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Interesting News, Articles & Stuff

macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
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Hidden immune weakness found in 14% of gravely ill COVID-19 patients

From the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists baffled by the disease’s ferocity have wondered whether the body’s vanguard virus fighter, a molecular messenger called type I interferon, is missing in action in some severe cases. Two papers published online in Science this week confirm that suspicion. They reveal that in a significant minority of patients with serious COVID-19, the interferon response has been crippled by genetic flaws or by rogue antibodies that attack interferon itself.
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
I wonder if this genetic flaw may be responsible for the "long timers" who seem to suffer the symptoms of the disease for several months at least...
 
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Oh No! Mr macbill!!
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AUSTIN CITY LIMITS’ 46TH SEASON OPENS WITH THE LATE JOHN PRINE

Live music beacon Austin City Limits proudly opens Season 46 with a gem: a poignant season premiere featuring the best of American songwriting giant John Prine. Sadly we lost Prine in 2020 due to complications from Covid-19, but ACL celebrates his remarkable life and legacy with twelve classic performances, chronicling his early days from his 1978 debut in Season 3 on the program to his final appearance in Season 44 in 2018. The requiem showcases the folk hero’s signature wit and wisdom, detailing the stories behind some of his most beloved songs. Check your local listings for showtimes.

For Portland, OR, Sunday Oct. 4 at 4pm.
 

bulllee

Agent Provocateur
Home DNA kits can help you pick a cannabis strain
Meg HartleySeptember 23, 2020
EndoCanna Health's DNA test. (Meg Hartley)

They say the endocannabinoid system (ECS) is as unique as a fingerprint, and cannabis affects us all differently. Company EndoCanna Health is exploring this by offering a DNA test that will show your body’s genetics and suggest a cannabis profile accordingly, as well as products for that profile.

This tool wouldn’t be with us today without a real Bob Ross of a happy accident—the moment Len May, CEO of EndoCanna Health, accidentally found an effective way to manage his ADD. According to May:

“I was kind of hanging out with some older kids, and they asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette—and I was like, yeah, you know, I’m dabbling with cigarettes, I’m gonna be cool—and the cigarette was actually filled with weed instead. After I got done coughing, I went back to class, and the windows in my head [referring to what it’s like to think with ADD] they sort of slowed down, and I could focus. So I found my medicine, it was mine.”

After getting kicked out of the house for cannabis—ironically, his parents now use his cannabis formulations—he became a cannabis activist and started working in medicinal genomics, which eventually led to EndoCanna Health, and the ability to use cannabis on a truly personal level.

Related
What is the endocannabinoid system and what is its role?

How does EndoCanna Health’s DNA test work?

While receiving the $199 test can take a month or two, taking the test is a matter of seconds: carefully swab the inside of your cheek, then pop the swab into a tube. After registering your test into their HIPAA-compliant, fully anonymous portal, seal the swab and tube in a plastic bag, pop it into the provided paid envelope, and send ‘er off to the lab. If you have DNA data already, it’s faster and only costs $49.95.

Once your results are ready, log into your profile, which will have an itemized breakdown of your report and suggestions for types of cannabis. The report is broken down into:

  • Anxiety
  • Cognitive function & behavior
  • Digestive
  • Drug dependence
  • Drug metabolism
  • Fitness
  • Metabolism
  • Mood
  • Musculoskeletal & immune
  • Pain, nausea, & neurologic
  • Sleep
  • THC side effects
Digging into my report
Clicking through the various reports shows how cannabinoids interact with your genetic profile in specific ways. For instance, clicking on “Anxiety” brings three more reports: “Fear Extinction,” “PTSD,” and “Stress Reactivity.”

Under “Fear Extinction,” for example, is this summary of my specific DNA marker findings, as well as suggestions for types of cannabis to use:

In this case, it suggests I start using high-CBD ratio products, as well as cannabis with terpene profiles that include linalool and beta-caryophyllene. These responses are called “formulations,” and my report suggests seven different ones for specific needs.

