STILL DEBATING A COVID VACCINE? HERE'S SOME CRYSTAL-CLEAR DATA FOR YOU

As of the end of August, 2021, 51 percent of the US population have been fully vaccinated for Covid-19. That means that 49 percent have not, despite the vaccine being widely available and free. Still, 61 percent have gotten at least one shot, so that leaves "only" 39 percent of the US population who have so far chosen not to seek or accept Covid-19 vaccination.

That means that more than 129 million Americans remain un-vaccinated, giving the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and especially the highly contagious delta mutant more than enough unprotected targets to continue to cause widespread illness, hospitalizations and death. Those 129 million unvaccinated people also comprise an enormous human petri dish in which the virus can continue to multiply and mutate.

Vaccination vs. hospitalization by state

Credit: NYT

Just in case some of those 129 million might be amenable to real-life, on-the-ground data about the life-saving benefits of the vaccine, here are some brand-new, nation-wide county-by-county research findings:

                                                                          Credit: Jeffrey Harris, MD

Jeffrey Harris, a physician and emeritus professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gathered data on vaccination rates, Covid-19 case rates and Covid-related hospitalizations in the 112 most populated US counties, a total of 147 million people. He used vaccination data as of mid-July, 2020 and compared them to Covid cases and hospitalizations between July 30 and August 12. You can read a pre-print of the research report here.

The results are striking. 

In the 56 counties in the lower half of the vaccination range, there were 548 cases per 100,000 population during the two-week study period, but just 281 cases per 100,000 in the 56 counties in the upper half of the vaccination rates. 

People in the less-vaccinated counties suffered 1.95 times as many diagnosed Covid-19 cases than people in the more-vaccinated counties.

A ten percent increase in vaccination rate correlated with a 28.3 percent reduction in Covid-19 cases.

The difference in Covid-caused hospitalizations in less- compared to more-vaccinated counties was even more dramatic. In the 56 less-vaccinated counties there were 55.4 hospitalizations per 100,000 people during the two-week study period, compared to 20.5 per 100,000 in the more-vaccinated counties. 

That means that for every hospitalization in the more-vaccinated counties, there were 2.7 hospitalizations in the less-vaccinated ones.

A ten-percent increase in vaccination rate correlated with a whopping 44.9 percent decrease in Covid hospitalizations.

So what's the bottom line of this large, detailed nationwide study? Basically, any region that can get 10 percent more of its citizens to get vaccinated can expect to cut its Covid case rate by 28 percent and its Covid hospitalization rate by 45 percent.

Lets translate those reductions in Covid cases and hospitalizations into lives saved:

In the US to date, we've suffered 39,662,129 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Among those, 2,675,000 have been hospitalized and 654,668 people have died. 

That means that for every 100,000 US cases, we're likely to see 1650 deaths. 

Thanks to an incredibly quick learning curve within the medical profession, the percentage of Americans who survive after being hospitalized for Covid-19 increased from 78.9 percent in early 2021 to 93.5 percent in August. Still, that means that even now the death rate for hospitalized Covid patients is 6.5 percent, meaning that out of every 100,000 Americans hospitalized for Covid, 6500 are likely to die.

As of the end of August, 2021, the US is registering more than 140,000 new Covid cases per day, or 980,000 per week. We're seeing an average of 12,297 new hospitalization per day, or 86,079 per week, and 1163 deaths per day, or 8,141 deaths per week.

Looking just weeks into the future, this study tells us that if just 10 percent of the 129,000,000 un-vaccinated Americans were to get vaccinated, we could avoid approximately 275,000 new Covid-19 cases, prevent 38,650 hospitalizations, and save at least 2500 lives--every week!

Dr. Harris believes we can do this. He says that among his patients he has encountered many "reasons" for not getting vaccinated. He recognizes that some people are "encapsulated in a misinformation bubble from which there seems to be no escape." Others, however, may be reachable, especially if there are tangible, real-life consequences to not be being vaccinated, such as loss of a job or not being able to enter restaurants or other businesses. 

"I expect many will come around," he says. Let's hope he's right.

Worth getting the jabs? You decide.

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REA/8-29-21

Vaccination rates ranged from below 30 percent in three counties in Georgia to over 65 percent in several counties in Maryland, Massachusetts, California and Washington. 

Want to see what an advanced humanoid robot can do? Check out this video from Boston Dynamics

 Just take a look:

 Atlas | Partners in Parkour - YouTube

Atlas | Partners in Parkour - YouTube

SOME ACTUAL DATA ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH COVID INFECTIONS

By now we've all heard about breakthrough covid cases--fully vaccinated people who still end up testing positive for covid. The standard line is that such cases are rare, that even if vaccinated people do catch covid, they are likely to have only mild symptoms. 

I've now come across some actual data, from Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, the two US state-level entities that publish detailed information about overall case rates and case rates among vaccinated citizens.

   Credit: Healthwatch Lambeth

Here's the lowdown:

In Oklahoma to date, 506,020 people out of a population of 3,956,971 have tested positive for covid. That's 12.8 percent of the population.

