How Synthetic Sexual Identities Got Fast Tracked Through American Institutions

nationalreview |  What campaigners mean by “trans rights” is gender self-identification: that trans people be treated in every circumstance as members of the sex they identify with, rather than the sex they actually are.

This is not a human right at all. It is a demand that everyone else lose their rights to single-sex spaces, services, and activities. And in its requirement that everyone else accept trans people’s subjective beliefs as objective reality, it is akin to a new state religion, complete with blasphemy laws.

Even as one country after another introduces gender self-ID, very few voters know that this is happening, let alone support it.

In 2018 research by Populus, an independent pollster, crowdfunded by British feminists, found that only 15 percent of British adults agreed that legal sex change should be possible without a doctor’s sign-off. A majority classified a “person who was born male and has male genitalia but who identifies as a woman” as a man, and only tiny minorities said that such people should be allowed into women’s sports or changing rooms, or be incarcerated in a women’s prison if they committed a crime.

Two years later, YouGov found that half of British voters thought people should be “able to self-identify as a different gender to the one they were born in.” But two-thirds said legal sex change should only be possible with a doctor’s sign-off, with just 15 percent saying no sign-off should be needed. In other words, there is widespread support for people describing themselves as they wish, but not much for granting such self-descriptions legal status. The same poll also asked whether transwomen should be allowed in women’s sports and changing rooms, sometimes with a reminder that transwomen may have had no genital surgery, and sometimes without. The share saying yes was 20 percentage points lower with the reminder than without — again demonstrating widespread confusion about what being trans means, and that support for trans people does not imply support for self-declaration overriding reality.

A poll in Scotland in 2020 suggests that even young women, the demographic keenest on gender self-ID, become cooler when reminded of the practical implications. A slight majority of women aged 16 to 34 selected “anyone who says they’re a woman, regardless of their biology” as closer than “an adult human female, with XX chromosomes and female genitalia” to their conception of what the word “woman” means. (Young men were much less keen on the self-ID definition, though keener than older men. Overall, 72 percent of respondents chose the biological definition.) But that 52 percent share fell to 38 percent answering “yes” to: “Do you think someone who identifies as a woman, but was born male, and still has male genitalia, should be allowed to use female changing rooms where women and girls are undressing/showering, even if those women object?”

This pattern of broad sympathy for trans-identified people combined with opposition to the practical consequences of gender self-ID also holds in the U.S. In 2020, public-opinion polling in ten swing states found that at least three-quarters of likely voters — including a majority of registered Democrats — opposed allowing male people to compete in female sports. Proposals to ban puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors also polled extremely well. Two more polls the same year, one in California shortly before state laws changed to grant male convicts who identified as women the right to be held in women’s prisons, and one in Idaho to gauge support for the state legislature’s efforts to keep males out of women’s sports, found large majorities supporting separation by sex rather than gender identity.

Gender self-ID does not even play well with left-leaning voters. In early 2020, Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor, gave a random sample of likely British voters some text about a “trans rights” pledge signed by all but one of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership. It described women’s groups campaigning to maintain sex-based rights as “trans exclusionist hate groups,” and said Labour members supporting them should be expelled. The share who said they were likely to vote Labour at the next election was ten percentage points lower than in a control group who read nothing. Progressive campaigners have used “taboos around minority sensitivity to amplify their influence,” Kaufmann concluded, enabling them to “advance unpopular platforms that both weaken the Left and contribute to cultural polarisation.”

Making Snow Black: When We Act - We Create Our Own Reality

strategic-culture |  The infamous Carl Rove (we shall not bother with an explanatory note, whoever remembers this cowboy and is still interested may look him up) twenty and some years ago articulated the gist of the empire’s swaggering ideology:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Students of “empire” must wonder indeed how this foolish man, if he is still around, would now comment his erstwhile utterance. The empire in whose name Rove arrogantly spoke a quarter of a century ago lies in shambles; its reality-producing powers seem notably diminished. If the pretentious nincompoop Rove had any notion of history, he would probably acknowledge that the lifespan of his empire had been even shorter than Assyria’s, its ephemeral prototype from antiquity.

The crude vulgarity of Rove’s boasting should not, however, obscure the fact that a similar disdain for reality was articulated before him by Lord Bertrand Russell, by any measure a genuinely substantial figure. In his 1953 treatise “The Impact of Science on Society,” the sophisticated intellectual Russell wrote up a much more polished and cynical version of Rove’s plebeian ranting:

“The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of schoolchildren on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black” (Page 33).

The effort to invert reality and produce just such an unshakable conviction is in full operation in the terminally sick community of nations Dostoevsky charitably referred to as “the precious graveyard,” now known also as the Collective West.

The West’s newest ideological fad is reality inversion. Another way of putting it is that the most compelling expression of fealty to the West’s values consists of vociferously denying the evidence of one’s senses.

Proof abounds. The dogma propagated in February of this year at an “educational” workshop sponsored by Oklahoma State University was that the biological fact that chromosomes determine an individual’s gender is of no significance. It was expected that on, the contrary, the participants should embrace the unshakable conviction that gender, besides being multiple, was also a matter of arbitrary self-determination. Ideology “cancels” facts. Members of the scientific community and students of biology who, in order to pass their exams, until recently considered it advantageous to affirm empirical facts about the role of chromosomes, are henceforth required to recalibrate scientific knowledge, making it conform to ideological criteria. Who can blame readers who used to be citizens of another empire, denounced not long ago as “evil,” if they find such abrupt reversals of officially approved reality uncomfortable, or even traumatising?

The pandemonium triggered at Portland State University when a biologist contended that there were “explicitly anatomical and biological” differences between men and women, and that taking offense at that constitutes “rejection of reality,” richly illustrates the depth of the madness to which the West has descended.

To summarise, the party line now is that it is not objective factors such as chromosomes that determine gender but “one’s internal sense of being male, female, neither of these, both, or another gender(s) … for transgender people, their sex assigned at birth and their own internal sense of gender identity are not the same. Female, woman, and girl and male, man, and boy are also not necessarily linked to each other but are just six common gender identities.” In other words, one “is” the way one “feels” and the feeling need not be anchored in external reality. (See here.)

Wickliffe Draper: The Philanthropic Wellspring Of American Race Science

undark  | The web woven by Wickliffe Draper in the 20th century, when he could count on august leaders of scientific institutions to support his segregationist and eugenicist causes, is far less distinguished today. But it hasn’t been wiped out completely. Stealthy back-scratching continues among The Mankind Quarterly contributors with scant academic credentials and those in mainstream academia and publishing.

‍In early 2018, I reported for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. that there were at least two individuals sitting on the editorial board of the Elsevier journal Intelligence who failed to meet the publisher’s own professional benchmarks. One of them was editor for The Mankind Quarterly, Gerhard Meisenberg. The other was Richard Lynn, then assistant editor of The Mankind Quarterly, and the president of Draper’s Pioneer Fund. Lynn was an emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, but a few months into 2018 that title would be withdrawn, following a motion by its student union that his views were “racist and sexist in nature.” (Since 2015, The Mankind Quarterly has been published by the Ulster Institute for Social Research, a think tank headed by Lynn.)

