Schneider Shorts 5.08.2022 – Useful Idiots

Schneider Shorts of 5 August 2022 – russia’s useful idiots, Dr Oz’ emails to Dr Birx about Dr Raoult, with Harvard’s undead pigs, Weizmann’s artificial baby mice, Neanderthals trapped in the metaphase, four humours of depression, punished fraudsters, papermills, retractions, and new cures for cancer and obesity.

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Russia’s War on Ukraine

Nuclear concerns

As you may know, russia occupied the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, the biggest in Europe with 6 reactors. The Ukrainian team is being held hostage and forced to follow orders from russian management from Rosatom, constantly under gunpoint from rascist occupiers ready to torture and kill.

AP now reports:

“The U.N. nuclear chief warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their Feb. 24. invasion of Ukraine.”

Grossi said that the IAEA needs access to the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine so its inspectors can, among other things, reestablish connections with the Vienna-based headquarters of the U.N. agency.

And for that, both Russia and Ukraine need to help. pic.twitter.com/9d1qgTEJGR

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 27, 2022

I am not sure why Grossi blames Ukraine at least as much as russia, he even cynically berates the heroic hostage-held Ukrainian staff of the nuclear plant for their “faulty” and “patchy” communication with IAEA. What does he expect Ukraine to do? They most certainly don’t prevent IAEA from accessing the plant, the rascists do. But then again, the UN organisation IAEA is controlled by nuclear industry nations, of which russia is the second biggest. This is why Grossi seems grateful to russia for their act of good will, aka retreating from Chernobyl, and berates the uncooperative Ukrainians instead:

“Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site soon after the invasion but handed control back to the Ukrainians at the end of March. Grossi visited Chernobyl on April 27 and tweeted that the level of safety was “like a `red light’ blinking.” But he said Tuesday that the IAEA set up “an assistance mission” at Chernobyl at that time “that has been very, very successful so far.”

The IAEA needs to go to Zaporizhzhia, as it did to Chernobyl, to ascertain the facts of what is actually happening there, to carry out repairs and inspections, and “to prevent a nuclear accident from happening,” Grossi said.

The IAEA chief said he and his team need protection to get to the plant and the urgent cooperation of Russia and Ukraine.”

Yes, Ukraine is doing its best to kill those rascist orcs and make them retreat, no thanks to UN. Btw, IAEA declared back in 1980ies that the Chernobyl disaster was totally not dangerous, and those Ukrainian victims were just paranoid hysterical alcoholics.

Initially, russia’s plan was to steal the Zaporizhzhia electricity for its national purposes, but the existing grid doesn’t allow it. So the new plan is to use the nuclear facilities as storage space for troops and heavy weapons and to attack Ukrainian (mostly civil) targets from the plant’s perimeter. It’s a win-win situation for russia: if the cooling system or the reactors are hit, Ukraine and Europe which russia hates so much will receive an equivalent of a massive nuclear bomb explosion. Sure, russia will get badly radiated as well, but their rulers never cared about the lives of their slaves.

Grossi is either a russian agent, or a useful idiot. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted on 3 August 2022:

“Russian forces are likely using Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar to play on Western fears of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, likely in an effort to degrade Western will to provide military support to a Ukrainian counteroffensive.”

Grossi eagerly plays his role in this dirty charade. ISW quotes the Ukrainian response to him:

“Russian Zaporizhia Occupation Administration Head Evgeniy Balitskyi responded that the IAEA was welcome at the plant: “We are ready to show how the Russian military guards it today, and how Ukraine, which receives weapons from the West, uses these weapons, including drones, to attack the nuclear plant, acting like a monkey with a grenade.”[2] Russian officials are framing Ukraine as irresponsibly using Western-provided weapons and risking nuclear disaster to dissuade Western and other allied states from providing additional military support to Ukraine’s looming southern counteroffensive.

Russian forces based around the NPP have attacked Ukrainian positions in Nikopol and elsewhere in recent weeks, intentionally putting Ukraine in a difficult position—either Ukraine returns fire, risking international condemnation and a nuclear incident (which Ukrainian forces are unlikely to do), or Ukrainian forces allow Russian forces to continue firing on Ukrainian positions from an effective “safe zone.””

New: Russian forces are likely using the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar to play on Western fears of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, likely in an effort to degrade Western will to provide military support to a Ukrainian counteroffensive. https://t.co/bGTPARd2dZ pic.twitter.com/7EkakGfz8f

— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) August 4, 2022

Every international forum and institution where russia has a controlling voice failed spectacularly. UNO, IAEA, even the Red Cross. The latter recently announced that if russia wants to cover up the torture of Azov prisoners of war by burning them alive (as rascists recently did in Olenivka): Red Cross never promised to protect them (not true) and washes its hands of it. Otherwise it might endanger the nice new Russian Red Cross centre about to open in Rostov!

