05a Health

Intellectual Freedom: An Endangered Basic Requirement of Scientific Publishing– www.madinamerica.com

pgnewser October 28, 2025 0

Blurb:

A new editorial written by Giovanni Fava published in Rivista di Psichiatria.

“The intellectual capital of medicine is the creativity linking clinical practice and research. Intellectual freedom, that allows the emergence of new paradigms, is the basic component of scientific progress in medicine. There have been major threats to intellectual freedom in the past decades: financial conflicts of interest that allowed the drug industry to gain control of scientific societies, clinical practice guidelines and reporting investigations in meetings and journals; special interest groups suppressing the pluralism of viewpoints; financial thresholds for investigators reporting their data and views (open access journals); the totalitarian derive of Evidence-Based Medicine.

Further, there have been growing attacks of publishers to the independence of editors and editorial boards, with the ensuing resignations of editors and members of the editorial boards. Such events recently occurred in a journal, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, that was a symbol of independent thinking, pluralism and innovations.”

Canada surrenders control of future health crises to WHO with ‘pandemic agreement’: report– www.lifesitenews.com

pgnewser October 23, 2025 0

Blurb:

Canada’s top constitutional freedom group warned that government officials have “relinquished” control over “future health crises” by accepting the terms of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) revised International Health Regulations (IHR).

The warning came in a report released by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). The group said that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s acceptance earlier this year of the WHO’s globalist-minded “pandemic agreement” has “placed Canadian sovereignty on loan to an unelected international body.”

“By accepting the WHO’s revised IHR, the report explains, Canada has relinquished its own control over future health crises and instead has agreed to let the WHO determine when a ‘pandemic emergency’ exists and what Canada must do to respond to it, after which Canada must report back to the WHO,” the JCCF noted.

“Hand Over Your Keys or We’ll Pick the Locks!”– chinadigitaltimes.net

pgnewser October 23, 2025 0

Blurb:

Public backlash has forced local officials in Pengyuan—a community in the city of Jiangmen, Guangdong province—to rescind an order requiring residents to surrender their keys so that sanitation workers can enter outbuildings to fumigate and eradicate mosquitos. The eradication effort is in response to an outbreak of the mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus, which has resulted in over 20,000 confirmed cases throughout Guangdong this year.

The controversy began when residents in Pengyuan began complaining about a notice that had been posted by community officials, informing them that residents would be required to provide a key to parts of their property, such as bicycle sheds, so that community sanitation workers could carry out fumigation and mosquito-abatement work on a regular basis. If residents did not turn in their keys, the notice warned, workers would summon a locksmith to force entry. Some residents reported incidents of sanitation workers entering their properties without permission and confiscating plants, or using intimidation tactics to enforce compliance.

 

Scientists create ultrapowerful, squishy robotic ‘eye’ that focuses automatically and doesn’t need a power source– www.livescience.com

pgnewser October 23, 2025 0

Blurb:

 

A squishy robotic “eye” can focus automatically in response to light, without any external power. The ultrapowerful robotic lens is sensitive enough to distinguish hairs on an ant’s leg or the lobes of a pollen grain.

The lens could usher in “soft” robots with powerful vision that would not need electronics or batteries to operate. Soft robotics can be used in a wide range of different applications, from wearable technology that can integrate with the human body to autonomous devices that can operate in uneven terrain or hazardous spaces, said study first author Corey Zheng, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Traditional, electrically powered robots use rigid sensors and electronics to see the world.

 

Earth’s Falling Reflectivity Means the Planet Is Getting Darker—And Hotter– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser October 23, 2025 0

Blurb:

Earth Is Getting Darker, Which Could Accelerate Global Warming

The planet’s brightness is dimming—changing rainfall, circulation and temperature

By Ryan Green edited by Andrea Gawrylewski

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Reto Stöckli

The view of Earth from space is famously familiar—bright blue ocean, swirling gyres of white clouds, touches of terrestrial green. The luminosity of this image is the result of the sun’s rays shining on the planet, where they’re either reflected or absorbed by materials on Earth’s surface and in our atmosphere. But a new study that examined Earth’s overall brightness reveals that something eerie is happening to that familiar picture.

Scientists measure the planet’s brightness by factoring in how much light reaches earth and how much is reflected back out to space (as measured by orbiting satellites). This reflectivity is known as albedo, and Earth’s overall albedo has been decreasing for decades. But according to a new study published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, that change isn’t uniform: the Northern Hemisphere is getting even darker than its southern counterpart. This loss of brightness could result in increased warming in the Northern Hemisphere, throwing Earth’s weather systems out of balance.

