CharonY

In addition, the gastrointestinal system for herbivores often is often complex and have sophisticated systems to extract nutrients efficiently (e.g. longer intestines, multiple stomachs), which require more space, too. Different belly size within a species are obviously caused by different reasons.

Actually all our publications disclose our affiliation and (professional) contact information. I have occasionally answered seemingly honest requests and questions from the public (especially during the pandemic) and/or directed them to relevant health professionals, as time allows. I think in the age of social media things might have gotten worse in some hot-button issues and some colleagues have indeed gotten death threats. However, this is more commonly because they were giving interviews and/or were active on social media and not because because of publications, as these are rarely read by folks who bother to send out threats.

Being on the receiving end of this question a fair bit, I think the issue is not the question "Where are you from?" It is generally only an issue if the follow-up is "no, where are you really from".

One factor is that similarly to other hot topics like immigration, politics likes to seize on such rather complex questions in order to gain cheap points. Rather quickly these issues then become rallying points and are not discussed in sufficient depth anymore. It is also funny to me that some folks argue that all that wokeness is finally causing backlash- whereas in fact the term is in itself a backlash to a status quo where systemic injustice was considered the norm and justified. The blame for inequality was then squarely placed on certain, typically powerless groups. I mean, in this thread there are a couple of important steps such as "hey hold on, how do we define woke in the first place?". Even such simple things are often not addressed in what passes as public discourse nowadays. Edit: I feel like I should start embracing old man attitude and hypocritically blame social media for all failings of modern society. While writing a post on social media.

I also disagree with the premise and the comparison with modern telecommunication. The development of the latter was not so much breakthrough, but rather incremental developments of a range of different related technologies. And while it has influence on the society (in positive and negative ways) and especially on habits, I am not so sure about what the "breakthrough" really would be. It had a higher impact on lower-income countries, where cell phones put a computer into almost everyone's reach. But elsewhere I am not that sure what the breakthrough really is, other than convenience and more distraction (yes, I am getting old). So as such I do no think that the technology has actually "solved" much and I am not sure whether that would be the correct or fair way to look at medical progress either. On the medical side of things, breakthrough developments were many, with vaccines for each new disease pretty much on top of the list, as each new effective vaccine radically changes the way we can manage a given infectious disease. Better and safer anesthetics has revolutionized what can be done in surgical practice. Antibiotics were breakthrough developments and we might live to see what happens if they don't work anymore. Insulin is not a cure and not sexy, but just imagine a world without it. I think the impact would be much more immediate than the need to use a landline. Even mundane things such as better health recording system, screening and so on that improves our everyday health so in that regard I do think that the focus on shiny things that we call breakthrough can be a bit misguided, at least when it comes to population-wide impact. Well, pneumonia can be a pretty bad way to go, depending on its form, not to mention that one might spread pathogens. I have quite a few more items on my list that I'd prefer over pneumonia.

Hold on, you can close browsers?

A unicorn does not have arms, so would be disqualified on a technicality? Edit: harms/arms need coffee

I guess it means that one of your premises is going to turn out wrong (depending on your definition of fully closing, probably).

Probably dropped like a fly.

I think it is only an issue if you care about false positives. They could use AI to flag any and all non-approved patterns of a certain size as default, for example.

I was not discussing the water source argument, but the claim that I.e. focusing on the alcohol part. Which, as I argued hat little merit in itself.

I was editing my post so some things may be redundant now. But the myth is basically that folks were either drinking dirty water or alcoholic beverages and that the latter is healthier because of lower microbial content. Fact is that boiling water has been fairly common once pottery was developed. And folks were also well aware of seeking out clean sources to begin with. Folks of course drank alcoholic beverages, same as today, and while some may thought it had health benefits, it was not related to polluted water issues. Mostly it improved taste and in case of beer, also provided nutrients, which could be considered a benefit in the past.

That is actually a myth. Some sociologist (I think could also be a historian, though I doubt it) proposed that an it went wild, whereas historically there is little evidence of that. Greeks, for example put wine into their water for taste reasons and they also believed that it would "purify" it (as water would taste less stale). But obviously the alcohol content at that point would be too low to have any antimicrobial effects. But it is possible that misreading of that phrase could have started the myth. It could also be that it was (as you stated) based on beer. I heard a similar argument, but of note, part of the process is heating the wort. But rather obviously folks were already aware of the effects of cooking. Early writings in Sanskrit and Egyptian (where also the oldest beer brewing occurred) specified boiling or heating to make water drinkable. Sources in the middle ages have stated that beer was healthier than water, but at that point boiling was fairly common. It is likely due to the fact that beer was considered more nutritious and therefore healthier. I.e. there is little evidence that alcohol drinking folks were healthier, aside from getting more nutrients from beer (but not because of the alcohol).

I also think that OP severely misunderstands the lab leak hypothesis. The assumption is not that it was some gain-of-function study gone wild. While that thought circulated for a little bit, the utter lack of any evidence has pretty much discredited it. Lab leak actually refers to a scenario where workers in the lab unknowingly got infected by one of the viruses they have been sequencing from wildlife. Leaks from such labs are not unheard of with examples throughout the world (including UK and US) so at least it is possible. The issue is that while it is possible to trace a leak back to a lab, it is quite harder to prove that it in fact did not happen, especially when China is involved and where political factors may play a role. But again, OP is arguing quite a different scenario.