At the time, Haier, the editor of Intelligence, defended Lynn and Meisenberg. “I have read some quotes, indirect quotes, that disturb me,” he told me, “but throwing people off an editorial board for expressing an opinion really kind of puts us in a dicey area.” Yet, by the end of 2018 — after the piece in The Guardian was published — the journal’s editorial board went through a dramatic reshuffle and Lynn and Meisenberg were both gone. 

A spokesperson for Elsevier told Undark that it is policy “to rotate Editorial Board members from time to time” and that “Elsevier’s journals operate under the guidance of an Editor-in-Chief and an Editorial Board. Editors-in-Chief are established researchers with a broad interest in their field and are well connected and respected in their subject community.”

Publishing is one side of the research coin. The other is funding. And following a temporary hiatus, Wickliffe Draper’s Pioneer Fund is still in business. In 2013, following the death of its president Jean-Philippe Rushton, only a small fraction of the fund’s assets remained. By 2020, though, they had risen again to almost $300,000 — suggesting that money was coming in from somewhere.

The Pioneer Fund’s U.S. tax records show that its most recent grant was given in 2019, totalling $15,000 to support an organization known as the Human Phenome Diversity Foundation, based in Ohio. This foundation’s president was listed as Bryan Pesta, then a tenured business professor at Cleveland State University in Ohio. In 2016, Pesta published a paper in which he predicted that as the IQ level required to do a job increases, “the percent of White and Asian workers will increase, while the percent of Black workers will decrease.” This was published in Open Differential Psychology, an open-access online journal edited by a right-wing blogger with no known reputable academic affiliations, who is — like Pesta — a contributor to The Mankind Quarterly.

In 2020, Pesta also published research in Intelligence on racial and ethnic group differences in the heritability of intelligence. Roughly a year later, the University of Virginia psychologists Evan Giangrande and Eric Turkheimer responded, stating that the work of Pesta and his colleagues in this paper served “as an example of how racially motivated and poorly executed work can find its way into a mainstream scientific journal, underscoring the importance of robust peer review and rigorous editorial judgment.”

In 2021, Pesta worked on another paper, this time trying to look for correlations between race and behavioral traits using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development database, a long-term study of brain development in American children supported by the National Institutes of Health. The paper analyzed the DNA of almost 10,000 of the children in the study to calculate the percentage of five broad population groups each one might statistically belong to, in a similar way to modern-day genetic ancestry tests. Children were labelled as 10 percent or less African, for example, or 90 percent or less European. The goal was to see if differences in rates of depression, educational attainment, and other factors could be linked proportionately to a child’s race.

In 2021, after losing all respectable academic affiliations, Lynn went on to co-author a paper in another Elsevier journal, Personality and Individual Differences, comparing the processing speeds of people in the United States and Taiwan. He made the unverified claim that part of any gap could be attributed to genetic differences between population groups. Lynn sat on the editorial advisory board of Personality and Individual Differences as recently as 2018. The journal’s editor published a review of his memoirs in 2021.

Maxwell Had 22 Quaternions - Heaviside Mangled And Crippled These Into 4 Classical Equations...,

In this video, we're looking at how there are two sides to every Maxwell, equation, and therefore there are two ways of understanding each of Maxwell's equations.

Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism fall under the umbrella of classical physics, [NO THEY DO NOT!!!!] and describe how electric and magnetic fields are allowed to behave within our universe (assuming the equations are correct of course). Electric and magnetic fields show how electrically charged, and magnetic objects respectively, exert forces on each other.

Each of Maxwell's equations is a differential equation that can be written in one of two forms - the differential form, and the integral form. In this video, we look at two of these equations, and how each of them has two variations. We begin by studying the first Maxwell equation, which says (in the differential form) that the divergence of any magnetic field is always equal to zero.

The physical interpretation of the above statement is that if we consider any closed volume of space, the net magnetic field passing either in or out of the region must always be zero. We can never have a scenario where more magnetic field enters or leaves any closed region of space. The divergence of the magnetic field simply measures how much field is entering or leaving the volume overall. And this must be equal to zero.

Conversely, this same equation can be written in integral from (i.e. from a slightly different perspective). The integral equation says that the integral of B.dS is equal to zero. B is once again the magnetic field, and dS is a small element of the surface surrounding the volume discussed above. This method breaks up the outer surface covering the volume into very small pieces, counts the amount of magnetic field passing the surface element, and then adds up the contributions from all the elements making up the surface. This addition of contributions is given by the surface integral over the closed surface. In other words, the integral form of this Maxwell equation states the same thing as the differential form but looks at it from a slightly different perspective. Note: the integral must be a closed integral i.e. there should be no holes or breaks in the surface.

We also see a similar sort of thing with the second Maxwell equation, which looks at the behavior of electric fields. The differential form states that the divergence of the electric field is equal to a charge density divided by epsilon nought, the permittivity of free space. This therefore says that for any closed volume, the net amount of field entering or leaving the volume is directly related to the density of charge enclosed within the volume. Therefore if the net charge in the volume is zero, then the net field entering or leaving it is also zero. If the net charge is positive, the divergence is greater than zero, and if the net charge is negative, the divergence is less than zero.

The integral equation states that the sum of the electric field contributions to each of the small elements making up the area surrounding the volume is equal to the total charge enclosed within the surface, divided by epsilon nought. So once again this is looking at the same scenario from a slightly different perspective.

Each Maxwell equation has these two ways of writing it, and one can easily convert from the differential form to the integral form if one knows differential calculus. It is generally simple to move between these forms, and we can use whichever one is mathematically most convenient to us at any given time.

Randall Carlson: Stay In Your Lane, Get Back In Pocket, Put The Martin Bendall DOWN....,

strikefoundation |  Plasmoids are doughnut or toroidal shaped clusters of net Protons or net Electrons that once captured and placed into a Toroidal orbit are capable of absorbing, storing, and releasing enormous amounts of energy present within their self-generated and structured electro magnetic containment field. Plasmoids, in effect, function as an atomic battery that can be-self charging due to the ability to convert matter to available clean energy. Plasmoids by their unique geometry cause a consequential electromagnetic containment field to generate a Zero point naturally and casually, without much effort, have the ability to convert the nuclear Mass of Protium (Atoms) into energy.

The Plasmoid Unification Model (PUM) posits that Plasmoids are epoch-making and that the knowledge of them has been hidden in plain sight for centuries. This PUM 'slide rule' reveals the algorithmic relationships life's elements critical to mankind's existence and development, its parts with Protium which has a melting point of -259.2C and is the most abundant element in our solar system. Protium determines the 25,920 Great Year frequency of our Solar System. The resonant frequencies of all other elements can then be calculated when the 25,920 years is reduced from years to days, hours, and seconds.

