About Damn Time

Tongue scraping involves using a tool to remove bacteria‚ dead cells‚ and food debris from the surface of the tongue. Some studies have suggested this daily ritual may hold some benefits‚ from reducing levels of nasty bacteria to eliminating bad breath‚ although other research has indicated that some of its purported benefits may be overstated.The human tongue is covered in lingual papillae‚ small mounds that grip food while your teeth are chewing and provide a home for your taste buds. However‚ these structures can also trap bacteria that can cause bad breath and disease.Don’t be mistaken: bacteria in the mouth are fundamental to our health. The oral cavity harbors over 700 species of bacteria‚ making it the second largest and most diverse microbiome in the human body after the gut. These microorganisms feed on the carbohydrates in the food you eat and help to manage the health of your mouth – and much more. For instance‚ a huge amount of evidence has shown that oral bacteria are closely linked with heart health. However‚ the overgrowth of certain bacteria species can lead to some negative consequences‚ ranging from gum disease to halitosis‚ aka bad breath. As such‚ many experts argue that tongue scraping‚ as well as regular tooth brushing‚ is a good way to manage this vital bacterial ecosystem. Not only does it strip excess bacteria‚ but it also helps to remove food debris that the microorganisms feed on.Tongue scraper benefitsProponents of tongue scraping argue it holds some benefits:Reducing bad breathImproving the appearance of the tongueFostering a healthy oral microbiomeImproved oral healthEnhanced sense of tasteSome of these purported benefits have been investigated by scientific studies – with mixed results.A 2010 study by the University of Amsterdam indicated that regular tongue scraping could improve breath odor and reduce the coating on the tongue.However‚ other studies have not reached the same conclusion. A 2019 study struggled to find any solid evidence that tongue scraping helped to reduce bad breath.Also in 2019‚ a study found that tongue scraping was the most effective way to reduce levels of Streptococcus mutans‚ a bacteria found in the human oral cavity that's linked with tooth decay.Another study‚ published in 2017‚ looked into whether tongue cleaning could benefit people with periodontitis‚ a serious form of gum disease associated with an overgrowth of bacteria. They concluded that tongue scraping made no difference in the amount of bacteria or odor in their mouths.How to use a tongue scraperTongue scraping can be easily incorporated into your usual oral hygiene regime. After brushing your teeth‚ simply run a specialized tongue-scraping utensil across your tongue‚ starting from the back of your tongue to the front. Do this two or three times‚ rinsing the tongue scraper after each stroke. While scraping‚ apply a light amount of pressure - sufficient to gently remove the slimy film of gunk on the surface‚ but not enough to damage the tongue. Best tongue scraperTongue scrapers can be bought online or at your local pharmacy for an affordable price. You can buy disposable plastic ones‚ which can be used daily for several months‚ or metal ones‚ which can be easily cleaned and used indefinitely. While they can be pricier‚ most experts recommend you use metal tongue scrapers over plastic ones‚ simply because they are most effective at removing debris and bacteria from the tongue. It also means there's one less piece of plastic pollution that will float around the ocean for centuries.All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text‚ images‚ and links may be edited‚ removed‚ or added to at a later date to keep information current. The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice‚ diagnosis‚ or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.  

We are aware that geographical sorting based on ideological lines is on the rise in the US‚ but do regions and states differ in personality as well? And‚ if so‚ do those who “fit” in with these community “types” also experience certain benefits? A new study suggests this may be the case.Professor Kevin Lanning of Florida Atlantic University and colleagues used data from the Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment to investigate the impact that person-community fit – an important concept in personality‚ social‚ and geographical psychology – has on education‚ health‚ and well-being.During their work‚ the team tried to assess “fit” using a traditional method known as “response surface analysis”‚ a technique used to test whether/to what extent combinations of two predictive variables relate to an outcome variable‚ and “profile similarities”‚ a method that quantifies the similarity between two sets of ratings on multiple variables. For example‚ a profile similarity-focused study might try to see whether children have a similar emotional profile to their parents‚ or whether a romantic couple experience fluctuations when they go about their daily business.However‚ Lanning and colleagues had to approach things differently for this study. This is because‚ in each of these approaches‚ scores for individuals are typically compared with community averages. This leads to interpretive challenges in this context because there are greater variables among individuals than there is among a community.To address this‚ the team adopted a novel approach that reconceptualized person-community fit‚ based on the idea that communities‚ as with people‚ can be made up of multiple environmental niches. In this instance‚ they illustrated this conceptual change with simple typology where they assigned people to specific “types” based on their most extreme score across the Big Five personality traits. These include openness to new experiences‚ conscientiousness‚ extraversion‚ agreeableness‚ and neuroticism.So for this study‚ someone categorized as “extraverted” would be someone whose average response across the extraversion items is more distinct and extreme than those of the other traits. Equally‚ “stable” types were people whose most extreme average responses were lower in neuroticism. The researchers used this information to figure out the percentage of people within the community who fitted into each type.The results were fascinating. With these new typologies‚ the team found that the percentage of open-minded people in Manhattan is roughly twice that of Detroit. In contrast‚ people in Detroit were twice as likely as Manhattanites to be classified as conscientious (which captures individual differences in the degree of organization‚ persistence‚ and motivation in goal-directed behaviour).In Palm Beach and Broward counties‚ the proportions of open people and conscientious people were roughly the same‚ but among counties with more than 5‚000 respondents‚ Bexar County‚ San Antonio had the highest proportion of agreeable people. In contrast‚ Manhattan may have had the highest proportion of openness‚ but it also had the lowest levels of people who were agreeable and conscientious.“It’s important to note that when comparing different counties‚ small counties are inevitably more likely to show up at the extremes. In addition‚ our sample is unlikely to be representative of most counties. For both of these reasons‚ comparisons between individual counties should be made with caution‚” Lanning said in a statement.Not surprisingly‚ Lanning and colleagues found evidence that people who exhibited personality types that fitted into the community “type” seemed to experience higher levels of happiness and well-being. They were also more likely to engage in healthy behaviours and attain higher levels of schooling relative to their parents.“Just as the ethnic character of a community can be described by proportions of different ethnic groups‚ the psychological character of a community may‚ perhaps‚ best be understood by a set of proportions of psychological types‚” Lanning added. “To the extent that communities are diverse‚ people can ‘fit’ in multiple ways. One way to capture this idea is by describing both persons and communities in terms of types.”The study is published in Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology.