ICRC says it didn't guarantee safety of Ukrainian Azovstal POWs once in enemy hands: it is Russia's obligation
Says they still do not have access to all POWs in Olenivka colony including the defenders of Azovstal, as Geneva Conventions oblige https://t.co/lUHnVERiRV
📷ICRC site pic.twitter.com/mQq1Oa6JfB

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) August 4, 2022

And you probably heard of Amnesty International scandal, where the human rights organisation did what IAEA does, and blamed both sides for war crimes equally.

Today, Moscow tries to discredit the Armed Forces of 🇺🇦 in the eyes of Western societies and disrupt weapons supply using the entire network of influence agents. It is a shame that the organization like @amnesty is participating in this disinformation and propaganda campaign. 2/2

— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) August 4, 2022

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COVID-19

How Dr Oz got his chloroquine

Patient rights activist and regulatory expert Elizabeth Woeckner found something very interesting in the publicly available files of US government (“White House COVID Comms Pt. 1“, pages 163-169).

Specifically, emails sent on 22 March 2020 by the TV quack Dr Mehmet Oz to Trump’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx, cc-ed former HHS drug pricing director Tyler McGuffee, subject:

Urgent Oz: Clinical Trial Drug Shortage

“I interviewed the respected Marseille Prof Dr Didier Raoult at 6am today. He authored the French hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin study and has very provocative un-published findings that are worth sharing. I shared his beliefs with my New York Presbyterian – Columbia team and we are writing IRBs for approval early this week but we need medications. However, in our massive hospital, we currently have enough hydroxychloroquine for 75 patients and azithromycin for 20 patients. I will personally fund the trial and committed $250,00 but nothing can progress without medications. The President should sequester these medications for clinical trials like ours. Can you help us? I am taping material for tomorrow and would appreciate any advice on how to phrase the Task Force’s efforts.
Mehmet Oz (917 648 8553)“

Woeckner explained to me:

““we are writing IRBs” – which shows he knows nothing about research. An institutional review board reviews proposed clinical trials. It’s not possible to write one.“

But it is. IHU Marseille director, chloroquine quack, research fraudster, patient abuser and bully Didier Raoult has been obviously writing the results of his clinical trials before he even illegally ran those. And as it recently came out, his IHU colleague and newly appointer successor Pierre-Edouard Fournier wrote the illegal IRB approvals for Raoult’s chloroquine trials.

Some minutes later, Oz sent another email to Birx:

“If we cannot do trials, can we free US clinicians to start using this combo drug protocol. We cannot hide behind study protocols if we are not allowed to proceed. We should have started enrollment on Friday and I want to push brave Americans to join trials on my show tomorrow, but cannot without a game plan for accessing drugs.

P.S. The French physician Raoult argued that withholding access is unethical.“

"Were there differences in recovery time?"

WATCH: Dr. Didier Raoult discusses the outcomes of his #covid19 drug combo study. pic.twitter.com/8dtjq2njhm

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) March 23, 2020

Birx replied immediately:

“Dr Oz
This was posted yesterday on the CDC website and serves to address the issues you raised. Deb

Information for Clinicians on Therapeutic Options for COVID-19 Patients

[…]

It was this document. Oz was not satisfied:

“Thanks for sharing but this does not address the shortage issue. We already have an IRB for prophylaxis and applying for treatment trial today but don’t have drugs to complete so please share expectations that can inform our work. Can we
at least get batches of drugs for a hundred trial patients? If you don’t wish to put in writing, please call but I need guidance for my show and dozens of media interviews that I am doing tomorrow.

Also, the below summary correctly shares that no outcomes data is available from Marseille, but you should know that the French researcher confirmed clinical benefits but needs more data so will not release report for another 10 days.

These findings offer hope to our people.“

The latest on hydroxychloroquine: I spoke with Dr. Didier Raoult this morning and we reviewed the results from 1,000 patients. Here are the major headlines. #covid19 pic.twitter.com/zgXepb62RC

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) April 13, 2020

Birx forwarded Oz’ emails to Trump’s heads of FDA and CDC, Stephen Hahn and Robert Redfield, respectively. As you all know, Trump was a chloroquine fan very early on. According to the exchange, it was decided to do a task force and not go to press.

A few days later, on 28 March 2020, FDA infamously issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 therapy. It was eventually revoked, but FDA stood like a bunch of corrupt dorks.

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Science Breakthroughs

Undead Pigs of Yale

A young genius scientist at Yale can revive dead pigs! Neuroscience professor Nenad Sestan was celebrated by Nature as one of “Ten people who mattered in science in 2019“.

Neuroscientist Nenad Sestan’s lab challenged thinking about the border between life and death by reviving the brains of pigs that had died hours earlier. #Natures10 https://t.co/pwGmrXRsdM pic.twitter.com/hCcrYhhRC3

— Nature Portfolio (@NaturePortfolio) December 26, 2019

Sestan reported to have revived the explanted brain of a dead pig from slaughterhouse in his machine called BrainEx:

“The researchers, at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, had found electrical activity in brains taken from dead pigs. The team had painstakingly removed the organs shortly after death and infused them with oxygen and an ice-cold preservative, and in doing so, brought the brains at least partially back to life. With that shocking result, Sestan realized that what had started as a side project to find ways to better preserve brain tissue for research had morphed into a discovery that could redefine our understanding of life and death.

