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The Sun doesn't just pump out light and heat, it blasts a continuous stream of charged particles across the Solar System, and that solar wind is far more complex than it looks. Hidden within it are waves that act as invisible middlemen, constantly shuffling energy between particles as the wind expands outward. Now, thanks to the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft, we have our clearest picture yet of how those waves behave close to the Sun itself.

Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. But this isn’t just about size; it’s about durability. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance.

A new holographic storage technique uses light in three dimensions to dramatically increase how much data can be stored. It encodes information throughout a material using amplitude, phase, and polarization, rather than just on a surface. An AI model then reconstructs the data from light patterns, simplifying the process. This could pave the way for faster, denser, and more efficient data storage systems.

A new holographic storage technique uses light in three dimensions to dramatically increase how much data can be stored. It encodes information throughout a material using amplitude, phase, and polarization, rather than just on a surface. An AI model then reconstructs the data from light patterns, simplifying the process. This could pave the way for faster, denser, and more efficient data storage systems.

Finding another Earth is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time and the biggest obstacle isn't the distance, it's the glare. An Earth like planet orbiting a Sun like star is ten billion times fainter than its host. A team of NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing a remarkable piece of optical wizardry that could solve the problem of seeing planets hidden by the stellar glare and they're already within striking distance of the performance needed to make it work.

Twelve million light years away, a galaxy is throwing a tantrum on a cosmic scale. M82, the Cigar Galaxy is forming stars at ten times the rate of our own Milky Way, and all that frenzied activity has been blasting superheated gas outward in a colossal wind stretching 40,000 light years. Scientists have long known the wind exists, but now, for the first time, they've measured exactly how fast it's moving and the answer raises as many questions as it answers.

Asteroids don’t get the love they deserve. They don’t get “cool points” because they’re not a planet or a potential life-harboring moon. They’re “just a bunch of rocks”. But asteroids are so much more, as they are time capsules of the early solar system that have survived billions of years untouched by weathering or plate tectonics. One of the most intriguing asteroids that has been explored is asteroid Bennu, and specifically how its physical characteristics greater differed from Earth-based observations in 2007 after NASA OSIRIS-REx spacecraft visited Bennu in 2018.

Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has shown that moons around free-floating planets can keep their water oceans liquid for up to 4.3 billion years by virtue of dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating—that is to say, for almost as long as Earth has existed and sufficient time for complex life to develop.

Yes, I know I’ve misspelled “trifecta” in the title, but that’s deliberate. Today we have the usual three items for Caturday, plus two lagniappes.

First, a heartening story from the 100 Libraries Magazine.  Click to read.

The Worcester Public Library in Massachusetts is, well, let them announce it:

Photo courtesy of the Worcester Public Library

From the text:

Embracing the spirit of the program, library patrons are encouraged to swap traditional monetary payments for a simple yet delightful alternative—a photo or drawing of a cat. Executive Director Jason Homer extends a warm invitation to all, regardless of feline companionship status.

“Even if you don’t have a cat in your life, you can still draw one,” Mr. Homer expressed to NBC Boston, highlighting the inclusive nature of the initiative. From domestic cats to majestic big cats like tigers and lions, all submissions are welcome with open arms.

Recognizing that accidents happen and fees can sometimes hinder access to library resources, the library hopes to extend a gesture of goodwill and understanding through this unique initiative.

Why March Meowness?

The inspiration behind “March Meowness” stems from a noticeable increase in overdue fines among young patrons, a trend exacerbated by the challenges posed by the pandemic. However, what started as a simple solution to address financial barriers quickly blossomed into something much more profound. Within just the first five days of its launch, the program had already cleared over 400 accounts, underscoring its immediate impact and resonance within the community.

In essence, “March Meowness” transcends the realm of library fines, serving as a testament to the power of creativity, compassion, and community spirit. Through a simple yet meaningful gesture, the Worcester Public Library not only alleviates financial burdens but also reaffirms its role as a cornerstone of the community—a place where everyone is welcome, regardless of their ability to pay. As patrons flock to share their beloved feline companions or imaginative renditions thereof, the library continues to serve as a beacon of hope, connection, and joy in uncertain times.

And here, from TikTok, is a wall o’cats showing how many people donated photos in lieu of fines (sound up):

@worcesterpublib

It was a valiant effort by our staff to try to get a many cat photos as possible up on our cat walls at several of our locations. We ran out of time and staff, but did our best! We hope you enjoyed this a much as we did! #catsoftiktok #catstagram #cats #librarytok #librarytiktok #library #worcesterma #mywpl #MarchMeowness #viral #fyp #fypシ #fypage #foryou #foryoupage #foryourpage

♬ Come Check This (Quickie Edit) – FETISH

And from the NBC Evening News, where we learn  that photos have been sent to the library from all over the world. The response would not be nearly as awesome if they wanted dog pictures, because cats rule the internet. 

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In honor of Larry the Cat‘s 15th birthday and 5 years of service as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, Mark Felton Productions has put out a lovely 11-minute video detailing the history of Downing Street Cats beginning on June 3, 1929 when the government authorized the position. Rufus was the first Downing Street cat, replaced by Peter, and so on (one was also called “The Munich Mouser,” who was staffed by Neville “Peace in Our Time” Chamberlain.

It’s a great video, so watch.

Here’s a timeline of all the 10 Downing Street cats (via Wikipedia), and the parthy of the PM’s who staffed them. Click to enlarge.

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From the UPI’s “odd news” we have the story of a lost cat who came home after five years:

 

From the text:

A Maryland family whose pet cat went missing five years ago were reunited with the pet when she turned up in a stranger’s basement.

