Study: Asymptomatic and secondary infected individuals do not infect others

1:00 pm

A new study published in the journal Nature has found that people who are either asymptomatic or undergoing a secondary illness of COVID-19 are simply not infectious, and don’t give the virus to others.

In other words, it appears that the only time people can infect others is when they have the virus for the first time, and only when they are symptomatic. Lock downs and the use of masks by the healthy accomplish nothing. All you need to do is quarantine the symptomatic patient, as human societies have been doing for centuries and centuries.

To once again emphasize this point, wearing masks if you are healthy and not sick protects no one. Social distancing if you are not sick protects no one. Shutting down businesses, such as reducing capacities at restaurants so they can’t make a profit, protects no one. Curfews protect no one.

When you see someone on a hiking trail, it is not necessary to run ten feet off the trail, put a mask on, and bow your head away in fear and terror of that other person. That they are on the trail guarantees they are not sick. They can’t infect you. And that you are there also means you can’t infect them.

Burn the mask. Smile. Live like a human again. And most of all, stop being afraid all the time.

This very long quote from the study’s discussion section, with the important points highlighted, makes these conclusions very clear:
» Read more

43 comments

SpaceX launches oceanography satellite

10:26 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched an oceanography satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket from the company’s California launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base..

The first stage, making its first flight, successfully landed back on land near the launch site.

This was also SpaceX’s 21st successful launch in 2020, tying their record from 2018 for the most launches in a single year by a private company, ever. That record should be broken tomorrow, with their next Starlink launch.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
21 SpaceX
12 Russia
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 34 to 30 in the national rankings.

9 comments

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Eva Vergilova – Free Bird

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Another guitar piece, but of a very different kind from yesterday’s.

Hat tip Mike Nelson. Note also that this pause was taken from Rumble, an alternative to Youtube. I encourage those who wish to suggest evening pauses to always see if they can find something there first. Reliance solely on Youtube is not healthy, and the competition will do everyone good.

0 comments

“I’d rather die from COVID than loneliness.”

5:53 pm

The toll on the elderly caused by the COVID-19 panic rises, and not because they have caught COVID-19.

According to an Associated Press story this week, an estimated 40,000 nursing home residents have died prematurely since March, resulting in a 15 percent increase in “excess deaths” at those facilities. “Nursing home watchdogs are being flooded with reports of residents kept in soiled diapers so long their skin peeled off, left with bedsores that cut to the bone, and allowed to wither away in starvation or thirst,” the AP reported. Adult children are shocked to find their once-healthy, active parents near death and in excruciating pain due to neglect.

One Tennessee woman recounted her heartbreak at seeing her mother for the first time in months: “The 79-year-old had dropped about 20 pounds, her eyes sunken and her legs looking more like forearms. Doctors at the hospital said she was malnourished and wasting muscle. There were bedsores on her backside and a gash on her forehead from a fall at the home. Her vocabulary had shrunk to nearly nothing and she’d taken to pulling the blankets over her head.”

Tens of thousands of similar accounts flood social media; a group of senior citizens staged a protest last month outside their Colorado nursing home, begging for permission to see their loved ones. One sign read, “I’d rather die from COVID than loneliness.”

I am sorry, but I am of same mind. When I am very old I would want to be able to see my loved ones, even at the risk of getting sick. But then, that has always been the case. The elderly are very vulnerable to any contagious disease. Yet, until this madness, we recognized that life must go on, and that the family must come first.

Not seeing relatives and keeping these helpless old people in the equivalent of solitary confinement is not kind, and in fact is downright cruel. And apparently it has led to a reduced level of care in many institutions, because no one from the family has been present to make sure that care is proper. (From experience with both our parents, if you don’t make your presence felt with the long-term care facility, your parents will not get proper care. They will get ignored.)

But no, we need to cancel Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and all family gathering. And we need to now close restaurants early, at 10 pm, because it is in that specific hour that COVID-19 becomes truly contagious and dangerous.

