UK science stuck in 'holding pattern' on EU funding by Brexit, says minister UK minister for science and research George Freeman has admitted that vital EU funding for research is in limbo while the nation continues to negotiate Brexit sticking points, namely Northern Ireland and fishing rights. Speaking to Parliament's Science and Technology Committee late last week, Department for Business, Energy & …
Not sure why that's a suprise. Other than perhaps someone getting funded to study that combination, and then finding enough horses with Covid to run a decent trial.
But such is politics. Ivermectin is a good example of popular science though. 2 years on and there still seems to be contradictory research or what, if any effects it might have.
@LybsterRoy
I think the Wikipedia has got it all fairly well.
" Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug that is well-established for use in animals and people.[1]
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, laboratory research suggested ivermectin might have a role in preventing or treating COVID-19.[2] Online misinformation campaigns and advocacy boosted the drug's profile among the public. While scientists and physicians largely remained sceptical, some nations adopted ivermectin as part of their pandemic-control efforts. Some people, desperate to use ivermectin without a prescription, took veterinary preparations leading to shortages of supplies of ivermectin for animal treatment — the FDA tweeted "You are not a horse" to draw attention to the issue.[3]
Subsequent research failed to confirm the utility of ivermectin for COVID-19,[4] and in 2021 it emerged that many of the studies demonstrating benefit were faulty, misleading, or fraudulent.[5][6] Nevertheless, misinformation about ivermectin continued to be propagated on social media and the drug remained a cause célèbre for anti-vaccinationists and conspiracy theorists."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic#Research
Though of course, horse ivermectin is the same chemical as people ivermectin. Also I like the theory that it worked in some studies because those were in countries with heavy parasite infestation, and Covid treatment can make parasites worse. It's a good reminder that while physics works the same way everywhere, biology sometimes does not.
Ivermectin is genuinely used as a human medication, and although I can't attest to the full legitimacy of the sources, I have even heard that reputable studies have said it can provide some small benefit in treatment of COVID. However, the effect isn't certain enough or strong enough to justify prescribing it for post-infection treatment when a vaccine exists that can prevent the majority of infections before they start.
This is specifically why I mentioned horse dewormer rather than Ivermectin itself. While the anti-vaxxers can't get the human pills they want from their doctors, animal medications are much less tightly regulated. That's why they're dosing themselves with enough of the stuff to literally choke a horse.
You don't have to though.
It comes in a syringe and it's not too difficult to meter out a small amount which is equivalent to the human dose for the usual Ivermectin uses in humans.
You aren't supposed to suck down the full 700kg-stallion equivalent in one go ffs!
Ah a Brexit thread. I know this is not on topic, but another Brexit win:
Government considering using Brexit "freedoms" to ditch EU car safety measures designed to protect cyclists The Tory Party of old is not the same as the Brexit Tory Party.
Well done Brexiters. Ignorant right up to the point that lorry runs you over. (I wish)
Having read the link you gave…..Care to explain how you think these “EU car safety measures” are risked by Brexit?
Given that the article is actually about HGV safety measures targeting the lack of visibility from an HGV cab. Not cars. And the only HGV manufacturer in the U.K. is DAF, which is Dutch. Do you think this *Dutch manufacturer* is going to change their EU-compliant HGV chassis design to have less visibility for the allegedly tiny U.K. market?
There is actually a much bigger lorry/cyclist safety/visibility issue raised only in the past couple of weeks. The U.K. Highway Code has been changed to give cyclists priority over motor vehicles, including lorries, and including trunk route roundabouts. About 30% of the lorries on U.K. roads are driven by EU drivers who will never have read the U.K. Highway Code, although they are perfectly competent drivers. Even if they see the cyclists, as far the lorry drivers are concerned, there is simply a sudden tsunami of suicidal idiots playing chicken with lorries. It’s pretty much Death Race 2000 for cyclists. But since Highway Code was *never* standardised whether in or out of EU, between *any* EU country, you can’t even blame Brexit for that.
"The U.K. Highway Code has been changed to give cyclists priority over motor vehicles..."
No, it hasn't. It's been clarified to make it clear that "Give way" means what it says, regardless of the type of traffic crossing your path, and always has done. I learned to drive in the 1960s and I learned that rule then, and it's never changed. It also applies to horse-drawn traffic, of course.