Of those 3,956,971 Oklahomans, 1,979,236 are fully vaccinated, either with the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine--almost exactly 50 percent. Of those nearly two million vaccinated citizens, just 2,514 have suffered a breakthrough covid infection. That's just 0.127 percent of the vaccinated group.

So, if we compare a case rate of 12.8 percent with a case rate of 0.127 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated Oklahomans are slightly more than 100 times as likely to come down with covid as their vaccinated peers.

Let's see how the stats for DC compare:

DC has a population of 705,749. Of these, to date, 52,005 have tested positive for covid, for an overall case rate of 7.37 percent.

Among the DC population, 299,020--42 percent--are fully vaccinated, again with one of the same three vaccines. Among that group there have been 546 breakthrough cases; a vaccinated case rate of 0.183 percent.

Comparing 0.183 percent vs 7.37 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated residents of DC are 40 times more likely to have had covid than their vaccinated neighbors.

As reported by Nicoletta Lanese of LiveScience.com here, the three vaccines vary consistently in their effectiveness. Here's a breakdown of the breakthrough percentages:

                         Oklahoma             DC             

Moderna              0.12                0.13            

Pfizer                    0.17                0.20

J & J                     0.21                0.32

Overall                0.127              0.183

(Note that the overall case rates for vaccinated people are not exact averages of the rates for the three vaccines because different numbers of people received each of the three vaccines.)

Based on the data from Oklahoma and DC, it would be fair to conclude that fully vaccinated people are somewhere between 40 and 100 times less likely to catch covid than are their unvaccinated fellow citizens. In addition, as has been reported, those who do have a breakthrough case are far less likely to progress to severe illness, hospitalization or death. 

Of course, further data could modify this, but for now, I'm extremely glad to be fully vaccinated, congratulate everyone who has gotten their shots, and strongly urge anyone who has not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Being 40 to 100 times safer is a very big deal.

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REA 8/12/2021

KIDS URGENTLY NEED TO BE PROTECTED FROM COVID TOO

 If you have children or grandchildren, or if you just care about kids, please read this piece from the Washington Post:

Children with covid can get very ill, as I have seen in my hospital - The Washington Post 

It's still rare, but kids too can get severe cases of Covid

Credit: vperemen

The latest statistics show that children now account for 15 percent of new covid cases in the US. Since they can't yet be vaccinated, their protection must come from adult vaccination, facemasks, social distancing, testing and tracing--all the sensible public health measures that we're familiar with (and of course very tired of). But let's do it for the sake of the children.

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REA 8/11/21

IF WE'RE TALKING JOBS, PAINT THEM GREEN

I'm constantly adding research reports to an already bulging computer file labeled CLIMATE-ECO-TOPIA. The thrust of these findings, dating back many years, is that transitioning to a sustainable green economy, although costly, would provide so many benefits in terms of human health and well-being, the environment, and the economy that it's not just necessary and urgent, but basically a no-brainer.

Solar Panel Installer//Credit: Maxpixel

I'll be writing about other aspects of this later, but today I'm just going to report on three job-related findings:

First, as of the end of 2019, the US Green Economy employed ten times more people than the entire fossil fuel industry. As reported in New Scientist on October 15 of that year, the entire fossil fuel sector of the US economy employed around 900,000 people. In contrast, the Green Economy, broadly defined, employed at least 9.5 million Americans--more than ten times those fossil fuel jobs.

Those jobs comprised about 4 percent of all US employment and the green sector now accounts for 7 percent of the GDP, about $1.3 trillion per year. 

Marc Maslin, a geoscientist at University College London, and co-author of the underlying study, pulls no punches. "The Trump administration with the 'America first' approach of 'fossil fuels are good', is stupid when it comes to economics," he says. "If you want to be a hard-nosed neoliberal economist you would say, 'Let's support the green economy as much as possible.'"

Looking globally, research published in the July 23 edition of the journal One Earth shows that if nations took the necessary steps to transition to a green economy and by doing so meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating below 2 degrees C, that would create far more new jobs than would be lost in the declining fossil-fuel sector, a net gain of at least 8 million jobs.

Many of those jobs would be in the U.S.  A separate study reported in Renewable Energy World estimates that adding enough rooftop or community solar panels to power 30 million American homes would add 1.77 million jobs. In addition, in just five years this would save $69 billion in energy bills and keep the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere as taking 42 million cars off the road or closing 48 coal-burning power plants.

Talk about a win-win solution--and one we need to push forward on urgently.

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REA 8/8/2021

THE DELTA VARIANT AND BEYOND--EXPERT COVID-19 UPDATE

I just sat in on a Covid-19 update presented by the Newswise science news service featuring three experts:

Perry Halkitis, a public health psychologist and applied statistician at New Jersey's Rutgers University,

Eleanor Wilson, a medical doctor and infections disease specialist at the University of Maryland, and

David Souleles, Director of UC Irvine's Covid-19 response team, recently retired .Orange County Public Health Director

Delta is for Dangerous . . .

