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If you believe the numbers, during this first wave of coronavirus not one person died in Vietnam of covid-19 out of 95 million people. They did it by: 1. Acting early when there were only 2 cases reported in Wuhan, China on Jan 23, way earlier than any other country. 2. They quarantined EVERYONE coming into the country for 14 days. This was not voluntary. It was forced quarantine in special facilities. Everyone coming in was tested. 3. Everyone was mandated to wear masks and fined if found not wearing one. 4. Anyone who tested positive was tracked with contact tracing and all those were tested or quarantined. Very tough measures and very early but if you want zero deaths, that's how you do it. It can be done, and Vietnam is proof. https://www.theguardian.com//testing-vietnam-contained-cor

According to Worldometer there is one place in the world that has controlled the coronavirus. China! Where it started. There’s something very very important that people need to understand. THE VIRUS CAN ONLY LIVE" INSIDE PEOPLE. Of course a virus is never alive. It just replicates. But it cannot replicate unless it is inside you. If nobody has it, and if some remnant virus particles are sitting on surfaces or whatever, in a few days it’s all gone; It just becomes dust and i...s nothing. Today there was a webinar where two Israeli researchers gave a talk about developing a vaccine for covid-19. At the end someone asked : Don’t we have a vaccine that was developed for one of those previous corona viruses, for SARS and MERS? And the professor's answer was: Why would we have it? Those viruses were quashed before they started to spread. Once they are gone, they are gone for good. They can’t appear from nowhere. They are finished. So there was no need to develop a vaccine. And amazingly this is what has happened in China, the biggest country in the world. Here’s the graph showing the appearance and disappearance of the virus in China. If we assume they are not lying and what is the advantage of lying? Really? they totally squashed the thing. There are very few new cases. And any newly infected people are relatively easy to quarantine. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/ Scroll down to the chart titled "Daily New Cases." There are just a few. This should be the goal in all countries. Unfortunately so far only China has been able to do this. They worked hard at it and they attacked it with a vengeance. Note that they have now strictly closed their borders to everyone so that no virus can enter their huge nearly virus-free country. This is really remarkable and should be front page news. (Unless they are lying. I hope not.)

Geoff Dumas from Paignton, UK had some questions about the SARS-CoV-2 virus also known as coronavirus, which causes the sometimes deadly flu-like disease covid-19. 1/ Does the quantity of virus particles introduced into the body in **one** exposure affect the immune response? 2/ How does the immune system respond to the quantity of virus particles introduced, perhaps over multiple exposures, and is there a minimum and maximum threshold at which immunity rate and strength res...ponds? 3/ How does the virus replication rate progress with respect to the "battle" between the immune system and the virus? Simon Fraser University microbiologist Dr. Fiona Brinkman answered: "For any infection, there is usually a minimal dose of the infectious particle needed to cause disease, and a dose that will stimulate an immune response. For some information starting to explore related topics, including infectious dose, see https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973 [Editor: The paper above says that the virus lasts for 1 to 3 hours in aerosol droplets from a cough, and for a day or two on various surfaces, but becomes much weaker as the days pass. For this new coronavirus we do not have all the answers yet, but it is known that for some viruses an infection can start with just one virus particle. We do not know if this is the case with covid-19. To answer question 2 above: After the immune system is aware of an intruder its response rate is much better because antibodies now exist which are an added system to attack the intruder. It’s like a new tool is available that was not there for the first attack. I don’t think there’s a minimum or maximum amount. The minimum is 1 and the maximum can be handled unless the person has a compromised immune system. The human immune system scales extremely well. To answer question 3 above: once the immune system is aware of the intruder and the gears are set in motion the virus replication rate does not matter because the immune system is killing both free virus as well as any human cells that have the virus inside them. When a virus gets inside a cell, the cell hangs a special protein molecule on it's outer cell surface which holds bits of the virus. This acts as a signal to the immune system to kill that infected cell. In addition, infected cells produce proteins called interferons, which interfere with viral replication within an infected cell. Interferons also warn nearby cells of the virus so they can arm themselves against it. Another immune response called antibodies becomes available a day or so after an infection. Antibodies kill viruses in four ways. First they neutralize the virus, then they cause the virus particles to clump up, then they call phagocytes which are special cells that surround and destroy the virus, and finally they activate the complement system that wrecks the outer coat of the virus. ]

The stupidest thing that humans have ever done I certainly agree that global warming is happening, but I personally do not take the view that global warming is necessarily all bad. I think humans can handle a warmer planet and I think the changes will be slow enough, taking several generations to occur that we will be able to respond to the advent of a warmer planet. What really bothers me is the very wasteful use of oil, gas and coal today by humans. We are simply burning i...Continue reading

