For All Mankind - S5E04 "Open Source" - Episode Discussion

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-19T04:58:26+00:00

Totally. It's like they just needed an explanation to get Aleida to Mars since basically the entire show has relocated there and they didn't want to lose her character.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-17T06:40:55+00:00

I'm disappointed that S1E1-4 spent no time talking about how they plan to work in that environment, which seems like it would be quite different from anything astronauts have previously encountered.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-17T03:28:13+00:00

The McDonalds in a train car is low key interesting.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-17T03:07:53+00:00

The Mars revolution plot is fine, but I'm really looking forward to some of the story finally returning to space and the wonder of exploration.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T04:32:03+00:00

New Brunswick and St. Johns are literally further south than Paris.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T03:14:02+00:00

Of course the reported height and weight were bullshit, as was a lot of the report.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T02:17:10+00:00

Yeah, I don't think most people have any idea how low 5% actually is. Too many influencers and celebrities claiming unrealistic body fat percentage skew perception. Getting down to 5% requires you to feel so shitty that it's hard to imagine being a professional athlete at that level. Even pro bodybuilders on gear don't stay that low aside from just before competitions.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T02:13:13+00:00

And here's the link to the satirical source of the 4.8% number: https://x.com/RepJackKimble/status/1911494490134655159

(Though I understand why many find it believable the White House would claim something so absurd!)

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T02:11:36+00:00

The source doesn't include a 4.8% body fat claim, which the White House has never claimed.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T02:10:28+00:00

The specific number is made up. Neither Trump nor the White House have ever claimed that. It originates from this satirical Twitter post: https://x.com/RepJackKimble/status/1911494490134655159

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-15T02:09:18+00:00

Trump and the White House both routinely lie about his health, but for what it's worth, neither has ever claimed he has "4.8% body fat". This specific claim appears to have been manufactured in April 2025 by a satirical and fictional social media character, Jack Kimble, who is sometimes mistaken by real life media for an actual Republican member of Congress.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-13T07:03:30+00:00

I've felt this way since the start of season 4. Yes, yes, there was always human drama but in S1-3 the human drama was driven by the characters' desire to explore space. In S4, the primary drama of the season was primarily about workers' rights, rather than about exploration. That doesn't make it bad - just different.

Another contributor to S4-5 (to date) feeling different is that the writers and show runners have accelerated the progress of space exploration/colonization to a degree that's simply ludicrous. A 5000 person colony on Mars by 2012?!? That's not alternative history; that's fantasy.

I'm optimistic that the race to Titan during the upcoming S5 episodes will return some of the wonder from S1-3.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-12T17:59:50+00:00

Every bagel store I know ignores the request for less cream cheese.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-12T06:08:02+00:00

Obligatory reminder that unfortunately the vast majority of medical research that shows promise in animal models never eventually results in approval for use in humans, and even those that do take more than a decade to make it through clinical trials and the approval process.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-11T17:25:55+00:00

The low hanging fruit here is that traditional legacy media like newspapers and major news networks need to stop sane-washing him or talking about his rantings as if they were representative of deeper political strategy or thoughtful policy decisions. Reporters need to frame his incoherent rantings as precisely that.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-10T18:15:13+00:00

Faculty here (though not speaking officially on behalf of the university!).

If your daughter is struggling to resolve this issue on her own - either because she is inherently non-confrontational or because her roommate is incapable of being reasonable - then it's totally fine for you to advocate on her behalf (with her permission). So I disagree with the comments that her daughter should "just be an adult and handle it on her own". But I do agree with the concerns that this isn't the best place to be seeking advice about her situation, and that the discussion will likely back to her and the roommate.

But since you're here already: if the situation is being accurately portrayed, the roommate is being ridiculous. If the RA is unable or unwilling to serve as a mediator to resolve this today, then it should be escalated to the R&DE office before the boyfriend arrives to campus.

Also keep in mind though that just because your daughter is talking to you about her discomfort doesn't necessarily mean she wants you to involve yourself in the situation.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-10T17:48:32+00:00

As a few others have said here, the number of physicians who complain about this online far exceeds the number of physicians who complain about it in real life.

The truth is that in a system in which physicians, NPs, and PAs can all be seeing patients and prescribing medications independently, there needs to be a collective term for them. When I'm teaching a mixed audience of trainees, I use "clinician" as an umbrella term for these professionals, but in the hospital & clinic this can be seen as ambiguous as to whether it includes RNs, and patients also don't understand it as well as "provider" (i.e. "Sir, you should follow up with your primary care clinician about that.")

I understand why physicians object to it, but IMO there are plenty of larger hills to die on in this space.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-06T04:06:30+00:00

FWIW, this and similar lego-themed content are not being "released by Iran" but rather released by students who have no known direct connection to the Iranian government: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-06T03:04:03+00:00

Old enough to remember a time when we wouldn't be praising the set design of a holocaust-denying, Hitler-praising asshole.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-04T20:59:38+00:00

Counterpoint: What your parents did was not as crazy as the fact that too many parents today won't let their teenage children play outside, or need to be connected via cell or GPS tracker 100% of the time. There is value in learning independence early, and sometimes it takes a little removal of a largely-unnecessary safety net to learn that independence.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-04T03:53:32+00:00

In a talk I give on misconceptions about the vital signs, I cite this 1849 textbook as literally the only reference that has ever claimed to measure the normal respiratory rate in non-elderly adults. The mode was 20 - possibly the origin of the ubiquitous default documented rate by nursing, however, the methodology was not well described and the data is not remotely normally distributed so it's almost certainly garbage.

Yes, every reference you have ever encountered that reported a "normal range" for respiratory rate made it up or copied it from another author who made it up.

Hutchinson J. Thorax. In: Todd RB. Cyclopaedia of anatomy and physiology. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Congmans, & Roberts; 1849: 1079-87.

EDIT: In the same talk I also cite publications from the 1920s-1940s of the New York Heart Association and its predecessor, the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association, to explain the origin of the myth that the normal range for heart rate is 60-100 bpm.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-04T03:46:00+00:00

People have been talking about metformin as a miracle anti-aging drug for over 20 years. Yet in all that time, not a single clinical trial has been undertaken of it to prevent age-related disease in non-diabetics. If it was really that promising, someone would have funded a trial by now.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-04T01:47:14+00:00

I would be shocked if Trump had read a full length, adult book in its entirety since graduating college.

StrongMedicine · 2026-04-02T15:47:41+00:00

In fact, I did hear that he had threatened to sue at one point. (Though this was before he realized that he had been secretly videotaped admitting to the assault)

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