Week of 10-6-25
Over the last few years, on the afternoon of Yom Kippur (the Jewish holiday focused on atonement and renewal - including prayers asking, "who will be written in the book of life, this year?"), I put up our only Halloween decoration - Skelley, our 12-foot Home Depot skeleton. With the kids in college, I now undertake this ritual on my own. I am sure my efforts amused any observing neighbors ("Why is Adam holding a giant plastic pelvis while standing on a ladder?"). However, I focus on the very literal symbolism of the whole affair. On a day Jews devote to reflection, forgiveness and improvement in the context of our finite time on earth, I awkwardly wrestle with a giant skeleton marking a pagan holiday.
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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/1veLY8GG-uReUIH2hrpKNasO-BkfqyX2x/view
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Science and Technology Trends
As part of my ongoing "gather clinical data on coffee" hobby, I offer a discussion and article on how roasting affects the concentration of chlorogenic acids (CGAs), plant compounds (found in coffee) that help regulate blood sugar, protect blood vessels, and act as antioxidants.
https://x.com/drwilliamwallac/status/1972330465009746395?s=42
While I do not advocate CGA consumption for medicinal purposes (I mostly want to [Feed? Drink?] my confirmation bias that coffee is not harmful), some interesting articles review the wide range of CGA's ASSOCIATED health benefits.
"This 2022 review article establishes evidence-based intake guidance for chlorogenic acid (CGA), a phenolic compound widely present in plant foods with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and metabolic benefits. Based on meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, daily CGA intake of 13.5-1200 mg can reduce fasting blood glucose, improve glucose tolerance, facilitate weight management, and lower blood pressure in hypertensive individuals, with optimal effects observed at doses ≥200 mg/d showing a dose-response relationship. "
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36576278/
AI Summary:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/b130c536-520d-4b58-98ec-87fd6bde01bd
While somewhat dense, I found this fascinating neuroscience article exploring current hypotheses on the mechanisms and purposes of sleep. "The authors propose that the human brain's sleep control is distributed throughout motor-control networks rather than a single 'sleep center,' challenging traditional models. The authors advance a 'catecholamine hypothesis' suggesting that inactivation of dopamine, noradrenaline, and adrenaline during sleep underlies its diverse benefits for brain function, immunity, and metabolism. Through the synthesis of whole-brain screening studies, they argue that these two frameworks unify disparate experimental findings in sleep neuroscience." What is worth paying attention to is how the authors use varying degrees of evidence to weave a unified theory that still requires further research.
AI Summary:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/fb380ec1-5bea-4219-883e-dfb331768a38
X Summary:
https://x.com/keithsakata/status/1972327550920864031
Original Article:
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(25)00623-3
Anti-Science Articles of Note
Science journals occasionally retract articles. I found an example this week: The BMJ group recently "pulled a widely reported apple cider vinegar weight-loss study after experts uncovered major flaws in its data and analysis. Attempts to replicate the results failed, and irregularities raised questions about the trial's reliability. The authors admitted mistakes and agreed to the retraction, while editors stressed the importance of transparency and warned against citing the discredited findings."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251001092216.htm
Bad science, however, can also be persistent and often serves as ammunition for agenda-driven reporting. Last week, a widely reported Korean study claimed to find that recipients of the mRNA COVID vaccines were at higher risk of developing six types of cancer. One article uncritically reviewed the study, stating, "Second Massive Population Study Finds COVID-19 'Vaccines' Increase Risk of 6 Major Cancers." The editorialization begins with the headline (the authors enclosed the word vaccine in quotes) and continues with a review of the research, infused with a subtext of righteous indignation against
https://www.todayville.com/second-massive-population-study-finds-covid-19-vaccines-increase-risk-of-6-major-cancers/
Several bloggers and other more rigorous science writers were able to identify a litany of fallacies in the article, including (but not limited to) the retrospective observational design, short follow-up period, lack of mechanistic data, potential detection bias (meaning people who get vaccines are more likely to engage with healthcare), missing confounders, immortal time bias, and the absence of a plausible dose-response relationship (the cancers appeared nearly instantaneously after the vaccine injections).