The excitement soon turned to concern, when the researchers thought they saw widespread, coordinated electrical activity — the type that can indicate consciousness. Sestan brought in a neurologist, who determined that the readout was actually an error, but the possibility had spooked them.”

This was published in Nature world was in awe, all the big media reported about the breakthrough.

Zvonimir Vrselja , Stefano G. Daniele , John Silbereis , Francesca Talpo , Yury M. Morozov , André M. M. Sousa , Brian S. Tanaka , Mario Skarica , Mihovil Pletikos , Navjot Kaur , Zhen W. Zhuang , Zhao Liu , Rafeed Alkawadri , Albert J. Sinusas , Stephen R. Latham , Stephen G. Waxman , Nenad Sestan Restoration of brain circulation and cellular functions hours post-mortem. Nature (2019). doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1099-1

The BrainEx technology is proprietary, which is probably the real reason why nobody else picked up on this research. And now, another breakthrough! A new Nature paper and new press release from Yale:

“Using a new technology the scientists developed that delivers a specially designed cell-protective fluid to organs and tissues, the team restored blood circulation and other cellular functions in pigs a full hour after their deaths. They report their findings in the August 3 edition of the journal Nature.

Their results may help extend the health of human organs during surgery and expand the availability of donor organs, the authors said.”

The pigs were dead. Then researchers pumped a custom chemical into them. What followed raises questions about what science considers death. https://t.co/ZajCQqlyrz

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 3, 2022

The breakthrough paper:

David Andrijevic, Zvonimir Vrselja, Taras Lysyy, Shupei Zhang, Mario Skarica, Ana Spajic, David Dellal, Stephanie L. Thorn, Robert B. Duckrow, Shaojie Ma, Phan Q. Duy, Atagun U. Isiktas, Dan Liang, Mingfeng Li, Suel-Kee Kim, Stefano G. Daniele, Khadija Banu, Sudhir Perincheri, Madhav C. Menon, Anita Huttner, Kevin N. Sheth, Kevin T. Gobeske, Gregory T. Tietjen, Hitten P. Zaveri, Stephen R. Latham, Albert J. Sinusas and Nenad Sestan, Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body Nature. (2012) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05016-1

The old Nature paper merely revived a dead pig’s brain, but the new Nature paper revived the entire pig, in a new proprietary machine called OrganEx!

““If we were able to restore certain cellular functions in the dead brain, an organ known to be most susceptible to ischemia [inadequate blood supply], we hypothesized that something similar could also be achieved in other vital transplantable organs,” Sestan said.

In the new study, the scientists applied a modified version of BrainEx called OrganEx to the whole pig. The technology consists of a perfusion device similar to heart-lung machines — which do the work of the heart and lungs during surgery — and an experimental fluid containing compounds that can promote cellular health and suppress inflammation throughout the pig’s body. Cardiac arrest was induced in anesthetized pigs, which were treated with OrganEx an hour after death.

Six hours after treatment with OrganEx, the researchers found that certain key cellular functions were active in many areas of the pigs’ bodies — including the heart, liver, and kidneys. Additionally, some organ functions had been restored. For instance, they found evidence of electrical activity in the heart, which retained the ability to contract.

“We were also able to restore circulation throughout the body, which amazed us,” Sestan said.”

There are three sets of good news: first, the Croatian-born Yale professor Dr Sestan will become even more famous than Nikola Tesla, second, he is relatively young (merely 52) and will sure achieve a complete resurrection of a dead pig in yet another Nature paper soon, and third: Dr Sestan will live forever, resurrected by his own device by his trusty Balkan lab members.

As Yale titled: Cheating Death.

NOT TO MISS! Nenad Sestan – Building the Human Cortex: Molecular Logic of Neural Circuit Formation and Evolution. JOIN US on Tuesday when the @SeaverAutism’s #AdvancesInAutism Conference returns! NOW a FREE – FULLY VIRTUAL EVENT Register today: ZOOM LINK: https://t.co/VpOXFj4dAk pic.twitter.com/9tVDJ3rREW

— Friedman Brain Institute (@SinaiBrain) May 19, 2022

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Weizmann Genius

Also Israel’s greatest scientist, Jacob Hanna, achieved yet another miracle of stem cells and regenerative medicine, also using proprietary technology nobody else dares to master.

Washington Post is excited:

“Stem cell researchers in Israel have created synthetic mouse embryos without using a sperm or egg, then grown them in an artificial womb for eight days, a development that opens a window into a fascinating, potentially fraught realm of science that could one day be used to create replacement organs for humans.

