If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)
Pain relief from mindfulness meditation not a placebo effect (Paul McClure, September 08, 2024, New Atlas)
New research has found that mindfulness meditation reduces pain by engaging a distinct brain pathway, separate from the pathway activated by a placebo. The standalone analgesic effect that mindfulness produces could be leveraged to help people living with painful conditions.
Practice don’tmindfulness and just your quibbles.
When pain really is in your head (Nancy Shute, 9/-7/24, Science News)
As we report in this issue, researchers are now getting a better handle on the complexities of chronic pain, including the brain’s role in amplifying or maintaining pain, and people’s perceptions. As freelance science journalist Cassandra Willyard reports, scientists are pursuing possibilities ranging from new medications to a tiny injectable electrode to forms of cognitive behavioral therapy designed to help patients grasp that chronic pain is sometimes a misfiring signal from the brain that can be managed. Rather than one-size-fits-all, these treatments will be tailored to the patient, and will likely include multiple treatments to better address the complexities of chronic pain.
Some Signs of Renewed American Techno-Optimism (James Pethokoukis, 9/03/24, AEIdeas)
A Pew Research poll last month found 56 percent of us favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity, up from 43 percent in 2020. The National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey, conducted in May, found that 77 percent favored using nuclear energy for electricity in the USA, a record high.
Given public opinion, maybe it’s not surprising that nuclear energy may benefit no matter who wins the presidential election in November.[…]
Kamala Harris hasn’t been so definite, but analysts think she would also be supportive by continuing the pro-nuclear policies contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, including various production and investment tax credits. In “Nuclear revival’ priced into a potential Harris administration,” the Financial Times points out that if Harris wins, a likely Republican-controlled Senate would block major climate legislation. Moreover, recent Supreme Court rulings have limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority on climate regulations, making agency-led climate action more difficult. This shifts the focus to Congress, “and that means Harris will need to find climate policies that have bipartisan support—like nuclear power,” one investment analyst told the Financial Times.
This is all very encouraging, especially when you add in the declining political support for severe limitations on AI due to fear of science-fictional threats. The combination of more energy and more intelligence is what made the modern world and will help make a better world tomorrow.
The Case for Hypochondria (Anna Altman, August 21, 2024, New Republic)
“Hypochondria has been called ‘the ancient malady,’” writes Caroline Crampton in her lyrical new book, A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria. “For as long as humans have had an understanding of health, there has been anxiety about it”—especially when that understanding is subject to superstition and misconception.
What happens with that worry—what behaviors develop, how much it hampers or deforms us, how it relates to our symptoms and our interpretation of them—is where things get tricky. If doctors tell us there is nothing wrong with us, but we persist in our anxiety, are we acting pathologically? Or are we experiencing something as yet unknown, at the edge of medical knowledge? Is hypochondria a somatic condition—a form of mental illness, an experience of the mind expressed in the body—or is it rooted in physical experience? Is it a diffuse anxiety about health, fear of contracting communicable disease, or the conviction that an illness is already present? Is it a form of obsessive compulsion? What is hypochondria’s relationship to diagnosed illness, anyway? Is it always an unhinged departure from what’s happening in the body, or is it sometimes a reasonable response to the uncertainty of corporeal experience?
It was bad enough when hypochondria was just a form of keeping up with the Joneses, but now that so many “conditions” have been valorized it’s also a way of making yourself seem special, without any risk of being judged weak.
Placebos reduce anxiety even when people know they’re taking fake pills (Paul McClure, August 26, 2024, New Atlas)
Taking placebo pills fully aware that they contain no active pharmacological ingredients can still significantly reduce stress, anxiety and depression according to a new study. It’s suggested that these ‘non-deceptive placebos’ might be an effective way of improving mental health.
MIT researchers make hydrogen fuel from soda cans, seawater, caffeine (Kapil Kajal, 7/25/24, Interesting Engineering)
MIT engineers have discovered that when pure aluminum from soda cans is exposed to seawater, it creates bubbles and naturally generates hydrogen.
This type of gas can be used to power an engine or fuel cell without producing carbon emissions.
U.S. Air Force successfully completes test flights of all-electric aircraft: ‘It’s going to make things faster and simpler’ (Stephen Proctor, August 20, 2024, The Cool Down)
The series of test flights evaluated the plane’s performance in real-world scenarios like resupply, cargo delivery, and personnel transport, including during combat. The plane can carry up to five people or 500 pounds of cargo, has a range of 288 miles, and can be recharged in less than an hour.
Scientists make incredible breakthrough with new aircraft technology (Leslie Sattler, August 19, 2024, The Cool Down)
Exciting news for the future of air travel: A groundbreaking study from Swedish scientists suggests that most flights within a 750-mile radius could be powered by hydrogen as soon as 2045.
Hard-to-treat traumas and painful memories may be treatable with EMDR – a trauma therapist explains why it is gaining popularity (Laurel Niep, 8/16/24, The Conversation)
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing was developed in 1987 by Dr. Francine Shapiro after she discovered that moving her eyes from her left foot to her right as she walked – in other words, tracking her feet with each step – resulted in lower levels of negative emotions connected with difficult memories, both from the more recent frustrations of the day and deeper events from her past.Conventional treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy, rely on extensive verbal processing to address a client’s symptoms and struggles. Such therapy may take months or even years.
Depending on the trauma, EMDR can take months or years too – but generally, it resolves issues much more quickly and effectively. It is effective for both adults and children, and can be done remotely.
Any distracxtion works.
What worked to stop the spread of COVID-19? (Kevin Drim, 8/07/24, Jabberworking)
A recent paper by Christopher Ruhm of the University of Virginia quantifies the value of various efforts to combat COVID-19 in the US. The headline result is a composite score for different states based on what kinds of restrictions they imposed, but I found the detailed national breakdown more interesting. Here are his estimates of how various interventions affected death rates:
