A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
Experimental mRNA Vaccines Gain Steam With Promising Cancer Trial Results
Pharmaceutical giants Moderna and Merck announced promising results from a clinical trial testing a combined treatment of an mRNA vaccine and immunotherapy for skin cancer. Melanoma patients who received monthly mRNA vaccines and Merck’s Keytruda immunotherapy had lower chances of cancer recurrence and spread, as well as higher survival rates, than those who received Keytruda alone.
Are Your Hair and Nails in Regs?
For airmen wondering if that shaggy haircut, their favorite eyelash extensions or that fire engine red nail polish meet Air Force grooming standards, have no fear: The service now has a visual guide to help.
…
The latest instruction takes into account several changes made in recent years, including allowing female airmen to add slacks to their mess dress uniform as an option other than the floor-length skirt. Last year, the Air Force started allowing neck tattoos — following the Space Force’s lead in 2022 — as the services have relaxed their ink regulations in a bid to recruit and retain talent. Also included is an update that allows airmen in uniform to drink a beverage while walking, and longer mustaches for men.
Why Restaurants Are So Loud, and What Science Says We Can Do About It
Sietsema eats out about 10 times a week for work, and for each review, he notes the sound level readings in decibels. In his 2019 review of this restaurant, Sietsema began: “If you’ve ever wondered how loud a jet engine sounds at takeoff, I can give you an approximation.”
He was not exaggerating. The sound levels blow away a normal, 60-decibel conversation.
“This is the loudest restaurant I’ve ever reviewed in D.C.,” he tells us as we look over the menu. “Here, it was 100 decibels at the bar during happy hour, and not much better in the center of the dining room.”
Nominees From the 2024 Drone Photo Awards
Since 2018, aerial photography's most talented photographers have been recognized at the Drone Photo Awards. This photo contest, run by the Siena Awards, has recently announced the nominees for the 2024 edition. The nominees, spread across nine categories, are so skilled that it will be a difficult task for the jury to select the winners.
From Toad Toxin to Medicine: The Promise of 5-MeO-DMT
While the natural hallucinogen can be found in some plants and fungi, its best-known source is the Sonoran Desert toad, a greenish gray amphibian that roams the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. To get the psychedelic, poachers squeeze the toad’s glands to secrete a milky toxin that contains 5-MeO-DMT, along with other molecules. Though the toad usually survives this process, conservationists warn that rising demand in the once obscure psychoactive compound has put pressure on the toad population. They call it yet another risk for an amphibian already threatened by dry weather, a shrinking habitat, and disease.
Now, amid a global renaissance in psychedelics as medicine, scientists are working to study and develop synthetic formulations of 5-MeO-DMT for hard-to-treat mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The laboratory formulations seem unlikely to curb recreational toad squeezers, but limited studies suggest that 5-MeO-DMT could have a real medicinal value — though further research needs to be done.
Why Is Everyone on Steroids Now?
Someone in your life is using performance-enhancing drugs. I feel comfortable making that bet because I recently discovered how many people in my life are using performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe your dad scored human growth hormone at an “anti-aging” clinic. Maybe the woman you met on Hinge just ordered her first “peptide stack.” It’s definitely the middle-aged white dude at work who calls you brother, who takes beta blockers before presentations—the same guy who texted you about T, testosterone, a.k.a. test, because he copped a vial off a friend and bro, things were wild, he felt crazy, like he could reply to a thousand emails while running through a wall. Brother, you need to check this shit out asap.
A New Color of Cat Has Been Discovered
A rare new colour of cat known as ‘salty liquorice’ has been discovered by researchers in Finland.
Cats with the unusual coat – known as ‘salmiak cats’ (which translates as ‘salty liquorice’)– are black with flecks of white. Elsewhere on their bodies, salmiak cats wear a ‘tuxedo’ pattern: a solid white neck, chest, belly and paws.
The unusual pattern of the new coat is caused by the colour of each hair changing from root to tip – starting out black near the cats’ skin then fading to white. And, as scientists recently discovered, that’s a huge deal genetically.
That’s because cats typically come in two colours: black and orange. If you think you’ve seen any others, that’s probably because all feline coats involve some degree of these two colours fading, being combined, or both.
Rather than having the usual gene which fades colours in feline coats, salmiak cats – which were first spotted there in 2007 – literally have a chunk of their DNA missing.