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General Science / Is it possible to survive if you have no inner ear function at all?

« on: 23/10/2024 16:15:43 »

I recently met someone who claimed that he was born lacking any inner ear function. He said that he is now in his 30s. When I inquired about his condition further, he said that the inner ear physically did not grow at all, so beyond the exterior ear parts, there's nothing actually inside.

I remember it being all over the news when the cause for SIDS was discovered. A team of researchers noticed that several people who had died suddenly in their sleep had hearing loss in their right ear. They then created a patent, which to the best of my memory was a device which measures the blood CO2 and O2 levels in people with loss of ear function, which would sound an alarm to the person and others around them if levels fell outside of the normal range.

They hypothesized that the inner ear hair cells are chemoreceptors and their purpose is to detect CO2 to drive autonomic breathing.

A few years later this team did a study on mice, which ended up confirming their hypothesis to a T - the mice with destroyed inner ear hair cells lost virtually all of their chemosensitivity wheras the mice whose ears were injected with saline (the controls) did not. This loss of chemosensitivity is observed with conditions such as Ondine's Curse. The team were interviewed in subsequent press releases, where they mentioned the inner ear hair cells being chemoreceptors important for breathing. I remember an audiology website picking this up and saying that these inner ear hair cells are "pivotal" for respiration and damage to them can cause loss of breathing function and death.

So, to me, this is like someone claiming they were born without lungs and survived into their 30's without significant medical intervention. Was someone pulling my leg here?

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Just Chat! / If a person believes that they do not have diabetes,will their diabetes go away?

« on: 18/09/2024 02:34:34 »

I recently read a comment which said that when people who have diabetes and DID switch to a personality which does not have diabetes, the diabetes can no longer be detected in their bodies, purely because they no longer believe they have diabetes.

Here's the source https://betterbelieveit.net/biology-of-belief-multiple-personality-anomalies/

Another woman, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her physicians by showing no symptoms of the disorder at times when one personality, who was not diabetic, was dominant. A young man was allergic to citrus fruit in some personalities, but not in others.

Based on how this is worded, it makes it sound like she literally willed away a defective pancreas that doesn't produce enough insulin through faith/belief alone.

F.W. Putnam reported that, out of 100 multiple personality cases he studied, 26 of them displayerd allergies in one personality that were non-existent in another personality. (Putnam et al, 1986).

Allergies, too.

Likewise, I've also read comments saying the placebo effect has cured physical diseases such as cancer and allergies. When these alleged cases are presented, they are always presented as a means of proving the power of mind over matter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but allergies, cancer, and diabetes are physiological conditions that involve cellular processes not networked by the brain, so how could belief or faith either cure or induce them? What would the mechanism be?

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Just Chat! / Florida man claims a plesiosaur killed his friends. His son is interviewed

« on: 20/07/2024 19:51:39 »

Brian McCleary's son, Sean McCleary, zGXOZhWlMH0[/youtube] gives an interview in this video, which was uploaded earlier this year. Sean starts talking at the 24 minute mark. For a long time, only Fate Magazine was the source of this story, now there is Sean, Brian's son, retelling the story his late dad allegedly told him. In this version McCleary seems to have changed it from a sea serpent to a plesiosaur, and rather than just a head and neck he now says he saw a humped back.

Sean himself uses up quite a bit of the interview promoting books about quantum consciousness that he wrote, but the rest is him talking about his dad's alleged experience.

If you're familiar with cryptozoology, you may have come across the case of 16-year old Edward Brian McCleary's Pensacola sea serpent story, which is most well known from a 1965 Fate Magazine entry, authored by Brian McCleary, in which he goes into intricate detail about his 4 friends being killed by a sea serpent, leaving him as the sole survivor. Due to the age of the story, it was fairly difficult to find the story from the source, rather than re-tellings of it, but I managed to find the complete Fate Magazine entry here

Lower down in the thread, someone found the 1965 edition of Fate Magazine, titled "strange fates", which had McCleary's story in it:























The incident happened on March 24, 1962, but McCleary's story appeared in a 1965 edition of Fate Magazine. In a letter to Loch Ness monster researcher Tims Dinsdale, McCleary included a drawing of the monster he claims he saw:

https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/sketch-jpg.69371/

I found some old newspapers detailing the incident of that day. None of them mention a monster.



