Thoughts from this week: 2024/01/10
tl;dr: Ding-dong the witch is dead... Or at least melting.
Surprising New Study
Sarcopenia is a topic I have been keeping an eye on for years. Sarcopenia is the wasting of muscle that occurs with bed rest or, more relevantly, aging. Since muscle volume and strength are both associated with longer life and health-span, it seems that sarcopenia is something best avoided.
While some extent of muscle wasting is a normal part of aging (less activity is a benefit of having kids and grandkids to help look after you), is there a relationship between our modern diet and sarcopenia?
“Pharmacological Reduction of Lipid Hydroperoxides as a Potential Modulator of Sarcopenia” (Brown, 2025)
“We previously reported that elevated expression of phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase 4, an enzyme that regulates membrane lipid hydroperoxides, can mitigate sarcopenia in mice.”
This paper looks at the effect of a drug that mimics the effect of glutathione, “CMD-35647 is a pharmocological compound that can neutralize lipid hydroperoxides.”
They find a benefit, but we’ll have to see if this applies to humans as well. In the meanwhile, continue to avoid lipid hydroperoxides via your diet.
News
An unbelievable feat.
“Noah Dines Skied Nearly 10,000 Vertical Feet Everyday of 2024"
“...more than 3.5 million vertical feet, smashing the previous world record by roughly a million feet.”
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now known as the parent company Meta), came out in favor of free speech, and rejected the Biden administration’s censorship.
I’m not going to get into the details here, as lots of folks have commented on this already. I think perhaps the most salient part of his proposed list of fixes is that he wants to move the group responsible for content moderation (and there is a need for it to some extent) from San Francisco to Austin, Texas.
He recognizes that a part of his problem is the bias of his employees, and that’s a pretty big step. Hopefully this will be followed by a purge, and we need to see a lot more of this if we are going to rid ourselves of the people doing their best to ruin our lives.
Humor
“Zuckerberg's censorship claim 'false': International Fact-Checking Network”
You literally can’t make this stuff up. If the ‘fact-checkers’ say it’s false, it must be true.
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