And it's the same in most (if not all) EU countries too.
You may be right, or you may be wrong. Nobody really knows. In more than one place it explicitly says they have *changed* the hierarchy of priorities, and in another that it merely clarifies.
But in actual consequences, it doesn’t really matter which is right. UK cyclists have *heard* that the priorities have been *changed* in their favour, and their road behaviour and position has changed. Whereas non-UK lorry drivers will be broadly unaware of that change, which means that they will be surprised, and looking in the wrong directions.
I’ve read the new Code, and I still don’t know the new right answer for some practical road situations. Mostly it seems to come down to “don’t run anyone over”. But even if I’m an idiot, we have two ROSPA qualified advanced drivers at work who disagree on what it means for road position at and on roundabouts. There is no doubt at all that the majority of experienced UK drivers are unsure of right of way in a way that they simply weren’t a fortnight ago. And that’s dangerous.
Eg If you take the Code literally, on any corner even where there are traffic lights, the pedestrian still has priority. Even if they cross on “Red Man”. That would be stupid, probably unintended, but quite a lot of non-drivers eager to reclaim their town centres have had the new Code waved at them, and concluded that’s *exactly* what it means. There was a demo to that effect in our town centre last week, Paint The Town Red, sitting in the middle of the road at green traffic lights to “educate” drivers.
Imagine you’re a lorry driver from Poland, on shift for 8 hours, you pull off the motorway onto the three lane roundabout, at 5pm just as the light is going. And at the exit to the roundabout, in the middle of the road controlled by a green traffic light, you have four people *sitting on the ground*, waving placards admittedly. Convinced that the new Highway Code says that *they* have right of way. What do you think the chances are the lorry driver will manage to avoid them?
My first reaction was "that will depend on the size of the placards", but then I realized that in Poland, an the other countries he drove through before getting to Perfidious Albion, when you leave a roundabout (magic ones excepted), pedestrians have right of way.
Do they? I’m not sure whether you are trolling or not TBH……I’ve never been to Poland. But I’ve driven tens of thousands of miles in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and never seen that. I’ve found that driver and ped behaviour is quite country-specific, and you do have to learn it. But I’ve never seen pedestrians anywhere take priority at unmarked exits of roundabouts. Unless by priority you mean “once a pedestrian is actually in the road, whatever the rights and wrongs, you should try not to run them over”.
Otherwise, if you have an actual reference I’m interested to see it, as a casual google didn’t find anything.
Perhaps Google doesn't bother with the law of a specific country?
I quote from our "road code" (https://wegcode.be/wetteksten/secties/kb/wegcode/177-art19):
"
Artikel 19. Richtingverandering
Het verlaten van een rotonde is een richtingsverandering waarbij de richtingaanwijzers wel gebruikt moeten worden.
19.5. De bestuurder die van richting verandert moet voorrang verlenen aan de voetgangers die de rijbaan oversteken die hij gaat oprijden.".
I try to translate.
Article 19. Changing direction.
Leaving a roundabout is a change of direction where indicators need to be used.
19.5. A driver changing direction has to give right of way to pedestrians crossing the road he intends to take".
Did you know that you are part of the larger group? 80% of drivers with a driver's license fail in a road code test.
UK rules have been clarified and in doing so have been brought in line with the rest of Europe. Have you ever been near a roundabout in Germany or the Netherlands? They work exactly as you describe - pedestrians have right of way at entries and exits (so traffic stops and let them cross), and cyclists go around the outside and traffic waits before making a right turn across the bike lane (equivalent of a left turn in the UK).
So explain again why you think EU-origin drivers will be confused by these rules?
Ah, the Netherlands.Well actually you’re right - it’s been fifteen years since I’ve been, I’d forgotten. But you’re right.
Germany? Well, it’s definitely *not* like that there. 100% you are factually wrong. My tame German in the corner is shaking his head. He says that in some of the “stupid”’bits of Germany they tend to put crossings everywhere at roundabouts. But no, if there is no crossing, you do not have right of way, and if you have a light-controlled ped crossing and you cross against the light as a pedestrian you will be fined.