Credit: The Spinoff/ISO FORM LLC

The focus of the update was the emergence and trajectory of the delta variant and what that implies for the US.

Here are some of the key points the three experts made:

--The delta variant is a serious threat in the US and worldwide.

--As recently reported, the level of viremia--the viral load in the bloodstream--from a delta-covid infection is 1,000 times higher than from previous versions of the virus. That's probably what is making it so infectious.

--According to Dr. Wilson, the infectiousness, or "R-nought" value, of the original version of Covid-19 was estimated to be between 1 and 3. Statistically that means that one infected person would pass the virus to one to three others. The beta version's R value was between 4 and 6. The delta variant is 8 or 9. The only virus known to be more easily transmitted is measles, with an R value of 13.

--Unfortunately, the current vaccines appear to offer less protection against delta than against earlier versions of the virus. However, even though they may not completely protect against catching the virus, they are still highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. As such, vaccines remain our most important and urgent line of defense. "If we want to get back to normal life, we need our vaccination rates to be much higher," Souleles says. "That's priority number one to get our lives closer to what they were in January of 2020."

--That doesn't just include the US. The billions of people worldwide who are still not vaccinated are not just at risk personally, but represent a huge reservoir of current and future Covid-19 cases and so a huge opportunity for the virus to continue to mutate and spin off even more dangerous variants. "It's a global problem," says Wilson. "We have to vaccinate everyone. If we give the virus fewer opportunities to replicate, we win."

--All three of the experts were very concerned about the portion of the US population that are not yet vaccinated. They emphasize the importance of recognizing that this is not a monolithic group of dedicated vaccine refusers. Instead, these are individuals with many different issues, including very real medical, scheduling or other practical issues, normal anxieties and fears, such as a fear of needles, along with exposure to partial or incorrect information, and, unfortunately, a substantial number of people with politicized resistance to the vaccine and other protective measures. 

--They advocate both continued public education and persistent one-on-one outreach, aimed at recognizing and addressing each person's specific issues. "The media need to help people figure out what's real and what's not real, people who are being bombarded by misinformation," says Halkitis.  

"It takes a lot of conversation, but you have to keep doing it," says Wilson. To which Souleles adds, "Not just one conversation, maybe three, four or five."

--However, when education and patient one-to-one persuasion don't work, stronger steps may need to be taken. "I'd take a "tough-guy-from-New-York" approach," says Halkitis. "If you live in a civil society and you want to navigate spaces like concerts, restaurants, jobs and schools, you need to be vaccinated. Macron did it in France. If you want your children to go to school, they have to be vaccinated."

--All three agree that we need to track the course of the delta variant and any new variants that emerge with great attention, and that they could easily force a re-instatement of controls that have only recently been lifted. "Where we were six weeks ago is not where we are today," says Halkitis. "The next week will be very significant."

To summarize, the delta variant is highly contagious, surging rapidly, and is a potential game-changer. Everyone is eager to get back to something like the old normal, or on to a less restrictive new normal, but ultimately, it's the trajectory of the virus that will determine that. That trajectory is at least partly under our control through vaccination and other public health measures that we're all too familiar with. 

"We've got the tools," Souleles says. "We've just got to apply them on a broad scale."

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REA 7/23/21

NOW WE KNOW WHY DELTA IS SO DEVASTATING

The delta variant of the covid-19 virus is now the dominant strain in the U.S. and worldwide, accounting for more than half of new infections and driving up hospitalization rates and deaths in many U.S. states and multiple countries. 

We now have the first clues as to why the delta variant spreads so easily--at least twice as fast as the original virus. Just-released research from China reveals that the variant was detected in infected people two days earlier than was typical of the original virus--in 4 vs. 6 days--and, strikingly, the number of virus particles produced and potentially spread by sufferers was up to 1260 times higher.

Credit: Fortune.com

"This virus has surprised us," says  Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, after reviewing the new study. 

The one-two punch of faster development after infection and vastly higher viral load combine to make the virus more quickly and easily transmitted, and make testing-contact tracing and quarantine-one of the main weapons in the battle against the pandemic--less effective.

"Putting it all together, Delta's really difficult to stop," says Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the the University of Hong Kong.

Unfortunately, with low vaccination rates in many states, along with the relaxation of most covid-related restrictions, we're going to hear a lot more about this virulent covid variant.

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REA 7/22/21

A SIP OF GOOD NEWS, AT LEAST FOR COFFEE LOVERS

It's rare to find out that something you like is actually good for you. But today we can report that coffee really is. Here's the good news, freshly poured:

As part of a large multi-year study, researchers were able to compare coffee consumption and a variety of health outcomes for more than 185,000 people in California and Hawaii. As reported in the July 11, 2021 issue of the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine, over the course of the study coffee drinkers lived longer and suffered fewer cases of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, respiratory illness and kidney disease. 

