Mon Mar 31 19:25:06 EDT 2025

Items of Interest

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

  • 'Poverty, By America' shows how the rest of us benefit by keeping others poor

    NPR Book Review

    Desmond lays out public policies, laws, and tax breaks to show how the U.S. actually spends big on social programs - second only to France! - but gives the most to those who need it the least. Welfare dependency? Yes indeed, for the richer half.
    ...
    One example among many he offers: In 2020, the federal government spent more than $193 billion on subsidies for homeowners - "most families who enjoy this benefit have six-figure incomes and are white" - but just $53 billion on direct housing assistance for low-income families.

    With a free account, you can read more in The New York Times Magazine.

  • U.S. border officials have caught more people with eggs than fentanyl this year

    Egg Farmers of Canada policy chair Bruce Muirhead explains why egg smuggling into the U.S. is rising and how Canada can leverage its production in the trade war

    In the first two months of 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized fentanyl on 134 occasions, down from 197 seizures in the same time frame in 2024. Meanwhile, CBP intercepted egg products on 3,254 occasions this January and February, compared to 1,508 occasions in the first two months of 2024.

  • Anandamide: Bliss Molecule for Happiness & Mental Balance

    Anandamide is a neurotransmitter that binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain and body, stimulating a sense of happiness and mental wellness.

    Certain countries are judged to have higher rates of happiness than others. It now looks as if this may be due in part to genes that affect the level of anandamide.

    Researchers have found a direct correlation between the presence of a gene variant (rs324420) that affects anandamide levels and the level of happiness.

    Countries where citizens generally rate themselves as "very happy" have a higher instance of this gene.

    This gene variant increases anandamide by decreasing FAAH, the enzyme that destroys anandamide.

  • What's the deal with the gut-brain connection?

    It affects your mood, your sleep, even your motivation to exercise. There's convincing evidence that it's the starting point for Parkinson's disease and could be responsible for long COVID's cognitive effects. And it sits about 2 feet below your brain.
    ...
    Through direct signals from the vagus nerve, connects the brain and the gut, as well as through molecules secreted into the bloodstream from our gut microbes and immune cells that traffic from the gut to the rest of the body, our brains and our digestive tracts are in constant communication. And when that communication goes off the rails, diseases and disorders can result.

  • What Ketamine Does to the Human Brain

    Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world.

    Musk has said he uses ketamine regularly, so for the past couple of years, public speculation has persisted about how much he takes, whether he's currently high, or how it might affect his behavior. Last year, Musk told CNN's Don Lemon that he has a ketamine prescription and uses the drug roughly every other week to help with depression symptoms. When Lemon asked if Musk ever abused ketamine, Musk replied, "I don't think so. If you use too much ketamine you can't really get work done," then said that investors in his companies should want him to keep up his drug regimen. Not everyone is convinced. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Musk also takes the drug recreationally, and in 2023, Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that Musk's "associates" worried that ketamine, "alongside his isolation and his increasingly embattled relationship with the press, might contribute to his tendency to make chaotic and impulsive statements and decisions."

  • Ethically sourced “spare” human bodies could revolutionize medicine

    Human “bodyoids” could reduce animal testing, improve drug development, and alleviate organ shortages.

    There are still many technical roadblocks to achieving this vision, but we have reason to expect that bodyoids could radically transform biomedical research by addressing critical limitations in the current models of research, drug development, and medicine. Among many other benefits, they would offer an almost unlimited source of organs, tissues, and cells for use in transplantation.

  • Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American Nobel Prize winner, died last year by assisted suicide

    "I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous," he wrote in an email.

    "I am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man," he said. "But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am ninety years old. It is time to go."

    Also in the Wall Street Journal which requires a subscription, The Last Decision by the World's Leading Thinker on Decisions.

  • Why are so many Israeli Jews spying for Iran?

    According to Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service, Maman is one of 39 Israelis arrested in the past year on suspicion of spying for Iran. One of their officials told me that the Iranians had turned hundreds of Israelis since the end of 2022. These individuals, who were recruited via social-media platforms or during travels to Turkey or Azerbaijan, come from diverse backgrounds: Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, young and old, male and female.
    ...
    Yoram Peri, a professor emeritus of Israel studies at the University of Maryland, told me that "Israeli society is sliding into a dangerous state of implosion." Peri believes that Netanyahu's attempts to nobble the judiciary and control the media have contributed to the "deterioration of the old traditional institutions" and a general decline in respect for the law. "No wonder that in such a chaotic reality, more and more Israelis have less and less inhibitions and are ready to break the taboo that you don't betray your country," he said.


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