[Tl;dr: Ranting about the news in the last week]

Doomscrolling, monkey brains, telomeres, btc

Hey readers. We’ve been digesting a lot of information lately about various news and things but also winterizing and getting ready for a new year, cleaning around the house and getting rid of leaves and such. If winter is coming for you then make sure to get rid of yard clutter and leaves to help minimize attraction of insects and rodents to the house. Raking and applying an insect barrier around the perimeter can make things less attractive to critters trying to find shelter from the cold.

Speaking of which this week we found a few interesting and noteworthy articles that stood out from all the politics and such. Yes, 2020 is a cray-cray year. No one could imagine that we would go into the year full of mandates and lockdowns and where health and safety would become one of the biggest political talking points. But humans are crazy and unpredictable.

“Monkey Brains”
One of the news headlines that made us raise an eyebrow was about human genes and monkey brains. We first found a reference to it from “The Bird” social media platform from a tweet. Apparently some scientist thought it a good idea to insert or splice human genes into monkey brains to make them bigger. MSN news mentioned that it was ARHGAP11B, a human gene that was introduced into monkey fetuses that made the monkey brain bigger and also caused folding similar to a human. Does this sound similar to some Planet of the Apes scenario? The researchers were from a Germany and Japan institute according to the article. This does raise some possible ethical issues doesn’t it? The article explains that folding in the brain of humans was unique due to size of rapid brain size development which had to fit in the skull. The fetuses in these experiments were not allowed to go past 100 days so that they wouldn’t be born with these experimental genes much to the relief of many science fiction nerds. The fact that is experiment even exists might raise an eyebrow for those that have watched Jurassic Park, seen Captain America comics, or even involved in PETA.
The neocortex of the brain in the experiments on marmosets also showed higher number of neurons.

“Telomeres”
On another article scientists in Tel Aviv university claimed to have reverse part of the aging process. Part of our chromosones are telomeres which are like caps at the end of our chromosones. They protect the genes and shorten as we age which can cause DNA damage and it to break down.

What they tried was giving oxygen therapy with other anti-aging therapies to help boost longevity and livespan on the molecular microscopic level. The study was done over 3 months with elderly people age 64 and older sitting in a hyperbaric chamber breating 100% oxygen. They found the telomeres of the people looked younger again. Could this one day help our body to last longer and not age as rapidly and breakdown? Perhaps our buildings might have oxygen pumped into rooms one day or as a service like a spa?

Doomscrolling
We found this term the last few weeks ago. It is basically people endlessly scrolling through their news or mobile feeds gawking at the “fear porn” that is pervasive in the 2020 news cycle. Before 2020 people had lives of their own and went about working 9 to 5. Now everyone is “woke” and looking at their smart phones thinking they know more than the boomers and talking about politics, Covid, trying to run a online channel and live streaming or gawking at someone else’s camera footage in shock and horror and outrage. Rampant Karens and triggered tears flood the internet. How do I use doomscrolling in a sentence? I never doomscrolled so much until 2020 but probably kickstarted the habit maybe in 2016.

Vaccines.
It was gonna come out eventually but the vaccines they have been talking about as magic bullets are coming. We won’t get into politics. But it is a good listen in history of the world of medicine, the U.S. and things like the 1918 flu pandemic, small pox blankets, and Tuskegee experiments – you know, the alternate side of history they don’t teach in school. Many schools are locking down in NY, France etc. Even the news is lambasting Sweden this past week about the Swedish laissez-faire / relaxed policies about people being smart enough to mask and regulate themselves. This appears to be backfiring for Swedish hospitals and they are backtracking in policies. Yes, numbers will rise as people get back to normal… but the problem that we’ve seen is that people lack basic education or diligence to carry out mandates often. You see people trying to be smart alecky about masks and appearing tough. People wear “sheen pantyhose” over their face to be funny or cute. People leave masks down under their nostrils like they can’t wear a belt. And then the thing that we’ve seen the most is that people will actually pull their mask down just so they can lick their finger to wet it and get friction to turn a page of paper in a book or notepad. Good job, you just spread germs into your mouth that was supposed to block all of that. So there are three and maybe 4 companies rolling out vaccines. We won’t need to mention them on our page, but you can look it online. Pfi, Mod, BioNT… You can find more stuff online. They are talking about waves or rounds to emergency workers, then elderly, then young, then normal every day people. Maybe sometime early spring next year.

