Lifeboat Foundation

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a current pandemic infection caused by a positive-sense RNA virus named the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The particularly infectious capacity of the virus, along with mortality rates ranging from 1% to above 5%, has raised concerns across the globe.¹ Older patients with comorbid conditions including pulmonary disease, cardiac disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and hypertension have been associated with even higher mortality rates, suggesting particularly susceptible populations.

The increased mortality and morbidity of COVID-19 in patients with hypertension is an association that has been observed in a number of initial epidemiological studies outlining the characteristics of the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Wu et al² found hypertension to have a hazard ratio of 1.70 for death and 1.82 for acute respiratory distress syndrome in 201 patients with COVID-19. Zhou et al³ found hypertension to have a hazard ratio of 3.05 for in-hospital mortality in 191 patients with COVID-19.

Neither of these studies^2,3 adjusted for confounding variables and thus it remains unclear if this association is related to the pathogenesis of hypertension or another associated comorbidity or treatment. There has been a growing concern that this association with hypertension is confounded by treatment with specific antihypertensive medications: angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs).

The study of both fermented and non-fermented soy products was based on the results of research carried out on approximately 90,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 74 over a period of 15 years. The team calculated intake quantities for all soy products and fermented products only through a dietary survey and examined the relationship with mortality in five similarly sized groups.

Findings from a scientific study help support the long-held belief that fermented soy products like nattō are good for one’s health.

Jet fighters can’t carry a huge tank of fuel because it would slow them down. Instead they have recourse to air-to-air refueling, using massive tanker planes as their gas stations. If electric vehicles could pull off the same kind of peer-to-peer charging scheme it could eliminate range phobia and speed the adoption of EVs.

On-the-road peer-to-peer charging depends on steerable booms to make the connection.

These propulsion systems already help satellites stay in position and spacecraft explore the solar system. Now engineers want to build a bigger one that could take us to Mars.

The friendly maker of your mom’s smartphone also developed a highly-advanced killer robot that guards the DMZ between North and South Korea.

Circa 2014

A wormhole with a long, thin throat could prop itself open long enough to let through pulses of light, offering a way to talk across time.

Elon Musk tweeted a complaint about Tesla’s share price that wiped $14bn off the company’s stock market value on Friday morning.

The seven-word tweet was the latest controversial outburst from the outspoken chief executive, whose outpourings on Twitter have landed him in hot water before. An incorrect claim in the middle of 2018 that he was close to a buyout of Tesla led to a complaint from the US Department of Justice and a settlement that involved Mr Musk agreeing not to issue market-moving tweets in future without first clearing them with his company’s legal department.

Tesla did not immediately confirm whether Mr Musk’s tweet had been given legal clearance, and did not respond to a question about whether the company currently has a general counsel. Tesla lost three general counsels last year, one of them quitting after only two months.

How can a Big Bang have been the start of the universe, since intense explosions destroy everything? – Tristan S., age 8, Newark, Delaware.

This is very surreal. A study was done to assess the safety of common drugs, and COVID, and whether taking them leads to severe symptoms. There has been concern as these drugs increase ACE2 receptors coronavirus binds to. So someone had the bright idea of going through over 12,000 digital patients records to come up with the conclusion the drugs are safe to take and they do not cause worse symptoms. No animal studies, no clinical trials, and this was actually published.

“For the study, the researchers identified patients in the NYU Langone Health electronic health record with COVID-19 test results. For each identified patient with COVID-19 test results, the team discretely extracted medical history needed for the analysis, which compared treated and untreated patients.”

First you do a mouse study at least to review how coronavirus behaves in mice who are given the drugs, and compare it to mice not given the drugs. If science has been reduced to just going over records and coming to a conclusion, with no experimentation I have officially lost my mind.

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