Also, the Personalized Wellness Plan links to relevant scientific studies and provides a link to products that match the formulation.

CEO May explained that although EndoCanna Health does sell terpene blends used in some recommended products, they don’t profit directly from sales of products recommended on the Wellness Plan: “We look at certificates of analysis from different product manufacturers and run them to a matching algorithm, and we look for several things: Number one, we look for the percentage of CBD, THC; Secondary, terpene profile; and then some others, like essential oils.”

Related
What are cannabis terpenes and what do they do?

How to use your cannabis DNA test results

“The best way to get the most out of your results is to understand what your genetic predispositions are to avoid an adverse effect and then to understand which products you can actually take,” said May.

With your test results, you’re equipped to treat symptomatic conditions based on specific genotypes in your body. “If you have a predisposition to anxiety or stress reactivity, you will know that there are certain cannabinoid and terpene profiles that can actually turn that genetic expression on,” said May.

For example, if you have a marker associated with not producing endocannabinoids when anxious—as the body ought to—you’ll be able to know what kind of cannabis can be substituted effectively.

And it’s a living document as well, meaning it will evolve as research does. “We have a HIPAA-compliant portal that is dynamically built with lifetime updates, meaning that if there is any research that is happening now that gets published, we provide that as an update to your report on a lifetime basis. And we’re fully secure and anonymized. All the data resides on Amazon’s AWS; it’s fully encrypted,” said May.

Related
Does endocannabinoid deficiency play a role in these common illnesses?


May continued to speak on what’s ahead: “The future is this whole feedback loop: It’s the ability to be able to get a response from people, how you know product ‘A’ is really working for you, learn from your experience, and then be able to produce better individualized products.”

EndoCanna Health is a research lab as well, working on studies all over the world. The company is also looking into expanding the use of epigenetic data and using biomarkers, like Fitbit info, to create a dashboard that will further personalize your experience.

Is the test worth it?
My take is probably obvious by now: I think this is a fantastic resource. I love that it breaks down which cannabinoids and terpenes will help various aspects of my body makeup. As a medical cannabis user, I find this especially relevant—it also confirmed I’m high-risk for flu severity—but these reports will also be helpful for anyone without any medical issues because we all have different bodies and cannabis will interact with each body differently.

EndoCanna Health is also looking to collaborate on research, even with competitors, because “the only way to remove this ridiculous stigma is through science,” said May.

I love it. Let’s science our way from being disregarded as just stoners to having data to improve specific conditions or for overall health, and knowing how best to use cannabis for those specifications.

And all this magic started with a teenager trying to smoke a cig, and failing. C’est la vie, eh?
 

macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member
Potty training: NASA tests new $23M titanium space toilet

NASA’s first new space potty in decades — a $23 million titanium toilet better suited for women — is getting a not-so-dry run at the International Space Station before eventually flying to the moon.
800.jpeg
 
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bulllee

Agent Provocateur
EDIBLES
Bohemian Rhapsody
Illustrations by Ryan Garcia
How Alice B. Toklas became the accidental godmother of edibles.

