Loads of medical science news. That bodes well for the transhumanist agenda of living forever I suppose. We’ll start with the exception first.
Included because I’m very much in favor of YIMBYism, this paper posits that environmental land use regulation reduces the construction of new housing. Specifically these regulations apply to areas near the habitats of endangered species and as more species are added to the list, the land area affected grows as well. It’s an obvious conclusion but the paper lays down some numbers on many housing units have been displaced and deterred by such regulations. The estimated range is wide but the author puts the central estimate at 6.3 million units or 4% of the US total housing stock as of 2025. The point is not to claim that such regulations are bad but that we should be aware of the trade-offs that are being made.
Over the past month, I’ve seen a marked push to get older adults to take the herpes zoster (HZ) or shingles vaccine. One impetus may be this recent paper studying older adults admitted to a nursing facility. They found that those who received the recombinant HZ vaccine (RZV) were associated with lower risk of developing dementia, especially as time goes on. This evidence is of course correlational only but adds to previous observations that there is a protective effect. That’s enough to convince me to get the vaccine personally even if it is rather expensive.
Accompanying this is this article looking into claims that Chinese teams have been successful in reversing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease through surgical intervention. This isn’t new but the initial claims in the form of videos of dramatic recoveries weren’t taken seriously at first. Since then many more surgeries have taken place and larger, more rigorous trials, are being held. The treatment supposedly works by improving the flow through the array of fluid-filled channels that run alongside blood vessels through the brain to flush out waste. Most of the gains seem modest but there have occasionally been drastic improvements. There are also doubts over how long the beneficial effects can last.
The viral science news of the month has to be the announcement that a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine combined with immunotherapy has been successful in treating melanoma. Specifically it was shown to be able to reduce the recurrence of the cancer and prevent it from spreading to other parts of the body. The vaccine is made-to-order based on the mutations of the patient’s tumors and the results are promising, hence the immediate uptick in Moderna’s share price following the announcement. While this applies only to skin cancer so far, the hope is that the same approach can be readily applied to other types of cancer.
The sequel to this Chinese animated film came out last year and is apparently rather good. As I haven’t seen the first one yet, I thought I should get it done. This is itself spun out of a successful animated series and effectively acts as the origin story of its titular hero. With flatter look and more cutesy art style, this can’t compete with the output of the top studios though I will note that the fight scenes are dynamic and decently animated. It also gets off to a slow start and has pacing issues. When it does finally get going, it’s quite good with a large cast of what are effectively superheroes working well together. I wouldn’t say it’s great but it’s good enough to make me look forward to the second film.
I like to watch even very old films because I’m a completionist but I have to admit that sometimes it’s necessary to put up with poor quality black-and-white images and lack of sound. This isn’t the case for Grass, one of the very earliest ethnographic documentaries ever made. As a silent film, it relies on music and intertitles to convey what is going on and the way it tints the film to match different situations can be crude. Nonetheless, its depiction of the migration of a nomadic Persian tribe, along with all the hardships they must endure, is truly incredible. The intertitles can be annoying in the heavy use of Americanisms and play up the exoticism of the Bakhtiari tribe. Nonetheless the result is fascinating, dramatic and at times even humorous. It’s very much worth watching on its merits even today.
This film adaptation to the immensely successful stage musical was a cultural phenomenon in of itself. Given that I will likely never get to see the musical itself in this lifetime, I decided to watch this despite being doubtful that I’d like it. Indeed, I found this to be an overly long, boring and mostly vapid spectacle. Sure, it’s colorful, visually imaginative and is basically wall-to-wall music. But the singing to plot ratio is way off and too much of the time, the teenage popularity plot matters more than the saving Oz plot. I liked the flying at the end and that’s about it.
Spider-Man or not, watching this in the cinemas wasn’t a sure thing for me as I’m just too burned out by the superhero genre. Brand New Day being the critical and commercial success that it has with fans raving about it being possibly the best Spider-Man film ever, makes it hard to ignore. Like everyone says, its action set-pieces are great and I’m especially ticked that it borrows visuals from the game that I’ve played through just recently. It’s good too that it focuses more on Peter Parker’s personal life but the story beats feel like retreads of earlier iterations of the character. In the end it’s still a thoroughly conventional superhero movie.
Like no doubt many others, I never even heard of this novel until the film adaptation of it was heavily promoted earlier this year. This still wouldn’t be a book I’d ordinarily read but I heard good things about it on Broken Forum and I am trying to read more outside of genre fiction so here I am. One huge difference is that while the trailers for the film make it out like some sort of cute children’s movie, this book is not that at all. The sheep are intelligent but they are also often wrong because they don’t understand humans at all. It’s funny but it’s also genuinely dark and not at all a book that is suitable for children.
This looks like another film from the strange imagination of Yorgos Lanthimos but it’s actually a remake of a South Korean one. The original director was even slated to direct this but bowed out due to health issues. The premise about two conspiracy-minded nobodies who kidnap a corporate CEO believing that she is an alien is out there but it’s nothing too crazy. Watching it feels underwhelming as it’s just three people in a remote house. I was going to write it off as being merely mediocre but then the twist drops and I’m left asking what the heck was the point of all that?
