Jules Calella

Listen to my latest single “To Her Dismay” now available on all major music streaming platforms! It’s an instrumental rock track with symphonic elements. open.spotify.com/track/4LNU1uWh… linktr.ee/julescalella #guitar #guitarist #music #symphony #orchestra #symphonicrock #instrumentalrock #newrelease #single #strings #woodwinds #newmusicfriday #newmusic #spotify #AppleMusic #AmazonMusic

dear apple, the iPod needs to come back. not for nostalgia. for the parents who want their kids to love music and audiobooks without a browser, social media, and the whole internet attached to it

Funny, I was just talking to my wife about this yesterday while walking our dogs, but with the premise that your mind can outlast your body. But the implications here are far more profound. I was in middle school when the human genome project was sequenced, a project that took 13 years to complete. Today, DNA can be sequenced, on average, in a matter of weeks (days to months, depending on the scenario, but I’ll let the biologists speak on that). The ability to map a brain will become exponentially quicker as time goes on. Unlike DNA, which is relatively uniform across all people with slight variations that make up our unique traits, brains may have significantly higher variability between individuals and mapping them may be much more complex. As that process become easier and less expensive, people may be able to get their brains mapped for medical diagnoses, target operations, then just for fun, and eventually we’ll be able to map how a single individual’s brain throughout their life. We will be able to map the development of a person based on their diet, environment, trauma, etc.. Eventually we will be able to use this technology to make predictive models on WHAT a human might do as they get older. If they will develop cognitive decline, if they will be successful, if they might commit a crime… the positive outcomes and the potential for abuse are nearly unlimited and mostly unimaginable.