BTC mooning
If you haven’t been watching the crypto world it’s probably cause no one is talking about it on MSM. Unless you are in a financial sector or paying attention to stocks and other business news you might not even be aware. A lot of people are asleep due to 9-5 work forcing them to look at the immediacy before them: the mundane rat race. Or perhaps they were raised to think life is only about providing for a family and children and significant other. But this can be eye opening when a person wakes up. You see a lot of liberated people starting channels and working moms and single dads. Thank you internet for a way to get out of impoverished thinking and improve one’s quality of life. Yet not everyone is there yet and still stuck in old ways of thinking and imprisoned in stereotyped traditionalist outdated, outmoded entitled views or caustic patriarchal dominated views. We won’t discuss crypto or digital currency and its merits here because if you haven’t heard of it by now in 2020, 3 years after its height and essentially coming out party from 2017 when it was the Thing everyone was talking about investment-wise, then you will need to do some research. Everyone is coming after the digital money including the tax man, even if they haven’t figured out all the regulations. There was even a big attempt at bringing crypto to everyone with a big consortium of banks and a social media giant FB a few years ago till regulation basically halted that project and broke it up in its tracks. But there’s absolutely no denying that people can’t stop talking about it. The last few weeks the sleeping giant in convertible virtual currency has seen jumps from 15000 all the way to almost 18000. It is just a few thousand away from its height of 21K at the end of 2017. The former CEO of an antivirus company was nabbed recently for questions and also alleged involvement with his monies he’s made from promotions and speaking arrangements.

Right now, no one can doubt that decentralized, peer to peer money that needs to be anonymous will be the next big thing in the next decade. People are afraid of a central one world gov that controls everything a la 1984, Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451. And so many have for years kept their cash in mattresses or out of banks to keep seizures of cash, sanctions, and being labelled as structuring. Where the money goes, people have always followed. It is fascinating also to see that with Covid-19 and lockdowns people are bound to spend more time online doing research and talking and branching out into niches that talk about all kinds of topics. And we see celebs Zooming and even on social media whereby we used to meet them in movie theaters and comicons. A British or English actress asked about investing in crypto recently with the CEO of an electric car company responding to the tweet. The CEO of the same company (E.M.) also launched several people into space this past week while he had to quarantine from exposure to the coronavirus. The CEO himself was no stranger to often being on the butt end of cryptoscams as often there are impersonators with their user handle often mispelled and sending fake tweets asking for investing in some digital scam which the CEO has no involvement with. Other famous people getting involved in crypto include a former talk show host. (R.L.) and also other gold bugs.

Time will tell if this technology will be used for good or as some of the apocalyptic naysayers on the Tw—erverse say, “will be used to enslave humanity with a one world currency”. We have to wonder tongue in cheek whether this vaccine microchipped and big brother one-world currency credit system a la Black Mirror, Westworld will still have holiday presents when the time comes. Obviously conspiracy theories run rampant as Luddites of this generation struggle to adjust to modern technology, science and financial evolution and space travel. Yes, it’s always a bit scary to have new tech. Many at the office many now struggle and be forced to consider early retirement as the world masks up, goes to Zoom and remote learning, and becoming their own IT department due to social distancing requirements.

As we end another week we wrap up with a few tips:

• Keep a bit of cash and maybe crypto. Even survivorsfortress, a website about survival is mentioning the latter.
• Don’t put all your eggs, cash and crypto in one place. Too easy to be swiped otherwise.
• Stores are starting to become short on paper supplies again. I should know, I was surprised walking through the tissue aisle again. Apparently the second lockdown jitters has people spooked again and hoping to avoid a repeat of March. But it’s good to know the supply chain is still working and not as bad as back in March.
• Get a hobby and stay health and in touch with other people. People and social interaction is a precious commodity. And the privilege of your time is important and scarce and fleeting. Don’t waste too much time worrying about the news and what you have no control over including politics etc. Help is not on the way. Make your own life.
• Be careful of those that pull slight of hand and say one thing to distract from something else. Sometimes up is down and down is up. Sometimes what is bad is good. “Control.”

Have a good Thanksgiving holiday folks.