Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

HEB is the top grocery chain in Texas by market share. About 15 years ago, the local HEB opened a wellness section and put a manager in charge of it. She didn't seem to have much to do. One day we had a discussion about GMO and after that I thought to ask her something that would give me some insight into current conditions (at that time). I asked her when people get concerned about the issues she was discussing, when do they seek you out and talk to you. I remember her answer clear as a bell: "When they get sick."

[Higgenbotham]

Reference that discusses transgenerational effects:

Fetal exposures cause disease in future generations. Remarkably, it appears that early life exposures can lead to health problems not only in adulthood, but also down through subsequent generations. For instance, adult diseases linked to newborns' low birth weight, enumerated above, cause adverse effects not only in those babies born small, but also in their children of any birth size, through heritable changes in gene expression that result in a phenomenon known as "epigenetic inheritance." Very different from genetic mutations, which are physical changes in gene structure, epigenetic inheritance is instead characterized by certain genes being turned on or off, but near permanently in ways that can be inherited.

If a genetic mutation is like changing a light fixture, the comparable epigenitic change would involve taping the light switch on or off. Since genes are responsible for making the chemicals that build and repair the body, this unnatural forcing to a permanent on or off position can have far-reaching consequences. In humans, both kinds of genetic changes, mutations as well as epigenetic changes in gene expression, can be passed down to a baby in the womb.

Scientists have recently found heritable epigenetic changes linked to the fungicide vinclozolin and pesticide methoxychlor, which impaired sperm counts and sperm motility not only among animals exposed in utero, but also in three subsequent generations (Anway et al. 2005). In other words, what each of us was exposed to in our mother's womb might affect the health of our great-grandchildren.

Notably, both of these pesticides were recently banned under a federal law that requires pesticides to be safe for newborns and children. The government gives children no explicit protection under the federal law meant to ensure the safety of other commercial chemicals (the Toxic Substances Control Act), even though risks from childhood exposures to industrial chemicals are no lower than those from pesticides.

https://www.ewg.org/research/body-burde ... n-newborns

The EWG and groups like them do good work as far as it goes.

But I don't think they are right when they say above that "this unnatural forcing to a permanent on or off position can have far-reaching consequences." I don't think such things are as permanent as they lead people to believe.

Also, the EWG will say, for example, that they found such and such chemical in the blood of all X number of newborns that they tested, or whatever group they tested. This is good information, but I've never seen them highlight the considerable range of test results that are found. As an example, in order to get this information, it is necessary to click on the profile of each test subject and scroll down to get the number. These are the test results for PCB levels in the cord blood of 10 newborns (ng/g): 4.31, 18.0, 4.53, 8.02, 2.95, 3.36, 3.96, 19.2, 6.0, 6.65. These results would probably have lower variance than others because PCBs are spread fairly evenly throughout the environment at this point, having been around a long time and having been banned in 1979.

https://www.ewg.org/sites/humantoxome/p ... ?group=bb2

[Guest]

I have been reading through this thread and find it extremely interesting; however, I would like to ask what do you think life will be like for the average American in ten years (barring a nuclear war)?

I am curious what life will be like for the man on the street? Will America be just like Mexico? Or will it be like Haiti? I think both are bad outcomes (as I have been to both).

Could America breakup? That's what Martin Armstrong has said in interviews. I hope he is right.

Mexico and Haiti exist on the periphery of the hegemon and are in slow decline. Once the giant sucking sound from printed US dollars is silenced forever, it will not be a slow decline for the US or the man on the street in the US. It will be like jumping out of a 40th floor window versus taking the stairs down. I would expect the man on the street to be quickly transported back to approximately early 20th century living conditions without the infrastructure to support those conditions. So, for example, he will have a computerized front load washer and dryer hooked up to public utilities when what he needs is a wash board and well with hand pump like my grandmother had all the way until 1968. Very broadly speaking that should be approximately the day to day level if someone or some group can in theory isolate themselves from all the chaos that will be going on around them. But not even the Amish can; for example, idiots have been dumping radioactive oil industry waste along their roadsides, etc., as one of the previous articles I linked a few hours ago described and it will get worse after the giant sucking sound is silenced. America will effectively break up but I doubt there will be any formal lines drawn for a few decades or maybe even centuries after the collapse.