Here's what Canada is *REALLY* doing for global climate change. We are actively making the problem worse and faster than any other country. Natural gas sales are up over 10% according to Statistics Canada. When will Canada stop increasing the rate of burning? I mean: can we at the very least take our foot off the accelerator? When the whole world is talking about doing something, Canada is doing the exact opposite. At the very least could we just hold production/consumption o...f fossil fuels steady, instead of increasing it and increasing it year after year? I mean could our government just take this one simple step? The answer is a very clear resounding: Not a chance pal! Burn baby burn!! And burn more and more. Hah! We are going to burn more next year, too. Yay!! We love making CO2 in Canada. Who cares about global warming? Not Canada, the worlds 4th biggest fossil fuel producer. Not one bit. Canadians love producing CO2 and we are building MORE pipelines, MORE LNG plants, drilling MORE wells, and we are digging up MORE tar sands, and building MORE coal-carrying rail cars. Never less. Never even holding it steady. Oh no. We must burn MORE MORE MORE!! These are facts from Stats Canada. We love it so much we advertise to the world how much we love creating CO2. Never forget: by your collective actions as Canadian citizens (e.g. voting in the current governments at all levels) you are the world's greatest fans of global warming and you are actively ensuring that global warming will increase as much as possible in the coming years. This is the truth and the facts. So weird. The only countries worse than Canada are the USA, Russia and Iran. At the rate we are increasing production, we will soon overtake Iran and be number 3 in the world. A very strange approach to dealing with climate change. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca//dai/191202/dq191202d-eng.htm See more

A reader recently remarked about the very deep hole that the Russians drilled into the Earth's crust, and why we are not using the heat from within the planet more as a way to reduce carbon emissions. A few countries ARE using geothermal energy for heating, and even for electricity generation. Iceland is the leader. But that Russian hole project is really interesting and we wrote about it on the science.ca website at http://www.science.ca/askascientist/viewquestion.php Check it out.

Yesterday on the local right-wing talk-radio station CKNW they were saying it's gonna cost us, asking, "Who's going to pay for climate change?" The whole time I was thinking: Wait. It's not going to *cost us.* It's going to *SAVE US!!* Then I saw this news piece announcing that Renault is bringing out a really great looking electric car in China for $8,700. For the average family, compared to a gasoline-powered car, that's a savings of maybe $20,000 per car. If you multiply t...hat out by about 100 million American and Canadian families, that's a savings of $2 trillion dollars and that's just for the capital cost of cars. The savings in operating costs are likely 10 times greater over the life of the car. Think of all the other savings if we could just get off oil. THE COSTS COME FROM FOSSIL FUELS. Not the other way around. Alternatives to fossil fuels are always cheaper because solar energy is essentially free. Oil and gas are not. They come with a cost. The weird thing about this article is that they say a car like this would never catch on in America. Why not? Because it tops out at 120 km/hr? In my opinion there is no need to go faster. Check out this wonderful little car that is good looking, efficient, comfortable, practical and cheap. On this day of global protest I say to the world's children, stop wining about a terrible future and start showing the adults of the world how cost effective solar energy is compared to fossil fuels and how the rest of the world (notably China, but with Europe not far behind) is going to leave the foolish Americans and their stupid corporations in the dust. https://www.electrive.com//renault-hits-on-china-with-ult/ PS: Note that Renault's focus is China, followed by India in 2022. Doesn't that tell you something? See more

It turns out that increased testosterone does not make men less empathetic, nor is high testosterone a cause of autism, which affects more men than women. A study involving almost 650 men put to rest the idea that testosterone somehow reduces empathy. As the lead author Gideon Nave says, "I think we have to embrace our ignorance on this." The researchers also disproved the odd idea that finger length ratio (middle finger #2 compared to baby finger #4) can indicate a person's sensitivity to testosterone. Read the whole story here: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_re/2019-09/uop-itl082919.php

Good list of sites about Climate Change from Lynne Quarmby: I put together this short list of my fav Climate Crisis Resources for my summer class. These are great resources to bolster our own awareness and to facilitate those difficult conversations with community and politicians. If I've missed your favourite site, please let me know in the comments. TIA. 1. Global weirding. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe’s YouTube channel. All of the basics in the most accessible form y...ou’ll find. Watch them all. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6RkdaEqgRVKi3AzidF4ow 2. Skeptical science website. https://skepticalscience.com/ Q & A format that explains climate science and rebuts global warming misinformation. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. 3. The Keeling curvehistorical and up to the hour data on carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ 4. NASA has developed lots of great data visualizations to help us understand the changes that are happening on planet Earth: global warming maps; Arctic sea ice extent; wild fire tracking; droughts; Antarctic ice. Tons of cool animations and up to date data and sources. https://climate.nasa.gov/ 5. Ed Hawkins impactful data visualizations known as the climate spirals: https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/spirals/ 6. Project drawdown. Tons of solutions-oriented information. Examples from around the globe, and things you can do. https://www.drawdown.org/ See more

In recent years scientists are discovering more and more phenomena caused by the millions of bacteria inhabiting our guts. It turns out that marathon runners have more Veillonella bacteria in their guts than normal people. This single celled animal lives solely by eating lactic acid, the waste product of active muscles and the chemical that causes the pain of stiff muscles. When researchers gave mice a unique strain of Veillonella bacteria collected from marathon runners afte...r a race, the mice were able to run much longer on their treadmills. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0485-4 In another recent study, scientists found evidence that a particular malformed protein molecule originating in the gut called -synuclein can travel up the vagus nerve to the brain and cause symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(19)30488-X So not only can our gut microbiome help us run marathons, ironically it also may be the cause of the muscular tremors and unsure step of the Parkinson's sufferer.

The best sunscreen is to wear a light white shirt. Very little science supports the use of sunscreen lotions and sprays. https://undark.org/a/science-sunscreen-public-trust-cancer/

In case you didn't know, check out the technology scene in Shenzhen, China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taZJblMAuko

How do you most commonly listen to music these days?