Science - Stephan Segraves

How long until we’re all on Ozempic?

October 11, 2024October 11, 2024 ssegraves

GLP-1 medications¹ like Ozempic appear to be that drug. Estimates suggest GLP-1s can reduce body weight by at least 15% when taken regularly — and perhaps even more as newer drugs come to market. And though evidence is still being gathered, they may have benefits beyond weight loss: potentially curbing drinking, treating sleep apnea, and reducing risk of stroke. They’ve been called, in many places, a miracle drug, and as such, the category is poised for massive growth. Gallup estimated that 15.5 million Americans have tried them, and half as many are currently using them.

My forecast predicts that the supply of GLP-1s will increase from eight million patient-years to roughly enough for approximately 23 million Americans by 2030. Still, this is only enough supply for about 15% of the 147 million Americans with diabetes or obesity.

Wild. There is definitely some value to these drugs but at what cost over natural measures? For some, I’m sure Ozempic represents a miracle but it’s also a drug that doctors and researchers are still experimenting with and trying to fully understand.

Renting an EV for the first time

March 10, 2024March 11, 2024 ssegraves

During a recent work trip to Florida that required a rental car, the rental agency only had EVs available and because I didn’t want to sit around waiting for another vehicle, I took it. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience, but I can see why Hertz struggles with electric vehicles.

The EV I received was a Mercedes Benz EQB. I had zero issues with the quality of the car, it’s a Mercedes, it was nice, comfortable, and well appointed. These days I mostly care about CarPlay and this Mercedes checked that box for me.

When receiving the details from the rental agent I asked bluntly, “how much do I need to charge the vehicle before returning it?” to which he replied, “it needs to be at 70% of whatever its current charge level is”. When I started the car it was 40% charged, giving me a little under 100 miles of range. That’s unacceptable in my opinion. If I had needed to drive somewhere out of that range I would’ve had to immediately make my way to a charging station (more about that later) to charge before continuing my trip.

In addition, this particular rental company, Avis, had no notation of the charge of the vehicle on the rental slip. The fuel level simply showed 8/8, which with a 40% charge, was not true.

I had never driven a EV, so I took lap around the parking lot to get a feel for it before hitting the road. The single pedal driving setup was definitely a shift in thinking and by the end of the trip it felt a little better but I certainly wasn’t an expert. Once on the road the car felt very good and the acceleration was fantastic, making getting on the freeway and performing passing maneuvers super easy.

When I made it to the hotel I asked if they had a charging station but was disappointed to learn there was nothing on-premise and actually nothing that close so I started texting friends asking how they know where to charge their EVs when they’re on the road. The answer seemed to be PlugShare or ChargeHub, both of which I downloaded and started searching. I don’t know if it’s a data problem or a Florida problem but both apps seemed to be lacking a lot of useful information when it came to any type of charger besides Tesla.

As an aside, I also tried the car’s built-in charger app and it was subpar, suggesting charging stations that were much further away (maybe they were fast chargers).

I finally found a charger near the venue I would be attending my work event and drove over the next day to get a charge. Thankfully there was no other EV there as it was the only charger. The actual charging station experience leaves a lot to be desired. This particular charger was a Blink charging station and when I first got it all setup it seemed like it required a Blink membership to even use but after circumventing some of the prompts I was able to get it to charge. The charging process was by no means fast, I dropped the car off at 8am and it did not charge to 100% from ~45% until 3:30pm. It also wasn’t particularly cheap at $19.35 for 39.49 kWh of power or $.49/kWh.

The rental companies could do a better job with explaining charging as well, especially since vehicles can be configured to only charge to a certain point, such as 80%.

The return process was also very interesting. The attendant who checks the mileage and the fuel level in standard combustion vehicles couldn’t figure out how to do either of those things in the EV. I explained where the charge level was but I never saw him find the mileage on the car and when I checked my statement the car was notated to have fewer miles than when I left the rental lot.

Overall I didn’t have too much trouble with renting an EV but rental companies need to get better at how they communicate the process and should probably update their systems to accommodate EV specific information. It would probably help if the rental companies stuck with a handful of brands of EVs rather than buying whatever they can when they can. The charging experience is also less than stellar. Again, maybe it’s a Florida thing but the data on the chargers just seems to be bad. This could be another area where the rental companies work with the EV companies to customize the built-in mapping software to help renters find the charger they need when they need it. All in all I thought it was fun to be able to try out an EV and see what they’re like to drive. Given my travel driving habits, I don’t think I’d hesitate to rent another one.

