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A group of experts working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) have proposed a new definition for long COVID, in the hopes of bringing long-awaited clarity The previous lack of consensus when it comes to defining long COVID can be problematic in many ways, but particularly for those who experience the condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently estimated that 17.8 percent of adults in the US had experienced long COVID. Without a clear definition, those people can encounter skepticism and difficulty accessing the treatment they need.In the hopes of bringing the clarity required to resolve this problem, the committee authoring the report worked with over 1,300 participants with a variety of perspectives, including patients, caregivers, and advocacy groups, but also health care professionals, researchers, and those involved in health industry businesses.The definition they came up with is as follows: “Long COVID (LC) is an infection-associated chronic condition that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing and remitting, or progressive disease state that affects one or more organ systems.”It was also concluded that the three-month period proposed doesn’t have to be immediately following infection; the authors acknowledged that long COVID’s onset may well occur weeks or even months after someone appears to have recovered.Importantly, the definition doesn’t list any specific symptoms that are required for a diagnosis, nor does it list any that would definitively rule it out. As such, there’s no attempt to list all of the possible symptoms of long COVID, though it does mention that studies have estimated there to be over 200, affecting multiple different organs.Some of these include symptoms we might associate with an initial COVID infection, such as coughing, shortness of breath, and more recently with the appearance of new variants, digestive issues. Other examples given that are often reported by people with long COVID are persistent fatigue, memory changes, and problems with taste or smell.Under normal circumstances, NASEM’s conclusions on a topic aim to be final. However, because it’s such a new condition, what we know about long COVID is changing all the time. As a result, the authors actively encourage that the definition be reviewed.“Words have a way of evolving from their original meaning: nice originally meant silly or foolish, and silly originally referred to things worthy or blessed,” they write. “While Long COVID is unlikely to endure such an extreme lexical conversion, its meaning can and should evolve to match the state of knowledge.”Regardless, it’s hoped the definition in its current form will bring people with long COVID much-needed recognition and support.“The lack of a consistent definition for Long COVID has hampered research and delayed diagnosis and care for patients,” said Harvey Fineberg, chair of the report’s authoring committee, in a statement. “Our committee hopes this single definition, crafted with input from across research and patient communities, will help to educate the public about this widespread and highly consequential disease state.”The report can be accessed here.

At the heart of the galaxy OJ 287 is a supermassive black hole, like almost every other galaxy, but this one is unusual. Around it orbits a smaller black hole, but one still far bigger than the one in our own galaxy. Astronomers have suspected for decades the flares from this galaxy were a product of these two enormous objects’ interactions. Only now, with the help of two space telescopes, have they made a direct observation of the smaller black hole.The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies are surrounded by accretion disks made of material that is slowly spiraling down to them to be swallowed. Depending on the amount of material in the disk at any time, these can be exceptionally brilliant, and may flare up when the disk is disturbed.Usually, however, we don’t know when to expect such an outburst, but astronomers at the University of Turku have been studying OJ 287 for 40 years, and anticipated one in late 2021. Other astronomers had enough confidence in the prediction, that they diverted the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) from its primary role of finding planets around nearby stars and had it check up on OJ 287 frequently for 80 days.That decision was vindicated when TESS, along with the Swift X-ray telescope, observed the flare right on time. Along with observations made the following year, but published more quickly, these confirm the Turku model, revealing two enormous black holes in an epic dance. The previous flare occurred when the smaller SMBH passed through the larger one’s accretion disk, disrupting it in ways that produced a surge in brightness. However, in this case, the extra light came from the area around the smaller SMBH itself.OJ 287 lies 4 billion light years away, so it is astonishing how bright it is, visible in large amateur telescopes. It also has a history of odd behavior, attracting the attention of astronomers since the 19th Century, who at the time had no idea what they were looking at. Now, we know OJ 287 is a blazar, a type of quasar where the jets point straight at Earth, but there is more to it than that.OJ 287 has flared many times. For his PhD 40 years ago, Aimo Sillanpää constructed the theory that we were seeing two SMBHs, one much larger than the other. Naturally, the