31 comments

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Curiosity data suggests the occurrence of mega floods in Gale Crater

3:30 pm

The uncertainty of science: Using Curiosity data a team of scientists are now suggesting that some of the features the rover has seen were created during mega flood within Gale Crater, and this data also requires a rethinking of the present theories of the crater’s geological history.

This case includes the occurrence of giant wave-shaped features in sedimentary layers of Gale crater, often called “megaripples” or antidunes that are about 30-feet high and spaced about 450 feet apart, according to lead author Ezat Heydari, a professor of physics at Jackson State University.

The antidunes are indicative of flowing megafloods at the bottom of Mars’ Gale Crater about 4 billion years ago, which are identical to the features formed by melting ice on Earth about 2 million years ago, Heydari said.

The most likely cause of the Mars flooding was the melting of ice from heat generated by a large impact, which released carbon dioxide and methane from the planet’s frozen reservoirs. The water vapor and release of gases combined to produce a short period of warm and wet conditions on the red planet.

The press release above focuses on the catastrophic floods, but the research paper itself is really much more focused on the need to rethink present hypotheses for explaining the observed geology in Gale Crater. This report notes that they are finding patches of material that could not have been laid down as seen, based on those past theories, and proposes the catastrophic flood event as a possible solution.

In reading the paper however it is evident that even this new hypothesis is based on a limited amount of data, and thus can have holes punched in it as well. This is not to say that the paper is invalid, only that it must be taken with some skepticism. The data being obtained at Gale Crater simply incomplete. Curiosity is following only one path, and has not even left the foothills of Mount Sharp. In order to gain a wider and fuller understanding geologists need to study the entire crater floor, as well as the geology on the mountain.

1 comment

The left is now reaping what it sowed

2:39 pm

A Democrat literally responds to Trump's 2016 victory
This is an actual Democrat’s
respond to Trump’s 2016 victory

For four years, since his election, Donald Trump has been met with a never-ending wave of hatred, hostility, and downright total opposition by the Democratic Party and its many very partisan supporters in the mainstream press, the academic community, and in the general public.

If you are conservative, I am sure you’ve all seen it. Not only has it been impossible these past four years to have a reasonable conversation with Democrats about Donald Trump, your opinions and thoughts are routinely treated with insulting contempt and scorn when you tried. Trump was a racist and evil, despite there being no credible evidence to that effect, and if you tried to find out what the evidence was for such a slander you were immediately slandered and called the same.

Trump himself has faced this same level of irrational hate continuously since his election. And it is irrelevant that he often descends to the same tactics. In the climate created by the left since the Obama administration legitimized the use of slander in political discourse, what other choice did he have if he wished to survive?

Lies in fact has too often comprised the only tactic used by the Democratic Party and the left since Trump’s arrival. » Read more

32 comments

Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

India’s first mission to Venus delayed a year

10:19 am

The new colonial movement: During a NASA planetary science conference on November 10th, an official of India’s space agency ISRO revealed that they have been forced to delay their first mission to Venus, dubbed Shukrayaan, till 2024.

T. Maria Antonita of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) detailed the status of the mission to scientists drafting a new 10-year plan for NASA’s planetary science program. Shukrayaan will be India’s first mission to Venus and will study the planet for more than four years.

ISRO was aiming for a mid-2023 launch when it released its call for instruments in 2018, but Antonita told members of the National Academies’ decadal survey planning committee last week that pandemic-related delays have pushed Shukrayaan’s target launch date to December 2024 with a mid-2026 backup date (optimal launch windows for reaching Venus occur roughly 19 months apart).

It appears they are using this extra time to consider a larger launch rocket, which would allow them to increase the orbiter’s capabilities.

0 comments

Despite permanent repair of crack, air still leaking from Zvezda

10:11 am

According to a Russian news report yesterday, air is still leaking from the Zvezda module of ISS, despite the permanent repair of the crack earlier this week.