The objective, scientists involved with the research said, is not to create mice or babies outside the womb, but to jump-start the understanding of how organs develop in embryos and to use that knowledge to develop new ways to heal people.

From a clump of embryonic stem cells, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science created synthetic embryos that closely resembled real mouse embryos, with rudimentary beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue and intestinal tracts. The mouse embryos grew in an artificial womb and stopped developing after eight days, about a third of a mouse pregnancy.”

Nobody talks about Hanna’s past troubles with research integrity anymore (well, to be fair hardly anyone ever did), he was made full professor at Weizmann, media loves him, and top journals fight over his discoveries. The recent breakthrough was published in Cell:

Shadi Tarazi , Alejandro Aguilera-Castrejon , Carine Joubran , Nadir Ghanem , Shahd Ashouokhi , Francesco Roncato , Emilie Wildschutz , Montaser Haddad , Bernardo Oldak , Elidet Gomez-Cesar , Nir Livnat , Sergey Viukov , Dmitry Lukshtanov , Segev Naveh-Tassa , Max Rose , Suhair Hanna , Calanit Raanan , Ori Brenner , Merav Kedmi , Hadas Keren-Shaul , Tsvee Lapidot, Itay Maza, Noa Novershtern, Jacob H. Hanna Post-Gastrulation Synthetic Embryos Generated Ex Utero from Mouse Naïve ESCs Cell (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.028

A team of @WeizmannScience researchers, led by Prof. @jacob_hanna, have developed a method to grow synthetic embryo models of mice outside the womb, without the use of a fertilized egg. 🧫 🐁 Learn what this discovery means for growing tissues and organs! https://t.co/mezC4NotzF pic.twitter.com/56rdPwfCTb

— Weizmann Canada (@WeizmannCanada) August 2, 2022

There is a caveat, for those who say, well, prove that those are actual embryos and not some crap you made up again, Jake:

“Although the synthetic mouse embryos bore a close resemblance to natural mouse embryos, they were not exactly the same and did not implant or result in pregnancies in real mice, according to Jacob Hanna, the stem cell scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who led the work.”

Israeli stem cell researcher Jacob Hanna came up with a gadget to grow mouse embryos in the lab – further than ever before.

Now he wants to grow human embryos this way.

“I hope that it will allow scientists to grow human embryos until week five.”https://t.co/Lbh59Ddwhh

— Antonio Regalado (@antonioregalado) March 17, 2021

Hanna announced his artificial womb already in 2021, in a paper in Nature, done back then done with explanted mouse embryos. As MIT Technology Review informed:

“The photographs alone tell a fantastic story—a mouse embryo, complete with beating heart cells, a head, and the beginning of limbs, alive and growing in a glass jar.

According to a scientific group in Israel, which took the picture, the researchers have grown mice in an artificial womb for as long as 11 or 12 days, about half the animal’s natural gestation period.”

Alejandro Aguilera-Castrejon, Bernardo Oldak , Tom Shani , Nadir Ghanem , Chen Itzkovich , Sharon Slomovich , Shadi Tarazi , Jonathan Bayerl , Valeriya Chugaeva , Muneef Ayyash , Shahd Ashouokhi , Daoud Sheban , Nir Livnat , Lior Lasman , Sergey Viukov , Mirie Zerbib , Yoseph Addadi , Yoach Rais , Saifeng Cheng , Yonatan Stelzer , Hadas Keren-Shaul, Raanan Shlomo, Rada Massarwa, Noa Novershtern, Itay Maza, Jacob H. Hanna Ex utero mouse embryogenesis from pre-gastrulation to late organogenesis Nature (2021) doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03416-3 

And a year later: living and developed mouse foetuses made from iPS cells, how amazing is that! The great thing about such science is that it only works in Hanna’s lab because only he has the proprietary skills.

3/n Our electronically controlled ex utero natural embryo culture device & novel EUCM conditions (our 2021 Nature paper https://t.co/xNw0FNhn4H ), support Synthetic post-gastrulation Whole Embryo formation (with all extra-embryonic compartments) & only by starting from naive ESCs pic.twitter.com/jykZzgrFbF

— Jacob (يعقوب) Hanna (@jacob_hanna) August 1, 2022

As every self-respecting Israeli Scientist, Hanna founded a biotech company to monetise his genius discoveries, as Washington Post mentions:

“Our goal is not making pregnancy outside the uterus, whether it’s mice or any species,” Hanna said. “We are really facing difficulties making organs — and in order to make stem cells become organs, we need to learn how the embryo does that. We started with this because the uterus is a black box — it is not transparent.”

Hanna has founded a company, Renewal Bio, that plans to use the technology therapeutically. One possible use would be to take skin cells from a woman with fertility problems, reprogram those cells to create stem cells and then grow synthetic embryo models that could be used to produce eggs.”

Nobel Prize awaits!

