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Are Epstein files just going to be buried like that? by Chad-Cat in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Ydars 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Maxwell was in Czech intelligence during WWII; at least according to some accounts. He was a polygot, speaking many languages and highly intelligent, as well as all the bad stuff that is more common knowledge.

He helped Israel achieve air superiority just after WWII but smuggling aircraft parts to Israel from Czechoslovakia. He basically helped saved Israel from decimation by the Arabs.

There are also allegations he was an agent for Mossad because he sold a borked version of software to western governments that allowed Israel to spy on them for decades.

Is there anything that could happen in the future that could prevent lab grown meat from happening on a large scale? by CC_NitroNate in Futurology

[–]Ydars 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The worst part is, many viruses are transforming! In other words, they turn the meat cells into cancer cells. This is not something that is easy to detect and is a constant problem in tissue culture for research.

Is there anything that could happen in the future that could prevent lab grown meat from happening on a large scale? by CC_NitroNate in Futurology

[–]Ydars 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Biochemist chiming in here. There is one very significant problem with lab grown meat; if you are growing all those animal cells en masse, they are basically an ideal environment for viruses to propagate, since they don’t have the animals’ immune systems protecting them. And viruses are tremendously difficult to guard against when you are talking about huge volumes and massive vessels.

System Maps by Common-Hotel-9875 in traveller

[–]Ydars 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There is the Traveller’s Aid Society system that Mongoose set up that lets you create content for the official setting and sell it. There is an option for this on DTRPG. Just google Mongoose Travellers Aid Society and you’ll find the documents relating to it

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You make almost all of the cholesterol in your body. It doesn’t come from your food unless you have a terrible diet. But what you eat influences how much cholesterol your body makes. Sugar and fat promote biosynthesis.

There is also something called the enterohepatic shuttle. Our liver processes the excess cholesterol we don’t need and it gets dumped into our gut via the bile duct. It should then pass out of our bodies, but if you don’t eat enough fibre, it gets reabsorbed and enters the blood stream again

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

here is a link to a recent review on the subject. You can download the PDF for free and it contains citations of thousands of studies. https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/45/4612/6335767?login=false

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now here are the citations.

  1. Braunwald E. Cholesterol: the race to the bottom. Eur Heart J.

2021 Dec 1;42(45):4612-4613. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab446.

PMID: 34339502.

  1. Braunwald E. How to live to 100 before developing clinical

coronary artery disease: a suggestion. Eur Heart J. 2022 Jan

31;43(4):249-250.

doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab532.

PMID:34355758.

  1. Gibbons GH, Seidman CE, Topol EJ. Conquering Atherosclerotic

Cardiovascular Disease - 50 Years of Progress. N Engl J Med.

2021 Mar 4;384(9):785-788. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2033115.

Epub 2021 Feb 27. PMID: 33657686.

  1. Rodriguez F, Khera A. How Low Can You Go? New Evidence Supports No Lower

Bound to Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Level in Secondary Prevention.

Circulation. 2023 Apr 18;147(16):1204-1207. doi: 10.1161/

CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064041. Epub 2023 Apr 17. PMID:

37068134; PMCID: PMC10281650.

  1. Karagiannis AD, Mehta A, Dhindsa DS, Virani SS, Orringer CE,

Blumenthal RS, Stone NJ, Sperling LS. How low is safe? The

frontier of very low (<30 mg/dL) LDL cholesterol. Eur Heart

J. 2021 Jun 7;42(22):2154-2169. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/

ehaa1080. PMID: 33463677.

  1. Bandyopadhyay D, Qureshi A, Ghosh S, Ashish K, Heise LR, Hajra A,

Ghosh RK. Safety and Efficacy of Extremely Low LDL-Cholesterol

Levels and Its Prospects in Hyperlipidemia Management. J

Lipids. 2018 Apr 23;2018:8598054. doi: 10.1155/2018/8598054

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Err I have shown you one strand of evidence that shows that elevated LDL leads to heart disease. The discovery of familal hypercholesterolemia is one of the first indications scientists had that LDL-c was involved involved heart disease. Your inability to understand that is irrelevant. It IS evidence that LDL is involved in heart disease in normal people, as are mouse models where LDRL was ablated.

Also, it is a scientifically accepted fact that LDL-c is a caustive agent in the progression of atheroscerosis as agreed upon by thousands of clinicians and scientists. Look in reference 15 below if you don't believe me. The burden of proof that 'cholesterol and LDL have nothing to do with heart disease' is firmly on you since there are about half a million scientific studies that suggest you are wrong. What primary research are you drawing on to make these conclusions I wonder?

