A protein released when there’s inflammation in the brain could be behind the severe muscle fatigue seen in people with long COVID, revealing a potential target for new treatments for the condition. Fatigue and exercise intolerance are among the most debilitating symptoms of long COVID. Scientists have learned that this goes far beyond feeling tired – previous research has revealed changes in the muscle fibers in long COVID patients that prevent them from being able to exercise as they used to. However, a new study is offering hope that we might one day find a way to treat this.Post-viral syndromes like long COVID are not the only cause of these complications, so the research team also looked at Alzheimer’s disease and infection with E. coli bacteria. In each of these diseases, the brain can be exposed to inflammatory proteins that lead to a buildup of reactive oxygen species. These, in turn, cause brain cells to produce a protein called interleukin-6 (IL-6), an immune system component that then travels throughout the body in the bloodstream.It's the IL-6, the researchers discovered through investigations in mice and fruit flies, that stops the body’s muscles from producing as much energy as they usually would.“Flies and mice that had COVID-associated proteins in the brain showed reduced motor function – the flies didn’t climb as well as they should have, and the mice didn’t run as well or as much as control mice,” said senior author Dr Aaron Johnson, of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, in a statement.Importantly, this effect on the mitochondria – tiny cellular power plants – in muscles continued even once the acute infection had been cleared. Many people with long COVID had only a mild, short-lived initial infection, only to start experiencing a raft of symptoms a few weeks later.“Even if an infection is cleared quickly, the reduced muscle performance remains many days longer in our experiments,” said Johnson. In these fruit fly muscle fibers, the purple staining shows how well the mitochondria are producing energy. The ones on the left are from healthy muscles, while the ones on the right are from muscles exposed to IL-6.Image credit: Shuo YangAlthough this research was conducted in flies and mice, the team believes similar processes can happen in humans. High levels of inflammation have previously been documented in long COVID patients, and an inflammatory environment in the brain is a known marker of neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – in fact, previous research has noted the similarities between brain inflammation in Alzheimer’s and in COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms. It's not completely clear why the brain produces IL-6 under these conditions. “If we want to speculate about possible reasons this process has stayed with us over the course of human evolution, despite the damage it does,” Johnson theorized, “it could be a way for the brain to reallocate resources to itself as it fights off disease. We need more research to better understand this process and its consequences throughout the body.”But one encouraging thing to come out of this study is the potential hope it raises for a treatment. IL-6 activates a biochemical pathway called JAK-STAT in muscles, and there are already a number of approved drugs that can block this pathway. These are generally used for inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, but in light of these findings, there’s a chance they could help manage long COVID too.More research will be needed to find out, but for a patient population that has suffered stigma and ignorance, any positive steps forward will be welcomed. “In the meantime,” Johnson said, “we hope our study encourages more clinical research into this pathway and whether existing treatments that block various parts of it can help the many patients who experience this type of debilitating muscle fatigue.”The study is published in Science Immunology.

Women who have sex less than once a week may be more likely to die early than those who engage in more regular intercourse, according to the results of a new study. While this same impact was not observed in men, the researchers did note that more frequent sex reduces the chances of an early grave in both men and women with depression.“Sexual activity is important for overall cardiovascular health possibly due to reduction of heart rate variability and blood flow increase,” write the authors. “Using findings from our study, we can infer that sexual activity, broadly defined, may ameliorate loss of function that can occur with age and the progression of disease,” they add.To reach these conclusions, the researchers analyzed data from 14,542 individuals in the US, recorded as part of a national health survey conducted between 2005 and 2010. In total, 2,267 provided details of their sex lives, with 94.4 percent of those people claiming to get busy at least once a month, while 38.4 percent said they did so more than once a week.Previous studies have indicated that the average US adult has sex 54 times a year – or about once a week – so the researchers decided to classify people into those with high and low sexual frequency, depending on whether they had intercourse more or less than once a week (52 times a year). Overall, women with low sexual frequency were 1.7 times more likely to have died from any cause by the end of 2015 than those with busier sex lives.Importantly, the study authors also noted that this effect followed a dose-dependent pattern, meaning that the less sex a woman had, the higher her risk of mortality became. And despite not finding the same response in men, the researchers were surprised to observe that intercourse appears to have a “modifying relationship” on the adverse health effects of depression in both sexes.Indeed, after adjusting for confounding risk factors such as obesity, advanced age, and lower socioeconomic status, the authors found that people who suffered from depression were around three times more likely to die during the follow-up period if they also had a low sexual frequency. It’s important to note, of course, that causation can’t be inferred from such correlations, although previous work has shown that people tend to experience improved mood and a greater sense of life purpose the day after having sex, which may contribute to improvements in depression and overall well being. These findings are in agreement with those of another small-scale study of Israeli adults, which found that having more sex was associated with better survival odds in people who had suffered heart attacks. Overall, then, the study authors stop short of announcing that a weekly shag could save your life, but on the basis of this evidence, it certainly can’t hurt.The study has been published in the Journal of Psychosexual Health.

