Thursday Open Thread

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72 comments to Thursday Open Thread

  • #
    Ted1.

    Woops! Nothing to see yet.

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  • #
    Memoryvault

    LIDDELL POWER STATION

    You’d think at some point sanity would prevail with our politicians. Like having some kind of backup plan at least one of our larger base load power stations. Like Liddell. Mothball it or something. You know, just in case their ruinable plans don’t work out.

    Not so, it seems. This morning AGL released a four minute video animation of what they intend to do with Liddell in just a few weeks. Fully approved by the current state govt, and the current and previous federal govts.

    Watch it and weep. Winter is coming.

    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/liddell-power-station-demolition-video/vi-AA17OJFO?ocid=OneServiceWarmUp&cvid=283c24bcd79e454d8eb559b967a05b15

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    • #
      David Maddison

      If somebody had any (un)common sense it would at least be mothballed, not demolished.

      Unfortunately the video won’t play on my Android phone, but look at the like/dislike ratio.

      https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/media-centre/asx-and-media-releases/2023/january/agl-appoints-demolition-contractor-for-liddell-as-energy-hub-tak

      The demolition process is expected to commence in early 2024 and take approximately two years. Work will include removal of all main structures (boilers, chimneys, turbine houses, coal plant) and ancillary buildings, and leveling of the site using recovered crushed concrete.

      More than 90 per cent of the materials in the power station are expected to be recycled during demolition, including 70,000 tonnes of steel which is more than the total weight of steel works for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

      Luddites!

      Or should that be Liddellites!

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      • #
        Memoryvault

        The demolition process is expected to commence in early 2024

        Dunno where you got 2024 from, David. The work is expected to be COMPLETED by the end of April this year. It is already in the process of being closed down.

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        • #
          David Maddison

          Dunno where you got 2024 from

          I was quoting directly from the AGL site but I suppose they haven’t updated it.

          And I can’t view the video.

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          • #
            Ted1.

            I thought closure is in April. Demolition to commence soon after, with a lot of talk about building something else.

            I toured Liddell with my father when it was under construction. And they won’t finish demolition this year. I remember steel columns there that were fully 2 ft square with at least a 4 inch web, maybe heavier.

            Just about everything seemed to be 12,000 horsepower. The fans bringing the air into the furnaces, the fans taking the exhaust gases out, that for each of the four furnaces, the pumps brining water from the river, of which there might have been five. Even the starter motor was a 12,000 hp gas turbine.

            The evaporation from the lake due to cooling the power station would be 34 cusecs. The pumps were running at the river when we were there, and I estimated that the river level dropped half a metre or more as it passed the station.

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          • #
            tonyb

            Whilst it would seem much more sensible to keep the power station and actually use it to generate power there are other possibilities. It took 25 years but the iconic Battersea power station in London has now reopened as a shopping centre, hotel, restaurants. It looks magnificent as the brickwork is so great. Ignore the silly video and scroll down to the static photos

            https://batterseapowerstation.co.uk/

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      • #
        Ted1.

        Demolition must commence immediately just in case the politicians change their mind and stuff up the business plans. The last thing the owners want is the cheap electricity that an old station can generate.

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      • #

        Demolished is not such a bad idea – leaves the site ready for the construction of the new generation Japanese plants, see
        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59525480
        It’s BBC I know, but…

        So, the Japanese government decided to build 22 new coal-fired power stations, to run on cheap coal imported from Australia. Economically it made sense.

        Sensible people.

        Instead of closing the old coal plants and switching to renewables, Japan’s answer is to switch to burning hydrogen or ammonia.

        Super sensible people!

        50

        • #
          Memoryvault

          leaves the site ready for the construction of the new generation Japanese plants

          Actually, AGL intend building a state of the art ruinable technology hub there.
          Wind AND solar. Capacity factor higher than the station it is replacing.
          Already approved. What could possibly go wrong?

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Don’t worry MV,
      Matt keen has it covered:

      Today’s Tele has two stories about NSW power:

      1. ” Super battery approved” on page 3 reports Matt Kean as saying that the 850 megawatt Waratah “super” battery… would be ready for the closure of Eraring in 2025.
      2. “We must stop selling off our electricity assets” on page 13 reports that Liddell will close in a few months and Eraring in a few years.

