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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki: ‘I took my hands off the artery – blood squirted up and hit the ceiling'
You're about to give a series of talks on the history and explosion of AI. Who is your favourite fictional robot? I guess the robots in general from Isaac Asimov. He came up with the three laws of robotics, which are basically that a robot has to obey a human, it can't harm itself, and it can't harm another human. My favourite robot is one [from Asimov's The Bicentennial Man] that served a family for many, many years – in fact, generations – and eventually became human. If you could change the size of any animal to keep as a pet, what would it be? To put a downer on it, we're full of children and nieces and nephews and grandkids, so we don't want pets. But I do see the value of a pet. It's tricky. In Australia, cats kill a million birds a day. Dogs are nice, but when I was a doctor in a kids hospital, once I realised that dogs would rip the faces off 15,000 kids every year, I kind of fell out of love with big dogs. So I reckon dogs. Shrink them down. A border collie, they're the smartest dog. What do you do when you can't get to sleep? Get up, work for a bit, then go to sleep again when I feel tired. If I'm awake enough to do stuff, I'll do stuff. I love reading. My job is to read the scientific literature and turn it into stuff that people can understand. I've been reading articles about how we've got this history of human diseases over the last 37,000 years, and how many diseases have actually invaded our DNA, or how some frogs will fake death to avoid sex, or how the French in the early 1800s had the great moustache wars, or the TV viewing habits of dogs. Or the word 'cool' – where did it come from, and what's the concept behind it? Or the amount of energy used from AI to make a single picture, as opposed to a human, or why you get traffic jams in the middle of nowhere, or how you use earwax as a diagnostic tool. Or, if you get a shark and turn it upside down, about half the species will just stop moving. And that's just today's reading! What is your most controversial scientific opinion? The two big ones would have to be climate change and vaccination, and the controversy behind them is just pointless. You know how insurance companies are making it more expensive in certain areas to insure because of extreme events caused by climate change? OK, so when do you think the insurance companies started doing that? 1973! [It wasn't until 1980 that] fossil fuel companies, with a budget of up to a billion dollars a year, started denying climate change. And that's why I've got this so-called controversy. What is the oldest thing you own, and why do you still have it? I've got a bit of rock from a mining site that was dated to 1bn years old. I've also a meteor that my father saw land in our front garden when I was a kid, and the next morning, we went out to dig it up. I reckon that'd be a couple of billion years old. It's about the size of a golf ball. It's now on the display shelf halfway up the stairs. Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or out in space? Probably space. But it depends how it happens. One thing I learned as a medical doctor is that everybody has to die, but you should have a good death. We had one patient who had cancer of the everything, and she was really going to die. We made it our personal project that she'd have a good death. We ended up cranking her morphine from 5mg a day to 30,000 – that's a big jump, isn't it? Her legs were the diameter of your wrist by the time she died, but she didn't die in pain. So that convinced me, I want to have a good death. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning If you're in, say, a submarine, and then the pressure overcomes the structural integrity of the vessel's walls, then you're dead in about a tenth of a second, a hundredth of a second – whereas in space, it might take a while to die, maybe a few minutes. So whichever one was quicker. But the view's nicer in space. What is the strangest job you've ever had? I started working at the steelworks at Wollongong when I was about 19. I ran a little aluminium boat measuring the acidity or alkalinity of the water in this little creek inside the steelworks. Depending on whether it was green or orange, it varied between incredibly acid and incredibly alkaline. And either way, it would eat through the skin of the aluminium boat in about six months. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Back then, I was taught 'the solution to pollution is dilution' – chuck it in the ocean, nobody will ever notice. It was pretty bad back then, and hasn't got much better since. What is the most chaotic thing that's ever happened to you at work? I was in an operating theatre. I was assisting. I was really tired. I'd done an incredibly long number of shifts, dozens of hours in a row, and I was instructed to lean on an artery. I started to fall asleep standing up, and the surgeon said, 'Hey, wake up, Karl!' I stood up with a jerk and took my hands off the artery – blood squirted up and hit the ceiling. If you had to add any colour to the rainbow, what would it be? Around the world, the number of colours that people see in the rainbow varies between four and 16. The reason we have seven colours in our rainbow is because of Isaac Newton. Besides being one of the true geniuses, he also spent more time on Bible studies than he did on science. And all the way through the Bible the number seven comes up all the time. Based on him following the work of some Muslim scientists, he did an