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The U.S. Military Tries "Anti-Aging Pills" For Troops

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the organization that administers America’s Spec Ops forces, says it will soon start clinical trials of an “anti-aging pill” that could halt some naturally degenerative effects of aging.

The hope seems to be that these will make them bigger, stronger, and able to quickly recover from injuries in order to rejoin their comrades faster than would normally be the case with their untreated counterparts. Presumably, they're going to have to wait a while in order to assess the relative effects of the treatments.

“We have completed pre-clinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing in fiscal year 2022,” Navy Commander Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesperson, told Breaking Defense.

 

 

Mutant Crawdads!

Ahh, Science!

Escaped self-cloning mutant crayfish created in experimental breeding programmes have invaded a Belgian cemetery.

"It's impossible to round up all of them. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble," said Kevin Scheers, of the Flemish Institute for Nature and Woodland Research.

Well, at least they're not mutant ninja turtles.

 

 

Covid-19 May Be Stoppable

On Wednesday, Anika Chebrolu from Frisco, Texas was named the winner of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge after discovering a molecule that can selectively bind to the spike protein of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. Her discovery could lead to important developments in COVID-19 research. By binding to the spike protein in the coronavirus, the molecule she found can potentially prevent virus entry into the host cell, and can be used in creating a potential drug to cure COVID-19.

She's 14 years old, and was working on a school science project. Kids these days....

 

Kill The A/C?

Dry air and air-conditioned rooms can help spread the coronavirus, according to an Indian-German research team that looked at the role of relative humidity in the transmission of infections. In more humid rooms, virus droplets become heavier and fall faster in higher humidity, “providing less chances for other people to breathe in infectious viral droplets,” the team wrote, according to DW, a German news website. Dry air makes the droplets shrink and hang around, becoming what the scientists describe as an “optimal route” for transmission.

It's always something. Pretty soon, we'll all be wearing hazmat suits.

Given that here in the Pacific Northwest, COVID arrived during the rainy season when it's cool outside and nobody's running A/C from, say, early October through June, the research seems a little shaky to me. Around here, things don't really dry out until late June. Summer is July and August.

On a somewhat related note, my wife does educational training classes and was informed yesterday that one of the attendees last week was COVID-19 positive, and so she was exposed. She goes in for a test on Monday and is presently in quarantine. I imagine that everyone in that class was exposed as well. Small wonder that rates of COVID-19 are continuing to increase in the state.

 

Off To Mars Again Today

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built — a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers — blasted off Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of ancient life.

It may seem like a waste - until you consider that things like the small telephone in your pocket owes its existence to technology developed by NASA for the Apollo missions. Who knows what will eventually emerge from the Mars missions?

 

We're Mutants

Similar to how scientists say the mitochondria in our cells originated as bacteria that our ancient ancestors’ cells absorbed, the Arc protein seems to have started as a virus. Scientists made a key breakthrough with the identification of the Arc protein in 1995, observing how its role in the plastic changes in neurons was critical to memory consolidation. 

Instead of claiming memory lapse, you can now blame a bum virus.

 

 

The Hand Of God?

Israeli scientists at the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute had worked for four years and had successfully developed a Coronavirus vaccine for chickens which passed clinical trials. When they saw the genetic sequencing of the COVID-19 virus, they realized that they could quickly adapt their chicken vaccine to the human virus.

Ella Dagan, a spokesman for MIGAL told europorter:

When the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus COVID-19 was published, the researchers realized that the two viruses have the same infection mechanism similarities so they can use it, with small amount of adaptation, to achieve an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time.

Dr. Shahar, one of the scientists at MIGAL saw God’s hand in this. He told nocamels.com:

It’s a little bit like fate that we were working on this coronavirus vaccine at the same time that the world was suddenly hit by this epidemic of coronavirus for humans.

Seems like a bit of fowl play....

No word on what this will do to KFC stocks.

 

Black Death

(CNN)The sweeping scourge of the Black Death in 14th century England was so great it forced city-dwelling victims out to countryside hospitals, based on the tragic findings in a mass grave in Lincolnshire, England.

The remains of 48 people, including 21 children, were found at a previously unknown Black Death mass grave site at Thornton Abbey, according to a new study. About 11 miles from Thornton, Meux Abbey monks suffered from the Black Death and 80% of them died. In less than two years, the Black Death claimed nearly half the lives of people in England between 1348 and 1349. Mass graves in England's large Medieval cities have shown how overwhelmed they were.

 

An analysis of the teeth recovered from 16 of the remains revealed Yerisinia pestis DNA, the pathogen for the Black Death. It's the same strain from the outbreak that affected London, based on DNA recovered from mass graves there.

 

One of the worst pandemics in human history, the Black Death, along with a string of plague outbreaks that occurred during the 14th to 19th centuries, was spread by human fleas and body lice, a new study suggests. Outbreaks still occur today, with an outbreak in Madagascar last year infecting more than 1,800 people.

 

It's not spread by rats, as long imagined.

 

 

Gates Foundation Dedicates Up To $100 Million Toward Coronavirus Response

SEATTLE, February 5, 2020 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that it will immediately commit up to $100 million for the global response to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The funding will help strengthen detection, isolation and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations; and develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. The new funding is inclusive of $10 million the foundation committed to the outbreak in late January.

That might actually do some good!

 

New York's So Desperate For Cash

But then, it's run by Democratics, so....

How desperate are they? You have to get a permit to stargaze, now. I am not making this up.

Here is a story that shows progressive policies to be not only destructive, but also depressingly stupid. New York State recently passed a law requiring citizens to obtain a permit if they wish to gaze at the stars in public parks. No, really. You read that right. In New York, you must pay for a license to look at the freaking stars.

Light pollution across the state of New York makes it hard for folks in highly populated areas to view the night sky. So, people who wish to gaze upon the stars at night have to drive many miles away to remote areas. Many of these remote areas are located in taxpayer-funded state parks.

What? You can't take a train or other public transit? You actually have to drive? Well, they need to put a stop to that, too. And they probably will. Anyway, on with the clown-show!

In their efforts to squeeze every dime they can from the tax farm, bureaucrats in New York have devised a scheme to extort citizens who wish to use public parks to gaze upon the night sky. This extortion comes in the form of a $35.00 “Stargazing Permit.” If you are from out of state and wish to gaze upon the night sky from one of these locations that fee jumps to $60.

It's one of a range of permits you have to buy, depending upon the activity in which you hope to engage; you can view a helpful list of some of them here. Note that if you bring a metal-detector along, you'll need a $40 permit for that as well, but you can do that during daylight hours, if you want. Now, if you want to go diving, you'll need an $80 permit for that - unless you're from out of state, in which case it'll set you back $125. One thing about all of their permits and fees: at least they're not out to nickel-and-dime you to death; they go for real cash.

Now for the irony and blatant statist hypocrisy. If you want to go after dark to look at stars on state land that you paid for through your tax dollars, you have to pay the government more money for a permit. However, if the government wants to take the most sacred land in the state and put a telescope on it to look at the stars, this is fine and dandy. If you try to protest the government’s construction of star gazing equipment on your sacred land, you can and will be kidnapped and caged.

Case in point: Mauna Kea’s summit is the most sacred of all the mountains in Hawaii to many of the indigenous people. In July, when those people showed up to protest the desecration of their land with the Thirty-Meter Telescope, dozens were arrested.

Maybe you could tell them that you're not star-gazing; you're bat-watching.

Or not - they probably have a permit requirement for that as well.