April 15, 2024
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The ESV® Bible
(The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing
ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I got to thinking about sea ice and the climate models. Here’s what we know about polar sea ice extent, showing data that starts with the satellite era when we began to have accurate observations of the poles.
Figure 1. Arctic, Antarctic, and global sea ice extent. Colored lines are CEEMD smooths of the underlying datasets.
Now, there are some rather large curiosities regarding the sea ice extent records.
Here’s the interesting part. Nobody knows the answers to any of those questions. And I suppose predictably, since they’re based on our (mis)understandings of the climate, none of the climate models either forecasts or hindcasts sea ice extent doing anything even remotely similar to the actual observations.
So I’ll leave this here as a testament to just how little we understand the magnificent global heat engine that we call the climate …
My best to all,
w.
More than 500K expected at Surrey’s annual Vaisakhi parade Global News
Source link
Episdoe 46 of the Eyes on Jesus Podcast is out now!
Listen to the latest episode here https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/eyesonjesus/episodes/Episode-46-What-is-God-currently-showing-us-e2i2lu9
Watch the episode here
Drew and Tim share their personal experiences and insights into pastoral growth, ministry challenges, and the importance of keeping faith and prayer at the center of their lives and work. They discuss the impact of sharing authentic stories within their church. The conversation delves into the process of sermon preparation, the significance of prayer in sustaining a church, and the transformative power of repentance and community support. Highlighting the importance of adapting to change, embracing innovation, and prioritizing spiritual connection, Drew and Tim offer encouragement and advice to fellow believers and leaders seeking to deepen their relationship with God and make a lasting impact in their communities.
NASA’s history-making Ingenuity helicopter covered a lot of ground on Mars over the past three years, as a new video shows.
The video, which was released on Thursday (April 18) by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), shows where Ingenuity went on each of its 72 Red Planet sorties, linking each flight line together in an otherworldly Etch a Sketch creation.
This work of art throws Ingenuity’s epic achievements into stark relief, showing the tough terrain the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper negotiated and the impressive distance it traveled — 10.5 miles (17.0 kilometers) in total, about 14 times farther than it was originally expected to fly.
Related: Ingenuity team says goodbye to pioneering Mars helicopter
Ingenuity touched down with NASA’s Perseverance rover inside Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021. The rotorcraft was designed to be a technology demonstrator; its main task was to show that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as that of Earth at sea level.
Ingenuity aced that prime mission over the course of five flights in the spring of 2021, then embarked upon an extended mission during which it served as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-caching Perseverance.
That extended mission lasted far longer than Ingenuity’s handlers could have imagined — 67 sorties over nearly three years. The helicopter’s flying days finally came to an end on Jan. 18, when its rotors were damaged during a rough landing.
Ingenuity may now be stationary, but it’s not dead: The rotorcraft is now operating as a weather station and technology testbed, gathering data that could aid future Mars explorers.
Getting ahold of that data will soon require a physical meetup on the Red Planet, however: Ingenuity relays all of its communications via Perseverance, and the car-sized rover will soon disappear over the Martian horizon, leaving its little partner all alone.
Ingenuity’s success could pave the way for more extensive aerial exploration of Mars down the road. Mission team members are already working on designs for larger, more capable rotorcraft that could collect a variety of science data on the Red Planet, for example.
And Mars isn’t the only drone target: In 2028, NASA plans to launch Dragonfly, a $3.3 billion mission to Saturn’s huge moon Titan, which hosts lakes, seas and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on its frigid surface. The 1,000-pound (450 kg) Dragonfly will hop from spot to spot on Titan, characterizing the moon’s various environments and assessing its habitability.
Serotonin — also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine or 5-HT — is typically referred to as “the happiness hormone” and deficiency is thought to be the source of depression. That’s why depression is routinely treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that raise serotonin levels in your brain.
The problem is, serotonin is NOT responsible for depression, and raising your serotonin is the last thing you want to do, as it destroys empathy, love and wisdom. Elevated serotonin also impairs thyroid function, reduces your metabolism, and contributes to premature aging by increasing reductive stress.