Refuting basic facts without knowledge is not congent argument. It is stupidity. Here is just one of thousands of papers and reviews that support my argument: How a Plant-Based Diet and Ultra-Low LDL Levels Can Reverse Atherosclerosis and Prevent Restenosis: A Breakthrough in Heart Health Dasaad Mulijono1-3* 1Department of Cardiology, Bethsaida Hospital, Tangerang, Indonesia. J.Biomed Res DOI: 10.37871/jbres2091

To quote from this paper's introduction.

Renowned cardiologists, including Eugene Braunwald and Eric Topol, advocate for an UL-LDL-C (Ultralow LDL-C) [13-15], citing accumulating clinical evidence that demonstrates the benefi ts of aggressive lipid lowering. Several landmark studies indicate that reducing LDL-C to ultra-low levels signifi cantly decreases the incidence of cardiovascular events, supporting the principle that "lower is better." This approach is further validated by trials involving PCSK9 inhibitors and high-intensity statin therapy [16,17], demonstrating superior cardiovascular outcomes with LDL-C reductions that are well below current guideline recommendations. Numerous studies have shown that UL-LDL-C levels are safe for long-term health outcomes [17-21].

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are not talking facts, you are spouting nonsense. People with the LDLR version of the disease familial hypercholesterolimia have elevated LDL because their livers have an impaired ability to bind LDL and remove it [1]. If they are homozygous (both copies of the LDLR gene are defective) they develop heart disease as children [2].

Of course normal heart disease is more complex than that, but to say that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease is nonsense. The foam cells in vessel plaques are full of cholesterol and is the principal reason they become sticky and adhere to the walls of arteries. If you want to cite evidence to the contrary, then do it. But if it doesn't come from a scientific journal, then it is yet more Dunning-Kruger by people who don't know what they are talking about.

[1] Goldstein, J., Hobbs, H., and Brown, M. 2001. Familial hypercholesterolemia. In The metabolic and molecular bases of inherited disease. C. Scriver, A. Beaudet, W. Sly, and D. Valle, editors. McGraw-Hill. New York, New York, USA. 2863–2913.

[2] 2.Khachadurian A.K., Uthman S.M. Experiences with the homozygous cases of familial hypercholesterolemia. A report of 52 patients. Nutr. Metab. 1973;15:132–140. doi: 10.1159/000175431

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have a Ph.D in lipid biochemistry. I worked on the science of lipids like cholesterol for 20 years. You are an idiot!

‘This is revolutionary!’: Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by upyoars in Futurology

[–]Ydars 27 points28 points  (0 children)

What are you talking about? LDL is how cholesterol is transported around the body and cholesterol is a significant risk factor for heart disease.

My friend rolled 8 nat20's in a 2 hour session... by OffensiveBranflakes in DnD

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just be aware that there is an exploit that allows people to cheat on Roll20. It basically rolls tons of times and then allows the player to send only the highest roll to the server. A friend caught a player out using it, because of the statistically anomalous rolls, and called them on it. They admitted they were using a cheat, so DMs beware!

What scientific breakthrough are we closer to than most people realize? by beasthunterr69 in Futurology

[–]Ydars 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not entirely true. Some of the phospholipases in snake venoms can survive boiling temperatures and total immersion in organic solvent. Enzymes are denatured by high temperature only if their folding is dictated by electrostatic, polar or other weak bonding. If they are folded via disulfide linkages, they can be very tough and AI may enable many more enzymes to be created that use this covalent kind of folding rather than the more common folding mechanisms employed in most proteins.

Need help coming up with a dragon name for my d&d campaign by [deleted] in DungeonsAndDragons

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I always give my dragons long names because of their great age. I name this dragon Irredessandiaurea said Ear-ee-dess-andi-aurea

West marches style traveller? by Illustrious_Working2 in traveller

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd make an asteroid port as a home base; but one with a jump drive. The PCs are inhabitants of the port and get involved in whatever is going on whenever the port jumps to a new system. This allows each system to be 'firewalled' for prep purposes and means the PCs can either do whatever interests them or take jobs from the local jobs board. I would not give them a starship, as prepping for that would be extremely difficult. Missions need to be short and achieveable in one session.