Credit: stokpik/Pixabay

How large were these benefits? On the average people were followed for 16 years, starting at ages from 45 to 75. Over the course of the study 31 percent of the participants died, with cardiovascular disease and cancer being the biggest risks. People who drank one cup of coffee a day were 12 percent less likely to die during the study period than non-coffee-drinkers, and people who drank two or three cups per day were 18 percent less likely to die. 

So not only did coffee add years to people's lives, it also added years of good health.

Veronica Setiawan, an associate professor of preventative medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine, and the study's lead author, is impressed enough with these findings that she's suggesting that non-coffee-drinkers reconsider. "We cannot say drinking coffee will prolong your life, but we see an association," she says. "If you like to drink coffee, drink up! If you're not a coffee drinker, then you need to consider if you should start."

One of this study's strongest points is the rich ethnic mix of its participants. It enrolled large cohorts of African-Americans, Native Hawaiians, Japanese-Americans, Latinos and whites. It turned out that all of these groups showed comparable benefits from coffee consumption. "This study is the largest of its kind and includes minorities who have very different lifestyles," Setiawan says. "Seeing a similar pattern across different populations gives stronger biological backing to the argument that coffee is good for you whether you are white, African-American, Lationo or Asian."

An interesting wrinkle was the finding that it made no difference whether participants drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. Instead, Setiawan suspects antioxidants and other chemicals in coffee provide the health benefits she found. "Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants and phenolic compounds that play an important role in cancer prevention," she says.  "Although this study does not show causation or point to what chemicals in coffee may have this 'elixir effect,' it is clear that coffee can be incorporated into a healthy diet and lifestyle."

As I finish off my third cup of Joe for the day, it's great to be able to report some news that put a smile on my face, and I suspect will do the same for many others as well.

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REA 7/20/21

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And, as a bonus, another large long-term study finds that, contrary to its reputation, coffee doesn't add to the risk of developing cardiac arrhythmias. In fact, each additional daily cup of coffee was associated with a 3 percent reduction in the incidence of arrhythmia.

However, there really can be too much of a good thing. Just-published research from Australia indicates that people who drink more than six cups of coffee a day are putting themselves at significantly higher risk of stroke and dementia. The devil, it seems, is in the dose.

HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS MORE LIKELY TO SURVIVE IF THEIR PRIMARY PHYSICIAN IS A WOMAN

 A study involving more than 170,000 patients hospitalized in 7 different facilities in Toronto, Canada found that patients whose lead physician was female had a significantly higher survival rate than patients attended by male physicians. Overall 48 out of every 1000 of patients attended by female physicians died in hospital within 30 days compared to 52 out of every 1000 treated by male physicians--almost 8 percent fewer deaths. 

                                                                        Credit: DMCA

The results of this large Canadian study are very similar to those of an earlier study of hospitalized Medicare patients in the US, which also found a comparable and significant difference in survival rates between patients treated by female compared to male doctors. You can read my earlier post about this here.

In the Canadian study, the difference in outcomes between inpatients of male and female physicians did not depend on the sex, age, severity of illness, or other characteristics of the patients.

There were several differences that may have contributed to female physicians' better patient outcomes. In particular, they ordered more studies, including CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds. Previous research has shown that female physicians are more likely to review patient records, consult with colleagues and make referrals, spend more time listening to and talking with patients, show more empathic concern and take complaints and symptoms more seriously, all of which may contribute to better patient outcomes.

Still, before concluding that women are simply better doctors than men, another variable turned out to be equally significant in the Canadian study--the number of years of experience doctors had. Contrary to what one might think, this and other studies have shown that physician years of experience and patient outcome are negatively correlated, that is more years of experience correlates with more rather than fewer patient deaths. 

"Some [studies] suggest that physicians closer to their residency training are more up to date on clinical guidelines and are more likely to follow evidence-based practice, which may improve patient outcomes," the authors explain.

In the Canadian cohort of physicians, the female clinicians had on average 4.3 years of experience vs. 7.4 years for their male colleagues. This age difference proved to be as predictive of patient outcomes as physician gender.

So what's the bottom line? The authors of the Canadian study point out that they do not want to ". . . perpetuate gender stereotypes." So instead of looking for doctors who are female, perhaps we should instead look for doctors who are young, up-to-date in their clinical knowledge, empathic, good listeners and communicators, who take our issues seriously, and are willing to order appropriate tests, consult other doctors and refer when needed. 

You can be your own judge of whether you're more likely to find these qualities in a male or a female physician. 

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REA 7/17/21

MUST-READ ESSAY BY TIMOTHY SNYDER ON AMERICA'S NEW "MEMORY LAWS"

 Six US states have recently passed laws or guidelines limiting what can be taught about race and racism in US history and in the US today. Twelve more states are considering similar legislation.

                                                 Credit: Patrick Hoesley/Creative Commons

This isn't just a slippery slope; it's a slime-coated declivity that tramples vital facts underfoot and elevates an official narrative and the feelings of discomfort that facts may cause into the arbiters of what can and cannot be taught.

