iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 01/06/2026

New [₁₈F] tau scan detects tau accumulation at significantly earlier stages of Alzheimer's Disease. #Medsky www.thelancet.com/action/showP...

Cumulative tau MTL and neocortical positivity of [18F]flortaucipir and [¹⁸F] MK6240 as a function of Aβ burden (Centiloid) in cognitively unimpaired (A) and cognitively impaired (B) participants. (C) The number of individuals required to detect one tau-positive case and NND one extra tau positive case stratified by diagnostic and Aβ status. Neocortical region is composed of Braak V and VI regions. p values indicate whether detection of tau positivity differs between [¹⁸F]MK6240 and [¹⁸F]flortaucipir. Error bars indicate 95% CI. Asterisks indicate NND estimates for which the 95% CI of the paired absolute risk difference did not include zero. Participants with Alzheimer’s disease dementia were, by definition, Aβ-positive. Analysis accounted for Centiloid, age, sex, and study site. Aβ+=amyloid-β positive. PR=prevalence ratio. MCI=mild cognitive impairment. MTL=medial temporal lobe. Neo=neocortex. NND=number needed to detect. tau+=tau positive.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 27/04/2026

This called for expansion of civilian government support for science and helped create of the National Science Foundation, the model for all Federal science agencies. Trump OMB's federal science proposed budget: <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01105-7>.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 27/04/2026

Vannevar Bush also wrote "Science, The Endless Frontier" <https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75th_w.pdf> in 1945 at the request of FDR.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 27/04/2026

Vannevar Bush (03/11/1890–06/28/1974) directed the US Office of Scientific Research and Development & National Defense Research Committee during WW-II supervising ~6000 scientists. He initiated the Manhattan Project and ensured that it received top priority from the highest levels of government.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 28/02/2026

Cover of current issue of The Lancet #Medsky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm"

See Editorial page 825

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 12/02/2026

Meta-analysis of 19 DB R trials (N=123,940) comparing statin to placebo revealed that besides the well known effects on muscle outcomes and diabetes, only 4/66 (6%) of listed AEs that had been attributed to statins were found to be significant. #Medsky www.thelancet.com/action/showP...

Figure 1: Effect of statin versus placebo on events listed in statin SmPCs, subdivided by component parts
Results for two outcomes with fewer than ten events are not shown in the figure, but are included in the appendix. FDR=false discovery rate. LFT=liver function test. RBC=red blood cell. RR=rate ratio.
SmPC=Summary of Product Characteristics. *FDR significant at the 5% level; RR for results FDR-significant at the 5% level are indicated by black circles and RR for results not FDR-significant at the
5% level indicated by grey circles. †Excluded from FDR testing; RR for results excluded from FDR testing indicated by white circles.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 22/01/2026

Being cognitively engaged (computer use, driving, reading, or playing games & puzzles) while sitting may support healthy cognitive aging, while excessive passive behaviors (watching TV) may increase risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. #Medsky journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

Pinwheel of all studies reporting association between individual sedentary activities with dementia and cognitive impairment.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 09/01/2026

Several states have stated that they will follow the AAP guidelines for childhood vaccinations rather than HHS’s recommendations that copy Denmark’s. Denmark has universal healthcare and monitoring. Much different than the US. #Medsky dgalerts.docguide.com/article/cert...

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 29/12/2025

Donating your minimum IRA distributions, stocks & bonds, and other appreciated financial assets to HFLA-SA is a perfect way to help others while reducing your tax burden. We wish you a Healthy, Happy, and Prosperous New Year. www.hfla-sa.org/support

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 12/12/2025

The past 3 years are the hottest in weather history, 2025 effectively tied 2023 in second place. You’ll have to squint your eyes to see the difference between 2023 and 2025. The 2025 temperature is only 0.02°F warmer than 2023. weather.com/news/climate...

Global Temperatures Compared To The 1901-2000 Average
(NOAA)

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 02/12/2025

Here are the modeled effects of delaying Hep B vaccinations from <https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.24.25340907v1> cited by SciAm above. The alt text contains the actual text from the Results section of the abstract.