By
John Birdsall
Published on December 9, 2019
“From the little old lady who gave you hashish fudge” read the headline in the February 1974 issue of Vogue. The profile of the late Alice B. Toklas turned out to be more tease than delivery, since none of the recipes attached to the article actually contained weed. Still, Toklas — who’d passed away seven years earlier, at age 89 — was, as the writer described her, “a counter-culture byword.”
Miss Toklas, in her prim clothing and stern expression in black-and-white photographs, seems an unlikely advocate for getting high. But, thanks to a recipe for hashish fudge, published in 1954 in the British version of “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book,” Toklas’s intelligent, brittle-looking and mustached face became an icon of the pot brownie, America’s first-gen edibles.
Perhaps the pinnacle of her cannabis notoriety came with the 1968 Hollywood rom-com “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!” in which Peter Sellers plays an uptight attorney who unwittingly gorges on brownies laced with weed (shaken like dried oregano into a bowl of batter whipped up from a Pillsbury boxed mix), thereby precipitating a rethink of his life’s priorities.
Toklas’s journey to cannabis fame started in 1952, at a time when Toklas was desperate. Gertrude Stein, her de facto wife (the women had declared themselves married in 1910, though France, where they lived, did not legalize same-sex marriage until 2013), was dead. Although Stein was arguably the most famous American writer of her generation, and stacks of paintings by the likes of Picasso and Matisse filled their Paris apartment, Toklas needed money. Now, as a 73-year-old widow surrounded by a great art collection she refused to dismantle out of love for Stein’s memory, her situation had become dire. But Toklas had another collection she hoped would prove almost as valuable as the Picassos: her recipes.
Bettmann.jpg
(Photo courtesy of Bettman/Getty)
Food was one of Stein’s great passions, and Toklas took delight in cooking for her. Duck in Port wine, braised chicken stuffed with noodles, nougat ice cream, raspberry flummery: she would collect the recipes for these dishes all into a book. Through letters, a friend in New York introduced her to an agent. The publishing house Harper and Brothers agreed to buy her proposal for “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book,” and promised to send her a contract and an advance in return for a partial manuscript. The money, Toklas realized with a sense of relief, would keep the wolves from circling.
But by March of 1953, she was straining to make her deadline. A 30,000-word chunk of the manuscript was due in April, with another 40,000 to be delivered in May. Toklas had never written a book before. She was finding it to be a slog. “You… see the grind this is,” Toklas wrote to a friend.
Toklas feared she might not have enough recipes to make her word count. For help, she wrote to the large and diverse circle of friends and acquaintances she and Stein had made in the expat bohemian underground: actors, composers, painters and models. She asked everyone — Picasso’s former mistress Dora Maar, the Turkish painter Nejad Devrim, the actress Fania Marinoff — to contribute a recipe or two.
“One chapter (how pretentious for me to write that)” she told a correspondent, with Toklas’s typical self-effacement, “will be devoted to recipes of friends — undoubtedly the only thing of merit in the deadly dull offering.”
One such friend was the 37-year-old English painter and writer Brion Gysin. He’d met Stein and Toklas in the 1930s, but hadn’t kept in touch. In 1950, stalled in his art, unable to find a publisher and depressed with café life in Paris, Gysin had reached out to the widowed Toklas, who gave him grandmotherly encouragement to persevere. And when the expat American composer and author Paul Bowles met Gysin in Paris, and invited him to come stay at his home in the northern Moroccan port city of Tangier, Toklas urged Gysin to go. He intended to visit Morocco for a summer; he stayed for 23 years.
Tangier had all the vestiges of a colonial city (Morocco was still a French protectorate), seething with American and European artists, ex-pats and rich tourists. Gysin, who was gay, took up with an aspiring young painter, Mohamed Hamri. The match proved fateful, as it was Hamri who showed Gysin local customs and culture, including how to pack a pipe with the cannabis-tobacco mix known as kif. Gysin wrote a long, ecstatic manuscript on the subject. It was the same enthusiastic tone that Gysin used to describe the recipe for hashish fudge (spelled “haschich”) that he sent Toklas for her book.
CNM__Alice__Full.jpg