In the June 29th edition of the New York Times Magazine, Yale professor and author Timothy Snyder has gifted us a compelling essay about this dangerous movement, entitled The War on History is a War on Democracy.

I'd add that this isn't just a war on democracy, it's a war on reason and reality. 

If you haven't done so already, please take the time to read it.

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REA 7/13/21

EVEN THE VACCINATED NEED TO GUARD AGAINST VARIANT DELTA

Many of us who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 have at least started to lead more normal lives. Since getting my Pfizer shots, I've traveled by plane, stayed at a B&B and in friends' homes, eaten inside restaurants, and hugged (vaccinated) friends. It's felt great.

But from what I'm now reading, even if we're fully vaccinated, we may not be fully protected against the highly contagious Delta variant.

Credit: ISO-FORM LLC

From the laboratory, as reported in the prestigious journal Nature, we learn that one dose of either the Pfizer or the AstraZenaca vaccines "was poorly or not at all efficient against the Beta and Delta variants." Serum from just one person in 10 partially vaccinated people was able to neutralize the Delta variant. 

A bit more encouragingly, blood serum from 95 percent of people who'd gotten both shots of either vaccine did generate a neutralizing response. However, that response was just one-third to one-fifth as potent against Delta compared to Alpha.

And, in the outside world comes a report from Israel indicating that the Pfizer jab is just 64 percent effective in keeping vaccinated people from catching the Delta variant. The good news is that it appears to be 94 percent effective in preventing severe illness. Still, the actual numbers are not encouraging. In the recent two-week period surveyed, Israel recorded 1,528 new Covid cases. Of those, 1,271 were in fully vaccinated people. Thirty-seven people had to be hospitalized, of which 23 were fully vaccinated. Seventeen patients fell seriously ill, or which 11 had gotten both Pfizer shots.

More recent data from Israel, covering the week of June 27 through July 3 showed that a shockingly high percentage of new Covid cases--85 percent--hit fully vaccinated people. That's essentially the same percentage who are vaccinated in the whole Israeli population. At first glance this could indicate that the mRNA vaccines provide no protection against the delta variant. It's also possible that the 15 percent of the Israeli population who are nor vaccinated have already had Covid or are otherwise immune. In that case these data could indicate that vaccination provides no more protection than a prior bout with Covid. But in either case they clearly show that "breakthrough" infections from the delta variant are far from rare.

And an even more recent report from Israel finds that even two Pfizer jabs are just 39 percent effective in protecting people against the delta variant. The same report is quick to point out that the shots are 88 percent effective in preventing hospitalization and 91 percent effective against severe illness.

The Israeli numbers are described as preliminary and definitely are outliers compared to what some other countries are reporting. However, they clearly show that the Delta variant can sneak past the antibody defenses of a significant number of vaccinated individuals, corroborating what was seen in the lab.

If more proof were needed, an outbreak of the delta variant among staff and patients at a hospital in Calgary, Alberta, Canada provides it. Ten medical professionals who were fully vaccinated nonetheless came down with Covid-delta after attending a party. "It's quite a red flag, honestly," one Canadian health expert said.

It's reassuring that the vaccines still appear to be highly effective in preventing serious illness. Still, I don't want to risk even a mild case of Covid. So, until the Delta variant becomes much less prevalent, or until further data is significantly more reassuring, I'm dialing back from my more freewheeling behavior of the last few months.

"Normal" may be in sight, but, due to the highly contagious delta variant, it's not here yet.

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REA

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GET VACCINATED OR NOT? HERE ARE SOME ACTUAL STATISTICS.

 Just a quick note to any vaccine doubters who might still be amenable to facts:

Contra Costa County, in northern California, has begun publishing separate covid case statistics for vaccinated and un-vaccinated people.

The most recent 7-day average shows that among the 72 percent of adults who are vaccinated, the rate of new covid cases was 0.4 per 100,000--i.e. just one vaccinated person out of 250,000 got covid.

Credit: Manit Chaidee

In contrast, among the 28 percent of the county's population who are not vaccinated, the rate was 7.0 per 100,000. That's 17.5 times higher.

I don't know about you, but any time I can cut my risk of getting a potentially life-threatening disease by a factor of 17, I'm going for it.

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REA

WERE PEOPLE OCCUPYING A CAVE IN MEXICO 30,000 YEARS AGO?

There are few scientific questions as controversial as when humans first entered the Americas. For decades widely-spread groups using the distinctive Clovis toolkit held that title with a date of first entry around 13,000 years ago. In recent years a few hotly contested findings have pushed that date back by a few thousand years--for example there's now generally accepted evidence of humans living at Monte Verde, Chile, near the tip of South America, 14,800 years ago. 

Now, new evidence from the depths of a cave near Puebla, Mexico may double the length of human occupation of the Americas--to 30,000 years or more. If these new dates and the signs of human activity associated with them hold up to the intense scrutiny they are sure to provoke, it will place humans in North America before rather than after the most recent glacial maximum, dramatically re-writing the prehistory of the Americas.