Results All delayed vaccination scenarios resulted in more infections, worse health outcomes, and higher costs than the current universal birth dose recommendation. Under perfect adherence, delaying HepB vaccination by 2 months for infants of HBsAg-negative parents led to an additional 90 acute infections, 75 chronic infections, 29 HBV-related deaths, with $16.4 million in added costs for infants born during one year. Delaying to 12 years resulted in an additional 190 acute infections, 50 deaths, and nearly $30 million in added costs. Delaying HepB vaccination to 12 years for infants of both HBsAg-negative and HBsAg-unknown parents resulted in an additional 2,351 acute infections, 744 deaths, and $368 million in excess costs. Imperfect adherence to the vaccination schedule amplified all negative outcomes substantially. Incorporating pre-vaccination serologic screening for delayed schedules markedly increased total costs.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 18/10/2025

Plenty of protesters in San Antonio! #NoKings

No Kings protest in San Antonio, Texas. Many are wearing costumes and hand-made signs against tyranny.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/10/2025

Ecological overshoots and social foundation undershoots revisited in doughnut diagram update. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Current global status of shortfall and overshoot in the Doughnut of
social and planetary boundaries. Values shown are for 2022. Social wedges
(inner ring) show the status of humanity relative to minimum social standards
and ecological wedges (outer ring) show Earth-system status relative to
planetary boundaries. Red wedges show a shortfall below the social foundation
or an overshoot beyond the ecological ceiling. The grey wedge indicates
missing data. The centre of the plot represents total human deprivation (for the
social indicators) and the pre-industrial Holocene baseline (for the ecological
indicators). Values are proportional to the length of each wedge, which leads to a quadratic scaling of wedge area that may lead some readers to perceive small
changes as more significant than they are. To address this limitation, we
provide Fig. 2 with a bar-chart representation that avoids this quadratic scaling
issue. Wedges with a faded edge extend beyond the chart area. A maximum of
two indicators are included in each social or ecological dimension. Ideally,
there would be no red wedges below the social foundation or above the
ecological ceiling. See Tables 1 and 2 for details on all
of the social and ecological indicators, including their respective boundaries.
Adapted from ref. 2, CC BY 4.0.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 18/09/2025

As the newly rebuilt ACIP meeting sets the new vaccine rules, here is a graph to help interpret the results of their decisions. #Medsky

Graph of Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) vs Basic Reproduction Number (Ro) for different infectious diseases

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 19/08/2025

OpenTable’s restaurant reservations in Washington, DC have dropped 30% since President Trump announced his takeover.

Restaurant reservations have plummeted since President Trump announced D.C. takeover. Online reservations at restaurants in the nation's capital dropped by more than 30% just two days after Trump announced he would take emergency control of police, according to data from OpenTable.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/08/2025

A new version of ChatGTP just dropped today. I asked it to compare all of the available medically-focused AIs for accuracy and references. #Medsky

Table of Medical AIs benchmark performance and referencing.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 12/07/2025

New AI behavioral models to predict changes in health from wearables. #Medsky arxiv.org/pdf/2507.001...

An overview of our approach to solving a wide variety of health detection tasks. We use the Apple Heart and Movement Study to develop a foundation model for irregularly sampled behavioral time series data. We systematically optimize tokenizers and architectures for our dataset to build our final model, and we find that it excels in behavior-driven tasks and provides complementary information to an existing PPG foundation model.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 30/06/2025

Keep up to date with a review of measles just published in NEJM. #Medsky www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Features of measles include Koplik spots on the buccal mucosa (Panel A); rash on the trunk, spreading to the face, head, arms, and legs
(Panel B); and conjunctivitis (Panel C). Day 0 denotes the day the measles rash appears; Day −4 is the probable start of infectiousness,
Day 4 is the probable end of infectiousness, and Day −23 is the earliest possible exposure day (Panel D). CD150+ lymphocytes are T and
B memory lymphocytes targeted by measles vaccine. 3 Cs denotes cough, coryza, and conjunctivitis, and MeV measles virus. Images in
Panels A, B, and C were provided by Du Tuan Quy, M.D., with the approval of Le Nguyen Thanh Nhan, M.D., Ph.D., Children’s Hospital 1,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 30/06/2025

The Senate Budget bill isn’t final, and has larger negative impacts on those less well-off, but based on the House version from ITEP: • Top 1% of Americans receive $121 billion in tax cuts 2026 alone. • Middle 20% receives $56 billion (< half of top) in tax cuts that year. itep.org/analysis-of-...

Quintile distribution of House tax cut proposals.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 03/06/2025

Climate change has large negative impacts on mental health. #Medsky www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 28/05/2025

Is it OK for AI to write science papers? Nature surveyed 5,000 researchers and found contrasting views on when it’s acceptable to involve AI and what needs to be disclosed. #Science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

OPINIONS ABOUT USING AI TO DRAFT DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF A PAPER

Nature's survey asked people to consider the following scenario: "Dr Bloggs uses an Al tool to write a section of a research paper, then edits the results. They don't disclose that they used Al." Respondents showed most concern about using Al for the results section.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 28/05/2025

The sweeping budget reconciliation bill has with a target of $880 billion in federal spending reductions. Medicaid accounts for 93% of mandatory spending authority, so it is at the center of cost-containment efforts. #Medsky www.hmpgloballearningnetwork.com/site/frmc/bl...

