The Trends Journal - Vol. XXVII64

TRENDSJOURNAL.COM | FORECASTING SINCE 1980 | VOL.XXVII NO. 64 | 2019

HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS ®

The Gold Bull Run What is the trend?

Are you prepared?

➤ The HI-TECH HEROIN epidemic: It's worldwide and growing worse.

IN THIS ISSUE HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS ® ®

Editor and Publisher Gerald Celente Executive Editor Derek Osenenko Contributing Editors Bennett Daviss Bradford Beckerman Information Technology Bryan Boova Illustrations Anthony Freda Design Creative Circle Media Solutions, East Providence, RI Cover: Shutterstock

All rights reserved. For permission to reproduce or translate material from The Trends Journal®, contact The Trends Research Institute.

The Trends Journal (ISSN 10652094) is published monthly by The Trends Research Institute. ©2019. Globalnomics, Trends Journal, Trend Alert, Trends in The News, History Before it Happens and Presidential Reality Show are registered trademarks of the Trends Research Institute.

The Trends Research Institute P.O. Box 3476 Kingston, NY 12402 845 331-3500 www.trendsresearch.com

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COVER STORY

As forecast: The Gold Bull Run has begun How high, how low can it go? 3 FEATURES

The HI-TECH HEROIN trend Where the smart phone is the most important thing in life 7

As global economy slows, geopolitical tensions rise The world stands ready for war 14

The oil industry's risky future 23 Nuclear fusion Can AI and human scientists create a space-age clean energy in time? 26

Brain loss, brain gain...

Science is getting a grip on Alzheimer's 38

TRENDING

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The human heart in 3d Drinking the bottle along with the water Harvesting metals from the deep ocean floor Cells found that regenerate body parts Anti-heartburn drugs found to cause kidney disease, cancer Microbes make new plastics Zapping memories back to life Vaping can clog your lungs

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CONTRIBUTORS WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON? Each new day seems to bring with it a new geopolitical crisis, one more political debacle, more dire economic warnings, increasing social disturbance or another environmental threat. What does it all mean? What can be done? How will it end?

Gerald Celente’s Trends Journal® is the only magazine in the world that pinpoints how today’s current events form future trends and how they will affect your business, career, family and future… your life.

Founded by a political atheist, agenda- and advertising-free, and beholden to no one, the Trends Journal provides unbiased insights, analysis and forecasts of critical socioeconomic, financial, political, economic, business, consumer/ retail, entertainment, technology, science and other trends that are factbased, data-driven and on the cutting edge.

Gerald Celente’s track record speaks for itself.

He’s been forecasting worldwide since 1980.

No one has been so right, on so many issues, so often! If you want to anticipate change, take proactive measures to seize opportunities and develop profit strategies, subscribe to Trends Journal. Read about “History Before It Happens” from the world leader in trend forecasting.

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Gerald Celente

(“The Gold Bull Run,” p. 3) is the publisher of the Trends Journal and director of the Trends Research Institute, which he founded in 1980. The pioneer trends forecaster is a bestselling author and known throughout the world as a trends analyst with expertise in a variety of areas.

Derek Osenenko

(“HI-TECH HERION,” p. 7, “No hi-tech cures,” p. 12) is the executive editor of the Trends Journal, and

chief executive officer and president of the Trends Research Institute. He has a lengthy history as a senior news-media executive, managing several award-winning newsrooms for major media companies including Dow Jones, Gannett Co., Inc. and GateHouse Media.

Doug Grunther (“Nuclear Fusion,” p. 26, “Brain loss, brain gain,” p. 28) is a popular speaker and radio talk-show host in New York's Hudson Valley region. His show, public engagements and writings focus on spiritual and cultural topics. A

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graduate of Columbia University, his hobbies include food, wine and golf.

Bennett Daviss (“The oil industry's risky future,” p. 23) has been reporting on science, technology, energy and the environment for more than 30 years. His articles have appeared in Discover, Money, Smithsonian and more than 40 other publications on four continents. He makes his home in a part of rural New England where chickens still outnumber electronic devices.

Kurt Nimmo (“As global economy slows, geopolitical tensions rise,” p.

14) writes about geopolitics and current events. He is the former lead editor of Infowars and also previously worked as a content producer for Sibel Edmond’s Newsbud.

Peter Tocci (“The ugly, undeniable physics and biophysics,” p. 10) is a retired massage therapist and wellness consultant with an abiding interest in exploring ‘managed’ history, nefarious covert agendas, and mainstream/mainstreamalternative news-media dereliction, distortion and suppression.

Home of the Trends Research Institute

COVER STORY

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As forecast: The Gold Bull Run has begun How high, how low can it go?

In our 6 June Trend Alert, when gold was $1,332 per ounce, we forecast that a series of converging trend lines, including “weakening economic fundamentals and how central banks will address them — from Australia cutting interest rates to new lows, to China inventing money pumping schemes to artificially inflate falling equities and its sagging economies with cheap money” — would ignite the next Gold Bull Run.

Gerald Celente 3

Gold has jumped to six-year highs, hitting $1,438.63 an ounce in late June and now hovering around the $1,420 an ounce mark on the expectation more central banks will cut rates and introduce other stimulus measures to temporarily and artificially offset the im-

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pact of a sustained global economic slowdown.

While the main driver pushing gold prices higher will be central banks lowering interest rates, gold, the ultimate safe haven asset, has also been pushed higher by geopolitical tensions across the globe,

cover story year low, driving its PMI down to 49.4.

From the U.S.’s PMI falling to its lowest level since Sept. 2009, to the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Japan… PMI rates across the globe are contracting.

Furthermore, from Brazil to South Africa, nations are slumping into recession. In June, the World Bank warned of “a deepening slowdown in global trade, and sluggish investment in emerging and developing economies.”

President Donald J. Trump signs The Taxpayer First Act in the Oval Office flickr

particularly between Iran, Israel, Saudia Arabia, and the U.S. (see Nations on the brink feature in this edition on page 12.)

FOLLOW THE TREND LINE Last October, in our Trends Journal, we stated: “As we have long forecast, the higher U.S. interest rates rise, the lower gold goes. The stronger the dollar becomes, the lower gold goes.

It’s a simple equation. The higher rates increase, they boost the dollar and push up U.S. Treasury yields, making gold a less attractive investment since it does not bear interest.”

When these dynamics reverse course, as we have been forecasting, gold prices will rise. And that’s exactly what is unfolding now.

Specifically, we had maintained that the bottom end of gold was in the $1,200 range and that prices would have to break above $1,450 per ounce to leap back to the $2,000 range it neared in 2011.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN The data don’t lie. Global trade growth has slowed to its lowest rate since the Panic of ’08.

Manufacturing output has reached sustained negative growth rates in many countries. The eurozone’s Purchasing Managers Index dropped to 47.6 in June, the fifth month below 50, a watermark that indicates contraction. In the UK alone, the PMI dropped to 43.1, the lowest mark since 2009.

In China, manufacturing productivity fell to a 104

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IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT INTEREST RATES In our 27 March Trend Alert we forecast that a global economic slowdown and weakening corporate earnings in the U.S., coupled with the fading positive effects of President Donald Trump’s tax bill, would compel the U.S. Federal Reserve “to lower interest rates before economic conditions markedly deteriorate.”

Indeed, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates later this month, signaling that fears the global economic slowdown is sustained.

Australia has cut its interest rate twice in two months to 1 percent, a record low. China is introducing a series of new money schemes, from consumer rebates for purchases of appliances and other items, to record low interest rates on small business construction loans.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has recently indicated more stimulus would be needed if the economic trends stayed the current course, news that drove the euro down 0.5 per cent against the dollar, reaching a low of $1.12 on that day.

With all signs pointing to central bank intervention to boost equity markets and economies with increased flows of cheap money, plus exploding global debt, declining economic growth and geo-political instability, gold, the ultimate safe-haven asset, will increasingly emerge as a sound investment.

In fact, we have repeatedly underscored that when gold starts to move aggressively upward, that trend would signal a more aggressive downturn on the horizon in equity markets and economies.

In our 30 May Trend Alert, we warned: “How severe is the current market turmoil? Watch gold, the safe-haven asset. Stuck in the high $1,200 per ounce trading range, it is not signaling danger ahead. When gold spikes above $1,450 per ounce it will signal true market fears.”

Another indicator to watch is U.S. Treasury Bond yields. The 3-month Treasury bill rate, currently at 2.21 percent, is paying more interest than the 10year Treasury note at 2.07 percent. And the 2-year

cover story Yield curve inversions have occurred before each of the last seven recessions within 5 to 16 months before recession hitting.

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Treasury rate plunged 7.9 basis points in July to 1.82 percent.

Yield curve inversions have occurred before each of the last seven recessions within 5 to 16 months before recession hitting.

Moreover, beyond boosting sagging economies, central banks will aggressively pump more cheap money to keep propping up equity markets. Indeed, when stock markets crash, it’s a signal to the general public that economic disaster is on the near horizon.

MIDDLE EAST WAR DRUMS BEATING LOUDLY One dynamic that has been underscored in our economic forecasts has been the prospects for war with Iran, that have dramatically increased in recent months.

As geopolitical tensions intensify in the oil-rich Middle East – fueled by the crippling economic sanctions President Trump’s administration has imposed on Iran and the blatant, outward threats of military action against the country made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior advisor John Bolton – chances of war are as great as they have been since Trump took office.