Earlier, the crew locked the hatches into the intermediate chamber. The Mission Control asked whether the crew had measured the pressure before the hatch into that chamber was opened. The crew reported that the pressure went down considerably in the smaller part of the compartment while it remained isolated from the rest of the station by an airtight hatch. “The pressure in the intermediate chamber went down from 723 mm of the mercury column to 685 millimeters,” Ryzhikov said.

The report is poorly written, and is unclear on the exact date this air test was done. It is therefore possible the test was done prior to the permanent repair.

If however the air is still leaking, this suggests there might be more than one leak point in that part of Zvezda. According to this same story, the two Russian astronauts during their spacewalk on November 18th took pictures of the exterior area of Zvezda where the leak is located, and noted no exterior damage.

All these facts point to a very serious problem. If there was no exterior damage, it means the leak was probably not caused by a micrometeorite hit (though closer more extensive observations as well as a review of the photos might still conclude otherwise). The fact that the leak is continuing after the permanent repair suggests there is another leak, in the same part of Zvezda. That section is also a docking port, and would have experienced the most stress during the several dozen dockings that have occurred since Zvezda was launched in 2000.

These facts therefore suggest stress damage and aging as the cause, which means the problem will only get worse no matter what method is used to seal any future leaks.

One quick solution that would work, at least for awhile, would be to close the hatch on this intermediate chamber, and do no more dockings to it. This at least would seal the station from atmosphere loss, and reduce the stress on this section of Zvezda. Whether Progress freighters, which use this port, can use another port, or will have a more limited ability to dock, is not clear, however.

7 comments

Successful Rocket Lab launch and descent of 1st stage

10:26 pm

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully used its Electron rocket to 30 smallsats into orbit from its launchpad in New Zealand.

They also did their first launch test of their planned method for recovering the first stage for reuse. In their case the first stage will use parachutes to slow its descent, and will then be grabbed by a helicopter to be brought back to land. On this launch they were only testing the parachute portion of this plan, and allowed the stage to land in the water, where they then recovered it.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
20 SpaceX
12 Russia
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 33 to 30 in the national rankings.

6 comments

Arizona gov says he will not certify results until all lawsuits are settled

3:36 pm

Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey today announced that he will not certify the results of the state’s presidential election until all the lawsuits involving issues in the count are settled.

In Arizona specifically, the Trump campaign and state GOP filed lawsuits in Maricopa County in a bid to block officials from certifying the election results due to alleged voter irregularities and improprieties.

“There are legal claims that are being challenged in court and everybody on the ballot has certain access rights and remedies and if they want to push that they are able. Once those are adjudicated and the process plays out, I will accept the results of the election,” the Republican governor said in a news conference on Wednesday.

Based on Ducey’s generally spineless leadership, I have no confidence in his announcement. I think he is playing us. He has done less than nothing to really make sure the vote is accurate, even though it is in his power to do so. For example, he could call the legislature back in session so that its Republican majority could get involved. He has refused to do this, keeping them out of the game. Moreover, his administration apparently chose the questionable Dominion election software used to count the vote, despite questions raised about it from many sources for years.

What I think he is doing is making it seem he cares. Then, when he folds like a house of cards to an untrustworthy recount, he can claim he was there for us. All hogwash.

The only saving grace to his announcement is that if no certification occurs before December 14th, the lack of Arizona’s electoral votes might force the decision into the House of Representatives, where the Republicans will have the votes to keep Trump president. If the Democrats wish to avoid this, they should be moving heaven and Earth to clear up any issues and thus settle the lawsuits.

Not surprisingly, I do not see the Democrats doing this. Instead, they are working to block any audits or proper recounts. Makes one wonder what they might be trying to hide.

13 comments
1 … 1,018 1,019 1,020 1,021 1,022 … 2,928