Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Professor Dave Explains"
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@Fidel5555 I've always said, I'll stop learning maybe, just maybe three days after I'm dead. ;)
No reason to not study various things, as knowledge is power.
Back when I was in the Army (retired in 2010), I ran into not one, but two cases of pheochromocytoma. One was recognized late, the soldier was to begin treatment after field training, but expired from a ruptured AAA. The other, I pieced together what was going on, asked doctor to do me a favor and run a couple extra tests and there it was, he had pheochromocytoma. His problem was quickly addressed and he returned to duty. So, that trivia can and does save lives. Diagnosing things, just Boolean flow really.
I do Boolean algebra and regular expressions in my head as part of my job. :)
Annoyingly, basic math tends to give me trouble, but that's what calculators or if I had to, fall back to a slide rule is for.
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@Guidus125 indeed! We've yet to fully understand many neuromodulators and still occasionally discover new ones, so embryonic is indeed spot on.
Neurology is insanely complex, compared to something as simple as a thyroid gland!
A few years back, I had a somewhat condescending pharmacist, turned out she was that way with every patient. The "I know it all" attitude, lording that knowledge, rather than sharing it with those interested. When I filled my first prescriptions with her, I declined discussing the medications, as I'm intimately familiar with the drugs, their pharmacology and mechanism of action. Beta blocker, calcium channel inhibitor and a drug that inhibits thyroperoxidase. She even got to the point of trying a spot quiz.
Bad idea for her ego! She was far more respectful afterward.
But, that's grade school level, compared to neurochemistry!
When I see that a drug's mechanism of action being ill understood or not elucidated, I know that some soul out there will eventually find that understanding and make their mark upon science in indelible ink!
Just don't look my way to do that, totally not my field. I largely dealt with communicable disease, body and fender work on humans and the plumbing leaks in humans under military conditions. ;)
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I occasionally have fun with the chemtrail crowd. I'll start off and agree that there were chemtrails, then move forward to qualify that with U-2 additives to stabilize the literal charcoal lighter fluid fuel to keep it from boiling at altitude and move into the more serious additive in the SR-71 fuel, other than a similar additive for the same reason as the U-2's fuel, in a fuel you could put a road flare out in, it also had a cesium additive - to obscure the exhaust plume of a fairly stealthy aircraft, rather than having a gigantic proctologist's finger from hell pointing up the aircraft's ass end.
All quite true. It also royally pisses them off, as it's true, no nefarious nonsense is involved and I provide citations.
The climate denier crowd, I have fun with. After all, greenhouse gases are natural, CO2 is part of a plant's daytime respiration and well, CO2 made Venus the paradise it is today, assuming that molten lead temperatures is your idea of paradise.
Loads of electricity and magnetism in the sun, well, its upper layers and corona, anyway. Deeper in, way too hot for such silly things to work, too busy fusing or convecting. Neutron stars, especially young ones are magnetic madhouses, accretion discs a magnetic madhouse of their own, fortunately for the neighbors, the inverse square law rides in to save their day and night and especially weekends.
But, those strong, but range limited magnetic fields are handy for detection, they polarize electromagnetic energy going past them, providing a measurement tool for their strength.
For the magnetic gravity crowd, I offer a quality insulated sole set of boots and invite them to step off of a tall building and demonstrate flotation. No takers yet.
The most entertaining was an antivaxer who doxed me, then threatened graphically to invade my home, rape and kill my wife, then kill everyone else in the home, saving my death for last.
When I was done laughing, I patiently explained that invading my home was both foolhardy and suicidal, as it'd be unlikely that I'd be very conciliatory as to end matters swiftly with a firearm against an armed intruder, he'd instead learn precisely what I did in the Army, what vivisection was, after being immobilized by bludgeon, his demise would likely take 16 hours and before we began, would he kindly advise me as to how he wished his sparse remains disposed of, or should I simply dump them into a pig feeding trough?
Radio silence was observed ever since from that enterprising individual. I guess it was mission accomplished and I was utterly cowed or something.
Or saw the error of his ways. Don't know, don't care, but he at least did save me the trouble of having to resharpen my fighting knife.
Well, at least until the next time I was out gardening and it needed resharpening again. Unused tools are clutter, used tools require and deserve maintenance.
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Don't forget, HAARP belongs to the University of Alaska, so they're also saying that the state of Alaska is allegedly controlling tropical weather systems using their Harry Potter magical marital aid stick...