The Recipe for Hashish Fudge
“This is the food of Paradise — of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises,” Gysin wrote. “It might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or chapter meeting of the DAR. In Morocco it is thought to be good for warding off the common cold in damp weather and is, indeed, more effective if taken with large quantities of hot mint tea. Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be completely expected. Almost anything Saint Theresa did, you can do better if you can bear to be ravished by ‘un évanouissement reveillé [a state of fainting while fully awake].’”
“Artificial Paradises” is a reference to French poet Charles Baudelaire’s 1860 book of essays about being high on opium and hashish: “Les Paradis Artificiels.” Gysin notes that, for anyone outside of Morocco, obtaining hash might be slightly tricky, although “the variety known as canibus [sic] sativa grows as a common weed, often unrecognized.” In America, he states, its cousin “canibus [sic] indica, has been observed even in city window boxes.” Gysin, obviously, was having a lark.
Of course, his confection isn’t really fudge (which, typically, contains milk or cream and implies a smooth texture) and it doesn’t even call for hashish. In fact, it’s a variation on the traditional Moroccan aromatic kif candy known as majoun: smen (a kind of salty ghee) simmered with cannabis, strained, cooled and cooked again with spices, dates, honey, nuts and orange flower water.
Toklas was unaware that Gysin’s recipe yielded psychoactive results — and even forgot the recipe was in her book. In October 1954, weeks before “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book” was to be released, Time Magazine caught a whiff, in galley form, of scandal.
“The late poetess Gertrude Stein… and her constant companion… Alice B. Toklas used to have gay old times together in the kitchen,” Time’s gossipy item read. “Perhaps Alice’s most gone concoction (and also a possible clue to some of Gertrude’s less earthy lines) was her hashish fudge.”
Toklas did not take Time’s drug-shaming well. “I was… furious,” she wrote a friend, “until I discovered it was really in the cook book!” She went on to write, “It is my ignorance not to have suspected what the few leaves were — of course I didn’t know their Latin name.” The laugh, she said, was on her.
Recipe-Book.jpg

Prohibition Begets Publicity
Her publisher wasn’t nearly so amused. In 1951, the U.S. Congress passed the Boggs Act. It set mandatory sentences for drug convictions — a first offender convicted of cannabis possession faced a minimum sentence of two to ten years and a ruinous fine as high as $20,000. Harper and Brothers sent a telegram to the U.S. Attorney General, asking: Would it be a crime to publish a recipe that praised cannabis and sent the curious out to score some? In fact, it wasn’t illegal to merely publish such a recipe. Still, Harper was skittish, and deleted Gysin’s recipe from the American edition (though it appeared in the U.K. version).
Even suppressed, “Haschich Fudge” sealed Toklas’s reputation. The haze of notoriety around “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book” made Americans curious. “It sold seven thousand copies in its first month in the United States,” Justin Spring writes in “The Gourmands’ Way,” “and within three weeks of its publication, it had gone into its fourth printing.”
Toklas got her royalties, and the impish-looking, 77-year-old bohemian widow of the famous Gertrude Stein took on the status of an underground hero. Toklas didn’t mind. The writer Thornton Wilder thought the whole business made his old friend look like a sly genius.
“Thornton said that no one would believe in my innocence,” she wrote to a friend after “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book” had become an instant classic, “as I had pulled the best publicity stunt of the year.”
 

Summer

Long Island, NY
@bullee, how about including the link to the article you are quoting? I like to do my reading on the OG site.


Potty training: NASA tests new $23M titanium space toilet

NASA’s first new space potty in decades — a $23 million titanium toilet better suited for women — is getting a not-so-dry run at the International Space Station before eventually flying to the moon.
800.jpeg

@NewVape710, @newvape918

Perhaps Edwin can weigh in as to why so expensive? What do you guess that much titanium would cost, & could that much research have gone into development? 🤔

I only hope the hose is the waste out & not an intake vacuum for floating debri. :razz:
 
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Summer,

bulllee

Agent Provocateur
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Oh No! Mr macbill!!
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Trump, first lady test positive for coronavirus
Trump, 74, was diagnosed hours after it became publicly known that Hope Hicks, a top Trump aide who traveled with him on Air Force One and Marine One this week, tested positive and after months in which the president has played down a pandemic that has killed more than 205,000 Americans and sickened millions more.
 
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macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member
An Estimated 80% of Napa's Cabernet May Be Lost to Fire and Smoke

The chemical compounds in smoke can get into the skin of grapes exposed to it for a period of time, making the resulting wine smell and taste like a wet ashtray. Smoke from the Glass Fire is adding to that of fires last month. Melka estimates that 80% of vineyards may be affected. Those in the south of Napa, from sub-regions such as Pritchard Hill, Stags Leap, and Mount Veeder may be all right. “
 
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“Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine,” will re-air with additional footage on October 10 in celebration of John's 74th birthday. Hosted on John’s YouTube channel, the tribute will begin at 7:00 pm CT and will remain available through midnight on Sunday, October 11.
 
