Science

edit: OP link is old, this link should have the updated calendar: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/micro-moon.html

www.theguardian.com

Retractions have risen sharply in recent years for two main reasons: - first, sleuthing, largely by volunteers who comb academic literature for anomalies, and, - second, major publishers’ (belated) recognition that their business models have made them susceptible to paper mills – scientific chop shops that sell everything from authorships to entire manuscripts to researchers who need to publish lest they perish. These researchers are required – sometimes in stark terms – to publish papers in order to earn and keep jobs or to be promoted. The governments of some countries have even offered cash bonuses for publishing in certain journals. Any surprise, then, that some scientists cheat?

Japan's low mortality from prostate cancer, and their low meat consumption, with the high prostate cancer mortality in the US, which has a higher meat consumption. But Argentina and Mexico's prostate cancer mortality ranks very favorably with Japan's. If meat consumption in the US contributes to the very high cancer rate, it clearly isn't the quantity of meat consumed, but rather the quality of the meat.

This study tested the greater male variability hypothesis in creative thinking with a Chinese student sample in Mainland China. The Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) was administered to 627 Chinese adolescent boys (n = 332) and girls (n = 295). Results using the boy/girl variance ratio (VR) generally supported the hypothesis that boys have greater variability than girls in creativity test performance. However, results using the boy/girl ratios from different regions of the creativity score distribution revealed a pattern of male superiority. While boys significantly outnumbered girls in the higher extremes, girls tended to outnumber boys in the central region and the lower extremes. Results from an analysis of the means lent further support to the findings of male superiority.

www.euronews.com

Researchers found that the traditional way we monitor and track children receiving emergency care might miss a good number of those at risk of self-harm, but AI can help health providers make better assessments. After the shocking case of a Belgian man who reportedly decided to end his life after an AI chatbot encouraged him to do so, a new study found that machine learning models may actually be effectively used for the exact opposite: preventing suicide among young people. A peer-reviewed study by UCLA Health researchers published in the journal JMIR Mental Health last week found that machine learning can help detect thoughts or behaviour of self-injury in children much better than the actual data system currently used by health care providers. According to a 2021 report from UNICEF, suicide is a leading cause of death among young people in Europe. Nine million children aged between 10 and 19 estimated to live with mental disorders with anxiety and depression accounting for more than half of all cases. In the US, an estimated 20 million young people can currently be diagnosed with a mental health disorder, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. UCLA Health researchers reviewed clinical notes for 600 emergency department visits made by children aged between 10 and 17 to see how well current systems to evaluate their mental health could identify signs of self-harm and assess their suicide risk. What they found is that these clinical notes missed 29% of children who came to the emergency department with self-injurious thoughts or behaviours, while statements made by health specialists flagging at risk-patients - called “chief complaint” in the US - overlooked 54% of patients. In the latter case, health specialists failed to spot the sign of self-injurious thoughts or behaviours because children often do not report suicidal thoughts and behaviors during their first visit to the emergency department.

Syphilis infections rose by 57% from 2019 to 2022 https://www.foxnews.com/health/houston-health-officials-report-syphilis-outbreak-128-spike-cases-among-women

Dr Katharine Roxanne Grawe, known on TikTok as 'Dr. Roxy,' is said to have harmed patients by livestreaming procedures https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-plastic-surgeon-livestreamed-procedures-tiktok-medical-license-permanently-revoked

Doctors at Israel's Hadassah Medical Center performed the miraculous surgery https://www.foxnews.com/world/doctors-reattach-boys-head-car-accident-thanks-amazing-surgery

