Week of November 3, 2025
My son's girlfriend's great uncle was my 9th-grade trigonometry teacher. However, Uncle Iver—I've affectionately rebranded him after 35 years of knowing him only as Mr. Mindel—doesn't remember me. Despite being an octogenarian, he remains sharp as ever. "He did say he had a lot of students each year," the girlfriend consolingly reported. Apparently, 15-year-old Adam wasn't as memorable as 50-year-old Adam had imagined. Retrospective ego-deflation is especially cruel.
*Learn about Jewish Geography - the tendency for Jewish people to find mutual connections when they meet. In my case, I asked, "What was your grandmother's maiden name and where did she grow up?" When the answers were "Mindel" and Baltimore, the pieces fell into place.
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2015/09/15/jewish-geography/
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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/1QsGFrhKqMcNN8NzOJu0Bd-CS6YGNF7bQ/view
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Science and Technology Trends
I will never not be amazed by this kind of thing: "Denise Bacon, 65, blew into the mouthpiece [of her clarinet] as doctors stood behind her, piercing holes into her skull to implant electrodes that would deliver electrical pulses to the brain in a bid to improve her motor skills. The electrodes were connected to a pulse generator — a device likened to a pacemaker — which sent continuous pulses to modify the brain, helping her manage her symptoms of Parkinson's disease."
Article: https://wapo.st/47aEjX2
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/6d81fcda-eed0-4fec-96cd-03274eb4d1d4
Related: Noland Arbaugh, the first recipient of a Neuralink computer-brain interface, is 21 months into his journey. His October 28th update on X is remarkable and well worth reading:
https://x.com/ModdedQuad/status/1983358114675257366
While this news is several months old, I only recently learned that my Ecovac robot vacuums, Dustin' and Dustin' Too, have a potential security vulnerability. "[In late 2024, Ecovacs] robot vacuums in multiple US cities were hacked, with the attacker physically controlling them, chasing pets, and yelling obscenities through their onboard speakers." Ecovacs is slowly patching the vulnerabilities, but the thought of hackers maliciously cleaning my house is amusing. I see a market for ad-supported, remote-controlled, foul-mouthed, judgmental cleaning robots. (Snoop Dogg could license his voice and speech patterns.) And, this is a good reminder of IoT safety.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-11/robot-vacuum-yells-racial-slurs-at-family-after-being-hacked/104445408
and
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/09/ecovacs-home-robots-can-be-hacked-to-spy-on-their-owners-researchers-say/
AI summary of available information:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/af7c36be-28ce-4677-a1a1-be3011e98ef7
Anti-Science Articles of Note
Science is all about nuance and trade-offs. A study in the journal Nature demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines can sensitize tumors to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) through systemic immune activation, significantly improving survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines within 100 days of ICI initiation.
Editorial
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/mrna-vaccines-and-immuno-oncology-good-news
AI Summary of the study
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/e39251e0-090a-4119-9ebb-6d935c3f6b1e
I found this X-post highlighting a fake journal article designed to highlight the confusion between correlation and causation - "Over 90% of autistic children consumed breast milk or formula milk."
Fake article
https://x.com/simonmaechling/status/1980905125330743801/photo/1
X discussion
https://x.com/simonmaechling/status/1980905125330743801
More fun correlations without causation. My favorite
is the clear correlation between people drowning in swimming pools and the number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in during that year.
https://www.datasciencecentral.com/spurious-correlations-15-examples/
Data from a recent Harvard study demonstrated that children born to women who contracted COVID-19 during pregnancy (between March 2020 and May 2021 - before vaccines were widely available) were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The study is a retrospective analysis that demonstrates an association rather than causation; however, the observed cohort was substantial, comprising nearly 19,000 live births. These data are not surprising. Many maternal infections during pregnancy can cause developmental and cognitive issues in children. What's notable here is twofold: first, these data suggest COVID-19 is one such infection, and second, the irony that we now have evidence of an actual association with autism while anti-science promoters continue pushing evidence-free theories about vaccines and Tylenol causing autism.
Press Release:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/10/covid-in-pregnancy-raises-childs-risk-for-developmental-disorders/
News on the journal article:
https://wapo.st/3LgMOXX
Link to the abstract (full article is behind a paywall):
https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/abstract/9900/neurodevelopmental_outcomes_of_3_year_old_children.1392.aspx
Dr. Jeremy Faust's blog documented his talk entitled, "Healthcare Under Fire: Navigating Institutional and Public Pressures in a Divided America," which he recently delivered at Norway's Institute of Public Health. He explored how U.S. public health agencies are coping with misinformation, politicization, and institutional attacks — and what lessons European colleagues can draw to prepare for similar threats. He emphasized the importance of building relationships between scientists, officials, and journalists before crises and creating clear policies to prevent sudden political disruptions to health agencies.