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Agent Provocateur

Return of the skunk​

Colleen Fisher TullySeptember 16, 2020
Super Skunk. (Leafly)

Fruity, cake-y, sweet-smelling and tasting products dominate the list of winning weed today. And what’s not to love? Exciting, candy-like flavors have a universal appeal in the cannabis marketplace, delighting connoisseurs and newcomers alike.

Despite this trend, a completely different group of strains may be making a comeback: skunks, a legacy family with a stink akin to its animal namesake, and they couldn’t be any more different.

In its 1990s heyday, skunk weed dominated the illicit market. Co-owner of Washington-based Wildwood Flower Farm, Melissa Beseda, speculates that the easy grow and fast harvest of skunk cannabis made it ideal for growing indoors under prohibition, which could partially explain why it was everywhere.

“It’s a bit easier to contain, tends to be a fast-growing strain and a quick harvest,” she said. Over in the UK, this weed became so widespread the term “skunk” became synonymous with any potent cannabis strain, and still is today.

And as skunks crept into the ‘90s Canadian market, grower Dustan McLean said he remembers when they entered the Alberta scene: “The product here was pretty tame, then the skunks came along and you could smell them miles away. They stank!”

Related
And Leafly’s 2019 strain of the year is…


Could there be a wellspring of seekers for skunk in this cannabis era of ice creams and desserts?

Beseda says she’s seeing it happen already. “There’s been more interest in our skunk strain this year than there’s ever been before,” she said. “Until recently, the orders would come in for everything but skunk. But now, skunk is moving a lot faster.”

Grandpa’s good ol’ stinky weed​

The skunk family started with Skunk #1, a cultivar developed in late 1970s from a uniquely diverse mix of Afghani, Acapulco Gold, and Columbian Gold. When its Californian cultivator, David Watson, brought his seeds to the Netherlands in the 1980s, they dramatically shaped the Dutch cannabis scene and ultimately influenced ‘90s and ‘00s underground markets in Europe and North America. Seed bank giant Sensi Seeds retains a trademark on Skunk #1 and has been selling this iconic strain since its earliest days.

Related
How the Dutch Spread Cannabis Across the World


That signature skunky smell is mostly thanks to myrcene, its dominant terpene. Described as a green musky odor, myrcene is also present in thyme, hops, and lemongrass. The myrcene in skunk weed may be reminiscent of compounds called thiols, found in the actual animal skunk, which are sulfur-based aromatics that give off an unmistakable, hang-in-the-air stink. Any rational person might wonder what the appeal of skunk weed is—until they try it.

Leafly reviewers give Skunk #1 top marks for a happy, euphoric, and relaxing high, and skunks are notorious as couch lockers, but not because they contain skyrocket levels of THC—the secret sauce of skunk lies in its terpenes.
“Skunk is heavy in myrcene which we know will knock you out. When you open that bag and it hits you, you might think it’s potent in THC,

Orange Skunk. (Leafly)​

but it could only be like 12%,” said Parkland Flower co-owner Kieley Beaudry.

Grower Beseda confirms their skunk cannabis has never had super high THC levels, “but its terpene profile tends to be pretty high. So I think if we shift our thinking of what potency is, considering the entourage effect—the full interaction of a terpene profile with the cannabinoid profile—I think skunk is a pretty potent strain,” she said.

Skunks set the bar way back when​

With scent, emotion, and memory closely linked in the brain, it’s easy to see why a knockout high would have consumers following their nose—especially in illicit market days when packaging was nothing more than a clear plastic bag. But even today, when labels tell us exactly what makes up our bud, there’s something about a skunky smell people love.

Twitter user @donfazool, who grows his own cannabis, says he’d love to see more breeders resurrect classic skunk. “I just really like the stink of a good skunk cultivar. Something about taking a whiff that makes your eyes water gets me every time.”