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Should tensions escalate further and push crude oil prices up to the $80 - $100 per barrel mark, already fragile economies will decline into recession/depression and equity marks will crash. TJ

TREND FORECAST We have repeatedly stressed that more artificially induced stimulus measures will only temporarily stave off recession while further inflating the $250 trillion global debt bubble, leaving economies more vulnerable to severe downturns that will crash equity markets.

More monetary central bank stimulus, more economic indicators reflecting sustained downward growth worldwide, diminished currency values and rising prospects for war are the ingredients for gold to shine.

On the low end, we forecast gold’s bottom in the $1,270 range. And we maintain our six year forecast, that once gold sustains value above $1,450 per ounce it will then spike to $2,000 plus.

cover story

GOLD: Follow the trends The Trends Journal has consistently and accurately forecast the price of gold based on global economic and equity market trends. Here are some examples from just this year to show how we were ahead of news and on top of the trend.

3 JANUARY 2019 "These worsening economic trend lines could compel the Federal Reserve to not only slow interest hikes, but even cut rates this year. While it would temporarily boost equities again it would lower the value of U.S. currency and weigh favorably on the price of the gold.

Thus, we maintain our forecast that gold remains the ultimate safe haven asset. We had forecast that prices would bottom out at around $1,200 per ounce. They have and now gold is flirting at $1,300 per ounce. When gold solidifies above $1,450 per ounce, we forecast a sharp spike toward $2,000 an ounce."

16 JANUARY 2019 "Exploding global debt, declining economic growth and geopolitical instability – especially in the Middle East and our forecast for the U.S., Brazil and other Lima Group nations to overthrow the government of Venezuela – will push gold prices higher.

Moreover, gold prices will stabilize above the $1,200 range as a matter of supply and demand. All the gold ever mined could fit in a 60-foot cube and discoveries of gold have dramatically tapered off over the last decade and no new discoveries were made since 2017.

Thus, we maintain our forecast that gold's downside is $1,200 per ounce, which has proven accurate, and that gold would have to break above $1,450 per ounce to leap back to the $2,000 range it neared in 2011."

31 JANUARY 2019 "With all signs pointing to central bank intervention to boost equity markets and economies with increased flows of cheap money, plus exploding global debt, declining economic growth and geo-political instability, we forecast gold, the ultimate safe-haven asset, will trend higher.

Currently gold is hovering around $1,320 per ounce.

We maintain our forecast that gold will have to break above $1,450 per ounce to leap back to the $2,000 range it neared in 2011."

6 FEBRUARY 2019 "As evidenced by the building social unrest in Europe, wars and riots throughout Africa, escalating Middle East tensions, the mounting South American migrant crisis and the brewing U.S.-led Venezuelan coup d'etat, there are any number of wild card triggers and black swan events that will crash equity markets and economies worldwide.

In an atmosphere of such instability, demand for gold, the ultimate safe-haven asset, will dramatically increase."

6 MARCH 2019 "In the lead up to U.S. 2020 presidential elections, should the economy dramatically slow and/or markets sink, the Fed will aggressively lower interest rates.

Absent a black swan geopolitical/economic event, gold will be confined to the tight trading range of the past 6 years.

Real Estate markets will remain stable in the U.S. and many nations as central banks lower rates to boost demand.

On the equity market front, again, minus a wild card event, we forecast modest growth with occasional sharp downturns."

6 JUNE 2019 "In an effort to artificially stimulate equities and economies with monetary methadone, nations will in effect devalue their currencies, thus pushing investors to seek safe-haven assets such as gold.

As we have long noted, gold must first pierce the $1,385 an ounce mark to hit the $1,450 break out point, which will then spike gold prices above their 2011 highs."

On the equity market front, again, minus a wild card event, we forecast modest growth with occasional sharp downturns."

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HI-TECH HEROIN

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Double exposure telecommunication mast TV antennas wireless technology with blue sky in the morning with light background.

The HI-TECH HEROIN trend Smart phones? Have they made us addicted to stupidity?

It’s a worldwide mental, physical and social crisis.

It affects virtually every age and socioeconomic group across the globe.

Its debilitating, toxic effects leave no country, no corner of the world, unscathed.

It dually fits the definition of both an addiction and an epidemic, but no drug or 12-step program yet exists to control its wildfire-like spread.

Its the world’s addiction to hi-tech.

The staggering statistics underscoring the ills of alcoholism, opioid abuse, smoking and other modern day addictions, pale in comparison to the depth, range and impact of the hi-tech addiction gripping the world today.

From rich to poor, all races and creeds, educated to uneducated, from two-year-olds to 90-year-olds, more and more of our conscious selves is controlled by our technology, especially that small device that fits in the palm of one’s hand.

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There are 7.7 billion people living on planet earth today and nearly 9 billion mobile phone connections, according to bankycell.com data. And 66 percent of the world’s population are unique cell phone users.

THE GAME CHANGER: SMART PHONES The portability and affordability of the smart phone – for most the gateway to accessing technology that can guide, govern and determine actions ranging from the mundane to redefining what it means to be human – is key to the fast rise of this global epidemic we call, “HI-TECH HEROIN.” Before iPads, smartphones and related technology became mainstream barely a decade ago, there were virtually no studies or analyses that examined how use of these devices would alter the human experience.

There was no way to accurately anticipate how

hi-tech heroin chronic smartphone and other digital technology use would lead to addictive behaviors that would not only increasingly rob us of our humanity, but put the control of how we govern our own lives in the hands of those who created the technology and the corporations and governments who bought it, sold it and shaped it to their interests.

Only now is research catching up to the societal, psychological and emotional ill effects of digital addiction. This technological revolution is not a generation old, yet the unprecedented speed at which technological advances make it to market challenges researchers to gauge and anticipate its impact.

THOSE BLESSED GEEKS In what is still the early stages of an epic and rapidly accelerating technological revolution, we are declaring the geeks, the most anti-social segments of society, the owners of the present and especially the future.

In making “Blessed Are The Geeks,” a Top Trend for 2019, we wrote: “The blessed Geeks have transformed every aspect of 21st century life, and it’s just the beginning. There is virtually no corner of human existence that has not been directly and powerfully affected by the Geek created techno-world.

In 2019, the Blessed Geeks celebrate their overturn of the human experience. The generation now entering adulthood, is primed to engage these fast-evolving technologies across every aspect of their lives.”

Today, now numerous studies are confirming the damaging social and psychological dangers of “HITECH HEROIN.” The personal freedom consumers were promised through this wonderous technology has turned on them, making them slaves to the technology they can’t live without.

CONSUMED, CONTROLLED BY TECH According to Psychology Today, 40 percent of the American population is clinically addicted to smart phones. Moreover, 48 percent of men and 47 percent of women who are addicted live with Nomophobia, a fear of losing or not having their cell phone.

The addiction is characterized by these traits: • An incessant need to be connected to the technology during all waking hours.

• Many HI-TECH HEROIN addicts sleep with their 8

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cell phone within grabbing range and/or use a mobile device while in the bathroom.

• They use this technology to increasingly avoid person-to-person social situations and instead engage through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other number of social platforms.

• Addicts play online games for hours each day and when they’re forced to stop playing games, they experience anxiety, make that withdrawal.

GEN Z: THE FUTURE OF HI-TECH HEROIN To understand how this addiction will evolve in the years ahead, we need look no further than Generation Z, those born roughly between 1995 and 2005, and the first generation to grow up not knowing a world without digital devices.

Generation Z spends an average of 3 hours 38 minutes online on smartphones, almost 50 minutes longer than the average Internet user. They were born into a world with around the clock access to that super computer in the sky from the palm of their hands. As a result, they communicate, make decisions, learn, engage, buy, sell and navigate their world by pecking away on their iPhone.

According to Pew Center data: • 81 percent of Zers say text messaging is their top mobile phone activity.

• More than 50 percent are downloading apps, playing preinstalled games and mobile internet/accessing websites.

• Another 46 percent are video calling.

• 66 percent of Generation Z lists gaming as their main hobby.

• 92 percent of Generation Z college students have access to Netflix and 38 percent of Generation Z consume daily video via Netflix.

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The HI-TECH HEROIN addiction effects not only our waking lives but as we sleep.

hi-tech heroin • 91 percent of Generation Z have their digital devices in bed in the evening.

• To further show the HI-TECH Heroin effects, 40 percent of Generation Z say working Wi-Fi is more important to them than working bathrooms. And over 30 percent would rather go three days without a shower than go a week without their phone.

BAD FOR THE BRAIN, SPIRIT AND BODY The most significant health hazards emerging from this tech-dominated world are related to the effects on bio chemistry, immune-system response, and DNA replication in humans.

Of particular concern is the safety guidelines governing the expansion of 5G are based on a 1996 study of the extent to which a cell phone heated the head of a plastic mannequin, even though hundreds of studies worldwide are showing that the health hazards of cell phone technology are massive. (see story on page 12 to understand how this technology damages not only individual health but the environment’s as well.)

Beyond bodily health hazards, the danger of tech addictions are now making their way into mental health lexicon, helping professionals to identify and classify various types of tech addiction.

For example, the World Health Organization has labeled video/digital game addictions a mental health disorder: “… a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior” so severe it “takes precedence over other life interests”.

The WHO designation is the first to officially identify an aspect of excessive technological dependence as a mental health disorder, though in just the last five years, there has been an explosion of studies and warnings demonstrating the growing dangers of HITECH HEROIN.