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The Neanderthal Metaphase

Well, there are geniuses in Germany, too. The evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, may have done some important science in his youth (his lab decoded the Neanderthal genome), but in the last years he seems to abuse his power and status to publish utterly ridiculously silly nonsense in top journals. Who can’t say no because Pääbo is such a bigwig, and then all international media report his nonsense utterly uncritically because Pääbo is such a bigwig and because it was in Science or Nature.

Remember how Neanderthals were responsible for COVID-19?

So here we go again, new silly stuff by Pääbo about poor maligned Neanderthals. An article on Science Alert:

“Scientists experimenting on mice have found evidence that key parts of the modern human brain take more time to develop than those of our long extinct cousin, the Neanderthal. […]

We know, for example, of around 100 amino acids – the compounds that make up proteins – that changed when modern humans diverged from the branch that gave rise to Neanderthals and another close cousin, the Denisovans.

Amino acid substitution can have significant effects, but it was unclear what functions these substitutions changed between humans and Neanderthals.

Six of the identified substitutions exist in proteins already known to play a role in the distribution of chromosomes during cell division. So a team of researchers led by geneticist Felipe Mora-Bermúdez of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany conducted experiments to see if they could determine the role these amino acid changes might play in neocortex development.

The natural subject was laboratory mice, which happen to share with Neanderthals (and apes) those same six amino acids within the relevant proteins. Using CRISPR Cas-9, the researchers substituted those amino acids for those found in modern humans.

They also took the research in the opposite direction. They grew organoids of human brains from embryonic stem cells – lumps of brain tissue that are not alive or sentient – and replaced the modern human amino acids with the Neanderthal/mouse/ape variants.

The results were striking and fascinating.”

I am sure they were. Here is the paper, this time not quite in Science, unlike the article insists:

Felipe Mora-Bermúdez , Philipp Kanis , Dominik Macak , Jula Peters , Ronald Naumann , Lei Xing , Mihail Sarov , Sylke Winkler , Christina Eugster Oegema , Christiane Haffner , Pauline Wimberger , Stephan Riesenberg , Tomislav Maricic , Wieland B. Huttner , Svante Pääbo Longer metaphase and fewer chromosome segregation errors in modern human than Neanderthal brain development Science Advances (2022) doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn7702

It uses the minibrain technology Pääbo and his Jena colleagues pioneered to “regrow your Neanderthal brain”:

The Science Advances abstract announces:

“When we introduce these modern human-specific substitutions in mice, three substitutions in two of these proteins, KIF18a and KNL1, cause metaphase prolongation and fewer chromosome segregation errors in apical progenitors of the developing neocortex. Conversely, the ancestral substitutions cause shorter metaphase length and more chromosome segregation errors in human brain organoids, similar to what we find in chimpanzee organoids. These results imply that the fidelity of chromosome segregation during neocortex development improved in modern humans after their divergence from Neanderthals.”

Basically, Max Planck professors are different from all other mammals, including other humans like Neanderthals and Denisovans, at the basic level of cellular mitosis already.

Can be worse. Alysson Muotri‘s minibrain papers for example, also on topic of Neanderthals.

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Depression biomarkers

More amazing neuroscience, this time for the Japanese version of depression. A press release by Kyushu University in Japan:

“Researchers find multiple important biomarkers in people with Hikikomori (pathological social withdrawal), and they demonstrate their potential for predicting the severity of the disorder.

Key blood biomarkers for the pathological social withdrawal disorder called Hikikomori have been discovered by researchers at Kyushu University. The team’s research enabled them to distinguish between healthy people and hikikomori sufferers, as well as to gauge the severity of the disease.”

There’s a diagram:

Here is the paper:

Daiki Setoyamaa, Toshio Matsushima, Kohei Hayakawa, Tomohiro Nakao, Shigenobu Kanba, Dongchon Kang and Takahiro A. Kato, Blood metabolic signatures of hikikomori, pathological social withdrawal Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. (2022) DOI: 10.1080/19585969.2022.2046978

Apparently, the four humour balance model of well-being from the Middle Ages was correct after all, it just has to be adjusted from the somewhat unspecific references to phlegm, yellow bile, black bile and blood to the modern 4 factors of bodily fluids:

““Some of our key findings showed that in the blood of men with hikikomori, ornithine levels, and serum arginase activity were higher while bilirubin and arginine levels were lower,” states first author of the paper Daiki Setoyama. “In both men and women patients, long-chain acylcarnitine levels were higher. Moreover, when this data was further analyzed and categorized, we were able to distinguish between healthy and hikikomori individuals, and even predict its severity.””

Oh, and hikikomori is different from depression because of the different acylcarnitines chains.

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Smirisin 2?

In Harvard, scientists found the drug to treat obesity. Not, it’s not Irisin by Bruce Spiegelman and Pontus Böström again, but it sounds similar.

A press release by the Joslin Diabetes Center:

“Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Joslin Diabetes Center discovered that in diet-induced obese mice, exposure to cold temperatures improved insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance while resolving obesity-induced inflammation. Their findings were reported in a new paper that was published in Nature Metabolism.

