Is Coronavirus Carried by Particles of Air Pollution?
Those Pesky Little PM2.5 Critters? So why is the epidemic spreading so quickly in New York? Could it be air pollution? We know, especially from research into the severe air pollution in China that the particles in smog carry pathogenic microbes, including both bacteria and viruses (Inhalable Microorganisms in Beijing’s PM2.5 and PM10 Pollutants during […]
Coronavirus beats AI too
“They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Talleyrand Didn’t we learn anything from SARS, MERS and H1N1 and its variants? “The more things change, the more they remain the same”. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr “To ignore history is to repeat it” George Santayana You get the idea. Doing Nothing Beats AI So here I was […]
Can we avoid the Obesularity?
Obesity is the new abnormal Did you notice the latest gloomy news on obesity? Namely, that on current predictions half of all adults in the US will be clinically obese by 2030. There’s even worse too; one quarter of all adults will be severely obese. That means they are at least 100 lbs. over their ideal […]
Do humans emit a unique quantum brain print?
You know a field of knowledge is being popularized for the Great Unwashed once psychologists start to talk knowledgeably about it. So, it goes with quantum stuff; what was once the province only of the hard science literati has now entered the sphere of pop media. Quantum Cats Well kind of; cast a glance or […]
Does high protein cause heart disease – and Alzheimer’s?
One of the benefits of living in a rich country is that you get a lot of high quality, nutritious food. As nations become more highly developed, they eat a lot more meat, which, as we know is nutritious and particularly high in protein. Even though there’s a bit of a trend towards a plant-based […]
Alzheimer’s: What if they aren’t tangles but knots?
The Plaque Obsession I’ve been really concerned about the lack of progress on Alzheimer’s. So in early 2018 I posted on the topic (“We urgently need a Manhattan Project for Alzheimer’s!” 13 January, 2018). In my post I pointed out the research into the disease wasn’t working out because it was concerned only with amyloid […]
Can AIs be Entangled?
This AI stuff is so complicated, sigh…There’s all these newfangled algorithms, deep learning, generative adversarial networks, it goes on and on. Isn’t it kind of depressing to feel that without all this stuff, we can’t go to Mars, cure cancer, or invent the next Impossible Burger? And that’s just with the ongoing generation of AI. What about […]
Is eating meat worse than vaping?
I just watched a Netflix documentary called “The Game Changers“. Its about how meat damages your body. As if we needed another bad health story. I don’t have to tell you that vaping is in the news. Now we know that it does major damage to your lungs in the longer-term, albeit not as bad as tobacco. […]
Alexa, Global Guardian?
There’s a lot of buzz around Alexa. So is Alexa listening to you? Even recording your calls? What for? Where is she going anyway? Obviously she is getting much smarter. Real conversation is in the offing. So, she’s not just a fount of information, but also maybe a fount of wisdom. The role of digital […]
Is somatic cognition (come again?) being transformed by videogames?
OMG somatic cognition! What the *** is this guy talking about? And what has it got to do with me anyways? I’ve already written on this broad topic (19 September 2015 “What have Octopuses got to do with Leadership?”). The basis is embodied cognition, the idea that much of our thinking goes on in parts […]