{"id":5295,"date":"2024-11-26T10:26:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T17:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5295"},"modified":"2024-11-26T10:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T17:26:21","slug":"odd-lots-353","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5295","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>I asked MS CoPilot a simple question\u2014\u201cHow does menthol alleviate pain?\u201d\u2014and let it rip. It ripped. And ripped. And ripped, spinning its spinner for <em>four hours<\/em> before I finally closed the window without any sort of response. I\u2019ve had tolerably good luck working with CoPilot, but this suggests it still has a long way to go.<\/li>\n<li>MIT appears to agree: They are now telling us that <a href=\"https:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2024\/generative-ai-lacks-coherent-world-understanding-1105\" target=\"_blank\">generative AIs do not build world-models<\/a> and thus cannot be counted on to be useful in any arbitrary context. Ummm\u2026did we really need <em>MIT<\/em> to tell us that?<\/li>\n<li>Mayo Clinic researchers have found that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/stem-cells-grown-in-space-turn-out-to-have-a-surprise-advantage\" target=\"_blank\">stem cells grown in zero-G grow faster and work better<\/a> in tests than stem cells grown on Earth. The research has only begun, but I could definitely see Elon Musk establishing a stem-cell farm in orbit if that research pans out.<\/li>\n<li>Jim Strickland sent me a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/svs.gsfc.nasa.gov\/vis\/a000000\/a005400\/a005415\/phases_2025_fancy_720p30.mp4\" target=\"_blank\">a wonderful NASA animation of Moon photos<\/a> as the Moon orbits Earth, showing all the phases the Moon goes through, including libration and position angle for the full year 2025. As best I can tell, it doesn\u2019t display lunar eclipses, but there are many other places detailing times for those.<\/li>\n<li>Alzheimer\u2019s may not be a brain disease so much as a mitochondria disease. Other theories beyond amyloid plaques are coming up, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/alzheimers-may-not-actually-be-a-brain-disease-an-expert-reveals\" target=\"_blank\">this piece presents a nice summary<\/a> of why we may be wrong about amyloid plaques and what other mechanisms might be behind dementia.<\/li>\n<li>There is now reasonable research showing that the <a href=\"https:\/\/thehighwire.com\/editorial\/inaudible-infrasound-from-wind-turbines-disturbs-health-of-humans-and-all-organisms\/\" target=\"_blank\">infrasonic (very low) sounds emitted by ginormous wind turbines can cause health problems<\/a> in humans and other animals.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/quillette.com\/2023\/12\/11\/introducing-justapedia\/\" target=\"_blank\">I ran across Justapedia about a month ago<\/a>, and so far it holds up well compared to Wikipedia. The idea is to maintain a MediaWiki-based competitor to Wikipedia, one that is deliberately non-political and less obsessed with notability and various other side issues. Take a look. I\u2019m rooting for them, but beating a competitor as entrenched as Wikipedia is a daunting challenge.<\/li>\n<li>UTIs are very common but kidney infections\u2014which you would think are caused by the same pathogens\u2014are not. <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2024-11-utis-extraordinarily-common-kidney-infections.html\" target=\"_blank\">Here\u2019s an explanation why<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>When I was a little kid (figure 7 or 8, maybe 9) all the boys of similar age in my neighborhood were allowed to dig a hole in their backyards big enough to sit down in and play with toy soldiers, dinosaurs, or other injection-molded fantasy icons. There\u2019s now evidence that <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2024-10-playing-mud-dirt-boost-child.html\" target=\"_blank\">letting kids play in the dirt can train our immune systems<\/a> to recognize and shake off many more microorganisms than kids living in low-dirt environments like city cores.<\/li>\n<li>And it\u2019s not just dirt. A Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist confirmed that <a href=\"https:\/\/legalinsurrection.com\/2024\/10\/harvard-doctor-confirms-that-human-brains-need-meat\/\" target=\"_blank\">human brains need a diet rich in meat to support mental health<\/a>. Let\u2019s put it this way: We did not evolve eating kale\u2014but that said, Carol and I do eat a rainbow salad most nights with our meat course. I\u2019m pretty sure that evolution-wise, the meat came first.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I asked MS CoPilot a simple question\u2014\u201cHow does menthol alleviate pain?\u201d\u2014and let it rip. It ripped. And ripped. And ripped, spinning its spinner for four hours before I finally closed the window without any sort of response. I\u2019ve had tolerably good luck working with CoPilot, but this suggests it still has a long way to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noneoftheabove"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5296,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions\/5296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}