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Submission + - Stroke Patients Have High Levels of Microplastics Clogging Their Arteries (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "There is some microplastics in normal, healthy arteries," Dr. Ross Clark, a University of New Mexico medical researcher who led the study, told Business Insider before he presented his findings at the meeting of the American Heart Association in Baltimore on Tuesday. "But the amount that's there when they become diseased — and become diseased with symptoms — is really, really different," Clark said. Clark and his team measured microplastics and nanoplastics in the dangerous, fatty plaque that can build up in arteries, block blood flow, and cause strokes or heart attacks. Compared to the walls of healthy plaque-free arteries, plaque buildup had 16 times more plastic — just in the people who didn't have symptoms. In people who had experienced stroke, mini-stroke, or vision loss, the plaque had 51 times more plastic. [...]

To investigate why, Clark studied samples from 48 people's carotid arteries — the pair of superhighways in your neck that channel blood to your brain. The difference in plastic quantities surprised him, but his team found another concerning trend, too. Cells in the plaque with lots of plastic showed different gene activity than those with low plastic. In the high-plastic environment, one group of immune cells had switched off a gene that's associated with turning off inflammation. Clark's team also found genetic differences in a group of stem cells thought to help prevent heart attacks and strokes by reducing inflammation and stabilizing plaque. "Could it be that microplastics are somehow altering their gene expression?" Clark said. He added that there's "lots more research needed to fully establish that, but at least it gives us a hint as to where to look."

Ross, who specializes in the genetic mechanisms behind disease, agreed that more research is needed, but added that she thinks "these plastics are doing something with these plaques." Tracking microplastics in the human body is a new scientific endeavor as of the last couple years. It's not perfect. Clark's team heated the plaque samples to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to vaporize plastic polymers and break them down into smaller organic molecules, which can be identified and measured by their mass and other properties. Unfortunately, the lipids in plaque can break down into chemicals that look very similar to polyethylene, the most common plastic found in everything from plastic bags to car parts. "Because we know about this problem, we've taken a lot of steps to remove those lipids and confirm their removal, so that we're sure we're measuring polyethylene," Clark said. Still, he added, "it's a big limitation, and it should be acknowledged that these types of methodologies are continuously improving."

Comment Separate from the rebranding of covid.gov... (Score 5, Insightful) 213

by daveschroeder (#65317025) Attached to: Trump-Branded 'Lab Leak' Page Replaces US Covid Information Sites

...an article worth considering from Princeton University's Zeynep Tufekci:

We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives

Since scientists began playing around with dangerous pathogens in laboratories, the world has experienced four or five pandemics, depending on how you count. One of them, the 1977 Russian flu, was almost certainly sparked by a research mishap. Some Western scientists quickly suspected the odd virus had resided in a lab freezer for a couple of decades, but they kept mostly quiet for fear of ruffling feathers.

Yet in 2020, when people started speculating that a laboratory accident might have been the spark that started the Covid-19 pandemic, they were treated like kooks and cranks. Many public health officials and prominent scientists dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory, insisting that the virus had emerged from animals in a seafood market in Wuhan, China. And when a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance lost a grant because it was planning to conduct risky research into bat viruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology â" research that, if conducted with lax safety standards, could have resulted in a dangerous pathogen leaking out into the world â" no fewer than 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies lined up to defend the organization.

So the Wuhan research was totally safe, and the pandemic was definitely caused by natural transmission â" it certainly seemed like consensus.

We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story. And as for that Wuhan laboratoryâ(TM)s research, the details that have since emerged show that safety precautions might have been terrifyingly lax.

Full article

Submission + - Tesla Sued for Algorithmic Odometer Manipulation (jalopnik.com)

Submitted by Mr_Blank
Mr_Blank writes: A multiple-Tesla owner in Northern California is suing the automaker, claiming the odometers incorrectly measures mileage using a faulty algorithm which ups the supposed miles driven from 15% to 117%. The lawsuit alleges Tesla does this to close out warranties early on their products. The lawsuit, however, stands on a filed patent which may or may not be in use in Tesla vehicles.In the instance of their Model Y,Hinton says they drove 6,086 miles but the Tesla recorded 13,228 miles. The lawsuit is based on a patent that Tesla filed for a seemingly tricky form of recording mileage. The patent calls for a "miles-to-electrical energy conversion factor" that would take in factors like charging behavior and road conditions into the calculation of miles traveled instead of a direct recording of miles traveled.The lawsuit alleges Tesla is using this technology instead of mechanical or electrical systems that faithfully record miles traveled, in order to shorten warranties based on miles-driven in the cars.

Submission + - What If We Made All Advertising Illegal? 8

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "What if we made all advertising illegal?" Kodo Simone provocatively asks. "It makes perfect sense. The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear, and so would the mechanisms that allow both commercial and political actors to create personalized, reality-distorting bubbles. [...] I know, it sounds surreal. Yet, many things once thought impossible are now considered basic standards of a decent society. I think there's a world where we'll look back on our advertising-saturated era with the same bewilderment with which we now regard cigarette smoke, child labor, or public executions: a barbaric practice that we allowed to continue far too long because we couldn't imagine an alternative."

Submission + - Trump Admin Used Signal for War Plans and Included Journalist (theatlantic.com) 1

Submitted by josmar52789
josmar52789 writes: âoeThe world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I [Jeff Goldberg], however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.â

Submission + - Help fish by ringing the fish doorbell (apnews.com)

Submitted by invisik
invisik writes: UTRECHT, Netherlands (AP) — The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “ fish doorbell ” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds.

The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a website. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through.

Comment Re:Cannot wait... (Score 3, Informative) 159

I used to screen scrape jail registry records for county jails in my home area. Though the IDs weren't exactly sequential, doing groups of 50 would get hits for two of the local counties.

What I found was that, while the website UI wouldn't show juvenile records, you could access them directly w/the ID. Surfacing it to the county took a day or so to find the right person but they quickly closed that hole, but who knows how many records were handed out to malicious actors over the years before I found it.

Submission + - Space Ghost voice actor dies (yahoo.com) 2

Submitted by invisik
invisik writes: Space Ghost was a parody of talk shows with live-action celebrity guests, hosted by the Hanna Barbera character Space Ghost, which aired from 1994 to 1999 on Cartoon Network. The show later returned in 2001, airing on Adult Swim’s late-night programming block until 2004, Deadline reported.

Deadline noted that Lowe also voiced Space Ghost in the "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" spinoff "Cartoon Planet," "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, "and "The Brak Show," where Lowe also was a regular on the program as the voice of Dad, and Robot Chicken, and others. In February 2024, Lowe voiced Space Ghost in an episode of Max’s "Jellystone."

Submission + - A Massive "X" Will Appear on the Moon over North America This Thursday (msn.com) 4

Submitted by invisik
invisik writes: If you look up at the Moon on Thursday, March 6, you might catch a glimpse of something strange—two letters, “X” and “V,” temporarily appearing on the lunar surface.

No, the Moon isn’t sending us coded messages. This fascinating optical illusion is the result of sunlight casting shadows along the lunar terminator, the line that separates the Moon’s day side from its night side.

For a brief period, these shadows create an unmistakable X and V, which are visible through binoculars or a small telescope. Here’s how you can spot them and why they appear in the first place.

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