Week of June 30, 2025
A few weeks ago, on a flight from Maryland to California, I (again) assisted a fellow passenger experiencing a medical emergency. The feeling of rapid role shift is strange - one minute, I am a balding middle-aged guy emailing on a laptop, and a moment later, I am deciding whether 200 people will be landing somewhere other than the intended destination. To be sure, in-flight medicine evokes equal parts excitement and anxiety -- the "medical-trained volunteer" is making predictive decisions with incomplete information, incurs some degree of medical-legal risk, and juggles the concerns of family, flight crew, and the airline's radio-based on-call doctor all while working in a resource-limited situation (though in-flight medical kits are better than they used to be). Fortunately, my passenger-patient did well with some Pringles, soda, and oxygen (and the flight ended at the expected destination). However, the event served as a good reminder of how much of life demands action with only partial information, numerous distractions, and significant bias.
P.S. I do not routinely recommend therapeutic potato chips.
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Listen to a Google Notebook LM A.I.-generated podcast of the newsletter with two virtual "hosts."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dS0R-i2_THgDLUe6Exl6wsh4BTzHmFHC/view
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Science and Technology Trends
"Surgeons [at Baylor College of Medicine] have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S., using advanced robotic tools to avoid opening the chest. This technique involved precise incisions and accessing the heart through the preperitoneal space, preserving the chest wall."
https://neurosciencenews.com/robotic-heart-transplant-29354/
and
https://x.com/tallmetommy/status/1938225923247018201
More data on the benefits of using GLP1s (like Ozempic and Monjouro) - researchers tracked data from more than 55,000 patients with narrowing of the leg arteries (peripheral artery disease or PAD) who started taking GLP-1s and more than 55,000 PAD patients who did not. After one year, the group taking GLP-1s had significantly lower rates of cardiovascular limb ischemia events and hospitalization rates.
https://cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/clinical/interventional-cardiology/peripheral-artery-disease/popular-obesity-drugs-limit-amputations-heart-issues-among-patients-peripheral-artery-disease
Here is some summary data on studies looking at GLP1s:
https://www.openevidence.com/ask/5ceebc94-6ba1-4307-a0a7-4184faebb5b9
Anti-Anti-Science Articles of Note
Jess Steier (PhD Epidemiologist) shared analysis of the most recent meeting of the CDC's newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Recall that our Secretary of Health and Human Services recently dismissed all seventeen committee members. His newly chosen members include a broader array of medical professionals (some with little to no experience in vaccine development, oversight, and data).
https://theunbiasedscipod.substack.com/p/acips-first-meeting-core-takeaways
and
Background from the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/06/rfk-acip-american-vaccine-policy/683364/
Some details worth exploring include that multi-dose vaccine vials sometimes contain Thimerosal (the preservative to maintain sterility). Single-dose vaccines (which include most vaccines these days, including childhood vaccines) do not contain Thimerosal. (The multi-dose flu vaccine may be the last most common thimerosal-containing vaccine.) Thimerosal, when introduced into the body, breaks down into ethylmercury (not methylmercury, which is far more toxic). For reference, "if a child receives a thimerosal-preserved vaccine, they might get ~25 micrograms of ethylmercury. A tuna sandwich? ~50 micrograms of methylmercury—twice as much, and far more harmful." Despite numerous large-scale studies, there is NO (as in none) data to suggest Thimerosal is associated with any adverse outcomes or ill effects.
Review:
https://x.com/IntegralAnswers/status/1938578386093580720
The American Academy of Pediatrics has good information on Thimerosal:
https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/fact-checked/fact-checked-vaccines-do-not-contain-fetal-cells-thimerosal
Studies looking at Thimerosal:
https://www.openevidence.com/ask/b1fa22d4-1286-4f52-b2b7-609759301a83
Learn about the difference between ethyl- and methylmercury:
https://www.openevidence.com/ask/9bda6a84-89ff-403b-bf97-53d4238df608
Wired looks at the byproduct of the anti-science movement. "Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever: Inside a Biohacking Conference Emboldened by MAHA - [where biohacking combines] Silicon Valley technology, Burning Man spirituality, and health libertarianism." I don't fault people for wanting to be healthy. However, spending money on unproven and unregulated therapies, as well as cherry-picking (or selectively ignoring) data, is problematic. Thanks to this article, I learned the word "technodelics, which combines sensory technologies such as vibroacoustic technology, white and colored light technology, and aroma technology to enhance brain neuroplasticity, positively changing how the brain processes information." Of course, the $ 3,995 (plus a $250 delivery fee) PureWave vibroacoustic electromagnetic infrared biosynchonizer bed can provide all these benefits. (This is a real thing.)
https://www.wired.com/story/biohackers-want-unorthodox-treatments-to-live-forever-maha-is-emboldening-them/
and
https://sagespacetechnologies.com/products/sensory-lounge
Living with A.I.