SSRIs have also been linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), otherwise known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS. As reported by bioenergetic medicine researcher Georgi Dinkov,1 elevated extracellular 5-HT has been shown to cause most of the CFS symptoms, including debilitating physical and mental fatigue.
“I am actually surprised it took researchers so long to make that connection,” he writes,2 “considering the well-tested so-called ‘central fatigue hypothesis’ (CFH), which stipulates that most of the perception of fatigue is brain-derived and often is not peripherally biochemically justified.
More specifically, it is the accumulation of serotonin in the brain, which leads one to perceive severe fatigue even if the bioenergetic state of their muscles do not demonstrate signs of fatigue (e.g. lactate buildup, creatine kinase and LDH leakage, ammonia accumulation, etc).
Conversely, lowering serotonin levels in the brain usually leads to abolishing the feelings of fatigue. In fact, there are multiple animal studies demonstrating that tryptophan depletion in the brain (which leads to lower 5-HT levels in the brain) is a reliable mechanism to delay or even abolish feelings of fatigue even in animals whose muscles are biochemically fatigued …
Another fact implicating 5-HT as a causal agent in CFS is the fact that most CFS patients seem to develop the condition as a result of viral infection … [M]ost viral infections require activation of specific 5-HT receptors (by elevated serotonin) in order for the infection to take hold, and blocking these receptors either prevents the infection altogether or can treat an already established one.”
In one 2024 study,3 researchers were able to induce the classical signs and symptoms of CFS in mice by giving them Prozac (fluoxetine) for four weeks, albeit at dosages that are two to five times higher than what is used in clinical practice for depressive patients. Science Alert reported:4
“Based on clinical clues, Jin-Seok Lee, a ME/CFS researcher at Daejeon University in South Korea, and colleagues hypothesized that a spillover of serotonin could lead to ME/CFS. Known to play a role in governing moods, declining levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been thought to cause depression.
Although that theory is now disputed, treatments that target serotonin pathways — such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) — are some of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. By blocking receptors that bind and remove serotonin from the signaling pathway, the medication artificially maintains a higher level of the mood messenger.
According to several decades-old studies, some patients with ME/CFS appear to have fewer serotonin transporters than healthy volunteers and may also have receptors that only weakly bind serotonin.
Lee and colleagues thought that if such people had coincidentally been treated with serotonin-based treatments for depression before they developed ME/CFS, they may have had excessive levels of serotonin in their brain. This could have triggered ME/CFS by throwing off a feedback mechanism designed to keep a lid on the immune system and inflammation …
After four weeks, animals treated with fluoxetine had higher levels of serotonin in two parts of the brain, the hypothalamus and dorsal raphe nucleus.
They also developed behaviors that resembled the main symptoms of ME/CFS seen in humans, including unrefreshing sleep, PEM and orthostatic intolerance, but not cognitive impairment. These behaviors disappeared six weeks after the drug was stopped.
Mice whose serotonin receptors were depleted via viral knockout also showed ME/CFS symptoms, further confirming the mechanism. Another experiment showed inhibiting serotonin production could alleviate their symptoms.”
According to the authors:5
“Our study provides the first translational [animal] evidence for the involvement of 5-HTergic [serotonergic] hyperactivity in the pathophysiology of ME/CFS. With our novel animal model for ME/CFS, this study helps to clarify one of the potent pathophysiological mechanisms of this syndrome.
In addition, we provide diagnostic clues (high central serotonin) that can be used to differentiate ME/CFS from similar diseases, such as fibromyalgia and depressive disorders.”
The serotonin inhibitor used in the featured study was fenclonine, but there are several over-the-counter options as well, including Benadryl and the H2 blocker Pepcid (famotidine).
Aspirin can also lower extracellular serotonin by inhibiting the absorption of tryptophan from your gastrointestinal tract,6 while progesterone inhibits serotonin synthesis directly. Progesterone is one of only four hormones I believe many adults can benefit from. (The other three are thyroid hormone T3, DHEA and pregnenolone.)