smaller one orbits its bigger neighbor, and the 12-year cycle of this orbit creates one of the periods Sillanpää tracked between flares. The smaller SMBH orbits at an angle to the plane of the accretion disk, so it passes through twice each orbit, the disruption leading to an outpouring of extra light.This would be a fascinating thing to see under any circumstances, but the scale of this system is staggering. The smaller black hole has a mass 150 million times that of the Sun, making it 40 times as massive as Sagittarius A*, the SMBH at the heart of our own galaxy. The bigger object is about 18 billion solar masses.Another representation of OJ 287, showing how the smaller SMBH's orbit is angled to the accretion disk, only passing through twice in 12 years.Image Credit: AAAS 2018Despite the size of the smaller black hole, there are usually obstacles to its direct detection. “The two black holes are so close to each other in the sky that one cannot see them separately, they merge to a single point in our telescopes,” said Professor Mauri Valtonen in a statement. “Only if we see clearly separate signals from each black hole can we say that we have actually 'seen' them both.”In addition to the flares Sillanpää tracked, there are other events triggered by the two SMBH’s interactions. While working on his own PhD in 2014, Dr Pauli Pihajoki developed the model further to predict the smaller SMBH would capture a richer pocket of gas in late 2021 and flare up, inspiring the observations by TESS and Swift.On November 12 at 2 am GMT, TESS observed OJ 287 brightening and tracked it for 12 hours before it faded again. Swift and ground-based instruments were also on the case, and those experiencing clear nights got to watch the flare as well.Professor Mauri Valtonen has led a project to analyze the data from all these instruments and compare it with Sillanpää and Pihajoki’s predictions.They found that for that 12-hour period the smaller SMBH outshone its bigger sibling, giving the system a yellow color rather than the usual red."Therefore, we can now say that we have 'seen' an orbiting black hole for the first time, in the same way that we can say that TESS has seen planets orbiting other stars,” Valtonen said in a different statement. “Just as with planets, it is extremely difficult to get a direct image of the smaller black hole. In fact, because of OJ 287's great distance … it will probably take a very long time before our observation methods have developed enough to catch a picture even of the larger black hole.”  The team looked back on the dates when such an event should have occurred previously, and found that telescopes powerful enough to detect the change had never been watching at the right time.Besides studying OJ 287 at all points on the electromagnetic spectrum, the University of Turku team think that two such enormous objects orbiting so close to each other should be producing gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz range. Those waves should be causing pulsars across the universe to alter their timing fractionally, and the team hope we will soon be able to measure some precisely enough to pick this up. The findings are open access in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

The outsider might not think conservation and survivalism have much common ground and that is true of pseudo-environmentalists and pseudo-survivalists. The post Where Conservation and Survivalism Overlap appeared first on Survivopedia.

The U.S. economy is headed in the wrong direction. Gross government overreach is regulating private companies out of business. Inflation is hitting Americans from all angles. It is no surprise that economic confidence is dismal at best. Grocery prices have increased by 25% over the past four years. The cost of gasoline jumped 49.6% in 2021 and has decreased less than 2% in any given year since. In Washington state, gas is up nearly 6% compared to a year ago and up more than 10% in just the past month. We often discuss learning loss, but the economic implications of school closures shouldn’t be overlooked. The inflation crippling consumers isn’t just groceries and gas. Homeowner’s insurance premiums in 2023 were up 11.3% on average nationally. In 25 states, the annual increase was at least 10%. In Florida, which has been battered by hurricanes, the rates have increased more than 40% in five years. As a result, a growing number of people have been forced to sell their homes, and others are taking gigantic risks by going without insurance, as they cannot pay the higher bills. The implications are significant for everyday Americans. As Steve Forbes explains, “The people who are hurt the most are those with the least.” Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women's Forum, argues, “Massive federal spending during the pandemic, funded by the government printing money and flooding the economy to spur spending, lit the fuse for prices to accelerate.” The policies of the Biden administration bear much of the blame for the dramatic downward economic spiral, yet who put Joe Biden and his congressional allies in office? It was the American people who voted for individuals bent on big government, with its associated tax increases, bloated regulatory agenda, and attack on enterprise. Far too many Americans have fallen prey to “equity” talking points and false promises, while in reality, they are far worse off financially as a result of Bidenomics. Consider that Americans exit their K-12 schooling around age 18, at which point they are eligible to vote. Since public education has maintained a near-monopoly for decades, most Americans have not been granted another primary and secondary schooling option than attending their residentially assigned district public school. In fact, the U.S. K-12 public education system is the largest government-controlled monopoly in the world, other than state-owned monopolies in China, with spending nearing $1 trillion per year. With roughly 52 million public-school children in America, teachers’ unions receive hundreds of millions of dollars a year in members’ dues. They use a sizeable portion of that money to exert political influence by funneling dues to Democrats’ political campaigns. For example, the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers’ union in the country with 1.72 million members, allocated more than 99% of its campaign contributions to Democrats during the 2022 election cycle. The result, of course, is a public education system that funnels enormous sums of money almost exclusively to a single political party. In turn, teachers’ unions amass tremendous political power, including protection of the public-school monopoly, which ensures a steady population of dues-paying members to fill their coffers. Teachers’ unions use their power to push irrelevant political demands, such as a moratorium on charter schools, defunding the police, and “Medicare for all.” Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they kept public schools closed for nearly three years in some parts of the country. In contrast, the vast majority of private schools returned to in-person learning by the fall of 2020, serving the best interests of their students. The school closures were devastating for children and teenagers, causing immediate harm with long-term negative consequences. We often discuss learning loss, but the economic implications of school closures shouldn’t be overlooked. According to McKinsey and Company research, students who experienced prolonged school closures “may earn $49,000 to $61,000 less over their lifetime owing to the impact of the pandemic on their schooling.” Furthermore, collectively, the “impact on the U.S economy could amount to $128 billion to $188 billion every year as this cohort enters the workforce.” Keeping schools closed to advance political agendas isn’t the only way teachers’ unions have inappropriately leveraged their substantial power. They also employ their power to influence teacher education and school curricula to produce an electorate subscribed to the ideas of a single political party. It is nothing short of a monopoly over the American mind. Ideas have consequences — for individuals and for society. Ask public-school students today about capitalism and free market enterprise, and you’ll find them condemning these economic systems that built our country while advocating and defending Marxism and socialism. As Voddie T. Baucham Jr. wisely noted, “We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.” That is why empowering parents with education freedom for children is vitally important. While incredible progress has occurred as 12 states have enacted universal or near-universal school choice into law over the past few years, the war is far from over. The future of our country depends on it. As Corey DeAngelis asserts, “Thirteen years of government indoctrination immensely harms society.” For a growing number of Americans, the harm has dire daily financial implications at the grocery store, gas pump, and beyond.

The House has voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden. Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) dropped one of the votes against Garland. “Leadership has been working on really making this argument to the delegation, and so I think we knew that it was going to pass,” Luna tells Sara Gonzales, noting that it was obvious, as Garland had blatantly defied two subpoenas. “I think Republicans know, especially right now with Americans realizing that there is a two-tier justice system, that we have to do something. And I’m sorry, but angry letters and these paper tigers are simply not sufficing,” she explains. If the DOJ doesn’t hold Garland accountable by June 25, Luna says she will bring up her vote to hold him in inherent contempt of Congress. “We’ll do it ourselves,” she says, adding that there are two types of contempt of Congress. “A lot of people don’t talk about inherent contempt because it was something that I think really the House of Representatives forgot that they could do because it hasn’t really been done since the early 1900s, but there is case law for it,” Luna explains. Meanwhile, many people have been getting in trouble for defying subpoenas from what Luna calls the “sham January 6 committee.” “So, if they set the precedent, we’re simply following exactly what they’ve done,” she says. Now, Garland is “starting to sweat” and claiming that what’s happening is “partisan weaponization.” Luna calls this “ironic and laughable” because partisan weaponization is much clearer in the case of Trump. If the hand is forced, holding Garland in inherent contempt will force him to produce the recordings of Biden’s interview with Hur — which Luna believes has never been more necessary. Gonzales finds the whole situation incredibly suspicious. “If we do have the transcript, and we already know what was said, why would you not release the tapes? What are you trying to hide?” she says. Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.