1

Physiology & Medicine / Re: How long do the effects of local anethisetic last ?

« on: 27/10/2021 17:13:18 »

& Congratulations on the successful procedure Murphy!!!
🥳

I'd Request you to Please follow up with the Doc n get all the " Do's & Don'ts " sorted out a.s.a.p.
🙏

Ps - Please do Not search for suggestions online.
Take Rest!
😊👍

2

Just Chat! / Re: Anyone on this forum the ideal weight?

« on: 27/08/2021 13:27:34 »

@syhprum

   Sounds tough.  You make good posts here, Syhprum.  It's all treatable so take the medicine and stay well.

Best Wishes to you.

3

The Environment / Re: What would happen if all of humanity vanishes in one second?

« on: 21/03/2021 13:42:03 »

All they do is run about, mindlessly killing and eating each other. Without any care for the cruelty and pain that this causes.

Unlike humans, who mostly despise torture and kill other humans because God tells them to do so.
AFAIK homo sapiens is the only species that hates its own kind for no rational reason or purpose.
The universe would be a more moral place without us.

4

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why shouldn't we engage in eugenics?

« on: 05/03/2021 13:51:43 »

he last century has seen massive amounts of radioactive materials being released and the use of many harmful chemicals, all of which have lead to an increase in cancer.

No. The last century introduced massive amounts of useful chemicals which have increased life expectancy to the point at which cancer became a significant cause of death because we eliminated starvation and most infectious diseases.

Artificial sources of ionising radiation deliver about  50% of your lifetime dose in the last 5 years of your life, mostly in the diagnosis of cancer or heart disease, and less than 1% of your annual dose if you are not sick.

5

That CAN'T be true! / Re: America slave Labour camps. What should be done?

« on: 17/02/2021 09:01:16 »

Never underestimate the cynicism of the electorate.

I wish the electorate was more cynical.
As it is they believe any nonsense you write on the side of a bus.
The problem is that they aren't educated about politics.

If the fundamentals of economics were taught at primary school we might do better.
But they aren't so you can tell them that the reason they are short of cash is because of immigrants, and they believe it.
The fact that the only immigrants they know are the Patel family who run the newsagent's, work all the hours God sends but are still plainly skint doesn't figure in their voting choices.
If they were a bit more cynical they might recognise that they are skint because some rich bastard has all the money.
But it's the billionaires that run the media.

6

Question of the Week / Re: QotW - 21.02.01 - When are we going to run out of music?

« on: 01/02/2021 14:43:22 »

There is no limit to the length of a musical phrase or the number of repetitions or variations in a piece, so in theory, never. However if you listen to most radio "music" stations or club soundtracks, the answer is "about 20 years ago".

7

Physiology & Medicine / Re: How effective would only the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine be

« on: 01/01/2021 09:17:53 »

There are indications that the 12 weeks proposed is ok, but Pfizer are critical of that and want to stick with 21 days.
Note: the official announcements are avoiding talking about effectiveness of the single dose, so we don’t have clear data.

8

Physiology & Medicine / Re: How best to isolate Vulnerable patients from corona?

« on: 22/12/2020 13:48:52 »

Two approaches.

The Idiot in Chief recommends mixing them with known infectious patients in nursing homes to save paying pensions and benefits.

The medical professions use standard barrier nursing with disposable PPE obtained at several times the market price from companies owned by relatives of Conservative Members of Parliament. 

It's nothing new since the days of Semmelweiss and Lister, just deliberately mismanaged for the benefit of the unworthy.

9

Physiology & Medicine / Re: What do you think about homeopathy ?

« on: 25/11/2020 13:04:07 »

How does it work?

It does not work.

So the only things left to explain are why some people are fraudsters and, to an extent, how does the placebo effect work?

https://xkcd.com/765/

10

Just Chat! / Re: why would a scientist accept the bible

« on: 07/04/2020 23:18:49 »

I'd like to respond and point out that if you think he was a nice guy, you acknowledge that he lived and that we have a record of him.