One of the boy's bodies washed ashore. The others weren't found.



McCleary said he did not see the other four go down.







The Findagrave page for Brad Rice includes another newspaper article in it

McCleary explained that the reason that none of the newspapers mentioned a monster is because it was covered up. He says he was told that the monster was "better left unmentioned to all of those concerned". This is where McCleary's story sort of turns into one of a conspiracy theory. According to doctors at the Naval Base hospital, Brian was in the water over 12 hours and swam an estimated five miles, wheras news reports said he was in the water for fewer hours and swam two miles. Allegedly, McCleary spent the rest of his life telling the monster story, joining online forums relating to encounters with the paranormal, with McCleary exchanging telephone calls with people who claimed to have spotted the same green sea serpent that McCleary saw when he was a teenager.

The area where McCleary says he spotted the "sea serpent" is a popular fishing and diving spot that's in shallow waters 20-30 ft deep.

Some have pointed out that the monster that McCleary drew bears a stark resemblance to the character Cecil, from an animated series titled Cecil & Beany. It began airing in January of 1962.



There is only one other iteration of the story authored by McCleary, which appears to be his letter to Tims Dinsdale, outlined here. In this version, he says that he got to the ship and stayed there for most of the night, whereas in the Fate Magazine version, he didn't get to the ship and headed straight for shore.

McCleary himself died several years ago, at the age of 71. He had worked at Mental Health Resource Center in Jacksonville, Florida.

This story appeared on Facebook recently so I decided to look into it. I can't find many places discussing it so I thought I'd post it here. What are your thoughts?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Are Airpods capable of producing a sound intensity that will rupture eardrums?

« on: 10/05/2024 12:54:51 »

A teenager in Texas has been spending the past two years suing Apple after claiming that an Amber Alert on his Airpods caused his eardrums to rupture. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10830803/Boy-suffered-ruptured-ear-drum-hearing-loss-Apple-AirPods-blared-Amber-Alert.html

He's now claiming he now requires a hearing aid and he has other symptoms.

Most sources I could find say that eardrum rupture happens with a sound intensity of 150 dB and up. Are the Airpods capable of this? This sounds like it should be really easy to confirm or debunk the teenager's claim that it was the Airpods which did this. Get a sound level meter, put it right up against the Airpod as it's playing on max volume (to simulate an eardrum right up against the Airpod) and see if the sound is anywhere close to 150 dB.

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Just Chat! / Family claim Amber Alert ruptured son's eardrums

« on: 06/05/2024 14:14:40 »

https://globalnews.ca/news/8851556/apple-lawsuit-amber-alert-hearing-damage/

https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/44560022/Gordoa_et_al_v_Apple,_Inc_et_al

I did some Googling, and the maximum output physically possible for Airpods is 100-105 decibels when in the ear. So if they're playing a sound at maximum volume, the maximum decibels their eardrums could be exposed to is 100-105 decibels. Apparently, the family waited two years before filing the lawsuit, but I can't find a source for this as of now, it was a comment made on Reddit.

Is 100-105 decibels enough to instantly rupture a person's eardrum and immediately cause permanent hearing damage as the family claims?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Did the Sun change from orange to white 15 years ago?

« on: 11/04/2024 13:08:52 »

A family member tells me that everyone their age (they're a gen xer) remembers the Sun being orange when they were younger, and then around 15 years ago, it turned white.

I asked them if they remembered the clouds being orange, too, since an orange colored light would make white non-illuminating objects have an orange tint. They said no.

They used crayons as evidence that the sun changed color. They said that when they were kids, they would use a yellow or orange crayon to draw the sun. They also used the sun emoji being orange as proof that the sun used to be orange.

They then went on about how the sun now looks "blinding" wheras the "real, orange sun" wasn't. During this conversation they called another family member their age who said they remember the "real sun, the one that was orange".

I looked this up, and can't find any mention from scientists about the sun changing colors. Have I been trolled here?



This photo is taken from a digital panorama website. Since the twin towers are in this image, it's safe to say this image is from 2001 or earlier.



The sun only looks yellow/orange during the sunset in the last images. But that isn't what this family member is claiming. They're claiming that the sun was orange during all times of the day.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / If Red Light cures everything, why aren't hospital lightbulbs red?