TRENDPOST The HI-TECH HEROIN trend will only grow. In identifying GEN Z = GEN ZERO as a top trend for 2019, we wrote: “What will define this generation is its over reliance on digital communication, missing opportunities for selfexpression, creative thinking and collaborative endeavors that emerge from human dynamics and interaction.”

Indeed, all the data point to a mechanized, digitalized and dehumanized trend taking hold, especially when a majority of Gen Z and Gen Y, the younger and up and coming generation, refer to their smart phones as the “most important thing in their life.”

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A study by the Common Sense Media Center found that 26 percent of parents of teens said they used a mobile device, within five minutes of going to sleep, and acknowledged waking up to check the device at least once during the night. The rates were higher among teenagers: 40 percent said they used a device within five minutes of going to sleep; 36 percent admitted to waking up to check a device; and 32 percent said they used a device within five minutes of waking up.

THE DEATH OF SEX Just as alcoholics and drug addicts have less sex, so do hi-tech abusers.

The Archives of Sexual Behavior reports that millennials in their 20’s and 30’s in the U.S., along with teenage Generation Z are having sex less often than their parents and grandparents did when they were young.

The trend follows studies worldwide, including Great Britain, Finland, Sweden, Holland, Japan, and Australia, demonstrating how technology addiction is wiping away the need for human contact, including intimate relationships.

Half of 20-somethings in the U.S. have not had sex in the last year; one in three have never had sex.

And the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey finds that the percentage of high-school students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54 to 40 percent in just the last five years.

LAZY, FAT AND SICK Another health hazard: dozens of studies are now showing that obsessions with digital devices has users sitting down more often, exercising less and developing poor eating habits.

One study, by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), found that between 2007 and 2015 the amount of time teens and adults spent in front of a computer screen remained essentially flat. But in 2016 one hour more was spent watching videos, texting, googling, etc. than in 2007.

New data show that for the first time, consumers in the U.S. will spend more time on their smart phones or similar devices than watching TV. And numerous studies are correlating these behavioral patterns with increased rates of cardiovascular diseases, chronic fatigue, depression and more. TJ

hi-tech heroin

Tired woman working at office desk in front of laptop suffering from chronic daily headaches from computer.

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The ugly, undeniable physics and biophysics Decades of science showing how cell phone technology is killing you

By Peter Tocci

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Many organizations/sites sharing warnings about the wireless health threat have names like ‘such-and-such for responsible technology.’ Or ‘safe technology.’ Or ‘safer.’ This article suggests that the physics and biophysics indicate that all such and similar names are deceptions.

Maybe it’s not all controlled opposition, but wittingly or not, these entities flirt with terminal disaster by perpetuating the threat. They suggest we dance with the 2G-4G devil, but ‘OMG,’ 5G must go!

The physics/biophysics are unforgiving, however.

2G-4G is a quite sufficiently terminal nightmare. If we can relinquish 2G-4G, 5G will collapse. If we can’t, let 5G develop, it will mercifully shorten the coming agony.

THE PHYSICS As the name implies (artificial) electromagnetic radiation (EMR) used in wireless systems has electric and magnetic components. It’s commonly described by wavelength and frequency.

Wavelength is the distance in meters between where the shape of the wave starts and where it 10

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begins to repeat. Frequency is how often the shape repeats. It’s measured in cycles per second, or “hertz” (Hz). One Hz is one repetition, or cycle, per second.

Wireless systems use microwave EMR, “micro” meaning short. Definitions vary, but it’s generally considered to have wavelengths between 1 meter and 1 millimeter, with frequencies from millions of hertz (MHz) to billions (GHz): 300MHz to 300GHz. Cellular frequencies, commonly 700MHz to 2.5GHz (WiFi 5GHz also) provide for large amounts of data at speed. Transmitted waves are called “carrier” frequencies, because frequency changes are added to the wave, creating signal pulses. These contain the data.

The first mobile phones (1983-4) were ‘analog’ - the real shape of the wave going from transmitter to receiver. Using pulsed digital frequencies, 2G was

hi-tech heroin Life forms are highly susceptible to artificial electromagnetic fields (EMFs) because life forms produce and operate on minute levels of natural electromagnetics. introduced in the US in 1992-3. Health issues arose shortly thereafter.

Beginning in the 1950’s, pulsed microwave was tested in military stealth-weapon research. Specific pulse rates were found to induce specific diseases.

The pathological effects were also well understood in the scientific community by the mid-1970’s. Many thousands of studies now exist.

With knowledge of harm in place, then, weapon technology was adapted virtually unchanged to 2G mobile telecom, except that weapons emit much less power than towers, cell phones and WiFi, and that the latter radiations are randomly pulsed by data packets.

“Physics-speaking,” it comes down to this: For bandwidth and speed, digital microwave is needed.

TRENDPOST “Biophysics-speaking,” it comes down to this: The combination of extreme sensitivity and cumulative effect means there can be no safe wireless technology. Now, if you could find a power level at which pulsing and voltage influence had no effect — forever, for all life — power would be too low for the system to function.

“I ask for any scientist(s) from industry / government to ‘humiliate’ me live ‘on-air’ with their expert knowledge by answering one question: ‘What is the safe level of microwave irradiation for the ovarian follicles during the first 100 days development of the embryo?”

— Barrie Trower, PhD, Wi-Fi – A Thalidomide in the Making. Who Cares?

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For data itself, pulsing is needed.

THE BIO-PHYSICS Life forms are highly susceptible to artificial electromagnetic fields (EMFs) because life forms produce and operate on minute levels of natural electromagnetics.

The FCC radiation exposure limit (thermal/tissue heating) is expressed in milliwatts (mW, a thousandth of a watt) per square centimeter. As of this writing, it’s .2 mW/cm2. Two tenths of a thousandth of a watt.

The non-thermal exposure limit suggested after review of existing science, collated and summarized in the 2007 BioInitiative Report (BR, 2000 studies), was one tenth of a microwatt (μW, a millionth of a watt) per square centimeter - .1 μW/cm2. By 2012 BR (1800 additional studies and updated in 2019) it became 0.003 μW/cm2 to 0.006 μW/cm2.

Thus, the FCC thermal limit - 200 μW/cm2 - is about 670,000 times higher than the lower BR nonthermal limit. The point, however, is that below heating, and at all non-thermal levels, transmitted power is virtually irrelevant.

NOTE: The BR calls in vain for “...a biologically-based public exposure standard...” It’s cited here only to demonstrate the existence of independent science FCC say doesn’t exist or is “inconclusive.”

So, pulsed microwave somewhere between one tenth of one millionth of a watt and three thousandths of one millionth of a watt has harmful effect.

Such figures indicate the sensitivity of biological systems. Also, with 2G-4G wavelengths, the square centimeter is a ‘tube’ going through your body (billions of cells).

Transport channels in cell membranes react defensively to non-thermal 2G-4G pulse frequencies, and will shut down. A special channels called “Voltage Gated Calcium Channel” is controlled by the membrane’s “voltage sensor.” Pulsed EMR disrupts it and excess calcium flows in, creating a severe imbalance.

Since any body cell is susceptible in both cases, the range of potential effects is impressive.

Pulses must exist at all power levels for data, including ‘biologically based’ exposure limits called for

hi-tech heroin by many ‘concerned’ scientists. The FCC lie about thermal-only harm that underlies its “exposure limit” avoids the pulsing issue. The term for this is scientific fraud.

CUMULATIVE EFFECTS Like sensitivity, this is absolutely critical. Felt or not, effects can occur any time during or after exposure (there’s normally no escape) and build up over time. Using animals with short life spans, scientists have ‘guesstimated’ the ultimate termination of human reproduction in a few generations.

Some scientists say more research is needed.

Academically perhaps. Scientifically speaking, sanity prevailing, however, only one repeatable study showing harm was sufficient to have said, “Wait” originally. Also, without a moratorium (right!), 2G-4G effects bio-accumulate. Meanwhile, the existing sinister violation of the Nuremberg Code–informed consent to be experimented on–will persist. Meanwhile also, torture of lab animals will continue.

“Scientists at the end of WW II were hanged for what scientists are doing today and getting away with.”— physicist Barrie Trower, PhD, microwave expert TJ

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No hi-tech cures Millennials on course to become sickest generation

While Generation Z, those born between 1996 and 2010, is the first generation whose connection to the world around them is principally defined by the smart phone, it was Millennials who ushered in powerful technologies – the Internet of Things, smart phones, Alexa, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence etc. – that have built the foundation the Hi-Tech addictions now inflicting societies worldwide.

And new studies are beginning to show a price is being paid for their hi-tech obsessions.

The data are beginning to demonstrate how lifestyle patterns driven by technology, especially reliance on cell phones to navigate life, are correlating to a growing number physical and mental issues.

More precisely put, U.S. Millennials – the roughly 73 million people born between 1981 and 1996 – are 12

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sick and getting sicker.

That’s the conclusion of a study released in April

by Blue Cross Blue Shield after looking at the health records of about 55 million millennials who have private health insurance.

TECHNOLOGY, HEALTH AND DEATH According to the study, Millennials show distinctly

hi-tech heroin Millennials’ dependency on smart phones, social media and the internet has been quietly but steadily creating a generation of social misfits. worse trends in eight of the ten most serious chronic conditions than the preceding Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980. These health conditions are impacting Millennials beginning at about age 27.