As a general recommendation, I recommend most adults to take 25 to 50 mg of bioidentical progesterone per day, taken in the evening one hour before bed, as it can also promote sleep. For optimal bioavailability, progesterone needs to be mixed into natural vitamin E. The difference in bioavailability between taking progesterone orally without vitamin E and taking it with vitamin E is 45 minutes versus 48 hours.
Another good reason for taking progesterone with vitamin E is because it binds to red blood cells, which allows the progesterone to be carried throughout your body and be distributed to where it’s needed the most.
Simply Progesterone by Health Natura is premixed with vitamin E and MCT oil. You can also make your own by dissolving pure USP progesterone powder into one capsule of a high-quality vitamin E, and then rub the mixture on your gums. Fifty milligrams of powdered progesterone is about 1/32 teaspoon.
Do not use synthetic vitamin E (alpha tocopherol acetate — the acetate indicates that it’s synthetic). Natural vitamin E will be labeled “d alpha tocopherol.” This is the pure D isomer, which is what your body can use. There are also other vitamin E isomers, and you want the complete spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, specifically the beta, gamma, and delta types, in the effective D isomer.
I do not recommend transdermal progesterone, as your skin expresses high levels of 5-alpha reductase enzyme, which causes a significant portion of the progesterone you’re taking to be irreversibly converted primarily into allopregnanolone and cannot be converted back into progesterone.
It’s a travesty that the primary remedy for depression is a drug that not only comes with a laundry list of side effects such as CFS, but also doesn’t address the underlying problem in the first place. Again, depression is not the result of low serotonin.
A far more common problem in depression is GABA deficiency, and increasing GABA can indeed be part of the solution. As explained by Dr. Scott Sherr, director of integrative hyperbaric medicine and health optimization at Hyperbaric Medical Solutions and an expert on neurotransmitter balancers like GABA:
“GABA deficiencies are associated with anxiety, with fear, with depression, with a short temper, phobias, impulsiveness, disorganization, addictions. It’s even associated with schizophrenia and OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder].
You can also have things like IBS and diarrhea, hypertension, tinnitus, chronic pain, migraines, allergies, frequent urination, flushing, sweating, salt cravings, muscle tension. These are all things that could be signs of GABA deficiency. Many have been prescribed an SSRI for some of these symptoms, but … we know that depression is not related to serotonin deficiency.”
In my view, GABA is one of the easiest solutions for depression, anxiety and insomnia, either alone or with progesterone. I recommend a dose of 500 mg to 2,000 mg (2 grams) daily. This range has been shown to relieve anxiety and insomnia in people who are already taking SSRI drugs.
However, according to Sherr, as little as 100 milligrams of GABA has been shown to lower the assessment scores of patients with anxiety and depression disorders. Effects can be further amplified by combining it with the amino acid L-theanine, which is a natural GABA agonist.
Just be careful using GABA products that contain magnesium. While magnesium is very helpful, if you take high doses of GABA, you will get far too much magnesium, which can have a laxative effect.
Interestingly, if you take too much GABA, some of it will get deaminated and convert into succinic acid, an intermediate of the Krebs cycle. As such, GABA also helps boost mitochondrial function at high doses. So, from a toxicity perspective it appears to be very safe.
As for CFS sufferers, the No. 1 remedy would be to drastically lower your daily LA intake, as excess LA acts as a mitochondrial toxin and severely inhibits cellular energy production. Naturally, if your cellular energy production is low, you’re going to struggle with fatigue and a host of other health problems. PUFAs like LA also disrupt your body’s hormonal equilibrium, imitating the effects of estrogen and cortisol while counteracting androgens and progesterone.
Considering the profoundly serious damage they cause, eliminating seed oils from your diet can go a long way toward improving your health. This includes soy, canola, sunflower, grapeseed, corn, safflower, peanut and rice bran oil.
