) instead of news podcasts.    There is balm in tweetless days. Oh the relief.   I have gone for hours avoiding media of any kind ( Gasp! ) Just wanted you...

Everything is Relative July, 2006 In a four year drought, and rains came. August, 2018 and the rains have come again. Just not so much. I was ecstatic. This is what I wrote in 2006... with a few follow up comments from 2018. White text = 2006 Yellow text = 2018 The Great New Mexico Drought [What did I know about "great" re droughts?] is cracked.   Not broken, mind you, just cracked. [So I guess this year the current drought is just bent.] Here in this marvelous little microclimate called “The East Mountains”  - the east side of the mountains  east  of Albuquerque; actually the Sandias, Manzanitas and Manzanos - and especially in this valley where I live, in the Manzanitas close to the north boundary of the Isleta Reservation, we have caught a break.  The rains have come and come and come [2018: They come just once at a time mostly this year, short, intense thundershowers. Not much of that closely packed storms stuff.]   ...

How Your Brain Tricks You Into Believing Fake News TIME Magazine does a very nice piece of scientfic reporting on the "fake news" susceptibility we all share - somewhere deep in our brain boxes.  [As ye faithful SrJr readers know, it's been a hot topic with me.    There's: Folks Prefer Lies                       Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories                       Crazy as a Q    ... and a bunch more. Cruise through me humble blog .] So thanks, Time Magazine.  Here's your payoff: Helluva deal.

Our Loveable Pharma CEOs are All In  I've been a bit concerned as China slips into the passing lane on many American leadership positions. No such concern, apparently, by Big Pharma. Endpoint News is a Pharma newsletter operation, and their vision is clear: "Looks like a chance for big bucks to me," pretty much sums it up.  No concern, no fear for loss of intellectual property, just more chances for giant profits.   SOooo, does Big Pharma see this Chinese incursion as a threat or an opportunity? The Clear Me$$age... Is that the Pharmaceutical industry sees its central drive as economic.  "Invent great medicines" is seen through the filter, "Big profits?"  A really great medicine would be a new antibiotic that would save us from the mercies of MRSA.  But, "Hey," they say, "Low profits that way."   So Endpoints is doing its part: This is a bucks biz, buddy! Endpoints:  "Over the past year we’ve seen...

GUT 4.0 WINS BOOK AWARD "Over the Line"   "Well, it's kind of newsworthy." "You have a strange mind, Duff." "I hear the biome has a lot of control over your sex drive." "Gross." "Well, it's a big medical discovery, all that." "I'm going to talk to mine like you talk to a baby in your belly." (Some comments from early readers who could actually think of something to say.) It's in the bookstores ( Amazon , that is)!  It's published, available, for sale. At long, darn last. GO STRAIGHT TO AMAZON HERE Get it?  Science Fiction has no fear. It treads on subjects you might think odd to be trod. But I am just super impressed with the tidal wave of discoveries about MICROBIOMES. Everybody and pretty much every living thing has a microbiome. They are vital to healthy life... heck, to life itself! A lot of people I talk to completely underestimate the human microbiome. There's a c...

There's This - and So Much More The Chinese version of "winning"  (No sign they're 'Sick and Tired' of it.) China successfully tests first hypersonic aircraft that can carry atomic warheads You should see what's hiding under that fairing.Speedy Gonzales himself! China is doing all sorts of amazing stuff, building entirely new cities  around  science themes, recruiting brilliant scientists from all over the world, buying vast agricultural rights in Africa, building the Asia-spanning "Silk Road" highway and rail   corridor.  So OK... good on them, working to be better all the time. But the "unstoppable missile" gives one pause. Say in a shouting match, threats-flying kind of an international incident, knowing your anti-missile system was bound to miss a bunch of these, I for one would be somewhat intimidated. When WE have proven hypersonic missiles (any year now), we can get back to the comfort of MUTUALLY a...

Big Bucks for Big Promises In Big Bucks talk (financial jargon)... There's usually a cool babe on my back . What’s bigger than a unicorn? Samumed stuns yet again as anti-aging pipeline draws $438M at $12B valuation Samumed is a "regenerative medicine" operation in San Diego, working on drugs to keep us young and active (and cute). Their most advanced (through the approval pipeline) drug is for osteoarthritis - mainly in the knees.  They have NO PRODUCTS ON THE MARKET yet.  Yet they just raised a half billion bucks. (The "cute" part is their second most advanced drug which cures baldness.) Their focus is on us the aging (everybody), with  human clinical trials of experimental drugs to treat cancer, osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and several other diseases. Their one and only venture capitalist backer is  Singapore-based Vickers Venture Partners. Chinese! Surprise, surprise. Those Chinese ...

The Russians Gotta Love This  The press is all over this, but maybe you haven't  gotten into it, because stuff like this makes you crazy. If you haven't experienced crazy lately, you should read up on this. [Click on some of the better pieces:  Vox ,   Washington Post ,   NPR ,   Media Matters ] Just "Q" QAnon Not since the Jonestown 900 has there been a more credulous, hypnotized crowd of human beans than the QAnon crowd. See how stupid this conspiracy theory is, and stroke you chin and say "I would never fall for something so outrageously stoopid."  DON'T BE SO SURE. "People Prefer Lies" might not be true, but it aint' no lie.  If the lie is something you want to be true , especially. And conspiracy theories tap into something evolution wrote into our gene code. Now, THROW IN THE RUSSIANS !! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, the artillery of Big Lie Repitition lands on your brain terrain, and the switch might get fl...

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