January 7, 2018 — Col. John Alexander

[marduk]

Then in the late 90s there was an article in the Science Times section of the New York Times about astronomers who used the polarization of light to prove that the entire universe is rotating, and it even gave the axis of the rotation from one constellation to another. This would be huge news, because in 1949 Kurt Gödel proved that travel backward in time is possible within a rotating universe. But now I can't find any mention of this discovery.

Here's the paper.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9704196.pdf

We report a systematic rotation of the plane of polarization of electromagnetic radiation prop-

agating over cosmological distances. The effect is extracted independently from Faraday rotation,

and found to be correlated with the angular positions and distances to the sources. Monte Carlo

analysis yields probabilistic P-values of order 10−3 for this to occur as a fluctuation. A fit yields

a birefringence scale of order 1025 h0 m. Dependence on redshift z rules out a local effect. Barring h

hidden systematic bias in the data, the correlation indicates a new cosmological effect.

Here's the article:
'This Side Up' May Apply To the Universe, After All

It's not that interesting and has been discredited:

This page contains links to various papers having to do with the interesting question of whether light propagates isotropically through the Universe.

Borge Nodland and John Ralston claimed in Physical Review Letters (78, 3043, 1997) to have detected rotation in the polarization of radio waves from distant galaxies, as if the Universe were birefringent (sort of, but not really, like a giant piece of icelandic spar). Daniel Eisenstein and I published a brief comment explaining an error in this paper. We concluded that there is at this point no demonstrated evidence that this effect is real.

Is the Universe Birefringent?

 

[marduk]

There's a similar story in the US about a girl named Emily Whitehead who in 2012 was cured of a particularly lethal form of leukemia using CAR T-cell immunotherapy, but that story never disappeared from the press. It basically cured her overnight, and she's been perfectly healthy ever since. I can't fathom why we're not spending billions on developing this technology, and using it to cure cancer patients every day.

It just got FDA approval.
F.D.A. Approves First Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment, Costing $475,000

Not uncommon for something this avant garde to take this long.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

Here's the paper.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9704196.pdf
Here's the article:
'This Side Up' May Apply To the Universe, After All
It's not that interesting and has been discredited:
Is the Universe Birefringent?

Excellent internet sleuthing, thank you! That was driving me crazy for years %) Too bad it was an error, that would've been a really cool/weird feature of the universe, although it's different than the physical rotation that I thought it implied at the time.

It just got FDA approval.
F.D.A. Approves First Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment, Costing $475,000

Not uncommon for something this avant garde to take this long.

Damn that's exciting to see. $500K is a hefty price tag though - I'd like to see that drop by an order of magnitude. I'm convinced that it's an ideal strategy for curing a wide range of cancers - basically hacking the immune system to teach it how to kill cancer cells. They're currently experimenting with this technique for treating kids with DIPG (probably the most nightmarish form of brain cancer, which generally only kills children, and which is lethal about 100% of the time). I hope they figure it out; DIPG is an unspeakably shitty way to die - no kid should ever have to face that.

As I see it, this technique is a viable cure for cancer. So it galls me that we're not investing far more heavily in it. After all, it's certain that the cancer epidemic has been caused by industrialization, so I feel that we as a civilization have a moral obligation to cure the people who fall prey to the toxification of our ecosystem (and of course, to clean up the horrific mess we've made of our little fish bowl).

 

[marduk]

Excellent internet sleuthing, thank you! That was driving me crazy for years %) Too bad it was an error, that would've been a really cool/weird feature of the universe, although it's different than the physical rotation that I thought it implied at the time.


Damn that's exciting to see. $500K is a hefty price tag though - I'd like to see that drop by an order of magnitude. I'm convinced that it's an ideal strategy for curing a wide range of cancers - basically hacking the immune system to teach it how to kill cancer cells. They're currently experimenting with this technique for treating kids with DIPG (probably the most nightmarish form of brain cancer, which generally only kills children, and which is lethal about 100% of the time). I hope they figure it out; DIPG is an unspeakably shitty way to die - no kid should ever have to face that.