There is a visual effect to skunk weed, too. Beseda says it has great bag appeal with a classic weed look: good resin coverage with uniform, oblong buds and a tree-like shape. “When people envision a gram of weed, they’re probably picturing something that looks pretty similar to skunk,” she said.

Related
What are cannabis terpenes and what do they do?


Back like a ‘90s fannypack?​

But is this old school weed really making a comeback, like Mom jeans and wicker furniture? If the rise of heavy-hitting cannabis concentrates is any indication, the reliable couch lock effects of skunk weed and its long-lasting high aren’t much different.

There is also a groundswell of interest in the entourage effect, or how terpenes, flavonoids, and other cannabis compounds work in conjunction with cannabinoids in the brain and body, and skunks have terpenes in spades: Skunk #1 is myrcene dominant with caryophyllene, ocimene, pinene, linalool, and humulene according to Michael Backes in Cannabis Pharmacy. “Epic profile. No wonder it’s a classic,” he said.

Of course, trendy, sweet-smelling strains have their own lineup of pungent terpenes, otherwise they wouldn’t smell so good. But these new-generation buds just don’t carry the enduring legacy like a good skunk. For now, in Alberta, Beaudry said she’s not seeing a shift toward skunk strains just yet, but could see it happen, “Especially as old school growers transition to the legal market.”

With Beseda’s skunks flying out the door in Washington State, she’s excited to see one of her favorites rise in favor again. “There’s so much history in this strain—decades of breeding knowledge have gone into it. I have always felt disappointed when it wasn’t as popular as we thought it should be, and am actually pretty excited now. Hopefully it comes back!”

skunk-#1terpenes
 
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macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member

Physicists Build Circuit That Generates Clean, Limitless Power From Graphene


A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

“An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,” said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead researcher in the discovery.
 
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Oh No! Mr macbill!!
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The case for funding psychedelics to treat mental health


Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, is being investigated as a potential treatment for depression. Over the past decade, a few studies have investigated the effectiveness of psilocybin for treating depression and end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients, and found that the psychedelic had a surprisingly large effect.

Meanwhile, the drug MDMA (also known as ecstasy) is being studied for use in people with post-traumatic stress disorder. MDMA, which affects serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine levels, is best known as a party drug. But research suggests it can also relieve depression and help users access and process memories of emotional trauma.
 

macbill

Oh No! Mr macbill!!
Staff member

Avalanche of early votes transforming 2020 election

More than 17 million Americans have already cast ballots in the 2020 election, a record-shattering avalanche of early votes driven both by Democratic enthusiasm and a pandemic that has transformed the way the nation votes.

The total represents 12% of all the votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, even as eight states are not yet reporting their totals and voters still have more than two weeks to cast ballots. Americans’ rush to vote is leading election experts to predict that a record 150 million votes may be cast and turnout rates could be higher than in any presidential election since 1908.

So far the turnout has been lopsided, with Democrats outvoting Republicans by a 2-1 ratio in the 42 states included in The Associated Press count.
=============================================================================

Early voter turnout in Colorado increases a “bonkers” 2,400% from 2016​

More than 300,000 Colorado voters have returned ballots for the Nov. 3 election as of 11:30 Wednesday night — a staggering display of enthusiasm in a state that sends all voters a ballot by mail.
 
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Agent Provocateur

Harry Reid Confirms Federal Government Covered Up UFOs For Years​

“There’s more than one up there,” the former Senate majority leader says in the new UFO documentary “The Phenomenon.”
headshot
By Ed Mazza


Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the U.S. government has been hiding key details about UFOs for years.
“Why the federal government all these years has covered up, put brake pads on everything, stopped it, I think it’s very, very bad for our country,” Reid said in the new documentary “The Phenomenon” from director James Fox.
“Are you saying that there’s some evidence that still hasn’t seen the light of day?” asked Fox.

“I’m saying most of it hasn’t seen the light of day,” Reid replied.
The film examines the history of UFO sightings in the United States and abroad, including new details about the military-confirmed encounters off the coast involving U.S. Navy pilots. It also details a 1967 report in which an object appeared over a U.S. missile base at the same time 10 of the missiles became inoperative.
“If they had been called upon by the president to launch, they couldn’t have done it,” Reid said in the film.