Also, be mindful of olive oil and avocado oil, as both are commonly adulterated with cheaper seed oils. That said, even pure olive and avocado oil are loaded with LA. If, like me, you’re in the habit of eating olive oil, I would strongly encourage you to limit your intake to 1 tablespoon per day or less. In my view, olive oil is not a magic bullet and if you are already consuming 80 grams of LA per day, it will only worsen, not help, your health.
To avoid these oils, don’t cook with them, of course, but also avoid processed foods, condiments, fast foods and restaurant foods. If you eat out, you’re undoubtedly eating unhealthy amounts of seed oils, as most restaurant foods are loaded with it.
Fried foods, dressing and sauces tend to be key culprits. Your best bet is to prepare most of your food at home, so you know what you are eating and, in the case of seed oils, what you’re not. Chicken and pork are also high in LA and are therefore best avoided. Since these animals, even healthy organically grown animals, are typically fed grains, they are loaded with omega-6 fats and may have 10 times the LA content that beef, lamb or buffalo do.
Ideally, consider cutting LA down to below 5 grams per day, which is close to what our ancestors used to get. If you’re not sure how much you’re eating, enter your food intake into Cronometer — a free online nutrition tracker — and it will provide you with your total LA intake.
The key to accurate entry is to carefully weigh your food with a digital kitchen scale so you can enter the weight of your food to the nearest gram. Cronometer will tell you how much omega-6 you’re getting from your food down to the 10th of a gram, and you can assume 90% of that is LA. Anything over 5 grams is likely to cause problems.
Last week, we asked you put the spotlight on the Pawns of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and share portraits using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
secondcapture shares a female Pawn wearing a circlet raises a goblin-faced staff
lunar9p shares three Pawns standing side by side with a 4th waving from the background
shimo_ps shares a female gray-haired Pawn glances forward
TheFinestJoe shares a male Pawn wearing glasses and a bear skin over his head stands with his arms crossed
kopicawcaw shares a players’ eyepatch-wearing Arisen and armor clad Pawn stand side by side
xenobitz shares a Pawn wearing glasses and a Beastren Pawn stand together in a cave
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Robots
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on April 24, 2024
Next week, tech takes the spotlight. Share portraits of robots or androids from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Megan is a writer and editor who specializes in home upgrades, DIY projects, hacks, and design. Before Apartment Therapy, she was an editor at HGTV Magazine and This Old House Magazine. Megan has a degree in Magazine Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is a self-taught weighted blanket connoisseur.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. I initially planned on having a shorter article this week with two big features in the works for the near future, but I ended up getting access to the Hades II Technical Test and No Rest for the Wicked to play on Steam Deck in addition to the games I was already covering. On the news side, some surprisingly early Steam Deck Verified ratings for upcoming titles, notable new indie releases, and much more. Before the news, trailers, and recent Steam Deck Verified games, let’s get into the gameplay impressions first.
Well, this was a lovely surprise wasn’t it? When Supergiant Games announced that Hades II would be seeing a technical test on Steam with players being able to request access, I was in two minds about it. I’ve been trying to stop myself from playing betas or early access games unless it is for work reasons, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to immediately jump into Hades II. I then played some Hades on my Steam Deck OLED and wanted more. I got access to the Hades II Technical Test two days ago, and have basically been playing it and another game nonstop since. Hades II so far feels absolutely sublime on Steam Deck OLED, but I’m also impressed by how much it has changed from the original while still feeling familiar. Note that everything here is based on the Hades II Technical Test version 0.89421 and should not be treated as final for the game or even the early access version coming in the future.
Hades II is Supergiant Games’ first ever sequel, and that itself was concerning initially. I adored how every game from the developer was its own thing, but going with Hades II was clearly the way to go given how it feels. When Hades was announced and released in Early Access, I didn’t really play it until much later. I got into it way too much by the end. With Hades II, I don’t need to wait for it to come to any console because it plays perfectly on Steam Deck even in this Hades II Technical Test version.