The Great Red Spot is a storm larger than our whole planet. It is clearly visible on the Southern Hemisphere of Jupiter, even to small telescopes, and we have been observing it for centuries. It became clear in the last few years that it is shrinking. Now, new research suggests that the cause of this is a change in diet.Simulations suggest that the growth of the larger storm depends on continuously incorporating smaller storms that get too close, adding in this way to the Great Red Spot. But lately, there has been a decline in small storms, and so too the Great Red Spot has declined.Latitudinally, so north to south, the Spot has not changed much since the late 19th century. However, its longitudinal extent has contracted from about 40 degrees in the late 1800s to 14 degrees in 2016, when NASA's Juno entered orbit around the planet.  The team used 3D simulations of the planetary atmosphere to work out what might be driving the Great Red Spot. Some of these simulated the Spot with smaller storms of varying frequency and intensity. Others did not have the smaller storms. The simulation revealed that the Spot grows in the presence of smaller storms.“We found through numerical simulations that by feeding the Great Red Spot a diet of smaller storms, as has been known to occur on Jupiter, we could modulate its size,” lead author Caleb Keaveney, a graduate researcher at Yale, said in a statement.The base of the research is actually Earth’s weather. While our planet hasn’t got a storm that has survived for hundreds of years, there are larger systems like the heat domes that are influenced in their longevity by smaller weather systems. If it can happen on Earth, it might happen on Jupiter – and maybe vice-versa.“Our study has compelling implications for weather events on Earth,” Keaveney said. “Interactions with nearby weather systems have been shown to sustain and amplify heat domes, which motivated our hypothesis that similar interactions on Jupiter could sustain the Great Red Spot. In validating that hypothesis, we provide additional support to this understanding of heat domes on Earth.”The team now plans to refine the simulation to maybe even work out how the Great Red Spot came to be, another enduring mystery of this fascinating weather event.  The study is published in the journal Icarus.

It's a well-known rule that the higher you go on Earth, the colder it gets. But there are a few people who haven't quite grasped why this is the case, with some asking why it is that the tops of mountains are colder when hot air rises and others asking why the tops of mountains are snowy when they are closer to the Sun than the ground is.First off, it may be instinctive to assume "closer to Sun = hotter" but your elevation on Earth has little bearing on the energy you receive from the Sun. The heat we feel on Earth is not direct heat energy from the Sun, but the result of solar radiation emitted from the Sun (wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light) interacting with particles on Earth. While this has a bearing on the temperature of planets at different distances in our Solar System, the Sun is 151.88 million kilometers (93 million miles) away from the Earth, rendering Everest's impressive 8,849 meter (29,032 foot) height pretty irrelevant. The real reason why higher elevations are colder is because of how much thicker the atmosphere is at sea level compared to higher altitudes. On Everest, for easy example, the air pressure is roughly one third of that at sea level, though this fluctuates with the weather.As air is heated it expands, making more space between the molecules. In this packet of warm air, the molecules are more spread out. Being less dense than surrounding colder air, it rises due to the buoyant force. But this doesn't mean that mountains should be hot either."Higher elevations are cooler than lower elevations because of adiabatic heating. When a parcel of air moves from a low elevation to a high elevation, it expands because it is under less pressure. It has less weight pressing down on it from the air above it. As the air expands, its temperature drops," NASA explains."The cool air temperature freezes precipitation, and snow falls instead of rain. The cold air also cools that ground so that, when snow falls, it is more likely to accumulate than to melt."