dailysceptic.org

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/191796 > In November 2021, one of the main programmers of the NASA climate model Gavin Schmidt told readers of the Spectator that the track record of models going back to the 1970s, “shows they have skilfully predicted the trends of the past decades”. Now that laughter has finally subsided, we have an expert analysis of NASA’s GISS Model E with its 441,668 lines of pre-historic (circa 1983) FORTRAN code. With water that doesn’t freeze and “negative” cloud cover, it is said that the claim the model is ‘physics-based’ is a term used in the same way that Hollywood producers say a movie is ‘based on a true story’. > > The detailed examination has been written by the experienced computer programmer Willis Eschenbach and his paper Climate Models and Climate Muddles has been published by Net Zero Watch (NZW). Andrew Montford of NZW discussed the paper in a recent edition of the Daily Sceptic, noting that climate models are at the centre of the global warming scare and back all the weather alarms promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. But what if the climate models were all junk, he asked. Somewhat alarmingly, Eschenbach’s work shows “this is indeed the case”. > > Eschenbach argues that the current crop of computer climate models are far from being fit to be used to decide public policy. To verify this, he says, you only need to look at the endless string of bad, failed, crashed-and-burned predictions they have produced. Pay them no attention, he cautions. “Their main use is to add false legitimacy to the unrealistic fears of the programmers.” If you write a model under the working assumption that carbon dioxide controls the temperature, then guess what you’ll get. > > According to Eschenbach, climate models have a hard time replicating the amazing stability of the climate system. They are ‘iterative’ models, meaning the output of one timestep is used as the input for the next. As a result any errors are carried over, making it easy for models to spiral the Earth into fire and snow balls. NASA gets around polar water refusing to freeze and ‘negative’ amounts of cloud forming (what do minus-two clouds look like?) during model runs by replacing bad values with corresponding maximum or minimum values. “Science at its finest,” comments Eschenbach. He notes that he is not picking on just NASA. The same issues, to a greater or lesser extent, exist within all complex iterative models. “I’m simply pointing out that these are not ‘physics-based’ – they are propped up and fenced in to keep them from crashing,” he observes. > > This is the graph produced by Professor Nicola Scafetta plotting 38 of the major climate models showing their temperature predictions set against the thick green line of the actual satellite record. > > As can be seen, the predictions started to go haywire 25 years ago, just as the global warming fright started to gain political traction. In his Spectator article, Gavin Schmidt, a one- time ‘fact checker’ of the Daily Sceptic, noted that most outcomes depend on the overall trend and not the “fine details of any given model”. In fact the record shown above seems to back up Eschenbach’s view that all a computer model can do is “make visible and glorify the understandings and, more importantly, the misunderstandings of the programmers”. > > The case against relying on computer models to back an insane global de-industrialisation campaign grows by the day. The latest nonsense, peddled by the BBC among many media outlets, is that a world’s hottest day temperature record was broken three times last week. As climate journalist Paul Homewood noted, the idea that global temperatures could shoot up by 0.22°C in just three days is physically impossible. The entire propaganda exercise is the product of computer modelling – any reader of Eschenbach’s diligent work might not be surprised to discover. > > There is a great deal of excitement in alarmist circles about a new El Niño weather oscillation that is starting to brew and might come to the rescue with a little extra heat. Hence all the recent useful-idiot coverage of ‘boiling oceans’ and record heat days. Any El Niño warming will of course be entirely natural but, cynics might note, it will alleviate the need for surface datasets to make yet more upward retrospective adjustments. The dramatic effect of El Niños can be seen in the latest anomaly data from the accurate satellite temperature record.

dailysceptic.org

Excerpt from the above article: The top table shows that the risk of Covid death was consistently higher in unvaccinated than in vaccinated – a positive ‘vaccine effect’ – but the surprising result is revealed in the bottom table: that was also the case for non-Covid death! The mortality rate from non-Covid causes in 4,114 unvaccinated residents of nursing homes in Israel was three to seven times the mortality rate in their vaccinated counterparts, depending on the follow-up time. Or vice versa — the mortality rate from non-Covid causes was substantially lower in nursing home residents who were vaccinated against Covid. That astonishing result is seen early on, within one month of the first dose. Does the Pfizer vaccine protect against death from non-Covid causes? We have yet to hear someone making the claim. If not, what is the explanation? It is simple and not astonishing at all. The decision of whom not to vaccinate was not random. It must have been based on reasonable medical considerations, particularly life expectancy. For instance, what is the merit of vaccinating a 90-year-old who suffers from advanced dementia and metastatic cancer? Those 4,114 unvaccinated residents were sicker to begin with. Their life expectancy was shorter, regardless of possible SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that’s why their non-Covid mortality was several fold higher. Stated differently, belonging to the unvaccinated group was a general marker of poorer health. Or vice versa — belonging to the vaccinated group was a marker of better health. That’s on average, of course. The phenomenon we observe here is called the ‘healthy vaccinee’ bias, and it is well documented in the research literature, dating back to flu vaccines. The bias is very strong in frail elderly residents of nursing homes, but it is seen in all age groups of the general population. The implication of the ‘healthy vaccinee’ phenomenon — when estimating vaccine effectiveness — is called confounding bias. A naïve comparison of Covid mortality in vaccinated people and unvaccinated people, even if age-adjusted, is grossly misleading because the latter have higher risk of death to begin with. At least part of their higher Covid mortality, if not all, has nothing to do with not being vaccinated. They are simply sicker people.