I have been thinking about the collapse in racial/ethnic terms. With open borders and a collapsing welfare state, how well that affect American society.

40 million illegals (plus offspring) plus the welfare dependent population losing life support worries me MUCH MORE than nuclear war.

[Higgenbotham]

This is another example of how the emphasis is on how it's everywhere with no investigation of why it is that the range of measurements varies 100 fold in this case.

Microplastics Found in Every Human Placenta Tested, Study Finds
HEALTH
26 February 2024
By CARLY CASSELLA

It's been over three years since scientists first found microplastics swimming in four different human placentas, and as it turns out, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

A few years later, at the start of 2023, researchers announced they had found microscopic particles of plastic waste in no fewer than 17 different placentas. By the end of 2023, a local study in Hawai'i analyzed 30 placentas that were donated between 2006 and 2021 only to find plastic contamination had increased significantly over time.

Using a new technique, researchers have now identified tiny particles and fibers of plastic less than a micron in size in the largest sample of placentas yet.

In all 62 tissue samples studied, the team found microplastics of various concentrations in every single one. These concentrations ranged from 6.5 to 685 micrograms per gram of tissue, which is much higher than levels found in the human bloodstream.

No one yet knows what this plastic pollution is doing – if anything – to the health of the fetus or the mother. While microplastics have been found in every major organ of the body in mice, including the brain, it's unknown if these pollutants are temporary visitors or permanent and accumulating threats to health.

As environmental plastic pollution continues to worsen, contamination of the placenta is on track to only increase, as humans breathe in and ingest more plastic than ever before.

"Dose makes the poison," explains biologist Matthew Campen from the University of New Mexico.

"If the dose keeps going up, we start to worry. If we're seeing effects on placentas, then all mammalian life on this planet could be impacted. That's not good."

Determining how much microplastics are accumulating in human tissue has proved extremely difficult given the very small size of these particles.

For years now, scientists have been working on a solid detection method that can quantify the mass of these pollutants and determine their specific brand of plastic. Only then can the impact on health be properly evaluated.

The new study uses a novel, high resolution technique to scan for plastics in human blood and tissue. First, researchers separated the majority of biological material from plastic solids, using chemicals and extremely high speed ultracentrifuges to separate very small molecules. Then, they broke down the polymers to determine their specific compounds.

When applied to the 62 placenta samples the technique revealed that more than half of all plastics found in placenta are polyethylene – the most commonly produced plastic on our planet, responsible for most single-use bags and bottles.

Other plastic particles identified in the placenta include polyvinyl chloride, nylon, and polypropylene, all of which are probably several decades old, having been weathered and oxidized for years in the environment before being inhaled or ingested by humans.

"This method," the authors of the study argue, "paired with clinical metadata, will be pivotal to evaluating potential impacts of nano MPs on adverse pregnancy outcomes."

So far, clinical studies on the effects of plastic pollution are few and far between. Early research suggests that the smaller plastic pollutants are, the more easily they can invade cells. And yet at this miniscule size it is harder to determine their potentially toxic effects.

In research on mini-models of the human intestine, microplastics show potentially dangerous immune effects. What's more, early experiments on mice suggest that micro- and nanoplastics have the "potential to disrupt fetal brain development, which in turn may cause suboptimal neurodevelopmental outcomes."

The reasons for the wide range of microplastic concentrations found in human organs, including the placenta, is currently unknown. It could be due to analytical error, or, researchers say, it could be due to "a combination of environmental, dietary, genetic, maternal age, and lifestyle factors."

"The factors that drive such extreme concentration ranges are not known, nor is it apparent if such concentrations contribute negatively to growth and development of the placenta or fetus, or to other maternal health consequences," add the researchers.

"The placenta receives relatively high blood flow and takes up a great deal of nutrients from the maternal blood, which might make it more highly exposed; the extent to which nano- and microplastic pollution can be carried across the complex placental barrier, either passively or actively requires further investigation.'

The study was published in Toxicological Sciences.

https://www.sciencealert.com/microplast ... tudy-finds

[aeden]

The results from 1933 study indicated when and they new why the carcinogen pathways.
Humans are assets to be allocated was the only reply. The pounding Troopers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tglZ6A8SGQ
The alleged new mind virus we are unmasking is the derivative of Godwins Law in play in real time.