      I decided to look up the two plants and found (as I’m sure Tony-from-Oz has often reported) each have four generators, so have internal backup;

      Liddell (close 2023) 4 x 500 = 2000MW 24/7 CF > 90%;
      Eraring (close 2025) 4 x 720 = 2880MW 24/7 CF >90%;
      Matt Kean battery … 1 x 850 = 850 MW .. 2 hours?? CF ????

      Matt Kean maths 850 > 4880 24/7 by implication, but not stated.

      Cheers
      Dave B

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    • #
      GlenM

      I told you that we’re run by fools. One foolish thing after another.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Ok, the video works on my phone now.

      The anti-energy lobby get a real thrill out of watching power stations being blown up don’t they?

      30

    • #
      DLK

      our politicians

      you means the bankers, corporations and lobbyists politicians.

      if voting could effect real change you wouldn’t be allowed to do it

      democracy is an illusion.

      30

  • #
    Adellad

    Horrible in Adelaide today, a nasty bit of the first hot February here since 2018. I wish the GSM, or whatever mechanism it might unleash, would come into effect immediately and disallow any further Februaries (or Decembers, Januaries, Marches) like this.

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    • #
      Ross

      That’s what Adelaide was always like – just baking hot mostly January/February. How did anyone survive??

      30

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Ross,
        I am old enough to remember when air-conditioning was for the rich, and on hot nights people slept on their lawns (even in some cases the front lawn).
        Cheer up! Adellad, a cool change is coming, supposedly Friday evening (but that was from The Bureau).

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    • #
      el+gordo

      Blocking high pressure, too far south, brings hot northerly winds from the centre.

      http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf

      20

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Look at windy.com. The wind is from the north. It happens.

      20

      • #
        Hanrahan

        I remember in RAAF Laverton, at smoko it was cooler in the sunny side of the hut than the windy side.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          When you are that far south, the sun’s path is always to the north during daytime in summer.
          If you’re saying the wind was hot because it was blowing in from the centre, which is also to the north / NW, I’m a bit puzzled as to how the story can be true. The windy side and sunny side would be the same side.

          Assuming the air cools overnight, for the wind to be hot in Melbourne it must have had time for the sun to heat it and transport it a long way, so probably you are thinking of a time in the afternoon. But the sun will be to the north west or WNW at that time. I admit the wind may not travel along a great circle. A rectangular hut oriented N/S would have the western side sunny in the afternoon and under a weird arrangement of pressure systems could have a NW wind from the red centre curve around clockwise 90° and hit from the north east, making the western side leeward and making the story true. But that seems unlikely or least very unusual.
          How do you think it happened?

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      “Unprecedented “ !

      20

    • #
      DLK

      I wish the GSM, or whatever mechanism it might unleash, would come into effect immediately and disallow any further Februaries (or Decembers, Januaries, Marches) like this.

      Please write to the BOM and ask them to turn down their carbon control knob

      00

    • #

      My friend from Adelaide, told me that it was the perfect place to research sweating. “No other place like it” he says.

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    • #
      Chad

      Adellad
      February 23, 2023 at 2:49 pm · Reply
      Horrible in Adelaide today, a nasty bit of the first hot February here since 2018.

      Hot enough to push electricity demand over 3GW at 7pm, and force the use of those diesel generators again as wind collapsed as usual just when it was needed !

      10

      • #
        Chad

        ^^^…same again last night.
        SA maxed out on gas and Vic imported power, and had to run those diesel gennys again in the evening peak !
        The grid operators must be sweating even in their cool offices !🤭🤔

        00

  • #
    David Maddison

    Video by Dr John Campbell featuring two Australian Senators doing their job, Senator Ralph Babet and Senator Gerard Rennick.

    They ask questions about covid and excess deaths.

    Most of the other Senators are clueless and absent and not doing their job.

    https://youtu.be/5jDS4vayXK0

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    • #
      David Maddison

      And watch the minister just lie when questioned by Senator Babet. It has no clue. (Not sure of its pronouns.)

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    • #
      Ross

      Senator Alex Antic is another good one. Surprisingly, still in the Liberal Party representing SA. He made Dr Skerret squirm the other day by asking about his vax status. Either Murphy or Kelly ( Fed CHO’s) were seated alongside and one of them commented that someones’ medical history should be private. This from someone who probably encouraged Vax passports, where you had to show your green tick to the 16yo coffee shop girl so you could order a coffee. They have no shame.