Exploding head syndrome is a benign, underdiagnosed sensory parasomnia. It is the sensation of hearing a loud sound during sleep-wake/wake-sleep transitions. This activity describes the evaluation and management of exploding head syndrome and explains the role of health care teams in managing patients with this condition.

www.liveaction.org

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is carried out 2.5 million times annually around the world — but each year only 500,000 babies are actually born from the IVF procedure, according to research published in Reproductive Biomedicine Online. That means that each year, if just one embryo is created during each IVF cycle (the average is seven), at least 80% — at least two million — of the human beings created through IVF either die during the process, are frozen indefinitely, or are destroyed. According to the World Health Organization, there are 73 million induced abortions each year around the world and 29% of all pregnancies end in induced abortion. This means that when comparing rates — human beings are being destroyed by IVF at a higher rate than they are by abortion. 

www.bbc.com

Rapidly melting Antarctic ice is causing a dramatic slowdown in deep ocean currents and could have a disastrous effect on the climate, a new report warns. The deep-water flows which drive ocean currents could decline by 40% by 2050, a team of Australian scientists says. The currents carry vital heat, oxygen, carbon and nutrients around the globe. Previous research suggests a slowdown in the North Atlantic current could cause Europe to become colder. The study, published in the journal Nature, also warns the slowdown could reduce ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The report outlines how the Earth's network of ocean currents are part driven by the downwards movement of cold, dense saltwater towards the sea bed near Antarctica. But as fresh water from the ice cap melts, sea water becomes less salty and dense, and the downwards movement slows. These deep ocean currents, or "overturnings", in the northern and southern hemispheres have been relatively stable for thousands of years, scientists say, but they are now being disrupted by the warming climate. "Our modelling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctic overturning will slow by more than 40 per cent in the next 30 years - and on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse," study lead Professor Matthew England said. "If the oceans had lungs, this would be one of them," Prof England, an oceanographer at Sydney's University of New South Wales, told a news briefing. Dr Adele Morrison, who contributed to the report, explained that as ocean circulation slowed down, water on the surface quickly reached its carbon-absorbing capacity and was then not replaced by non carbon-saturated water from greater depths.

