A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
For International Tea Day, my Green Tea Chemistry print. This linocut illustrates green tea and its chemistry. There's a tea pot, two cups of tea and a tea plant (Camellia sinensis) on a tray, and in the steam, you can see some of the organic chemicals found in green tea. Up to 27% of the composition of green tea can be a member of the flavonoids called catechins like the molecule illustrated on the right. 🧵1/n
#tea #greenTea #chemistry #linocut #sciart #printmaking #InternationalTeaDay
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Scientists have managed to generate a full genetic sequence of #H5N1 #birdflu from store-bought milk, suggesting commercial milk products could be a way to monitor the outbreak in cows, given the lack of cooperation from dairy farmers. https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/21/bird-flu-virus-spread-scientists-monitor-h5n1-in-store-bought-milk/
I also wish there were a way to make this possible, but, the sheer scale alone makes it near impossible. There's over 30,000 dairy farms in the US, and cattle take up ~27% of the land mass at ~614 million acres. Monitoring them all would take massive public investment and buy-in from a lot of ranchers who don't want federal government employees on their property, and may be willing to violently oppose it.
Monitoring it after dairy farms, and before human consumption would be a far more achievable goal in the short term.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
When people tell me they read one of my books and found it “quite good”, I like to assume they’re from the US where “quite” apparently means “very” 😊
As opposed to the UK/Aus, where “quite good” is just damning with faint praise.
Unless you say it was “really quite good”. *That’s* when you mean “very good”.
If you say “quite good, really”, that means you’re surprised it was any good.
And if you say “Oh, I say, that is quite, *quite* remarkable”, you’re an 18th-century Earl confronted by a tempestuous highland beauty who is tossing her raven-black locks and flashing her sapphire-blue eyes at you because you’re enclosing her commons 😉
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
You block off the infection from those that never need have it, and reduce the frequency of infection in those that might potentially become immune if not overawed by huge numbers of virions and multiple infections, and you slow the viral mutations rate in the process, and you allow satellite populations to exist without infection if at all possible.
You always do that, there's never an excuse to do otherwise, that never changes.
Being laggy achieves none of this.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Re: the last boost
Is someone working on a global low/no-covid specific dating app?
Because if god willin, there is ever a world where it's safe for me to leave the house again, I would really like to meet people who are:
- systems thinkers
- in solidarity with those who have less economic power
- fighting eugenics and ableism
- able to resist peer pressure
- resolved in their convictions
- thinking for the long term
Truly, I can think of nothing sexier and I mean that with my whole heart.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Caitlin Rivers is an epidemiologist who specializes in outbreak science. She advocated for the creation of a National Center for Epidemic Forecasting, and I have followed her for some time for her insights into Public Health.
She is about to release a book to show the influence of Public Health and tout some of its unsung heroes. I highly recommend getting the book either hardcover or ebook:
or follow her on Substack:
https://caitlinrivers.substack.com
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
People who made their own efforts to be wise about pandemic disease.
Just like to say, I admire your character and instincts. You are fine specimens of humanity. Even those of us who are quite broken.
You are dudes and dudettes who chose to do the right thing, often without expertise or training. You are, in a crazy world, standalone examples of excellence, awareness, conscience. I appreciate you.
Laypeople doing the right thing when corporations, govts and "peers" will not.
I salute you.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Here we go again. Singapore CoViD19 cases almost double leading hospitals to cancel most elective procedures to free up bed capacity:
The #SARSCoV2🦠 pandemic is not even close to being over.
I hate to put it bluntly, but, if it's open to rain water collection, then yes. More to the point, you'll probably want to see if you're near any known PFA contamination sites. Groundwater unfortunately accumulates PFAs from lots of contaminated sites.
You can find some of the worst here:
https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
But it's really hit and miss as to whether your groundwater's even been tested in the end.
The good news is if you're using RO in there then in all likelihood you're good.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
“As a physician I am deeply concerned about North Carolina’s potential total ban on mask-wearing. It’s disturbing to think immunocompromised and cancer patients could be deemed criminals for following medical advice aimed at safeguarding their health,” [Jerome] Adams said in one post.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Today is a nonstop torrent of abusive acts by Big Tech.
In this one, it looks like Google effectively paid off the feds to avoid a jury trial in the antitrust case. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/google-cuts-mystery-check-us-bid-sidestep-jury-trial-2024-05-20/
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Revenue from so-called millionaires tax tops state projections | Boston Globe
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/20/metro/millionaires-tax-massachusetts-generated-18-billion/
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
My in-laws still talk about "being distanced from others" at indoor events as if it was protecting them. Aerosols don't care about distance. When I point that out I get push back. PH is such a failure. 🤬
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Not a single, solitary soul on:
Reddit
Xitter
Vancouver Canucks Subreddit
Canucks Discord
...connecting Brock Boeser's clots to a potential instigation by #COVID19.
Several posts are by alleged doctors and describe the age old canard / test answer that a long transatlantic flight can be associated with it, & they discuss guidelines, Well's Criteria, etc.
How many of the doctors posting this information are in this SAME camp that are unaware of COVID's association with coagulopathy?
My expectation: all of them are either unaware or have heard about this but quietly erase it by not broaching the subject, cuz, then they'd have to face how ableist the medical establishment is.
As someone who randomly did have clots before 2020, if there isn't a genetic cause, and rheumatologic causes are ruled out, it's incredibly rare for a professional athlete to develop a clotting disorder.
Or, it was, before the year 2020.
https://zeroes.ca/@hannu_ikonen/112470668178581314
#Coagulopathy #COVID19 #Disability #hockey #hnom #Canucks #ableism
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Oh just fabulous. 🙄 AI-generated personality tests in job applications have arrived. Just helped a library guest apply for a job and the test was incomprehensible from beginning to end. Of course the local outfit had outsourced the application process to a third party company, who had outsourced the personalty/morality tests to yet ANOTHER company. This ordeal was for a job as a JANITOR.
#library #librarian #AI @librarians
When you come across the EPA touting that they're putting $300 million into what are known as "Brownfields" just know that's basically nothing.
Brownfield sites are polluted sites that are too polluted for redevelopment.
The EPA doesn't even know how many there are.
The GAO thinks there could be a million of them as of 20 years ago.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-05-94.pdf
Tons of them are contaminated with PFAs.
Even if there were "only" a million, a number I am willing to bet is an underestimation, $300 million isn't a drop in the bucket of what's required.
As someone who's absorbed a lot of this ire, I've been told repeatedly exactly what you said, as well as that there's just a lot of anger that when the WHO put out their risk calculator, and it showed that simply putting a HEPA filter in the room did nothing for "short range" transmission it was seen as dismissing filtration. I get the frustration.
I think that idea's going to take a little while to ruminate until more people are comfortable with the idea that a HEPA filter in the room isn't going to stop you from contracting COVID if you're face to face with an infectious person. Swiss cheese is still the best option, no matter how much we all like our silver bullets.
Taken to the extreme, I've seen plenty of people posting pictures of them in a store, with an Aranet, maskless, talking about how great the CO2 levels are. While that's great and all, the first time someone walks by you and sneezes in your face it's not going to do a thing.
A Concerned Scientist
boosted
Elevated carbon dioxide lets Sars-CoV-2 live far longer in droplets | Research | Chemistry World
acidic or alkaline,
potato, potahto🥔🥔
bottom line… it lingers
#co2 #HEPA #wearADamnRespirator
fascinating though
I assume it’s lingering everywhere🤷🏻♀️
I thought this was pretty well said:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/biden-cdc-silent-as-north-carolina
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