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  • #
    el+gordo

    Brinkmanship

    ‘Joe Biden on Wednesday night condemned as a “big mistake” Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend his country’s participation in the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty.’ (Guardian)

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    • #
      David Maddison

      President Trump brought nothing but peace.

      Biden’s handlers are responsible for war.

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    • #

      Worth checking, but I heard that Putin was only pulling out of the mutual inspection obligation.

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      • #
        Chad

        Putin “suspended” the obligation to allow inspection of nuclear facilities .
        But in reality , those inspections have not happened for some time anyway !
        So effectively it is all a big handbag swinging exercise !

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    • #
      GlenM

      Hardly big news when dudes from NATO and Russia get to inspect what they already know. Charade.

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  • #
    Ted1.

    From link posted by James Reid to Dr Kory’s musings:

    “Repurposed drugs are the Achilles heel of the entire business model of the pharmaceutical industry,” Kory said. “And when you see our health agencies literally working in the service of the pharmaceutical industry by destroying the credibility of repurposed drugs, it’s terrifying. They’re not working according to the interests of patients or physicians but the pharmaceutical companies.”

    By prohibiting the use of “off-label” drugs to treat Covid, public health officials and federal bureaucrats put the interests of Big Pharma over patients. As such, physicians were scared to prescribe off-label drugs, a common practice within the medical community, for fear of losing their licenses. How many needless Covid deaths or severe infections might have been prevented if not for this false public intimidation campaign?”

    A year ago Dr Blaylock put that number at 640,000 in the US, 80% of the number that had died to that time. He called it mass murder. The evidence supports that call.

    60

    • #
      Ted1.

      The prohibitions placed by authorities on HCQ and Ivermectin effectively banned all private research within the jurisdictions.

      Do not overlook that they also prohibited early treatment.

      10

  • #
    el+gordo

    Western MSM quiet on Nordstream explosion.

    ‘European media were “caught in a dilemma” on this matter, said Wang Zhen, a research professor of international politics at the Institute of China Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

    “Dramatizing the issue will only make Europe, especially Germany, look awkward.” (China Daily)

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    • #
      Ted1.

      Somebody must know something.

      This job could have been done by anybody, even a lone privateer.

      But even if it was, somebody must know something.

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  • #
    GlenM

    Breaking news: Bowens favourite climate book is Mann’s ” Climate Wars”. Bowen is impressed by Mann’s sincerity and he seems trustworthy and … Oh, the vibe of the thingy.

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    • #
      GlenM

      Apparently Bowen has read at least 10 books on climate change so he might consider himself an authority on the matter. We’re dealing with out and out ideologues anyway.

      90

    • #
      Don B

      Politicians, like most people, do not like to read anything which undercuts what they already believe.

      Having said that, anti fossil fuel politicians need to read books like these:

      Javier Vinos’s “Climate of the Past, Present and Future.”
      Steven Koonin’s “Unsettled.”
      Alex Epstein”s “Fossil Future.”

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Ammonia fuel is just more green insanity.

    There are two classes:

    One is “blue” ammonia where the CO2 by-product gets captured by losers like Australia and the product is exported to places like Japan.

    The other is “green” ammonia which is made from unreliables by electrolysis of water to obtain hydrogen which is reacted with water.

    It results in a product that requires pressurised transport and is extremely toxic and requures special materials considerations, e.g. no zinc, copper or brass and special handling.

    It will be another disaster.

    But, as always, follow, the money trail.

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    • #
      Simon Thompson ᵐᵇ ᵇˢ

      I have heard that ammonia may be able to replace fuel for cargo shipping as an initial application.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        1. Ammonia is 11.3 times more active as a “Greenhouse gas” as carbon dioxide.

        2. Burning ammonia in air results in nitrogen oxides (and water vapour) both also worse than CO2 in the “Greenhouse” stakes.
        (All that fuss about the use of diesel generating nitrogen oxides and The Netherlands shutting down farms because of emissions of these from fertiliser use?)

        11

    • #
      Memoryvault

      Making ammonia is a ginormously complicated and energy intensive process.

      Putting aside green fantasies ammonia – NH3 – is made commercially by reforming hydrogen from natural gas and combining it with nitrogen extracted from air to form syngas. The syngas is then compressed to form ammonia.

      Each step requires major energy inputs – heat to reform the natural gas, and electricity for both he extraction of nitrogen and then the compression of the syngas. There is no way using ammonia as a fuel in any form would supply even a fraction of the energy needed to make it.