There are literally crossings at the exit and entrance of pretty much every roundabout in Germany and if you stand by them then the traffic, whether it is entering or exiting the roundabout, will stop and let you cross. Your 'tame German' is either a figment of your imagination, or hasn't spent much time as a pedestrian in Germany recently.
You’re right - we had a look on Street View. He hasn’t been there recently, so it seems they’ve changed, even in the East. For all I know, Poland might be the same. And for all I know, the U.K. is the “last to change”.
I’m not sure this makes any difference to the original point: *this week*, most people in the U.K., pedestrians, cyclists, car drivers and truck drivers, are confused about who has the right of way. They have differing *opinions*, right or wrong, and that’s dangerous. I’m more worried about that, than a theoretical change in visibility from HGV cab rules, which is what started this.
Whatever the HGV cab rules, surely the correct advice to cyclists is “for the love of god, work out where the lorries blind spot is, and don’t sit there, whatever your right of way”?
You were wondering if I was a troll, while you're not afraid of writing lies, based on facts you get from your "tame German". And I doubt even that, since I had nothing but alsatians for forty years, and they are smarter than that.
"Fußgänger haben mit und ohne Fußgängerüberweg Vorrang gegenüber aus dem Kreisverkehr ausfahrenden Fahrzeugen.". Also: https://www.stvo2go.de/kreisverkehr-fussgaengerueberweg/
"Justthefacts", eh? TBH with the H from "high".
Since you’re going to be abusive, why not have a look at this roundabout in Sweden, the only country in Europe with lower road fatalities than the U.K. Conspicuously no pedestrian crossings.
https://www.picfair.com/pics/09889051-winter-day-in-haparanda-sweden
The complete list of European countries that have lower rates of road fatalities than Germany, is Ireland, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, U.K., Sweden. Neither Eire nor Spain have mandatory pedestrian crossings at roundabout exits, although Spain often has them in larger cities just like U.K.. So basically, *all* the countries with mandatory roundabout pedestrian crossings have rather poor road death rates. Whereas four out of the six safest countries *don’t* have mandatory pedestrian crossings. Of course, what that actually tells you is that traffic safety is complex, and the actual content of the rules is less important than other factors. But you’re just too dumb to understand that.
https://theloosecannonbuchanan.tumblr.com/post/163443169201/martin-savage-ambush-at-ashtown
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Road_safety_statistics_-_characteristics_at_national_and_regional_level&oldid=463733
@Justthefacts
"-winter-day-in-haparanda-sweden".
Good work, you did manage to find a roundabout in Sweden close to the Arctic Circle not for pedestrians.
The simple fact is that the move from traffic lights to roundabouts started years ago in the Nordic countries.
And there are a hell of a lot of them, and naturally for pedestrians and bikes too, and we do stop and let them pass first, the pedestrians have priority, or as it's rather said "cars are obliged to give way". Motorways are different.
From the EU stats I find the Nordic countries all fit in the top10. Norway does too but is not in EU stats.
There is a lot to all of this including the number of pedestrians in the traffic.
For those interested in stuff like this I would recommend "Not just bikes" on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU&t=489s
PS. I am not sure if I read the "mandatory" the way you mean it.
Further to that, I did my usual trick of actually bothering to check the facts. Hence username.
U.K. road fatalities per capita are the second lowest in Europe and roughly half that of the EU average. So it’s not at all obvious that “bringing the rules in line with the rest of Europe” is a good thing.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Road_safety_statistics_-_characteristics_at_national_and_regional_level&oldid=463733
Because overall deaths are what I think are most important. If the deaths of vulnerable road users are different, I didn’t actually know that. But to be honest, the categorisation into “innocent victims” is a bit like the “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”.
Dead is dead. The girlfriend in the back of a car of someone on hash, doesn’t deserve to die any more than a cyclist. You are choosing to impose your morality on the rest of society in a rather Dickensian and unpleasant way.
Madness. You don’t think we should improve the safety of vulnerable road users because not many people die inside cars? We’re are nearly the worst in Europe for deaths of vulnerable road users, hence the changes.
You quote a misleading statistic and then attempt to justify it with some bizarre anecdote about someone inside a car and throw in a personal insult as well.
Strawman.I didn’t say anywhere that we shouldn’t make changes to protect vulnerable road users. As indeed all road users. But never mistake “something must be done” for “this thing must be done”.