The PUM is evidence that the Universe is an intelligent design. The design is in perfect octave tangenic resonance with itself. Therefore all of creation from Galaxies to Planets to Elements all resonate in unison with a collective chord "As Above So Below”. This is interconnected with an Energy “web”, the 24 components of laws which we are all based and governed on the same 16 sector Torus Plasmoid precepts shown. The concepts and ruling principles of the PUM can and have been applied to make Energy to Matter and Matter to Energy conversient. When applied to the modern hydrocarbon powered internal combustion engine, PUM technology removes exhaust toxic waste products and increases the engine power output by transforming waste energy back into fuel. Plasmoids employed in conjunction with Plasmoid Toroidal Implosive Turbine provide a new novel Matter to Energy and Energy to Matter propulsion device for water, land, air, and space travel.

More Thinking About The Fabric Of Reality

If you look at the graphic at the top of the article (Penrose tiling) you'll notice there are a bunch of points that are centers of rotational symmetry (you can rotate it 2pi/N and get the same thing) and lines of reflection symmetry (you can mirror it over that line and get the same thing) but there is no translational symmetry (you can't slide it over in any direction and overlap with the original), this is a "quasicrystal" (in 2d)

Compare this to a grid of squares that has reflection and rotation symmetry but also has translational symmetry, this is a true "crystal" (in 2d)

This article is treating a train of laser pulses as a "1d crystal" and if long/short pulses resemble a Fibonacci sequence treating it as a "1d quasicrystal". This seems to be noteworthy in that using such a structured pulse train provides some improvements in quantum computing when it's used to read/write (i.e. shine on) information (i.e. electron configuration) from atoms / small molecules (i.e. qubits)

The "2 time dimensions" thing is basically that a N-d "quasicrystal" is usually a pretty close approximation of an [N+M]-d "true crystal" projected down into N dimensions so the considering the higher dimension structure might make things easier by getting rid of transcendental numbers etc.

They could have just said "aperiodic laser pulses" are used. No need to introduce fantastical sounding terminology about multiple time dimensions, which seems to have been done quite deliberately.

The biggest and most important step is to make sure you drop any mysticism about what a "dimension" is. It's just a necessary component of identifying the location of something in some way. More than three "dimensions" is not just common but super common, to the point of mundanity. The location and orientation of a rigid object, a completely boring quantity, is six dimensional: three for space, three for the rotation. Add velocity in and it becomes 12 dimensional; the six previous and three each now for linear and rotational velocity. To understand "dimensions" you must purge ALL science fiction understanding and understand them not as exotic, but painfully mundane and boring. (They may measure something interesting, but that "interestingness" should be accounted to the thing being measured, not the "dimension". "Dimensions" are as boring as "inches" or "gallons".)

Next up, there is a very easy metaphor for us in the computing realm for the latest in QM and especially materials science. In our world, there is a certain way in which a "virtual machine" and a "machine" are hard to tell apart. A lot of things in the latest QM and materials science is building little virtual things that combine the existing simple QM primitives to build new systems. The simplest example of this sort of thing is a "hole". Holes do not "exist". They are where an electron is missing. But you can treat them as a virtual thing, and it can be difficult to tell whether or not that virtual thing is "real" or not, because it acts exactly like the "virtual" thing would if it were "real".

In this case, this system may mathematically behave like there is a second time dimension, and that's interesting, but it "just" "simulating" it. It creates a larger system out of smaller parts that happens to match that behavior, but it doesn't mean there's "really" a second time dimension.

The weird and whacky things you hear coming out of QM and materials science are composite things being assembled out of normal mundane components in ways that allow them to "simulate" being some other interesting system, except when you're "simulating" at this low, basic level it essentially is just the thing being "simulated". But there's not necessarily anything new going on; it's still electrons and protons and neutrons and such, just arranged in interesting ways, just as, in the end, Quake or Tetris is "just" an interesting arrangement of NAND gates. There's no upper limit to how "interestingly" things can be arranged, but there's less "new" than meets the eye.

Unfortunately, trying to understand this through science articles, which are still as addicted as ever to "woo woo" with the word dimensions and leaning in to the weirdness of QM and basically deliberately trying to instill mysticism at the incorrect level of the problem. (Personally, I still feel a lot of wonder about the world and enjoy learning more... but woo woo about what a "dimension" is is not the place for that.) 

Binaural Beats Exist Solely As A Consequence Of The Interaction Of Perceptions Within The Brain

amadeux  |  If two tuning forks of slightly different pitch are struck simultaneously, the resulting sound waves and wanes periodically. The modulations are referred to as beats; their frequency is equal to the difference between the frequencies of the original tones. For example, a tuning fork with a characteristic pitch of 440 hertz, if struck at the same time, will produce beats with a frequency of six hertz.

In modern investigations tuning forks are replaced by electronic oscillators, which can supply tones of precisely controlled pitch, purity, and intensity. Beats are produced when the outputs of two oscillators tuned to slightly different frequencies are combined electrically and applied to a loudspeaker. Alternatively, the signals can be applied individually to separate speakers and the beats will still be heard. The result is the same whether the tones are combined electrically and then converted into sound, or converted into sound separately and then combined.

A quite different phenomenon results when stereophonic earphones are used and the signals are applied separately to each ear. Under the right circumstances beats can be perceived, but they are of an entirely different character. They are called binaural beats, and in many ways they are more interesting than ordinary beats, which in this discussion will be called monaural.

Monaural beats can be heard with both ears, but one ear is sufficient to perceive them. Binaural beats require the combined action of both ears. They exist as a consequence of the interaction of perceptions within the brain, and they can be used to investigate some of the brain’s processes.

The physical mechanism of monaural beats is a special case of wave interference. At any instant the amplitude of the resulting sound is equal to the algebraic sum of the amplitudes of the original tones. The signals are reinforced when they are in phase, that is, when the peaks and nulls of their waves coincide. Destructive interference diminishes the net amplitude when the waves are in opposition. The pure tones used in these experiments are described by sine waves’ the resulting beats are slowly varying functions similar to, but not precisely conforming to, a sine wave.

A beat frequency of about six hertz, as in the example given above, would sound something like vibrato in music (although vibrato is frequency modulation rather than amplitude modulation). If the interval between frequencies is made smaller, very slow beats can be produced, down to about on per second, to perceive. Rapid beats, up to about 30 hertz, are heard as roughness superimposed on the sound, rather like a Scotsman’s burr. With still greater intervals beats are not heard; the two tones are perceived separately.

Beats are rarely encountered in nature because in nature sustained pure tones are rare. They abound, however, in mechanical devices. In an airplane, jet engines operating at slightly different speeds may produce a very strong-beat, often recognized only as a feeling “in the pit of the stomach.” Acoustical engineers can filter out the whine of the engines, but the slow vibrations are difficult to suppress. Occupants of apartment houses may be annoyed by beats produced by machinery, such as two blowers running at different speeds, but they will have a hard time finding the source.

