Tag: science

The truth behind the Green Monkey story

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Summary

The production methods of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines have been thrown into the spotlight due to the discovery of DNA contaminants in the vaccine vials by genomic scientist Kevin McKernan. The DNA found was not only considerable in quantity but also protected by the lipid nanoparticles used for mRNA delivery, implying potential delivery into human cells.

Additionally, a promoter from the SV40 virus, undisclosed in initial vaccine data, was found within the DNA. The presence of this promoter has raised serious questions about the oversight and regulatory processes in vaccine manufacturing. Despite the speed and economic advantages associated with mRNA vaccine technology, concerns around DNA contamination underline the importance of rigorous safety checks. 

Introduction

This report aims to shed light on the actual implications of McKernan’s findings of DNA contaminants in the vaccines, exploring the nature and potential impact of the DNA contaminants in the vaccines. It also delves into concerns over the lax regulatory oversight and the potential risks posed by DNA contamination for future RNA vaccines. 

Background

Synthetic mRNA forms the backbone of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines. The mRNA was produced in a cell free environment in a laboratory where a DNA template was used with a cocktail of enzymes and nucleic acid building blocks to produce the mRNA. The DNA template was originally created in bacteria.

As well as a nucleus, bacteria have circular strands of DNA, called plasmids, in their cytoplasm. It is relatively easy to introduce DNA into the cytoplasm of bacteria. The bacteria use the DNA to make mRNA and then use that to make protein. Bacteria regularly exchange these plasmids, or parts of them and that is often how bacteria become antibiotic resistant. Researchers hijack this system to use bacteria to make what they need.

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McKernan himself says this article ‘gets it right.’ ABN

The Six Types of Valid Anecdote

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The plural of anecdote is data. An anecdote to ignorance or absence is not.

Many of us are familiar with the misquote attributed to Wolfinger, stating that “The plural of anecdote is not data.” However, this commonly repeated trope of social skepticism is actually incorrect. In reality, there are certain types of anecdotes that can be considered as data, information, or even intelligence.1 There are six circumstances in which a single anecdote holds valid inferential significance – yes, even if it involves personal testimony. It is important to recognize that skeptics who dismiss all forms of anecdotal evidence, except for one particular invalid application cited in strikethrough below, are using a deceptive tactic. This deceptive tactic is akin to a magician’s trick – the anecdotal appeal to ignorance or absence.

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Buddhism and poetic consilience

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Poetic justice is a small slice of poetic consilience. Buddhist practice is luminous, light and light-filled, consilient. It receives poetic and spiritual resonance in unexpected places and at unexpected moments.

Trains of thought, tributaries of the mind-stream, encounter other trains of thought from somewhere else and a magnificent blending or realization occurs. Sometimes we can barely hold it because it is so much brighter and realer than anything else; it becomes a glimpse, an inkling, a part of our deepest and most important memory.

Buddhism is a subjective science we do on ourselves. It has principles and rules we would do well to follow. Much of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way; much of it should be bent and interpreted in our own way; the Buddha even said that. That is good Buddhism.

But not all of it can be bent and interpreted in our own way. At its core Buddhism is a moral existential philosophy that is practiced as a subjective science. Karma is what we do well or badly in this respect.

Wholesome thoughts and behavior lead away from delusion toward enlightenment or purity of mind. Unwholesome thoughts and behaviors lead away from enlightenment or purity of mind toward delusion, toward clinging to a false self which will lead to suffering.

Wholesome and unwholesome can be defined in those terms. Pursuing wholesome thoughts and behaviors yields spiritual victory. Failing to pursue them or, worse, pursuing their opposite, yields spiritual defeat.

That is what Buddhism is. That is how you do it.

‘Don’t do bad. Do good always. Purify your mind. These are the teachings of all Buddhas.’

For decades this area has been kept relatively cool by sulfur emissions from ships… but this changed in 2020

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More from Leon Simons: Climate Impact of Decreasing Atmospheric Sulphate Aerosols and the Risk of a Termination Shock. Simons is focusing on shipping lanes and sulfur emissions while others are saying that though this is true an even larger factor which has appeared in the past few years is deep sea warming through volcanic activity or, in other words, exothermic emissions from the earth’s core. The topic of CO2 has receded as ocean temperatures continue rising. A basic problem in solving the ocean heat anomaly is we know very little about what is happening in the deep ocean, very little. Obviously, rising ocean heat is a very big deal and figuring it out will require real dialog and real science. I hope we do not go through another dumbfuk anti-science period as we have been with covid bullshit. ABN

Antarctic Sea Ice Is at Record Lows. Is It an Alarming Shift?

