Because Science

[Sikkiyn]

I searched and could not find a 'because science' thread, so I decided to start one.

Scientists redirect lightning strikes using a weather-controlling super laser

[Ivanhoe]

Cue the mad supervillain;

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0516804/

 

[Sikkiyn]

Rare ‘dark lightning’ might briefly touch passengers when flying

[Ssnake]

I challenge any reader to present me a study quoted in the press not containing the following line:

"Further investigations are needed"

[Rick]

10 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I challenge any reader to present me a study quoted in the press not containing the following line:

"Further investigations are (and taxpayer money) needed"

F.I.F.Y.

[Skywalkre]

On 1/18/2023 at 5:10 AM, Rick said:

F.I.F.Y.

Eh... very little investment from the government over the years has led to a lot of economic growth that wouldn't have happened otherwise (and without it may have resulted in the US not being where it is on the world stage today).  I've always been one to harp on the issue of fiscal responsibility... but this is one thing I don't have much trouble with.

[Skywalkre]

Attia is probably one of the best docs in the world, period.  Taubes is a journalist who has made his career around pointing out flaws in modern scientific approach.  I originally came across this video hoping for more of the subject in the title - issues with modern approaches and explanation for obesity.  The 2h of going into Taubes' background was really fascinating, though.  Amazing to hear how even in very 'hard' sciences there can still be issues with basic approach and the problems of echo chambers.  The example of how the scientists at Georgia Tech didn't even know the basics of the equipment they were using on a test (because they had to borrow it to run the test) and that resulted in a rather embarrassing false positive was... remarkable.

I have to go out now and get a few of these books from Taubes.

[Rick]

13 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Eh... very little investment from the government over the years has led to a lot of economic growth that wouldn't have happened otherwise (and without it may have resulted in the US not being where it is on the world stage today).  I've always been one to harp on the issue of fiscal responsibility... but this is one thing I don't have much trouble with.

Out of curiosity, would you elaborate on the first sentence.

[Skywalkre]

On 1/23/2023 at 2:41 AM, Rick said:

Out of curiosity, would you elaborate on the first sentence.

The Feds have given out a lot of research grants over the years, many for what is a pittance, that has resulted in either research that has expanded industries as a whole or started up some pretty impressive companies (I think Google started this way).  Read a book a few years ago that tried to put this into numbers and the returns were staggering.

Edited January 26 by Skywalkre

[Rick]

4 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

The Feds have given out a lot of research grants over the years, many for what is a pittance, that has resulted in either research that has expanded industries as a whole or started up some pretty impressive companies (I think Google started this way).  Read a book a few years ago that tried to put this into numbers and the returns were staggering.

To whom and for what?

[Skywalkre]

Don't have specifics... obviously a lot of this is done at universities across the country.  As to what... basically everything.

[Rick]

9 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Don't have specifics... obviously a lot of this is done at universities across the country.  As to what... basically everything.

Hhmmm... OK. If "basically everthing" examples of?

Edited January 27 by Rick

[Rick]

Science?

https://uncommondescent.com/academic-freedom/steven-jacobs-5-year-fight-and-when-mammalian-life-begins

[nitflegal]

8 hours ago, Rick said:

Hhmmm... OK. If "basically everthing" examples of?

It's an exhaustive list honestly.  Hit pubmed and search by major university for the authors and unless it's late stage pharma development for a specific compound it's generally being funded by government grants, at least in the biology/biochemistry/medical fields (Don't think it's any different for engineering or other hard sciences but also don't have first hand information).  Outside of some fairly rare examples industry doesn't fund basic research in the wet fields, the university may pony up research assistants and slave labor post-docs if they are already funded by other grants and have free time but they don't generally fund internally.  Hence why most university professors are spending 50-60% of their time chasing grants and also why in socially influenced fields (eg, global warming) you get so much tainting by what the governments want to see the research show (no expected results, no more funding).

One example I've worked with was HERG channels affecting Q-T interval duration and prolongation.  Pretty much all of the research was NIH funded university grants on how the channels functioned.  Industry then funded additional research with those labs for the application part.  Hell, many if not most biotech start-ups are founded by academic researchers who built an information base via Federal grants that they then felt they could monetize.  University owns the research in partnership with the NiH or other agency but the knowledge is free to be used (barring specific university patents, which is why they tend to push for as many patents as possible so they can get a taste if things move to market).  Put it this way, almost everytime I need to do a deep dive into an area I end up talking to people at a university who are generating the nuts and bolts of how things are working and they are almost always paying their salaries and lab infrastructure with Federal grants.  Sometimes state or NGO but that's much rarer. Rarer still is self funding from patents the lab partially owns.

[Skywalkre]

9 hours ago, Rick said:

Hhmmm... OK. If "basically everthing" examples of?

nitflegal hit it on the head - it's basically everything.  Businesses aren't going to shelve out the money just for the sake of knowledge.  The US government, for decades, has stepped in instead and as mentioned when attempts have been done to try and put numbers to what all this research has led to it's an amazing return for the US taxpayer.

@nitflegal You'd probably know more about this... but from the wellness folks I follow I understand some of them (Attia has mentioned he's able to do this now to a degree) now have enough money or influence (to get money from wealthy donors instead of grants) that they're able to fund their own research... but I imagine this is still just a very tiny fraction of everything being done out there?

[Rick]

2 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

nitflegal hit it on the head - it's basically everything.  Businesses aren't going to shelve out the money just for the sake of knowledge.  The US government, for decades, has stepped in instead and as mentioned when attempts have been done to try and put numbers to what all this research has led to it's an amazing return for the US taxpayer.

@nitflegal You'd probably know more about this... but from the wellness folks I follow I understand some of them (Attia has mentioned he's able to do this now to a degree) now have enough money or influence (to get money from wealthy donors instead of grants) that they're able to fund their own research... but I imagine this is still just a very tiny fraction of everything being done out there?