On the other hand, beats are used to advantage where frequencies must be determined precisely. Electrical engineers compare the output of a test oscillator with that of a standard oscillator by detecting the beats produced when their signals are combined. The tuning of pianos is another process that depends on beats. Typically the piano tuner will first listen for the beats produced by a tuning fork of 440 hertz and the A above middle C, and tighten or loosen the A wire until the beats slow to zero. He then strikes the A key and the D key below it and tunes the latter wire until 10 beats per second are heard. That frequency is produced by the interaction of the A string’s second harmonic, or second multiple (2 x 44 0 = 180), and the D string’s third harmonic (3 x 290 = 870). In this fashion, key by key, the piano is tuned; in theory it could be done even by someone who is tone-deaf.

Binaural beats were discovered in 1839 by a German experimenter named H. W. Dove, but as late as 1915 they were considered a trivial special case of monaural beats. It was argued that each ear was hearing sounds intended for the other. This extraneous result could be eliminated by placing the tuning forks in separate rooms, with the subject in a third room between them, and guiding the sounds through tubes to each ear. It was necessary to carefully seal each tube to the head, however, and another objection was raised; that sound presentation to one ear could be conducted through the skull to the other.

Bone conduction is well established, and indeed some hearing aids operate on this principle, although sound is attenuated a thousandfold from ear to ear. The possible contribution of bone conduction to the perception of binaural beats is eliminated, however, by the use of modern stereophonic earphones. Such earphones have padding, often liquid filled, to insulate the head from the sound source, and are designed explicitly to prevent conduction effects. Indeed, stereophonic recordings played through earphones can sound unnatural because the instruments seem too isolated.

The difference most immediately apparent between monaural and binaural beats is that binaural beats can be heard only when the tones used to produce them are of low pitch. Binaural beats are best perceived when the carrier frequency is about 440 hertz; above that frequency they become less distinct and above about 1,000 hertz they vanish altogether. No person I have tested reports hearing beats for frequencies above 900 hertz. Experimental conditions, particularly the intensity of the sounds and the type of earphones used can affect the results, however, and other investigators report detecting beats produced by tones up to almost 1,500 hertz. At the other end of the scale beats also become elusive. Below about 90 hertz the subject may confuse the beats with the tones used to produce them.

J. C. R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a technique when he was working at Harvard University to measure a spectrum of binaural beats [see upper illustration on page 102]. He adopted the frequency of one oscillator until the interval was large enough so that the beats seemed “rough”; then he noted the frequency of the unchanged reference oscillator. Next he changed the setting of the reference oscillator and repeated the procedure. In this way the range of perception of each subject was recorded.

Another distinguishing characteristic of binaural beats is their muffled sound. Monaural beats produced with sounds of equal intensity pulse from loudness to silence, as their wave form would suggest. Binaural beats, on the other hand, are only a slight modulation of a loud background. I have tried to estimate the depth of the modulation, and it seems to be about three decibels, or about a tenth of the loudness of a whisper. In order to help subjects recognize these relatively faint effects I usually present signals with monaural beats and then suddenly change to the binaural mode. With tones of about 440 hertz it usually takes two or three seconds for the subject to recognize the binaural beats.
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The CDC Abandoned Public Health And Science A Long Time Ago

tabletmag  |  The main federal agency guiding America’s pandemic policy is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which sets widely adopted policies on masking, vaccination, distancing, and other mitigation efforts to slow the spread of COVID and ensure the virus is less morbid when it leads to infection. The CDC is, in part, a scientific agency—they use facts and principles of science to guide policy—but they are also fundamentally a political agency: The director is appointed by the president of the United States, and the CDC’s guidance often balances public health and welfare with other priorities of the executive branch.

Throughout this pandemic, the CDC has been a poor steward of that balance, pushing a series of scientific results that are severely deficient. This research is plagued with classic errors and biases, and does not support the press-released conclusions that often follow. In all cases, the papers are uniquely timed to further political goals and objectives; as such, these papers appear more as propaganda than as science. The CDC’s use of this technique has severely damaged their reputation and helped lead to a growing divide in trust in science by political party. Science now risks entering a death spiral in which it will increasingly fragment into subsidiary verticals of political parties. As a society, we cannot afford to allow this to occur. Impartial, honest appraisal is needed now more than ever, but it is unclear how we can achieve it.

Consider a final example: the CDC’s near-total dismissal of natural immunity. Many other countries consider recovery from prior infection as a vaccination equivalent or better, an assumption that makes both medical and intuitive sense, but the CDC has steadfastly maintained that everyone needs the same number of vaccinations whether they have recovered from a COVID infection or not. This view is countered by data showing that vaccinating people who have recovered from COVID results in more severe adverse events than vaccinating people who have not had COVID.

In order to bolster the claim that people who have recovered from COVID benefit from vaccination as much as those who never had it, the CDC published a fatally flawed Kentucky-based analysis. The August 2021 study compared people who had contracted COVID twice against those who had it just once, and concluded that those who had it once were more likely to have had vaccination. But the study could have easily missed people who had two documented cases of COVID but might have had severe underlying medical conditions—such as immunosuppression—that predisposed them to multiple bouts of infection in a short period. In addition, people who had COVID once and then got vaccinated might not have sought further testing, believing themselves invulnerable to the virus. The study did not adequately address these biases. Months later, the CDC published a stronger, cohort study showing clearly that natural immunity was more robust than vaccine-induced immunity in preventing future COVID hospitalizations, and moreover, that people who survived infection were massively protected whether vaccinated or not.

But to listen to Walensky tell it, none of these complications even exist. On Dec. 10, 2021, she told ABC News that the CDC had seen no adverse events among vaccine recipients, and denied seeing any cases of myocarditis among vaccinated kids between 5 and 11. On that same day, however, data from her own agency showed the CDC was aware of at least eight cases of myocarditis within that age group, making her statement demonstrably false.

So why does the supposedly impartial CDC push weak or flawed studies to support the administration’s pandemic policy goals? The cynical answer is that the agency is not in fact impartial (and thus not sufficiently scientific), but captured by the country’s national political system. That answer has become harder to avoid. This is a precarious situation, as it undermines trust in federal agencies and naturally leads to a trust vacuum, in which Americans feel forced to cast about in a confused search for alternative sources of information.

Once that trust is broken, it’s not easily regained. One way out would be to reduce the CDC’s role in deciding policy, even during a pandemic. Expecting the executive agency tasked with conducting the science itself to also help formulate national policy—which must balance both scientific and political concerns and preferences—has proven a failure, because the temptation to produce flawed or misleading analysis is simply too great. In order to firewall policymaking from science, perhaps scientific agency directors shouldn’t be political appointees at all.

Ultimately, science is not a political sport. It is a method to ascertain truth in a chaotic, uncertain universe. Science itself is transcendent, and will outlast our current challenges no matter what we choose to believe. But the more it becomes subordinate to politics—the more it becomes a slogan rather than a method of discovery and understanding—the more impoverished we all become. The next decade will be critical as we face an increasingly existential question: Is science autonomous and sacred, or a branch of politics? I hope we choose wisely, but I fear the die is already cast.