Millennials are showing steady and dramatic increases in major depression, hyperactivity, and type 2 diabetes and also a rise in hypertension, high cholesterol, substance abuse, and psychosis. Most of these are “lifestyle” illnesses and women are 20 percent more likely to be affected than men.

Compared to the older Generation X when those folks were the same age, Millennials are 18 percent more likely to suffer from depression, 12 percent more likely to be addicted to drugs, and 19 percent more likely to have diabetes.

Millennials’ dependency on smart phones, social media and the internet has been quietly but steadily creating a generation of social misfits who sooner or later pay the price for their lack of human engagement.

A survey of 1,000 millennials by the Bank of America found that 40 percent of them said they interact more with their cell phones than people.

Other studies have shown the lack of social skills causes depression, which creates escape routes from drug and alcohol addiction, to poor eating habits and a lack of self esteem and self identity Indeed, “deaths of despair” are increasing among millennials. In 2017, suicide and overdoses claimed the lives of 36,000 millennials in the U.S. While several factors contribute to these alarming trends – student loan debt, joblessness, lack of opportunity, poor living conditions, etc. – a growing number of studies show because millennials seek refuge in their technology, they’re ill-equipped to face and conquer other life challenges.

As Baby Boomers die away, millennials are poised to become the largest U.S. population group. If their health outlook doesn’t improve, the demands on the U.S. health care system could push health insurance premiums beyond affordability if current fee-forservice medicine and a reliance on drugs persist. TJ

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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Millennials are suffereing depression at a higher rate than other generations.

TREND FORECAST The plight of millennials will intensify among Generation Zers, who are the first generation raised in the War on Terror and Panic of ’08 fears … fear of no money coming in, fear of a terrorist attack, fear that the institutions that bind their world will crumble before them.

Hiding in their devices is a good way to escape the uncertain world around them.

A growing number of teens, about a third, prefer communication through texting, Instagramming and other social media because it’s safe and something they can control.

They are primed to intensify the lack of human engagement millennials experience that will play a major role in driving physical and mental health issues ahead.

ON THE BRINK

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As global economy slows, geopolitical tensions rise

A Globalnomic® view of current world events

By Kurt Nimmo CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In this edition of the Trends Journal we highlight several of the hot spots around the globe where the public is rising up against long established rulers while other nations are being targeted by foreign governments in the never-ending battle of regime change based on any pretext that media can sell and the public will buy.

As the global economy slows, the natives, especially those in already impoverished nations, have taken to the streets demanding the departure of their rulers and calls for new government systems.

And even in Hong Kong, one of the economically 14

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richest spots on the planet, millions have taken to the streets to protest new laws imposed by their Chinese masters, understanding that if they don’t stand up and speak out, their freedom will be lost.

Here’s the Globalnomic® assessment of the prospects for war.

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Members of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Flickr

In the 1990s, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire under military officer Mobutu Sese Seko between 1971 and 1997, was at the center of “Africa’s War,” a multi-nation conflict that claimed the lives of 6 million people.

Mobutu established a military-backed kleptocracy and amassed a large personal fortune through corruption, which led to the collapse of the economy.

Following independence from Belgium in 1960, Mobutu came to power during a military coup in 1965. An army mutiny soon after independence resulted in the assassination of the nation’s first elected leader, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The CIA had first attempted to poison Lumumba, and later arranged his assassination.

Political, social, and economic instability from the “Africa War” of the 1990s reverberate throughout the country today, primarily in the eastern provinces.

According to The UN Refugee Agency, as of August 2018 the DRC hosted more than 536,000 refugees and 4.5 million people displaced. In June alone, tribal warfare displaced more than 300,000 people.

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The DRC is the second poorest nation in the world despite its abundance of natural resources. The average annual wage is less than $800. Over 80 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 per day.

Mobutu was followed by two other corrupt leaders, namely Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his son Joseph Kabila, both who were assassinated.

The current Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, has struggled to contain an influx of Islamic militants, eliminate widespread corruption, and reduce tribal conflict. And armed groups have pillaged the nation’s resources, including gold, diamonds and oil.

Algeria This oil-rich nation in the Maghreb region of North Africa is wracked by ongoing political and economic turmoil. One third of the population exists in poverty. It is estimated an additional 10 percent will fall into poverty if the economic situation does not improve.

In February, massive protests, labeled “The Smile Revolution” under the banner of “bread, freedom and social justice” erupted days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had been in power since 1999 and following a series of strokes had not made a public

on the brink appearance since 2014.

These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War in the 1950’s, have been peaceful and led the military to insist on Bouteflika’s immediate resignation, which took place on 2 April 2019.

In 2013, the armed conflict in neighboring Mali threatened to swamp and destabilize Algeria with refugees and violence. The previous year, France launched Operation Serval under the guise of defeating militants in North Mali. Both Algeria and Mali are former French colonies.

With armed ethnic groups on the rise and a surge of violence this year in Mali, more than 160,000 people have been displaced by ethnic fighting.

In 1957, French geologists discovered uranium at Azelik in Niger, making the country the fourth-largest producer of uranium. In 2013, France’s Foreign Legion intervened in Niger to secure uranium mines operated by the French state-owned nuclear power company Areva.

Sudan Sudan consists of two countries, Sudan in the north and South Sudan. President Barack Obama granted U.S. recognition of South Sudan as an independent state after it formally seceded from the north in 2011.

Barely reported in the western media, since 2003,

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UNHCR staff assist refugees arriving at the Doro camp in South Sudan, close to the border with neighbouring Sudan. Nearly 50,000 refugees have arrived here in recent months.

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Algeria 2019 Protests

conflict in the Darfur in the north has included largescale genocide, forcing millions from their homes and resulting in the death of around 200,000 people.

In 2013, nearly five million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. The conflict occurred after the government was accused of oppressing the non-Arab population of the region. The government responded by conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Darfur region.

Former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had previously turned to China, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and Russia for assistance after the United States imposed sanctions related to human rights abuses in the Darfur region.

On 19 June 2019, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court demanded al-Bashir stand trial for mass killings perpetrated in Darfur.

North Sudan has experienced serious political conflict and social uprisings over the past several months.

On 14 June North Sudan’s ruling military council had ordered an attack on pro-democracy protesters which killed 120 people.

Subsequently, the military and a pro-democracy coalition agreed in early July on a joint sovereign council that will rule for three years while elections are organized.

According to The Associated Press, both sides said outside pressure from the United State helped broker the deal.

on the brink South Sudan. Last year, it was estimated more than six million people in South Sudan didn’t have enough food to sustain themselves. In 2017, the United Nations declared a famine in parts of the country. In addition, between 2014 and 2015, more than a million and a half people were displaced due to conflict, 800,000 ultimately seeking refuge

in neighboring Uganda. In 2009, then President Obama and NATO established a military presence in South Sudan. Obama signed an executive order lifting sanctions against the country.

South Sudan produces 85 percent of Sudanese oil output. This production constitutes more than 98 percent of the government of South Sudan’s budget.

Yemeni soldier shoots Houthi militias, south of Yemen in the city of Taiz Shutterstock

Yemen The political uprising against Ali Abdullah Saleh, who served as the first President of Yemen since its unification in 1990, erupted during the 2011 Arab Spring.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia initiated warfare in Yemen after pro-Saudi and pro-American president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the sole candidate who they appointed to replace Saleh, was ousted by a Houthi faction in response to economic and political crises ripping the nation.

Announced by the Saudi Ambassador to the United States in a telecast from Washington D.C., the Yemen war – supported by the Obama administration and still supported by the Trump administration, both whom have sold Saudi Arabia billions of dollars of munitions – has destroyed Yemen’s economy and infrastructure.

Considered the worse humanitarian crisis in the

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world, it is estimated that 92,000 Yemenis have been killed and that some 20 million are at risk of malnutrition and starvation– including over three million children.

Child malnutrition rates are the highest in the world. Half the children under the age of five suffer from stunted growth, according to the Borgen Project.

In addition to famine, Yemen has suffered a serious outbreak of cholera. According to UNICEF, Saudi coalition airstrikes have targeted water supplies in the country.

The United States has cooperated with the Saudis in a naval, air, and land blockade, thus extending the current famine, described by the Norwegian Refugee Council to be of “biblical proportions.”

In April, Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution that would have put an end to U.S. support of the Saudi war.

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Lebanon This Mediterranean nation created by French Mandate in 1920 under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI has long been a key hotspot for regional tension and conflict, due in large part to a French attempt to carve up the region along ethnic and religious lines.

Full-scale sectarian violence resulted in civil war in 1975. This conflict pitted Christian groups against Druze, Muslim, and Palestinian militias, the latter refugees from Palestine following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Political tension and sectarian violence were further exacerbated by an Israeli invasion in 1982, allegedly in response to PLO attacks in northern Israel.

The Israeli invasion and repressive treatment of Shia Muslims resulted in the formation of Hezbollah, which later became an integral part of the Lebanese government. Israel and the United States consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Many Lebanese, however, consider Hezbollah a militia organized to prevent Israeli aggression and encroachment.

In 2006, Israel launched an invasion of Southern Lebanon in an effort to destroy Hezbollah. This effort failed and further emboldened the Shia organization.

According to F. William Engdahl and others, current tension between Israel and Lebanon center on the 2010 discovery of significant natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel considers Lebanon’s exploration within the so-called Leviathan Gas Field provocative.

Fighters of the al-Bab military council wikimedia

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Map showing the Blue Line demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, established by the UN after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 1978.

Israel’s response followed a formal ceremony between petroleum giant Total, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, ENI, and Russia’s Novatek.

