Lunch at the Labs

Items of Interest

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• The Science of Protein and Its Role in Longevity, Cancer, Aging, and Building Muscle

  Rhonda Patrick, FoundMyFitness

  Muscle mass and strength decline significantly with age. Starting at 50, the average person loses about 1% of their muscle mass each year, and strength declines even faster-by approximately 3% annually. Without regular strength training, this rate accelerates to a 4% loss of strength annually by age 75. This decline contributes to frailty and increases the risk of falls and fractures, including hip fractures, which are often fatal. Research shows that individuals who experience fragility fractures have double the mortality risk, with 22-58% of those with hip fractures dying within 12 months.

For an alternative view see You probably don't need foods with added protein, nutritionists say.

• Mossad set up drone base in Iran, UAVs took out missile launchers overnight

  Assault on Islamic Republic's nuclear program was product of years-long collaboration between IDF and intelligence agency, involved smuggling weapons systems into Iran on vehicles.

Why haven't I seen anything about how that was done?   Was it an inside job?   Were Iranian dissidents involved?

• Work begins to create artificial human DNA from scratch

  The Human Genome Project enabled scientists to read all human genes like a bar code. The new work that is getting under way, called the Synthetic Human Genome Project, potentially takes this a giant leap forward - it will allow researchers not just to read a molecule of DNA, but to create parts of it - maybe one day all of it - molecule by molecule from scratch.
  ...
  "Building DNA from scratch allows us to test out how DNA really works and test out new theories, because currently we can only really do that by tweaking DNA in DNA that already exists in living systems".

• The feud between Trump and Elon Musk is all about Argentina

  Musk is a close ideological companion of Javier Milei, Argentina's libertarian president who won office in 2022. In a swipe at Trump's megabill moving through Congress, the Tesla chief amplified a post on Saturday cheering Milei's harsh austerity campaign to slash public spending as clever politics. Musk and Milei also appeared together at a conservative conference in February to package Trump's MAGA movement as the latest American export in "Making Argentina Great Again." Trump met with Milei at the time as well.

  Musk yearned for Trump to govern like Milei, a chainsaw-wielding capitalist dismantling the state. Instead, he got an "Evita"-loving tariff enthusiast closer to the deficit-spending, strong-arm government policies of Argentine President Juan Perón in the 20th century. Call it American Perónism.

• The Collapse of the Knowledge System

  The Ten Warning Signs

  1. Scientific studies don't replicate.
  2. Public distrust of experts has reached an intensity never seen before.
  3. The career path for knowledge workers is breaking down-and many only have unpaid student loans to show for their years of training and preparation.
  4. Funding for science and tech research is disappearing in every sphere and sector.
  5. Universities have lost their prestige, and have made enemies of their core constituencies.
  6. Plagiarism is getting exposed at all levels from students to corporations-and all the way to Harvard's president. But the authorities just take it for granted.
  7. AI is imposed everywhere as the new expert system. But when it hallucinates and generates ridiculous responses, the authorities (again) take this for granted.
  8. Science and technology are increasingly used to manipulate and exploit, not serve.
  9. Scandals are everywhere in the knowledge economy (Theranos, Sam Bankman-Fried, collapsing meme coins, COVID, etc).
  10. We hear constant bickering about "fake science"-from all political and ideological stances. Nobody talks about "true science."
• Why Can I Fall Asleep on the Couch and Not in My Bed?

  "From a psychological perspective, it's easier for a person to fall asleep on a couch compared to a bed because the person isn't necessarily thinking or worried about falling asleep," explains McGrath, who is also the chief clinical officer of multiple rehab facilities.

• New Dating Site Matches Singles Based on Their Browser Histories

  Browser Dating users upload their 5,000 most recent searches, which are turned into a "browsing personality profile" by AI.