Thursday Throughput: Boeing Edition

Boeing Airplane Company logo circa 1919. Photo by Boeing Airplane Company, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

[ThTh1] One of the big issues to spring up this month has been the problems at Boeing. A door blew out of an aircraft and the landing gear fell off another one. Various grifters have rushed to blame this on “DEI” policies at Boeing. But, as the Real Engineering video below shows, the problems are more conventional: corporate greed, regulatory capture and a culture of cutting corners.

It’s awful to see one of America’s industrial titans suddenly turn into a pumpkin like this. A few years ago, they paid their CEO $60 million to quit. I think they need to fire the entire board.

[ThTh2] One useful thing coming from the AI chatbots. It may give us some insight into how humans construct speech.

[ThTh3] The malaria vaccine is now showing stunning effectiveness over several years. And progress is being made on a universal coronavirus vaccine. And the HPV vaccines is basically eradicating cervical cancer. And if that weren’t enough, a vaccine is showing incredible results for treating colorectal and pancreatic cancers.

[ThTh4] Why do we like science fiction? It turns out, it may make our brains happy to imagine the future.

[ThTh5] A new paper claims that the use of hydroxychloroquine in the pandemic cost 17,000 lives. Orac is dubious and so am I. Their methodology does not seem particularly robust. And even if it were true, the implications people are drawing from it are spurious. The paper examines the first few months of the pandemic when HCQ was being used as a standard protocol in hospitals because it had shown promise dealing with SARS Classic. It was only after massive double-blind studies showed it didn’t work that we abandoned HCQ and it became the refuge of COVID denialists.

[ThTh6] Speaking of deniers, the climate deniers are claiming a new report, not a refereed paper, shows that global warming is a hoax. It doesn’t. What it shows is that some climate models have overpredicted the amount of warming by a small amount. While this is true, the overprediction is small and you can contrast this against the predictions of the climate denialists for flat or falling temperatures that were completely 100% wrong. One plot in particular is galling, showing that the warming is below all the model predictions. But their comparison is to twelve Midwest states. Global warming is — and I don’t mean to be pedantic or anything — global. If you compare global temperature trends to the global models, instead of cherry-picking specific regions, you see that the trend is toward the upper range of the models, while still below the worst ones.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Greenland is melting faster than we thought.

[ThTh6] I can’t think of a joke that would be appropriate for a family website about studies showing that more frequent ejaculation corresponding to better prostate and testicular health. So think of a good one in your head.

Oh, wait.

[ThTh7] During last year’s brief room-temperature superconductor hope, I said that while the result may turn out to be false, it could lead to new science. Well, some new promising science.

[ThTh8] I think the main use of AI for scientific research will be to enhance human investigations. A new study claims AI-enhanced research is finding new antibiotics that could prevent the coming crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

[ThTh9] So what has JWST been up to? Everything from spotting aurorae on brown dwarfs to probing the depths of star clusters.

This image from the Webb telescope shows N79, a massive star-forming region within the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way). At mid-infrared wavelengths, Webb reveals glowing gas and dust deep within the clouds, as well as embedded baby stars.