Agreements were signed to drill for oil and gas in the offshore sector claimed as part of Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

Syria The devastating Syrian Civil War has had a large impact on global politics and social issues. It is largely responsible for an influx of refugees in Europe, The war against Syria followed the United States, France, UK, the Arab League and NATO partners overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan government in 2011.

The CIA then sent the jihadi groups that they had armed in Libya following Gaddafi’s death, to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government of Syria.

The humanitarian crisis produced by the war rivals the crisis in Yemen. Approximately half the population is displaced and many refugees have fled to neighboring countries and Europe. More than 13 mil-

on the brink lion people require humanitarian assistance.

As of March 2018, according to Human Rights Watch, 511,000 people were killed in Syria. The US military warfare has killed thousands of civilians and destroyed crucial infrastructure. In Raqqa alone, US bombing raids have turned the city into rubble, and killed 1,600 civilians.

Syrian and Russian attacks have also killed many civilians, as have those conducted by Turkey against the Kurds.

The US, the EU, the Arab League, and the UN continue to impose economic sanctions on Syria, thus worsening the humanitarian crisis. Aid agencies report sanctions have prevented much needed medicine and other humanitarian aid from reaching

the country.

According to UNICEF, as of February 2019 nearly 12 million Syrians were in need of humanitarian assistance, more than five million of them children.

Moreover, 13 million Syrians are displaced, about sixin-ten of Syria’s pre-conflict population, according to Pew Research Center.

This has resulted in a large refugee crisis in neighboring Iraq, Jordan, and primarily Europe where an estimated one million or more Syrians have fled to escape the conflict. This mass migration has resulted in social and political problems in European countries, including the rise of anti-immigration political groups.

Iran

Iranian missile launches from its underground silo launch facility, 3D rendering

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Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the US and later the EU imposed a series of sanctions on Iran, most targeting its energy sector. In addition, more than $12 billion in Iranian assets were frozen.

By 2012, international sanctions resulted in Iran’s rial reaching a record low against the US dollar and losing 80 percent of its value. Sanctions on crude oil and a loss of revenue from this resource resulted in the country’s budget deficit reaching between $30 and $50 billion that year.

A United Nations report issued in 2014 revealed between 44.5 percent and 55 percent of Iran’s urban population lives below the poverty line. The average monthly income, according to the report, was the equivalent of around $600 US for a family of five people. Iran has 10.4 percent unemployment and 10.5 percent inflation.

Economic sanctions

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and an embargo were lifted in 2015 as a result of the framework for a Comprehensive Agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.

However, in May of 2018, President Trump withdrew from the agreement and sanctions were reimposed. The US Treasury hit Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company with economic sanctions due to its ties with the country’s Revolutionary Guards, which the US now designates as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Trump administration’s confrontational approach and a contentious response by Iran’s ruling mullahs will likely prevent meaningful diplomatic progress between the two nations for the foreseeable future.

A series of events elevated the conflict between Iran and the US. In June, two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, immediately blamed Iran for the incident despite a lack of evidence.

The previous month, it was reported tankers were attacked in the UAE port of Fujairah. Again, there wasn’t any evidence the Iranians were involved.

Both incidents resulted in the US sending additional warships and troops to the region. The Pentagon produced a video and photographs of an Iranian outboard motor boat alongside what appeared to be the hull of a tanker and this was widely criticized as insufficient evidence.

On 20 June, the Iranians said they had downed a US military Broad

on the brink Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator drone over Iranian territory. The US disputed this and insisted the spy drone was operating in international air space when attacked.

President Trump said he has not ruled out an air strike in response to the drone shoot down. Asked by the media what his response would be, Trump replied, “You’ll soon find out.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the US of engaging in “economic terrorism”

and covert operations against Iran. Zarif added the US had encroached on Iranian territory.

On 20 June, Donald Trump responded to the drone incident by arranging an attack, only to order a stand-down moments before the plan was set in motion. Shortly thereafter, President Trump imposed additional sanctions on Iran. As a result of this growing crisis, oil prices have moved up from their recent lows and gold prices, in part, have risen as investors seek safe haven assets.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin with Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un kremlin.ru

North Korea The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea since 1948.

This hereditary cult of personality survived the Korean War which left much of the North decimated.

The US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm on the Korean peninsula, more than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II. Gen. Curtis LeMay admitted the US had killed nearly 30 percent of the population. Three million civilians were killed.

The Korean War fostered an intense hatred of America. This explains in part the diplomatic intransigence of the regime and efforts to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs some observers believe are capable of striking the Western US. The North Korean state has seriously curtailed the basic liberties of its people. Political opposition and independent media are not permitted. Those 20

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opposed to the regime face severe repression, often resulting in torture and execution.

It is estimated 24 million people, 40 percent of the population, live below the poverty level. Due to the country’s isolation, there are serious food shortages.

North Korea suffered four years of famine in the 1990s.

On 20 June, China’s President Xi Jinping met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during the first Chinese state visit to Pyongyang in 14 years. That visit was followed by a historic meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un on 30 June, when each president stepped over the border at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean Peninsula in late June; Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot on North Korean soil.

We forecast that President Trump will boost his

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Millions of Venezuelans marching on 20 May 2017 during the We Are Millions march wikimedia

chances to again win the Presidential Reality® Show by signing a peace treaty with North Korea (and Afghanistan) prior to Election Day 2020.

Venezuela

This South American nation on the Caribbean is currently mired in an economic collapse, due in part to economic failures compounded by economic sanctions.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but due to sanctions imposed on its energy sector and a drop in crude oil prices it is now a failed state unable to serve its people.

A recent study found nearly 90 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty. According to the opposition-led National Assembly, prices in Venezuela rose 4,068 percent in 2018. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2016 it cost $150 to buy a dozen eggs.

In May, it was reported Venezuela’s inflation rate had spiraled to 25,000 percent and its annual rate of inflation is running at 99,900 percent. The situation is so critical the Maduro government rolled out new currency bills. 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000 Bolívar bills began circulating on June 13.

Although Venezuela has not released an official unemployment rate since 2016, it is estimated the rate in 2019 will be 44 percent.

Large numbers of people have fled the country to escape dire conditions. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, put the number at 4 million as of June.

In 2017 Human Rights Watch reported the Chávez and Maduro regimes engaged in violent repression of street protests, jailed opponents, and prosecuted civilians in military courts.

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Large numbers of people have fled the country to escape dire conditions.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, put the number at 4 million as of June. coups during the reign of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro. The US claims Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will party is the legitimate president of the country. This claim is rejected by most Venezuelans. Military defections encouraged by Guaidó in March were largely unsuccessful.

Members of Guaidó’s team are under investigation for allegedly embezzling money earmarked to help defecting soldiers in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta.

Following Vice President Mike Pence’s threats leveled against Venezuela during a meeting of the Lima Group in Bogotá in February, Colombian President Iván Duque said, “If you’re living in a condo and every single night your neighbor next door beats his wife and his children and you hear the screams, wall to wall, what should your moral attitude be?” Duque answered his question by saying, “Our moral duty has to be to push Maduro out of power.”

This U.S. led coup attempt engineered by Washington has failed and Guaidó’s support among the Venezuelan population has greatly diminished.

While out of the mainstream media, additional U.S. action to overthrow the Maduro government may well be in the making.

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Cuba Fidel Castro’s Cuba has been in the crosshairs of US regime change efforts since the Cuban Revolution in 1958.

After the US-supported failed Bay of Pigs military operation in 1959, the CIA partnered with the Mafia, who had a dominant presence in Havana, to assassinate Castro. The plots were revealed in the mid-1970s by the Church Committee. These ran the gamut from snipers to an exploding cigar.

Following the revolution, Castro and his associates formed an effective police state. Cubans demanding political and civil liberties were denounced as enemies of the state.

The government continues to harass and arbitrarily detain opponents. All media outlets on the island nation of nearly 12 million people are controlled by the communist regime in Havana. Journalists are often criminally charged for not asking the state for permission to write and publish.

In 2014, President Obama announced the “Cuban thaw,” the normalization of relations between the two nations. Cuba was subsequently removed

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Cuban military truck in Havana

from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. An embargo put into place by the Eisenhower administration in 1958 was eased and Cuba was allowed to establish bank accounts in the United States.

The Cuban thaw, however, was short-lived. On June 16, 2017, President Donald Trump canceled the Obama deal with Cuba. Previous business and travel restrictions were re-imposed on November 8.

Since that time, the US has threatened military action and additional sanctions on Cuba, in part due to its relationship with Venezuela.

Nicaragua: The "Troika of Tyranny."

Nicaragua protests wikimedia

Nicaragua The Central American nation of Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America, followed

by Haiti. Forty-three percent of the population live in rural areas and 68 percent survive on a little over $1 per day. 46.2 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the Borgen Project.

Nicaragua underwent a revolution that overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979. The

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Somoza dynasty had ruled Nicaragua since 1912, following a US military occupation to protect corporate agriculture interests.

Under the communist Sandinista regime, Nicaragua’s GDP has decreased to one-third of what it was in 1977. This is due primarily to continued civil strife, trade embargoes, and unsustainable macroeconomic policies under a centrally managed economy.

The CIA’s proxy force, the Contras, were unable to overthrow the Sandinista regime in Managua. In 2016, incumbent president Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista National Liberation Front won the national election by wide margin.

Violent anti-government protests wracked the country after Ortega’s reelection. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2018 imposing additional sanctions on the Nicaraguan government.