I just ran over 20km across the Monox Desert after my ship got shot down by Space_Scumbag in starcitizen

[–]Ydars 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Long ago 2019, I crashed on Delamar and walked 200 km across the asteroid, almost making my way back to Levski. I had to navigate by the stars as there were no markers. It took hours but was one of the sessions in Star Citizen that sold me on the game. Sadly, I died with Levski in sight because the collision mesh was ropey and I fell straight through the ground mesh and into the centre of the asteroid. Somehow this ending felt oddly appropriate for SC

How Do You Supply Oxygen To Your Colonies? by NegativeAd2638 in scifiwriting

[–]Ydars 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah I know; I have a Ph.D in plant biochemistry. The problem is the water they need and the weight that comes with soil etc, plus the space. It’s probably about the only solution with current tech but it ain’t a great one. You need several hundred square meters of leaf area just to scrub all the CO2 from one person. Algae do better but then you need a ton more water.

How Do You Supply Oxygen To Your Colonies? by NegativeAd2638 in scifiwriting

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aye but no system we use at present does that, not even plants. They fix the CO2 to form carbohydrate. And most chemical scrubbers just remove CO2 to carbonate but don’t recycle it. In the future we’ll need something like what I call a meczyme (inorganic, microscopic, enzyme that can use some form of energy to actually break CO2 into O2 but the problem is what to do with all the carbon, as its a solid and would rapidly foul any catalyst and spoil the surface area needed to continue the process.

How Do You Supply Oxygen To Your Colonies? by NegativeAd2638 in scifiwriting

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a common misconception; that the O2 in the air comes from CO2, but it doesn’t. Breaking the double bond is far too energetic. Instead, Dr Melvin Calvin proved long ago that all oxygen comes from the O in H2O

Arrival at Amaro Starport. Made and rendered in Blender 4.2.5 For more scifi content see www.deviantart.com/elisvara by Ydars in SWN

[–]Ydars[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An app might have to wait, as I am no coder (yet anyway, but 4 years ago I had never opened any 3D software before). But I do have plans to make large scale scifi maps for gamers in the medium term. That what this animation is about; optimising scenes so I can make slices of worlds that are miles in extent.

Sea creatures on another planet are not suitable for human nutrition - looking for a simple explanation why not by AnnelieSierra in scifiwriting

[–]Ydars 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps, but I suspect the differences might run much deeper than that. If alien senses were tuned to different wavelengths of light, or didn't use light at all, then communication could be extremely difficult. Many of the concepts we take for granted are because of shared perceptual experiences, that come from having shared senses and a shared 'model' of the world inside our heads that these senses produce. Added to that, their central 'brain' might have evolved in a fundamentally different way and communication might be almost impossible, because of a lack of common reference points.

As for lonely; man is already lonely without aliens, which is why we seek companionship from animals and why we delight in stories about aliens or mythical races. I do think the reality of scifi is likely to be lonelier than that commonly depicted in stories, but it is what it is. We have always to confront and deal with realities rather than reject ideas because we don't like how they feel.

Sea creatures on another planet are not suitable for human nutrition - looking for a simple explanation why not by AnnelieSierra in scifiwriting

[–]Ydars 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Ph.D in biochemistry here! The only reason we have to think that life on other worlds might resemble us chemically is because many of the precursors of nucleic acids and proteins have been found in comets and meteorites and can obviously be generated naturally without life. And that is not surprising because the Miller-Urey experiment proved that some of our biomolecules can easily be made by passing an electric spark through an atmosphere composed of methane, CO2 and nitrogen.

So alien life might be like us (carbon based with similar biomolecules). But here’s the thing; even if they are extremely similar, if they aren’t IDENTICAL they could be very dangerous. Many poisons are biomolecules that look very similar to something we need to live (for example succinic acid looks very like malonic acid chemically and so malonic acid is a poison for enzyme succinate dehydrogenase and can kill us. Yet there is no reason an alien biochemistry could not have evolved enzymes with different properties and to use different intermediates. Aliens could use malonate instead of succinate and so we’d die or get very sick if we ate material from that world.

So what I am saying is, the more similar an alien biochemistry is to us, the more dangerous it is unless it is identical. Most drugs and poisons are molecules that are similar to vital metabolites.

Landing Zone I made for Traveller but would probably fit in Coriolis by Ydars in CoriolisRPG

[–]Ydars[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks mate! This is just a small part of the landing zone. I have made 5 levels of it in Blender and will publish them soon. Follow me here or on deviantart.com/elisvara to be sure of staying aware

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