Reid, who was among the lawmakers behind a classified but since-closed U.S. government UFO program, has become increasingly outspoken about the phenomena since leaving office. However, he stopped short of confirming evidence of other-worldly activity, writing in August on Twitter that he wants the issue studied and that “we must stick to science, not fairy tales about little green men.”

He repeated that point of view in the new film.
“Nobody has to agree why it’s there. But should we at least be spending some money to study all these phenomenon?” he asked. “The answer is ‘yes.’”
UFO expert Lee Speigel, a former HuffPost reporter, served as a co-writer and co-producer on the film, which he said took seven years to come to fruition.
“Whether you’re a UFO ‘believer’ or debunker, those in-between or still undecided, it’s important to present accurate information that potentially affects the national security of all nations and the safety of all citizens of our planet,” Spiegel said.
 

bulllee

Agent Provocateur

Paradox-Free Time Travel Is Theoretically Possible, Researchers Say​

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September 27, 20208:44 PM ET
Matthew S. Schwartz 2018 square
MATTHEW S. SCHWARTZ

Twitter
gettyimages-494078440-586ba8319b86be69c78fcae2a48c01fac5fe48da-s800-c85.jpg


A dog dressed as Marty McFly from Back to the Future attends the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade in 2015. New research says time travel might be possible without the problems McFly encountered.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
"The past is obdurate," Stephen King wrote in his book about a man who goes back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination. "It doesn't want to be changed."
Turns out, King might have been on to something.
Countless science fiction tales have explored the paradox of what would happen if you went back in time and did something in the past that endangered the future. Perhaps one of the most famous pop culture examples is in Back to the Future, when Marty McFly goes back in time and accidentally stops his parents from meeting, putting his own existence in jeopardy.
But maybe McFly wasn't in much danger after all. According a new paper from researchers at the University of Queensland, even if time travel were possible, the paradox couldn't actually exist.
Researchers ran the numbers and determined that even if you made a change in the past, the timeline would essentially self-correct, ensuring that whatever happened to send you back in time would still happen.
"Say you traveled in time in an attempt to stop COVID-19's patient zero from being exposed to the virus," University of Queensland scientist Fabio Costa told the university's news service.

"However, if you stopped that individual from becoming infected, that would eliminate the motivation for you to go back and stop the pandemic in the first place," said Costa, who co-authored the paper with honors undergraduate student Germain Tobar.
"This is a paradox — an inconsistency that often leads people to think that time travel cannot occur in our universe."
A variation is known as the "grandfather paradox" — in which a time traveler kills their own grandfather, in the process preventing the time traveler's birth.
The logical paradox has given researchers a headache, in part because according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, "closed timelike curves" are possible, theoretically allowing an observer to travel back in time and interact with their past self — potentially endangering their own existence.
But these researchers say that such a paradox wouldn't necessarily exist, because events would adjust themselves.
Take the coronavirus patient zero example. "You might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so, you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would," Tobar told the university's news service.
In other words, a time traveler could make changes, but the original outcome would still find a way to happen — maybe not the same way it happened in the first timeline but close enough so that the time traveler would still exist and would still be motivated to go back in time.
"No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you," Tobar said.
The paper, "Reversible dynamics with closed time-like curves and freedom of choice," was published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Classical and Quantum Gravity. The findings seem consistent with another time travel study published this summer in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters. That study found that changes made in the past won't drastically alter the future.
Bestselling science fiction author Blake Crouch, who has written extensively about time travel, said the new study seems to support what certain time travel tropes have posited all along.
"The universe is deterministic and attempts to alter Past Event X are destined to be the forces which bring Past Event X into being," Crouch told NPR via email. "So the future can affect the past. Or maybe time is just an illusion. But I guess it's cool that the math checks out."
 
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*This is not posted to make any political statement. I found the psychological component of polling highly interesting.

 
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