He characterized Nicaragua as a national security threat.

In November 2018, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, characterized Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua as a “Troika of Tyranny.” TJ

NEW ENERGY

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Charging modern electric cars (new energy vehicles, NEV) on the street station

The oil industry's risky future Fossil fuels, new energy… What’s the trend?

By Bennett Daviss and Derek Osenenko CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Over the next two decades, the need for petroleum-based motor fuels – now half or more of the oil industry’s market – will shrink faster than the Antarctic’s ice sheet. The oil industry has acknowledged this looming reality but, as a whole isn’t terribly concerned.

But why not? There’s a lot for oil producers to worry about: The coming of the electric car. Bloomberg News Energy Finance forecasts that electric car sales will grow from 1.1 million in 2017 to 11 million in 2025 and then 30 million by 2030; at that point, EVs will be cheaper to produce, and buy, than gas buggies. By 2040, EVs are forecast to take 55 percent of the global 23

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car market. Also, EVs are likely to remain on the road longer because they have a tenth or fewer moving parts than petrol-powered cars do.

France, the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, and India are among the countries that have banned the sale of internal combustion vehicles after 2030, with cities from Barcelona to Vancouver making similar moves. In China, people wanting to buy a gasolinepowered car have to enter a lottery and face odds of winning of one in 200. Now, at a November 2018 conference, Volkswagen announced its working on its last generation of strictly internal combustion cars: in the future, all VWs will be either hybrids or all-electric.

It’s not just cars. The International Energy

new energy The analysis firm MarketResearchNest expects to see the electric truck market grow by 54 percent a year for at least the next five years. That’s a lot of diesel that oil refiners will no longer be selling.

Agency foresees 125 million electric cars, buses, trucks, scooters, jitneys, and all forms of EVs on the world’s roads by 2030; the agency thinks that number could rise to 220 million if nations’ policies and regulations address air quality more aggressively.

Already, cities from Cape Town to Copenhagen, as well as London, Paris, and other regional metro centers, are swapping out diesel buses for electrics.

The US Department of Transportation has set aside $84 million in grants to fund 52 electric bus transition projects in 41 states.

Daimler and Tesla are building electric long-haul trucks – Tesla is gearing up to deliver 100,000 a year by 2022 – but they’re not alone. DHL, the worldwide delivery company and the world’s largest buyer of trucks, has launched its own EV manufacturing venture. Chinese maker BYD has delivered 500 electric garbage trucks in its home country and 200 to Brazil.

The analysis firm MarketResearchNest expects to see the electric truck market grow by 54 percent a year for at least the next five years. That’s a lot of diesel that oil refiners will no longer be selling.

The arrival of the Age of Renewable Fuels. A November 2018 report from Lazard, the global asset management firm, stated that utility-scale solar and wind projects, in the aggregate, now make electricity as cheaply as, or more cheaply than, oil, gas, or coal plants. Onshore wind farms deliver power at a cost of $29 per megawatt-hour (MWh), with solar and coal averaging around $36, the report found.

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said in an October 2018 town hall meeting that the bank’s by-laws require it to fund the lowest-cost option for energy projects and “renewables have now come below the cost of oil, gas, and coal.” In that same month, a statement by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development noted that “renewables are now the cheapest energy source.”

The combination of economics and environmental marketing has led Xcel Energy, a utility serving eight states, to pledge to use renewable fuels to go carbon neutral by 2050 and get 80 percent of the way there by 2030.

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fossils’ role as the fuel of choice for making electricity or heating and cooling. Rooftop solar panels for homes have plunged in price from almost $12 per kilowatt-hour in 2000 to less than $3 by June 2018, according to the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Peak Oil is about to arrive. According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2018, we’re likely passing the point of “peak oil” – the point at which oil companies are adding less oil to their reserves than they’re pumping. That doesn’t mean we’re facing an imminent oil shortage; oil companies have more than 50 years’ worth of proven reserves on hand. But it does signal oil’s official transition to a sunset industry.

In a nod to this future, oil companies are dabbling in alternative energy. ExxonMobil is actively looking for clean-energy start-ups to buy into; British Petroleum has partnered in projects that turn biomass into fuels and owns shares in wind projects in the US and Europe. Shell and Saudi Aramco have partnered to create a green energy investment fund; Total Petroleum, France’s national oil company, is aiming to become a global player in solar generation and storage technology.

Royal Dutch Shell is devoting $1 billion a year to building its renewable energy portfolio. But that’s still only about 4 percent of its annual capital budget. At a recent conference, Shell’s CEO assured the audience that his company isn’t “going soft” on oil and gas, According to Henry Lee, Director of Harvard University’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and former director of Massachusetts’ state energy office, the oil industry as a whole is “concerned but not panicked” about these changes. Lee, who speaks regularly with oil company officials, finds some of them alarmed, some nonchalant about the future, but most not terribly worried.

The two main reasons for their calm: petrochemicals and the developing world.

As renewable energy and electrified vehicles drive down oil demand in Europe and North America, the market for oil is rising in Asia. The multi-nation International Energy Agency forecasts that in 2025, the world will want seven million barrels a day more

new energy

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than it burns now. Emerging nations are growing their consumer economies as well as their populations; more people who want consumer goods and cars are becoming able to afford them. The infrastructure for petrol-based manufacturing and transport systems is already in place and one for an electric economy isn’t.

Of that seven million daily barrels of new oil, about four are expected to be taken by the petrochemical industry.

In addition to cars, delivery trucks, trains, and aircraft, nations with growing affluence will want more electronics, fertilizers, paints, detergents, and especially plastics, that include petro-based chemicals as an essential ingredient. At the same time, the developed world’s taste for these staples isn’t shrinking.

But oil companies aren’t factoring in two key social and political factors that press on them outside of the circle of supply and demand.

Concerns about plastic waste, especially in the oceans, is stirring consumer and political action. McDonald’s has announced that it’s abandoning plastic straws, removing several hundred billion a year from the waste stream; the cities of Los Angeles and Seattle have banned plastic straws in their jurisdictions.

The nation of Costa Rica is moving to ban singleuse plastics; 126 other countries are regulating the use of throwaway plastic bags; and global retailer IKEA is phasing out single-use plastics and has committed to make all of its plastic products from recycled materials by 2020.

Plastic has been forecast to account for 20 percent of the world’s oil use by 2050, but these kinds of

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public pressures and regulatory actions could shrink that figure, perhaps considerably, as new generations grow up with an environmental consciousness that many of today’s elders lack.

Since being sparked in 2012 by author-activist Bill McKibben and students at Middlebury College, the campaign to withdraw investments from fossil fuel companies has persuaded more than 1,000 financial institutions to move more than $8 trillion out of those industries.

In 2015, it was history’s fastest-growing divestment initiative, drawing commitments from almost 700 institutions from the city of London and Seattle University to the United Church of Christ and the nation of Ireland. The campaign is aiming to draw at least $10 trillion in investments out of fossil fuels by 2020.

More than 65 percent of people under 40 told a 2018 Pew Research Center survey that social issues play a major role in their investment decisions. Social investing generally means denying money to oil companies and instead backing renewable energy ventures.

It’s more than just a feel-good impulse. Canada’s Genus Capital Management Fund reports that its fossil-free mutual fund outperformed standard stock-market performance measures by about 2 percent a year for five years. “Divesting from fossil fuels pays,” said Genus’s CEO. All of this leaves the oil industry’s future as less than assured. Harvard’s Henry Lee doesn’t think oil producers’ long-range plans have factored in these changing social and political winds. “Politicians react to public sentiment, which can change in an instant”, he told the Trends Journal, “and oil companies don’t have a plan to respond to that.”

TRENDPOST Barring major recessions and cataclysms – a Middle East war, the collapse of global trade, or a recession, for example – long-term oil prices should rise slightly into the next decade. But now that renewable energies and electric cars are growing in popularity, and dropping in price faster than conventional alternatives, all guarantees are off. Investors will be safest playing short-term price spikes or dips but should no longer view petroleum as a keystone of a safe, long-range investment strategy.

new energy

Conceptual high tech power plant thermonuclear or nuclear reactor, including elements of fusion space stations, electricity production, microwave components Shutterstock

Nuclear fusion Can AI and human scientists create a space-age clean energy in time?

By Doug Grunther

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Many of the world’s top scientists see nuclear fusion as the clean, affordable, nearly inexhaustible future source of energy which has the best chance of neutralizing the looming devastation of climate change.

“If any research project ever met the definition of high-risk, high-reward, this would be the one,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, Professor of Science and Engineering at MIT. Fusion is the powerful energy generated within the centers of stars, including our planet’s sun. Under huge pressure, hydrogen atoms get squeezed together to create helium, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process.

Fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission used by modern day nuclear power plants. As the names imply, fusion forces atomic elements together to create energy where fission splits them apart.

Not only is fusion significantly more effective than fission, it releases no polluting greenhouse gases, 26

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carries less risk of accidents, and produces none of the highly toxic nuclear waste that has restricted the expansion of current nuclear energy on our planet.

A recent trend is the pursuit of cold fusion, based on the theory, slowly getting developed, that fusion energy can be generated closer to “room” temperatures.

HOLY GRAIL OR PIPE DREAM? Whether nuclear fusion energy can ever be realized remains a source of contention among scientists. A clear indication of the rift are two recent headlines: “Google Gives Up on Cold Fusion Dream” and “Huge AI Breakthrough Could Bring Us Much Closer to Nuclear Fusion Energy.”

new energy learning” algorithm, called the Fusion Recurrent Neural Network, is able to predict disruptions within 30 milliseconds. This is an important first step in learning how to control the volatile process.

