Oct 012020
Oct 012020
Some interesting implications here:
The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals
A recent genetic association study1 identified a gene cluster on chromosome 3 as a risk locus for respiratory failure upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. A new study2 comprising 3,199 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and controls finds that this is the major genetic risk factor for severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and hospitalization (COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative). Here, we show that the risk is conferred by a genomic segment of ~50 kb that is inherited from Neanderthals and is carried by ~50% of people in South Asia and ~16% of people in Europe today.
This seems straightforward enough to me… your genes determine many things, including how susceptible you are to various diseases. Nothing surprising or controversial there. But… if some particualr genes provide a measurable functional difference, and these genes vary from group to group… doesn’t that argue against the idea that “race is a social construct?”
Sep 302020
I watched the debate last night. I sat there aghast the whole time thinking “This. This, right here… this is a ᛋᚺᛁᛏ show.” Now, it seemed to me that whoever was in charge of getting Gropey Joe his meds was on the ball; he didn’t have as many senior moments as I expected. But I think Trump… man, I dunno. He was a little too Trumpey, I thought. But what the hell do I know. I thought sure he was doomed to utter defeat in 2016, and instead Hillary is now a minor footnote in the annals of political corruption.
Trump is, in my opinion, a rather horrible person. Why? Because of his behavior. But Biden? He is also a horrible person… because of his politics, who he pals around with, who he enables and supports. As much of a clown as Trump is, his *policies* are pretty damn good. Gropey Joe certainly would not have given us the USSF. What he would give us is the Harris Administration, which is on course towards getting that Civil War II underway. So… if it’s the choice between a vulgarian boor with sensible policies and a Creepy Comrade, I’m’a voting for the clown.
And it’s clear that the performance enhancers that Biden was on that allowed him to more or less withstand Trump last night have faded off today:
Sep 292020
A Distant Blue Star Hosts One of the Most Extreme Exoplanets Known to Science
HD 133112 is a blue A-type star some 322 light years away in Libra… 2,4 times the dimensions of the Sun and 2200 C hotter, it’s substantially brighter than Sol. In close orbit – 1/5 of an AU – is the Jupiter-like planet WASP 189b. The close proximity leads to a daytime surface temperature of 3200C. Which makes one wonder how big that gas giant originally was, and how fast it’s atmosphere is currently blowing away.
There is every possibility that a terrestrial world might orbit out in the habitable zone. But with a Jupiter-class star in close, it might upset the balance of the system. And I wonder what having a planet shedding mass that fast might do to the outer planets; an Earth-like world might have itself a whole lot of excess hydrogen.
Sep 282020
Dont’ click the link unless you want your intelligence to be insulted and your sense of reason to be assaulted:
The Hottest Thing a Man Can Do Is Not Be a Jerk About Astrology
Where the author opines that disliking astrology is a sign not just of toxic masculinity but toxic heterosexual masculinity. Because women can’t dislike astrology. Nor can gay guys. Or non-alpha-male straight guys. Nope. All those people must, by definition, be on board with the dipshit notion that where the planets were when you were born or decanted has important bearings on your demeanor and destiny Because Reasons.
I will quote this much, because it’s hilarious:
Straight men, the internet has a question for you: Why do you hate astrology so much?
Hannah Ewers was among the first to pose the query in a 2018 Vice article, followed by Leah Thomas writing for Cosmopolitan the next year. The answers they found, based on interviews with real, red-blooded, astrology-hating straight men, are more or less what you might expect, because they’re probably ones you yourself have given: It’s “not real,” it’s girl stuff, or, as one particularly charming 20-something told Ewers, “If you try to bring up that shit with me, I’ll think you’re a mindless bimbo.”
Uh, yeah. In particular… “it’s not real.” Because astrology is… hmmm, let’s see, how do I put this succinctly… NOT REAL. But the author then goes on to say that the real reason is because astrology is “coded” as feminine (thus coming as a surprise the all the male astrologers of the last 6,000 years), and straight men are programmed to hate women (coming as a surprise to all the straight men who love women). Also included in this piece is the argument that men should at least pretend to like it as a dating strategy, because women pretend to like sportsball or anime or whatever to get in good with guys. But there’s a difference: someone might “like” something without believing that it actually works or exists. I might like ghost stories without believing in ghosts. But astrology… it’s effectively a religion. Pretending to be a particular religion for the purpose of scoring some tail seems a tad unethical, not to mention dangerous. And lying to someone to get them into the sack? Not only does that sound morally dubious at best, it is sometimes legally actionable.
The “expert” the author goes to then links a “fault” in men’s psyche that leads to “astro-shaming” to murder-suicides. So that’s the sort of mentats we’re dealing with here.
Sep 282020
Sigh.
Time to consider ditching not just mail-in voting, but absentee voting as well.
Sep 282020
Kinda wish there was a Paul Harvey “And that’s the rest of the story” on this.
Sep 272020
A magazine ad from 1967 looking for people wanting to hire on with Sikorsky. The ad shows a stowed-rotor helicopter design for the CARA (Combat Aircrew Recovery Aircraft) role. In the midst of the Viet Nam War, US pilots were being shot down over enemy occupied territory and needed rescue. A helicopter was a perfectly serviceable vehicle for that role… it could hover over the jungle and drop a line down through the canopy that the pilot could latch on to and be pulled up and flown away. The problem was that choppers are relatively slow. You’d much rather get to the ASAP before enemy forces could find them. A stowed-rotor design could theoretically fly at airplane speeds and hover like a helicopter. But as with all hybrid vehicles, being capable of two things means you’re great at neither.
Additional art of this design:
Sep 252020
And here we go:
If the ending is a little confusing, this is a sequel to THIS.
Sep 252020
There seems to be a race to see who can prop up the absolutely *dumbest* possible ideas, backed up by lies and distortions. In this era of “hands up don’t shoot” and setting cities on fire for racial justice (i.e. communism), let’s not forget that there’s a particular form of dishonest dumb that has been around for more than a century, continues to be dishonest and dumb, and just refuses to go the frak away: young-Earth creationists.
Origin of Tectonic Plates Best Explained by the Flood
Because *of* *course* they believe that anything that science cannot currently explain with absolute certainty – and many things that it can – can only be explained by bronze-age sheep herders.
Friggen’ B-Arkers…