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      • #

        As per comment 2.1.3, just keep burning coal for power generation until the ammonia making process is sorted….or not!

        At least the lights stay on.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      hydrogen which is reacted with water.

      Correction, water should read nitrogen.

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Currently restarting a 20 year battle to get my electricity meter address to match my actual address and if you think that should be an easy straight forward thing 20 years of experience tells me red tape and company policy says no . Actually thought I had it sorted yesterday only to get an email saying we are sorry but because your billing address doesn’t match your metered address we can’t change the records ? It’s now become a challenge and a quest .

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    • #
      David Maddison

      If there is no electricity service at the address you pay from, stop paying it. That might encourage them to send bills to the actual service address.

      I once had a similar problem with a gas meter. The gas company was simply incapable of understanding that the property had been sub-divided several decades ago and the address they had didn’t actually exist.

      The problem only became apparent that the tenant I had living there and paying the bill left, and I decided to move in myself.

      They cut off the gas. They told me it was impossible for me to pay as my real address didn’t exist.

      I ended up going to the ombudsman to get it sorted and then they wanted me to wait all day for them to turn up. I worked nearby and told them if they call me when the technician was on his way I could be there in ten minutes. They said that was impossible. So that then required another call to the ombudsman.

      I’m sure all this is to do with the general dumbing down of the education system and the failure to teach critical thinking skills.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Bills are sent to the right address it’s the meter address that’s the problem but I like your thinking .

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    • #
      Mike Jonas

      I had a problem like that once, where an institution had an incorrect address for me and refused to correct it because it didn’t match the address in my bank account. So I changed my bank account address to the incorrect address and then asked them to change their incorrect address to the correct one. Completely illogical though that is, it worked. I then changed my bank account back to the correct address. That was a long time ago, and I doubt any errors can ever be fixed under today’s rules. I will never understand the bureaucratic mind, but sometimes there are workarounds. A bit like Microsoft software.

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    • #
      another ian

      I’ve had similar rounds in a different circus ring.

      For about the last 120 years our mailing address has been “Property Name” + “Town”. Mail delivery even survived getting a post code tacked on.

      But now we are inflicted with having a street and road/street number. (and for more unrealism “town” is now commonly “suburb”). Just happens we have us and another property using the same road turn off, with mail delivered to both.

      After some misdirected mail I discovered it is a hanging offence for either post office or mail carrier to deliver that mail to other than the address on the face of the item. So it had to be sorted.

      Austpost eventually responded that they’d “fixed it” – with an addressing that was on the wrong side of the road and in a neighbour’s block.

      Turns out (in Qld at least) your mail address is the one on your lot and plan. Which is under the control of your local government shire. They feed the addresses into a central register which is supposed to be followed for billing addresses but might not be. Twice lately I have been told that our post code is not valid – once by a power supplier.

      And there is a Federal Government National Addressing unit – and things started to happen when they got hold of the problem.

      30

      • #
        robert rosicka

        Since we built the house we went from a lot number to 3 different RMB versions then to a numbered address but the post code changed twice and town twice . The last change I never even knew about until I noticed the rates notice had another change they forgot to inform residents about . Somewhere in all that is when the problem started but after getting back in touch today I’ve been promised they will chase it up and they will contact me next week , I’m thinking yeah right .

        20

        • #
          ozfred

          Regional WA had a different goal when they added street numbers to all the addresses.
          Seems that emergency service personnel (even with GPS) could not find where they were supposed to “go”.
          So my 209 address reflects that I am 2.09 km from the eastern start of the (east west) road. Odd numbers on one side of the road, Even numbers on the other (rounding as needed)
          Of course there are some blocks the shires don’t think had access (culvert etc) and getting a number assigned can be “interesting”

          20

  • #
    Bruce

    Documentary?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCbx278URM

    Related:

    Wait until the resident clowns really get stuck into the Superannuation caper. How many times will one government or another see all that lovely lucre and decide that THEY can “manage” it better.

    Sometime before WW2, the “tax return ” paperwork was officially called “Income tax and PENSION CONTRIBUTION report, or words to that effect.

    Also bear in mind that “Income Tax” was initially a STATE tax, that was “taken over for the duration” of WW2.

    Heck of a long war.

    As always, follow the “spillage”.

