Saturday, August 31, 2019
This Crab's Blue Blood May Have Saved Your Life
Chiropractic manipulation and risk of stroke
Cervical Arterial Dissections and Association With Cervical Manipulative Therapy
"Data on the effectiveness of CMT for neck pain are sparse and questionable.73,80C85 The most recent Cochrane review consisting of some low-quality trials found that the effect of cervical manipulation was comparable to that of mobilization, which does not include a thrust.80C82 Two studies, published
since this systematic review, investigated the effects of cervical manipulation on neck pain. Bronfort et al83a found that cervical manipulation, together with other physical interventions, was as effective as a home exercise program and that each was more
effective than treatment with ≥1 of the following: nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, acetaminophen, muscle relaxants, and narcotics. Dunning et al73 compared cervical and thoracic
thrust manipulation with cervical and thoracic nonthrust mobilization for patients with neck pain and found an improvement in the manipulation (versus mobilization) group at 48 hours.
Association of cervical artery dissection (rupturing an artery to the brain, CD) and cervical manipulative therapy (CMT)
There has been considerable discussion and debate about the association between CMT and CD.68,83C85 The majority of the literature associating CMT with VAD/vertebrobasilar artery territory stroke is from case reports/case series,66,83,83a,86C105
surveys,106,107 or expert opinions.108C113 Given the very low incidence of CD,8,104,114,115 the best study design that has been used to date to determine whether CMT may cause CD is the case-con-
trol study.116 There have been 6 reported case-control studies of CD that have evaluated an association with CMT.15,67,84,85,117,118
Two of these case-control studies were very small and of lower quality.15,85 In a small retrospective study from Germany, 47 consecutive patients <60 years of age with CD were compared with 47 consecutive age-matched patients with stroke
of another cause.15 Although cervical manipulations within 30 days of stroke were twice as frequent in CD patients (21.3%, 10 of 47) compared with non-CD stroke controls (10.6%, 5 of 47), there was no significant difference in this small study. In a small retrospective study, Thomas and colleagues85 reviewed records of 47 dissection patients and 43 controls <55 years of age with stroke from another cause. Mild mechanical trauma to the head and neck was significantly associated with craniocervical arterial dissection (OR, 23.53; 95% confidence interval [CI], 6.31C87.70). "Neck manual therapy" was reported in 23% of CD cases (8 vertebrobasilar artery, 3 ICA) and only 2% of the non-CD stroke cases (OR, 12.67; 95% CI, 1.58C104.28). As a result of their preliminary observations, the authors proposed
a prospective study.119
Four larger case-control studies found an association between CMT and VAD/vertebrobasilar artery territory stroke in young patients (<45 years of age) with reported ORs of 3 to 12,67 5.5,84
6.6,117 and 3.6 to 11.9,118 respectively (Table 2). Two of the 4 studies specifically evaluated chiropractic visits.67,84 Rothwell and colleagues84 reviewed the Ontario administrative database
from 1993 to 1998 to identify patients with vertebrobasilar artery territory stroke. Of the 582 cases identified, which were age and sex matched to 4 controls from the Ontario general population, they determined that young patients (age <45 years)
with vertebrobasilar territory stroke were 5 times more likely than controls to have visited a chiropractor within 1 week of the event (OR, 5.02; 95% CI, 1.32C43.87). Among the 112 stroke cases <45 years of age, 4.5% visited a chiropractor within 1
week of the stroke compared with 0.9% of the controls."Exhaust flap valves
I was traveling behind a BMW SUV yesterday, and I noticed a flap valve opening and closing periodically in one of two exhaust pipes emanating from the single muffler. This seemed odd to me, where it would open at idle and during acceleration, and snap closed the rest of the time. It didn't make sense to me to add back-pressure to the exhaust, after all, since a dual exhaust is marketed as something that adds horsepower.
I looked it up, and apparently closing the valve helps lower emissions and bring the catalytic converter to operating temperature more quickly. It also provides a better exhaust note, an important thing to some people, and quieter exhaust.
"Exhaust gas flaps can fulfil a variety of functions in the exhaust system. They are used for a wide variety of functions, both with spark-ignition engines as well as with diesel engines.
"In acoustical optimisation, exhaust noises are influenced by adapting the volumes and pipe lengths of silencers.
"In the new BMW 7 series, one of the two tailpipes on the rear silencer is equipped with an exhaust gas flap and, as a result, always provides the right "sound" of the twelve-cylinder engine, throughout the entire speed range. Below: BMW 7 series.
"Skilful positioning of the exhaust gas flaps in the exhaust system, can achieve a considerable reduction of the required silencer volume. As a result, the weight and the space required for the entire system can be downsized.