 

IMHO - The Addiction Article Is Pseudoscience - The Video Is Closer To The Truth

MIT |  Cocaine, opioids, and other drugs of abuse disrupt the brain’s reward system, often shifting users’ priorities to obtaining more drug above all else. For people battling addiction, this persistent craving is notoriously difficult to overcome — but new research from scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and collaborators points toward a therapeutic strategy that could help.

Researchers in MIT Institute Professor Ann Graybiel’s lab and collaborators at the University of Copenhagen and Vanderbilt University report in a Jan. 25 online publication in the journal Addiction Biology that activating a signaling molecule in the brain known as muscarinic receptor 4 (M₄) causes rodents to reduce cocaine self-administration and simultaneously choose a food treat over cocaine.

M₄ receptors are found on the surface of neurons in the brain, where they alter signaling in response to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. They are plentiful in the striatum, a brain region that Graybiel’s lab has shown is deeply involved in habit formation. They are of interest to addiction researchers because, along with a related receptor called M₁, which is also abundant in the striatum, they often seem to act in opposition to the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Drugs of abuse stimulate the brain’s habit circuits by allowing dopamine to build up in the brain. With chronic use, that circuitry can become less sensitive to dopamine, so experiences that were once rewarding become less pleasurable and users are driven to seek higher doses of their drug. Attempts to directly block the dopamine system have not been found to be an effective way of treating addiction and can have unpleasant or dangerous side effects, so researchers are seeking an alternative strategy to restore balance within the brain’s reward circuitry. “Another way to tweak that system is to activate these muscarinic receptors,” explains Jill Crittenden, a research scientist in the Graybiel lab.

At the University of Copenhagen, neuroscientist Morgane Thomsen has found that activating the M₁ receptor causes rodents to choose a food treat over cocaine. In the new work, she showed that a drug that selectively activates the M₄ receptor has a similar effect.

When rats that have been trained to self-administer cocaine are given an M₄-activating compound, they immediately reduce their drug use, actively choosing food instead. Thomsen found that this effect grew stronger over a seven-day course of treatment, with cocaine use declining day by day. When the M₄-activating treatment was stopped, rats quickly resumed their prior cocaine-seeking behavior.  Fist tap Dale.

The Selfish Gene Is Actually A Crippling, Zero-Sum Theory Of Evolution

aeon  |  In late summer of 1976, two colleagues at Oxford University Press, Michael Rodgers and Richard Charkin, were discussing a book on evolution soon to be published. It was by a first-time author, a junior zoology don in town, and had been given an initial print run of 5,000 copies. As the two publishers debated the book’s fate, Charkin confided that he doubted it would sell more than 2,000 copies. In response, Rodgers, who was the editor who had acquired the manuscript, suggested a bet whereby he would pay Charkin £1 for every 1,000 copies under 5,000, and Charkin was to buy Rodgers a pint of beer for every 1,000 copies over 5,000. By now, the book is one of OUP’s most successful titles, and it has sold more than a million copies in dozens of languages, spread across four editions. That book was Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene, and Charkin is ‘holding back payment in the interests of [Rodgers’s] health and wellbeing’.

In the decades following that bet, The Selfish Gene has come to play a unique role in evolutionary biology, simultaneously influential and contentious. At the heart of the disagreements lay the book’s advocacy of what has become known as the gene’s-eye view of evolution. To its supporters, the gene’s-eye view presents an unrivalled introduction to the logic of natural selection. To its critics, ‘selfish genes’ is a dated metaphor that paints a simplistic picture of evolution while failing to incorporate recent empirical findings. To me, it is one of biology’s most powerful thinking tools. However, as with all tools, in order to make the most of it, you must understand what it was designed to do.

When Charles Darwin first introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, he had in mind a theory about individual organisms. In Darwin’s telling, individuals differ in how long they live and how good they are at attracting mates; if the traits that enhance these strengths are heritable, they will become more abundant over time. The gene’s-eye view discussed by Dawkins introduces a shift in perspective that might seem subtle at first, but which comes with rather radical implications.

The idea emerged from the tenets of population genetics in the 1920s and ’30s. Here, scientists said that you could mathematically describe evolution through changes in the frequency of certain genetic variants, known as alleles, over time. Population genetics was an integral part of the modern synthesis of evolution and married Darwin’s idea of gradual evolutionary change with a functioning theory of inheritance, based on Gregor Mendel’s discovery that genes were transmitted as discrete entities. Under the framework of population genetics, evolution is captured by mathematically describing the increase and decrease of alleles in a population over time.

The gene’s-eye view took this a step further, to argue that biologists are always better off thinking about evolution and natural selection in terms of genes rather than organisms. This is because organisms lack the evolutionary longevity required to be the central unit in evolutionary explanations. They are too temporary on an evolutionary timescale, a unique combination of genes and environment – here in this generation but gone in the next. Genes, in contrast, pass on their structure intact from one generation to the next, ignoring mutation and recombination. Therefore, only they possess the required evolutionary longevity. Traits that you can see, the argument goes, such as the particular fur of a polar bear or the flower of an orchid (known as a phenotype), are not for the good of the organism, but of the genes. The genes, and not the organism, are the ultimate beneficiaries of natural selection.

This approach has also been called selfish-gene thinking, because natural selection is conceptualised as a struggle between genes, typically through how they affect the fitness of the organism in which they reside, for transmission to the next generation. At an after-dinner speech at a conference banquet, Dawkins once summarised the key argument in limerick form:

An itinerant selfish gene
Said: ‘Bodies a-plenty I’ve seen.
You think you’re so clever,
But I’ll live for ever.
You’re just a survival machine.’

In this telling, evolution is the process by which immortal selfish genes housed in transient organisms struggle for representation in future generations. Moving beyond the poetry and making the point more formally, Dawkins argued that evolution involves two entities: replicators and vehicles, playing complementary roles. Replicators are those entities that copies are made of and that are transmitted faithfully from one generation to the next; in practice, this usually means genes. The second entity, vehicles, are where replicators are bundled together: this is the entity that actually comes into contact with the external environment and interacts with it. The most common kind of vehicle is the organism, such as an animal or a plant, though it can also be a cell, as in the case of cancer.

Cell Signaling Neither Random Or Chaotic - Just Exceedingly Complicated

quanta |  Back in 2000, when Michael Elowitz of the California Institute of Technology was still a grad student at Princeton University, he accomplished a remarkable feat in the young field of synthetic biology: He became one of the first to design and demonstrate a kind of functioning “circuit” in living cells. He and his mentor, Stanislas Leibler, inserted a suite of genes into Escherichia coli bacteria that induced controlled swings in the cells’ production of a fluorescent protein, like an oscillator in electronic circuitry.

It was a brilliant illustration of what the biologist and Nobel laureate François Jacob called the “logic of life”: a tightly controlled flow of information from genes to the traits that cells and other organisms exhibit.