Chemtrails: behind the conspiracy theory

April 17, 2023 ssegraves

It seems like the chemtrails conspiracy theory pops up every so often but the BBC has a nice write-up of what contrails are and why they occur.

Contrails are formed when water vapour and fine soot particulates from burning jet fuel freeze into ice crystals. In low air humidity, the crystals just dissipate. In higher humidity, they persist, and end up creating visible vapour trails over large areas of sky.

Adding to this, even if it’s humid, you may only see thin clouds because the upper level winds blow the contrails apart.

Oddly enough, the conspiracy theory likely gets a bit of weight behind because of experiments in the 1950s and 1960s known as the Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments. Similar experiments took place in the United States and in 1977 the US Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research led to the US Army revealing the details of the experiments.

Hygiene Theater

May 19, 2022 ssegraves

Tyler Cowen on Bloomberg:

I am not arguing for passivity in the face of danger. It is distressing that US policymakers do not seem interested in spending big for pandemic preparedness. America needs a new Operation Warp Speed for pan-coronavirus vaccines and nasal spray vaccines. It should be gathering more data on Covid and improving its system of clinical trials for anti-Covid remedies, among other measures.

I am simply saying that removing the Covid test for entry to the US would bring an end to one of the more egregious instances of “hygiene theater.” And it would send a signal that America is welcoming the world once again.

The above summarizes a lot of my thoughts on the inbound testing requirement for the United States. I think it leaves out the fact that there are already hundreds of thousands of cases already present in the US and keeping out a few cases here and there is not a net win. Also, the number of cases not caught by inbound testing due to the disease not being present in large enough numbers in the host or the host not yet having symptoms is also a huge gap. Increasing the amount of research we are doing on long Covid, on future vaccines, and treatments would be time better spent.

I’ve heard from a number of people that the test they received was either a “joke” where they swab barely touched their nose or the test was completely ignored by the airline at the departure airport. From those who do test positive, even with no symptoms, they’re stuck with a costly longer stay in the country they are coming from and while some might be willing to put up with that, a lot of travelers aren’t.

All this to say, Covid is again spiking in the US though I get the impression most Americans aren’t paying attention or don’t care.

Long Covid and Brain Gray Matter Loss

November 8, 2021 ssegraves

A study out of the UK has found a significant number of Covid-19 patients who become hospitalized and recover have a noticeable amount of gray matter lost in their brains. The full study is here, but the important excerpt:

We used structural and functional brain scans from before and after infection, to compare longitudinal brain changes between these 394 COVID-19 patients and 388 controls who were matched for age, sex, ethnicity and interval between scans. We identified significant effects of COVID-19 in the brain with a loss of grey matter in the left parahippocampal gyrus, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the left insula. When looking over the entire cortical surface, these results extended to the anterior cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus and temporal pole. We further compared COVID-19 patients who had been hospitalised (n=15) with those who had not (n=379), and while results were not significant, we found comparatively similar findings to the COVID-19 vs control group comparison, with, in addition, a greater loss of grey matter in the cingulate cortex, central nucleus of the amygdala and hippocampal cornu ammonis (all |Z|>3). Our findings thus consistently relate to loss of grey matter in limbic cortical areas directly linked to the primary olfactory and gustatory system.

At the end of the day, Covid-19, even if survived, is not a disease you want. And it’s not just brain matter; People are finding themselves with other very serious long term effects.

Ford F-150 Lightning – An Ultimate Truck?

June 2, 2021 ssegraves

I have been on the fence on the Tesla electric vehicles for a while and for a few reasons. For one, it seems ironically wasteful to buy a new vehicle simply because “it’s electric” and has a bunch of bells and whistles. The price point tiers of the Tesla are also a downside. Yes, you can get a base Model 3 for $33k but to get any kind of upgrades it’s $42k and if you want more performance, it’s $50k. All for a sedan.

Enter the Ford F-150 Lightning. I am still hesitant to buy an electric vehicle right now but the F-150 is more my speed. Ford has taken their best selling vehicle and made it an electric powerhouse. This feature preview by Marques Brownlee points out some of the coolest things with picture and video better than I ever could.

An EPA estimated range with 1000lbs of cargo of 300 miles but in reality closer to 450 miles (based on Marques’ math). Also, dual direction power where if your house loses power, you can use the truck to provide power to it. That’s huge. It’s a 6000lb truck but can still do 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. I mean, that’s not something you’re going to use everyday but it is impressive.