experiment with a prism – like the Dark Side of Moon album cover, which, by the way, is wrong from a physics point of view. Anyway, he sees these colours. Six colours. But he loves the Bible, and the Bible has seven everywhere, so he sticks in stupid fucking indigo. What sort of colour is indigo? It's just blue! So I refuse to add another colour to the rainbow. I'll go the other way; I'll remove indigo and get back to six colours. Lastly, please settle this debate for us once and for all, scientifically: should tomato sauce be kept in the fridge or the cupboard? The problem that you want to avoid is bacterial or fungal infection of the tomato sauce. Now, the tomato sauce, I imagine, would be mostly water, and then it's got some varying mix of fat, protein and carbohydrate, which would be foods for bacteria and yeast. If you stick it in the fridge, you really lengthen the time before the bacterial or fungal overgrowth gets dangerous. But you end up in the terrible situation that you shake and shake and shake the bottle and first none will come, and then the lot will because it's been frozen to a solid lump. So the argument for not putting in the fridge is that it'll pour more easily. In that case, you need to actually observe, and if you start to see the first hint of bacterial or fungal contamination, feed it to the compost and get another bottle. It sounds like you're pro-cupboard, pro-observation. Well, life's complicated. Nothing's simple. I'm sorry. I'm probably overcomplicating life. Dr Karl will appear at three events at Tasmania's Beaker Street festival, 12-24 August
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I took a very common supplement because it was supposed to help me... my world has been turned upside down and I know I'm not alone
A young Australian has claimed a B6 supplement has left him with pain and cognitive issues, as a law firm launches a class action investigation against Blackmores. Melbourne man Dominic Noonan-O'Keeffe, 33, began taking two supplements partly on the advice of health podcasters in May 2023. Over the course of several months of using the company's Blackmores Super Magnesium+ and Ashwagandha+, he developed a range of symptoms associated with overexposure to vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 is a nutrient naturally found in meats and plants, but has been added to off-the-shelf supplement ranges for its properties aiding metabolism. Overconsumption of vitamin B6 can be toxic, though there is no consensus on the threshold for safe usage. Mr Noonan-O'Keeffe's symptoms began as fatigue, nerve pain, migraines, and visual disturbances. Nine months later, his stepsister asked if he was taking B6 supplements, as a colleague of hers had recently suffered B6 toxicity. 'It was a lightbulb moment,' Mr Noonan-O'Keeffe told the Sydney Morning Herald. 'I stopped all of my supplements straight away, got a blood test, and within a week, I had a diagnosis of B6 toxicity.' He later discovered the Magnesium+ he had been taking contained approximately 29 times the recommended daily intake of vitamin B6. The Frankston man still suffers numbness in his fingers, nerve pain in his neck, and reduced cognitive ability. 'I'm hoping I'm at the tail end of a big flare-up, and this is the start of recovery, even though we know the recovery prospects are pretty unknown,' Mr Noonan-O'Keeffe said. Injury law firm Polaris Lawyers has been pursuing a class action investigation against the wellness giant since May. They are acting on behalf of anyone who has suffered injuries after taking their supplements. Polaris principal Nick Mann said more than 300 people had enquired about joining the suit. Their respondents claimed to have suffered after taking B6 supplements, exclusively and in combination with other supplements. Elli Carew, 64, said she had been inadvertently taking the vitamin through other supplements for several years, with B6 toxicity now interfering with the treatment of her Parkinson's disease. Penny Thompson, 61, said her B6 toxicity first presented as numbness in her hands and feet, before she suffered from paralysed vocal cords. The vocal injury, affecting her ability to eat and speak, cost her her role as a TAFE teacher, before she developed other injuries like headaches, gut pain, and numbness. Mr Mann said the reports were 'alarming'. 'It's alarming to walk down the vitamin aisle of any chemist in Australia and see vitamin supplements containing levels of B6 which are far above the recommended daily intake,' he said. 'Consumers of supplements have a right to be confident that the product they purchase will be safe for their use. 'The fact that potentially harmful supplements have been approved for sale by the regulator does not alter the legal obligations of manufacturers to ensure that the products are safe for consumers.' In a decision posted in June, the TGA announced it would consider ordering supplements containing more than 50mg of vitamin B6 to be stored behind pharmacy counters. Such a change would not come into effect until February 2027. A Blackmores spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the company was committed to the 'highest standards of product quality and consumer safety'. 'All our products, including those containing vitamin B6, are developed in strict accordance with the regulatory requirements of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA),' he said. 'This includes compliance with maximum permitted daily doses and the inclusion of mandated warning statements. 'We acknowledge the interim decision issued by the TGA and we will ensure full compliance with its final determination.'
