Rerun

This is something I wrote about ten years ago:  

Germs that kill you aren’t usually very successful.

They get a lot of attention.  They motivate people to avoid them.  Pretty sure you’ve heard of Ebola.

Over time they also kill off all the susceptible people and leave the ones who are immune.  Burn themselves out.

 

Really successful microbes don’t kill you.  You don’t even know they’re there.

They're insidious.

Either they're imperceptible, or intermittent, or the symptoms are variable. 

So you don't ever notice that you're infected.

For that reason, some of them are now ubiquitous.

Everyone has them. Everyone has them all over.

There are many organisms that live within us and are known to cause long term complications.  Many of them are also found in people with those chronic illnesses.   The problem is- the correlation between them is often not at a statistically significant level. Since there are often many ways to get the same effect, most medical studies are flawed.  

The statistical requirements to prove validity assume a minimum threshold of relevance.

Experiments generally assume a one to one relationship between factors.  Unless they are specifically designed for an interaction-  they do not detect multiple causes. If x or y cause z, and you're only testing for x, well you're half right, but your results will not register statistically.

Similarly if x and y together cause z, your results will show no correlation.

Conversely, this is also true if your illness has multiple or variable effects.  If you are only looking for a subset of the possibilities, your experiment will not show a relationship.

Likewise, they do not account for less than threshold activity.    If your illness is extremely mild or intermittent, it will never be statistically relevant in a study.   They just won't even see it.

Update:

P. gingivalis fits all these criteria.    It masks itself by altering the immune response and reducing pain- making people think it's harmless.  It has many different reservoir locations.  It combines with other microbes to create many different effects.     It alternates between acute and chronic symptoms...that is why it is everywhere.

It is also why my brain sounded like a casino when I read the PG review article.   It rang all my bells at once.   At 2am… 

Change of Plans

I became a widow today.

All my synapses are breaking.

I will not be doing research for a while.

Keep up the good fight for me.   Thanks.

Meanwhile, in reality

Our cells carry their own sexual identity. That's science, not ideology

This is the topic I want to write about next.  Sex differences in immune response.    There are distinct differences in the neurological responses to infection.

I'm really busy right now, though, this is a pretty good article on general sexual dimorphism.  

Happy Zombie Day

 No dentist. Bread and Wine. Obesessive. Itinerant.  Lack of impulse control.  Public outburst.  Arrest.  

State of the Insanity

Video shows doctor with measles treating kids. RFK Jr later praised him as an ‘extraordinary’ healer

Yes, well the goddess Nemesis will not ignore such hubris.

That doctor has now lost any immunity he had to any other infection.  We'll see which microbe wins...

Wilkommen

I think I have some German narcoleptics in the audience...

I would like that.   After they can think again, they will be unstoppable.

They will figure out if eradicating PG makes it possible to drink beer safely... LOL.

Just sayin'

Contagious Brain Infection.   It's the best explanation.

See the spectrum

10-year-old girl set to graduate from college: ‘I just enjoy learning’

Easily trainable children.  Sounds familiar.   

I met a lot of people like this in library school.   We were all weird as adults.  Barely able to deal with eachother, much less the real world.

Yeah

Another twenty year old man with rotten teeth.   

Not weird?

Elon Musk’s Alleged Attempts to Impregnate X Influencers — ‘To Reach Legion Level Before the Next Apocalypse’

Impulse Control Problems

This white haired old lady has been flipping off hothead motherfuckers all over town...

Interesting

Somebody found this back in my archives-

Narcolepsy and odor: preliminary report

Sweat samples from narcoleptic and healthy controls were tested independently by two trained dogs and their positive or negative detection compared to the gold standard diagnosis for narcolepsy. Neither trainer nor dog knew the source of the sample selected or its placement in the search device. Twelve narcoleptic patients, both sexes and various ages, recruited from April 2011 to June 2012 and diagnosed according to standard criteria, through their clinical records and nocturnal polysomnography plus multiple sleep latency test, made up the patient group. The control group was made up of 22 healthy volunteer without sleep disorders, both sexes and various ages. Sweat samples from both patients and controls were collected following the same protocol to avoid contamination, and tested independently by two trained dogs.