« on: 27/02/2024 00:02:41 »

it's a huge rage now - there's supposedly some legit studies showing what certain wavelengths can do (skin, hair, cellular reconstruction, etc) - and there's some red light beds selling into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Judging from this Forbes article it would seem that red light magically cures everything.

https://www.forbes.com/health/wellness/red-light-therapy/

There are even sources suggesting that red light can cure people's allergies.

There doesn't seem to be a plausible explanation as to why red light "activates mitochondria" or "activates cellular repair" and other colors don't. "It's because of the wavelengths" seems like a cop-out answer to me.

If the color red is so beneficial to our health then why are hospital lights still white? Shouldn't they be changing their lightbulbs to red ones to lower glucose levels, accelerate healing, bring relief from chronic illnesses and prevent obesity?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is there any plausible mechanism for solar flares affecting health?

« on: 20/02/2024 17:43:58 »

Specifically, to people on the ground?

Recently, I'm noticing that every news article that pops up in my MSN feed about an upcoming solar flare will mention somewhere in the article that solar flares cause health problems to people on the ground. This would seem to go against what we know about physics, as the radiation from solar flares is blocked by Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere and does not reach the ground.

 

 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014cosp...40E1114G/abstract#:~:text=It was shown statistically that,comparison with quiet geomagnetic conditions

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2324402-solar-storms-may-cause-up-to-5500-heart-related-deaths-in-a-given-year/

 

https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-health/2019/09/19/geomagnetic-disturbances-and-cardiovascular-mortality-riskutm_sourcebmc_blogsutm_mediumreferralutm_contentnullutm_campaignblog_2019_on-health/

 

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/3/306

 

These are a couple examples. Is there any plausible mechanism through which solar flares can affect our health on the ground or is this pseudoscience? A lot of the studies in this field, known as "Heliobiology", mention things such as "Schumann resonance" and the "pineal gland" which I am aware are terms that are often used in woo papers. For instance, the MDPI paper published by the journal "Atmosphere" mentions "Schumann Resonance" five times. Whatever the case, it seems to be gaining traction in mainstream newspapers as of late.

During geomagnetic storms (which are caused by solar flares), Earth's magnetic field fluctuates at a rate of over 50 nanotesla (nT) per minute. During "extreme" geomagnetic storms, the rate can be up to 500 nT per minute. Is there any plausible mechanism that magnetic fluctuations at this rate and amplitude can affect people's health?

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Just Chat! / If I rapidly waved a fridge magnet past my heart, would it cause a heart attack?

« on: 10/12/2023 20:23:44 »

I read about 'heliobiology', which is an emerging field of biology studying the effects of solar activity and human health. As it turns out, geomagnetic storms are estimated to cause thousands of heart related deaths each year, with many recent studies finding correlations between geomagnetic storms and heart attacks, arrhythmias, collapse of organ function and death, seizures, strokes, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, and even sudden cardiac death. Most of the studies showing links between fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field and heart attacks, strokes, etc have been conducted within this decade. Some scientists theorize that these negative health effects are caused by the pineal gland being affected by fluctuating magnetic fields.

During a geomagnetic storm the fluctuations compared to Earth's magnetic field strength are tiny (at most around 500 nanotesla of fluctuation) and happen over the course of minutes to hours. The magnetic field strength of Earth is between 150 and 400 times weaker than a refrigerator magnet. Given the effects Earth's magnetic field has on people's hearts, what would happen if I rapidly waved a fridge magnet past my heart? Would it disrupt the electrical signals in my heart and cause it to stop?

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Just Chat! / Geomagnetic storms cause heart attacks, schizophrenia, seizures, and suicides.

« on: 10/12/2023 16:13:34 »

https://biomedscis.com/fulltext/the-effects-of-solar-activity-and-geomagnetic-disturbance-on-human-health.ID.000203.php

''m) Solar activity may contribute to the development of and be a trigger of the exacerbation of nervous and mental disorders, such schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis [38].''

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805718/

https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-health/2019/09/19/geomagnetic-disturbances-and-cardiovascular-mortality-riskutm_sourcebmc_blogsutm_mediumreferralutm_contentnullutm_campaignblog_2019_on-health/

''Our results may be explained through the direct impact of environmental electric and magnetic fields produced during GMD on the human autonomic nervous system. Interactions between GMD and the autonomic nervous system are likely to induce a cascade of reactions in the body's electrophysiology that culminate in the collapse of organ functions and death.''

