Russell

24’ Economist/Engineer 🇻🇦🇺🇸🌲

[Russell @RWatkinsi]

My top 2025 reads!

[Roger Seheult, MD @RogerSeheult]

This is getting interesting.

A small randomized study from Brazil (N=30) used 940 nm near-infrared light in hospitalized COVID patients and found a shorter hospital stay: about 8 days vs 11.7 days in controls.

At the time, the obvious question was: why?

Then a separate study using 808 nm infrared showed that PBM can turn down the TLR3 → NF-κB inflammatory pathway in macrophages, with reductions in TLR3 expression and inflammatory cytokines.

Now this new 2026 Science Advances paper adds another piece.

It shows that the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein can strongly amplify inflammation through TLR3 and TLR7/8 signaling in macrophages, while at the same time suppressing parts of the antiviral interferon response.

So you have:

Nucleocapsid + viral RNA → TLR3/TLR7/8 → NF-κB → inflammation

and separately:

Near-infrared light → ↓ TLR3/NF-κB signaling

That does NOT prove the 940 nm COVID study worked through TLR3.

But it gives us a very plausible mechanism that is now testable.

It also reminds us that COVID inflammation was never necessarily just a “spike protein” story. Nucleocapsid itself appears capable of driving significant inflammatory and vascular effects.

The obvious next experiment is to expose nucleocapsid-expressing macrophages to TLR stimulation, add near-infrared light, and see if the inflammatory response comes down.

That would be a very interesting study.

940 nm COVID trial:
https://t.co/yQeJ94xZhK
808 nm / TLR3:
https://t.co/7jUePM1QqO

Nucleocapsid study:
https://t.co/d5zDjyEoOl

[MisbehavingEconomist @MisbehavingE]

@RealNickMugalli Bessent faces two choices in lead up to Mid-Terms:
1) Japan raises interest rates to defend JPY -> crush carry trade -> US equities crash hard.
2) US lowers interest rates to defend JPY -> higher inflation -> Treasury yields explode but US equities rise short-term.

[Maddie Lee @maddie_m_lee]

The Dodgers are acquiring Tarik Skubal, a source confirmed.

[Mary Talley Bowden MD @MaryBowdenMD]

My feed is filled entirely with people mocking Fauci and calling for his arrest, and it is glorious.

[soli @solisolsoli]

Brünnhilde, 1936

[DaVinci @BiancoDavinci]

Milan's historic Piazza del Duomo 1985 vs. 2025

[World Explorer @flower6260]

Cannon Beach, Oregon

[Tim Burchett @timburchett]

I voted NO on the NDAA.
I voted to ban stock trading.

[Robert Barnes @barnes_law]

On flip side, Nixon opened door to China, did detente with the Soviet Union, exited Vietnam knowing it would fall, and set foundation for no American war for the longest time period since before World War 1.

[ArtButMakeItSports @ArtButSports]

Mephisto, by Joaquín Espalter y Rull, 1872, 📸 by Dan Mullan

[Carnivore Aurelius ©🥩 ☀️🦙 @AlpacaAurelius]

stop eating this shit

[Sophie Cunningham @sophaller]

so how do we save our farm land and stop all these dumb data centers?

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

New Hampshire learns of the independence of the United States as 22-year-old John Taylor Gilman reads aloud a copy of the Declaration of Independence in Exeter.

The document was printed by Loyalist Robert Luist Fowle, editor of the New Hampshire Gazette. Though the Declaration sharply contrasts with his ideology, Fowle printed it because he felt a journalistic duty to do so.

[Culture Crave 🍿 @CultureCrave]

Kane Parsons says he’s looking into A24 allegedly copyright-striking Backrooms-inspired artwork and projects

“Should not be happening”

[Mary Talley Bowden MD @MaryBowdenMD]

Over the past 34 years, healthcare has replaced manufacturing as the top employer in the vast majority of states.

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

“Never forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.”

Richard Nixon

[Propagandopolis @propagandopolis]

'Liberation of Minsk by the Red Army, 3 July 1944' — Soviet painting (1955) depicting the Red Army's entry into Minsk during the Second World War.

[Mary Talley Bowden MD @MaryBowdenMD]

@xIsraelExposedx Horrific.

[Russell @RWatkinsi]

@MrBeast 425,176