Coxcatlan Cave and its location--Credit Andrew Somerville/ISU/Latin American Antiquity

Paleoecologist Andrew Somerville, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, did not set out to make a potentially paradigm-breaking discovery. He and his colleagues, Isabel Casar (UNAM*) and Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales (INAH**) just wanted to clarify the dating of the previously excavated and studied Coxcatlan Cave in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, with a focus on the development of agriculture.

Earlier researchers had excavated and described 28 distinct levels of deposits in the cave extending over thousands of years, most of which included signs of human habitation. The strata revealed a progression of material culture starting with slightly worked stone blades, scrapers and choppers through the development of carefully crafted stone tools, ceramics, woven materials, grinding stones, and early signs of agriculture.

Somerville and his colleagues used accelerator mass spectrometry (ACM) to perform precision carbon-14 dating on deer, hare and rabbit bones from various levels of the cave. While their findings corroborated the dating of the site's more recent levels, they were surprised when bones from the deepest deposits consistently dated to between 33,448 and 28,279 years before the present. 

Since respected previous researchers had found that those deep levels showed signs of human habitation--for example slightly worked stone tools including flint that had to be imported to the cave, and bones showing signs of heating and butchering, Somerville and his colleagues realized that they had stumbled upon a potentially revolutionary find.

"We weren't trying to weigh in on this debate, or even find really old samples," Somerville says. "We were surprised to find these really old dates at the bottom of the cave, and it means we need to take a closer look at the artifacts recovered from those levels."

Somerville is teaming up with Matthew Hill, also at Iowa State, to re-examine the stones and bones  from the deepest levels of the cave to see if they can prove or disprove that they were worked or modified by humans. "Determining whether the stone artifacts were products of human manufacture or it they were just naturally chipped stones would be one way to get to the bottom of this," Somerville says. Similarly, microscopic examination of the bone fragments may reveal proof of heating, or cut marks that could only come from stone tools wielded by human hands. 

Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has so far prevented Somerville and his colleagues from re-examining the bones. They think they will be able to access them during the summer of 2022. While the bones were carefully identified and categorized in the 1960s by Kent Flannery, a highly respected archaeologist, he did not study them at the level of detail Somerville plans. 

"Documenting and quantifying modifications to the bones, such as the patterns of breakage, the presence of cut marks, and thermal alterations to the bones were not part of the original study," Somerville explains. "Our plan is to return to the collection with a digital microscope and to systematically analyze each specimen to document this information. The goal is to ascertain whether or not humans had actually hunted and consumed these animals."

Somerville is also working with the Peabody Museum, in Andover, Massachusetts, to locate and re-study the possible stone tools from the deepest levels of the Coxcatlan Cave.

According to Somerville, Flannery and his colleague, the equally highly respected archaeologist Richard S. MacNeish, were fairly sure that the bones and stones from the deepest levels of the cave were left there by humans. As a result, Somerville thinks that its likely that further study with current techniques will confirm that. "It wouldn't surprise me if they were right all along," he writes. "However the possibility remains that these levels were natural accumulations of bones and stones, so I'm remaining skeptical but with an open mind until we have more data."

Somerville and his colleagues are thoroughly aware of how contentious a finding of a 30,000 year old human presence in the Americas would be, and accordingly have presented their current research very cautiously. "Because we very intentionally tried not to oversell our results, I think we have been able to avoid any serious criticism or backlash so far," he writes.

"So far" are the key words. American archaeology is notorious for the large number of sites at which researchers have found what they thought was evidence of human habitation dating back 20,000 years or more, only to find their work dissected, discounted and eventually dismissed by other researchers. 

While we eagerly await the next round of findings from professors Somerville and Hill, it's clear from the history of the field that they will have to produce extremely convincing proof before the needle marking when people first occupied the New World budges from its current position. But if it does swing from after to before the last glacial maximum, it would mean a revolution in our understanding of the peopling of the Americas.

REA

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You can access the original, open-source Latin American Antiquity article reporting these findings here

*Institute of Physics, National Autonomous University of Mexico

**Subdirectory of Laboratories and Academic Support, National Institute of of Anthropology and History

THE FUSE IS LIT FOR A POTENTIAL AI EXPLOSION

On the short list of potential existential threats to humanity is an explosive increase in the power of artificial intelligence (AI). 

The people warning us about this argue that the first AI to reach a superhuman level of general intelligence--often referred to as artifical general intelligence or AGI--could rapidly create an even smarter AI, which in turn could create a still smarter AI, etc. This exponential, chain-reaction increase in machine intelligence could quickly leave humanity in the dust, with unpredictable but quite possibly devastating consequences. 

Image credit: TOPBOTS

Skeptics  say that super-smart AGI still lies far in the future, if it will ever be achieved. They also assert that human-positive values could be built into any such system, or that just as we're able to tell current computers and AI systems what to do, we will be able to set goals for and control any artificial general intelligence.