But this lucid vision of circuit-like logic, which worked so elegantly in bacteria, too often fails in more complex cells. “In bacteria, single proteins regulate things,” said Angela DePace, a systems biologist at Harvard Medical School. “But in more complex organisms, you get many proteins involved in a more analog fashion.”

Recently, by looking closely at the protein interactions within one key developmental pathway that shapes the embryos of humans and other complex animals, Elowitz and his co-workers have caught a glimpse of what the logic of complex life is really like. This pathway is a riot of molecular promiscuity that would make a libertine blush, where the component molecules can unite in many different combinations. It might seem futile to hope that this chaotic dance could convey any coherent signal to direct the fate of a cell. Yet this sort of helter-skelter coupling among biomolecules may be the norm, not some weird exception. In fact, it may be why multicellular life works at all.

“Biological cell-cell communication circuits, with their families of promiscuously interacting ligands and receptors, look like a mess and use an architecture that is the opposite of what we synthetic biologists might have designed,” Elowitz said.

Yet this apparent chaos of interacting components is really a sophisticated signal-processing system that can extract information reliably and efficiently from complicated cocktails of signaling molecules. “Understanding cells’ natural combinatorial language could allow us to control [them] with much greater specificity than we have now,” he said.

The emerging picture does more than reconfigure our view of what biomolecules in our cells are up to as they build an organism — what logic they follow to create complex life. It might also help us understand why living things are able to survive at all in the face of an unpredictable environment, and why that randomness permits evolution rather than frustrating it. And it could explain why molecular medicine is often so hard: why many candidate drugs don’t do what we hoped, and how we might make ones that do.

The Computational Complexity Of A Single Biological Neuron

quanta |  Today, the most powerful artificial intelligence systems employ a type of machine learning called deep learning. Their algorithms learn by processing massive amounts of data through hidden layers of interconnected nodes, referred to as deep neural networks. As their name suggests, deep neural networks were inspired by the real neural networks in the brain, with the nodes modeled after real neurons — or, at least, after what neuroscientists knew about neurons back in the 1950s, when an influential neuron model called the perceptron was born. Since then, our understanding of the computational complexity of single neurons has dramatically expanded, so biological neurons are known to be more complex than artificial ones. But by how much?

To find out, David Beniaguev, Idan Segev and Michael London, all at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, trained an artificial deep neural network to mimic the computations of a simulated biological neuron. They showed that a deep neural network requires between five and eight layers of interconnected “neurons” to represent the complexity of one single biological neuron.

Even the authors did not anticipate such complexity. “I thought it would be simpler and smaller,” said Beniaguev. He expected that three or four layers would be enough to capture the computations performed within the cell.

Timothy Lillicrap, who designs decision-making algorithms at the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, said the new result suggests that it might be necessary to rethink the old tradition of loosely comparing a neuron in the brain to a neuron in the context of machine learning. “This paper really helps force the issue of thinking about that more carefully and grappling with to what extent you can make those analogies,” he said.

The most basic analogy between artificial and real neurons involves how they handle incoming information. Both kinds of neurons receive incoming signals and, based on that information, decide whether to send their own signal to other neurons. While artificial neurons rely on a simple calculation to make this decision, decades of research have shown that the process is far more complicated in biological neurons. Computational neuroscientists use an input-output function to model the relationship between the inputs received by a biological neuron’s long treelike branches, called dendrites, and the neuron’s decision to send out a signal.

This function is what the authors of the new work taught an artificial deep neural network to imitate in order to determine its complexity. They started by creating a massive simulation of the input-output function of a type of neuron with distinct trees of dendritic branches at its top and bottom, known as a pyramidal neuron, from a rat’s cortex. Then they fed the simulation into a deep neural network that had up to 256 artificial neurons in each layer. They continued increasing the number of layers until they achieved 99% accuracy at the millisecond level between the input and output of the simulated neuron. The deep neural network successfully predicted the behavior of the neuron’s input-output function with at least five — but no more than eight — artificial layers. In most of the networks, that equated to about 1,000 artificial neurons for just one biological neuron.

 

Chris Mellon A Whole Difference Of Kind - Not Degree - In Our Restricted Air Space

caitlinjohnstone |  I’ve been learning as much as I can about the new UFO narrative the political/media class have been pushing in conjunction with the US military to prepare for the Senate report that’s due to be released this month.

One of the disconcerting things I’ve been seeing again and again from all the major players in this new narrative like Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon is the absurd assertion that not only is it entirely possible that the unknown phenomena allegedly being regularly witnessed by military personnel are extraterrestrial in origin, but that if they are extraterrestrial they may want to hurt us.

Mellon, the former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence who helped get the ball rolling on UFOs entering mainstream attention back in 2017 when he leaked three Pentagon videos to The New York Times, has stated that he sees extraterrestrial origin as an entirely possible explanation for these phenomena.

“We don’t even understand how you could do something like that,” Mellon said in a recent interview with CTV News of the inexplicable maneuvers and features these aircraft supposedly demonstrate. “We don’t even understand the science behind it. Not like somebody’s a couple generations of fighter jet behind us; I mean this is a whole difference of kind, not degree.”

Asked why the pilots of mysterious aircraft with incomprehensible scientific advancement might want to monitor the US military, Mellon said the following:

“Well probably for the same reason we do: to understand what kind of threat we could pose to them. Should a conflict arise they want to be able to engage us effectively, defeat us rapidly, at minimum cost of life and treasure, just as we would on the other side. We do similar kinds of things; we don’t have vehicles quite like this, but we’re certainly very actively monitoring military forces of other countries.”

The notion that UFOs could pose a threat to humans whether their alleged operators are from our own world or from another is being promoted by the main drivers of this strange new plotline, and it is being enthusiastically lapped up by many UFO enthusiasts who see framing these phenomena as a national security threat as the best way to get mainstream power structures to take them seriously and disclose information to the public.

Not Just The DNC Hyperventilating About UFOs/UAP's

foxnews  |  CARLSON:  So one of the main reasons we know as much about UFOs and know as much about what The Pentagon knows about UFOs is because of a man called Lue Elizondo, who used to run the Pentagon's UFO program. He's gone public about this, as you know, if you watch this show. Now, he says The Pentagon is launching a smear campaign against him. 

CARLSON:  One of the main reasons that sane people are now capable of talking about UFOs without being laughed at is because of a man called Lue Elizondo. Thirteen years ago, Elizondo was assigned to lead a Pentagon program that investigated this phenomenon, whatever it is. 

Since leaving employment with the U.S. government, Elizondo has gone public about some of what he knows about UFO sightings. Again, he has made this current conversation possible. 

Now, Elizondo has filed a complaint with The Pentagon's Inspector General, and in that complaint, he says The Pentagon is waging a coordinated disinformation campaign to smear him for talking about this subject. 

Lue Elizondo joins us tonight. Lue, thanks so much for coming on. 

LUE ELIZONDO, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL:  Tucker, always a pleasure. 

CARLSON:  What do you believe the Pentagon -- thank you -- what are they doing to you and why? 