Melissa and Brooke Garci said Aremis, their indoor/outdoor cat, wandered away from home in Hickory in September 2021 and never came back.

The family canvassed the neighborhood and put up flyers, but there was no trace of Artemis.

The Harford County Humane Society said a woman came to the facility in February with a cat she found in her unfinished basement.

The shelter scanned the feline for a microchip, which identified her as Artemis.

“I was like, I couldn’t cry yet because I was in disbelief, but when I saw her, I was like, ‘OMG, she looks exactly the same,'” Brooke Garci told CBS Baltimore. “It was a beautiful thing.”

The humane society said the reunion was a reminder of the importance of having pets microchipped.

Always get your cat chipped, even if it’s an indoor cat. They can escape, you know, as Artemis did.  40% of lost cats with chips are returned to their owners. (Be sure your chip is updated if you move or change your phone number.)

Here’s a video of the grand reunion (warning, there are d*gs as well):

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Lagniappe: Two cat videos from The Good News girl:

Kiki the School Cat:

Today Athayde Tonhasca Júnior is back with one of his patented text-and-photo posts, which have always been very informative. Today he talks about palms and their pollinators in one area of Brazil.  Athayde’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Beneficial saboteurs

It’s approaching midday somewhere in the caatinga, northeastern Brazil’s hinterland, and the temperature will soon hit the 40o C mark. All is quiet, as most animals are sensibly sheltering from the sizzling sun. The vegetation looks dead and stunted, but it is in fact quiescent, in a state of dormancy that helps plants endure the heat and drought until the rainy season arrives.

Fig.1.  The caatinga vegetation in northeastern Brazil looks dead during dry season, but palm trees are green year round:

One palm tree, however, known locally as licuri (Syagrus coronata), doesn’t seem bothered by the harsh climate; it is verdant and in full bloom. The plant is monoecious, that is, it produces separate male and female flowers in the same individual. Male flowers grow at the end of large (~90 cm long) inflorescences, while the female flowers are at the base. Anthesis (the stage at which a flower is open and functional) is asynchronous: male flowers open first, releasing pollen and scent for 7 to 10 days. These flowers then shrivel and fall off. In about two weeks, it’s the female flowers’ turn; they are open for 10 to 15 days. Plants also bloom asynchronously, so at any given time of the year there are licuri flowers.

Fig.2. Licuri inflorescences © Drumond, 2007:

These flowery details may seem like too much information, but they are important for understanding the plant’s relationship with one of its most important flower visitors, the weevil Anchylorhynchus trapezicollis.

Like the overwhelming majority of the ~83.000 known species of weevil (family Curculionidae), A. trapezicollis feeds on plant tissues. Attracted by the scent of male flowers, a beetle uses its big schnozzle (in fact its rostrum, the snout-like projection from the head) to pry flowers open and take their pollen. While feeding, the beetle ends up with pollen grains attached to its body. As male flowers open at different times, there’s isn’t much food to be consumed in one sitting. The beetle is then encouraged to move to another plant, taking with it pollen that will result in cross pollination if the insect lands on a receptive female flower.

Fig.3. An A. trapezicollis in action on a licuri flower © Bruno de Medeiros, iNaturalist.Lu:

After feeding, a female beetle looks for female flowers to lay her eggs between the petals and sepals. The resulting larvae are cannibals: one larva will eat any competitor in the same flower. As they grow older, the little darlings shift their attention to developing fruits, which are aborted and fall off. Because it destroys forming fruits to complete its life cycle, A. trapezicollis is a seed predator. But for the cost of a portion of its fruits, the licuri palm is pollinated. This form of mutualism is known as brood-site pollination or nursery pollination, a trade-off association that has evolved for the yucca and the yucca moth, figs and fig wasps, and several other plant-insect partnerships.

Fig. 4. The licuri‘s trunk ends in a distinct crown of slightly arched leaves, a feature that inspired its specific epithet coronata (crowned) © Kelen P. Soares, Flora e Funga do Brasil:

Other weevils and bees also pollinate licuri, but A. trapezicollis seems to be the most important agent (Medeiros et al., 2019). This tight relationship has profound ecological consequences.

It is said that everything from a pig can be used except the oink, but licuri is not far behind in relation to its usefulness to humans. Its apical meristem (palm heart) is edible; the leaves are the source of a high quality wax, building materials, hats, baskets, sleeping mats and other handicrafts; ground-up leaves are fed to livestock in times of food scarcity; the tasty seeds (endosperm or nuts) are eaten raw or roasted, or added to confectionery and local dishes; oil extracted from seeds is used for lighting and the manufacture of soap, perfumes and other products.

Fig.5. The greenish pulp (mesocarp), brown hard shell (endocarp) and the nutritious white nut (kernel) of a licuri fruit © B. Phalan, Wikimedia Commons:

Humans are not the only creatures to benefit from licuri: many animals take the wholesome fruits. Among them, the Lear’s macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), an endemic and endangered species, for which licuri nuts represent the bulk of its nutrition.

Fig.6. Lear’s macaws, big fans of licuri nuts © João Quental, Wikimedia Commons:

There you have it: a palm tree of unordinary value, from people’s welfare and economy to endangered macaws and wildlife in general, is greatly dependent on pollination provided by unassuming weevils. And this is not an isolated case. More than 200 palm species (family Arecaceae) are pollinated by weevils, and so are many other plants from different lineages (Haran et al., 2023). The ‘million dollar weevil’ (Elaeidobius kamerunicus) illustrates well the relevance of these insects as pollinators. This beetle was introduced from Africa to Asia to help improve pollination of cultivated African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), resulting in considerable increase in yields.