It seems like a vehicle to keep an eye on. I have a feeling Ford is going to sell a lot of these and it might play a huge role in more electric vehicle charging stations and other tech entering the market.

The Covid Crisis in India

April 30, 2021 ssegraves

From NPR:

India reported nearly 350,000 new cases on Sunday, more than any country on any day since the pandemic began, the fourth day in a row the country has broken that grim world record. Many worry case numbers are woefully undercounted since test kits are hard to come by, and hospitals are completely overrun.

Now cases and deaths have skyrocketed. Crematoriums are running day and night, unable to keep up with the bodies. There are desperate pleas for oxygen, hospital beds and medicine.

This is an unbelievable tragedy that is unfolding. I hope more countries step in to offer aid.

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

November 9, 2020 ssegraves

United will be adding 1,400 flights for the week of Thanksgiving and plans to use larger aircraft on some flights. From that same Bloomberg article –

Half of its Thanksgiving customers are buying tickets less than 30 days before the holiday, up from about 40% last year, United said. The airline will monitor bookings “in real-time to swap in larger aircraft when needed to accommodate last-minute demand.”

It seems a bit tone deaf for United to add all of this capacity for a holiday week. Yes, they need revenue but at the same time they are enabling behavior that will unfortunately lead to more Covid-19 infections. More people in airports, more people on planes (where Covid can and does spread), and people in their loved one’s homes in close contact. This is amid the U.S. setting new daily records when it comes to coronavirus cases.

United is a business and they are looking out for themselves but their disregard for public health in the name of money is a bad idea right now. I would hope that CEO Scott Kirby would take a moment to think about the company’s actions and the impact they will have on lives across the country.

Tree from Hell

September 28, 2020 ssegraves

Tree of Heaven Growing Next to a House — A tree of heaven growing out of the side of a porch in Portland, OR

I have been fighting an enemy that continually sends in reinforcements and those reinforcements seem to pop up in all kinds of locations that are meant to ambush me. Locations that are hard to reach or they show up even stronger than before, attempting to break my will to fight them. I’m talking of course about the tree of heaven or Ailanthus altissima, or as I like to call it, the tree from hell. Go ahead, read up on this kryptonite of a tree, but if you don’t have time for that, here are some quick, important points about it.

The tree of heaven crowds out native species and secretes a chemical into the soil that is toxic to surrounding plants.
The tree’s aggressive root system can cause damage to pavement, sewers and building foundations.
If the plant has matured, cutting alone will only help temporarily by reducing its ability to spread.
The wood is useless. It is brittle and has no structural value and burns poorly.
The cuttings smell like burning garbage.

Those are just a few of the issues with the tree of heaven. Really, it comes down to how easily it spreads and how quickly it grows. I can rip out the seedlings, getting all of the root, but more plants will show up in a week or so. If I give the plants more than a month, then their roots become established and it’s even harder to get rid of it. There are two full grown tree of heaven next door to our house in the exact disturbed soil that they so much love and they are constantly dropping seeds. On a windy day those seeds get carried all over the neighborhood and we’ll find seedlings growing on our evening walks. Some people let the seedlings grow because it looks like a tree, but they don’t understand that it is invasive. They don’t know that it spreads so fast it’s hard to control. Even in the image at the top of this post, there is another tree growing across the street from the mother tree. It spreads like a disease.

Unfortunately, the city of Portland has been somewhat reluctant to take fast action against the tree and they are popping up everywhere. Part of the issue is that the city says it’s a “nuisance” tree not “invasive”, even though a post on their website calls it invasive. Since the tree is a nuisance, it requires a paid permit to remove. This should be a case where the city sends a worker out, confirms it’s a tree of heaven and lets the trees removal occur without a permit. It’s going to cost property owners enough just to get them removed, and it’s not a single step process. Even with the tree cut down, there are multiple applications of chemicals needed to kill the root system and insure the plant doesn’t come back. The other option for the homeowner is that they let the tree grow and risk it causing physical property damage.

The big headache comes when a tree of heaven hits a sewer or water main. Only then does the city care about the tree and the problems it causes. There’s a train yard not far from our neighborhood and there swaths of trees of heaven covering parts of the yard. I would guess because it’s open area where wind can easily blow, they are one of the main spreader areas for the tree of heaven.

For my fellow Portlanders please give the city a call if you see one of these trees on city property; They are commonly on sidewalks next to power line poles and near fence lines. If you need help with the tree of heaven, you can also contact TenPDX.