ELIZONDO:  Well, there are certainly pockets of resistance within The Pentagon. And my concern is that they're not being forthcoming with the American people about the reality of the program, the findings of the program, my role in the program, and frankly, the importance of this topic from a national security perspective. 

I think the concern for me is that there's a lot of information that still has to see the light of day, and they are obfuscating the truth. And more importantly, they may be doing it to Congress, which is a whole another level of deception, of course, if that is indeed the case. 

CARLSON:  Yes, and it's also illegal. They're required by law, to release this information to the Congress and to the public. When can we expect that and how convinced are you about withholding critical information from that report? 

ELIZONDO:  Yes, two things with that, Tucker. That report can come out any day, probably anytime between next week and June 25th. Hopefully, the report is what Congress expects, and frankly, what Congress deserves. But I'll tell you something of equal importance that I think our friends in Congress should probably be aware of, and that is the Public Affairs Office right now in the United States Pentagon is obfuscating, and more importantly, interfering with the Freedom of Information Act process that is something that is in law. 

So I think that's something every American should be concerned with. 

CARLSON:  Yes, it's illegal, among other things and wrong. What specifically do you worry they will omit from this report? 

ELIZONDO:  Well, in the program ATIP that I was part of, we looked at a lot of things, primarily as most people know, the UAP or the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon topic and more importantly, the incursions into us airspace. There's a lot of data, Tucker out there. 

And I mean, there's a lot and I have to be very careful what I say. But I think, if just some of that information comes to light. You know, one thing people look at the Nimitz incident, they look at the Roosevelt, they look at the kid in the Omaha and they say, well, you know, those are anecdotal, those are, you know, events that occurred every so often. 

But I think Americans would be really surprised to know that these events are continuing to literally last week, they're happening all the time.

 

The UFO/UAP Distraction Been Bubbling For A Minute In Democrat Political Circles

insidesources | Conspiracy Theorists Wonder Whether Clinton Lost Because the Deep State Wanted to Stop Her From Releasing Secret Alien Files

No, you’re not in the Twilight Zone: That really was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman and former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta on Ancient Aliens Friday night.

The long-running History Channel series is a haven for believers in the government/UFO conspiracy, alien abductions, and “The Reptilians.” (Season 8, Episode 5: “Could ancient myths about reptilian creatures provide evidence that they are more than just a pop-culture creation?”). The show has even pondered whether the moon is hollow and houses a secret alien base (Season 11, Episode 11).

This weekend Ancient Aliens kicked off its 13th season with a review of efforts to get the federal government to release its treasure trove of documents and data on what really happened at Roswell, Area 51, etc.

And there—in between artist renditions of flying saucers and interviews with UFO conspiracy theorists like Georgio Tsoukalos and Stephen Bassett—was well-known Democrat politico John Podesta.  Among the conspiracies promoted in this new (ahem) “documentary” is the suggestion that the real reason Hillary lost an impossible-to-lose campaign in 2016 wasn’t the Russians or the FBI.

It was aliens.

As conspiracy-debunker Jason Colavito says in his review of the episode:

“The show speculates that Clinton would have led a UFO disclosure movement had she won the presidency in 2016, and there is a strange implication that ‘the CIA and the Pentagon were worried about Hillary Clinton’ and therefore arranged for her to lose the election.”

John Podesta’s obsession with alien encounters and government disclosure is no secret. The Washington Post and others have written about it in the past. And video of Podesta’s 2002 appearance in a press event urging the government to release all its UFO files has a staple of “The Truth Is Out There” documentary industry.

Podesta’s passion has even made an appearance in the #Russiagate story, as InsideSources has reported. Among the Podesta emails released by Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign were several from Blink-182 front man (and UFO activist) Tom DeLonge referencing “Classified Science,” “DOD topics” and Roswell.

What is unusual about the latest Ancient Aliens episode (“The UFO Conspiracy”) is Podesta’s decision to sit down for an on-camera interview, participating directly in the program.

Luis Elizondo Accuses Pentagon Of Waging A UFO Disinformation Campaign

politico |  The former Pentagon official who went public about reports of UFOs has filed a complaint with the agency’s inspector general claiming a coordinated campaign to discredit him for speaking out — including accusing a top official of threatening to tell people he was "crazy," according to documents reviewed by POLITICO.

Lue Elizondo, a career counterintelligence specialist who was assigned in 2008 to work for a Pentagon program that investigated reports of "unmanned aerial phenomena," filed the 64-page complaint to the independent watchdog on May 3 and has met several times with investigators, according to his legal team.

The claim that the government is trying to discredit him comes weeks before the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon are expected to deliver an unclassified report to Congress about UFOs and the government’s strategy for investigating such encounters. The report is expected to include a detailed accounting of the agencies, personnel and surveillance systems that gather and analyze the data.

“What he is saying is there are certain individuals in the Defense Department who in fact were attacking him and lying about him publicly, using the color of authority of their offices to disparage him and discredit him and were interfering in his ability to seek and obtain gainful employment out in the world,” said Daniel Sheehan, Elizondo’s attorney. “And also threatening his security clearance.”

Sheehan, a public interest lawyer and activist, has a long history of taking on the federal government on behalf of high-profile clients, including defending The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case as well as one of the Watergate burglars.

He is also widely viewed as a provocateur who has an abiding interest in UFOs and has spoken publicly about alien visitations. He also served as counsel for the Disclosure Project, led by ufologist Steven Greer, that has sought to force more government transparency on UFOs.

When asked for comment, Elizondo referred questions to Sheehan.

Gov. Gavin Newsome Launching A PAC To Solve UFO Mystery?

Forbes  |  A team of political consultants and business leaders launched a political action committee Thursday dedicated to pushing the government to disclose more information on UFOs, weeks before Congress is set to receive a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena”—military jargon for what used to be known as unidentified flying objects—from U.S. intelligence agencies.

“We created the UFOPac because it has become clear to us that there may be more to this topic than governments are willing to share,” Fisher said in a statement. “UFOPac.org will help build a mass movement to share this with our elected representatives - regardless of party or political affiliation.” On its website, the group says that once “UFO phenomenon is verified by the government and available data is released” it will help academic and technology communities study the “technologies, physics, and mechanics of these crafts” without stigma.

Key Background

As part of the massive $2.3 trillion spending bill Congress passed in December, lawmakers instructed the director of national intelligence and secretary of defense to work together to deliver a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Lawmakers gave intelligence officials 180 days to hand over the report to Congress, a deadline that comes next month. The legislation stipulates the report must offer “detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence” and “a detailed description of an interagency process” to report sightings of UFOs. In March, former intelligence director John Ratcliffe told Fox News, “Frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public.”, From 2007 to 2012, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency gathered information on UFOs under a $22 million unclassified program sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)  that the public was unaware of until 2017, when media outlets reported on it. 

 Chief Critic 

“There’s a stigma on Capitol Hill. Some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kind of giggle when you bring it up,” Rubio added during his 60 Minutes interview.