When we think of pollinators, bees, flies and moths are most likely to come to mind, as they contribute to the reproduction of crops and wildflowers familiar to us. Adding weevils to this select club may sound peculiar: after all, many weevils are pests capable of inflicting enormous damage on cultivated plants, trees and stored products (you may have had your pantry invaded by weevils). But that would be a parochial view. For millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions, palm trees are more than props in holiday brochures: they are crucial for wildlife food chains, human nutrition, building materials and commodities such as medicines, industrial products and fibre. A great deal of these benefits depends on a range of poorly known, frequently dismissed and often vilified weevils.

Fig.7. Six species of weevil known to be involved in brood-site pollination © Haran et al., 2023:

 

References

Drumond, M.A. 2007. Documentos, 199. Embrapa Semi-Árido.

Haran, J. et al. 2023. Most diverse, most neglected: weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) are ubiquitous specialized brood-site pollinators of tropical flora. Peer Community Journal 3: e49.

Medeiros, B.A.S. et al. 2019. Flower visitors of the licuri palm (Syagrus coronata): brood pollinators coexist with a diverse community of antagonists and mutualists. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 126: 666-687.

 

A new solar breakthrough may overcome a long-standing efficiency barrier. Researchers used a “spin-flip” metal complex to capture and multiply energy from sunlight through singlet fission. The result reached about 130% efficiency, meaning more energy carriers were produced than photons absorbed. This could lead to much more powerful solar panels in the future.

Scientists have created a new kind of carbon material that could make carbon capture much cheaper and more efficient. By carefully controlling how nitrogen atoms are arranged, they found certain structures capture CO2 better and release it using far less heat. One version works at temperatures below 60 °C, meaning it could run on waste heat instead of costly energy. The discovery offers a powerful new blueprint for next-generation climate technology.

For decades, astronomers have been puzzled by strange “zebra stripe” patterns in radio waves from the Crab Pulsar — bright bands separated by complete darkness. Now, new research suggests the answer lies in a cosmic tug-of-war between gravity and plasma. The pulsar’s plasma spreads light apart, while gravity bends it back together, creating interference patterns that form the striking stripes.

The criteria for finding an Earth-like planet unofficially comes down to two things: water and the habitable zone. But a phenomenon known as atmospheric escape often “escapes” the minds of many astronomy fans, and it turns out that atmospheric escape is one of the key characteristics for finding an Earth-like world. Although extensive research has been conducted on how the planet Mars might have lost its atmosphere, and potentially the ability to sustain life, how would the atmosphere enveloping a Mars-like exoplanet respond to stars different from our own?

A new compass for the SKEPDOC column. This column was founded by Harriet Hall, MD (1945–2023) who wrote it from 2006 to 2023. In 2026, we welcome William Meller, MD, to the helm. As an expert in evolutionary medicine, Dr. Meller will be our guide in navigating the deep biological history of our species to find the “True North” of human health.

On February 27, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and announced that the FDA is preparing to move approximately 14 experimental peptide compounds off its restricted list and back into the hands of compounding pharmacies. He called himself a “big fan” of peptides. He said he expected the announcement “within a couple of weeks.”

One industry executive responded with what he called a prediction: “We’re about to unleash one of the biggest medical experiments in the history of America onto Americans as the test subjects.” He meant it as a good thing. 

In response, first let me tell you about a patient of mine. Two weeks before I wrote this, a 40-year-old man came into my clinic in acute distress. He was intelligent, fit, and successful—and he was terrified. His throat was swelling. Hives covered his body. He was struggling to breathe. And … he had been injecting a peptide “stack” he’d ordered online. He’d been at it for exactly two weeks. 

That timing is not a coincidence. Two weeks is how long it takes for our immune systems to mount a full IgE-mediated allergic response to a new foreign substance—the same mechanism behind severe penicillin reactions. With a slightly higher dose, or a slightly longer drive to my clinic, he could have gone into full anaphylaxis. He responded quickly to epinephrine and antihistamines. He will be fine. But his immune system now has a permanent record of that peptide as a lethal enemy. Any future exposure risks a faster, more severe reaction. 

This is the experiment that is about to be released on the American public. 

A New Label on Old Snake Oil 

Quackery has long been handy with new names. “Remedies,” “tonics,” “panaceas,” and “snake oil” gave way to “complementary and alternative medicine,” which gave way to “integrative” and “functional” medicine. Today’s label is “biohacking”—and its latest product line is peptides. 

To be clear: some self-experimentation is entirely reasonable. Adjusting your diet, sleep schedule, or exercise routine can have rapid results and manageable risks. That is not what I am cautioning about. I am writing about people who order vials of white powder from overseas websites, mix them with water in their kitchens, and inject themselves based on advice from social media influencers and, now, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

This is the actual evidence base: rodent studies, discontinued trials, and anecdotes from podcast guests with financial stakes in the outcome.

If you spend any time in online “wellness” spaces, you have encountered the pitch. Coaches, longevity clinics, and podcasters hawking discount codes are aggressively marketing injectable grey-market chemicals that promise to “optimize your metabolic pathways,” “boost your immune system,” “detoxify your cellular matrix,” and “address the root cause of aging.” They claim these compounds will dramatically increase muscle mass, melt body fat, skyrocket libido, erase wrinkles, and heal injuries without the inconvenience of waiting for evidence. 

As I tell my patients: if a drug could genuinely do any of that, we would all know about it. It would be very hard to hide. You would not be buying it through an internet loophole labeled “not for human consumption.” Nor would there be proclamations about what “they” don’t want you to know about this new remedy. 