www.bbc.com

Sperm quality appears to be declining around the world but is a little discussed cause of infertility. Now scientists are narrowing in on what might be behind the problem. "We can sort you out. No problem. We can help you," the doctor told Jennifer Hannington. Then he turned to her husband, Ciaran, and said: "But there's not much we can do for you." The couple, who live in Yorkshire, England, had been trying for a baby for two years. They knew it could be difficult for them to conceive as Jennifer has polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that can affect fertility. What they had not expected was that there were problems on Ciaran's side, too. Tests revealed issues including a low sperm count and low motility (movement) of sperm. Worse, these issues were thought to be harder to treat than Jennifer's – perhaps even impossible. **A hidden fertility crisis?** The global population has risen dramatically over the past century. Just 70 years ago – within a human lifetime – there were only 2.5 billion people on Earth. In 2022, the global population hit eight billion. However, the rate of population growth has slowed, mainly due to social and economic factors. Birth rates worldwide are hitting record low levels. Over 50% of the world’s population live in countries with a fertility rate below two children per woman – resulting in populations that without migration will gradually contract. The reasons for this decline in birth rates include positive developments, such as women's greater financial independence and control over their reproductive health. On the other hand, in countries with low fertility rates, many couples would like to have more children than they do, research shows, but they may hold off due to social and economic reasons, such as a lack of support for families. At the same time, there may also be a decline in a different kind of fertility, known as fecundity – meaning, a person's physical ability to produce offspring. In particular, research suggests that the whole spectrum of reproductive problems in men is increasing, including declining sperm counts, decreasing testosterone levels, and increasing rates of erectile dysfunction and testicular cancer. Swimming cells "Sperm are exquisite cells," says Sarah Martins Da Silva, a clinical reader in reproductive medicine at the University of Dundee and a practicing gynaecologist. "They are tiny, they swim, they can survive outside the body. No other cells can do that. They are extraordinarily specialised." Seemingly small changes can have a powerful effect on these highly specialised cells, and especially, their ability to fertilise an egg. The crucial aspects for fertility are their ability to move efficiently (motility), their shape and size (morphology), and how many there are in a given quantity of semen (known as sperm count). They are the aspects that are examined when a man goes for a fertility check. "In general, when you get below 40 million sperm per millilitre of semen, you start to see fertility problems," says Hagai Levine, professor of epidemiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Sperm count, explains Levine, is closely linked to fertility chances. While a higher sperm count does not necessarily mean a higher probability of conception, below the 40 million/ml threshold the probability of conception drops off rapidly. **In 2022, Levine and his collaborators published a review of global trends in sperm count. It showed that sperm counts fell on average by 1.2% per year between 1973 to 2018, from 104 to 49 million/ml. From the year 2000, this rate of decline accelerated to more than 2.6% per year.** Levine argues this acceleration could be down to epigenetic changes, meaning, alterations to the way genes work, caused by environmental or lifestyle factors. A separate review also suggests epigenetics may play a part in changes in sperm, and male infertility. "There are signs that it could be cumulative across generations," he says. The idea that epigenetic changes can be inherited across generations has not been without controversy, but there is evidence suggesting it may be possible. "This [declining sperm count] is a marker of poor health of men, maybe even of mankind," says Levine. "We are facing a public health crisis – and we don't know if it's reversible." Research suggests that male infertility may predict future health problems, though the exact link is not fully understood. One possibility is that certain lifestyle factors could contribute to both infertility, and other health problems. "While the experience of wanting a child and not being able to get pregnant is extraordinarily devastating, this is a much bigger problem," says Da Silva. Individual lifestyle changes may not be enough to halt the decline in sperm quality. Mounting evidence suggests there is a wider, environmental threat: toxic pollutants.

www.medicalnewstoday.com

People with high intelligence may be less likely to develop schizophrenia, particularly those who have a genetic susceptibility to the condition. This is according to a new study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. The researchers, including first author Dr. Kenneth S. Kendler of the Virginia Commonwealth University, say their findings challenge past studies indicating that people who are intelligent are more likely to be mentally ill. “If you’re really smart, your genes for schizophrenia don’t have much of a chance of acting,” says Dr. Kendler. Schizophrenia is a disabling brain disorder that affects around 2.4 million adults in the US. Onset of the condition usually occurs in early adolescence, and it is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, abnormal thoughts and agitated body movements. The exact causes of schizophrenia are unclear, but scientists have established that the disorder is familial; around 1% of the general population have schizophrenia, but it occurs in around 10% of people who have have a first-degree relative – such as a parent, brother or sister – with the condition. In this study, Dr. Kendler and colleagues set out to assess the association between IQ and subsequent schizophrenia risk among the general population and those have a genetic predisposition for the disorder. **Not achieving predicted IQ ‘most strongly predisposes for schizophrenia’** The team assessed the IQ at ages 18-20 years of 1,204,983 Swedish males who were born between 1951 and 1975. The researchers used Cox proportional hazard models to calculate how IQ influences schizophrenia risk among the general population and among cousin, half-sibling and full-sibling pairs, some of which had a relative with the condition. Up until 2010, the team monitored any schizophrenia-related hospital admissions among the participants. The results of the analysis revealed that individuals with a low IQ were more likely to develop schizophrenia than those with a high IQ. This relationship was strongest among participants with a family history of the disorder; among cousin, half-sibling and full-sibling pairs, the individual with the lowest IQ was at highest risk for schizophrenia.

> A hot water bottle (or hottie[1]) is a container filled with hot water and sealed with a stopper, used to provide warmth, typically whilst in bed, but also for the application of heat to a specific part of the body. (repost kinda, topic came up in conversation) I thought I've read people suggest doing something like this to stay warm while camping found idea at / credit to Low Tech Magazine but their article has immodest pics so wasn't gonna link it