I want to share a crucial update on our study, KETO-CTA. (The video for this article is in the next tweet) Our study recruited 100 participants, each undergoing two high-resolution heart scans, known as CT angiograms, one year apart. (For more background on this study design, see preprint in the following tweet) There are now four analyses of those same 200 scans. But one of those analyses stands out — and I have some new developments to report. For a quick background, the first quantitative analysis was from an AI company, Cleerly. We published their analysis of our scans last year. After the paper was published, the Citizen Science Foundation was free to look at the raw Cleerly data, and we found a number of patterns that appeared different from what is typically seen in other coronary plaque studies. For example, in Cleerly's analysis, not one of the participants showed lower plaque levels at follow-up — even though CTA scans typically show some natural variation in both directions, especially in people who start with very little plaque. For another example within their data, people with no detectable calcium in their scans appeared to have several times more plaque progression than those who already had some calcium present. This runs counter to what many in cardiology call the "power of zero" — the well-established finding that having no coronary calcium is typically associated with lower risk and slower disease progression. Another major development: shortly after publication, we learned that the scans Cleerly was analyzing were not fully blinded. In studies like this, the order of scans is typically kept unknown to the analyst to help prevent any potential for bias. But in this case, the chronological order was available in the scans. We therefore asked Cleerly to repeat their analysis using a properly blinded set of scans, which is standard practice in longitudinal studies. Cleerly declined to perform a blinded reanalysis. Because of this, we commissioned an additional, independent analysis from Heartflow. Heartflow has been a leader in this space and is the most extensively validated AI platform for coronary CTA analysis. The Heartflow analysis was conducted with full operational blinding and completed right before the prespecified third, and final quantitative analysis, which uses Medis QAngio. These two independent platforms were consistent with each other, yet both differed substantially from the Cleerly results. As these independent results became available, we shared them privately with Cleerly and again requested a blinded reanalysis of their original work. We offered to cover any costs involved just in case this was the barrier to reanalysis. Cleerly again declined. However, a new development emerged. Several participants requested their scans from the study and submitted them directly through their own, personal cardiologist. Any cardiologist with a proper Cleerly account can appropriately submit scans on their patient's behalf. So in a sense, our participants themselves were able to provide a portion of the blinded analysis we were originally requesting. This was then shared with me on behalf of the Citizen Science Foundation. In total, there are 19 of these individual submissions — about 10% of the total scans in our study so far. Individual Submissions vs. Study Data We focused on the 8 participants who have both a baseline and a follow-up individual submission of their scans (the other 3 submissions are unpaired). [Please Note: These data are preliminary] Figure 1 compares the change in soft plaque (Non-Calcified Plaque Volume or NCPV) reported by the original Cleerly study analysis against the results from each participant's individual submission. [See Figure 1] Of the 8 participants, four showed an increase in soft plaque in both datasets — but in three of those four cases, the individual submissions reported substantially less progression than the study data. The remaining four participants all showed progression in the study data, yet every one of their individual submissions showed a decrease — a complete reversal of direction. The largest discrepancy was a single participant whose study data reported an increase of 32 mm³, while their individual submission showed a decrease of 48 mm³ — a reversal of approximately 80 mm³. The median change in soft plaque for these 8 participants was +20.6 mm³ (a 31% increase) in the original study data, compared to just +0.7 mm³ (about a 2% increase) from their individual submissions (Figure 2). The mean average is even more pronounced: the study data shows an average increase of +20.9 mm³ (42% from baseline), while the individual submissions show an average decrease of 5.1 mm³ (an 8% decline). In other words, the study data says plaque went up; the individual submissions say it went down (Figure 3). Direction of Change Across Platforms To put these individual submissions in broader context, Figure 4 compares the direction of soft plaque change across three analyses of these same scans. On the left is the original Cleerly study analysis — 99 participants after excluding one who had a procedure between scans. 98% showed an increase in soft plaque. Only 2 showed no change. Zero showed regression. In the middle are the 8 individual submissions, split right down the middle: 50% showing progression and 50% showing regression. On the right is the full Heartflow analysis across 95 participants. While 8 is a small sample size, the direction-of-change in these individual submissions is far closer to the Heartflow analysis than the original Cleerly analysis. It is worth emphasizing: 4 out of the 8 participants — fully half — received individual submission results showing less plaque in their second scan than their first. But after accounting for the single exclusion mentioned above, not one of the 99 participants in the original Cleerly study analysis showed plaque regression. We are not sure what happened with the original Cleerly analysis. We just know the other analyses are largely consistent with each other — and now, that includes these individual submissions to Cleerly as well. Next Steps We have already taken steps regarding last year's paper that contained the original Cleerly analysis. We are working with the journal on that now, and we expect news on this very soon. In the meantime, the preprint of our current paper with both Heartflow and QAngio results is available at the link below. Importantly, the two principal findings reported in the original paper have been reproduced in both the Heartflow and QAngio analyses: (1) baseline plaque strongly predicts future plaque progression, and (2) ApoB was not associated with plaque progression I want to once again thank Dr. Budoff and the Lundquist team for providing these scans to study participants who request them. If you are a participant in our study and interested in sending in your scans through your cardiologist, we now have a budget to help cover the cost of that submission. You can contact us at info@citizensciencefoundation.org for more details. Thank you again to everyone for your support. 🙏 cc @nicknorwitz @AdrianSotoMota

Bret, what are your thoughts on genes from other animals naturally making their way into the DNA of other animals to make something like this happen? Obviously “looking like a snake” is more complex than copying and pasting genetic code from one animal to another. But could there be a biological system where simply having access to their genetic code (through consumption or other unknown method) + thousands of generations could be at play here? The idea that plants and animals like this just mimic other animals because they were more likely to trick predators never felt like a complete answer to me, especially early in this development.

If there is a creator God, he clearly used natural selection to make the creatures. I’d bet he’s as surprised and confounded by them as we are. Just as he is apparently surprised and confounded by the people in our sacred texts. That’s my take.

As Governor, I have worked to make Florida the model for health freedom. I’m proud of First Lady @CaseyDeSantis’ leadership on Healthy Florida First, and I’m grateful for @FLSurgeonGen’s unwavering dedication to science rooted in truth. Today’s announcement about bread product testing, which follows the release of infant formula and candy test results, is another step toward a healthier future. We will continue working to arm Floridians with the information they need to make the best choices for their families’ well-being.