Health Insurers Expanding Obamacare Despite U.S. Shutdown Over Tax Credits – Forbes

pgnewser October 22, 2025 0

Blurb:

Cigna, UnitedHealthcare and Oscar Health are among health insurers expanding their market footprint selling individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act despite the lack of commitment from Congress to tax credits that would make policies more affordable.

While the costs of these health plans could increase 100% or more if Congress doesn’t extend tax credits beyond this year, several major health insurers are expanding into new geographic areas and offering more health plan options for next year.

The expansions by health insurers come amid a federal government shutdown that has entered a third week. And extending the tax credits beyond this year are at the center of the standoff between Republicans who control Congress and are largely opposed to the subsidies and Democrats who support them.

Plants self-organize in a ‘hidden order,’ echoing pattern found across nature– www.livescience.com

pgnewser October 22, 2025 0

Blurb:

Scientists have uncovered a “hidden order” in drylands across the planet, where plants follow disordered hyperuniformity — a layout that looks random and disorganized up close but adheres to a clear pattern when viewed from farther away.

The findings explain phenomena like “tiger bush” in West Africa, where bands of plants look like tiger stripes from above, or “fairy circles” in Namibia that look like spots from far away but are actually clumps of plants. These plants are self-organized in a way that helps them cope with drought and function in extreme conditions.

90K People Euthanized by Canada since “Assisted Suicide” became Law in 2016

pgnewser October 22, 2025 0

So far, 90,000 people have taken advantage of Canada’s law MAID, (Medical Assistance in Dying) which legalizes assisted suicide. In 2024, there were 16,500 MAID suicides, which accounted for 5% of total deaths that year.

Canada’s average wait time to see a specialist is now at 27.7 weeks, an all-time high, and this fact alone has led to documented suicides, including from a Winnipeg woman who wrote just before her MAID suicide, “I could have had more time if I had more help.”

Blurb:

Canada has euthanized around 90,000 people since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government legalized so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) in 2016, a watchdog has revealed.

The death toll was exposed in shocking new data published by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC).

EPC Executive Director Alex Schadenberg revealed the grim total, citing government data and projected 2025 figures.

“There were around 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024, representing 5% of all deaths,” Schadenberg declared.

Euthanasia for children is the devil’s latest sinister attack on innocent life– www.lifesitenews.com

pgnewser October 21, 2025 0

Blurb:

The fight against euthanasia reached a new level yesterday, as Fox News published an article that blows the lid off the sinister nature of the industry.

Reporter Asra Nomani has just published an investigative report detailing the predatory-like behavior of what she calls “Assisted Suicide Inc.”

“A Fox Digital investigation reveals … opponents of euthanasia face a multimillion-dollar global lobby that could be called Assisted Suicide Inc., a sprawling network changing laws worldwide, developing euthanasia services for funeral parlors, selling ‘suicide pods,’ promoting ‘suicide tourism’ and even training ‘doulas for death,’” she writes.

UN Cuts Down 100,000 Amazon Trees to Make Way for ‘Climate Change’ Summit– slaynews.com

pgnewser October 21, 2025 0

Blurb:

The United Nations (UN) is facing backlash after reports confirmed that around 100,000 trees were cut down in the Amazon rainforest to build new roads and infrastructure for its upcoming COP30 “climate change” summit.

The conference is set to take place in the Brazilian city of Belém in November.

It will bring an estimated 70,000 delegates and activists to the region to discuss “saving the planet” and “protecting biodiversity.”

Scientists create LED light that kills cancer cells without harming healthy ones– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser October 21, 2025 0

Blurb:

Scientists have developed a promising cancer therapy that uses LED light and ultra-thin flakes of tin to eliminate cancer cells while protecting healthy tissue. Unlike traditional chemotherapy and other invasive treatments, this new method avoids the painful side effects patients often endure.

The breakthrough comes from a partnership between The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Porto in Portugal, made possible through the UT Austin Portugal Program. The collaboration aims to make light-based cancer therapies more accessible and affordable. Current versions of these treatments rely on expensive materials, specialized lab setups, and powerful lasers that can sometimes damage surrounding tissue. By switching to LEDs and introducing tin-based “SnOx nanoflakes” (“Sn” is the chemical symbol for tin), the researchers have created a safer and potentially low-cost alternative.

