The Weekly Dose - Episode 57

The Weekly Dose...

... the latest from Dr Karan

  Here is your weekly dose...  

Hi all!Here is your weekly dose of the Sunday Six! A few things I found interesting this week. If you enjoy this please feel free to forward this to friends. families and enemies alike!If you've enjoyed any of my content over the years, I know you will enjoy my new book "This Book May Save Your Life", available to pre-order here: My First Ever Book!If you enjoy interesting conversations and podcast, check out my brand new podcast "The Referral With Dr Karan"!**You'll find more in depth analysis of some of these subjects on my social platforms in the links just below, including Dr Karan Investigates! for deep dives into interesting topics on my YouTube channel.**

I Still Have No Idea What I'm Doing In Life...

When I was younger, I wanted to be a doctor...now that I've been one for a decade I'm not so sure if this is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. In fact, over the last 2-3 years I've spent an increasing amount of time unsure about what my future holds and feeling uncertain about what I want to do with the rest of my life.To put it simply, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up *more*. The idea that you should know what you want to do with your life by your 20s or even 30s is ridiculous. I've spent far too much time stressing out over my lack of a clearly defined path but the truth no one tells you is that the majority of successful people still have no idea what they want to do later in life.The only key qualities I advise you to embrace is a thirst for action so you can seize opportunities when they present themselves to you, stay curious and keep great company that inspires and motivates you.A plan is great, but life is sweeter when lived with fluidity. 

The Immortal Worms...

What if I told you the plot of the next zombie movie involved scientists defrosting 46,000 year old worms and allowing them to reproduce...well it's not a movie - it's real life!

Ancient worms, frozen for 46,000 years in Siberian permafrost, were revived by scientists. The microscopic creatures (nematodes) belong to a species previously unknown to science, dubbed Panagrolaimus kolymaensis.These nematodes were capable of surviving in such extreme environments for prolonged periods of time due to their ability of enter a state of suspended animation called “cryptobiosis”, in which all measurable metabolic processes power down until environmental conditions improve. The researchers then cultivated the worms for more than 100 generations (they reproduced!) in the hopes of uncovering the biology and mechanisms underpinning this mysterious sleeping beauty state, which could eventually lead to new methods for the long-term storage of cells and tissues.These findings have promising implications for our understanding of tissue preservation as this species of worm was able to survive over vast geological timescales...they were contemporaries with the wooly mammoth! 

You Might Never Eat Parmesan Again...

I must admit, when I first heard this I did give parmesan a miss for a while but I am back to enjoying it. Here goes...So parmesan is usually made from cow's milk, aged for at least 12 months, then heated with other ingredients like whey and rennet. All sound ok so far? Ah but what's rennet, you ask...

Animal rennet is an enzyme obtained from the fourth stomach of veal calves. At this early stage of their life, these baby animals have only consumed milk, so there's large amount of the enzyme chymosin present; an enzyme which clots/coagulates milk. It is this chymosin which is valuable to separate the milk solids from the liquid and is desirable for cheesemaking and forming curds.So if you're vegetarian or vegan...check before getting your regular rainfall of parmesan on your dish!

Will AI Kill Humanity In The Next 100 Years?...

What are the odds that AI will kill humanity by 2100?This was one of the numerous questions posed in the Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament, held by the Forecasting Research Institute, a contest that collected predictions from technical experts and “superforecasters” (people with a solid record of making accurate predictions) about various existential threats — AI, nuclear war & pandemics to name a few...The media response by AI experts suggested there is a 3% chance that AI will kill humanity by 2100. Superforecasters put the odds of AI-faciliated human extinction at just 0.38%. The experts also submitted their thoughts on the likelihood that AI will cause a major catastrophic event (short of total extinction)The median prediction of AI experts was a worrying 12%, whereas the superforecasters put the odds far lower, at 2.13%. Of note, this "tournament" was held in June 2022 before ChatGPT was released in November 2022 - how much this would have swayed these so called experts is hard to say.I'm no AI expert but in the most recent newsletters I've covered a few AI related health topics - namely the AI that helped to create a new type of antibiotic and another AI system which can help to predict a person's risk of pancreatic cancer...In my narrow field of view in the health sphere, I can only see the benefits of an AI augmented healthcare environment and ways that AI can optimise workflow and increase efficiency...although I have spoken previously about the AI software that was shown to be able to decipher a patient's ethnicity based on x-rays and ct scans alone without any patient identifiable records..which is quite scary. AI is just as good as the data it learns on, the input. It biases and flaws are a reflection of human flaws and fallacies.A truly "sentient" AI associated with the dystopian horror movie tropes that we have been primed to expect are still a very, very long way away. 

What You Should Watch...

"The Family" - Netflix I love a good gangster movie/series - Goodfellas, The Wire, Sopranos, Gomorrah...I was doomscrolling on Netflix on a random post on call day on last Tuesday..struggling to find something worthy of my time when I stumbled on The Family which has some pretty big hitters (De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer). Surely this can't be a flop...It wasn't.It's not a classic mafia movie. Robert De Niro is a family man with a mobster past who's in a witness protection programme struggling to shake his gangster past...watch it and thank me later.

What You Should Read...

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel KeyesI haven't given you a book recommendation for a while because frankly I've not had a lot of time recently to sit down and enjoy a good page flicker but this...wow.I'll keep this short and sweet without giving too much away. So the story is about a man who is born with an unusually low IQ and is chosen as the human test subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence. This experimental surgery has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon....The man, Charlie, experiences a rapid increase in his intelligence...far beyond even his doctor's but the mouse begins to deteriorate..What about Charlie?! I also found out this was made into a film too which I will have to watch - I'll keep you posted on this! 

As always, please give me feedback on Twitter. Which of this weeks Sunday six is your favourite? Is there something you want more, or less of? I'm open to any suggestions so please let me know! Just send a  tweet to @drkaranrajan and use the hashtag #theweeklydose at the end so I can find it!

Have a wonderful week, all.

Much love,

Karan