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13769-does-the-earths-magnetic-field-cause-suicides/ Geomagnetic storms and suicides.

https://aepi.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42494-020-00019-9 geomagnetic activity also causes seizures.

Scientists theorize that this is because when Earth's magnetic field fluctuates, it messes up the pineal gland, causing all sorts of issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm

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Physiology & Medicine / My friend scraped his skin cancer into a cut on my arm. Will I get his cancer?

« on: 14/10/2023 02:17:31 »

My friend has a type of skin cancer, can't remember which, but I had a cut on my arm and he accidentally bumped/scraped his skin, including the area of skin cancer, across the cut. I'm worried that the cancer cells got inside of the cut and I'm going to develop skin cancer. I didn't sanitize the area until I got home since I didn't have any while I was out. My dad said you can't catch cancer but aren't cancer cells a lot like viruses? They're rogue cells that have the ability to hide from immune systems, multiply out of control and take over the body. So what happens if cancer cells from another person get inside another person's body? Wouldn't the cancer cells grow exponentially and try and take over my body?

I've been worrying about this like all week, I keep looking up stuff but I constantly find articles and studies that contradict each other so I don't know what to trust or believe regarding this. help?

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Just Chat! / Man suffocates to death from blocked nose during sleep.

« on: 14/10/2023 01:22:20 »

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/DIY+snoring+cure+killed+man+of+26%3B+Tampons+put+up+nose.-a061333426

The coroner, Michael Burgess, concluded that he suffocated in his sleep mainly because he was unable to breathe through his nose, which was blocked (by tampons).

Every medical website I can find says that people can breathe through their mouth, which contradicts the articles.

Which is true? These two things directly contradict the other.

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Physiology & Medicine / Are allergies Psychological? Could they be cured through Hypnosis?

« on: 05/10/2022 19:31:26 »

There has been research on Pavlovian conditioned immune responses. Rats were made to be allergic to egg albumin (egg protein) through psychological conditioning. To do this, rats were fed egg albumin, while the feeding was paired with a novel stimulus (taste, visual, or audio cue).

After the association was made, when rats were exposed to only the cue (in the absence of egg albumin) their immune systems began producing antibodies specific to the egg albumin. When the rats were fed egg albumin again, they had an allergic reaction. The researchers noted that lesions to the insular cortex (part of the brain) prevented the conditioned immune response, while lesions to the hippocampus did not. They concluded that the insular cortex not only regulates emotions but also immune responses.

What this means is allergies, the immune system, and the brain are very closely linked together. The immune system and brain both communicate with each other, bidirectionally.

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00033.2018

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34752731/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2866484/

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.325.6961&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889159198905475

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-18383-029

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/physrev.00033.2018

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Physiology & Medicine / Why don't people internally allergic to H2O react to swallowing their saliva?

« on: 16/09/2022 12:59:44 »

I've seen several people going to the news claiming to have an internal allergy to water to the extent that drinking a sip of water causes a (potentially fatal) internal allergic reaction, such as anaphylactic shock or swelling of the throat. Why don't they have an allergic reaction whenever they swallow their saliva? Isn't it mostly water molecules? Saliva constantly coats the mouth and throat so why aren't their throats swollen shut constantly? Saliva is 99.5% water. It's even more pure than seawater.

Tessa Hansen Smith, an Instagram celebrity who goes under the Instagram handle of livingwaterless, is one of the latest claimants of internal water allergy. She claims she has an internal (mouth, throat, internal organs, veins/bloodstream) and external (skin) allergy to water molecules. She claims she has a very painful internal reaction to intravenous saline, explaining that this is because saline contains water molecules, and the immune cells in her blood are reacting to the presence of water molecules.

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Physiology & Medicine / Is there any way for the immune system to detect water molecules?

« on: 16/09/2022 00:19:50 »

Tessa Hansen Smith (LivingWaterLess) claims she's internally allergic to water when it touches her throat, her internal organs, and her bloodstream. She has an internal allergic reaction to intravenous saline, she explained it's because her bloodstream immune cells are reacting to the presence of water molecules. She says nurses have accused her of making it up. She says the only reason she can drink milk is because the fats in the milk surround the water molecules so they cannot be detected by her immune system. Is there any way for the immune system to detect or recognize water molecules?