Greta Thunberg Admits Keeping Nuke Plants Online Is A Better Option Than Coal

 Climate activist Greta Thunberg - who, for some reason apparently has an opinion that matters on the topic - has officially handed down her latest determination on which types of energy are better than others to the eagerly waiting world leaders who take their policy cues from the teenager.

This week Thunberg made the "headline" that nuclear is a better option than coal, something that has been obvious to anyone who has looked energy pragmatically, without fear of not being "woke" or "green" enough. 

Thunberg says in a forthcoming interview that it is a "bad idea" to turn off nuclear power stations if it means switching to coal, according to Politico on Tuesday. 

"It depends. If they are already running, I think it would be a mistake to shut them down and turn to coal," she said about nuclear plants. 

Nowhere is the nuclear agenda more important than in Germany, a country that had planned to close its 3 remaining nuclear plants at the end of the year before it was launched into a massive energy crisis with skyrocketing prices as a result of the Russia/Ukraine war. They have now decided to extend the life of 2 of the plants.

The additional collateral damage of planning to shut down the nuclear plants has results in Germany also reviving several dormant coal plants, the report says. Nuclear has been such a hot-button issue in the country that "the public discourse over extending the reactors, even for a few months, has been far more controversial than rebooting highly polluting coal plants," Politico says. 

Germany's Finance Minister Christian Lindner said of Thunberg's comments: "...in this energy war, everything that creates electricity capacity has to be connected to the grid. The reasons speak for themselves — economically and physically."

Florian Hahn, an MP with the Bavarian Christian Social Union stated the obvious about Germany's ignorance when it comes to energy: "If even the patron saint of the Greens advocates for the continued operation of nuclear power plants, you know what ideological amateur work [Greens Economy Minister] Robert Habeck and his party are engaged in."

Maybe finally with Thunberg's virtue signaling "woke" blessing, world leaders can access the common sense they have set aside regarding nuclear for years...though we won't hold our breath. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nuclear-power-goes-woke-greta-thunberg-admits-keeping-plants-online-better-option-coal

Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Turns Negative Within Months: Study

 by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The effectiveness of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine against infection turns negative over time, according to a new study that was funded by the vaccine maker.

The effectiveness of three doses—a primary series and a booster—against infection remained above 50 percent after 150 days against BA.1, a subvariant of the Omicron virus variant, researchers estimated.

But against more recent strains, including the currently-dominant BA.5, the effectiveness turned negative.

Against BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5, the effectiveness went negative after 150 days.

Against BA.1.12.1, the effectiveness turned negative after 91 days.

Negative effectiveness means a vaccinated person is more likely to contract COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, than an unvaccinated person.

Researchers with Moderna and Kaiser Permanente, who carried out the study, also found that people who received three Moderna doses were more likely to become infected when compared to people who received just two doses.

Researchers said that they attempted to reduce potential bias by taking actions such as adjusting for comorbidities, but that some confounding may remain.

They said that some of the negative effectiveness estimates “could be due to differential risk behaviors among vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals when protection from antibodies becomes minimal.”

Hung Fu Tseng, a researcher with Kaiser Permanente Southern California and the study’s corresponding author, declined to provide evidence for the statement or otherwise comment on the negative effectiveness estimates.

“The manuscript is under review by a journal. I can’t comment on your questions now. I can, however, answer your question[s] when it is accepted,” Tseng told The Epoch Times in an email.

The study was published ahead of peer review on medRxiv, a preprint server. Researchers reached the numbers after analyzing data from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, which provides health care and insurance to millions of members.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness-turns-negative-within-months-study

Avidity: 1st antibody oligonucleotide conjugate of Duchenne programs to enter clinic

 AOC 1044 is the first antibody oligonucleotide conjugate (AOC™) of multiple Duchenne muscular dystrophy programs to enter the clinic

First AOC from Avidity's RNA platform technology engineered to deliver phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMO) to enter the clinic

Avidity has three distinct rare disease programs in clinical development

Volume 5 of virtual investor and analyst series on Thursday, October 13 at 10:00 am ET

The company is hosting Volume 5 of their virtual investor and analyst series on October 13, 2022, beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET to further discuss the AOC 1044 program. The event is a live video webcast and can be accessed here or from the "Events and Presentations" page in the "Investors" section of Avidity's website. A replay of the webcast will be archived on Avidity's website following the event.

