SeniorJunior

  ***  NOT about a Huge Gut... But huge news about the MicroBiome,  that collection of trillions of microbes  we all have in our guts (large or small). 1. Increase your motivation! 2. Exercise more (because you want to)! Just up your portion of  Eubacterium rectale and Coprococcus eutactus, two of the microbes research identifies as the wee critters that make major contributions to these two get-up-and-go drives . The powers of the human microbiome have been a focus of this blog for years now.  Seems like every week there are new findings. News about this one comes from Penn Medicine News    Gut Microbes Can Boost  the Motivation to Exercise,  Penn Medicine Study Finds Study in mice uncovers gut-to-brain pathway  that increases exercise performance =? ...and the research report is in Nature. NEWS AND VIEWS 14 December 2022 Gut microbes shape athletic  motivation Microorganisms in the gut produce molecules that activate senso...

Things Would Have Been a LOT Different Without Alpha males If this parasite, Toxoplasma gondii  is a main cause of Alpha males, a tiny parasite changed the  course of human history.  [re: My last blog post  — about Alpha wolves and their parasites, I’m still researching, and what I find keeps blowing my elderly mind.] Since there have been human Alpha males all through recorded history, I assume they were around for some of pre-history as well.  Alpha males, risk-taking, overly confident, aggressive men, egged on by T.gondii since the time we started getting infected with them in significan numbers. (See “cats” below) Society’s evolution has been seriously impacted by this kind of man... particularly the "hyper Alphas..."  I'm Genghis I'm Alex I'm Atilla ...like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun et al, and the huge collection of Pharaohs, Kings, Emperors, and other autocrats who "rose to the top" with their Alpha brains driving them....

Is This What It Takes To Be A Leader? We are   Toxoplasma gondii all cozy in our cyst. You can call us POWER PROTOZOAN PARASITES 24 November 2022  (headline in nature ) Parasite gives male wolves  what it takes to be pack leaders S howing the behavioral effects of  Toxoplasma gondii  in wild animals This is my Alpha Wolf smile! From the nature study:  Researchers looked at 256 blood samples from the 229 wolves that had their life histories and social status recorded.  They found that T.Gondii infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders, often the only males in the pack that breed. Now that’s ALPHA, baby.                  So.... You might ask, How About Alpha Male People ?   Up to one-fifth of humans might be chronically infected with T. Gondii.  ONE FIFTH!   [Maybe more. The info keeps rolling in.]...

  History That's Exciting,  Ultra (!) Relevant         and Ultimately Reassuring (What a deal!) In 1940 I was 3 and 4 years old, so you wouldn't expect me to be keeping up with the political scene. But I could have told you who Gabriel Heatter and Walter Winchell were: Men on the radio who talked funny.  I thought Gabriel Heatter had the funniest name going. ("Gabriel Stove" I said a lot, laughing every time.) I missed most of what they were reporting, probably because I was laughing.   Rachael Maddow, and a great MSNBC team have put together an 8-part podcast that makes that 1940 span leap to life, It's modestly called: It's got everything: Deadly plane crash, armed bands of insurrectionists, corrupt politicians, star special prosecutors, nasty anti-Semites, lotsa Nazis, out-of-control lawyers, private spies, Roosevelt haters... oh it's got everything (but sex, and sex isn't nearly as interesting as the other stuff). I rarely-to-never binge...

  In Case You Missed This...         An  award won  by another Scooter Duff book. Check out this  heart-stopping, hilarious , nutso winner  HERE * Modestly yours, scooter * Or HERE .

  ONE OF THE HUGE STORIES YOU (ALMOST) CAN'T FIND IN THE NEWS U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT HEARING CHARTER  The Fountain of Youth? The Quest for Aging Therapies  Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:00 a.m. EDT – 12:00 p.m. EDT  2318 Rayburn House Office Building and Online via Zoom "Fountain of Youth!?" Now, you know as well as I do that this is not your grandfather's House subcommittee meeting.  It's right up there with the recent    UFO-related House committee hearings. This hearing was really, really good!  Three of the top experts in this "fountain of youth" field testified: • Dr. Jay Olshansky "Geroscience has come of age. It is the culmination of decades of research. It is not a theoretical construct – it has been demonstrated in the laboratory that rate of aging can be modified..."  • Dr. Laura Niedernhofer  "A Geroscience approach is anticipate...

  I thought I would illustrate a couple blog ideas with the new illustration/art program Dall-E from OpenAI. (The captions are the words I used to get the pictures.) POWER BOAT Large barges covered with solar panels  "Giant barge covered with Solar Panels" NEW MEXICO DINOSAUR FIND Archeology discovery "Woman in sun dress riding triceratops" (Normally I would use something like this.) Try it out. It's nuts. Dall-E

  2021 * The super soil of the American farm belt has been eroded and washed away, blown away, and degraded by a century of plowing and mono-cropping. More and more fertilizer is required to grow our vast fields of corn, wheat, and soy.  The coming worldwide food shortages -- previewed this very Year of Our Lord 2022 -- are going to get much, much worse if we don't find a way to repair the damage to our topsoil.  Science Fiction to the Rescue! 2030 Conversations were underway with all - literally all in the world - of the credible people on the sargassum plague in the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean. Ocean scientists of every stripe were talking to Lucas about their specialty’s view of the megablooms.  Seagoing vessel designers, marine biologists, satellite analysts, NOAA, Eurocean, Jamstech, Ocean U. and ICOIS sargassum specialists were all in one-on-one conversations with Lucas, responding to his ideas about harvesting megatons of the slightly bitter floating w...