What Peptides Actually Are 

Peptides are real, biologically important, and increasingly valuable. They are short chains of amino acids—smaller versions of proteins—that often function as chemical messengers in the body. Insulin is a peptide. More than 40 peptide hormones are known in humans, governing everything from blood pressure to appetite to milk production. The body’s own peptides act quickly: released, delivered to a specific receptor, then broken down by enzymes within minutes. 

Medicine has successfully harnessed this biology. There are now more than 100 FDA-approved peptide drugs on the market. The GLP-1 medications—Ozempic, Wegovy, and their weight-loss relatives—have genuinely revolutionized the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Peptide pharmacology is good, productive science, and anyone who tells you the FDA is categorically hostile to peptides is simply wrong. 

The compounds being sold by anti-aging clinics and wellness websites are a different kettle of goo. These are unapproved, experimental, synthetic molecules manufactured in a regulatory and industrial grey zone. They are sold with legally evasive disclaimers—”for research purposes only,” “not for human consumption”—while being marketed with explicit instructions for human injection. Many are synthesized in foreign facilities and imported for sale online. The FDA does not approve them. Independent quality testing is essentially nonexistent. 

The Appeal-to-Nature Fallacy, Wearing a Lab Coat 

Peptide sellers claim their products are “gentle” and “natural” because the body already produces similar molecules. This argument collapses on inspection. 

Because our natural peptides are removed by enzymes within minutes, lab-made versions must be chemically engineered to survive much longer in the bloodstream. This is why an Ozempic injection can last a week. The molecule is altered—designed to evade the very mechanisms that keep natural signaling tight, targeted, and controlled. Calling a chemically tweaked, enzyme-resistant synthetic compound ordered from an overseas supplier a “natural holistic remedy” is a remarkable feat of cognitive dissonance. 

The natural precedent proves nothing about safety or efficacy at supraphysiological doses. The dose, the duration, the delivery route, and the molecular structure all matter enormously. This is not ideology. It is pharmacology. 

The Wolverine Stack and Tooth Fairy Science 

One popular combination—BPC-157 and TB-500—is marketed as the “Wolverine Stack,” named after the X-Men character’s mutant regenerative ability. Sellers claim it heals torn ligaments, repairs damaged tissue, and accelerates recovery from virtually any injury. 

BPC-157 is a synthetic analog of a compound found in human stomach juice. In rats and cell cultures, it has shown interesting tissue-regeneration effects. There is no robust human clinical trial evidence that BPC-157 accelerates injury recovery, reduces inflammation, or supports gut health. A Phase I trial conducted in 2015 on 42 volunteers was discontinued and no results were ever published. The only human data in the published literature consist of a retrospective analysis of 12 patients and a pilot study with two participants. Based on this, influencers and longevity clinics sell it as a proven cure-all. At a MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) summit in Washington last November, a panelist told the audience his grandmother was taking it and that “it’s just one example of these products that can change people’s lives.” The audience clapped and whooped. 

Then there are the peptides that are alleged to pump up growth hormone—CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin—heavily marketed to men hoping to reclaim muscle and youth without effort. What rat data actually showed for Ipamorelin was increased body weight and increased fat. Its only significant human clinical trial, investigating bowel function after surgery, found it no more effective than placebo. As for CJC-1295: clinical trials investigating it as a treatment for HIV patients were permanently halted after a participant died of a heart attack. 

This is the actual evidence base: rodent studies, discontinued trials, and anecdotes from podcast guests with financial stakes in the outcome. The plural of anecdote is not data. 

Downplaying Risks 

The FDA’s 2023 decision to move many of these compounds to its Category 2 restricted list was not arbitrary bureaucratic overreach. It was grounded in specific, documented biology. 

BPC-157 promotes angiogenesis—the formation of new blood vessels. This sounds appealing for tendon repair. It is considerably less appealing when you consider that angiogenesis is also precisely what early-stage, undetected cancers need to grow and spread. (Oncologists have long sought anti-angiogenesis drugs to attenuate the growth of blood vessels to cancerous tumors.) A person injecting unapproved angiogenic compounds has no way of knowing whether they are healing a joint or feeding a tumor. Growth hormone secretagogues carry documented risks of acromegaly—the pathological and irreversible enlargement of bones and organs from excess growth hormone exposure. 

Then there is immunogenicity, the actual problem illustrated by my patient. Because synthetic peptides are engineered to persist in the bloodstream far longer than natural ones, the immune system frequently recognizes them as foreign invaders. It builds antibodies. In the best case, those antibodies simply neutralize the drug, rendering it ineffective. In worse cases, they trigger escalating allergic responses. In the worst cases, they cause anaphylaxis. 

There is no quality control. There is no chain of custody. The buyer has no reliable way to know what is actually in the vial.

Then there is contamination. Grey-market peptide vials from unregulated sources often contain chemical residues from synthesis, heavy metals, bacterial contamination, or simply the wrong compound entirely. There is no quality control. There is no chain of custody. The buyer has no reliable way to know what is actually in the vial. 

We are already seeing the collateral damage. Bad injections have produced hospitalizations for muscle paralysis, scarring, and sepsis. In Las Vegas, two women were hospitalized with swollen tongues, respiratory distress, and elevated heart rates—classic anaphylaxis—following peptide injections at an anti-aging festival. Medical journals have reported cases of necrotizing pancreatitis directly linked to unregulated peptide use. 

The MAHA Paradox 

Here is where the story becomes increasingly interesting, and particularly strange. 