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/avidity-biosciences-announces-phase-1-2-explore44-trial-of-aoc-1044-for-duchenne-muscular-dystrophy-mutations-amenable-to-exon-44-skipping/

Kinnate Updates on Monotherapy Dose Escalation from Global Phase 1

 

• KIN-2787 cleared the predicted efficacious dose at 300 mg bid; dose escalation continues with maximum tolerated dose not yet determined
   
• KIN-2787 achieved meaningful exposures that were dose proportional and exceeded the predicted efficacious thresholds based on preclinical models
   
• Observed encouraging initial clinical responses with KIN-2787 thus far
   
• Company anticipates sharing detailed dose escalation data in the first half of 2023
   
• Approximately $262 million cash on hand as of September 30, 2022; cash runway into mid-2024

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/kinnate-biopharma-inc-announces-recent-corporate-updates-including-on-the-ongoing-kin-2787-monotherapy-dose-escalation-from-global-phase-1-trial/

Grabbing CO2 out of the air

 Direct air capture may be key to saving Earth from the effects of climate change, but there’s a catch: It’s really hard to do. 

Direct air capture (DAC) technologies are designed to remove carbon dioxide from the air, although there’s still a lot of room for improvement in DAC materials. Other molecules in the air, especially water, are in much higher concentrations than carbon dioxide, or CO2. They start competing with each other, and ultimately, carbon dioxide isn’t what’s caught  – at least in high quantities. 

“If materials are good at grabbing carbon dioxide, they’re usually good at grabbing multiple gasses,” explained Katherine Hornbostel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. “It’s really hard to tune these materials to grab carbon dioxide but nothing else, and that’s what this research is focused on.”  

Hornbostel is joined by co-investigators Nathaniel Rosi, a Pitt chemistry professor with a secondary appointment in the Swanson School and Christopher E. Wilmer, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow in the Swanson School. Janice Steckel, a research scientist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and graduate students Paul Boone, Austin Lieber and Yiwen He will also be working on the project. Together, they published a journal paper for the Royal Society of Chemistry about creating new metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, designed to capture just carbon dioxide. 

MOFs, a research focus in Wilmer’s lab, are highly regarded for their ability to utilize porous membranes to capture large volumes of gasses and can be designed via computational modeling rather than traditional trial-and-error. 

The MOF would have a core-shell design, meaning carbon dioxide would be trapped in the core, while the shell is able to block other gasses, specifically water. The shell and the core would be made from different MOF materials, with the shell MOF designed to slow down water and the core MOF designed to bind CO2.

“If you’re trying to work with an adhesive, it can be hard to come up with something that’s sticky to one material that’s not also sticky to the other material, and that’s true all the way down to the molecular scale,” Wilmer said. “So, when we make a material that’s very sticky to carbon dioxide, inadvertently, it’s usually also sticky to water. We’re trying to find a way to shield those sticky surfaces from water.” 

Currently, the group is using computational modeling to weed through candidates for the best materials for both the MOF’s core and shell. 

Research into direct air capture is still early in development, but already there are multiple potential uses for these technologies. According to Hornbostel, some in the field propose massive installations in unoccupied areas, while others prefer using existing infrastructure where steam and electricity are already available. But either way, for this technology to work, there needs to be a lot of moving air – which could potentially be anywhere.

Researchers have long-term plans for direct air capture outside of reversing the effects of climate change. This technology can also aid in space exploration as well as living on other planets.

“When we’re on other planets, like Mars, direct air capture is how we get fuel to return to Earth,” Wilmer said. “Every technology we design pushes the ball forward.”  

The paper, titled “Designing optimal core-shell MOFs for direct air capture,” (DOI: 10.1039/D2NR03177A) was published in the journal Nanoscale.

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DOI

10.1039/D2NR03177A 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/967426

E-bikes not likely to help users reach moderate-vigorous physical activity targets

 E-bikes aren't likely to help users reach weekly moderate to vigorous physical activity targets, because riders tend to take fewer and less physically demanding trips than conventional cyclists, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine.

But e-bikes may persuade older and/or overweight people who wouldn't otherwise consider using a bike to take to two wheels suggest the researchers.

E-bikes have become increasingly popular in recent years, with around 3.4 million sold in European Union countries in 2019, compared with only 98,000 in 2006. This number is expected to increase further to 62 million by 2030. And a similarly rapid rise in popularity is anticipated in Asia and the U.S.

It's not entirely clear whether e-bikes help users meet physical activity guidelines and whether they might also boost the rate of cycling accidents. The researchers therefore compared recommended weekly targets of 150 minutes moderate-intense, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intense, physical activity (MVPA) and accident rates in 1,250 e-bikers and 629 conventional cyclists from across Germany.

The volunteers provided information on health related quality of life, daily physical activity, and health issues, as well as details of any cycling accidents. They were asked to record the riding time, distance traveled, and heart rate for every cycle ride over a period of 4 weeks, using a smartwatch activity tracker. Accident rates were monitored over a period of 12 months.

The e-bikers tended to be older, weigh more, have more underlying health conditions, and to do less exercise but more leisure time physical activity than the conventional cyclists.

