Category: A G Moore

I’m Blogging on the Hive Now

Image credit: Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay

My first blog in a long time. So much going on in the world. I don’t know if you’re all as edgy as I am, but I keep remembering passages from Defoe’s “Journal of the Plague Year”. Descriptions of St. Giles Parish were haunting in that book. It seemed every day the numbers mounted in St. Giles, and outpaced other parishes.

I live in New York, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. Maybe that explains my heightened awareness. I’m looking for ways to distract myself. Watching the “Indestructible Kimmy Schmidt” is one way. Blogging is another. So here I am.

First I’ll start with blockchain news.

There’s been an upheaval in the world of Steemit. Not long ago a young Chinese investor bought a massive stake in the organization. Which stunned those of us who blog there. Not because he was Chinese, but because he assumed he had bought us. I think it was a cultural disconnect. Most people get involved with cryptocurrency and blockchains because they have a libertarian streak. Being owned is an intrinsic contradiction.

To make a long story short, there was a rebellion. A lot of Steemit bloggers (stakeholders) essentially took their toys and went to another playground. They started another blockchain and migrated all the accumulated content to that chain. So, many of us joined the new blockchain, which is called The Hive. The link is to my home page on the blockchain.

It took me a few days to find my way around the neighborhood, but finally, yesterday, I put up my first post: Tinkering with DNA to Find a Cure: The Story of Azathioprine.

The blog is full of helpful information, especially if you’ve ever been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Azathioprine is prescribed for a wide variety of conditions. The article describes some of those and also explains some of the risks associated with this course of treatment.

I’d love it if one or two of you read the blog and gave me feedback. So far, I only got one good comment. That’s a little discouraging.

Everybody, across the world. Stay well and take care of each other.

by Categories: A G Moore, Blogging, PandemicTags: , , , Leave a comment

Pigs, Health and Novel Viruses

It’s been two months since I posted. I guess what is known as ‘the holidays’ got in the way. Plus, I’ve been writing other material, mostly on Steemit. I seem to get involved in a research topic and don’t come up for air until I’m satisfied with the result. It’s called perseverance, and it’s a good trait because quality results. But it does preclude other engagements.

So, in the next few weeks, I’m going to share some of my most significant posts from the last two months. One of these, Radioactive Pigs, Wild Pigs, Sick Pigs: The Trouble with Pigs Today published in November, looked at pigs.

Common Warthog, Phacochoerus africanus – adult and juvenile, cousin of domestic pig

I happen to like pigs. As a matter of fact, no bacon, or pork of any kind, has been on my plate for many years. But even if you don’t like pigs, these animals warrant your attention.

As I wrote in that blog: It is estimated that there are two billion domesticated pigs in the world. They are not only a source of nutrition for billions of people. They are also a reservoir for disease. Today, with the novel corona virus spreading across the globe, this is worthy of note. Pigs are not blamed for the current disease outbreak. This one may have originated in bats (although the jury is still out on that). However, pathogens from pigs have leapt across the species barrier in the past, and we should be mindful of the risk.

One way to be mindful, is to insure the health of animals in our care. If animals are sick and harboring pathogens, those pathogens are just a small step away from us. Entry may be through the food chain or through contact.

Today, pork prices are kept low because of factory farming. This involves pumping the pigs with antibiotics to keep down a level of infection in quarters so crowded that pigs do not even have room to turn around. Pumping pigs full of antibiotics increases antibiotic resistant pathogens. These antibiotics will not work any longer for the pigs. They will also not work for humans.

Not only that, but the antibiotics pool in the large waste lagoons that balloon out from the pig habitats. The lagoons are a kind of microbial soup, in which antibiotics and microbes coexist. In that coexistence, microbes ‘learn’ to recognize antibiotics and evolve to defend against them. This evolution strengthens the microbe and weakens our ability to fight them when they invade our bodies.

There is so much more in my blog that might be of interest. How, for example, radioactive pigs manage to wander around Eastern Europe and Japan. Why many areas in the world are troubled by what seems to be an invasion of feral hogs.

It’s probably unseemly to recommend my own blog, but this one was really chock full of information. If you’ve got a few moments to spare (alright, it will take a little longer than a few moments) check out the blog.

Thanks for reading. I’m going to look at my reading feed here and see what I’ve been missing.

A very late, Happy New Year to all 🙂

by Categories: A G Moore, Animals, Blogging, China, Health, Health and EnvironmentTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Catching Up

This was adapted from two Pixabay pictures: one of a tree and one of a man sleeping. It was the closing picture on a story I wrote recently (see below).

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I’ve been absent but I’ve been writing. I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve done.

In the political season, Twitter gets a lot of my traffic. If you care to check that out: https://twitter.com/A_G_Moore. My political beliefs are strong, but never hostile. As is true with many people these days, I’m looking for alternatives to most of the choices we are offered.

The world is always in flux–it just doesn’t look that way from a rear view mirror. Often, people speak of the old days as though issues were settled. But they never were. It’s just, sometimes things are a little more unsettled.

Besides Twitter, I’ve been blogging on Steemit. I wrote some nice stories, I think. I’ll cite the two most recent here, if you’d like to check them out. They are both sort of character sketches.

I think there are enough stories now for me to put together a collection. Nobody reads collections, particularly from unknown authors. But, anyway, I still might like to put them all together. You never know how something will work out unless you try it.

My latest post on Steemit is a research article about pigs, if you can believe that. My posts on Steemit alternate between creative writing and research. If you care about your health, my pig article might interest you. So many issues with pigs can impact other species, including humans.

Here’s the link:

Radioactive Pigs, Wild Pigs, Sick Pigs: The Trouble with Pigs Today

This is a hybrid piglet, descendant of wild boar and domestic pig

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I’ll put a link to my most recent stories here, also:

Larry: A Family Album

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And the other one:

Samuel: An Illustrated Story

Some of the pictures for the story were adapted from photographs I found on Pixabay. Here’s one of them:

This picture was derived from the landscape picture below. I just imagined the scene I wanted and used the original as a guide.

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You can find a lot of interesting material on Steemit. I know some people are suspicious of the blockchain. I’ve been blogging there since February of 2018. So far, nothing bad has happened to me.

I have met some interesting people. Here’s an article by one gentleman who has a WordPress blog, and a Steemit blog. His latest blogs featured a video by a clever young man who demonstrates how to create a blockchain. This really takes the mystery out of the technology.

I’ll post links to the WordPress site, and the Steemit blog:

First WordPress:

World of Chapper

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And then Steemit:

@chappertron

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I hope you don’t mind my extremely casual catching-up post.

I’ll be back soon!

by Categories: A G Moore, Blogginh, Creative WritingTags: , , Leave a comment