Links are collected at the end of the post.
This is perhaps not what you need of a Sunday, but it is important, breaking news, particularly as our audience tends to skew a bit older.
You have to stop picking your nose because it will destroy your brain.
The Chlamydia pneumoniae bacteria can travel directly from olfactory nerve in the nose and into the brain, forcing brain cells to deposit amyloid beta and inducing Alzheimer’s pathologies. Researchers say protecting the lining of the nose by not picking or plucking nasal hairs can help lower Alzheimer’s risks.1
We read in the wake of the controversy2 regarding the FDA approval of a not necessarily effective Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm (which precipitated a large increase in Medicare premiums for 2022), several articles suggesting that amyloid-β may not cause Alzheimer’s3 but nevertheless.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed that Chlamydia pneumoniae used the nerve extending between the nasal cavity and the brain as an invasion path to invade the central nervous system. The cells in the brain then responded by depositing amyloid beta protein which is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
…
“We’re the first to show that Chlamydia pneumoniae can go directly up the nose and into the brain where it can set off pathologies that look like Alzheimer’s disease,” Professor St John said. “We saw this happen in a mouse model, and the evidence is potentially scary for humans as well.”
Another guilty pleasure bites the dust. Your mother was right. You and the mice both, stop picking your nose.
We read three sort-of scholarly articles for this. Unbelievable.
Chinese scientists working a mile and a half underground have made some breakthroughs in explaining the composition of early and succeeding generations of stars. We have to say that the first thing that struck our claustrophobic self was the depth at which the lab operates, but once we got beyond the panic we found some fascinating stuff.4
Scientists have opened an unprecedented window into the universe’s very first stars by conducting nuclear fusion experiments in a subterranean laboratory located 1.5 miles under China’s Jinping Mountains, reports a new study.
The results resolve a longstanding mystery about one of the oldest stars ever discovered, while also shedding new light on the murky reactions that powered the ancestors of all modern stars.
One of the biggest quests in astronomy is to directly observe the first stars that ever shone in the cosmos, known as “population III.” Scientists think this initial generation of stars burst into existence somewhere around 100 to 250 million years after the Big Bang, before quickly burning out and exploding as enormous supernovae.
Short piece well worth a read.
Also underground: researchers have identified several large caves on Mars which might provide appropriate shelter for astronauts from the inhospitable surface climes.5 Someone will be selling these soon, no doubt. We wish we had the ambition to get in on the ground floor. From the NY Times:
To home in on Mars’ most sought-after real estate, Ms. Bardabelias and her colleagues consulted the Mars Global Cave Candidate Catalog. This compendium, based on imagery collected by instruments aboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, inventories over 1,000 candidate caves and other peculiar-looking features on Mars. (Think of it as the first Martian multiple listing service.)
Just as any discerning home buyer would filter search results on Zillow or StreetEasy, the researchers narrowed the catalog by imposing two criteria. First, they required that a cave be within roughly 60 miles of a suitable spacecraft landing site. Second, they stipulated that high-resolution imagery be available.
Ms. Bardabelias and her collaborators defined a suitable landing site as one below an elevation of roughly 3,300 feet. Such relatively low-lying locales are favorable landing sites because they give spacecraft more time to slow down as they travel through Mars’ thin atmosphere, Ms. Bardabelias said.
One could dispense with the cutesy tone, but maybe it’s in the real-estate section. Actually the real-estate section would probably write it more straight.
SEVENTEEN, the 13-member Japanese supergroup, is presaging a series of concerts in Japan by splashing the group’s likenesses and graphics across several large Japanese cities.6
Taking on the theme of the performance powerhouse’s ongoing world tour, the citywide project will light up the three cities with immersive fan experiences built around the band’s crowd-pulling shows. SEVENTEEN will play at Kyocera Dome Osaka on November 19-20, at Tokyo Dome on November 26-27, and complete the Japan leg of the tour at Vantelin Dome Nagoya on December 3-4.
In Osaka, a digital stamp rally across 18 landmarks—including the HEP FIVE Ferris wheel covered in SEVENTEEN graphics—is set for roll out on November 12, and ‘rapi:t’ express trains wrapped in SEVENTEEN graphics will run through the city starting October 27. A highlight in Tokyo will be a SEVENTEEN-themed light display presented in collaboration with Tokyo Skytree, which will be lit up in orange—the theme colour for their ongoing tour—and ‘Rose Quartz & Serenity’—the band’s official colour—every weekend from November 19 to December 4. A light display will also be a part of the excitement in Nagoya brightening up Sakae, alongside a photo exhibition about the tour.
The U.S. ought be more open to this sort of extravaganza, although we don’t have a lot of cities with the infrastructure for it.
Dissent Magazine’s Fall issue focuses on the present and future of socialism in the U.S.7 The general consensus among the writers is that socialists should be working an inside-outside game with Democrats—focusing on getting socialists elected at state and local levels, and opportunistically to Congress, while using their presence in outside pressure and policy organizations to shape Democratic policy, which some of the writers think has been successful to a larger extent than might have been expected.
This interview with Pennsylvania state senator Nikil Saval8 is interesting and not paywalled.
Nikil Saval was elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate in 2020. Insofar as there is a typical path to American public office, Saval didn’t follow it. The New York Times called him the “n+1 candidate” (after the magazine he used to co-edit); he was a reporter and essayist, and the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace. He was also an organizer with UNITE HERE from 2009 to 2013, and, fatefully, his Philadelphia home became a canvassing hub for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016.
In the wake of that dizzying moment—when self-identification with “socialism” ceased to be an immediate disqualifier for elected office—Saval became more involved in politics in his home city and state, culminating in his successful 2020 campaign amid a wave of local and state victories for candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America. (Full disclosure: I donated to Saval’s campaign.)
Perhaps more surprising is the success of the Whole-Home Repairs Act, a bill he sponsored and shepherded through a Republican-controlled state legislature this year. The program supports housing repairs and weatherization for low- and middle-income owners and renters, tying together the issues of blight and gentrification, public health, and energy efficiency. In tackling these intersecting problems, the policy is emblematic of the thinking behind the Green New Deal. In August, I spoke with Saval about this program, his experiences in office, and the connection between socialist ideas and everyday politics.
A little Sunday Socialism! for you all.
75th anniversary of a Mondrian hung upside down.9
Few abstract artists were as rigorous about form and design as Piet Mondrian. So the Dutch painter would likely not have been too pleased to learn that one of his paintings has been hung upside down for the past 75 years.
The composition of New York City 1 (1941) is a grid of yellow, blue, black, and red stripes. Experts now think that the canvas may have been flipped as early as 1945 when it was installed at MoMA, an error that may have resulted from how it was packaged and transported.
The artist was unfortunately not around to correct the presumed mistake. He died one year earlier in 1944.
Trying so desperately to refrain from picking our nose that we’ve given ourselves a headache.
Charles Mingus and a cast of many on “Blues & Roots.” Charles Mingus with “East Coasting;” not sure who else is playing. Also Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and others live in Norway, on YouTube.10
And that, comrades, is all we got. Take care, be well.
You lost me before I got to the socialism stuff when you told me I can't pick my nose.