We can reserve a discussion of those issues for a different post.** Today's note is stimulated by the achievement of one of the steps often cited as a lynchpin of a potential artificial intelligence explosion--an AI system designing even smarter "offspring."

James Vincent, writing in The Verge, reports that Google is now using AI to create the "floor plans" for next-generation tensor processing units, or TPUs, chips that Google builds to, among other things, power its most powerful AI systems. 

Reportedly, a new and more potent TPU architecture that would have taken a team of human designers months of intense work to design can now be generated in as many hours by an AI trained to view chip creation as a kind of game. 

Vincent optimistically writes, "The virtuous cycle of AI designing chips for AI looks like it's only just getting started. 

A pessimist might point out that what we've just seen is a speed-up of an important part of AI progress--by an AI--by a factor of more than 700. That's precisely why those pesky AI worry-warts foresee us ever-so-slow humans sooner or later being left wondering what just happened.

REA

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** You can view some related posts via these links:

zerospinzone: Advanced Artificial Intelligence--Friend or Foe

Article: Google's AlphaZero is now scary smart | OpEdNews

Article: Self-aware artificial intelligence? Coming soon to a robot near you | OpEdNews

zerospinzone: FORGET MOORE'S LAW -- NEVEN'S LAW RULES NOW

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND--A WHIFF OF GOOD CLIMATE NEWS

Good news is scarce these days, so I'm thrilled to get to report that in the first three months of this year, nearly all--99.7 percent--of new electricity generating capacity in the US came from solar and wind. Once-and-hopefully-never-again King Coal accounted for a measly 0.2 percent of new capacity. 

                                        Wind Farm--Credit USFWS/Joshua Winchell

That brings renewable's percentage of US power generation capacity up to 24.7 percent of the total.

Actual power generation for the first quarter was comparable--21.6 percent of all power generated. March was even better--25.5 percent of the electricity that went into the US grid came from renewables.

Needless to say, the US and the rest of the world need to phase out climate destabilizing energy sources and replace them with renewables as quickly as possible.

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These data come from FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

REA/6/14/21, 6/16/21

SO CLOSE TO THE ERADICATION OF POLIO...

 We're nearly half way through 2021. So far this year, there have been just two cases of polio caused by the wild polio virus, one in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan. The decades-long international effort to eradicate this crippling and deadly disease is tantalizingly close to success. The wild polio virus, once endemic globally, now hangs on in just those two conflict-ridden countries.

The oral polio vaccine--

inexpensive, effective

but can revert to a virulent form

Credit: Michael Tsegaye/Flickr

Unfortunately, there have been substantially more--nearly 100--polio cases caused when the oral polio vaccine mutates back to a virulent form.

The polio end game will require the gradualy replacement of the oral polio vaccine with the inactivated polio vaccine, which is incapable of causing poliomyelitis. 

Polio will officially be declared eradicated when three years have passed without any documented polio cases caused by the wild polio virus. That will mark just the second human disease that we have been able to eradicate, the first being smallpox, declared eradicated in 1980.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOTS

 Killer robots have been a staple of science fiction and dystopian writing for decades. A new UN report suggests that reality has now caught up with what has been mere fantasy until now, in the form of lethal autonomous drones unleashed in Libya last March.

Striking video of a swarm of Kargu drones in action

Credit: STM/YouTube

As reported in New Scientist, a just-published UN report details an attack on retreating partisan forces in a Libyan civil war by autonomous Kargu-2 quadcopters programmed to identify their targets, including humans, home in on them and explode. The 7 kg (15 lb) Kargu drones are designed to fly in swarms too numerous to be defended against. According to the anonymous source for the UN report, these kamikaze drones were "highly effective" in hunting down and killing retreating soldiers.

The New Scientist story about this apparent first actual use of fully autonomous weapons in warfare underlines the urgency of forging an international agreement concerning (and hopefully outlawing) their use.

Unfortunately, in advance of any such agreement, yet another malevolent genie has been unchained.

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REA 5-28-21

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Predictably, the use of a drone swarm in warfare described above was not a one-off. In it's 30 June, 2021 edition, New Scientist reports that Israel used an AI-guided drone swarm to target Hamas militants in Gaza. Given that both China and the US are reportedly developing drone swarm technology, we're almost sure to see more use of these autonomous or semi-autonomous killer swarms in the near future. New Scientist quotes Zak Kallenborn, a terrorism and counter-terrorism expert as pointing out that larger and larger swarms can be expected. “A handful of swarming drones is probably not a big risk, but what about 10,000? We may be looking at the emergence of a new weapon of mass destruction”

You can read more at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282656-israel-used-worlds-first-ai-guided-combat-drone-swarm-in-gaza-attacks/#ixzz6zQILCcZr

BEWARE OF SYMPTOMLESS SUPERSPREADERS

A just-published research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals some striking new information about how the coronavirus spreads. A study testing thousands of people at the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that the distribution of virus particles among symptomless individuals matched the distribution among people hospitalized for Covid-19, with a few individuals in both groups carrying enormous numbers of virus particles and so having the potential to act as COVID-19 superspreaders. In other words, some people with no COVID-19 symptoms at all can spread the disease as easily as the most contagious hospitalized patients.