Kennedy is not entirely wrong about one thing. When the FDA moved these compounds to Category 2 in 2023, it did not eliminate demand. It drove patients toward Chinese suppliers and grey-market “research chemical” vendors with no oversight whatsoever. Kennedy acknowledged this directly, stating that the restrictions “created the gray market.” There is a narrow, genuine point buried here: regulated compounding pharmacy access, with physician oversight and USP-compliant quality controls, is meaningfully safer than a vial of white powder ordered from an overseas website. 

But reclassification from Category 2 to Category 1 does not mean FDA approval. It does not mean these compounds are safe or effective. It means licensed compounding pharmacies would be permitted to prepare them under physician prescription for individual patients. The evidence base does not change. The angiogenesis risk does not change. The immunogenicity risk does not change. The absence of human clinical trial data does not change. What changes is the supply chain—and while that matters for contamination risk, it does nothing about the fundamental problem that we do not know what these compounds actually do in human beings at the doses being used. 

Meanwhile, the people celebrating the loudest have the most to gain financially. Brigham Buhler, the compounding pharmacy and wellness clinic owner, who has Kennedy’s ear and has been loudly predicting regulatory liberation on podcasts, owns the businesses that would compound and sell these newly accessible peptides. At the MAHA summit last November, he moderated a discussion on compounding pharmacies, and declared, “I think the future is bright with peptides.” The audience, again, clapped and cheered. The financial conflicts of interest here are not subtle. 

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, identified the deeper contradiction more sharply than I could: “These are the same people that won’t take a vaccine that’s been shown to work in millions of people.” 

Read that again. The MAHA movement—which has spent years amplifying vaccine hesitancy, questioning FDA-approved treatments, and casting pharmaceutical medicine as a corrupt conspiracy—is now enthusiastically championing the mass use of unapproved synthetic compounds based on rodent studies and podcast testimonials. They claim that the FDA was corrupt and captured when it approved vaccines backed by Phase III trials enrolling tens of thousands of participants. It is apparently now a liberating force when it opens the door to peptides with two-patient pilot studies. 

The standard of evidence, it turns out, is not a principle. It is a preference. 

A Multi-Million Dollar Experiment 

The market is already staggering. U.S. Customs data show that imports of peptide and hormone compounds reached $328 million in just the first three quarters of 2024—up from $164 million during the same period the year before. That was before a sitting cabinet secretary went on the most popular podcast in America to announce that the regulatory gates are opening. 

Wellness clinics function as middlemen, lending a veneer of medical legitimacy while requiring patients to sign waivers acknowledging the substances are experimental—a maneuver that transfers liability to the patient. The proponents of “functional” medicine who accuse conventional physicians of “just pushing pills” are simultaneously instructing patients to inject unapproved synthetic compounds mixed in their own kitchens. This is not a contradiction they appear to notice. 

Patients frustrated by the pace of conventional healing, or simply hoping to optimize bodies that are already healthy, are understandable targets for this marketing. But enthusiasm and financial interest are not substitutes for evidence. 

Caveat Emptor 

Peptide pharmacology is a burgeoning field of research. FDA-approved peptide drugs have produced genuine medical advances. The problem is not peptides. The problem is the systematic exploitation of public enthusiasm for that science to sell unproven, potentially dangerous compounds to people willing to self-inject in pursuit of a shortcut—and now, the prospect of that exploitation being scaled and legitimized by federal policy. 

Here is a simple test. If a compound genuinely possessed the ability to burn fat, build muscle, regenerate tissue, and reverse aging without meaningful adverse effects, it would not need to be endorsed on a podcast. It would not need a cabinet secretary to rescue it from regulatory scrutiny. It would survive clinical trials. It would earn FDA approval. It would be prescribed by physicians and covered by insurance. 

It would simply be called medicine. 

The man whose throat was swelling in my clinic was not a fool. He was a careful, educated person who trusted the wrong sources. He got lucky. As the regulatory gates open and the market expands, not everyone will.

On 12 November 2025, LIGO picked up a gravitational wave signal that stopped astronomers in their tracks. The object that produced it was too small to be any known type of black hole, smaller in fact, than our own Sun. If confirmed, it would be something that has never been directly detected before, a primordial black hole forged in the violent chaos of the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Now two astrophysicists believe they can explain exactly what LIGO found and why it could crack open one of the deepest mysteries in cosmology.

Water is the difference between a temporary visit and a permanent home. If humanity is serious about building a lasting presence on the Moon, finding usable ice near the lunar south pole isn't just a scientific curiosity, it's a practical necessity. Now NASA is sending a clever instrument that hunts for water without digging a single hole, using the behaviour of subatomic particles to sniff out hidden ice deposits up to three feet underground.

I’ve spent a lot of time pushed many electrons going after the fallacy in New Zealand that indigenous “ways of knowing”—in this case from the Māori—are just as valid as so-called “Western ways of knowing,” which is what Kiwi progressives call “science”. You can see my pieces here, but there are many.

This sacralization of the oppressed, whereby the beliefs of minorities are given extra credibility, has now spread to Canada, a pretty woke place.  Lawrence Krauss, who now lives in British Columbia, was astonished and depressed to find indigenous (Native American) superstitions treated as science in the secondary-school curriculum.

You can read his lament by clicking the screenshot below, or find the article archived here.

Quotes from Krauss’s piece are indented, and my comments are flush left. This battle apparently needs to be fought in every country where science, which is not “Western” but worldwide, has been diluted via the efforts of “progressives” who think they’re doing a good thing. They’re not: they are impeding the education of kids by conflating superstitions and established science.