“We discovered that cold exposure reduced inflammation and improved metabolism in obesity, mediated at least in part by the activation of brown adipose tissue.” — Yu-Hua Tseng, Ph.D.

The research team also found that the mechanism was dependent on brown adipose tissue, which is commonly referred to as “good fat,” releasing a naturally occurring molecule called Maresin 2 in response to cold stimulation.”

This is the paper:

Satoru Sugimoto, Hebe Agustina Mena, Brian E. Sansbury, Shio Kobayashi, Tadataka Tsuji, Chih-Hao Wang, Xuanzhi Yin, Tian Lian Huang, Joji Kusuyama, Sean D. Kodani, Justin Darcy, Gerson Profeta, Nayara Pereira, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Can Zhang, Thomas Serwold, Efi Kokkotou, Laurie J. Goodyear, Aaron M. Cypess, Luiz Osório Leiria, Matthew Spite, and Yu-Hua Tseng Brown adipose tissue-derived MaR2 contributes to cold-induced resolution of inflammation Nature Metabolism.(2022) DOI: 10.1038/s42255-022-00590-0

The Irisin Maresin 2 drug has already been patented by the authors, we are told:

“Moreover, these findings also suggest that Maresin 2 could have clinical applications as a therapy for patients with obesity, metabolic disease, or other diseases linked to chronic inflammation; however, the molecule itself breaks down quickly in the body. Tseng and colleagues seek a more stable chemical analog for clinical use”

Pop-a-pill-and-eat-what-you-want obesity drugs are a hot competitive market. Good luck, folks!

PS: Guess where the Maresin 2 discoverer, the Harvard professor Yu-Hua Tseng trained as postdoc? The lab of the notorious C Ronald Kahn, also at Joslin Diabetes Center. Kahn has over 50 papers on PubPeer, 3 of those were retracted for fraud. Here two more which should have been retracted, you might recognise the first author:

Yu-Hua Tseng, Atul J. Butte, Efi Kokkotou , Vijay K. Yechoor , Cullen M. Taniguchi , Kristina M. Kriauciunas , Aaron M. Cypess , Michio Niinobe , Kazuaki Yoshikawa , Mary Elizabeth Patti , C. Ronald Kahn Prediction of preadipocyte differentiation by gene expression reveals role of insulin receptor substrates and necdin Nature Cell Biology (2005) doi: 10.1038/ncb1259 

There is more in that paper, but here another one:

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Masked cancer drug

Cancer has been cured again, look, a press release by University of Chicago:

“Numerous cancer treatments are notoriously harsh on the body; they assault healthy cells simultaneously with tumor cells and result in a wide range of side effects. The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago has now developed a strategy to prevent one potential cancer drug from causing such damage. Interleukin-12 has been modified by scientists into a new, “masked” form that is only activated when it comes into contact with a tumor. The study on the molecule, also known as IL-12, was published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.“

This is the paper:

Aslan Mansurov, Peyman Hosseinchi, Kevin Chang, Abigail L. Lauterbach, Laura T. Gray, Aaron T. Alpar, Erica Budina, Anna J. Slezak, Seounghun Kang, Shijie Cao, Ani Solanki, Suzana Gomes, John-Michael Williford, Melody A. Swartz, Juan L. Mendoza, Jun Ishihara, and Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Masking the immunotoxicity of interleukin-12 by fusing it with a domain of its receptor via a tumour-protease-cleavable linker Nature Biomedical Engineering. (2022) DOI: 10.1038/s41551-022-00888-0

The authors are quoted in the press release:

“For decades, the field has hoped that IL-12 could someday become a viable therapeutic in the fight against cancer and we’ve now shown that it is possible,” said Mansurov. “We’d like to translate this molecule to the clinic and are now talking to a number of potential partners to make that happen.”

Oopsies.

Courtesy of @natBME and researchers at @UChicagoPME. Pretty obvious splice, also appears in "original data." How did editors miss this? How did senior author Jeffrey Hubble?

Am I missing something?https://t.co/mMPZ1PopAT pic.twitter.com/lFIOw2SbIK

— Cheshire (@Thatsregrettab1) July 29, 2022

Cheshire however found out it wasn’t just the cancer drug which the scientists masked. A gel lane was splcied also, and the really worrisome bit is that it was also spliced in the “raw” data the authors supplied with the manuscript (Hint: raw data can never be digitally spliced, or it is not real).