Thank you.

[nitflegal]

4 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

nitflegal hit it on the head - it's basically everything.  Businesses aren't going to shelve out the money just for the sake of knowledge.  The US government, for decades, has stepped in instead and as mentioned when attempts have been done to try and put numbers to what all this research has led to it's an amazing return for the US taxpayer.

@nitflegal You'd probably know more about this... but from the wellness folks I follow I understand some of them (Attia has mentioned he's able to do this now to a degree) now have enough money or influence (to get money from wealthy donors instead of grants) that they're able to fund their own research... but I imagine this is still just a very tiny fraction of everything being done out there?

Extremely tiny.  It basically goes to those with high profile names.  In the past those people got funded (Harvard does this a lot, Oxford to) by the university as part of their employment package.  Basically, having them at your university is enough of a draw to students and donors that the 500K-1 million/year you fund his lab gets much more in student tutition or donor grants to the univesity that that professor is a money-generator.  Alternatively, you get names who are in a field that some donor(s) with mega deep pockets are happy to throw their pocket change (which may be hundreds of thousands of dollars) at that person.  You see the latter in the case of a guy who is pre-eminent guy in the field for a weird cancer and they pair with a charity from some billionaire whose mom dies from that same weird cancer.  

[Rick]

16 hours ago, nitflegal said:

It's an exhaustive list honestly.  Hit pubmed and search by major university for the authors and unless it's late stage pharma development for a specific compound it's generally being funded by government grants, at least in the biology/biochemistry/medical fields (Don't think it's any different for engineering or other hard sciences but also don't have first hand information).  Outside of some fairly rare examples industry doesn't fund basic research in the wet fields, the university may pony up research assistants and slave labor post-docs if they are already funded by other grants and have free time but they don't generally fund internally.  Hence why most university professors are spending 50-60% of their time chasing grants and also why in socially influenced fields (eg, global warming) you get so much tainting by what the governments want to see the research show (no expected results, no more funding).

One example I've worked with was HERG channels affecting Q-T interval duration and prolongation.  Pretty much all of the research was NIH funded university grants on how the channels functioned.  Industry then funded additional research with those labs for the application part.  Hell, many if not most biotech start-ups are founded by academic researchers who built an information base via Federal grants that they then felt they could monetize.  University owns the research in partnership with the NiH or other agency but the knowledge is free to be used (barring specific university patents, which is why they tend to push for as many patents as possible so they can get a taste if things move to market).  Put it this way, almost everytime I need to do a deep dive into an area I end up talking to people at a university who are generating the nuts and bolts of how things are working and they are almost always paying their salaries and lab infrastructure with Federal grants.  Sometimes state or NGO but that's much rarer. Rarer still is self funding from patents the lab partially owns.

The downfall of science. We have seen this already in the sins of homosexuality and the gender-bender choices. So much for the liberal "Follow the science."

[Rick]

Hhmm, any new methods of screening pathogens in blood?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143024938

[DB]

If you want corporations to fund all medical research, you'll find they'll only make palliatives, wrinkle creams and hair loss products.

[Wobbly Head]

1 hour ago, DB said:

If you want corporations to fund all medical research, you'll find they'll only make palliatives, wrinkle creams and hair loss products.

Viagra was originally developed for hypertension but once the boner side effect was discovered it became the best selling drug in the world. 

 Drug companies will finance medical research, but they are companies. The main aim of companies is to make money. So they will aim thier research towards what makes money. There is no money in curing rare diseases but there is in boner pills and heart disease of people who don't want to exercise and diet to be healthy and would rather take the easy route off popping a pill.

Edited January 30 by Wobbly Head

[sunday]

There is money in chronic therapies, there is no money in curing diseases.

[DB]

Exactly the point I was making, I think?

[nitflegal]

36 minutes ago, Wobbly Head said:

Viagra was originally developed for hypertension but once the boner side effect was discovered it became the best selling drug in the world. 

 Drug companies will finance medical research, but they are companies. The main aim of companies is to make money. So they will aim thier research towards what makes money. There is no money in curing rare diseases but there is in boner pills and heart disease of people who don't want to exercise and diet to be healthy and would rather take the easy route off popping a pill.

Actually, there's a ton of money in curing rare diseases.  From a regulatory standpoint insurance companies and federal health care have to cover a treatment and for rare diseases they are exempt from price caps exactly so there is money in targetting them.  I've worked on some of those projects where there are less than 1,000 patients worldwide; you could charge 6 figures for the cure, make a reasonable profit, and it would be mandated to be covered.  

[nitflegal]

23 minutes ago, sunday said:

There is money in chronic therapies, there is no money in curing diseases.

That's not actually true.  If there are effective therapies for a disease then your only avenue into the space is a cure, which immediately kills off your competition from the therapeutics but also locks the marketplace down to you because there is no point in developing a competing drug.  We cure diseases all of the time and that is a big part of the business model.  Especially because if you have a therapeutic you generally only have 8-10 years before your patent expires and competition is extremely attractive to eat into your revenue stream.  Surgical devices, for example are the poster child for cures versus therapies.  Same as oncology drugs, stroke therapies, occular therapies, etc.  The problem honestly is that by the time you have a disease worth treating, the anatomy is so screwed up plus probably the physiology you're mitigating existing damage so you don't have a cure unless you can renormalize the anatomy and function.

I'm certainly not stating that treatment isn't lucrative and a business model used often.  What I am stating is that to compete with a major pharmaceutical that has taken the strategy an actual cure is not only the most effective way, it would have the support of medicaire, major insurance companies, etc so they would shitcan coverage of the therapies to do a one and done cost.