Daily Mail
10 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Two key factors of dementia risk that outweigh all others
Tackling hearing loss early and making an effort to maintain social relationships could delay the development of dementia later in life, promising new research has found. Studies have long suggested that around four in ten cases of the memory-robbing condition could be preventable. Addressing vision loss, treating depression and doing plenty of exercise are all ways of reducing the risk. Now Swiss scientists, who tracked more than 30,000 adults, have revealed a significant link between hearing loss, loneliness and memory decline. Writing in the journal Communications Psychology, scientists at the University of Geneva said: 'Addressing hearing impairment alongside loneliness—even in socially integrated individuals—may be crucial for promoting cognitive health in later life. With increasing longevity, understanding the relationship between hearing impairment and cognitive functioning is of utmost importance for ageing societies.' In the study, the researchers analysed 33,741 adults aged 50 and over enrolled in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Over a 17 year period they found that older adults who said they felt lonely—even if they were not socially isolated—showed steeper cognitive decline as their hearing deteriorated compared to socially integrated individuals. Participants who were both isolated and lonely consistently performed worse across all cognitive tasks including immediate and delayed recall and verbal fluency. According to the researchers, this could be because memory processes like retrieving information are used more by people who interact with others on a regular basis. Additionally, researchers found that lonely individuals found hearing loss more distressing than their non-lonely peers, highlighting the psychological burden of the condition which could contribute to memory loss. The researchers concluded that their findings support the theory that both objective and subjective social isolation are relevant to dementia risk. 'Our design uncovered a significant role for loneliness in shaping the extent to which sensory decline is linked to cognition,' the researchers added. However, the researchers acknowledged that causality could not be inferred. They added: 'Our findings indicate that both hearing impairment and psychosocial factors such as loneliness and social isolation may be relevant to cognitive functioning in later life. This underscores the importance of a holistic approach that combines auditory health with psychosocial support to maintain cognitive health in later life.' In response to studies such as this, experts at Alzheimer's Research UK are now calling on the government to include a hearing check in the NHS Health Check for over-40s. Dr Isolde Radford, from the charity, said: 'We don't yet know if hearing loss directly causes dementia or whether it causes other conditions that, in turn increase our risk. What we do know is that hearing loss, like dementia, isn't an inevitable part of ageing. This simple step could help millions identify hearing loss earlier and take appropriate action, such as wearing hearing aids, that may help reduce their risk of dementia.' It comes as a landmark study last year also suggested almost half of all Alzheimer's cases could be prevented by tackling 14 lifestyle factors. To reduce dementia risk throughout life, the commission also made 13 recommendations for both people and governments. These include making hearing aids available for all those who need it, reducing harmful noise exposure, and increased detection and treatment access for high cholesterol among the over-40s. Experts claimed the study, published in medical journal The Lancet, provided more hope than 'ever before' that the memory-robbing disorder that blights the lives of millions can be prevented. Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form of dementia and affects 982,000 people in the UK. It is thought to be caused by a build-up of amyloid and tau in the brain, which clump together and from plaques and tangles that make it harder for the brain to work properly. Eventually, the brain struggles to cope with this damage and dementia symptoms develop. Memory problems, thinking and reasoning difficulties and language problems are common early symptoms of the condition, which then worsen over time. Alzheimer's Research UK analysis found 74,261 people died from dementia in 2022 compared with 69,178 a year earlier, making it the country's biggest killer.