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Democrats know they can appear on the pro-Biden Sunday network shows and receive a gentle interview. On Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, regular co-host Martha Raddatz oh-so-gently asked Gov. Wes Moore (D-Md.) about the difference between his public and private stances on Joe Biden being forced out of the presidential race by his own party. On D.C. sports radio ("The Sports Junkies") on Monday, the hosts discussed Moore showing up at the training camps of both the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Commanders like a big fan, so he's good at this two-spins thing.  Maryland Governor Wes Moore admits he lied on TV in defending Biden’s well-being while privately telling Biden “the truth,” yet ABC’s @MarthaRaddatz doesn’t bat an eye and moves on to “pretty good news” in a big favorability jump for Harris. #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/o2fVK9OLpN — Brent Baker ?? ?? (@BrentHBaker) July 28, 2024 RADDATZ: You had been a very strong supporter of Joe Biden staying in the race just a few days after that disastrous debate, saying he is not going to take himself out of the race, nor should he. Did your concerns grow as the weeks went on? GOV. WES MOORE, (D) MARYLAND: Well, you know, I had private conversations with the president. And I – and I'm a big believer that when you care about somebody you tell them the truth. And I had private conversations where I was telling the president the truth.  Obviously, then, Moore is saying he doesn't care about the voters! But he's a politician, so loyalty to The Party comes first:  MOORE: I also know that the president deserved better than people who were running around him and going into public and demanding that the president of the United States step down, particularly when you look at the track record of the Biden-Harris administration. I've had a phenomenal partner in the Biden-Harris administration to be able to deliver the kind of results that we needed in Maryland. And so I knew that if I – if he said that he was going to continue pushing forward, that I was going to stand with him. RADDATZ: But you said you told him the truth. What was the truth? MOORE: Well, I think the truth that there are real concerns. There are real concerns that I know that people had felt, but also that people were telling me that they had felt. I also know that, you know,  I'm a loyalty person. And I believe that you can have proper conversations and tell people the truth and – and, you know, and be able to tell them what you’re hearing without also then turning around and – and publicly then trying to embarrass them. Obviously, a growing pack of Democrats was trying to tell Biden the "truth" that he was going to elect Trump if he didn't exit the race.  For her part, Raddatz then merrily changed the subject to exciting polls for Kamala. She gently underlined Moore's two-faced behavior, and there was no need to dwell on it. Later in the show, Raddatz repeatedly pushed Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) about how Donald Trump and J.D. Vance can't stick to "the issues," suggesting that calling Kamala a far-left extremist isn't on "the issues," and that Vance's 2021 comments about "childless cat ladies" is somehow recent. 