Virus loads in asymptomatic people matched those in hospitalized patients

Credit: Yang et al., University of Colorado, Boulder

The researchers found that, regardless of symptoms, just two percent of people who test positive for the coronavirus carry 90 percent of the virus particles circulating in a given population. "The highest observed viral load was over 6 trillion virions [complete, infective virus particles] per Ml, which was only observed in one individual," they write. "It is remarkable to consider that this individual was on campus and reported no symptoms . . .." 

They add that just 10 percent of symptom-free people who test positive for the virus, plus 14 percent of hospitalized Covid-19 patients account for 99 percent of circulating, active virus particles. 

In addition to such potential super-carriers, the researchers estimate that 50 percent of symptomless individuals who test positive for the coronavirus carry enough virus particles in their saliva to spread COVID-19 to to others.

These finding have several important implications. One is that being symptom free does not guarantee that someone isn't a COVID spreader or super-spreader. As more people get vaccinated and people become more relaxed about mask-wearing social distancing and avoiding groups and crowds indoors, it's very likely that we'll see continuing outbursts of Covid cases seeded by such symptomless but highy contagious non-vaccinated individuals. 

Anyone concerned for their own safety or that of their family, friends or contacts should probably not be in a hurry to stop wearing a face mask to minimize their own risk and the risk they potentially pose to others.

A second, public-health implication is the importance of continued, widespread screening, including of people without any COVID symptoms. ". . . it is imperative that we find virus supercarriers, and inform them of their infection status in a way that is fast, easy, and accessible," the researchers write. "Finding viral supercarriers will have a disproportionately large impact on curbing new COVID-19 infections."

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REA/5-10-21

POLIO ERADICATION UPDATE 4-30-21

 As Zerospinzone followers know, I'm fascinated by the quest not just to control or cure deadly diseases, but to eradicate them completely. The scourge of smallpox was defeated in 1980, and we've been closing in on polio since the deployment of the first (Salk, inactivated virus) vaccine in 1954, country by country, continent by continent.

Polio has been with us for thousands of years

This depiction is from Egypt's 18th Dynasty--1403 to 1365 BC

Credit: Deutsches Grünes Kreuz

Today, the wild polio virus hangs on in just two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, with just one case reported in each of those countries so far this year. We may really be on the verge of totally eliminating the wild polio virus from Planet Earth.

Even when that remarkable feat has been accomplished, the battle won't be over. The oral polio vaccines that have been so incredibly successful have one flaw--the attenuated viruses they use very occasionally mutate back into disease-causing variants. So far this year there have been 73 cases in 10 countries, fewer than last year at this time, but still a serious problem. 

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has developed and initiated a strategy or endgame to deal with this issue. They plan to gradually phase out the massive provision of attenuated oral vaccines, phase in the use of an inactivated-virus vaccine as needed, and, hopefully, bring the millennial reign of polio to an end.

I'll continue to report on their progress towards this grand goal.

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REA 4-30-21 

How hot will it get later this century? So hot that we'll need new terms.

 A new study paints a grim climate picture for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). 

As reported in the prestigious, peer-reviewed journal NPJ/Climate and Atmospheric Science, first-of-their-kind regional climate models project prolonged, life-threatening heat waves impacting up to 600 million people in the MENA region if global warming is not brought under control. In a "business-as-usual" scenario, temperatures are projected to soar to 56 degrees Celsius (133 degrees Fahrenheit) and remain at such intolerable levels for days or weeks at a time in the second half of this century. 

We need new terms to categorize such intense, extended and deadly heat events. "Our results for a business-as-usual pathway indicate that especially in the second half of this century unprecedented super- and ultra-extreme heatwaves will emerge," says George Zittis, first author of the new study.

The authors point out that by mid-century, 90 percent of the population of the MENA region are expected to be living in cities. Cities act as "heat islands" that intensify and prolong extreme heat events. That means that a high percentage of the regions projected population of one billion will face such life-threatening conditions almost every year towards the end of the century.

"For the following decades and towards the end of the 21st century, thermal conditions in the region are projected to become particularly harsh as the so-far-unobserved and thus unprecedented "super-extreme" and "ultra-extreme" events are projected to become commonplace," the authors write.

Daily heat wave magnitude averages from 1980s projected through 2100

Credit: Zittis et al./NPJ/Climate and Atmospheric Science

If the world continues on its current business-as-usual path, the Middle East and North Africa will clearly be at risk, not just of increased human mortality, but of disruption of work, agriculture and daily life. Since the most extreme conditions this study foresees have not yet been experienced, how much personal, social, economic and political disruption they will cause remains to be seen. However, like the heat projections, those disruptions are likely to be extreme, super-extreme or ultra-extreme. And, as we know, problems that start in the Middle East do not stay in the Middle East.

If world leaders needed any more motivation to turn the looming climate catastrophe around now, here it is.

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REA/4-29-21