Cells Have a Crystal Trigger That Makes Them Self-Destruct When Viruses Invade– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser October 21, 2025 0

Blurb:

A special class of immune proteins protect us from pathogens but also drive inflammation and cell death

By Viviane Callier edited by Tanya Lewis

A model showing proteins called death fold domains (green) telling a caspase enzyme (blue) to kill the cell after it has been compromised by pathogens.

Stowers Institute for Medical Research/Tayla Miller

The immune system has a tough job: When a tiny virus invades one of our cells, that cell must detect it and, within minutes, decide what to do. If the cell quickly self-destructs, that will prevent the virus from spreading throughout the body. But such a response to a false alarm will mean the cell will die unnecessarily.

AI Is Changing What High School STEM Students Study– www.wired.com

pgnewser October 21, 2025 0

Blurb:

In the early 2010s, nearly every STEM-savvy college-bound kid heard the same advice: Learn to code. Python was the new Latin. Computer science was the ticket to a stable, well-paid, future-proof life.

But in 2025, the glow has dimmed. “Learn to code” now sounds a little like “learn shorthand.” Teenagers still want jobs in tech, but they no longer see a single path to get there. AI seems poised to snatch up coding jobs, and there aren’t a plethora of AP classes in vibe coding. Their teachers are scrambling to keep up.

“There’s a move from taking as much computer science as you can to now trying to get in as many statistics courses” as possible, says Benjamin Rubenstein, an assistant principal at New York’s Manhattan Village Academy. Rubenstein has spent 20 years in New York City classrooms, long enough to watch the “STEM pipeline” morph into a network of branching paths instead of one straight line. For his students, studying stats feels more practical.

The Abortion Pill is So Dangerous for Women It Puts 1 in 25 Women in the ER– www.lifenews.com

pgnewser October 15, 2025 0

Blurb:

On Sept. 30, hours before the federal government shut down, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had a baffling act to fit in. The FDA stealthily approved a new generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone.

Mifepristone, a drug the FDA itself admits sends as many as 1 in 25 women to the emergency room even under strict use conditions, is not only responsible for the deaths of countless unborn children, but also has taken the lives of too many mothers along with it.

Ironically, the approval came barely a week after the administration warned pregnant women to reconsider taking Tylenol to avoid harm to their unborn children.

CBO Data Shows We Can’t Afford To Extend Obamacare Subsidies– thefederalist.com

pgnewser October 14, 2025 0

Blurb:

Are you the kind of person who likes to spend $4 for every $3 you take in? If so, your financial management “skills” might qualify you to run for Congress. With people like that running the show, is it any wonder that interest costs on our national debt surpassed $1 trillion last year for the first time ever?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) review of the fiscal year that just concluded on Sept. 30 provides one of many reasons why Republicans should reject Democrats’ demands to end the “Schumer Shutdown” — namely, a permanent extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies as part of $1.5 trillion in spending. While most Republican lawmakers won’t win any awards for fiscal rectitude, on this issue at least, they’re exhibiting the courage not to make a bad situation worse.

AI Could Make it Harder to Establish Blame for Medical Failings, Experts Say– www.madinamerica.com

pgnewser October 14, 2025 0

Blurb:

From The Guardian: “The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare could create a legally complex blame game when it comes to establishing liability for medical failings, experts have warned.

The development of AI for clinical use has boomed, with researchers creating a host of tools, from algorithms to help interpret scans to systems that can aid with diagnoses. AI is also being developed to help manage hospitals, from optimising bed capacity to tackling supply chains.

But while experts say the technology could bring myriad benefits for healthcare, they say there is also cause for concern, from a lack of testing of the effectiveness of AI tools to questions over who is responsible should a patient have a negative outcome.

Newsom Forces Apple And Google To Track Kids’ Ages Under New California Law– dailycaller.com

pgnewser October 14, 2025 0

Blurb:

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a first-in-the-nation law that forces operating systems and app stores to pass along users’ age brackets to apps — a win for Big Tech over Hollywood in a year-long fight over how to police kids online.

The Digital Age Assurance Act, carried by Democratic Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, pushes age-gating up the stack to Apple, Google and other OS makers starting Jan. 1, 2027, with civil penalties up to $7,500 per child for willful violations. It avoids photo-ID uploads and instead has parents enter a birth date at device setup; apps must request the resulting age signal via API.