For the first time ever‚ a child suffering from a deadly type of brain tumor known as a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) has been completely cured. Until now‚ doctors had only been able to offer radiotherapy in an attempt to slow the cancer’s growth‚ yet this breakthrough offers hope for a more effective treatment.Appearing almost exclusively in children‚ DIPG is a rare yet extremely aggressive form of cancer. Unfortunately‚ due to the position of the tumor within the brainstem‚ surgery to remove the cancer is not possible‚ and the average survival time is only nine to 10 months.Lucas‚ from Belgium‚ was 6 years old when he was diagnosed with the illness. Desperately seeking help‚ his parents took him to France where he was enrolled in the Biological Medicine for DIPG Eradication (BIOMEDE) study.Initiated in 2014‚ BIOMEDE compared the effectiveness of three different cancer drugs - erlotinib‚ everolimus‚ and dasatinib. Crucially‚ however‚ researchers first extracted a tiny fragment of each patient’s tumor using a needle in order to conduct a biopsy and analyze the molecular profile of each individual cancer.This enabled doctors to assign the most suitable medication according to the biopsy results of each patient. Lucas was one of 233 DIPG sufferers included in the study‚ and was treated with everolimus.Speaking to AFP‚ BIOMEDE lead researcher Dr Jacques Grill said that “Lucas beat all the odds”‚ and‚ at the age of 13‚ remains cancer-free. "Over a series of MRI scans‚ I watched as the tumor completely disappeared‚" said Grill.While seven other children included in the trial survived several years after diagnosis‚ Lucas was the only one to see his tumor vanish completely. "I don't know of any other case like him in the world‚" Grill said.Researchers are still trying to figure out why some patients are more responsive to treatment than others‚ although the molecular differences between one cancer and the next are likely to play a significant role. For instance‚ Grill explains that "Lucas's tumor had an extremely rare mutation which we believe made its cells far more sensitive to the drug."Based on the results of the initial BIOMEDE study - which ran until 2019 - researchers chose everolimus as the candidate drug for BIOMEDE 2.0‚ which began in September 2022. Scientists are also attempting to create bundles of cells known as cancer organoids‚ which mirror the genetic abnormalities of patients’ tumors.If the team can successfully reproduce the properties seen in Lucas’s DIPG then they may be able to use these lab-grown cells to test new drugs. However‚ as exciting as this may seem‚ Grill says that an effective treatment for the illness is still a long way off‚ as medications have a lengthy pipeline from conception to widespread use. "On average‚ it takes 10-15 years from the first lead to become a drug – it's a long and drawn-out process‚" he said.

Deep beneath the ground in South Dakota’s Black Hills‚ there lives a bacterium that has the potential to rapidly turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into a solid mineral under extreme conditions. If scientists figure out how to harness these bizarre microbes‚ they could offer a new way to capture greenhouse gases in depleted fossil fuel reserves.Researchers at Soeder Geoscience LLC and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology recently went on a hunt for carbon-sequestering microbes that can cope with the intense temperatures and pressures found beneath an oilfield.They managed to root out three promising candidates. One of these was a species of Bacillus bacteria‚ located 1‚250 meters (4‚100 feet) beneath the ground at the deepest underground laboratory in the US‚ the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the South Dakota Black Hills.The two other species were a Geobacillus species‚ which is also adapted to high heat and pressure‚ and Persephonella marina‚ a “hyperthermophile” found living in the hydrothermal vents of the Pacific Ocean that can tolerate temperatures up to 110°C (230°F)‚ seawater salinity‚ and high pressure.The bacteria were put through a series of lab experiments that subjected them to a range of extreme pressures‚ temperatures‚ and acidities. Their preliminary results suggested the optimum conditions for the microbes to produce calcite crystals from CO2 were 500 times greater than the pressure at sea level at 80°C (178°F). Under these extreme conditions‚ the bacteria could convert CO2 to carbonate crystals within 10 days.The bacteria pull off this feat thanks to an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase that catalyzes the reaction between CO2 and water.The void spaces left by depleted oil and gas fields are an ideal location to store captured CO2‚ thereby stopping it from entering the Earth’s atmosphere where it acts as a greenhouse gas and drives climate change.Since these bacteria can work their magic under the harsh conditions found in depleted oil and gas fields‚ it opens up the possibility of injecting them into the underground voids and sequestering the CO2 permanently. Furthermore‚ the solid carbonates could effectively work as a “plug” that stops residual liquids and gas leaking out from the abandoned oil wells.While much of this is hypothetical for now‚ advances in carbon capture technology such as this could be an invaluable tool in tackling the climate crisis. Of course‚ the possibility of carbon capturing should not negate the urgent need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels; there’s no point mopping up the floor when the bath is still overflowing. The research was presented at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco late last year.[H/T: New Scientist]