Check out the links in the first paragraph:

I now live in British Columbia (B.C.). A colleague recently forwarded me the current B.C. high school science curriculum for grades nine and twelve. It includes an embarrassing amalgam of religious gobbledygook and anti-science rhetoric. It is an insult to school children in B.C. and does a disservice to the students of the province at a time when understanding the nature and process of science is becoming increasingly important to their competitive prospects in a world dominated by technology.

You may wonder how religious fundamentalism could so effectively creep into the curriculum in a progressive place like British Columbia. The answer is simple. The religious nonsense being inserted into the curriculum has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism; rather, it is Indigenous religious nonsense. And in the current climate, Indigenous “knowledge” is held to a different standard from scientific knowledge—or, rather, to no standard at all.

. . . In the B.C. science curriculum for grade nine, this agenda is explicit. Students are expected to: “Apply First Peoples’ perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.” “Ways of knowing” are defined as “the various beliefs about the nature of knowledge that people have; they can include, but are not limited to, Aboriginal, gender-related, subject/discipline specific, cultural, embodied and intuitive beliefs about knowledge.”

Here’s one example of how indigenous knowledge dilutes superstition. Like me and many others, Krauss has no problem in teaching this stuff as “social science or history”, but bridles at equating it with science:

For example, lesson three of the “BC Grade 9 Student Notes and Problems Workbook,” contains a section entitled “The Universe: Aboriginal Perspectives.” Over the course of two pages, the creation myths of various aboriginal peoples are described in detail, as “beautifully descriptive legends depicting the relationship between Earth and various celestial bodies.” Such subjects as the creation of the universe by a raven; the presence of water everywhere on Earth except on Vancouver Island; the eternal efforts of the Moon to get some of that water to drink; how and why a divine son and daughter team set out to make the Sun traverse the sky, while ensuring that it seems to stop in the middle of the day; how one of the jealous siblings turned into the Moon; how lunar eclipses occur when the spirit of Ling Cod tries to swallow the Moon; how one constellation of stars is the remnants of a giant bird that flew up from Earth; and how the celestial raven eventually released the Moon, stars, and Sun from boxes, in that order. These are quaint myths, and one can imagine how a reasonable science book might describe how we overcame these prehistoric notions to arrive at our modern understanding via the process of science. Instead, the conclusion at the end of this chapter reads, “These stories parallel the Big Bang Theory.”

The only answer to that is, “No they don’t.”  Krauss continues:

As if the insults to the process of science reflected in these curricular statements weren’t bad enough, when the workbook actually discusses science, it gets it all wrong. For example, the book states that, “Indications are that all galaxies are moving away from a central core area. Thus, the universe is said to be expanding.” In fact, the central premise of the Big Bang picture of our expanding universe is that there is simply no centre to the universe. The Universe is uniformly expanding but not from a single central point, but from everywhere. Elsewhere, the process that describes the power generation in stars is listed three times as nuclear fission. This is the opposite of the actual process, nuclear fusion, which explains how light nuclei combine to form heavier nuclei.

This is not surprising, for the people who tout indigenous knowledge as coequal with modern science often are not conversant with modern science. This is also true in New Zealand: advocates for native people simply look for parallels that can be used to say, “Look—indigenous people had a parallel but equally correct way of understanding the universe.” And the answer to that, too, is “No they didn’t.

The damage done to children’s education, and to science itself, are obvious, but summed up by Krauss at the end:

The understanding of the modern world is based on science and that understanding was built up, often at great cost, by overcoming myth and superstition. It is a giant leap backwards to cater to such superstitions in a misguided attempt to somehow pay back Indigenous peoples for historical wrongs. Students today had nothing to do with the sins of the past, and we owe it to them to teach them the best possible science we can. That means separating religious myths from science, and in the process actually trying to get the science straight. The B.C. science curriculum is a disgrace on both counts.

Amen.  I suspect the only reason this tactic hasn’t spread to Europe is that they have—with the exception of the Sámi of Scandinavia—almost no indigenous people to sacralize. But India has plenty, and already science is being diluted there by Hindu “ways of knowing”, including the government’s establishment of institutes tasked with revealing the scientific wonders of cows and their urine, dung, and milk. When I visited India on a lecture tour, I spent a long time listening to credible scientists beef about (sorry for the pun) the stupidity of the government’s dilution of science. Their complaint? “Where’s the beef?”, for despite a big government expenditure, there was little to show. That’s what happens when “scientists” are more or less ordered to come up with results wanted by others.

Hundreds of millions of people live close enough to data centres used to power AI to feel warmer average temperatures in their local area

I’ve been posting from time to time about how the mainstream media is suddenly touting religion and its benefits—a phenomenon I don’t fully understand. Now The Atlantic has joined the queue with an article by Elizabeth Bruenig, who’s written for the magazine for 6 years, and before that for the NYT, the WaPo, and the New Republic. She also has a master’s degree in Christian theology from Cambridge University.  All this means that she’s fully qualified to tout religion to liberals.

And in the article below she does just that, but in an unusual way.  She dismisses the need for any evidence for gods or specific religions, and takes the position that belief itself, however arrived at, is sufficient to warrant the truths of that belief. It’s bizarre, and another example of a supposedly reputable publication jumping the rails.

You can read the article archived below, or find it archived here.  (Thanks to the many readers who sent me this piece.)

Bruenig begins by dissing the New Atheists (unfairly, of course), and then segues into her Frozen Waterfall Moment: the epiphany that solidified her waning faith.