As I see it, this technique is a viable cure for cancer. So it galls me that we're not investing far more heavily in it. After all, it's certain that the cancer epidemic has been caused by industrialization, so I feel that we as a civilization have a moral obligation to cure the people who fall prey to the toxification of our ecosystem (and of course, to clean up the horrific mess we've made of our little fish bowl).

It’s far from certain that industrialization is the culprit. Humans appear to be susceptible to cancer.

We just used to die from other reasons. It’s an oddity that we live as long as we do.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

It’s far from certain that industrialization is the culprit. Humans appear to be susceptible to cancer.

We just used to die from other reasons. It’s an oddity that we live as long as we do.

I've read a number of studies about this - they've examined bones going back thousands of years and found that although cancer can does occasionally happen naturally, the incidents of cancer have skyrocketed since the dawn of the industrial age, and even our pets exhibit much higher rates of cancer today than animals used to get before the industrial age. This shouldn't be surprising - belching megatons of carcinogens into the environment has direct consequences on the health of organic life.

 

[marduk]

I've read a number of studies about this - they've examined bones going back thousands of years and found that although cancer can does occasionally happen naturally, the incidents of cancer have skyrocketed since the dawn of the industrial age, and even our pets exhibit much higher rates of cancer today than animals used to get before the industrial age. This shouldn't be surprising - belching megatons of carcinogens into the environment has direct consequences on the health of organic life.

Can you point me at them?

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

Can you point me at them?

I really should start saving medical studies - but here are some pertinent studies and articles:

"The study showed the disease rate has risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer."
Cancer caused by modern man as it was virtually non-existent in ancient world
Source: Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?
http://drfarrahcancercenter.com/pdf/David and zimmerman.pdf

The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change

Industrial Revolution Caused Rise In Cancer, Obesity, And Arthritis, Archaeologists Suggest
(final results of this study should be out this year)

World Cancer Report – World Health Organization
“The report also reveals that cancer has emerged as a major public health problem in developing countries, matching its effect in industrialized nations.

The World Cancer Report tells us that cancer rates are set to increase at an alarming rate globally. “
WHO | Global cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 million by 2020

"Cancer rates are up, particularly for cancers that affect the young"
Chemical Industry Archives
(Specific studies listed at the bottom)

 

[Ezechiel]

It’s far from certain that industrialization is the culprit. Humans appear to be susceptible to cancer.

We just used to die from other reasons. It’s an oddity that we live as long as we do.

Very much so. Humans hacking in its own genetics Hopefully I'll live long enough to see the programmed life-expectancy clock hack.

Only bigly problem is that earths current ecosystem can't support the hack... only exit is alpha-centauri... or zeta-reticuli 2 ? Or maybe a new Mars colony ?

 

[marduk]

Very much so. Humans hacking in its own genetics Hopefully I'll live long enough to see the programmed life-expectancy clock hack.

Only bigly problem is that earths current ecosystem can't support the hack... only exit is alpha-centauri... or zeta-reticuli 2 ? Or maybe a new Mars colony ?

I remember a prof saying something like most mammals live for 1 billion heartbeats or something. Except humans, which live 10 times that, and it’s an anomaly nobody understands.

That was 20 years ago so I’m pulling these numbers out of my ass obviously.

 

[Constance]

It’s not big enough. The $22M was total spend. It probably was only a few people working on it each year.

That means they didn’t take it seriously in all likelihood.

No, it means, as Harry Reid said, that they couldn't spend more without attracting DOD and/or Congressional attention and negative reactions from the usual sources for the usual reasons.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

I remember a prof saying something like most mammals live for 1 billion heartbeats or something. Except humans, which live 10 times that, and it’s an anomaly nobody understands.

That was 20 years ago so I’m pulling these numbers out of my ass obviously.

Apparently that’s called Rate-of-living theory
Rate-of-living theory - Wikipedia

And chickens get about as many heartbeats as humans do (roughly 2.2 billion beats, which is about 2-3 times as many as most other animals):
https://gizmodo.com/5982977/how-many-heartbeats-does-each-species-get-in-a-lifetime

 

[marduk]

No, it means, as Harry Reid said, that they couldn't spend more without attracting DOD and/or Congressional attention and negative reactions from the usual sources for the usual reasons.

Those things are both true. You still can’t get much for that money.

Anyway, it did end up attracting the attention.