Welcome! I am sitting in for Goodie today. The usual gang of savants will be posting in the comments.
Gums, Germs, and Coelum
Gum disease-related bacteria tied to colorectal cancer
A bacteria implicated in gum disease, Fusobacterium nucleatum, has also been found in some colorectal cancer tumors. F. nucleatum is rarely seen in the guts of healthy people. Colorectal tumors harboring these bacteria are associated with more cancer recurrence and worse patient outcomes than tumors without them. However, it’s unclear how much of a role, if any, the bacteria play in causing the tumors to grow...
The team found that one subspecies of F. nucleatum, called Fna, was more likely to be present in colorectal tumors. Further analyses revealed that there were two distinct types of Fna. Both were present in mouths, but only one type, called Fna C2, was associated with colorectal cancer.
This study came out last month but I haven’t seen it mentioned here. Gum disease is also linked to heart disease, dementia, and other inflammatory diseases. Long ago I was involved in research project that looked at the link between gum disease and dementia. Since then I have been religious about brushing, flossing, and seeing my dentist regularly.
Myelin, the insulating sheath that surrounds neuronal axons, is produced by oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system (CNS). This evolutionary innovation, which first appears in jawed vertebrates, enabled rapid transmission of nerve impulses, more complex brains, and greater morphological diversity. Here, we report that RNA-level expression of RNLTR12-int, a retrotransposon of retroviral origin, is essential for myelination.
It’s Friday night. I am not going to try to understand this paper, much less explain it. Somehow a chunk of a virus got incorporated into the genome of an ancestor of vertebrates and created myelin so we have better nerves and brains. “Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”- Werner Heisenberg.
A rare coalition of Democrats and Republicans — 316 — voted overwhelmingly to pass the procedural measure, known as a rule, to advance the four-part legislation Friday morning. In a sign of how tenuous this move is for Republicans, more Democrats — 165 — voted for the rule than Republicans — 151.
39 Democrats voted Nay because the bill also includes military funding for Israel. I am not going to trash them for that- what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is appalling. I expect if the vote had been in doubt the Democratic leadership would have put the screws on them to vote for it. I also expect that if the bill had been split in two both the Ukraine and Israel aid would have passed although both votes would have been much more partisan.
The good news is this shows that most of the Republican caucus is disgusted with the nihilists and willing to work with the Democrats to get something productive done. Maybe this will embolden Johnson and the rest to move some more critical bills through. Certainly it will deepen the fractures in the GOP and hasten the collapse of the current party.
A full jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated Friday in [tfg]’s hush money [felony campaign interference] case, setting the stage for expected opening statements next week in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
The comment section of any diary about the Great Sewer’s legal cases quickly fills up with predictions about how he will never be held to account. As a reality check, consider his previous success rate at winning in court.
TGS has been involved in over 4000 cases over the years. In most of the cases brought against him or his businesses he has settled or lost. He has failed in most cases he has brought against others- in his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton he lost so bigly that he has to pay her. The only two jury trials I can find where he was not convicted were the impeachment trials in the Senate. I guarantee any jury he faces in any of these upcoming trials will be vastly less biased than those were.
When he has dodged accountability it is by dragging things out until the other party gives up. That won’t work now. Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis have the resources to keep fighting. These trials will be the high or low points of their careers so they won’t drop the charges. Either they will succeed in being the first prosecutors to convict a former president or they will join the LA prosecutors who bungled OJ’s trial in the ninth level of judicial hell.
Palette Cleansers
’Four more years!’: Union members celebrate Biden’s fiery speech
"My opponent learned the best way to get rich is inherit it. I can't argue much of that. But, eh?” Biden joked. ”They learned that paying taxes is for working people, not the super-wealthy. They learned that telling people ‘you're fired’ is something to be laughed about. Not where I come from. Not where I was raised."
Kia is all in on EVs?
My wife is buying a new car. She settled on a Kia because they have one of the top-rated plugin hybrids and they sell them here in WV. They also sell EVs here. Most manufacturers don’t.
When I bought my Chevy Bolt in 2017 I had to go to a dealership in Pennsylvania because GM wouldn’t ship them here. That situation hasn’t changed. Apparently it is because California and some other states have mandated that a certain proportion of the cars sold in the state are EVs, so most manufacturers need to send their EV production to those states. My purchase in PA counts against their quota even though I immediately registered it in WV.
Apparently Kia doesn’t have this problem. The dealership we went to today was happily pushing both EVs and plugins (our salesman drives a plugin and his boss an EV).
While most manufacturers are dragging their heels on EVs it appears to me that Kia is all in on the future. My wife appreciated that they didn’t play a bunch of stupid games with the price. What was on the price sheet is what they charge. It was nice to do business with a company like that.