I have no reason to doubt that he existed. As I said much earlier, he was a radical rabbi (addressed by his friends as such) who was killed for causing trouble. Nothing unusual about that, nor was the radical Judaism he preached beyond the very broad span of our ancient traditions.

From there on, your argument descends into pointless, unevidenced mystical ravings, which others have used as an excuse to perpetrate all sorts of evil deeds as previously listed, plus witch-burning, stoning schoolchildren whose parents worship the same god in a different building, and a whole host more.

11

Just Chat! / Re: why would a scientist accept the bible

« on: 01/04/2020 09:32:38 »

It's a ramshackle collection of historical fact swimming in myth and magic, with a few good ideas for survival in a desert (Leviticus) and an urban society (Mark). A sound basis for workers' rights ("six days shalt thou labor…"  "the laborer is worthy of his hire....") and some  general commandments that underpin most criminal and civil law. But it doesn't provide any excuse for tithes, pogroms, crusades,  inquisitions, self-flagellation, paedophilia, shunning, pilgrimage...… or any evidence for the supernatural or an afterlife, and the reification of the adjectives "good" and "evil" is an insult to the human intellect.

12

New Theories / Re: Is the sun made of antimatter?

« on: 04/03/2020 21:00:34 »

To balance the solar system should contains roughly equal amounts of positron enclosed anti-matter in the sun as there is electron enclosed planetary matter in the planets, moons and asteroids.

The stars and their accompanying planets must be made of the same kind of matter because they form from the same gas clouds. We can see via telescope protoplanetary disks surrounding some young stars. Hydrogen and anti-hydrogen have the same mass, same total charge, same radius, etc. There is therefore no reason for antimatter to conveniently clump in the middle while normal matter moves to the outer regions of the disk. Both matter and antimatter would react the same way to gravity and centrifugal forces.

13

Physiology & Medicine / Re: How should an unfit driver behave

« on: 13/02/2020 00:23:36 »

Call the police and ask them to come and arrest you.

Not the safest or most socially responsible option.

Assuming there is a hard shoulder, you will have your vehicle parked on it for at least 30 minutes, then two, with coppers walking about and blue lights flashing for another 30 minutes, all of which is an accident waiting to happen as other marginally less drunk drivers start rubbernecking (local copper informed me, after I had been rearended in a motorway queue "the biggest cause of accidents is other accidents"), then a convoy to the cop shop which will be some way off the motorway, then a near--sober police doctor and duty solicitor will be called from their beds.....all potential hazards when the sleep-deprived gentlemen drive to their offices the next morning. And meanwhile you have occupied the time of two traffic cops and the custody sergeant whilst others are creating real mayhem on the roads and in town. Then you throw up in the cell and soil Her Majesty's Blanket, and weeks later occupy a whole raft of Court officers and three magistrates who have better things to do and probably a solicitor who has trained and studied for five years so he can stand up and protest that a person he has never actually set eyes on is a model citizen who had One Moment of Misjudgement but threw himself on the mercy of the law which he respects, and a Crown Prosecutor who hasn't read the case notes will describe you as a habitual drunk and menace to society who should be incarcerated for gross stupidity....and everyone will be thinking "For gawdsake why didn't he just keep stumm and sleep it off in a field?"

If there isn't a hard shoulder, you and some innocent trucker will also tie up an ambulance crew, A&E staff, duty radiographer and anesthetist, and a couple of surgeons,  and enjoy the full panoply of intensive care and NHS catering, before the law takes its course. Unless you are hit by a bus, of course.

14

COVID-19 / Re: How dangerous is the Wuhan City 2019-nCoV coronavirus?