    20

    • #
      Memoryvault

      The legislation was passed in 1945 and became effective from January 1, 1946 – The Income Tax and Compulsory Contributions Scheme (CCS). The levy was set at 7.5% and was paid into the National Welfare Fund (NWF).

      In 1949 the newly elected PM, Robert Menzies, abolished the NWF and funds were paid directly into General Revenue. Over time assorted politicians pilfered the fund until around 1980, when Malcolm Fraser spent the last $600 million. However, the legislation itself was not repealed until the Omnibus Bill 2014, passed by the Abbott govt.

      So technically anybody who paid income tax from January 1946 until September 2014 contributed 7.5% of their earnings to a compulsory superannuation scheme. Which is why older pensioners tend to get a little grumpity when ignorant people claim the old age pension is “welfare” and they should be grateful.

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  • #
    KP

    A quick bit of CIA propaganda in Kosovo… label yours the only system with ‘values’ and use that to denigrate all others..

    ““The Russian interest is to use the western Balkans, through Serbia as a Trojan horse, to attack values-based systems such as NATO and the EU,” the ethnic Albanian politician insisted.”

    https://www.rt.com/news/571922-kosovo-serbia-wagner-kfor/

    Still a hot-spot for keeping pressure on Russia by NATO. Transnitria is another one, in the news as Moldova claims Russia will invade it as Ukraine gathers troops to take over the largest arsenal of USSR weapons stored there. Both sides would no doubt love to get their hands on it..

    10

  • #
    TdeF

    So this morning RIO are talking about closing both their Queensland coal mine and their aluminium smelter. Smelting in general will likely go overseas to China of course.

    We are not allowed to make aluminium or lead or steel because the electricity is too expensive because of the ripoff to pay for Chinese windmills and all smelting produces deadly CO2. And the government wants it all shut down, all of it. And coal mining is to be stopped soon, even though it is paying the bills at both State and Federal level. It all seems like insane Government Hari Kari, matched with Corporate compliance. Why?

    It makes no sense when there is almost no highly soluble fossil fuel CO2 in the air, under 3%, no reason to make CO2 a villain, no Global Warming, no drowning Polar Bears, no sea level rise, no mass migration of climate refugees. It’s such ridiculous made up nonsense and yet every day we read of Australia being shut down to a third world country for no reason. And if the courts have their way, mining will be banned by activist judges who interpret the Paris agreement as legally binding not optional.

    You can only think that if you follow Cui Bono, it is all orchestrated by friends of China. Because nothing else makes the slightest sense. How are we going to pay for those fantasy nuclear submarines to defend ourselves without coal sales, or perhaps that is the point.

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  • #
    another ian

    Speaking of CO2 – how about this?

    “Ag fears over plan to inject waste CO2 into Great Artesian Basin aquifer”

    “A MINING company’s plans to inject waste Carbon Dioxide captured from a power station into a Great Artesian Basin aquifer has been labelled as “madness” by representatives of the many existing users who already depend on the groundwater resource.”

    More at

    https://www.beefcentral.com/news/ag-fears-over-plan-to-inject-waste-co2-into-great-artesian-basin-aquifer/

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    The dishonesty and incompetence, including deliberately hiding covid vaccine deaths of children, of Australia’s TGA, is now attracting world-wide attention.

    Here it is discussed on the Peak Prosperity YouTube channel.

    https://youtu.be/HhHJ51FJC2w

    10

  • #
    MrGrimNasty

    It seems President Biden’s former non-binary nuclear waste guru bag thief Sam Brinton has been at it a while.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11783387/Fashion-designer-lost-luggage-airport-claims-Sam-Brinton-wore-clothing.html

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    • #
      MrGrimNasty

      Reading the comments some people think they’re not exactly the same clothes. He’s got the first one on back to front, another seems to not match but is clearly from the same collection, the third is identical.

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  • #
    Lance

    Israeli scientists say they cured mice of Alzheimer’s using newly developed molecule

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientists-say-they-cured-mice-of-alzheimers-using-newly-developed-molecule/

    If this proves successful, it would be a leap forward in treating Alzheimer’s.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      It’s interesting they don’t focus in plaque which people are now starting to realise is not the cause but the side effect of the real problem.

      I hope the drug can be brought to clinical trial quickly.

      10

      • #
        Bruce

        Hopefully with something approaching the “speed” of the lethal faux vaccines for Covid 19?

        I wonder what the “asking price” for approval will be.

        10