A review of the article:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/9cd40698-6439-4b0f-9c45-b6a2675ffa9f
A blog post from Science Based Medicine:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/another-study-misrepresented-as-evidence-covid-vaccines-cause-cancer/
An appropriately critical Med Page Today review of the article:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/117731
For those who want a multimedia review of the article, Dr. Noc's Instagram post is fantastic and entertaining:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPVNVU2jrjj/
The takeaway message is this: be cautious of retrospective analyses that claim to confirm well-established anti-science tropes.
Living with AI
OpenAI released Sora 2.0, a social media app that enables users and their friends to create short videos featuring their likenesses. The implications of an AI-driven TikTok alternative raise multiple concerns. OpenAI discussed their safety and oversight of Sora in a thoughtful (and perhaps aspirationally naive) blog post. Call me cynical, but using AI to "build connections" while "balancing safety and expression" is great until financial demands drive optimizing for dopamine-fueled eyeballs staring at the screen.
https://openai.com/index/sora-feed-philosophy/
Summary of this blog post:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/summarize-this-dFCnb83aRr.mmGinU9Hvlw#0
Perplexity released its Chrome-based Comet browser for the general public. I've used Comet for several weeks now. Having an agentic tool that can easily interact with web pages and web apps is (and I say this sincerely) life-changing.
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Learn how other people are using it;
https://x.com/godofprompt/status/1968309489817489549?s=61
Tech like this brings risks and rewards; I had ChatGPT list out the concerns of using an agentic browser:
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_68e26ee7edc88191bfc43484c5e06d66
Infographics
The Visual Capitalist asked, "How many gold bars does it take to buy a house in each state?" They did not consider pricing in an economic environment that necessitated using gold bars to buy a house (instead of a traditional financing system).
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-many-gold-bars-does-it-take-to-buy-a-home/
Things I learned this week
My favorite inadvertent, inappropriate headline of the week: "It's Tarantula mating season. Here's the best place to watch." No comment on whether a credit card is required. Spoiler alert - Colorado is, apparently, the best place to see hairy spider sex.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/tarantulas-spider-festival-colorado
Why? "The world is full of quirky subcultures of collectors. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a more courageous group than the people who covet—and eat—old military rations. Some enthusiasts dine on decades-old beef stew, while others swallow mouthfuls of ham from the Gulf War."
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/military-rations-mre-collectors-1b03e3fd?st=BwKFLw&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Why am I paying for college for my kids when careers like "professional baby naming" exist (for $30K a baby?!!?)? Where there is a market, there is always room for a discount brand. I will be opening Dr. Adam's Budget Baby Naming Service, post-haste. I am feeling a resurgence of both Victorian and Pre-Roman Britain-infused names as obvious inspiration: Deliverance, Godsend, Hollybranch, Icephemia, Aneurin, Caratacus, Boudicca, Enid, and Arc'hantael will be on sale next week
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/meet-san-francisco-woman-charges-110022305.html?guccounter=1
AI art of the week
A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter.
I use ChatGPT to summarize the newsletter, suggest prompts, and make the images.
"A LEGO-style diorama combining three scenes: (1) a LEGO minifigure of Adam, wearing a yarmulke, climbing a yellow ladder to assemble a giant 12-foot LEGO skeleton in front of a suburban house with autumn leaves and bemused LEGO neighbors; (2) a cozy LEGO coffee science lab with minifigures in lab coats testing glowing brown coffee beans labeled 'CGA Levels' under microscopes, half café, half laboratory; and (3) a quirky LEGO carnival in the background with booths selling ancient military rations and a 'Budget Baby Naming' stand offering scrolls labeled Deliverance, Boudicca, and Godsend, with a banner reading 'Quirk is the New Normal.' The whole scene blends humor, science, and reflection under a warm autumn twilight sky."
ChatGPT wins this week. Gemini seemed incapable of rendering anything approximating a LEGO. Grok was disappointing.
Perplexity:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lk9D9OMTzpsmqN34yUFMC9-3kwvCjsJy/view
Grok:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jv4e-92isCiAaRzZuAomDdGzI-1SJZgc/view
ChatGPT:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18EGoutSVZ4t12VdwdoedYCPuXLx1-FS5/view
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The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) utilizes wastewater viral RNA levels to forecast four-week predictions of COVID-19 rates.
Interesting comments about data collection during a government shutdown.
https://pmc19.com/data/
based upon https://biobot.io/data/
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
Relive all the thrills and excitement - The What Adam is Reading Archive
http://www.whatadamisreading.com/
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