For Christmas my daughter got me the most appropriate light switch cover for my mad science lab š
Post Archive 2025
Bad: Diagnosed with shingles today (just before leaving on a trip) š¢
Good: A new type of virus to develop an assay for! š§Ŗš
The Radiacode gamma spectrometer is a fun toy! My daughter discovered that this Mosasaur jaw we have is radioactive! It contains Bismuth-214, likely from uranium ore decay. The radiation is about 10x the background level, a bit more than the Am-241 smoke detectors in my house.
I bought this (from https://www.radiacode.com) after re-watching the excellent āChernobylā mini-series. Thereās a scene where Belarusian scientists are surprised by a radiation alert and test a sample of dust to find that itās Uranium nuclear fuel fallout. Easy to do apparently!
āthe fever-associated ASD risk was attenuated among mothers who reported taking antipyretic medications (OR = 1.30, 95 % CI 0.59, 2.84), but remained elevated for those who did not (OR = 2.55, 95 % CI 1.30, 4.99).ā š¤ https://europepmc.org/article/MED/22562209
Translation: fever in pregnancy is associated with autism, and so of course taking fever medicine is as well. But taking Tylenol for fever appears strongly associated with much lower risk, not higher. Other fever medicines are already contraindicated during pregnancy.
Trump is congratulating himself for finding the cause of rising Autism rates while likely being such a cause himself! š¤¦
Man, now that I have gotten used to using NotebookLM to search and query my lab notebooks, itās hard to imagine not having it. I can explore years of experimental results and my thoughts around them to more effectively formulate new experiments. Eg. see this āmind mapā.
Wow, getting sequencing done from @plasmidsaurus is SO much easier, cheaper and faster than doing it myself. $20 per sample, left in a dropbox and the next day I have sequence! This opens up so many more practical opportunities for my research!
Iāve expanded my collection of respiratory viral genomes from colds going through my household.
I now have 32 PCR confirmed (about 80% hit rate), and 18 of those sequenced partially or completely.
What nasal sprays do you use for reducing cold / COVID transmission? My family has used Vicks Early Defense (physical gel) in high-risk settings for over a year. Iām convinced itās reduced colds substantially. But thereās more evidence for antihistamine and antiviral sprays.
In particular this new study for Azelastine is very compelling. A 67% reduction in placebo-controlled trials! But only available with a prescription in Canada. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12406145/
But also there are several good studies for Iota-Carrageenan gel antiviral spray showing a similar effect. This is available OTC in Canada as āSalinex ProTectā so Iāve just bought some to try. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8493111/ https://www.amazon.ca/Salinex-ProTect-Clinically-Protection-Preservative/dp/B07KJY1RLR
Who else is trying to figure out what holiday plans they need to cancel due to sickness?
While imperfect, I am grateful to be able to use home PCR to help answer that question with data. I have a Rhinovirus and my teenage kids have Influenza A.
Thursday I canceled going to a theatre to see Die Hard with my father and father-in-law. I felt OK but didnāt want to risk getting them sick. Friday I was feeling almost normal but chose to still work from home given PCR results (hopefully saving some coworkers the hassle).
When my Son started to feel sick I was worried that perhaps I had failed to isolate well enough from him. We ran a swab the next day to find he had Influenza A, not my Rhinovirus.
My sonās isolation failed to keep my daughter from the flu. I wish we had tried harder, her starting the flu now likely means sheāll be sick most of the Christmas break. Of course itās possible she caught a different Flu at school, Iāll sequence the full genomes later to check.
We took a bit of a gamble this Christmas thanks to home PCR. My teenagers got the flu. Normally we wouldnāt have family over or let them leave their rooms without a mask. But by the 24th PCR showed low viral load (CT>32) and rapid tests were negative, so we chose not to cancel.
While they were definitely still PCR-positive and symptomatic, I believe the data showed they were unlikely to be contagious. We ensured good airflow and warned people, but nonetheless had 11 guests over three days (including my parents spending the night).
In good scientific fashion I am registering my experiment here prior to having results. If any of us get the Flu in the next few days Iāll sequence it to compare to the virus my kids had.