leereeves (u/leereeves)

leereeves commented on Murder not crisis – Why Israel's starvation of Gaza is exceptional adamtooze.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/hackandthink

leereeves · 7 months ago

For the sake of mutual understanding, let's say Israel are the good guys, Hamas are terrorists, and the IDF is a righteous force whose only goal in Gaza is to capture terrorists.

What happens to everyone else in Gaza? Is "starve them all" an acceptable response to a hostage situation?

leereeves commented on Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, but is underused nytimes.com/2025/07/26/he... · Posted by u/brandonb

Aurornis · 7 months ago

CAC tests come with a non-trivial radiation exposure if someone is getting them every few years.

The other problem is that they’re picking and choosing which tests to believe and which to ignore.

They disregard their cholesterol tests because they don’t like the results, but embrace one or two CAC tests because they do like the results (when they’re young).

However the CAC results are a lagging indicator of cumulative damage that has been done. Cholesterol tests are correlated with the rate of damage occurring.

So embracing CAC and using it to justify ignoring LDL and others is the problem.

leereeves · 7 months ago

I think the unknown factor here is whether other benefits of keto over a standard American diet--possibly including reduced inflammation, BP, blood glucose, and body weight--balance out the effect of cholesterol. CAC measures actual damage already done, while cholesterol is just one of many factors.

The downside, of course, is that once the damage is done, it's done, so it's a risk. (And as you said, they won't see the damage in their 20s.)

leereeves commented on Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, but is underused nytimes.com/2025/07/26/he... · Posted by u/brandonb

Aurornis · 7 months ago

This test is also being heavily misused and misinterpreted in some online communities. There are a lot of people posting CAC scan results after something like a year of keto dieting in their 20s or 30s and using that to conclude that the saturated fat connection to atherosclerosis is a myth or that high cholesterol is fine.

These tests don’t have perfect accuracy and resolution, so low or zero results don’t mean that a lifetime of high cholesterol won’t catch up with someone in their 60s and 70s, yet a lot of podcasters and social media influencers are making those claims.

leereeves · 7 months ago

I agree the results after one year of a keto diet don't prove much, but getting that test seems like a good idea. I hope they'll keep testing and reporting the results for years, so we can learn more about the long term effects of a keto diet. And if it does cause problems, they'll want to know ASAP.

leereeves commented on The First Planned Migration of an Entire Country Is Underway wired.com/story/the-first... · Posted by u/aleksjess

leereeves · 7 months ago

In short: approximately 4% of the population of the island nation of Tuvalu will migrate to Australia each year.

I wonder what life will be like there when half the population have left. Some people will be left living in a mostly abandoned island nation for years.

leereeves commented on Games: No sex, please. we're credit card companies arstechnica.com/gaming/20... · Posted by u/worik

babelfish · 7 months ago

If the payment systems find that 90% of the fraud/chargebacks through these platforms is from 0.1% of the games, of course they would push for those 0.1% to be banned.

leereeves · 7 months ago

Who does chargebacks on Steam? They'd lose their whole account.

leereeves commented on Third patient dies from acute liver failure caused by a Sarepta gene therapy biocentury.com/article/65... · Posted by u/randycupertino

justsee · 7 months ago

Numerous studies have found vax-derived spike persisting for months and even years after vaccination, giving rise to concerns expression of spike can continue long after the claimed 24-48 hours.

A recent study found spike protein persisting for 17 months in the cerebral arteries of stroke victims. [1]

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096758682...

leereeves · 7 months ago

That is interesting, but the authors point out:

> In our study, in situ hybridization detected both mRNA derived from the vaccine and mRNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. ... our in situ hybridization method has high sensitivity and could detect trace amounts of mRNA, possibly reflecting unrecognized asymptomatic infections. These findings emphasize the need for caution in interpreting the presence of spike protein as exclusively vaccine-related.

We should also note that the study doesn't show that the original vaccine mRNA somehow survived for months, only that mRNA matching the vaccine sequence was detected by complementary probes.

I wonder if, in these cases, the vaccine was administered to someone with an active (but asymptomatic) COVID infection, and the vaccine mRNA was copied by the same RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that copies the viral RNA.

That might explain why both vaccine and viral RNA were found.

leereeves commented on 'Utopian' city California Forever announces tech manufacturing park techcrunch.com/2025/07/17... · Posted by u/geox

leereeves · 7 months ago

What makes it utopian?

leereeves commented on Third patient dies from acute liver failure caused by a Sarepta gene therapy biocentury.com/article/65... · Posted by u/randycupertino

msandford · 7 months ago

Do we have any studies that show this fast clearance? From what I understand at least one of them used a pseudo-uradine that there isn't an efficient direct metabolic pathway to process, which was kind of the whole point. The idea being it would circulate longer and be "more effective"

leereeves · 7 months ago

That's right, they use N1-Methylpseudouridine instead of uridine (the nucleoside contained in uracil, which is the U in mRNA sequences) to last a bit longer (but not forever) and to avoid triggering immune reactions to the mRNA itself (the immune system can detect foreign mRNA).

Certainly the vaccine's mRNA sequence breaks down into separate nucleotides. If it did not, continued production of the antigens would cause a chronic immune reaction and/or immune exhaustion that would make the vaccine ineffective.

I don't know what happens to the N1-Methylpseudouridine though. That's an interesting question.

leereeves commented on Marathon fusion claims to invent alchemy, making 5000 kgs gold per gigawatt marathonfusion.com/... · Posted by u/apugoneappu

leereeves · 7 months ago

To be clear, this is something that would be wrapped around a fusion power plant (capturing neutrons produced by fusion), not a viable fusion plant itself nor a way to generate gold from just any power plant, right?

leereeves commented on Third patient dies from acute liver failure caused by a Sarepta gene therapy biocentury.com/article/65... · Posted by u/randycupertino

trhway · 7 months ago

Interesting point there:

"The other problem is with viral vector based gene therapy is you can’t have it again. You develop antibodies which prevent it from working again, and it could cause a dangerous immune response."

Just wondering - would it make sense to immune-suppress the patient for a short period of administering of the viral-based therapy.

And as they describe that most gene therapies affect only extra-nuclear DNA, and thus have no permanent effect, wouldn't mRNA work better then in such cases - naturally the tech wasn't there 10+ years ago, yet today thanks to COVID it is here.

Edit (due to posting rate limit) in response to comment below:

I was thinking about mRNA coding dystrophin like it was coding COVID protein - should be cheap and easy (well, for some definition of easy in that context) doable, and it would be like a weekly self-injection - no toxicity, etc. Of course fixing the issue once for life would be better, once such cure becomes available, yet for now it would be similar like diabetics have with insulin - hassle for sure, yet it works.

leereeves · 7 months ago

mRNA vaccines like the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines don't enter the nucleus nor have a permanent effect. The mRNA breaks down after a few days.