I grew up in a faithful Methodist household in deep-red Texas during the George W. Bush years, when the political sway of Evangelicals was at its zenith. At the same time, evangelists of a robust atheism—figures such as the biologist Richard Dawkins, the critic Christopher Hitchens, and the neuroscientist Sam Harris—toured the country offending salt-of-the-earth Americans with their contempt for religious belief. It was hard for me to ignore that a number of their assertions were clearly correct: Young-Earth creationism, for instance, instantly struck me as absurd when I first learned about it from a history teacher in my public junior-high school, who confidently told me that the world is only a few thousand years old.

That wasn’t what my family or church taught, but Christians who subscribed to those beliefs were suddenly ascendant, and their thinking colored the country’s religious landscape. Meanwhile, the New Atheists were making hay of the fact that such faithful misapprehensions about nature were easily disproved by scientific discovery. Though I continued to attend church as usual, I privately wondered whether the entire enterprise might be rooted in nothing more than a misunderstanding.

This steady diminishing of faith probably would have continued indefinitely, were it not for one brisk autumn afternoon in 2011 when, standing alone at a bus stop, I happened to witness the presence of God.

The unevenly paved lane where I waited was a quiet one-way street tucked away in a clutch of trees. I gazed down the road, preoccupied with other things—midterm exams, campus-club minutiae—and expecting the bus to trundle around the bend. A sudden icy wind tore around the corner instead, sweeping into gray branches and climbing ivy to send a spray of golden birch leaves spiraling into the sky, taking my breath along with them. And I knew that my soul was bared to something indescribably majestic and bracing—something that overwhelmed me with the unmistakable sensation of eye contact. What I saw, I felt, also saw me. Before I could rationally account for what had happened, a verse of poetry from John Ashbery came to mind:

A look of glass stops you

And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?

That seemed to explain things perfectly, jarringly so. I was dazed in class as afternoon darkened to evening.

Note that at the same time she sneers at New Atheists for their “contempt” for religion, she notes that they also dispelled misguided beliefs in creationism, so chalk that up to New Atheism. In her case, the ephipany was more mundane than the three frozen waterfalls that brought Francis Collins to Christ: hers involved a wind blowing leaves into the sky.  And for some reason that made her think about a poem that is not at all about God, but (as far as I can see), the creative process of a writer and how that process is perceived by the poet and how it interprets reality. It’s an okay poem, but it doesn’t rhyme, so it’s really a bunch of fragmentary thoughts, as in Ulysses, but put into verse form. At any rate, when Breunig, the wind that blew the leaves around somehow blew faith into her soul.

Surprisingly, given Bruenig’s own contempt for the need for evidence to buttress one’s faith, she spends a long time describing a new big book that appears to make the same old arguments about the facts of science that point to God (fine-tuning, the Big Bang, etc.):

The latest evidence suggests that God most likely exists, argues a big recent book by Michel-Yves Bolloré, a computer engineer, and Olivier Bonnassies, a Catholic author. Tracts that aim to prove the reality of God are hardly novel. What makes this endeavor unique, say the French writers behind God, The Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution, is the scientific nature of their work. Medieval monks toiling away at poetic meditations on the divine have their place, the authors allow, but their own arguments are meant to surpass mere abstract justifications for belief. Instead they assert that cutting-edge empirical proof observable in the natural world makes a firm case for God. With this, they strive for the ultimate alchemy, transforming faith into fact.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s book is part of a burgeoning genre of apologetics that relies on relatively new scientific developments and theories, like quantum mechanics and cosmology, to make an ancient case. Their book, which has already sold more than 400,000 copies around the world, arrives at a time of both bloody religious conflict and rapidly collapsing religious belief, especially among the young and the highly educated. It joins other recent projects—including two new documentaries, The Story of Everything: The Science That Reveals a Mind Behind the Universe and Universe Designed—that propose the same tantalizing theory: that there is incontrovertible proof that a divine power created the cosmos, and that this evidence is mounting.

. . . [the authors] identify a series of scientific breakthroughs that helped undermine religious faith over the centuries, including Galileo’s heliocentrism, Newton’s clockwork universe,

The publisher says pretty much the same thing: scientific discoveries in quantum mechanics, cosmology, the “fine-tuning of the Universe,” and the incredible complexity of living organisms” (i.e., Intelligent Design) have dispelled materialism and naturalism:

Yet, with unexpected and astonishing force, the pendulum of science has swung back in the opposite direction. Driven by a rapid succession of groundbreaking discoveries—thermodynamics, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, theories about the expansion and fine-tuning of the Universe, and the incredible complexity of living organisms—old certainties have been completely overturned. Materialism increasingly has the appearance of an irrational belief.

I’ll admit I haven’t read this 500-page behemoth, whose summaries recycle the same old arguments for God from science, and I’m not sure I want to read it (you can see a critical review of its content archived from Medium), whose author (“Matthew”) confirms the impression I got from above, but adds that the book also throws in some theology. From Medium:

Yet what is strange is how much [the book] feels like a nostalgic throwback, it is reminiscent of the publishing fads of the 00s when New Atheism was in its peak and church book stands were full of books with titles like “The Dawkins Delusion” or “How Science Proves God” or whatever it might have been. The book even approvingly quotes Dawkins’ claim that God is basically a scientific hypothesis that we can prove or disprove, and the authors claim we should be able to look at science and find evidence of God, or at least we shouldn’t find evidence that contradicts the idea that there is a divine creator. Yet it is also far weirder than intelligent design rebuttals of atheists, the book goes beyond science, including lengthy chapters on the bible, the person of Jesus, the continued existence of the Jewish people, the persecution of scientists in the Soviet Union and (sorry Substack) for some reason, the Fatima miracle.