Dark matter has been shown to be concentrated in threads within a spectacular cluster of galaxies popular with amateur astronomers. These filaments explain why the galaxies occupy their locations. The finding shows that‚ while our models of the universe are facing challenges‚ they continue to predict many things rather well.Galaxies are not randomly distributed through space‚ instead huddling in smallish groups‚ like the one our own Milky Way is part of‚ and much larger clusters. These also follow patterns‚ and according to the concordance cosmological model‚ they occur where vast filaments that form the cosmic web meet. Tests of this theory have found evidence to support it when it comes to the ordinary baryonic matter that makes up stars. However‚ the model predicts these filaments will mostly be made up of dark matter‚ whose presence is much harder to confirm. After all‚ we can’t see dark matter – it’s in the name – and don’t even know what it is. Mapping its distribution poses obvious challenges.These are not insurmountable‚ however‚ as a team at South Korea’s Yonsei University claims to have overcome them to the extent of showing these cosmic web filaments also have a dark matter component. Rather than inferring the presence of dark matter from the distribution of sources of light‚ the team looked for distortions in the light from more distant objects‚ indicating distortions in spacetime. Such bending of the fabric of the universe can only be done‚ as far as we know‚ by immense gravitational forces. We can see this happening from massive objects that we can see‚ and the gravity from dark matter should do the same.The Yonsei team turned the Subaru Telescope on the Coma cluster‚ which despite being 320 million light years away‚ is so luminous its brightest galaxies draw backyard telescopes to observe the Coma Berenices constellation. They found the cluster is affecting light from more distant sources far more than the galaxies within it – even including their associated dark matter – could account for.Some concentration of mass lies between the galaxies‚ and if the models are right‚ it should lie along so-called intracluster filaments (ICFs). A statement from the Subaru Telescope describes the ICFs as the “terminal ends of dark matter filaments” that stretch across millions of light years.There’s also a history to the choice of the Coma Cluster. In 1933‚ Fritz Zwicky reported the speed with which the galaxies in the Coma Cluster were moving was so great‚ that it would take a staggering amount of mass to hold them together. More mass‚ Zwicky showed‚ than the visible component of these galaxies would provide‚ indicating there must be something more‚ which was eventually named dark matter. Although dark matter’s existence had been proposed before‚ and was not generally accepted until decades later based on galactic rotation rates‚ Zwicky is now considered a pioneer on this topic.The authors mapped the distribution of mass within the cluster by where the distortions in more distant light are most extreme‚ a process known as “weak lensing". They compared the locations of peaks in the mass with predictions of where these filaments should lie. What the authors call the northern ICF matched expectations well‚ although the paper announcing the result notes the western one is “at the low end of the distribution.”The ICFs are also much more densely packed with mass than their surrounds – 67 and 33 times the background density‚ respectively – the authors report. Together‚ the findings indicate that a substantial fraction of the Coma Cluster’s mass is contained in ICFs running through it. Besides providing further evidence for the existence of dark matter‚ something accepted by the vast majority of astronomers‚ the work indicates our understanding of its distribution is on the right track.On the other hand‚ since these ICFs are not visible when we merely count galaxies and measure their brightness‚ the authors suggest cluster masses are probably being underestimated.The study is published in Nature Astronomy.

by William Sullivan‚ American Thinker: In his excellent podcast series‚ “Cold War: Prelude to the Present‚” Bill Whittle opens the series by describing the Berlin Wall as “not only a wall between East and West Berlin.”  He continues: It was the division of humanity into two different camps… On one side of the wall‚ the Eastern […]

by Jim Hoft‚ The Gateway Pundit: In an explosive development‚ sources close to a high-profile investigation have revealed that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was specifically aimed at recovering a “missing top-secret binder.” This document is rumored to contain damning evidence of former President Barack Obama’s CIA’s involvement in initiating the Russia collusion narrative against President Trump. […]

from The Mel K Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

Conspiracy Theorists said that Public Pedophilia would be next. Here we are. pic.twitter.com/yFOupyc73w — Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) February 13‚ 2024