Results: Eleven narcoleptic were detected positive by the dogs while only three controls.

Now that we know that narcolepsy is caused by bacteria,  these results are even more interesting.   Bacteria have a very distinct odor profile.  

Those three positive controls were surely infected too. 

Somebody should see if Narcolepsy sensing dogs cross-detect Parkinson's people...  and vice versa.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

 

This is what he looked like when he was bragging about his medical exam.

Keeping up with the Habenulas

Fear of rejection influences how children conform to peers

Elon Musk Rage Quits Livestream After Being Cyberbullied by Gamers

White House moves Obama portrait to display painting of Trump during assassination attempt

Donald Trump Wants CBS Off-Air After New '60 Minutes'

Some light reading

Having a father with Alzheimer's disease may be tied to a greater spread of tau protein in the brain

Because they are both symptoms of herpes infection. Which is contagious...

Analysis of Molecular Aspects of Periodontitis as a Risk Factor for Neurodegenerative Diseases

Killer smile? An oral pathogen increases heart attack damage

Titanium microparticles prevalent in oral tissue around dental implants,

New Insights in Natural Bioactive Compounds for Periodontal Disease

Morganella morganii, an Emerging Cause of Bloodstream Infections

This one likes to cohabit with PG.  In your urethra...

Scientists discover major differences in how humans and AI 'think' — and the implications could be significant

Researchers develop nasal spray for H5N1 avian influenza vaccine

Study in hospitals study finds C. diff spreads three times more than thought

Newborns treated with antibiotics respond less well to vaccines, study shows

Insomniac fruit fly mutants show enhanced memory despite severe sleep loss

Surveillance study spots long-term rise in invasive group A strep infections among children

Discovery reveals protein involved in Parkinson's disease also drives skin cancer

I have to research this.   I'm guessing it's related to fungus.

Fiber consumption protects gut from serious bacterial infection, study suggests

Certain nasal bacteria may boost the risk for COVID-19 infection, study finds

Does anyone know if PG can metabolize isopropyl alcohol? I haven't been able to find that info.   I have a hunch putting alcohol on wounds is a bad idea...

Hey my peeps

Effort/reward imbalance and comorbidities burden academic and professional careers of patients with narcolepsy type 1

Excellent documentation of the obvious.  LOL.

Just Sayin'

"Donald Trump has never been flexible in his entire life. Like his father before him, he is utterly inflexible and he has constructed his life in order never to have to bend to anybody else’s will. He never changes course because changing course means having to admit he’s wrong, which he is constitutionally incapable of doing."

Mary Trump

Those are the  symptoms of reactive astrocytes and a hyperactive habenula...

A prophet of our times

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein 

In this strategy, political actors exploit the chaos of natural disasters, wars, and other crises to push through unpopular policies such as deregulation and privatization. This economic "shock therapy" favors corporate interests while disadvantaging and disenfranchising citizens when they are too distracted and overwhelmed to respond or resist effectively. 

This is not a mystery.

AS I WAS SAYING...

Cross-disciplinary research reveals oral microbiota as promising screen for autism spectrum disorder

Flagrant Market Manipulation

Plausible deniability is the preferred weapon of sociopaths.

But Why?

'Boys will be boys,' says the WH press secretary about Elon's tantrum.  

Very Dangerous Delusions

Trump administration is having early talks to hold a military parade in nation’s capital on June 14

June 14 is also Trump's 79th birthday.

So many things

Truth is stranger

 The fungal zombies in HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ are based on real, horrifying biology

I don't watch much serial tv.   I can't waste brain space on the shenanigans of fictional characters. I didn't realize this was that...

But I've been thinking about those ants since the study came out too.   And I don't see much difference in human behavior.   There's clearly a subset of the population with impulse control problems and steady progression into passive or aggressive zombipathy.

If we grew stalks on our heads, someone definitely would have figured it out by now... I was sure it had to be invisible and painless, and preferably enjoyable.  (I knew it was everywhere, but didn't know it caused everything...)

Funny thing though.... it does create head tumors and sex obsession.   

But those have always been attributed to other things.  By the zombies themselves.

Wish this was my sign...

yeah...