Surprising Fact

Last April, the Pentagon released three unclassified videos of "unidentified aerial phenomena” shot by Navy pilots that were previously published by the New York Times in 2017. In one clip, an oblong object moves through the sky as a pilot yells, “Look at that thing, dude — it's rotating!"

 

Havana Syndrome A Scientifically Implausible Hoax - Just "Russia, Russia, Russia" Nonsense...,

foreignpolicy |  “It’s an act of war,” said Christopher Miller, former President Donald Trump’s last acting secretary of defense. He was talking about alleged attacks on diplomatic and intelligence personnel by an unknown microwave directed-energy weapon. But before the United States declares war on the unknown enemy wielding that weapon, we should know what it is—and whether it exists at all.

Every few weeks, another alleged attack on Americans is reported, some recent, some decades ago. The symptoms are neurological, such as dizziness, headaches, and brain damage. The first wave of reports came in 2016, from the American and Canadian diplomatic missions in Havana, hence the name “Havana syndrome.” Since then, similar cases have been reported in other places, including China; Washington, D.C.; and Syria. State Department and intelligence personnel make up most of those affected.

The State Department and the CIA have investigated Havana syndrome, with much criticism by the victims and their legal counsel. The Jasons, a group of defense advisors, have been reported to be studying the incidents. Most recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also conducted a study that concluded a microwave attack was the most plausible explanation; it also considered chemical pollutants, infectious agents, and psychological and social factors, and found all these explanations wanting.

Here’s the problem. Aside from the reported syndromes, there’s no evidence that a microwave weapon exists—and all the available science suggests that any such weapon would be wildly impractical. It’s possible that the symptoms of all the sufferers of Havana syndrome share a single, as yet unknown, cause; it’s also possible that multiple real health problems have been amalgamated into a single syndrome.

It’s not the first time microwaves and embassies have mixed. From 1953 to 1976, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was bathed in high-powered microwaves coming from a nearby building. The purpose seems to have been related to espionage—activating listening devices within the embassy or interfering with American transmissions. But a 1978 study concluded that there were no adverse health effects.

Back in the United States, microwave ovens came into common use during the 1970s. Their ability to heat food by imperceptible waves created many myths. How they actually work is well understood. Some molecules, notably water, absorb microwaves and turn them into heat. That happens across the microwave and visible spectrum: Substances absorb energy of a higher frequency and turn it into heat. It’s why sunlight heats surfaces.

There’s a persistent myth that microwaves heat things from the inside out. Anyone who has heated a frozen dinner knows that this is not true. The outer part of the frozen food thaws first, because it absorbs the microwaves before they can reach the inner part. Back in the day, when I was working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, I had to debunk the idea that microwave heating could produce oil from underground oil shale. Water and minerals between the shale and the microwave source above ground would absorb the microwaves. In the same way, if a directed microwave beam hit people’s brains, we would expect to see visible effects on the skin and flesh. None of that has accompanied Havana syndrome.

Should Immune-Compromised Users of Autoimmune Disorder "Biologicals" Get mRNA Jabs?

NYTimes |  In a follow-up, the scientists found that 34 percent of people taking the drug were protected after a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine and only 27 percent after a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (In Britain, the current practice is to delay second doses to stretch vaccine availability.)

Likewise, another study published last month indicated that fewer than 15 percent of patients with cancers of blood or the immune system, and fewer than 40 percent of those with solid tumors, produced antibodies after receiving a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

And a study published last month in the journal JAMA reported that only 17 percent of 436 transplant recipients who got one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine had detectable antibodies three weeks later.

Despite the low odds, immunocompromised people should still get the vaccines because they may produce some immune cells that are protective, even antibodies in a subset of patients.

“These patients should probably be prioritized for optimally timed two doses,” said Dr. Tariq Ahmad, a gastroenterologist at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust who was involved in the infliximab studies.

He suggested that clinicians routinely measure antibody responses in immunocompromised people even after two vaccine doses, so as to identify those who also may need monoclonal antibodies to prevent infection or a third dose of the vaccines.

Wendy Halperin, 54, was diagnosed at age 28 with a condition called common variable immunodeficiency. She was hospitalized with Covid-19 in January and remained there for 15 days. But the coronavirus induced unusual symptoms.

“I was having trouble walking,” she recalled. “I just lost control of my limbs, like I couldn’t walk down the street.”

Because she was treated for Covid-19 with convalescent plasma, Ms. Halperin has had to wait three months to be immunized and has made an appointment for April 26. But despite her condition, her body did manage to produce some antibodies to the initial infection.

“The take home message is that everybody should try and get the vaccine,” said Dr. Amit Verma, an oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center.

Covid Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese: Why Don't We Address Systemic Obesity?

 aier |  Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the media and politicians have insisted we rely on the “judgment calls” of their proclaimed experts to guide policy. Facile but incorrect stories about lockdowns dominated. 

In March, Dr. Fauci again incorrectly predicted that doom was upon us when Texas relaxed its pandemic rules. 

Kahneman writes: “It is wrong to blame anyone for failing to forecast accurately in an unpredictable world. However, it seems fair to blame professionals for believing they can succeed in an impossible task.” Perhaps, Kahneman is too kind. With Covid, predictions are founded on politics, not science, as Bill Maher recently pointedly and humorously explained. 

We are ignorant of our ignorance. It is time to look for new patterns in the evidence of those who have not survived.

Who Didn’t Come Back from Covid

The military was wise enough to listen to Wald. It would have been perverse to ignore the cockpit and reinforce parts of the plane that could survive bullet hits.

Policy makers, politicians, and the media have largely ignored the cockpit of good health: the human immunological system.

Maher pointed to a recent CDC study that reported the vast majority (78%) of those hospitalized or dead from Covid have been overweight or obese.

Of Americans aged 20 and over 73.6% are overweight; 42.5% are obese. (Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30.) Many studies explain how obesity decreases resistance to infection. Obesity is linked to type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, which increase the odds of hospitalization from Covid. 

The Covid survival narrative has focused attention on lockdowns, masks and vaccinations. Maher pointed out the role that obesity played: “People died because talking about obesity had become a third rail in America.” Maher continued, “the last thing you want to do is say something insensitive. We would literally rather die. Instead, we were told to lock down. Unfortunately, the killer was already in the house and her name is Little Debbie.”

Little Debbie, of course, is Maher’s reference to heavily processed foods that are ubiquitous in the American diet. 

A significant factor in the startling numbers of overweight Americans is the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in heavily processed foods. 

The total per capita consumption of all sugars in the United States is approximately 150 pounds a year. Of that, the average American consumes over 50 pounds of corn sweeteners a year.

Sugar is heavily subsidized by the US government through loans, purchases of sugar, and tariffs on imported sugar. Government incentives have created a high-fructose corn syrup industry which didn’t exist prior to the 1970s. US sugar prices can be up to twice the world price.

From 1995-2020, corn subsidies in the United States totaled $116.6 billion. The subsidized and surplus corn ends up not only as processed food but as animal feed.