CharonY

I have underestimated stupid and have learned that is a very durable condition.

I mean, I think all of us here will have experienced a couple of pandemics (at least within the borders we live in) over the past decades. Though COVID-19 was the most dramatic (in terms of deaths in short amount of time). Others, have been more devastated to other communities. But due to increasing travel, diseases spread globally much more commonly.

A very interesting question. I am curious about that, too. But OTOH I am afraid to see it being tested. I have the creeping feeling that the stupidest response will win out in the end.

They didn't. It is a multi-omics study with samples taken over a period of a few years from healthy individuals. So the longitudinal data per person is fairly short (but for these types of studies still a bit more extensive, as most only have single time point per person). Adjustments were, I believe mostly with regard to factors such as BMI, insulin resistance and so on. However, due to the cohort, the data in necessarily aggregated for a view over time.

I think that is to various degree true for most things. I suspect one could argue that e.g.. life sustaining things (say food or water) have intrinsic value as they have purpose, but the value placed on it would be extremely different based on situation. In that context, is there anything that one could think of that has a clear intrinsic (as opposed to situational) value?

The WHO has (again) declared the rapid spread of mpox across 13 countries in Africa an emergency over fears of a global spread.

There are also studies corroborating this, such as changes in energy metabolism, which happens in stages. There are likely tipping points of processes that contribute to that (and which we do not fully understand yet).

It is not just a programmed cell death (apoptosis) issue. Generally speaking, only a small set of cells are able to replicate, and are responsible for renewal and repair. The rest differentiates into a specific final form that is no longer replicating and which do their job until they are eliminated. In those cells, the telomerase (which, as a I mentioned, is the enzyme that elongates the telomeres) is inactive as part of a larger system that stops cells from replicating. In cancer cells, the telomerase retains activity and adds to telomere length, though the length is usually shorter compared to other actively replicating cells.

Fair enough. I must have misunderstood the sentence. Though just to be sure that we are on the same page- the issue with cancer cells is they do not properly shorten their telomeres (and thus keep replicating), yes?

In most cancers the opposite is the problem, they won't stop replicating. Again, depending on cell line and type, some look like reverting back into pluripotent cell status (but with weird modifications), for example. Remember, many cells, once differentiated, do not replicate anymore. One of the mechanisms involved in limiting replication (but again, this is really an oversimplification) is the telomerase. Or more precisely, silencing of telomerases (the enzyme that extend telomeres), so that the telomeres get shortened and the cell stop replicating. In fact, in most cancer cell types (but not all) the silencing of the telomerase is not happening or is reversed. So yet another way (aside from the immune system), we are looking at elements of cell cycle control and cellular differentiation and senescence. This is also why I am highly skeptical regarding many one-approach-solutions, such as targeting telomeres to improve longevity (my question is always what one would then do regarding cancer?). Conversely, AFAIK drugs aimed at silencing telomerases for cancer treatment have failed. Again, biology is stupid complicated.

Depending on what level of education you have, I would start with simple genetics textbooks and perhaps at some point add cell biology to it. I do not have a particular favourite but there are open source textbooks that you might want to google (just search for something like introduction to genetics). I think understanding the basics of genetics sets you up to better understand what DNA is and does.

While not wrong, it is IMO also a bit complex. There are significant overlap in many functions with the immune system, and there is often a somewhat myopic view regarding how they work (or fail to work) together to prevent certain conditions. Typically (and in part this is how funding and research works), research groups focus on a specific aspects from a specific viewpoint. And this is clearly needed to address any issues with some depth. A big challenge in biology is the how the many parts intersect with each other and you could look at any mechanisms from many different viewpoints (the immune lens being one of them, and that in itself is split into many sub-topics). At the same time, we need overarching concepts and narratives to understand and teach what is going on. However, cancer and cell biology tends to be maddening siloed (with highly specialized viewpoints). The reason is quite clear, the subject is too complex to be handled with a single narrative or viewpoint, but if you look at things at sufficient depth, the same mechanism can be discussed in wildly different contexts, frequently without acknowledging each other. Sorry for the rant, I got caught up in one my pet peeves again.

The main connection between DNA and life is probably evolutionary sciences. For the dynamic aspects of life (the living part) DNA is really boring and does not actively do that much. It is more a foundational blueprint which cells use to build the stuff they need (though I am likely very biased as I switched from genetics to cellular physiology and never really looked back). For evolution the Futuyma (Evolution) is still the seminal book, if a bit technical. But it does showcase the overall life aspect in the broadest sense.