« on: 25/01/2020 00:23:57 »

There are a lot of unknowns at this early stage:
- Just this past week it was confirmed that human-to-human transmission is possible. That makes it a lot more dangerous
- It was reported that, so far, most of the people who have died have been people with pre-existing medical conditions.
        + That suggests that it may be less dangerous to healthy individuals.
        + It also suggests that it won't produce the overactive immune response that was seen with the Spanish flu, which killed healthy young adults.
- When a new virus is introduced to humans, it takes a while to adapt to its new host
        + "New" viruses typically come from contact with animals ("Zoonotic" diseases)
        + This one appears to have spread from the Wuhan fish markets
        + Although it may have come from snakes (apparently, snakes are on sale in the fish markets...)
        + And it has some similarities to known bat viruses (snakes eat bats...)
- Adaptation to humans often means that it becomes more easily transmissible between humans (so it spreads farther)
- Adaptation also often means that it is less immediately lethal (so it spreads farther before the host dies)

Unlike earlier virus outbreaks, this one had a published RNA sequence very early. How this will be used is not so clear:
- Researchers in other countries can use this information to check people with a fever to see if they have the new coronavirus (or a descendent of it)
- In theory, it is possible to produce bacteria expressing the coronavirus surface coat proteins, which could be used to generate antibodies for treatment of acute cases
- It is not so clear whether the RNA sequence could be used to generate live virus directly, given our current state of technology. The whole RNA sequence of this virus is about 30,000 base-pairs long. Typical commercial RNA sequencing organisations today are reliably produce sequences of 100-200 base-pairs long (although this capability is increasing exponentially).
- Live virus is the traditional input to vaccine production. But the whole process can take up to 6 months, even for a well-tested process like regular updates to the influenza virus
- But recent advances in RNA vaccines may provide a faster route to a vaccine. Injecting an RNA sequence triggers human cells to produce the virus antigen. Injecting an adjuvant with the vaccine alerts the immune system, which then ramps up production of antibodies which detect this antigen, and directs an attack on it, ready for arrival of the real virus. It is said that new vaccines could be in production in as little as 2 months, using this technique.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel_coronavirus_(2019-nCoV)
http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/rna-vaccines-a-novel-technology-to-prevent-and-treat-disease/

15

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / After the Winter Solstice, why does the time of sunrise not get earlier?

« on: 18/01/2020 19:03:41 »

I always presumed that after the winter solstice the time of sunrise would start moving earlier (and the location would move further north). However, when I started tracking the daily solar and lunar events, I found that after the solstice the time of sunrise actually drifts two minutes later over the next 20 days and does not become earlier for nearly a month. So for my location (the northwest corner of Virginia, US), sunrise on 21 December 2019 was 07:27:13 at 120.0°. On 1 January 2020, it was at 07:30:58 at 119.4°, nearly 2.5 minutes later. On 15 Jan. it was 07:29:35 at 116.9°. Today (18 Jan) it is 07:28:24 at 116.1°. Given that the time of sunrise is determined by the movements of the earth relative to the sun, how is this possible? Sunset does move later starting very soon after the solstice.

16

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is it possible that human body has its own physical laws ?

« on: 13/01/2020 18:45:03 »

Why does some  physical laws related our body differ ?
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=78342.20

There is no evidence in that thread that the laws of nature are different for the human body than they are for the rest of the Universe.

That point was made very clear in that thread.
Why are you posting this question, to which you know the answer?

Some phenomena are explained by the physics laws and chemistry , vibration of eardrums, eye lenses  ..

But what about ?
Nerves signal, perhaps some kind of body electricity.
Body muscles and how they work . body energy connected with muscles.
mechanism of cell division.

Those are explained, it's just that you didn't bother to study hard enough before making that vacuous claim.

Why would you do that?

17

General Science / Re: Herb and marijuana anxiety

« on: 17/11/2019 18:45:03 »

Hey guys... chill out. 