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 26/05/2025

Just found a scorpion. I used my usual remedy: take a piece of clear plastic packing tape about 3–4 times the length of the scorpion, press it down on the scorpion, lift it up and the scorpion comes with it, fold the tape over the scorpion, and you are done.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 15/04/2025

The CONSORT 2025 Statement is out, with substantive changes. #Medsky jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...?

Flow diagram of the progress through the phases of a randomized trial of 2 groups (ie, enrollment, intervention allocation, follow-up, and data analysis).

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/04/2025

Vaccines are the most cost-effective and life saving health invention. If you are not sure if you need a booster, ask your pharmacist. Often no appointment is necessary and covered by most insurance. #Medsky

Graph of the introduction of polio vaccine and the reported case rate by year.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 06/04/2025

There really are no words…

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 06/04/2025

Hey hey RFK, How many has your Stupidity killed today

Hands Off Day poster, “Childhood vaccination causes adulthood”

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 27/03/2025

The age-specific dementia prevalence rates have declined by ~2/3rds in the US from 1984 to 2024. The rate of decline is 2.5–3.0%/year across 3 large nationally representative surveys with no slowdown at the end of the 40 years. #Medsky watermark.silverchair.com/jama_stallar...

Age-specific prevalence rates for 6 birth cohorts extracted from
data in panel A (not shown in BlueSky) after interpolation of 1984 to 2024 using age-specific relative rates of decline in effect during that period. The prevalence rates were determined in 2 steps. First, prevalence data were generated for 1989, 1994, and 1999 by interpolating data from panel A between 1984 and 2004; the same was done for 2009, 2014, and 2019 by interpolating between 2004 and 2024. Second, the data for the 6 birth cohorts were then extracted from the diagonals of the data table (age by calendar year) generated in the first step.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 12/03/2025

I look forward to presenting my annual Pipeline presentation at the AAPP Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City. We’ll cover many new and potentially available psychotropic and neurological medications. I hope you can join me.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 05/03/2025

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Al Energy Score project tested dozens of artificial-intelligence models to estimate how much energy they consume when performing various tasks. Plotting the energy required to perform a task 1,000 times shows that energy use varies greatly depending on the task and the model.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 28/02/2025

In a Swedish cohort study, current antidepressant use and higher doses were associated with faster cognitive decline. No causality can be inferred, but caution and careful patient selection is warranted. [open access article] #Medsky bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/02/2025

Coumarin, the active ingredient in turmeric, increases bacterial sensitivity to antibiotics. This requires photo activation which I believe may need a work-around before being clinically utilized. #Medsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79743-y.pdf

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/02/2025

Globally, the annual average for the latest 12-month period (February 2024 to January 2025) was: 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.61°C above the estimated 1850-1900 average used to define the pre-industrial level #Climate climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-...

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 07/02/2025

Protection from COVID reinfections with currently circulating lineages dropped from 80% to 5% after the omicron boosters. New study shows why annual COVID boosters are critical to controlling COVID. arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 06/02/2025

Microplastics in the human brain. Yes, this was autopsy information. #Medsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Figure 2A. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03453-1#citeas

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 24/01/2025

appleinsider.com/articles/19/... Happy 41st Birthday Macintosh! You launched on Jan 24, 1984 and have changed the world ever so slowly, but made the world since unrecognizable.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 20/01/2025

Despite the US oil & gas production being a record high levels today. #47 declared a national energy emergency.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 19/12/2024

www.domo.com/learn/infogr...

Graphic of the traffic on different Internet services from following article.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 08/12/2024

UT Austin is in the College Football Playoffs! Hook’em!

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 27/11/2024

Plastic pollution is in the news with the current talks taking place in Busan, South Korea. If you go to a supposedly clean area plastic litters the beaches. This is from the south shore of Kauai, Hawaii, last week. #plastic #polution

Plastic debris about 1 cm in size littering the beach.

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Steve Saklad @saklad.name · 22/11/2024

This is painfully correct.

Cartoon Panel 1 of 2: He says some crazy things but he really cares about the country.

Cartoon Panel 2 of 2: That, my friend, is how 9 million people went into ovens:

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