[Higgenbotham]

First, I read all your comments and don't feel compelled to comment on most of it. I agree with perhaps 20 percent of it.

Part of the perhaps 20 percent Bob Butler says that I substantially agree with.

I see the conflict changing at least by the awakening. The conservatives will be selfish and greedy. The progressives will have environmental concerns.

BB, what issues do you think will define the Crisis of 2100?

I think a combination of environmental problems - global warming, pollution, resource management and population - will rise to a head. What do we intend the Earth to be like steady state? By that time you will have to be absurdly willfully blind to ignore the threat of rising sea levels, hurricanes, fires, shifting crop areas and the rest. We have taken significant action this time around, but I expect this will be the central focus. Some tipping points will have been reached. We will take it seriously too late.

It's been established for at least 35 years that everyone in the US is carrying a body burden of industrial pollutants. It's been established for nearly as long that passing this body burden through the placenta to a fetus is very likely harmful. Yet, in those 35 years, about all that has been done by mainstream American culture is to continue to measure an increasing body burden of industrial pollutants. I think it'll be somewhere around 2045 that a tipping point will be reached where this will be taken seriously by mainstream American culture. By then, it will be too late for most. It's already too late for many in my estimation. Though, to be more clear, I'm not referring to global warming, but something more along the lines of environmental damage and pollution.

[Bob Butler]

I'm not referring to global warming, but something more along the lines of environmental damage and pollution.

Agreed with the concern, but part of a larger environmental emphasis. Has anyone compared the number of deaths associated with fires in CA and HI, Hurricanes in FL and TX, increased tornadoes in the midwest? To me, it seems the many aspects of elite greed dominating over a concern for the environment is apt to converge during the next awakening.

[Guest]

AI must surely be the most terrible thing ever wrought by human effort, far more terrifying than the H-bomb. My mind literally blows a gasket when considering AI and its myriad malign possibilities.

I've felt that way ever since staggering out of the ABC cinema in Bradford one Saturday evening in the summer of 1985, blown away by a (strangely unheralded) film called The Terminator....and the horror of Skynet.

AI has always been presented to the public as a fait accompli, just another 'inevitable' aspect of so-called 'progress' . Yet it didn't 'just happen'. Somebody came up with it. Somebody wanted it, and somebody funded it. AI represents the terrible harvest of a mighty R &D effort. It would be very interesting to look at its origins, development, funding and ownership.

[Bob Butler]

The Terminator is a Hollywood Arnold Schwarzenegger adventure movie based on sentient programs spontaneously coming into existence. Associating artificial intelligence with nuclear weapon authorization would be dumb, associated only with Hollywood. Makes for an interesting if absurd premise. As a software engineer who has worked on real world ICBM launch authorization, I can safely say it reflects something the nuke people would never do.

The use of AI which has caused trouble of late is the ability to create false videos of anyone. Input a good sample of somebody speaking and create a video of him saying anything. It can be detected with sufficient software. If it becomes widely distributed, the person forged will look at it and inform people it is a fake. It is a nuisance, but hardly comparable to a nuke and a good way to lose credibility. Recent examples include a fake Biden speech and an edit of a Princess Kate Middleton photo.

I do not doubt AI could be abused. The capability is too new to make illegal. Are there any more vaguely realistic examples you fear?

[aeden]

How to clear 20 acres.
Fence in.
Hogs cleared the roots.
Goats ate the bark.
Cut what firewood that is a value.
Cows eat the grass since the work was done.

Open borders are no different than models done for over 5000 years on import debt labor.
You liberals think you model is not understood and who did what first.
Thats right the smug liberals. Fear was expression on their face before they rounded the rest of
the target classes.
Should we explain the sophist way to four steps since Marx and Engels who copied a existing model?

Change position of the opponents via irregular means.
That which is seen and unseen: Domestic Consequences of Asymmetric Thinking
In his seminal text The Law, Frederic Bastiat encourages economists to look beyond the superficial effect of a law
or policy and broaden their perspective to consider secondary and tertiary consequences.