“This research opens a promising new chapter in the effort to bring unlimited energy to Earth,” said Steve Cowley, director of Princeton lab. “AI is exploding across the sciences and now it’s beginning to contribute to the worldwide quest for fusion power.”

Nuclear Fusion Reactor Flickr

The negative headline refers to the recent disclosure that Google’s attempt, initiated in 2015 with great fanfare, has fizzled out. None of the experiments found evidence that cold fusion could be achieved through chemical means. Among the pessimists, physicist Frank Close of the University of Oxford commented, “There is no theoretical reason to expect cold fusion to be possible, and a vast amount of well-established science that says it should be impossible,” he said.

And yet a significant breakthrough was reported recently from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a collaborative effort involving the U.S. Department of Energy. As stated on its website, “Artificial intelligence accelerates efforts to develop clean, virtually limitless fusion energy.” Researchers developed a computer algorithm able to predict any disruptions that halt fusion reactions and damage the lab reactors.

The most complex obstacle leading to commercial production is controlling the volatile elements within the reactor which up until recently only lasted a few minutes. But by collaborating with two other major fusion facilities, one in California, the other a joint European venture, the new computer “deep

TRENDPOST It’s still not clear whether nuclear fusion will be the ultimate source of safe, clean, inexhaustible energy needed to counteract climate change. The encouraging trend is that underneath the constant headlines of trade wars and military threats, the search for this form of energy is creating a level of global collaboration and “fusing” of human intelligence with advancing AI never seen before.

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GLOBAL COLLABORATION In addition to the recent report out of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a laboratory at MIT has created a superconducting magnet that can operate cold fusion experiments over a sustained period, unlike current technologies which can only work a few seconds at a time without overheating.

This collaboration between MIT and a private company called Commonwealth Fusion Systems secured a $50 million investment from an Italian energy company. The research scientists are confident they can produce a working fusion plant within 15 years.

The effort to safely produce nuclear fusion extends far beyond the U.S. shores. In France a huge project called ITER is a collaborative effort among 35 nations, including China, Russia, the U.S., India, and the European Union, to build the world’s largest magnetic fusion device. The project will use a cloud of hydrogen gas held in place by giant magnets.

Individual fusion energy labs are operating in China, Germany, and the UK as well. The China lab set a record last year by generating a temperature exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius, hotter than the sun’s core.

While the goal of achieving clean, inexhaustible, safe energy is decades away at best, already a potentially significant medical related achievement has emerged from nuclear fusion experiments. At TAE Technologies, a southern California company whose scientists represent 30 countries of origin, a new machine is capable of blasting cancer tumors with a neutron beam. The AI driven machine smashes together forms of hydrogen with enough force to release huge amounts of energy that can target cancer cells.

Investors in TAE Technologies include the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, the Rockefeller family’s Venrock, and Big Sky Capital, family money of billionaire stock trader Charles Schwab. They all see cold fusion as the greatest hope going forward to tame the ravages of climate change. TJ

AGING

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Brain Inflammation from Alzheimer's Disease.

Brain Loss, Brain Gain…

Is science getting a grip on Alzheimer’s?

Alzheimer’s disease kills more people in the U.S. than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. It’s now the number one killer in England and Wales. There’s a new case in the world every three seconds.

And while there are no treatments that can reverse or even stop its progression, recent research has shown that certain protocols, mostly lifestyle related, can improve symptoms, slow down the rate of neurological decline, and help prevent the disease from taking over in the first place.

Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. A key point in understanding this medical trend is that Alzheimer’s is not a normal part of aging. While true that the majority of people afflicted are 65 and older, it’s not just a disease of old age. Approximately 200,000 Americans under the age of 65 have symptoms (often referred to as early-onset Alzheimer’s).

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Alzheimer’s represents about 75 percent of all cases of dementia, the more inclusive term for a neurocognitive disorder which damages brain cells.

So not all Alzheimer’s patients do well on protocols of other forms of dementia which include vascular dementia caused by heart related issues, Parkinson‘s disease which can lead to physical disabilities, Huntington’s disease which is genetically caused, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare, fatal degenerative brain disorder.

The current cost of Alzheimer’s disease is about a trillion US dollars a year, and that’s forecast to double over the next decade. This figure includes an estimated cost for informal caregivers, the people

aging The highest rates of Alzheimer’s are in the U.S. and northern European countries which are among the world’s wealthiest nations.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 5.5 million Americans, up to 1.7 percent of the population, may have Alzheimer’s disease. Symptoms such as memory problems, impaired reasoning or judgment, vision or spatial issues, and difficulty finding words can indicate early stages of the disease.

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who suddenly find themselves acting as 24-hour live in nurses to parents, husbands or wives. The annual global number of informal care is estimated at about 82 billion hours.

The highest rates of Alzheimer’s are in the U.S. and northern European countries which are among the world’s wealthiest nations. Only recently has research come up with probable risk factors and effective protocols.

WHO’S AT RISK According to the Alzheimer’s Association the disease likely develops from multiple factors including genetics, lifestyle, and environment.

Some of the strongest evidence links brain health to heart health. This connection makes sense since the brain requires a significant, steady flow of blood in order to operate efficiently. Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and unhealthy cholesterol levels all increase the chance of developing Alzheimer’s.

Another leading risk factor is not usually considered: hearing impairment.

Hearing loss has been identified as one of the top modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s by the Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care. In two studies at Johns Hopkins

University for every 10 decibels of hearing lost, the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s increased by 20 percent.

The problem is that while studies suggest that restoring hearing loss often protects cognitive function, effective hearing aids are expensive. The hearing aids offered through Medicaid are based on the most elementary technology which often provides only minor improvement. Effective (and much more expensive) hearing aids use modern computerized technology and are fitted and finely tuned by a trained audiologist.

NO MAGIC PILL Since 1998, 100 drugs have been tested, only four have been authorized for use, and these have limited success. These drugs can’t cure Alzheimer’s or any form of dementia, but can relieve some of the mood swings and anxiety associated with the ailment.

Many experience some improvement in motivation, concentration, and memory. But improvements only tend to last 6-12 months and then the drugs lose their efficacy.

Dr. Martha Clare Morris, Director of the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, is a pioneer in effective dietary interventions to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Her research found that eating two or more servings

In two studies at Johns Hopkins University for every 10 decibels of hearing lost, the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s increased by 20 percent.

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aging

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A son takes care his father who has Alzheimer's disease.

of fresh vegetables per day offered a statistically significant reduction in cognitive decline.

Green leafy vegetables, in particular, were associated with slower decline, and people who ate green leafy vegetables at least six times a week exhibited much slower cognitive decline. Her MIND diet, based on berries, nuts, whole grains, olive oil, cold deep-water fish such as salmon and cod, beans, poultry and moderate amounts of wine has been tested successfully over many years.

Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School believes there is a connection between the rising number of Alzheimer’s cases and the greater amounts of nitrogen-based chemicals added to our food over the past few decades. Along with nitrogenbased fertilizers they include nitrates and nitrites, which are used to preserve, color and to flavor processed foods.

Toxins in the food supply are also the likely reason why Finland and other Northern European countries have high rates of Alzheimer’s. Finns consume about 72 pounds of fish per year. Studies reveal the fish they eat have unhealthy amounts of mycotoxins and heavy metals. Other countries in the Nordic region

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with similar ecosystems are known to experience higher rates of Alzheimer’s as well.

Dr. Dale Bredesen of the UCLA Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research identifies these keys: “Chronic stress, a lack of exercise and restorative sleep, toxins from molds, and fat-laden fast foods.

Even too much sugar, or being pre-diabetic, heightens risk. If you look at studies, you see the signature of insulin resistance in virtually everyone with Alzheimer’s. If you look at all the risk factors, so many of them are associated with the way we live.” TJ

TRENDPOST While science may someday concoct medication that alleviates suffering from Alzheimer’s, the studies emerging all over the globe are showing that the rise of this disease is related to lifestyle changes of the last 50 years that have resulted in poor, processed-food dominated eating habits, excessive stress, a lack of exercise and environmental factors – like so many of the ills affecting societies at large.

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The engineer demonstrates the heart printed on a 3d printer.

The human heart in 3d Researchers at Tel Aviv University have 3D-printed a complete, small-scale human heart, complete with inner chambers and its own blood vessels and circulatory system.

Just as impressive, the heart matches the biochemical and immune system properties of the person who donated the cells the heart was made from. That means that, if the heart were implanted in the cells’ donor, the body would recognize it and not reject it as alien.

This is the first time an entire heart has been created that could be implanted into the heart cells’ donor if it had been grown to full size. The heart is only as big as a rabbit’s but is considered proof that a human-size heart could be produced using the same method.

The researchers took fatty tissue from the donor and chemically programmed some of the cells to

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become stem cells. The stem cells were mixed with collagen and proteins from the same donor and then orchestrated to develop into heart cells and endothelial cells, the kind of cell that lines the heart and blood vessels.

TRENDPOST The custom-printed heart is good news not only for the 3,100 Americans on the waiting list for a heart transplant but also for others – now and in the future – who’ll need new organs. Researchers are likely to apply the same approach to developing new kidneys, spleens, and other parts. This will eliminate the risk of organ rejection and the grueling regime of drugs that patients receiving other people’s used organs now are subjected to.