E-bikers did an average of almost 70 fewer minutes of MVPA than conventional cyclists, who clocked up 150+ minutes more MVPA on their bikes. Conventional cyclists also took more weekly trips, on average, than the e-bikers: around 6 vs. around 4. The overall time spent on a bike was also nearly 25 minutes longer, on average, among the conventional cyclists, although e-bikers took longer trips, clocking up an average of 6.5 extra minutes.

Cyclists' average heart rates were also higher, suggesting a greater level of exertion: 119 beats per minute vs. 111 beats per minute among the e-bikers.

Age, sex, underlying conditions, and reported use of a bike for sport and commuting were significant predictive factors for reaching weekly recommended physical activity targets. E-bikers were around half as likely as conventional cyclists to reach these targets.

Overall, 109 accidents and 157 near-accidents occurred during the 12-month monitoring period. After accounting for potentially influential factors, use of an e-bike and overall time spent on a bike predicted a road traffic accident risk, with e-bikers 63% more likely to have a traffic accident than conventional cyclists.

The most commonly cited reason for buying either type of bike was physical fitness, but e-bikers were twice as likely to cite convenience (ease of cycling) as the conventional cyclists. Protecting the environment or saving money were scarcely mentioned.

"The participant characteristics of our cohort suggest that e-biking is of interest, particularly for those who will benefit the most for health-related fitness—namely, older users, overweight and obese individuals, or those with health related limitations and fewer exercise activities," write the researchers.

This is an observational study, and the researchers acknowledge that heart rate assessment wasn't as accurate as an ECG trace would have been. But their findings back up those of previous studies showing that "e-biking provides the option to continue cycling despite physical limitations, and has the potential to maintain physical activity and fitness," they add.

"Further research on users' motives and possible replacement of other transport modes is necessary to shed light on whether e-bikes, as an active form of electromobility, could feasibly provide a relevant contribution to mitigating traffic congestion and air pollution, and promote active living," they conclude.

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Explore further

E-bikes provide intense exercise, but it doesn't feel like a workout

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More information: Impact of electrically assisted bicycles on physical activity and traffic accident risk: a prospective observational study, BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001275

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-e-bikes-users-moderate-vigorous-physical.html

No adverse effects of early fluoride exposure found on childhood development

 An Australian nation-wide population-based follow-up study published in the Journal of Dental Research (JDR) has provided evidence that exposure to fluoridated water by young children was not negatively associated with child emotional, behavioral development and executive functioning in their adolescent years.

The study by Professor Loc Do of the University of Queensland Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, School of Dentistry and colleagues examined the effect of early childhood exposures to water fluoridation on measures of school-age executive functioning and emotional and behavioral development in a population-based sample. This longitudinal follow-up study used information from Australia's National Child Oral Health Study of 2012-14. Children aged 5-10 years at the baseline were contacted again after 7-8 years, before they had turned 18 years of age.

Percent lifetime exposed to fluoridated water (%LEFW) from birth to the age of five years was estimated from residential history and postcode-level fluoride levels in public tap water. Measures of children's emotional and behavioral development were assessed by the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and executive functioning was measured by the Behavior Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF). Multivariable regression models were generated to compare the associations between the exposure and the primary outcomes, controlled for covariates. An equivalence test was also conducted to compare the primary outcomes of those who had 100%LEFW against those with 0%LEFW.

Sensitivity analysis was also conducted. A total of 2,682 children completed SDQ and BRIEF, with mean scores of 7.0 (95%CI: 6.6, 7.4) and 45.3 (44.7, 45.8), respectively. Those with lower %LEFW tended to have poorer scores on the SDQ and BRIEF. Multivariable regression models reported no association between exposure to fluoridated water and the SDQ and BRIEF scores. Low household income, identifying as Indigenous, and having a neurodevelopmental diagnosis were associated with poorer SDQ/BRIEF scores.

The study concluded that exposure to fluoridated water during the first five years of life was not associated with altered measures of child emotional and behavioral development and executive functioning. Children who had been exposed to fluoridated water for their whole early childhood had their measures of emotional, behavioral development and executive functioning at least equivalent to that of children who had no exposure to fluoridated water.

"Water fluoridation is unquestionably effective in preventing dental caries, and this study is an important addition to the body of literature documenting the safety of water fluoridation," said IADR President Brian O'Connell, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. "The IADR recently reaffirmed its support for water fluoridation as this public health measure has a high benefit/cost ratio and benefits deprived communities the most, thus reducing health inequalities."

Story Source:

Materials provided by International Association for Dental Research. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. L.G. Do, A.J. Spencer, A. Sawyer, A. Jones, S. Leary, R. Roberts, D.H. Ha. Early Childhood Exposures to Fluorides and Child Behavioral Development and Executive Function: A Population-Based Longitudinal Study. Journal of Dental Research, 2022; 002203452211194 DOI: 10.1177/00220345221119431

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221011120109.htm