"In emission control, exhaust gas flaps are used to divert the exhaust gas flow. In this way, they trigger the HC (Hydrocarbon) absorbers or bring the starter catalyst to operating temperature more quickly.
"A more recent method of emission control is the use of DeNOx catalytic converters. These cause a part of the exhaust gas flow to be guided through a cooling zone by an exhaust gas flap , thus ensuring an optimum effect and a long service life of this catalyst.
"By varying the exhaust gas back pressure, the efficiency can be improved in certain characteristic areas. This is also done via an exhaust gas flap in the exhaust system.
"Exhaust gas flaps are specifically dimensioned to meet the high demands in the exhaust gas system: they must outlast gas temperatures of up to 950°C, whilst closing correctly and remaining moveable during their entire service life."
The world is poorly designed. But copying nature helps.
Friday, August 30, 2019
This Green Tech is Bringing Life Back to the Sea
Deepfakes: Is This Video Even Real? | NYT Opinion
Headphones Made Of Fungus
Biodegradable alternatives for plastics. They choose to make headphones because they are easily recognizable, and require several different kinds of plastic-like materials.
pop music’s falsetto obsession
At 14:52, they show that songs with falsetto both did better, and stayed longer on the charts.
Look Inside Russia’s Creepy, Innovative Internet
A comprehensive journalistic look at how innovation thrives despite a repressive Orwellian government.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
This NYC Restaurant Is Hidden in a Freight Entrance
For the next time you're in NYC, this hidden gem of Puerto Rican food looks great! A true "hole in the wall" gem. New York
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Better Metal - refining steel without producing CO2
https://youtu.be/-pYNzxorJs0
"Boston Metal, which is developing a process to reduce carbon emissions in steel making by using electricity instead of traditional pollution-heavy techniques...uses a process called metal oxide electrolysis, which allows pure metals to be produced without carbon emissions. The only byproduct is oxygen."
https://fortune.com/2019/01/09/boston-metal/
"“Most metals are in nature as a form of oxide,” explains Tadeu Carneiro, chief executive of Boston Metal. “In order to get the metal, you have to break the bonds in the oxide and free the metal from it. When you do that with carbon, you generate CO2...Sadoway published a paperwith two colleagues demonstrating that MOE could produce emissions-free steel"
https://fortune.com/2019/01/09/boston-metal/
"“Most metals are in nature as a form of oxide,” explains Tadeu Carneiro, chief executive of Boston Metal. “In order to get the metal, you have to break the bonds in the oxide and free the metal from it. When you do that with carbon, you generate CO2...Sadoway published a paperwith two colleagues demonstrating that MOE could produce emissions-free steel"
https://fortune.com/2019/01/09/boston-metal/
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Daily aspirin for disease prevention
The latest review of the evidence is not as convincing as previous conclusions.
However, the results for people with diabetes are different, because their risk profile is higher.
"Low doses of aspirin (75–100 mg) were only effective in preventing vascular events in patients weighing less than 70 kg, and had no benefit in the 80% of men and nearly 50% of all women weighing 70 kg or more. By contrast, higher doses of aspirin were only effective in patients weighing 70 kg or more."
"Two good-quality and 9 fair-quality randomized, controlled trials were identified. In analyses of all doses, aspirin reduced the risk for nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) (relative risk [RR], 0.78 [95% CI, 0.71 to 0.87]) but not nonfatal stroke; aspirin showed little or no benefit for all-cause or cardiovascular mortality...In trials with aspirin doses of 100 mg or less per day, the reduction in nonfatal MI benefit persisted (absolute risk reduction, 0.15 to 1.43 events per 1000 person-years) and a 14% reduction in nonfatal stroke benefit was noted, but no benefit was found for all-cause mortality (RR, 0.95 [CI, 0.89 to 1.01]) or cardiovascular mortality (RR, 0.97 [CI, 0.85 to 1.10])."
"Low-dose ASA use may eventually be shown to provide modest cancer mortality benefits in CVD primary prevention populations, but effects are not clearly established since current estimates are imprecise and relatively unstable."
Self organising steel balls explain metal heat treatment
Such a clear and indelible explanation of annealing metals and making metal bendable.
Plastic recycling myths exposed
Thousands of tonnes of plastic for recycling are shipped to Asia, where a lot of plastic enters the ocean.
At 9:20, he points out that the carbon footprint of a reusable bag is far greater 100 plastic bags.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
AI Learns To Animate Your Face in VR
Training a computer to simulate your face with only 3 very distorted views.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Cutlery you can eat: One company's approach to the plastic pollution problem
"edible cutlery is made from millet, rice and wheat flours and was the first of its kind when it was developed in 2010."
Monday, August 19, 2019
The Most Beautiful Fruits and Vegetables You’ve Never Seen
Asian farmer quit religious studies to grown unusual vegetables with his parents.