Here the journal’s chief editor Pep Pamies, it seems he and his team check for “degree of advance, broad implications, and breadth and depth of the work” (aka shmovelty) except for the actual data integrity:

I am particularly interested in receiving comments and criticisms to our latest editorial. https://t.co/hqSBlxCfA6

— Pep Pàmies (@PepPamies) June 20, 2022

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News in Tweets

• Watchdog Ivan Oransky in Nature: “Retraction Watch has seen the retraction process change dramatically over the past decade. We’ve come to feel that the community is falling short.” Well, Ivan that’s because experts, in fact including you, suddenly don’t believe in research fraud when scientists you respect are concerned. Also Oransky: “Sleuths should be compensated and given access to tools to improve the hunt for errors and fraud — not face ridicule, harassment and legal action. Publishers could create a cash pool to pay them“. Since the sleuths are mostly anonymous, I assume some authority like Retraction Watch should manage the cash pool and oversee the sleuths? Btw, we learn that “I.O. is a volunteer member of the board of directors of the PubPeer Foundation.” Ivan watchdogs every debate, even that on PubPeer.

Sleuths such as @MicrobiomDigest @DavidSandersRep @jamesheathers @sTeamTraen "should be compensated and given access to tools to improve the hunt for errors and fraud — not face ridicule, harassment and legal action." https://t.co/dMhQ8ZnyiN

— Retraction Watch (@RetractionWatch) August 2, 2022

• Massimo Carafa, pharmacy professor in Rome, abuses Italian cliches after a recent retraction: “We didn’t mean to alter data or to publish false images. If so, we would have falsified images in a perfect way.“

"We didn’t mean to alter data or to publish false images. If so, we would have falsified images in a perfect way."

This is not the most reassuring author response.https://t.co/Je7jrimifO pic.twitter.com/35xKhlTzhm

— Cheshire (@Thatsregrettab1) August 3, 2022

• Also, Cheshire can’t leave poor old professor Paul Davis of Albany (the NY university, not the Balkan country) in peace. New fraud findings! (Lin et al 2007 and Shih et al 2022)

This author is mentioned in Leonid's piece on Shaker Mousa, who supposedly returned to US on 8/1. As yet, he has not substantively addressed the concerns. Probably going to get tangled up by lawyers.https://t.co/ympO6aWea0

— Cheshire (@Thatsregrettab1) August 4, 2022

• Deepak Kaushal, director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) at Texas Biomedical Research Institute is guilty of research misconduct. HHS-ORI released its findings: “ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, and/or recklessly falsifying and fabricating the experimental methodology to demonstrate results obtained under different experimental conditions that were included in the following one (1) published paper and two (2) grant applications submitted for PHS funds“. The paper (Foreman et al 2020), was already retracted. Maybe this is how much of primate biomedical research is done, let’s consider phasing it out or at least ban the fraudsters? Instead, Kaushal is sanctioned with being barred from participating at any “advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee” of US Public Health Service for a year, but he is not barred from applying and receiving research funding. He is also sentenced to having “his research supervised for a period of one (1) year“, so he can learn to fake data better while abusing primates. This oversight system only pretends to work.

New research misconduct finding: Deepak Kaushal, Ph.D. https://t.co/QgOgWlgiQX #ResearchMisconduct #Falsification #Fabrication pic.twitter.com/EI5zwraoYR

— Research Integrity (@HHS_ORI) August 3, 2022

• HHS-ORI dispenses harsher punishments for junior fraudsters: “ORI found that Janina Jiang, M.D., Ph.D. (Respondent), former Assistant Researcher in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) engaged in research misconduct in research included in grant applications submitted for U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) funds“. Jiang left UCLA and now works in the lab of John Yu at Cedars Sinai, her past assistant professor stint at UCLA isn’t part of her CV anymore. Lu the sanctions: Jiang “will have her research supervised for a period of three (3) years” and is barred for this period from “service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee“.

New research misconduct finding: Janina Jiang, M.D., Ph.D. https://t.co/0orMgQGgbz pic.twitter.com/BKvXZEuw3c

— Research Integrity (@HHS_ORI) August 2, 2022

• Tobacco industry shill and antivax covidiocy peddler Konstantinos Farsalinos about my article about his activities: “…a ridiculous text that, as far as I’m concerned, deals with 3 of my 100 posts. I have that many in Toxicology Reports. How much more ridiculous can it get?“

None of my studies are "affected". Three of my studies are mentioned in this article. And the article is indeed insulting and unacceptable. I speak on behalf of myself and not of anyone else.

— Κ.Φαρσαλινός (@k_farsalinos) August 1, 2022

• The journal Aging is sad about being infested by Chinese papermills:

@RetractionWatch
Have the "Aging" editors always had this policy of silently wishing papers into the cornfield?
"This article will not appear internally in Aging or any external indexes or archives."https://t.co/dYjvakuIaN pic.twitter.com/ZSTbmlUanJ

— Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex (@SmutClyde) August 3, 2022

• Four different sets of Chinese authors ask for retractions using exactly identical text template in an email to the journals, blaming an unnamed first author for everything. Apparently, papermills manage not only fabrication, submission and peer review process these days, but also retractions. How much do they charge for that service, I wonder?