Well, maybe that's true and Alaska really is the master of the world, after all, they've got enough volcanoes that they could have a lair inside of one. And putting a lair inside of something that has more explosive power than all of the 2000+ nukes ever detonated is always both rewarded with survival and a smart idea, as proved by Saturday morning cartoons from the '70's. Lead, of course, by Professor Bumbler, obeying the Heisenberg Inanity Principle, being simultaneously incompetent and supremely omnipotent. And all while remaining souper seekrit, with tens of thousands of workers, all sworn to seekricy and magic-magic screw stick enforced by Harry Potter's wooden dildo.
And further guided with radar from sites so well documented as to render the notion of being a secret beyond absurd.
Pick a lane, I'd be happy if these dweebs could pick a frigging highway!
And ever so much, lead by information supposedly from some kiddie porn purveyor out of the Philippines, who somehow still holds a Q clearance, meaning he'd have knowledge of parts of how to build parts of a nuclear weapon, which gives all knowledge of all special operations operations worldwide, because the two are so intricately linked as to both be in continuous simultaneous usage. Yet oddly, nothing manages to glow in the dark. There is no power like the power of Sven. At least, not according to the mighty Arctic penguins.
With secure communications provided by the mercurochrome metronome, gently stirred using Harry Potter's magical fuck stick.
Sigh, I really don't drink enough, but alas, the local galactic group can't make enough ethanol to supply enough to drink... Obviously also a part of the Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens.
But, here's another souper seekrit, the seerit air shield code is 1-2-3-4-5. Now, excuse me while I change the code on my luggage.
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@strangereyes9594 I'm reminded of when it was suggested that the US patent office be closed, as new patents were down and "everything possible had already been invented" - back in the mid-1800's.
Innovations come in fits and starts, with lengthy pauses between. It's always been that way and likely to continue in that way.
And grants are a form of investment, which in and of themselves are cyclical, physics one decade, biology another, medicine yet another with some overlaps and outliers. Not a hell of a lot of novel physics of late, but I just recently learned of some promising antiinflammatory modulators that are showing promise in the treatment of Crohn's disease. Ran into that after being recently diagnosed with it and brushing up, as gastroenterology isn't exactly my bailiwick. I was more trauma, infectious disease and emergency OB/GYN stabilization in medicine, IT and electronics in my primary jobs and being a general "Shell Answer Man" the rest of the time.
I suspect that I've rather dated myself with that last bit...
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Huh, those "images" that claim to depict plasma they blather about reminds me of what I see through one eye when looking at a point source of light, such as a streetlight at night.
Guess I'd better get that cataract removed, looks like it's plenty ripe enough now. :/
Oh well, if I get a similar IOL to the other one, I'll be seeing into UV reasonably well with both eyes afterward. According to a biologist I discussed it with and demonstrated it to, likely fluorescing proteins downconvert the UV to something visible, which explains its lack of focus quite well.
Magnetic fields can effect electromagnetic radiation, as evidenced by polarization when light and microwaves pass through strong magnetic fields, such as around youngish neutron stars. That's pretty much it.
Cold plasma is a thing, but we're into Bose-Einstein kind of physics there, very special case and conditions that are difficult to achieve and maintain.
The rest is well documented and understood real plasma, finger incinerating hot and quite a good conductor of electric currents under some conditions of density. Gravity's something entirely else and fusion is very, very real.
Fleeing tyranny, a ragtag fugitive fleet seeks a shining planet called Dirt.
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Heroin is illegal in the US, but commonly prescribed for post-operative pain in the UK. Remember, this is international , not US centric and biochemistry and pharmacology is decidedly not any nation or continent centric.
But, addictive potential is a topic lousy with confounders. Opiates and opioids have aversion factors, such as triggering MAST cell responses, I'm lousy with histamine and feel miserable taking the infernal things. That aversion tends to limit the potential for addiction and that's only one example. Susceptibility is another, such as genetic predisposition, secondary to slightly different receptor configurations or even ion channel differences.
So, we look at mass numbers to determine addictive potential and far more are addicted to opioids than benzodiazepines and alcohol is outside of the scope of a discussion on pharmacology and addiction, as I've yet to see a recorded case of alcoholism secondary to a prescribed medical treatment!
But, I do agree that the DEA's drug schedule is bullshit, as it's largely via Congressional input, hence political in nature more than anything evidence based.
As for ethanol withdrawal, I've been known to pack away that dosage, then quit without sequelae and amazingly, my liver panels were normal. Not a clue how that worked out, but it has repeatedly for me, again, confounders like genetics and perhaps, my Grave's disease shifting my metabolism upward a bit might be what comes into play.
But therein lies a confounder of medicine in general, both pharmacological and in medical theory, individual idiosyncrasy. But then, that drives everyone to distraction... ;)
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