I will be honest up front, I found the book to be absolutely mad, hamfisted and confused. It is error strewn, misrepresents various ideas completely, and in spite of being written by two Catholics claiming to be retrieving a more ancient worldview, it largely constitutes a clumsy argument for a God of enlightenment deism, making some absolutely eye wateringly odd claims along the way. As the reviews all seem to say it is extremely “readable” but mostly because it is presented as a skim over of topics in soundbites and quotes so that it reads like a print out of a load of powerpoint slides.

. . . More to the point, I find it hard to believe we are in an “intellectual paradigm shift” when the authors have offered what is essentially undigested quotes from wikipedia and a bunch of arguments that were in vogue nearly two decades ago. This book is the definition of singing to the choir, except by the choir it must mean a very particular set of Christians inclined to share the author’s theology but not inclined to know anything about the arguments.

You can read the rest of the review for yourself.  The fact is, though, that the quality and arguments of the book are irrelevant, for Atlantic author Breunig says that people don’t need no stinking evidence to accept gods and their natures. The argument from science, she says, is misguided (bolding henceforth is mine):

To imagine that one might find traces of the divine strewn throughout the universe, or that earthly methods of inquiry might uncover some of those signs, isn’t ridiculous. But this latest round of arguments in favor of intelligent design seems aimed mostly at establishing that God could or should exist within the rational frameworks we already employ. This is both weak grounds for belief and a fundamental misunderstanding of faith. The route to durable faith in God often runs not through logical proofs or the sciences, but through awe, wonder, and an attunement to the beauty and poetry of the world, natural and otherwise.

In other words, it’s the “beauty and poetry of the world” that convinced Bruenig of the divine. Apparently she has overlooked the ugliness of the world: the cancers in children, the incessant wars and killings, the death of thousands of innocent people in natural disasters, and even humans’ destruction of the very beauty that inspires her. Is this evidence for Satan?

It’s quite bizarre to read about Breunig’s transformation into a believer, one who rejects science but still touts “objective evidence” for divinity.

She turned her Golden Leaf Epiphany over in her mind, and it is that epiphany—a purely emotional experience—that led her to see reality (OBJECTIVE reality) through a god-shaped lens. And she disses New Atheism again for its supposed claim that believing in gods makes one unsophisticated or dumb.  No, she’s wrong: the argument is that accepting theism means you’re credulous. Breunig:

 I began to ask myself what it would cost me intellectually if I were to choose to metabolize the experience as it had occurred to me. That decision came with several implications. If God is real, then perhaps other things—goodness, righteousness, beauty—that are usually dismissed as matters of subjective experience might also be objectively real. That prospect was much more agreeable to me than another consequential implication of electing to believe: that, as the New Atheists had so vigorously argued, theism meant putting aside any pretensions I had of sophistication or intellect.

As I explored this problem, I spent hours in my college library reading Saint Augustine, a foundational philosopher and theologian. Here I encountered another strange sensation: Every word I read felt like remembering something I had once known but somehow forgotten.

Oh dear God, St. Augustine, a man who was a Biblical literalist (something that Bruenig rejects). Like many early theologians, Augustine argued that the Bible could be read both literally and metaphorically, but insisted on the absolute truth of what’s in print. Augustine accepted instantaneous creation from Genesis, Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and the whole Biblical mishigas. Bruenig ignores those parts, for she’s looking to buttress her incipient belief. (And remember that she concluded, apparently objectively, that God exists because of the feeling that swept over her when she saw the wind blow the leaves around.)  And so, after reading Augustine, she decided to accept an “objective” reality that didn’t need empirical support, and re-embraced religion:

And maybe the Christian Neoplatonists, Augustine among them, had some points as well. I contemplated this for a while before I realized that there wasn’t any sense in debating it with myself anymore. I knew what I felt, so I gave up and chose to believe.

Note that she has no evidence for Christianity, but chose to believe, even though she uses the word “objectively,” implying that other people would agree with her “choice”. (They don’t: Christians are in a minority of the world’s people.) At the end of her piece, Bruenig simply asserts that you don’t need anything but emotion to buttress your Christianity. In so doing she simply shrugs off all the arguments that have been raised against belief and says “faith is enough”, effectively immunizing her beliefs against refutation. (Bolding is mine.)

In my years of working out exactly what I believe, I have been relieved to learn that faith does not in fact demand the surrender of logic and vigorous intellectual inquiry—a case Bolloré and Bonnassies convincingly bolster with numerous testimonials from award-winning scientists. Still, to trust in the existence of God is to accept both the appearance and the possibility of being naive or delusional. No accumulation of promising developments in our analytical understanding of the world can delay confrontation with that essential fact. Having faith is a vulnerable thing.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s arguments are more likely to shore up the faith of wavering believers than to win new converts. This itself is no small thing. The authors may even be right about the growing evidence for the existence of God secreted away in the latest science. But their approach has a history of upsets. The only way to inoculate belief against that cycle of disruption is to treat faith as a decision that transcends scientific proof.

It’s clear here that she wants to inoculate her belief against disruption (i.e., against disproof), and by arguing, “It’s true because I believe it,” she’s succeeded.  Well, good for her, but she’s not going to convince people who think that giving your life to Christianity and its beliefs of a divine Jesus who was also God, the miracles he performed, and the crucifixion and resurrection—you are donning the mantle of a superstitious belief system without a rational reason to do so. Remember, emotions and feelings are not part of rationality.

This whole essay could be summed up on one sentence:  “I believe because I want to believe, and I don’t need reasons (or rationality) to do so.”

Shame on The Atlantic for pushing this pabulum!

h/t: Jim