@NicHulscher I thought we already knew this since glyphosate is applied so close to harvest as part of the desiccation process. I suppose if a government agency is saying this, the mainstream news sources are going to have to report on it, and people won’t dismiss it as woo woo science.

The Florida Department of Health just found that your favorite bread is laced with carcinogenic glyphosate.

This is a great synopsis for anyone who has never heard of this before. And for anyone that is wondering how could this have possibly happened, I’d recommend reading “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz @bigfatsurprise a.co/d/052Nlr3K

@ItakGol How long until they develop their own career networking system where they can hire each other to do coding jobs, and develop their own currency to pay each other? Or are they just going to developed their own lobster themed Neopets and LARP all day?

We might already live in the singularity. Moltbook is a social network for AI agents. A bot just created a bug-tracking community so other bots can report issues they find. They are literally QA-ing their own social network. I repeat: AI agents are discussing, in their own social network, how to make their social network better. No one asked them to do this 🦞 This is a glimpse into our future.

95% of baby foods test positive for heavy metals. This one was one of the cleanest Why Once Upon a Farm tests cleaner: avoid high-risk ingredients like rice (which absorbs 10x more arsenic) and cassava, choosing sorghum instead. Every batch is tested for contaminants and meets stricter EU standards

MAJOR GEOMAGNETIC STORM is coming TONIGHT! 😲 Tonight has the potential to be a big show of Northern Lights. A G4 Geomagnetic storm is possible, which is the 2nd strongest storm possible. Northern Lights could be visible as far south as FLORIDA! Get those cameras ready!

A Final Message From Scott Adams

@Austen This is the most frustrating part. People game the system to get ahead in life all the time. But that money they stole is tax money that hardworking citizens earned and we want to see used for essential services and infrastructure.

Literally my grandparents worked their entire lives, diligently paying taxes from their teens until they died. The total amount of taxes they paid over their entire lifetimes goes to a random fraudster who isn’t even prosecuted

I don’t think everyone realizes how polarizing it is to watch someone steal an amount of money they’ve worked 30 years for by throwing up a sign in a vacant building and sending the government an invoice

@9mmsmg Had someone like this behind me once. I pulled aside when I had the chance and let them pass. You need to call the police on these people. Maybe it’ll ruin their day, maybe it’ll ruin their life and that was their choice, but at least it won’t ruin someone else’s life.

One of the more difficult parts of life is understanding that you can do everything right in life, and someone like this can potentially come and take out you or your entire family.

@XHabib All of these came out looking really cool!

Comment for a Roman bust version of your profile picture

@tomoyuki_good Sounds good, I like it!

【インスト曲】『川』 インスト曲です。 ギターの音を重ねたりしました。 #インストゥルメンタル　#音楽 　#ギター　#ベース

@totallyclapps Why stop there? Just direct that heat straight into the oven and cook your dinner

You're never gonna believe this

Honestly, sometimes you can see better driving with sunglasses than when blinded by these bright headlights.

@AJamesMcCarthy Do you leave all the overlapped sections and blend them, or take the best images and just crop the rest?

Behind the scenes of a massive Sun shot: This is the manual process to align the tiles of a mosaic of our Sun. I do it like this so I can maximize detail This one is for a crazy photo I got yesterday, I’ll share it with email subscribers Wednesday This is no ordinary shot!

Brought to an end because the cows died, it was poison.

Bovaer Scandal in Denmark The enzyme inhibitor drug Bovaer has been mandatory for use in Danish cows since October 1st. Now, many cows are collapsing, and some have had to be euthanized. > “We have so many people calling us, distressed about what’s happening in their herds.” > “In several cases, farmers have tried removing the substance from the cows’ feed and found that the animals recovered. When they later reintroduced the substance, the problems returned.” There were always good reasons to be more cautious about Bovaer, as described in the quoted tweet.