In a recent post I discussed the conclusions of a study aimed at computing a small but very important correction to the theoretical prediction of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. The interest of this lays in the fact that the latter quantity is virtually the only one for which the Standard Model prediction exhibits a tension with the current experimental measurements among all the measurable parameters of the subnuclear world. 

Billions of years ago, an extinction occurred that dwarfed the event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Its history is written in Canadian rocks and show Earth lost nearly 75 percent of its plant and animal species.

But it had a benefit for us. The die-off of microorganisms that shaped the Earth's atmosphere paved the way for larger animals to thrive.

Given the current coronavirus pandemic, the third of the last 17 years, not to mention annual flu and the other infectious diseases we face, it may seem that microbes are unstoppable, but even when biology on Earth was comprised entirely of microbes, they still had enormous die-off events.

How to detect life before complex life even existed

I have sent variations of this email to my local MP, the shadow health secretary, leaders of the main parties etc.

Dear <MP>

Please challenge the government and ask for an evidence based science debate on the basis for their COVID-19 policies.

You can check what I say here with the experts at the WHO.

I have just sent this email to the Prime Minister:

Screenshot

Dear Prime Minister,

Like most writers, Sage Boggs (also on Bandcamp) is a curious guy. At a party he saw there were Triscuits, the snack crackers, and asked why they were named Triscuits.

When a drop of liquid evaporates, solids are left behind in a pattern that depends on what the liquid is, what solids are in it and the environmental conditions.

You may have seen a 'coffee ring' when overflow deposits solids along the edge of the puddle as it evaporates. The same things happen with other beverages. Stuart Williams and colleagues previously found that drops of diluted American whiskeys -- but not their Scotch or Canadian counterparts -- formed webbed patterns when dried on a glass surface, and there were hints that the pattern was distinctive for different brands of whiskey.

Stock markets are rebounding on the back of the newly agreed US$2 trillion American fiscal stimulus plan. It comes after a week that was the worst in history for the Dow and many others around the world. My impression is that the unfolding global recession has now been fully priced into stocks by investors.

Clinical trials in the modern regulatory environment are so expensive that many companies with a product that is going into a phase III clinical trial will just sell out to a Big Pharma company that can afford it. It's a necessary, yet somehow despised, business. Academics have claimed bias in clinical studies conducted by industry sponsors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continue to be the kind of nimble agency it once was in response to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, and the hundreds of U.S. deaths COVID-19 has caused.

They are not only facilitating access to antibody-rich plasma donated by people who have recovered from COVID-19, in hopes transfusions could lessen the severity or duration of the illness, they have gone a step further and are helping create a master protocol so independent investigators can work on this without the usual 'I won't share data in case I get beat to publication' concern that besets the life sciences. Actual collaboration.

There are a number of drugs that may be beneficial in treating coronavirus but how do we convey that a treatment is not a cure? And that what prevents one disease may not prevent another when used off-label? How can outlets stress the importance of preventing spread of SARS-CoV-2, the 2019 coronavirus that set off the flu in Wuhan, China, late 2019, later called COVID-19, without conflating cases of the virus with cases of the disease?

It's not often that a guy who can't order lunch in under a thousand words can be stumped for what to say, but when it comes to "Automatic Reload" by Ferrett Steinmetz, I am at a loss. Mostly because all of the good one-liners were taken by others before I got my galley.

The best cyborg meet-cute you'll read this year? I can't use that, Corey White did. A cyberpunk rom-com? Yes it is, but I'd be cheating if I say it. 

I should start at the beginning. No, that's boring, I will start at the end.