Are Abortion Pills Contaminating Our Water?– www.lifenews.com

pgnewser October 14, 2025 0

Blurb:

As the use of the mifepristone chemical abortion pill continues to rise in the U.S., concerns are growing that residue from the powerful drug as well as the remains of aborted babies are contaminating the water supply and may be contributing to fertility problems, as well as other health concerns.

Recently released research by Liberty Counsel Action (LCA) pointed out that when mifepristone was originally approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000, it was predicted that the impact of the drug on the environment would be minimal, and therefore “no further study was completed.” As LCA noted, since mothers who take the abortion pill are instructed to deliver their dead baby into their toilet at home, the assessment “failed to address the issue of how the fetal remains would be disposed of, essentially ignoring the reality that in many cases, said remains would enter U.S. water systems in violation of various fetal disposal and medical waste laws.”

Earth enters ‘new reality’ as coral reefs reach first climate tipping point– phys.org

pgnewser October 14, 2025 0

Blurb:

The world faces a “new reality” as we have reached the first of many Earth system tipping points that will cause catastrophic harm unless humanity takes urgent action, according to a report released by the University of Exeter and international partners.

With ministers gathering ahead of the COP30 summit, the second Global Tipping Points Report finds that warm-water coral reefs—on which nearly a billion people and a quarter of all marine life depend—are passing their tipping point.

Scientists suggest the brain may work best with 7 senses, not just 5– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser October 9, 2025 0

Blurb:

Skoltech scientists have devised a mathematical model of memory. By analyzing its new model, the team came to surprising conclusions that could prove useful for robot design, artificial intelligence, and for better understanding of human memory. Published in Scientific Reports, the study suggests there may be an optimal number of senses — if so, those of us with five senses could use a couple more!

“Our conclusion is of course highly speculative in application to human senses, although you never know: It could be that humans of the future would evolve a sense of radiation or magnetic field. But in any case, our findings may be of practical importance for robotics and the theory of artificial intelligence,” said study co-author Professor Nikolay Brilliantov of Skoltech AI. “It appears that when each concept retained in memory is characterized in terms of seven features — as opposed to, say, five or eight — the number of distinct objects held in memory is maximized.”

In line with a well-established approach, which originated in the early 20th century, the team models the fundamental building blocks of memory: the memory “engrams.” An engram can be viewed as a sparse ensemble of neurons across multiple regions in the brain that fire together. The conceptual content of an engram is an ideal abstract object characterized with regard to multiple features. In the context of human memory, the features correspond to sensory inputs, so that the notion of a banana would match up with a visual image, a smell, the taste of a banana, and so on. This results in a five-dimensional object that exists and evolves in a five-dimensional space populated by all the other concepts retained in memory.

Lockheed, Verizon testing 5G-linked drone swarm for intel collection

‘Swarms of Killer Robots’: Why AI is Terrifying the American Military – Politico

pgnewser October 7, 2025 0

Lockheed, Verizon testing 5G-linked drone swarm for intel collection

‘Swarms of Killer Robots’: Why AI is Terrifying the American Military – Politico
Source Link
Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence technology is poised to transform national security. In the United States, experts and policymakers are already experimenting with large language models that can aid in strategic decision-making in conflicts and autonomous weapons systems (or, as they are more commonly called, “killer robots”) that can make real-time decisions about what to target and whether to use lethal force.

But these new technologies also pose enormous risks. The Pentagon is filled with some of the country’s most sensitive information. Putting that information in the hands of AI tools makes it more vulnerable, both to foreign hackers and to malicious inside actors who want to leak information, as AI can comb through and summarize massive amounts of information better than any human. A misaligned AI agent can also quickly lead to decision-making that unnecessarily escalates conflict.

Bacteria - Wikipedia

Bacteria hidden inside tumors could help beat cancer– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser October 7, 2025 0

Bacteria - Wikipedia

Bacteria hidden inside tumors could help beat cancer– www.sciencedaily.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

An international team of scientists led by researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Imperial College London and the University of Cologne have discovered that microbes associated with tumors produce a molecule, which can control cancer progression and boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

Most people are familiar with the microbes on our skin or in our gut, but recent discoveries have revealed that tumors also host unique communities of bacteria. Scientists are now investigating how these tumor-associated bacteria can affect tumor growth and the response to chemotherapy.

New research, published online in Cell Systems on September 10, 2025, provides a significant breakthrough in this field, identifying a powerful anti-cancer metabolite produced by bacteria associated with colorectal cancer. This finding opens the door to new strategies for treating cancer, including the development of novel drugs that could make existing therapies more potent.