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“Every single day so far in 2023, we’ve observed sea ice that’s been below average,” says climate scientist Zachary Labe of Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who created the graph below. The dark-blue line shows the median area of sea ice between 1981 and 2010, a figure called the “extent” that researchers measure in millions of square kilometers. The red line below all the others is the extent so far in 2023.

“In fact,” Labe continues, “it broke its lowest point ever recorded in the satellite era. Which was striking, because last year, we also had broken that record.”

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How to understand why Buddhist rebirth does not require a self or soul

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The basic reason no self or soul is reborn is neither exists independently of the mental universe that gave rise to our illusion of selfhood.

The mental universe within which we all exist is dynamic and so are we. In Buddhist terms, this dynamism is action or karma.

Buddhism does not say we do not exists. It only says that our selves are empty, that they do not ultimately exist. When we die our karma, the mental activity of this life, reconstitutes as a new being ensconced within the larger mental universe.

No one explains this better in modern terms than Bernardo Kastrup. In his essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe, he does not write about rebirth but rather about the conditions of our existence within the mental universe.

Nonetheless, his explanation of a “mental universe” shows precisely how rebirth can occur without there being any soul or pudgala or anything else that flies from the body upon death to transmigrate to another one.

I highly recommend reading the essay linked above. I have no idea if Kastrup is a Buddhist thinker. It’s even better if he is not, if his thinking arrived independently at a place consonant with original Buddhist thought.

Most Buddhists know that even Buddhists have trouble understanding how someone can be reborn without having a soul, self, or pudgala. What did the Buddha even mean by that? I know more than one university professor of Buddhist studies who explains Buddhist rebirth by saying, there is no such thing and neither is there such a thing as karma.

Those professors explain away karma and rebirth by claiming those fundamentals of Buddhist thought are nothing more than the Buddha “using the concepts of his day” to teach his moral doctrines and what amounts to his “atheistic Stoic” philosophy.

I mean no disrespect for the professors. It is hard to understand how something can be reborn and yet be empty of any perduring self or soul.

The essay linked above provides an excellent explanation of how that happens. I strongly encourage Buddhists or people who teach Buddhism or are interested in it to read Kastrup’s essay when you are in a good mood and want to learn something new and really interesting.

This essay can give you another angle on Kastrup’s thinking: Matter is nothing more than the extrinsic appearance of inner experience.

And here are some of my comments on Kastrup’s essay Making Sense of the Mental Universe.

first posted APRIL 2, 2020

A new search for extraterrestrial life has scientists looking toward the center of our galaxy

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Could intelligent aliens be lurking at the heart of the Milky Way? 

A new search for extraterrestrial life aims to find out by listening for radio pulses from the center of our galaxy. Narrow-frequency pulses are naturally emitted by stars called pulsars, but they’re also used deliberately by humans in technology such as radar. Because these pulses stand out against the background radio noise of space, they’re an effective way of communicating across long distances — and an appealing target to listen for when searching for alien civilizations. 

Scientists described the alien-hunting strategy in a new study, published May 30 in The Astronomical Journal. Researchers led by Cornell University graduate student Akshay Suresh developed software to detect these repetitive frequency patterns and tested it on known pulsars to be sure it could pick up the narrow frequencies. These frequency ranges are very small, at about a tenth of the width of frequencies used by a typical FM radio station. The researchers then searched data from the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia using the method. 

“Until now, radio SETI has primarily dedicated its efforts to the search for continuous signals,” study coauthor Vishal Gajjar of the SETI Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the search for intelligent life in the universe, said in a statement. “Our study sheds light on the remarkable energy efficiency of a train of pulses as a means of interstellar communication across vast distances. Notably, this study marks the first-ever comprehensive endeavor to conduct in-depth searches for these signals.”

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So far they have not found anything but the technique and aim of it is interesting. ABN