Based on the 5 hours I’ve spent with the Hades II Technical Test, I love the weapons, Melinoë (the immortal Princess of the Underworld), the new gorgeous locations, enemies, boons, and other gameplay systems included. The team definitely didn’t just release “more Hades” with this one so far. It feels enhanced and expanded upon quite a bit, and there’s more new Supergiant Games music so what’s really there to complain about? Well, my only complaint is that I don’t have the Early Access version right now, but this Hades II Technical Test is a fantastic appetizer for that.
This version of the Hades II Technical Test features screen mode (fullscreen and borderless), graphics quality options, resolution options, a v-sync toggle, display selection, graphics device selection, and some accessibility options. These include aim assist, god mode (seems to work like in Hades), subtitles, music subtitles, autofire, mono sound, bright cursor, and screen shake toggles.
I’ll save more of my thoughts for the Hades II Early Access launch when I get to play that, but even in this small sliver of the full experience, Hades II is immediately amazing, and it feels like it was made for the Steam Deck OLED with its rock solid performance and stunning visuals on the display. If you’d like to sign up for the Hades II Technical Test, request access here.
Millennia from C Prompt Games and Paradox Interactive was on my radar until I completely forgot it was coming out soon. I’m always up for new turn-based 4X games, and after a few hours with Millennia, it has a lot of potential, but needs some work. I’m not doing a full review of Millennia yet because it isn’t currently designed to work with Steam Deck according to Paradox Interactive, and has some UI-related quirks right now.
A new Paradox Interactive release is always interesting, but Millennia might as well have been an early access launch. I don’t mean this in terms of content, but in overall polish even taking into account how it feels on a bigger screen. As a huge fan of the recent Civilization games and expansions, I was hoping Millennia would be different, and it is. The problem with it is that all the bits I like about the mechanics and different takes on things I’m used to, feel like they need more time in the oven. After spending a few hours with it the day I got access to the retail build, I liked it enough to gift it to a friend, but I would still recommend waiting a bit for some patches before giving it a go.
Millennia on PC lets you adjust display mode, resolution (16:10 support included), graphics quality, and cloud quality. I saw no other graphics options included. Millennia lacks controller support which is expected, but not being able to rebind controls right now is surprising. I took care of this on my Steam Deck by modifying the WASD layout on my own before trying one of the community layouts for the game. If you’ve played Paradox Interactive releases on Steam Deck before, you will not struggle here (and the touchscreen helps), but the UI and font sizes are too small right now with no way to increase them.
In its current state, Millennia is very playable on Steam Deck with some caveats like the UI scaling and font size. I ended up liking the age system here and how towns/colonies are handled quite a bit, but I would recommend either trying it within the Steam refund window or waiting for updates. I hope these issues can be addressed in future patches because Millennia has loads of potential and feels like a good base release despite the issues.
Moon Studios who released the excellent Ori games on PC and consoles are back with a brand-new action-RPG in No Rest for the Wicked. No Rest for the Wicked just hit Steam Early Access a day ago, and I was quite excited to play it and see how it runs on Steam Deck. I haven’t played more than a few hours, so treat this as my very early impressions on No Rest for the Wicked on Steam Deck OLED.
Right off the bat, No Rest for the Wicked is gorgeous and sounds amazing. I know this was expected after the Ori games, but it truly feels like a giant step above. I do not recommend buying it to play just on Steam Deck though at least right now. While I will be playing it more for a full early access review, No Rest for the Wicked is a bit too demanding for Steam Deck right now with a lot of hitching moving to new areas, some crashing (tried on three different Proton versions), and major cut-scene performance issues. The game itself has loads of potential and I hope to play more of it this weekend.
Right now, you can adjust display mode, resolution (with 16:10 support), toggle HDR (that works on Steam Deck OLED by the way), toggle between quality presets, render scale, resolution scaling targets, frame rate targets, and toggle v-sync. There are a few accessibility options relating to camera shake and vibration as well. The not being able to pause while playing solo is being addressed as revealed by the team’s first Steam update post following the early access launch.