Monday, August 12, 2019
I built my own social housing: the rise of Chile's 'half-houses' | How We Live Now" on YouTube
Really interesting theory about creating social assistance housing by building half a house, and letting owners complete the house offer time to their own taste.
Friday, August 9, 2019
How To Feed 10 Billion People
Improve the efficiency of photosynthesis by artificial selection. Vertical farming made accessible with cheap parts and LED lights.
Object Detection by tensor flow explained
"It takes the entire image in a single instance and predicts the bounding box coordinates and class probabilities for these boxes. The biggest advantage of using YOLO is its superb speed – it's incredibly fast and can process 45 frames per second."
Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Czarist image of mass shootings | Spectator USA
https://spectator.us/nihilism-stupid-czarist-origins/
I found this article revealing, that there is a history of (the philosophy of) these mass shootings going back more than a hundred years.
"The narodniki — whose terrorist wing undertook a campaign of assassination that culminated in the murder of Czar Alexander II — inspired anarchists and political assassins throughout Europe and the United States. Then as now, this sinister form of violent nihilism proved contagious. Now it is spread by the internet; in the late 19th century, it was spread by novel technologies, too: the telegraph, the daily mass newspaper, and railroads. Then as now, the disease could be traced to Russia, but it adapted and merged with local pathologies."
"...The First Amendment likewise prevents us from taking another obvious step: forbidding the media to report on these events. Terrorism makes no sense unless it’s a spectacle. If we banned the media from reporting on these massacres and turning every one of them into a lurid, ritualized mass spectacle, the shootings would stop. "
"..To a significant part of the American public, guns are an object of spiritual veneration, as sacred to them as the Qur’an is to jihadis. Burning them will have the same effect [as banning all weapons]...even if through the repeal of the Second Amendment and vigorous prohibition we managed to get half of these weapons out of civilian hands, there would still be 150 million on the streets. A contraband gun market would emerge as quickly as the market for opiates and enrich the same people."
"...no one in his right mind proposed seriously to dismantle ISIS by means of better psychiatric care. Talking about ‘mental health’ and ‘video games’ is preposterous in this context."
"...anarchist terrorism and...Islamic anarchism...: the areas of resemblance include the preference for action over ideology, the obsessive focus on resistance to alien intrusion, the lack of programmatic goals, the pursuit of violence for its own sake, the hatred of the established world order, and the tendency to operate in decentralized cells."
"The narodniki — whose terrorist wing undertook a campaign of assassination that culminated in the murder of Czar Alexander II — inspired anarchists and political assassins throughout Europe and the United States. Then as now, this sinister form of violent nihilism proved contagious. Now it is spread by the internet; in the late 19th century, it was spread by novel technologies, too: the telegraph, the daily mass newspaper, and railroads. Then as now, the disease could be traced to Russia, but it adapted and merged with local pathologies."
"...The First Amendment likewise prevents us from taking another obvious step: forbidding the media to report on these events. Terrorism makes no sense unless it’s a spectacle. If we banned the media from reporting on these massacres and turning every one of them into a lurid, ritualized mass spectacle, the shootings would stop. "
"..To a significant part of the American public, guns are an object of spiritual veneration, as sacred to them as the Qur’an is to jihadis. Burning them will have the same effect [as banning all weapons]...even if through the repeal of the Second Amendment and vigorous prohibition we managed to get half of these weapons out of civilian hands, there would still be 150 million on the streets. A contraband gun market would emerge as quickly as the market for opiates and enrich the same people."
"...no one in his right mind proposed seriously to dismantle ISIS by means of better psychiatric care. Talking about ‘mental health’ and ‘video games’ is preposterous in this context."
"...anarchist terrorism and...Islamic anarchism...: the areas of resemblance include the preference for action over ideology, the obsessive focus on resistance to alien intrusion, the lack of programmatic goals, the pursuit of violence for its own sake, the hatred of the established world order, and the tendency to operate in decentralized cells."
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Tesla's Revolutionary Automotive Wiring Loom
Tesla patented a vehicle wiring system akin to networking switches, where a simple single-wire connection to a part of the car, like a door, arrives at a network switch in the door which then executes various functions within the door, rather than the traditional bundle of wires connected to the door sending wires to every component in the door. This allows for "plug and play" upgrades of systems within the car.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Friday, August 2, 2019
A city where everyone rides bicycles.
How do you convert people to riding bicycles? You make it harder to drive a car through downtown.
2:19 - "Which means the city center was diverted in four different quarters. Cars couldn't go from one quarter to the other quarter. They have to go around the city center. But cyclists and pedestrians can go through."
2:19 - "Which means the city center was diverted in four different quarters. Cars couldn't go from one quarter to the other quarter. They have to go around the city center. But cyclists and pedestrians can go through."
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