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Waste plastic bottles and other types of plastic waste at the Thilafushi waste disposal site.

Drinking the bottle along with the water People in North America ingest at least 100,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year, according to a report by a coalition of research biologists in British Columbia. The pieces may be as long as a fifth of an inch – about five millimeters – and thin enough to be virtually invisible.

The report is the first that attempts to quantify the amount of plastic routinely entering our bodies.

Half the annual load comes in with food and drinks, the researchers estimate, and the other half we inhale. The airborne bits float up from carpets and car seats, computer keyboards, and any plastic item that’s regularly rubbed or abraded. Most of what goes down the hatch comes from drinks in plastic bottles, which add an estimated 32 times more plastic to a diet compared to that of people who don’t drink from plastic bottles.

Plastic trash also contributes a share, releasing tiny bits of the stuff as bottles, bags, and other waste breaks down in landfills, roadside ditches, and elsewhere.

Perhaps even more disturbing, this study drew its conclusions by analyzing data from 26 previous 32

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reports that looked at microplastic samples taken from beer, fish, salt, shellfish, sugar, and water. Those make up only about 15 percent of the total human diet, so that actual volume of plastic each of us takes in annually could be far higher.

Last October, a study of human waste confirmed that people do indeed ingest plastic bits. Some of these particles are small enough to lodge in organs or tissues, possibly causing immune or allergic reactions or creating irritation that could produce tumors over time.

TRENDPOST The knowledge that hundreds of pieces of plastic are invading our bodies every day may add new urgency to the growing international movement to find alternatives to plastic.

However, people have shown that they’re slow to surrender convenience until regulations – either on consumers or on manufacturers and retailers – force change.

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Harvesting metals from the deep ocean floor The treasures that litter the world’s seabeds aren’t in pirates’ chests; they’re in fist-sized lumps of ore that are rich in minerals and metals such as cobalt, a key component in electronic devices, as well as copper, molybdenum, nickel, and others.

But a lack of workable technology, coupled with the relative abundance of these minerals topside, has kept those treasure-laden nodules down deep.

Now Global Sea Mineral Resources, a Belgian venture, plans to start scooping up those lumps of ore with the Patania II, a bulldozer-size vehicle trundling along the ocean floor and operating four vacuums to suck up the rocks.

A test is planned in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a deep abyssal plain stretching most of the way from Baja Mexico to Hawaii that’s been estimated to hold 27 billion tons of the mineral wealth.

In the test, the Patania II will run back and forth in 400-meter swaths (about 1,300 feet) gathering its payload. When its collection bin is full, the vehicle will deposit its load in a pile. Because this is a test, no provision has been made to lift the collected rocks to the surface.

The company is cooperating with German scientists to gather extensive data about the impact of the operation on the zone’s array of exotic sea life and ecosystems. The monitoring team has placed sensors throughout the sea floor where the test is taking place and the Patania II will be trailed by an underwater drone taking video.

U.S. Navy

Navy diver leaps from rock to rock along the ocean floor during diving operations.

TRENDPOST The seabed is an easier place to gather minerals than the Earth’s surface: there are no jungles to navigate, no national borders to negotiate, and less political noise. But our seas are already stressed with chemical runoff, rising temperatures, and shrinking habitats and numbers of species.

Any attempt to extract minerals will have to show a minimal impact on the oceans’ ecosystems to win approval from marine scientists and environmental watchdogs. Large-scale exploitation of the seabed’s mineral wealth is at least a decade away.

Cells found that regenerate body parts Cells that control the regeneration of body parts have been found in tadpoles but scientists think the discovery holds promise for finding a mechanism to do the same in mammals – including people.

A tadpole will grow a new tail if it loses the original but no one has known how. Now researchers at the University of Cambridge have isolated what they call “regeneration-organizing cells” that spark stem cells to grow into a new tail.

TRENDPOST In mammals, the liver and skin are among the very few organs that can regenerate. But the Cambridge and Tufts discoveries open trails that could lead to similar mechanisms in humans, either by stimulating possibly dormant cells or by genetically engineering the process.

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The investigators used a new technique that allowed them to watch what happens in individual cells as the regeneration process takes place. They found that these regeneration-organizing cells migrate to the wound and secrete a blend of biochemicals that orchestrate the response of cells that then guide the actual regeneration.

The Cambridge findings were published as researchers at Tufts University in Boston revealed a computer model of regeneration in flatworms, biology’s favorite lab critter for this kind of work. The model was able to predict which biochemical factors in regeneration would create a specific result.

This pair of discoveries may give scientists a toolkit to use as they try to figure out how humans could regenerate lost limbs.

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Anti-heartburn drugs found to cause kidney disease, cancer Nexium, Prilosec and other so-called “protonpump inhibitor” anti-heartburn drugs, or PPIs, do more than tame that chili dog you had for lunch.

Long-term use can cause cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and cancer in the upper digestive tract, according to a study from Washington University’s medical school.

The study looked at about 210,000 US military veterans and was able to correlate specific illnesses and causes of death to these drugs after weeding out other potential factors.

PPIs work by turning off digestive acids, leaving food to molder in the stomach. That’s one reason why constipation is a common side effect.

Proton-pump inhibitor drugs are prescribed to about 15 million Americans and millions more buy over-the-counter versions of equivalent strength.

Label directions caution that the medications are only for temporary or occasional use but other studies indicate that users often don’t read or follow those instructions.

The Washington University study found that, for PPI users, the rate of death from these causes was about 17 percent greater than among regular users of anti-heartburn drugs called H2 blockers, such as Pepcid and Zantac, which shut down the stomach’s

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A man with heartburn holds on to his chest.

TRENDPOST The drastic side effects of common drugs, together with a greater public interest in “natural” medicine and a recognition of the intimate links between diet and wellness, will gradually shift our cultural mindset away from drugs as the first line of treatment for even mild ailments. As Millennials and younger generations mature, pharmaceuticals will no longer be seen as a lifestyle accompaniment but instead as an extreme measure to be taken when more benign remedies fail. production of histamine. But H2 blockers aren’t as strong as PPIs.

Microbes make new plastics

Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, 3D illustration.

Wikipedia

TRENDPOST More demonstrations like Aivan’s will be making headlines as the world looks for ways to make plastic without oil or natural gas.

However, any such transition to non-petroleum plastics will take many years, if not decades, as technologies vie for dominance and infrastructures for manufacturing and recycling are gradually built up.

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Plastics don’t have to be made from petroleum.

To prove the point, researchers at Aivan, a Finnish design studio, made a set of headphones from plastics created by yeast, fungi, and other microorganisms.

The hard plastic frame that straddles a person’s head was 3D-printed from a biodegradable plastic grown by the lactic acid in baker’s yeast. The padding surrounding your ears was grown by a fungus whose cells make a foaming protein that the designers melded with plant cellulose to add extra stability to the shape. The foam is covered by a leather-like sheath made from mycelium, the root-like tendrils of a kind of mushroom.

A protein similar to spider silk was produced by a microbe to make the screening that covers the speakers.

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Zapping memories back to life As we age, we can begin to lose the ability to remember – not just where you left your glasses, but also long-term memories, such as the face of your favorite uncle.

Now researchers at Boston University have shown a way to revive those memories with a jolt of electricity.

The scientists gave a short-term memory task to a group of people in their 20s and another group in their 60s and 70s. (The older adults showed no signs of suffering from dementia.) People in each group looked at an image, paused briefly, and then were asked whether a second image was identical to the first or had subtle changes.

The younger group dramatically outperformed the older.

Then each of the older participants donned a skullcap dotted with electrodes that targeted areas of the brain responsible for memory. For 25 minutes, the electrodes delivered a mild electrical stimulation through the skin and skull into those parts of the brain.

During the boost, older adults’ performance on the same kind of memory test matched that of the 20-somethings; better yet, the effect lasted for at least 50 minutes after the current was shut off.

A separate experiment showed that young people with poor memories made similar gains when their brains were zapped in the same way.

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Electrodes connected to a man head.

To form memories, electrical wavelengths in different parts of the brain have to coordinate. If they don’t synchronize, memories aren’t formed or recalled.

The researchers found that the electrical stimulation – which was tuned to the unique brain patterns of each test subject – helped those waves come back into harmony.

TRENDPOST Bioscience is just now beginning to understand the benefits of electrostimulation in everything from healing broken bones to mental functioning.

Research in this area will expand rapidly over the next decade, leading to validated commercial applications.

Vaping can clog your lungs

Young man having rest in forest and vaping vape device.

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E-cigarettes have been marketed as being safer than smoking tobacco but that doesn’t mean that they’re safe.

A multi-university study published in June in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reports that vaping – smoking e-cigarettes – dries out the airways in the lungs, making it harder for smokers to clear mucus from the passages. Vaping also dries the mucus itself, making it stickier and harder to get rid of.

When mucus can’t be cleared, the lungs are more susceptible to infection or damage.

In fact, this condition of “mucociliary dysfunction” is a common symptom in cases of asthma, cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary disease. The report notes that

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teens who vape have been shown to have a higher incidence of chronic bronchitis.

The study was done in culture dishes and in sheep, which have lungs that respond to e-cigarette vapor in similar biochemical ways to human lungs.

TRENDPOST The only safe cigarette is the one that no one smokes. The public health campaigns that slashed tobacco use among adults will be revived and tweaked to address the dramatic rise of vaping, especially among first-time teen smokers.