A reductive way of describing No Rest for the Wicked would be an isometric action-RPG with some soulslike elements, but No Rest for the Wicked is a lot more even early on. It sometimes feels like I’m playing a gorgeous concept art painting, but in motion. I hope the performance can be improved on Steam Deck because I’ve loved playing action-RPGs on Deck lately like with Last Epoch and more Diablo IV. No Rest for the Wicked feels like a huge step forward for Moon Studios, and I look forward to digging into it more soon.
There’s always a lot of news during the week, but this week’s release date announcement for Simogo and Annapurna Interactive’s non-linear puzzle adventure game Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is by far my highlight. I’ve been a fan of the developer from the early iOS days, and regardless of where their games launch, I will be there day one. This one arrives on PC and Switch on May 16th. Watch the new trailer for it below:
Sand Land from Bandai Namco Entertainment is out in around a week worldwide for PC and consoles. and the newest trailer is too funny to not write about. It features Darude’s Sandstorm in the video, and is worth watching. Stay tuned for more Sand Land coverage next week and watch the trailer below:
Capcom’s Exoprimal has gotten its fourth major free title update this week bringing in a Mega Man collaboration, Season 4, new exosuits, DLC, the custom match mode (finally) letting players group up together across platforms, and much more. I’ve enjoyed playing Exoprimal on and off over the last few weeks, but this update is definitely a reminder to get back to the super fun gameplay and play with friends on Xbox while I play on Steam Deck and PS5. Watch the new trailer below:
Xseed Games announced that the magical shop simulation from Voracious Games will be coming to consoles, but the PC version will be getting a big update alongside the console version adding in voiceovers, an endless mode, new difficulty levels, and more. Watch the trailer for the new edition and platforms below:
On April 22nd, Atlus will host a showcase dedicated to Metaphor ReFantazio featuring 30 minutes of new footage and information about the upcoming RPG from the key staff who worked on Persona 5. This will be up on the Atlus West YouTube channel. Speaking of Atlus, a new Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance video was also released showcasing some of the quality of life improvements like save anywhere. Watch it below:
G-Mode is bringing the side game released on phones back in 2006 in Japan Persona 3 アイギス THE FIRST MISSION to Steam and Switch this year. You can wishlist it here.
Paradox Interactive has delayed Prison Architect 2 from May 7th to September 3rd. This delay is to ensure the game is released as the best possible sequel without cutting corners. It has been certified for release going by the announcement on all platforms, but has still been delayed to ensure it works good even on minimum spec configurations. A livestream is set for next week with more details to be revealed on the features.
Sucker Punch and Sony’s upcoming PC port of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut (from Nixxes) has been confirmed to feature a new PS overlay and PlayStation trophy support with account linking included. The multiplayer mode will also be cross platform.
Fate/Samurai Remnant’s newest DLC is now available on Steam, PS5, PS4, and Switch worldwide. I’ll be playing it over the weekend, but you can watch the trailer for it below. It is also included in the season pass or sold separately.
Cygames just announced that Granblue Fantasy Relink version 1.2.0 launches on April 26th (next week) and there will be a part 3 stream a day before launch detailing the update. Check out a teaser from it below:
The final bit of news is the Homeworld 3 roadmap featuring free and paid content coming post launch including challenges, artifacts, new playable factions, and more. Check it out below:
The big surprise of the week is Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance getting Steam Deck Verified two months before launch. Other than that Minishoot’ Adventures that I covered last week and also Inkbound that I’m currently playing have gotten Playable ratings.
Capcom’s Golden Week Sale is live earlier than I expected since Golden Week is still over a week away. Either way, I’ll use this to recommend Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Master Edition and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (bundle with the base game) once again because they are excellent on Steam Deck. I also recommend Street Fighter 6 and Exoprimal on Deck if you want to try something new.
The second sale on right now of note is the FPS Fest 2024 that’s still ongoing. Check it out here.
That’s all for this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. Stay tuned for an interesting look at some grand strategy games and also something for shmup lovers on Steam Deck in the near future. As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.