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/dispatch-from-oslo?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1183526&post_id=177092195&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eywiv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Living with AI
Japanese scientists analyzed protein structures from naturally adhesive marine organisms, such as barnacles and mussels, and then, using machine learning, designed three "superadhesive" hydrogel formulations that significantly outperform conventional underwater adhesives.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-designed-hydrogel-inspired-by-nature-creates-ultra-strong-underwater/
Dr. Eric Topol shared a meta-analysis of 15 studies (2023-2024) that demonstrated patients consistently rated AI chatbots (particularly ChatGPT-3.5/4) as more empathetic than human healthcare professionals in text-based interactions. Thirteen of 15 studies offered statistically significant advantages for AI, with only two dermatology studies favoring human responses. Though the studies were imperfect (for instance, they focused only on text-based interactions), the data highlight common assumptions about human clinicians' exclusive capacity for empathetic communication.
https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/156/1/ldaf017/8293249
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/33e5f447-380e-4b76-ac78-02d9a9c84375
I'm unsure if this article is reassuring or unsettling: theoretical physicists from the University of British Columbia claim to have mathematically proven that our universe is not (and cannot be) a simulation. In a Douglas Adams-esque twist, their reasoning hinges on computational limits rather than physical ones. The authors propose that certain aspects of reality remain computationally undecidable - only accessible through what they term "non-algorithmic understanding." Since any universe simulation would necessarily be algorithmic, they conclude our universe cannot be a simulation. Their work employs Gödel's incompleteness theorem to demonstrate that even at the most fundamental level—what the authors call "the Platonic realm of pure information from which spacetime itself emerges"—reality contains "Gödelian truths" that are real and impossible to prove through computation. As someone who doesn't pretend to grasp theoretical physics, my takeaway is a bit disappointed – there are definitely days when I hope reality isn't quite as real as it appears.
The paper:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22950
About the paper:
https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2025/10/30/ubco-study-debunks-the-idea-that-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation/
AI Summary of the research:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/52662d3d-a7ab-4bff-8f8e-6367cbb699ad
Infographics
I found a bad dad joke science meme on Reddit this week: Diplococcus vs Diplodocus. Know the difference.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencememes/comments/15rb2us/know_the_difference/#lightbox
Things I learned this week
Rectal oxygenation. Seriously. It is a physiologically possible thing, for which the physician-scientist discoverer won an IgNobel Prize. And yet there is a (small) population of very sick patients for whom this may make a difference.
https://scienceblog.cincinnatichildrens.org/ig-nobel-prize-awarded-to-takanori-takebe-for-butt-breathing-study/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/science/rectum-breathing-oxygen.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wE8.eLEJ.k6h6jxngXDBC&smid=url-share
I've been reading "Entangled Life," a book about the biology of fungi. I did not expect to enjoy a book on mushrooms this much.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52668915-entangled-life
Related: The article "Sustainable Memristors from Shiitake Mycelium for High-Frequency Bioelectronics," appeared in my newsfeeds this week. Researchers have demonstrated that shitake mushrooms can function as low-frequency bioelectric components of neural network - memristors (resistors that "remember" the last electrical current passing through). In essence, mushrooms possess properties that enable them to function like computer RAM. While the work serves as a proof-of-concept for sustainable bioelectronics, it provides a possible answer to some of the questions posed in Entangled Life, specifically how large fungal networks communicate and appear to "remember."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251026021724.htm
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/78ef83db-1086-4cd3-8f4e-4468534db9f8
About memistors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor
AI art of the week
A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter.
I use ChatGPT to summarize the newsletter, suggest prompts, and generate images with several LLMs.
"A grand, 19th-century academic-realist painting in the style of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Étienne Dinet, and Marianne North. In a candle-lit salon overgrown with bioluminescent mushrooms, a humanoid robot kneels beside a physician, both gazing compassionately at a small mycelial network sprouting across the marble floor. Tiny, ornate robot vacuums bustle about like mechanical familiars, their reflections glinting off brass and wood, polishing the roots of the fungi. The physician extends a hand in recognition; the robot mirrors the gesture — a moment of machine-human empathy mediated by nature. Botanical accuracy, realist detail, chiaroscuro lighting, warm golden tones, and subtle irony."
Perplexity won this week.
ChatGPT: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17XoF8cXW3FqqqJXnJA_hyuj3YVSFBvKk/view
Gemini:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ika1i3uKDJa85wNr7wRihMxy9Jq4TtIg/view
Perplexity:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1px1EPw5QJ95b_gA_ftYHiqqR8zj2tvok/view
Grok:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QatsKs_kLEye-h4GmyaM8AImawz5y29p/view
Learn about the artists:
- Jean-Léon Gérôme: A renowned French 19th-century painter and sculptor, associated with Academic art and Orientalism. His highly detailed, realistic style, dramatic lighting, and mastery of historical, mythological, and exotic subjects.
- Étienne Dinet: A French orientalist painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dinet is known for his deeply sympathetic portrayals of Algerian landscapes, people, and cultural scenes, painted with realism and sensitivity.
- Marianne North: An English Victorian-era botanical artist famous for her extensive travels and scientifically precise paintings of plants and landscapes from around the world. She is known for accuracy, vivid color, and documentary value.
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The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) utilizes wastewater viral RNA levels to forecast four-week predictions of COVID-19 rates.
We are in a lull of infections. I highly recommend that my patients get the flu and the latest COVID vaccines before the holidays.
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
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