Two articles from the Anthropic blog this week:
Anthropic staff used a Claude instance to manage an in-office vending machine business. Anthropic employees interacted with it, often trying to get it to offer discounts, order odd items (like tungsten metal cubes), and induce some weird existential crises. The instance (they named Claudius) did some things well but failed to run a profitable business. The article is fun, engaging, and an excellent read on the current practical realities of LLMs.
dhttps://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1
In response to the NY Times article from last week (which looked at individuals who developed deeply emotional relationships with ChatGPT), the Anthropic team examined anonymized Claude data, determining that (at least) Claude is infrequently used for "affective" conversation. Nevertheless, Anthropics' analysis of the various types of emotional support and counseling conversations users have with Claude is fascinating. An out-of-the-box commercial LLM is a surprisingly (somewhat) capable tool for humans seeking an outlet for career guidance and exploring complex emotions.
https://www.anthropic.com/news/how-people-use-claude-for-support-advice-and-companionship
Infographics
I love the notion of a meta-analysis of the best movie of all time. However, one cannot simply average across various website scores. Who were the respondents at each website? Were there duplicates? What is the weighting of critics vs. consumers? When were responses gathered? Either way, it is a fun list.
https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1hck7kn/a_cool_guide_to_the_best_movies_of_all_time/#lightbox
I asked ChatGPT to compile a similar list but calculate the average weighted toward consumer-reported scores vs. critic-reported scores. The Godfather still wins.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ODq6_EjqJJQ_1i93uo2t8D_xTAAYHbXU/view
Things I learned this week
My favorite confusing headline of the week: "Shockingly large extinct possum uncovered in Texas - Since everything is bigger in Texas, this is perhaps not surprising." The possum, it turns out, is a fossil of a 60-million-year-old distant (albeit large) precursor to modern possums found in what is now Texas. I doubt the fossil "remembers the Alamo."
https://www.popsci.com/environment/big-possum-texas-extinct/
Everything about this article screams, "Put me in the newsletter, Adam." Tartagrades, check. Nanoscale tattooing techniques using ice and electron beams, check. Envisioning how an LLM will interpret this as an image, check. "After putting the animals into a frozen state of suspended animation, the team could 'tattoo' various micropatterns onto the tardigrades, including dots (above), lines, and the University logo. [...] Once refined, the technique could allow scientists to print onto living tissue at the nanoscale, the team writes."
https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-tardigrade-tattoos-could-portend-new-era-biomedicine
A.I. art of the week
(A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter, using ChatGPT to summarize the newsletter, suggest prompts, and make the images.)
"Create an 80s glam metal album cover for a fictional band called Tardigrade Messiah. The scene features three big-haired rock band members in leather jackets and studded accessories inside a surreal laboratory breakroom. One is angrily interacting with a futuristic vending machine labeled 'Claude' that dispenses snacks and cryptic advice. Another examines a glowing tardigrade under a microscope, while the third gestures dramatically at the machine. The vending machine screen reads: 'SNACK. REFLECT. TATTOO A TARDIGRADE.' In a glass tank below, a giant glowing tardigrade with a tiny tattoo floats. Bold metallic text at the top says 'TARDIGRADE MESSIAH'; at the bottom, the album title in red and yellow block letters: 'SNACKS AND TATTOOS'. The room includes a motivational poster that reads 'Optimize Your Microbes' with a check mark. Use neon lighting, bold shadows, saturated colors, and 1980s rock album visual style."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pshkOQ_u-4MSzpNu1W275_FaPycpAC1o/view
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Last week, wastewater data indicated a rise in COVID rates to 1 in 167 Americans.
The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) website utilizes wastewater levels to forecast four-week predictions of COVID-19 rates.
https://pmc19.com/data/
based upon https://biobot.io/data/
https://x.com/covid19_disease/status/1938742627970752624
Wastewater Scan offers a multi-organism wastewater dashboard with an excellent visual display of individual treatment plant-level data.
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
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Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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