You have to think more about quantity than the type of foodstuff. Sugar is a bit issue, not necessarily because of it its effect alone. It is more problematic as it is ubiquitous, especially in processed food and because we like it and therefore overeat. In moderation, most things are not that bad (though alcohol seems one of the exceptions). I.e. if you eat ice cream every now and then, there is very unlikely to be any measurable negative effects. Do it every day, it might be.

I trust you have not dropped like a fly yet? Nor for that matter your likely equally vaccinated colleagues?

I think AI development is unfortunately going to address that.

We should learn to agree on the same reality again (not interpretation, merely a set of facts).

If unlikely is the same as impossible, we would neither have viruses nor organisms to carry them on Earth. I am also skeptical that there are only three labs doing gain-of-function type of research claim. Gain-of-function programs have been under scrutiny, but there are quite a few virology labs do "regular" functional research. There is a point where these studies could lead to a gain of function (intentionally or not) but where this point is has been under discussion at least since 2011. These genetic studies are more common, but typically still require BSL3 conditions of which there are at least over a hundred in China (and over a thousand in the US). But again, the overall logic of the argument is faulty to begin with.

As others mentioned, the conclusions are not logical. For example the incredulity that SARS-CoV-2 originated at one and not many wet markets rather makes sense. Jumping species is a fairly rare event so you would not expect it to happen frequently. If it did, tracing the origin would be rather impossible. To take an earlier pandemic as example, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic ("swine flu) were associated with a reassortment of viruses circulating in Eurasian and North American pigs. Genetic tracing indicates that the pandemic hat its origin in North America in swine herds. Pigs are bred everywhere, but obviously the pandemic started most likely with this event. There are also more epidemiological work on the Wuhan market that has been the epicenter of the largest (known) outbreak. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp8337 But what is perhaps more important is that OP still seems to think that genetic re-assortment, and associated development of new diseases requires some artificial intervention. In reality this is not so. There are many points of likely zoonotic spillover, which also includes our agricultural practices. There is a reason why we frequently hear of culls of thousands or even millions of livestock due to disease outbreaks. Due to immunization, treatment options and generally good access to healthcare, many countries are under the illusion that new diseases will only occur in exotic locations or, simply put, elsewhere. This, obviously a misconception. While we often have been lucky that many viruses e.g. in livestock do not simply jump to humans, the 2009 pandemic showed us that it does in fact happen. What we have is really a lottery and it can happen everywhere. Even if every single wet market is banned, there will be other sources. And since we are encroaching on natural habitats everywhere, we might increase the likelihood of genetic re-assortment of various as well as bacterial pathogens. While there are some legitimate concerns regarding pathogens escaping labs, I feel that the real issue why folks are so hung up on it, it because it seems like a much easier problem to address as the real one that were facing. These include zoonotic diseases, accelerated by habitat loss, but also the rise of antimicrobial resistances. Often times, the big challenges (not unlike global warming) just seem too big to tackle and instead we focus on the small stuff to make us feel that we are in charge. Then we get several warning shots (e.g. SARS, MERS, swine flu, etc) and even if something big happens that forces us to face it (COVID-19) we almost immediately go back into denial. I fear that the next pandemic will come as an utter surprise as all the ones before it.

I was at -6 when I was 10 or 12. And then it got worse. I was told Lasik would be too risky, but that was long ago.

That is the actual prescription. Typically it has three parts, sphere/cylinder and axis. -1.75 is not too bad in terms of nearsightedness. X refers to axis, but since there are no values noted it suggests that there is no astigmatism.

Only when we talk about ATP generation via the ATP synthase. There are other ATP generating pathways, such as glycolysis.

For medical claims it is often worthwhile to hunt down the original articles rather than relying on websites. Going back from your latest link, there are some primary controlled trial papers showing the use of lavender oil preparations (silexan) and its efficacy to treat mostly weak anxiety disorder types. Overall, these findings seem to hold up somewhat for oral studies, for the rest while overall positive, the results are a bit mixed. See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phymed.2019.153099 for a meta-analysis. Note that in medical research, typically controlled trials are the gold standard to establish whether something is of medical value, whereas other forms of research could highlight plausible types of action but quite often these effects turn out to be hard to reproduce in large study cohorts. Nonetheless potential effects can be used as justification to start these large trials, which are usually very expensive. For linalool the situation is more problematic as while there is some evidence for a range of effects, I have not seen trials in a quick search. Most papers provide somewhat limited evidence of anti-inflammatory or potential mood-stabilizing effects (much of it in rats or mice models, rather than humans). So at this point it seems to me that most of the effects are suggested and/or preliminary. Interesting, but not for certain in the medical sense yet.

As an addition, unless you are still developing, nutrition is an ongoing process and issues arise because you deplete your reserves (which could happen during fasting) but deficiency (i.e. lack of something) obviously goes away once the nutrients are coming in again. I.e. anemia is not a live-long condition. There is the that certain nutrients that are not easily absorbed (e.g. B12) can take a long time to replenish once they drop below a certain threshold. In these cases supplements and injection might be needed in addition to a balanced diet. Edit: I should also add that there are a range of conditions that could cause in anemia despite a balanced diet.