Apparently, what has been shared among groups of authors was not just images.https://t.co/1ZTcQZyuSShttps://t.co/sswZn0BRpahttps://t.co/1iWa2dv7C9https://t.co/OGdUlrleok pic.twitter.com/DLbPqVpSGg

— 虎仔 🇺🇦 (@TigerBB8) July 30, 2022

• “Pre-clod PBS“. Available at your local coordination polymer Chinese papermill.

@gcabanac Papermills have taught me a new word. pic.twitter.com/4A7xO4K3Ei

— Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex (@SmutClyde) July 31, 2022

• German surgeon and University of Cottbus professor Björn Brücher reminds everyone where the original papermill investigations are being published (For Better Science), clashing with the official version of record telling you to believe that all this work is really done by Byrne, Christopher, Oransky and some journal editors.

Ongoing questionable practice – Wrong world in science

Even originator’s uncovering of scientific misconduct increasingly not credited as necessary@SmutClyde @TigerBB8 @MicrobiomDigest @mortenoxe @Thatsregrettab1 @ForBetterSci

Further reading here https://t.co/4YCEPuYOC5

— Björn Brücher (@BjoernBruecher) August 1, 2022

• An Erratum in Physical Review Letters for Braden et al 2019: “Inconsistency between Fig. 2 of the Letter and a similar plot in another publication [1] caused us to carefully re-examine all of our code. Closer inspection of the plotting routines revealed an inadvertent rescaling of the ϕ0 values by a factor of 1/2 for the orange dots (i.e., simulation results) in Fig. 2, which changes the plotted slope of lnΓ by a factor of 1/4. This has the same effect as artificially adjusting the fluctuation amplitudes, as suggested in Hertzberg et al. [1]. […] With these changes, the importance of more work in this area is made even more evident.” Conclusions down the toilet, paper remains unaffected.

#PhysRevLett New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay https://t.co/9RWSQSVjlV Erratum: New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 031601 (2019)] https://t.co/FFpRtLWudn cc @RetractionWatch @ForBetterSci pic.twitter.com/a4SVZzutVV

— Francis Villatoro (@emulenews) August 2, 2022

• Bennet, Olivieri et al 2022: “Twenty-six individuals who communicated safety, efficacy, or data integrity concerns were targets of threats and intimidation from corporate employees (twenty-three individuals) or regulatory personnel (three). […] Intimidation efforts by corporate personnel included threats of lawsuits (eighteen individuals), hiring private investigators (nine), and public disparagement at conferences (eleven). Related intimidation efforts carried out by academia or regulatory agency superiors included threats of: loss of positions (six), loss of grant funding (two), delays in decisions regarding tenure (two); or reassignment to a low-level position (one). Academic harms included lost: hospital or university appointments (nine and six, respectively), grant funding (two), chairperson title of an international clinical trial group (one), and journal editorial board position (one).“

Groundbreaking #research article #terrorism in #science & #health.#BigPharma #academia #intimidation #DrugsMafia #harm #CorporateGreed #health #corrupted #ethics #integrity #AcademicTwitter @thejospi #prescribedharm #medicine @DrNancyOlivieri https://t.co/UEgl7NXgRR

— Saeed Doroudiani, MSc/PhD, PEng 👨‍🔬🏃‍♂️ 🗻🎼📷 (@SaeedDoroudiani) August 1, 2022

• Moss et al 2022: “Our cross-sectional global survey of targets of academic bullying indicates that bullying behavior depended strongly on the scientific discipline. Specifically, our comparison of the three major scientific categories, including Applied Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences revealed significant differences (p < 0.05) in four (out of ten) of the contextual behaviors. Further comparison of the bullying behavior among specific disciplines (e.g., Chemistry, Engineering, Life Sciences, Neuroscience, and Social Sciences) revealed significant differences (p < 0.05) in five of the contextual behaviors. We also noticed that, among the top five disciplines analyzed, respondents in Engineering experienced the highest rate of bullying behaviors.” Published in Lancet‘s eClinicalMedicine, but my suggestion is to not even try to check for the extent of bullying in medicine, because your scale will break.

Our cross-sectional global survey revealed that academic bullying does not affect all scientific fields equally.
So, we need discipline-specific approaches to address academic bullying
Special🙏to all 2122 participants https://t.co/TPd9mQM8Ql@eClinicalMed #bullying #CORRUPTION pic.twitter.com/67ysQPP8si

— Morteza Mahmoudi, PhD (@MoriMahmoudi) August 3, 2022

• Finally, some art.

A few more sources of data visualization inspiration: Bar charts as stained glass in an old cathedral. As a page from the Voynich Manuscript. As ancient stone monoliths on a grassy plain. Made of great columns of fire in the sky at the end of the world. https://t.co/qqbvo5zqfm pic.twitter.com/RQR6oxAK1H

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) July 27, 2022

Since people keeping asking for these, here are all the images I posted (plus some leftovers), maximum resolution, under creative commons attribution license. Enjoy! https://t.co/PrazvPDs0I pic.twitter.com/yZvxjIUph2

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) August 1, 2022

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