The researchers used a sophisticated large-scale screening approach to test over 1,100 conditions in a type of microscopic worm called C. elegans. Through this, they found that the bacteria E. coli produced a molecule called 2-methylisocitrate (2-MiCit) that could improve the effectiveness of the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).

FOIA Documents Reveal South Carolina Attorney General Reportedly FAILED to Prosecute Child Predators in Dorchester County — Nearly Every Case Dismissed or Dropped | The Gateway Pundit– www.thegatewaypundit.com

pgnewser October 7, 2025 0

FOIA Documents Reveal South Carolina Attorney General Reportedly FAILED to Prosecute Child Predators in Dorchester County — Nearly Every Case Dismissed or Dropped | The Gateway Pundit– www.thegatewaypundit.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

Rep. Nancy Mace (right) and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (left). Mace is demanding answers after FOIA documents revealed Wilson’s office failed to prosecute the majority of child exploitation cases in Dorchester County.

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) has reportedly failed to prosecute the overwhelming majority of child pornography and sexual exploitation cases in Dorchester County.

According to internal records reviewed by Rep. Nancy Mace, from 2019 to 2022, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office (SCAG), under Wilson’s leadership, handled 385 warrants for child pornography cases in Dorchester County, yet only 29 resulted in convictions.

That’s a conviction rate of just 7.5%, with 356 cases dismissed outright and not a single one taken to trial.

“We obtained FOIA documents showing South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson failed to prosecute p*dophiles in Dorchester County,” Rep. Nancy Mace wrote on X.

“Nearly every single child p*dophile case under Wilson’s watch in Dorchester County has been dismissed or dropped. WE WANT ANSWERS. NOW,” she added.

Violent predators are exploiting gender ideology to continue their heinous crimes– www.lifesitenews.com

pgnewser October 7, 2025 0

Violent predators are exploiting gender ideology to continue their heinous crimes– www.lifesitenews.com
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Excerpt:

If you are a violent criminal seeking to escape from the full consequences of your misdeeds, identifying as transgender is the way to go.

It worked well for the attempted assassin of Brett Kavanaugh, who got a mere eight-year prison sentence instead of the 30 years requested by the Department of Justice, with the judge referencing his freshly minted transgender identity as one of the mitigating factors at sentencing last week.

It also worked for convicted pedophile Christopher Williams, who was placed in the Washington Correctional Center for Women after identifying as transgender. A September 29 report from Reduxx revealed that Williams has brutally assaulted a female inmate, striking her multiple times in the head. Williams was accused of sexually assaulting another female inmate last year.

As Reduxx reported based on testimony from the victim, “the two were in a common area on August 7 when Williams, who stands 6’3″, began punching her in the face in an apparent retaliation against her for calling him a ‘rapist.’ Jones, in contrast, is 5’4″.” The female inmate had tried to avoid Williams, who began to stalk her by sitting near her whenever he could. He attacked her from behind while she was standing at a microwave, throwing her onto the ground and smashing her in the back of the head.

“I was kicked and punched continuously. At this point, I saw who was doing this – Christopher Williams. I was immediately in fear for my life, trying to block while protecting my face and head, kicking out with my feet,” the woman, who remains unnamed for safety reasons, told Reduxx.

German government advisory body proposes raising retirement age to 73 by 2060– rmx.news

pgnewser October 7, 2025 0

German government advisory body proposes raising retirement age to 73 by 2060– rmx.news
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Excerpt:

Germany’s pension system should gradually raise the retirement age to 73 by 2060, according to a report by the Economics Ministry’s new scientific advisory board.

The panel of economists warns that without significant reform, the system will become unsustainable as productivity stagnates and the population continues to age.

The report, presented on Monday and cited by Bild, concludes that demographic realities and low economic growth leave no alternative but to extend working lives. It was prepared by economists Justus Haucap of the University of Düsseldorf, Stefan Kolev of the Ludwig Erhard Forum, Volker Wieland of the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability in Frankfurt, and Veronica Grimm of Nuremberg University of Technology. All four are known for advocating free-market solutions and limited government intervention.

“The time for reforms is becoming increasingly urgent,” the authors wrote. “Economic output has been stagnating for years, while comparable economies are growing significantly more dynamically.” The report attributes this to weak productivity growth and demographic decline, arguing that Germany must adjust its retirement policies to reflect rising life expectancy.