By designating a subset of “innocent victims”, you can decide any course of action you like according to your prejudices. Here are the actual statistics about “vulnerable road users.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-road-user-risk/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-road-user-risk-2020-data#road-users-killed---numbers-and-rates
I hadn’t looked at these statistics in detail before, but now I do, based on Charts1& 2 it’s very apparent what our top safety priority should be. Either ban motorcycles totally, or give them much more protection. They are four times more at risk than pedestrians or cyclists per mile, and twice as many fatalities absolute as pedal cyclists. Why then the proliferation of *cycle* lanes? If there’s only room on the road for one level of traffic segregation, it should be absolutely clear that the cycle lanes should all be repurposed as motorcycle-only lanes. That’s what would save more lives. Except, to you motorcyclists aren’t *innocent* victims, they are the perpetrators, the authors of their own misfortune. And there you have it, laid bare. Dickensian morality at its worst.
You appear to be presuming that your own point of view determines somebody else's position.
In fact motorcyclists are largely most at risk of death and injury because of the laws of physics - pure and simple.
It's not an issue of self-inflicted harm (except when it is), so much as what level of risk a culture, and an individual, are willing to tolerate, for the sake of being free to 'live'.
The fact that some of us are dumb-fucks on a fast road to a bed in the morgue is incidental.
" overall deaths and not deaths of vulnerable road users "
You really mean that pedestrian life is *more important* than just peons behind the wheel, who are meaningless and deserve to be killed.
We've seen that kind of green fascism everywhere lately a lot, especially in Nordic countries.
"Cars are bad, kill the car drivers" is the motto.
Roundabout basically stops the traffic so that pedestrians, who always walk against red light, aren't driven over. Also overall slowing the traffic for imaginary safety of pedestrians who obey no rules, ever. Kings have no rules and in modern traffic pedestrian, the most useless part of traffic, is the king.
From traffic capacity point of view pedestrians are an irrelevant blocker with <1% of person-miles. They shouldn't exist outside of city centrums at all.
But green fanatics hate cars and have declared this sub-1% group to the kings.
>"Roundabout basically stops the traffic so that pedestrians, who always walk against red light, aren't driven over. ..."
Wow!!! You are clearly climbing on to a high horse here.
Roundabouts actually keep the traffic flowing in a way traffic lights can't. Pedestrians crossing, even under the new highway code will be taking their life in their hands!
"They work exactly as you describe - pedestrians have right of way at entries and exits (so traffic stops and let them cross), and cyclists go around the outside and traffic waits before making a right turn across the bike lane (equivalent of a left turn in the UK)"
Here in Italy, priority goes to whoever gets there fastest in the most powerful/largest vehicle. So pretty much like the UK.
I also read the link. I especially like "advanced emergency breaking systems" - I suppose they're the ones ignoring the laws of physics. I also wonder how they're going to redesign cars to protect cyclists heads - thick layer of foam rubber possibly?
Try to sign up for example to:
https://www.researchgate.net/signup.SignUp.html
There is even a group called "Not a researcher (citizen scientist)", so by default you are classified as not a researcher if you don't belong to a uni or work for a corporation etc.
Good luck getting access to papers you want to reference for e.g. signal processing research.
Ah, signal processing research…..
From someone who has worked in that field, you’re wasting your time reading papers for anything but the basics. Anything that’s worth knowing is broadly proprietary, and you learn it by working alongside great people in megacorps that patent it all. And worst of all, defence companies are often the strongest, with places like Qualcomm next, and investment banks last (they think they know it all, but they aren’t as good as they think). I understand you don’t want to hear that. But you’ve absolutely picked the wrong speciality if you want open research.
I hope I’ve saved you a couple of years, believing it’s all locked away in IEEE proceedings you can’t afford, and done in university departments. It really isnt.
You are correct, but you see I get that many papers are very low quality, but I have found many gold nuggets in those that led me to interesting discoveries. Sometimes you have to read between the lines and go through author's trail of published documents to get on track.
These documents provide pointers and with own knowledge and research you can fill the gaps.
Imagine you have a haystack and you have no idea whether a needle is there at all. Then you find a receipt that someone indeed bought a needle, then you find a photo of someone holding a needle near the left corner of the haystack, then you find a piece of string that was in the photo etc. It's fun.
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