Cannabis has unfortunately not been studied very well under rigorous scientific conditions. Much of this is because it has historically been very difficult to get permission to study in human subjects, and approval often comes with stipulations that limit the sample sizes, or what the source of the test materials is (for a long time, in the US, studies needed to get their cannabis from the DEA... not exactly an uninterested party--there are actually instances in which researchers acquired official permission from their university, hospital, IRB, and local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, only to be told that there was no cannabis for them to conduct their studies with (oh well). Many of the organizations in the USA, that researchers must satisfy in order to get permission or funding to run controlled tests involving cannabis have specific directives not to facilitate research that shows anything other than harm. It remains schedule 1 here because there is "no proof of medical utility" while researchers are banned from conducting studies looking specifically for benefits. (see more here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ and here: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is-it-so-hard-to-study-pot-124767/)

This means that most studies done in the US are specifically looking for harm, are often looking at longitudinal or epidemiological studies (which have sooo many confounding factors), and it is difficult to publish null results, so altogether, we are left with a significant bias in the literature.

Luckily, there has been some research done in Israel (https://cannabinoids.huji.ac.il/), among other places, with some promising results. I am skeptical of many of the medicinal cannabis claims (also often made by interested parties, and then hyped by those who wish to believe and those who profit by having others believe). But it would seem that there is serious research that is getting underway.

As far as recreational use goes, cannabis poses some very real, but relatively mild health risks.

For instance, many users (especially those who started using early in life) do use it habitually. It is not physically addictive (unlike drugs like alcohol and benzodiazepines, which have potentially lethal withdrawal symptoms, or drugs like opioids, nicotine, and amphetamines which can have significant physiological distress caused by withdrawal. Even drugs like caffeine have a greater physiological withdrawal effect.)

Smoked cannabis carries with it many of the dangers of inhaling any burning plant matter. And apparently vaporized extracts may be even more dangerous (it may be that this has more to do with lack of regulation, and greedy @$$holes willing to dilute their products to make a buck without any care for the consumers, or there could be some as-yet unknown reason why vapors are more harmful than smoke...)

The connection to psychosis is somewhat troubling, but I have yet to see studies showing a causative link conclusively, or providing any sort of insight into how this could happen mechanistically. High dosages of THC (in the absence of CBD, or with only traces of it) can certainly precipitate acute psychosis. But this is temporary. I'm sure there are cases of people frequently who get so high that they have episodes routinely, but I don't see this accounting for the supposed long-term risks.

My opinion is that the risks and benefits both need to be studies much more rigorously. But that in the meantime, cannabis be allowed as a legal product for both medical and recreation use, so long as the industry is heavily regulated, taxed enough to pay for costs to society (as should be done with alcohol and tobacco), and is kept away from children. So much more harm has been done to society by the war on cannabis than by the drug itself.

(wow, that turned into quite the rant! sorry)

18

Physiology & Medicine / Re: which scans are best NMRI or PET

« on: 12/09/2019 23:45:00 »

Calculating "committed dose" is actually a lot easier for short life nuclides than long ones, since we don't have to worry about precise retention and excretion coefficients. It's quite a process of measuring the administered activity, estimating the decay throughout the imaging process, adding up all the detected activities, and assigning organ sensitivities to the bits where the labelled stuff ends up. Fortunately it's all been done many times so for a routine procedure the required total activity is calculated according to body weight and the committed dose is estimated from standard tables.

NHS hourly costs include a lot more than consultant fees. Assuming he is an in-house consultant he will have a secretary, a nurse, a lab technician, a registrar and maybe a couple of students directly in tow, plus all the secretarial, housekeeping and administrative overheads, rent, heating, lighting, amortisation of the capital kit……. £500 per consultant-hour is indeed pretty much what it costs to run an outpatient session in a teaching hospital. For comparison, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than keeping a fighter plane in the sky, and the pilot will be lucky to get more than £50 per hour.

Best wishes for a definitive diagnosis and successful treatment! 

19

Physiology & Medicine / Re: which scans are best NMRI or PET

« on: 11/09/2019 21:00:10 »

This might help
https://clinicalposters.com/blogs/health/radiology-comparison

but, as usual, the best advice is "Ask your doctor".

20

General Science / Re: Science Fact or Fiction: The Online Version Part I

« on: 11/09/2019 05:34:23 »

Is the earth the densest planet I always thought tha Mercury was.

Mercury: 5.427 g/cc
Earth: 5.514 g/cc