Space anemia is tied to being in the void and can stick around awhile

Space isn’t easy on humans. Some aspects are avoidable—the vacuum, of course, and the cold, as well as some of the radiation. Astronauts can also lose bone density, thanks to a lack of gravity. NASA has even created a fun acronym for the issues: RIDGE, which stands for space radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields, and hostile and closed environments.

New research adds to the worries by describing how being in space destroys your blood. Or rather, something about space—and we don’t know what just yet—causes the human body to perform hemolysis at a higher rate than back on Earth. //

The team’s results showed that in space, the astronauts’ bodies destroyed around 3 million red blood cells every second. This is 54 percent higher than what happens in human bodies on Earth, where the rate is 2 million every second. //

It’s also uncertain how long a person in space can continue to destroy 54 percent more red blood cells than their Earth-bound kin. “We don’t have data beyond six months. There’s a knowledge gap for longer missions, for one-year missions, or missions to the Moon or Mars or other bodies,” he said.

Considering the looming possibility (or reality, if you’re a billionaire or aging Star Trek actor) of space tourism, Trudel’s research could pose a warning for some would-be space-farers. People with heart problems, angina, abnormal hemoglobin levels, or a propensity for blood clots might be at risk for complications out in the void, he said. The work may also help us learn about space injuries—a body’s ability to heal a cut might be affected by this shift in red blood cells.

John Schreiber
@johnschreiber
Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA

6:30 PM · Jan 13, 2022

As you can see, trains frequently slow or stop in this area as they get worked into the @UnionPacific Intermodal facility near Downtown LA. The thieves use this opportunity to break open containers and take what’s inside. I’d say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers.

Missing a package? Shipment delayed? Maybe your package is among the thousands we found discarded along the tracks. This is but one area thieves have targeted trains. We were told this area was just cleaned up 30 days ago so what you see is all within the last month. @CBSLA

Responsibility for policing the railroad right of way falls on Union Pacific Police... not local agencies like LAPD. We did see Union Pacific police chasing two people today off the tracks and keeping an eye on things.

New Today: My colleague @CBSLAKristine spoke with @UnionPacific about train theft and they forwarded her this letter they sent to LA County DA in December. UP says they arrested > 100 people in last 3 months but many were fined and released within 24 hours. //

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1481770722271760384.html

There are 90 containers breached a day, theft up 356 percent, according to Union Pacific. UP is now considering rerouting its trains out of LA county, so they don’t have to deal with this, but are begging the DA to be harder on the thieves. //

“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

"You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large."

-- Thomas Sowell

As reported by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren, after hearing three hours of arguments, determined state law allows absentee ballots to be returned in person or by mail — but not in a ballot drop box. //

Bohren then ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to retract its instructions to election officials on how to use drop boxes, declaring that the WEC had overstepped its authority in issuing the guidance in the first place. It was a “major policy decision that alters how our absentee ballot process operates,” Bohren said, that was significant enough that it should have required approval by the Wisconsin State Assembly.

“It’s all good and nice,” the judge explained, “but there’s no authority to do it.”