Interesting Links for 30-03-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Giant meatball grown in a vat from extinct mammoth DNA unveiled by food firm

(tags:food extinction elephants technology headline )

2. The German far-right are funnelling money to the Conservatives

(tags:politics germany Conservatives )

3. The people who trained and funded Kate Forbes, who nearly became First Minister of Scotland, are deeply deeply unpleasant bigots

(tags:bigotry LGBT Scotland Christianity religion )

4. Now ChatGPT is being (mis)used to do peer review

(tags:ai research publishing OhForFucksSake fraud )

5. Customer service jobs may be safe from AI for a bit

(tags:ai work fail )

6. Covid may be bringing cancer forward decades

(tags:Pandemic inflammation cancer Doom )

7. Conservatives and Brexit continue to be deeply unpopular with the British public

(tags:UK polls politics Europe )

8. The "Pause AI!" letter making the rounds is full of AI hype

(tags:ai hyperbole viaPatrickHadfield )

9. Inside Britain's anti-abortion training camps

(tags:abortion UK conspiracy )

10. The UK government clearly *wants* to have cyber security issues

(tags:security UK jobs pay Doom )

Comments

[marymac]

I sent #10 to husband earlier and successfully derailed his (cybersecurity network specialist) team meeting for a solid fifteen minutes. Oops.

[andrewducker]

I'll take that as some kind of victory :-)

[mellowtigger]

#6 SARS-CoV-2 infection
That news is consistent with what I've been saying for a long time. I'm sorry. It still would be a very good thing if I'm wrong.

P.S. Reminder: Everything that's happening can be predicted easily from the 5 things to know about SARS-CoV-2.

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you.

[channelpenguin]

I remember your page vividly. And was happy to have avoided COVID until a few weeks ago :-(.

I tend to put it so - the immune system is like a factory, with only so many parts in the warehouse and only so much fuel in the generator that powers it. Plus the machinery itself needs maintenance. The more it's used, the quicker it'll all run out.

[mellowtigger]

I do need to update that page soon with all the new corroborating studies. Keep masking up, distancing, and isolating. :) The new XBB.1.16 is in the USA and other countries. I've read that it includes 2 mutated "improvements" to ORF9b that inhibits interferon, the part of the immune system response that suppresses virus production in infected cells... meaning that it's more likely to produce lots of virus.

[channelpenguin]

Interestingly, although the mask requirements on public transport have been dropped here in Germany for a while, and firms are back to expecting people to show up in the office at least sometimes, all medical personnel are back to masking up and distance as I found in the doctor's and at the optician/ eye doctor and the vets.

I caught COVID in a bar, first time I'd been in one really for 2 years+. :-(. Happily it stayed in my nose and I was sick only very mildly for 5 days (-ve test then too and after) smell took a week to recover but did. Young colleague and his GF both still without sense of smell months later :-(. But I lost 3kg despite eating normally throughout and haven't gained it back, so I'm on the minimum weight the docs like to see for my height and build :-(.

Are there any updated vaccines in the works do you know?

[mellowtigger]

There are several nasal vaccines in development around the world. I don't know which ones are available in which countries, though. As you've noticed, people inhale the virus first, so developing neutralizing immunity in those first cells would be extremely useful. :) I intend for my next vaccine to be Novavax (typical jab in the arm) because it includes the second SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which has shown reduced mutation rate, so its protection should work better against any future SARS-CoV-2 variants. The perfect combination would be Novavax as a nasal vaccine, but I haven't heard of any such thing yet.

[channelpenguin]

Thanks for that. I haven't had a booster for over a year, I had the 3 way cocktail before that (Az-Moderna-BioNTech). You don't get anything here now unless you ask, only over 60s get reminded/ requested a booster. Even flu jabs not routine for under 70s.