Even though official tallies from all 15,000 voting stations in Venezuela have yet to be released, Nicolás Maduro, the socialist president of Venezuela, has been declared the winner of this weekend's election, prompting international leaders — including the secretary of state in the Biden-Harris administration — to question the results.On Saturday, Venezuelans began gathering in long lines, waiting for the chance to cast their votes for their nation's next president sometime on Sunday. They had two options: Maduro, who came into power in 2013 following the death of socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, and Edmundo González Urrutia, a 74-year-old political neophyte who became the opposition leader after María Corina Machado was disqualified from running a year ago "for being involved ... in the corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Guaido."Guaido ran against Maduro in the 2018 presidential election and was even recognized as the winner by several foreign leaders, though Maduro was ultimately declared the official winner.'Look at what happens when c*mmunism takes hold. This is what Kamala wants. She must be stopped!'The results of the 2024 election began to be tallied on Sunday evening, and Urrutia and his supporters were encouraged when early returns suggested a landslide victory. According to Machado, the tallies she and her group viewed — representing about 40% of the total vote — showed Urrutia with "70% of the votes in this election, and Maduro 30%."Later that night, Venezuelan authorities reportedly stopped sharing the official results with the opposition, and workers still had not closed the polls an hour after the scheduled closing time.Then, just after midnight, the reportedly Maduro-friendly National Electoral Council announced that, with 80% of the votes tabulated, Maduro held an insurmountable lead over Urrutia, 51.2% to 44.2%. The president of the Council, whom El País described as "a personal friend of Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores," called the results "irreversible.""I can say before the world that I am the re-elected president of Venezuela," Maduro said from Miraflores Palace, the seat of the Venezuelan government.Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel soon congratulated his "brother" Maduro. "Today the dignity and courage of the Venezuelan people triumphed over pressure and manipulation," Díaz-Canel posted to X at 12:19 a.m.Russian President Vladimir Putin also extended a congratulatory message, claiming that Maduro is "always a welcome guest on Russian soil."Other foreign leaders, however, are troubled by the secretive nature of the vote-counting process.Rodrigo Chaves Robles, the president of Costa Rica, slammed the results of the election as "fraudulent" and "categorically reputiate[d]" them. "We will work with democratic governments of the continent and international organizations to ensure that the sacred will of the Venezuelan people is respected," Robles said.Chile’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto van Klaveren said his country "will refrain from recognizing any result" until a thorough "examination of all the minutes" has been conducted and "the opinion of international observers" has been publicly shared. Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, likewise demanded "total transparency" regarding the election results.Argentina President Javier Milei called Maduro a "sociopath" and a "dictator." Even Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state in the Biden-Harris administration, has expressed "serious concerns" about Maduro's supposed victory. "We have seen the announcement just a short while ago by the Venezuelan Electoral Commission," Blinken said in a statement while visiting Tokyo. "We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people."Hours before the Venezuelan polls closed, likely Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted: "The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who expressed their voice in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the many challenges, we will continue to work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela."As might be expected, X users took Harris to task in the comments:"Look at what happens when c*mmunism takes hold. This is what Kamala wants. She must be stopped!" said one popular comment."The US will become Venezuela if trump is not elected," added another."Commie-la Harris is America’s Hugo Chavez. She wants to take America down the same road," quipped yet another.As of Monday morning, neither Harris nor Biden has made additional remarks about the Venezuelan election.For now, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado still considers Urrutia the true winner. "Venezuela has a new president-elect and he is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. We won! And everybody knows it. I want you to know that this has been something so overwhelming and great that we have won in all sectors of the country," she said.Like Blaze News? 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NFL kicker Harrison Butker gave a concise response to the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, referring to a Bible passage about mocking God.The opening ceremony for the 2024 summer games received worldwide backlash for its apparent mockery of Christianity and its plethora of drag queens, transgender people, and activists throughout the presentation. The shocking imagery overshadowed celebrity appearances from the likes of singers Celine Dion and Lady Gaga and appearances by beloved artists like Snoop Dogg, who were meant to bring more viewers to the games.Instead, viewers got a naked man in blue paint, men with beards dressed as women, and a mockery of Christianity that Butker seemingly took offense to."'Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap,'" the Kansas City Chiefs player wrote. "'For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting.' Galatians 6:7-8," he concluded.Besides being one of the most trusted kickers in the NFL, Butker has also made headlines for a May 2024 speech at a Catholic university that promoted traditional values and attacked woke culture.The kicker became a target for leftist activists who did not support the idea of a nuclear family.'Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group.'Later that night, Butker was joined by former NFL quarterback Luke McCown, who referred to the opening ceremonies as "filth," adding that he was "disappointed but not surprised.""But know this.. There was a last supper that led to an empty tomb. A tomb that for three days held the body of the God-man Jesus who just prior to the tomb, indeed had a last supper with his disciples before he willingly climbed on a cross."McCown went on to teach about the Last Supper and encouraged fans to read more of the Bible. — (@) Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps later said that it should have been obvious that the opening ceremony wasn't meant to be offensive to Christians or Catholics. "Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance," she said, per Reuters. "We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offence we are really sorry."The opening ceremony's director, Thomas Jolly, said the Last Supper was not the inspiration for the presentation:"You will never find in my work a desire to denigrate anyone or anything," Jolly reportedly said.According to Fox News, one of the drag queens involved in the opening ceremony acknowledged that the "opening ceremony did ruffle some feathers.""I LOVE it," the entertainer wrote. "You know why? Because the Olympics are the biggest stage in the world and us queer people have always been the audience of other people’s life and achievement and it is time that we are welcome in the space.""And remember, to the ones that had their feathers ruffled seeing queerness on their screen: WE AIN'T GOING NOWHERE," he wrote on Instagram.It has also been reported that another activist was present during the faux-supper presentation, a DJ named Barbara Butch.Butch is reportedly a well-known gay activist, who actually refers to herself as a "love activist" and promotes diversity and body positivity."I'm a love activist, DJ, and producer based in Paris," she said during the Olympics, according to India Today. "My aim is to unite people, gather humans, and share love through music for all of us to dance and make our hearts beat in unison! Music sounds better with all of us!"Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

AWFL Influencer Gentle Parents Other AWFLS on How to HELP Elect the Poor Black Woman and OMG Make It Stop

The Democrats Want to Party Like It’s 1952