The Global Fertility Crash
November 1st, 2019There’s a fascinating interactive chart at the link.
Via: Bloomberg:
At least two children per woman—that’s what’s needed to ensure a stable population from generation to generation. In the 1960s, the fertility rate was five live births per woman. By 2017 it had fallen to 2.43, close to that critical threshold.
Researchers Are Working on Ways to Make Intolerable Memories Bearable
November 1st, 2019Via: National Post:
The 60 souls that signed on for Dr. Alain Brunet’s memory manipulation study were united by something they would rather not remember. The trauma of betrayal.
For some, it was infidelity and for others, a brutal, unanticipated abandonment. “It was like, ‘I’m leaving you. Goodbye,” the McGill University associate professor of psychiatry says.
In cold, clinical terms, his patients were suffering from an “adjustment disorder” due to the termination (not of their choosing) of a romantic relationship. The goal of Brunet and other researchers is to help people like this — the scorned, the betrayed, the traumatized — lose their total recall. To deliberately forget.
Over four to six sessions, volunteers read aloud from a typed script they had composed themselves — a first-person account of their breakup, with as many emotional details as possible — while under the influence of propranolol, a common and inexpensive blood pressure pill. The idea was to purposely reactivate the memory and bring the experience and the stinging emotions it aroused to life again. “How did you feel about that?” they were asked. How do you feel right now? And, most importantly: Has your memory changed since last week?
The investigators had hypothesized that four to six sessions of memory reactivation under propranolol would be sufficient to dramatically blunt the memories associated with their “attachment injury.” Decrease the strength of the memory, Brunet says, and you decrease the strength of the pain.
The study is now complete, and Brunet is hesitant to discuss the results, which have been submitted to a journal for peer review and publication. However, the participants “just couldn’t believe that we could do so much in such a small amount of time,” he confides.
“They were able to turn the page. That’s what they would tell us — ‘I feel like I’ve turned the page. I’m no longer obsessed by this person, or this relationship.’”
Brunet insists he isn’t interested in deleting or scrubbing painful memories out entirely. The idea of memory erasure, of finding the cellular imprint of a specific, discreet memory in the brain, of isolating and inactivating the brain cells behind that memory, unnerves him. ‘It’s not going to come from my lab,” he says, although others are certainly working on it.
Police Owe Nothing To Man Whose Home They Blew Up
October 31st, 2019Via: NPR:
An armed shoplifting suspect in Colorado barricaded himself in a stranger’s suburban Denver home in June 2015. In an attempt to force the suspect out, law enforcement blew up walls with explosives, fired tear gas and drove a military-style armored vehicle through the property’s doors.
After an hours-long siege, the home was left with shredded walls and blown-out windows. In some parts of the interior, the wood framing was exposed amid a mountain of debris.
A federal appeals court in Denver ruled this week that the homeowner, who had no connection to the suspect, isn’t entitled to be compensated, because the police were acting to preserve the safety of the public.
“Under no circumstances in this country should the government be able to blow up your house and render a family homeless,” Leo Lech, the house’s owner, told NPR. “This family was thrown out into the street without any recourse.”
The Military Has Been Researching “Anti-Gravity” For Nearly 70 Years
October 31st, 2019Via: The Drive:
Decades-old questions about the potential existence of fantastical anti-gravity propulsion technologies have resurfaced following the Navy’s own disclosure of encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena and our own original reporting on a series of bizarre patents assigned to the U.S. Navy that seem to defy our current understanding of physics and aerospace propulsion. While the discussion continues over whether any such technologies are feasible, the truth is that the theoretical concepts behind them are anything but new. In fact, the U.S. military and the federal government have been formally researching these radical concepts since the 1950s, and according to our own research, those efforts have continued on to this very day.
In our dive into what seems like something of a bottomless rabbit hole of government studies into this exotic scientific realm, we have collected a body of research, news reports, and firsthand accounts. These establish the fact that the types of “anti-gravity”, propellantless propulsion, and mass reduction technologies described in the Navy’s recent “UFO” patents are at least based on more than 60 years of peer-reviewed research conducted and published by the likes of the American Institute of Physics, NASA, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Piper Announces First General Aviation Aircraft to be Standard Equipped with Autoland Capability
October 31st, 2019Via: Piper – Press Release:
The Halo system, once engaged either automatically or by a passenger, gains immediate situational awareness and assumes control of all systems necessary to bring you and your passengers safely to the best suited runway. During all phases of flight it communicates with passengers and appropriate air traffic control facilities regarding the new flight plan route and estimated time until landing. Halo continually monitors all aircraft system parameters and real-time external inputs as if the pilot were at the controls. It takes into account runway size and orientation, wind, time, fuel range, glide path and considers weather conditions and terrain en route to the nearest suitable runway. Once Halo has landed the aircraft, the braking system will activate and will bring the aircraft to a full and complete stop. Finally, the engine will shut down and instructions will be provided on how to exit the aircraft.
NYC Exports Homeless People To Over 350 Cities
October 29th, 2019Via: New York Post:
New York City generously shares its homeless crisis with every corner of America.
From the tropical shores of Honolulu and Puerto Rico, to the badlands of Utah and backwaters of Louisiana, the Big Apple has sent local homeless families to 373 cities across the country with a full year of rent in their pockets as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Special One-Time Assistance Program.” Usually, the receiving city knows nothing about it.
First-Ever Look Inside Epstein’s Private Island
October 29th, 2019Via: We Are Change and The Dollar Vigilante:
Scientists Find Chronic Brain Inflammation in Children with Autism
October 28th, 2019Via: The Vaccine Reaction:
A recent small study out of Tufts University Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts has concluded that, “inflammation may be the main driver behind autism.”? As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers compared the brains of 16 deceased male, Caucasian children between the ages of three and 14. Eight of the children had autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and eight did not. The study determined that the children with ASD all had increased levels of Interleukin-18 (IL-18), a protein known to trigger a severe inflammatory response.
The areas of the brain most prominently affected were the amygdala, responsible for processing emotions such as fear, anger, and pleasure;? and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is plays a role in a number of cognitive functions of the brain including memory maintenance, attention, behavior modification, and evaluation of rewards. Damage to this area of the brain can result in deficits in social cognition, impulse control and multi-sensory integration.?
U.S. Winter-Wheat Acres Set to Drop to Lowest in 110 Years
October 28th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
America’s bread basket looks like it’s going gluten free: Dogged by lower prices and tepid demand, U.S. wheat farmers are poised to plant the fewest acres of winter varieties in 110 years.
That’s according to a Bloomberg survey. Analysts are predicting another year of declines for acreage as U.S. producers face stiff competition from global rivals gathering bumper crops. World supplies are so plentiful that futures for hard red winter wheat are down about 15% in 2019, one of the worst performances for commodities this year.
FBI Releases Heavily Redacted Document About the “Finders” Child Abuse Network
October 28th, 2019Via: FBI:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has requested the FBI conduct a preliminary inquiry into allegations made by [redacted] concerning child sexual abuse by a group known as the “Finders,” and what role, if any, was played by the United States Intelligence Community.