Most you see in popular press is overhyped. There are few examples of truly awesome results. Almost all of them are preliminary with moderate to low effect sizes. And this is even without the very important issue that others have pointed out: animal models are always very limited. And companies also always have to figure out how much they want to invest into a given trial. In many cases they rather fund multiple phase II rather than recruiting over a 1,000 folks in one go, just to see whether it is worthwhile. For some diseases, it is not feasible to get a large group of participants. And in some rare cases the drug or therapy is so expensive that having hundreds of treatments at the same time are not going to happen. Very little of it is down to regulation, as certain folks like to claim. More important are aspects of cost and feasibility. The COVID-19 vaccines were developed fairly quickly as a) a lot of money was invested so that folks did Phase 2/3 essentially simultaneously, b) the vaccines were easy to produce and c) so many people got infected (which is necessary to assess vaccine efficacy) that they were able to get a sufficiently large infected cohort very quickly. Cancer, on the other hand is very difficult to treat for a many of reasons, typical drugs have to be toxic, so a lot is aimed at targeted delivery, others like immune therapies have to customized for each patient and so on. And in cases the challenge is to damage just the right cells, which is incredibly difficult. Even just cutting them out can leave cells behind that then start proliferating,so folks need to undergo toxic treatments to kill cancer more efficiently than themselves. Under these conditions, it is easy to see why no one has really fund a magic bullet yet.

Biology is way more complicated than any of the It stuff. A single cell outpaces the complexity of even the most complex machines currently. So, this is very much expected. Even in biological sciences, technical developments have been massive. For example, when I did my PhD sequencing a simple bacterium was a multi-million, multi-year effort involving multiple groups and companies. Now, I can sequence on over the weekend by myself. And yet, our understanding of even understanding bacterial cells is developing slowly. There is a big difference in generating data and generating understanding. In that regard, it is also true for computers. Yes, we can do more fancy things way faster than we used to. Everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket. But can you honestly claim that this has somehow led to an equivalent increase in how everyone understands the world? Better tools are the easiest bit in everything. Better understanding is the rate limiting step. This is true for cancer as for many other things.

Relatively slow to what? For some cancers, prevention had the largest impact. Some of the biggest changes in cancer-related deaths are associated with air quality laws and reduction of smoking. Also, people are getting older on average. Which means, the likelihood to acquire and die of cancer at high age increases. But again, prevention is likely going to be the part that is way important than treatment. Recent work for, example have shown that certain cancer types have now increased in younger folks, especially in Western cohorts. Some risk factors are known (e.g., alcohol consumption and obesity), but others less well-known one might be contributing (sleep deprivation.. yikes...). It is usually better to maintain a car than trying to start repairs once it is falling apart.

Also, it is very different depending on the type of cancer type and country. As noted prostrate cancer has a 5yr survival rate cab that is above 90% in many countries. Improving that is going to be very hard from there. The stage at which cancer is detected is also crucial to this statistic. For lung cancer, stage I detection has above 60% 5-yr survival rate, which drops to about 2.5% at stage IV. Some cancer types are difficult to detect which limits treatment options. For these reasons, a general statement regarding cancer survival is mostly useless and can easily be misleading. It should also be noted that we obviously cannot expect indefinite increases and the older one gets, the more likely it is that some form of cancer will present. Depending on how aggressive the type of cancer is folks might die do to other reasons and cancer might only contribute or even only be incidental to the cause of death.

I don't think it was ever about business. Twitter never made a huge lot of business sense. It was mostly a vanity project (also evidenced by the rebranding).

If so, probably just one of the 450 things on their social media feed before breakfast. I think many/most young folks struggle with the input they get. Information-wise, they are almost catatonic. Simplified (but wrong) messages might indeed have a calming effect. We are doing a very poor job in training them to filter and process information. It would be interesting to see how the lawsuit goes. Ultimately, advertisers would look at cost-benefit of the situation. If the reach via Twitter brings more revenue than lawsuits or other potential costs, they'll be happily advertising there again. Also: So even if the lawsuit is not successful in court, it is successful already in effect and highlight the issue of using money and legal proceedings to shut down thing you don't like.

There are a couple more here https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm23y7l01v8o Currently, 3 under 20 and 4 over 50.

Yeah, I randomly had the thought because of the the change of the naming of his companies. But since I don't know the name of his other children, it was likely totally unrelated and I draw a comparison where there should haven't been one. So apparently without being a CEO one might have the delusion that random thoughts could be post-worthy. Shame on me and I'll go sit in the corner for a while.

What is up with this guy and his obsession with the letter X?

It doesn't help that food is a rather sloppy term (as opposed to either "carbon source" or "energy source"). But on the other hand, the rest of OP is not much better, so in a way it fits.

I think the tricky bit is to figure out the temperature for a volume. I think what I remember was to start with 2l per 454g package, add salt, set to high or medium high and then wait until it boils, turn down temperature to simmer and check how long it takes. Depending on how long it takes to boil I am guessing that the whole process might take up to 20 minutes, with probably less than 5 minutes of boiling. I have never tried that myself, to be honest. I have got Italian friends and I want to keep them.

A potential advantage is that depending on what kind of stove you have and the size of the pot, the time to boil soaks pasta and cuts down on total cooking time. I know chefs who do that to cut down time for freshly cooking (dry) pasta, but they have optimized their workflow for that. It probably won't work if you do that with fresh pasta, though.