Author Archives: R.E. Buxbaum

About R.E. Buxbaum

Robert Buxbaum is a life-long engineer, a product of New York's Brooklyn Technical High School, New York's Cooper Union to Science and Art, and Princeton University where he got a PhD in Chemical Engineering. From 1981 to 1991 he was a professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State, and now runs an engineering shop in Oak Park, outside of Detroit, Michigan. REB Research manufactures and sells hydrogen generation and purification equipment. He's married with 3 wonderful children who, he's told, would prefer to not be mentioned except by way of complete, unadulterated compliments. As of 2016, he's running to be the drain commissioner/ water resources commissioner of Oakland county.

A Nuclear-blast resistant paint: Starlite and co.

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About 20 years ago, an itinerate inventor named Maurice Ward demonstrated a super insulating paint that he claimed would protect most anything from intense heat. He called it Starlite, and at first no one believed the claims. Then he demonstrated it on TV, see below, by painting a paper-thin layer on a raw egg. He then blasting the egg with a blow torch for a minute till the outside glowed yellow-red. He then lifted the egg with his hand; it was barely warm! And then, on TV, he broke the shell to show that the insides were totally raw, not only uncooked but completely unchanged, a completely raw egg. The documentary below shows the demonstration and describes what happened next (as of 10 years ago) including an even more impressive series of tests.

Intrigued, but skeptical, researchers at the US White Sands National Laboratory, our nuclear bomb test lab, asked for samples. Ward provided pieces of wood painted as before with a “paper thin” layer of Starlite. They subjected these to burning with an oxyacetylene torch, and to a simulated nuclear bomb blast. The nuclear fireball radiation was simulated by an intense laser at the site. Amazing as it sounds, the paint and the wood beneath emerging barely scorched. The painted wood was not damaged by the laser, nor by an oxyacetylene torch that could burn through 8 inches of steel in seconds.

The famous egg, blow torch experiment.

The inventor wouldn’t say what the paint was made of, or what mechanism allowed it to do this, but clearly it had military and civilian uses. It seems it would have prevented the twin towers from collapsing, or would have greatly extended the time they stayed standing. Similarly, it would protect almost anything from a flame-thrower.

As for the ingredients, Ward said it was non-toxic, and that it contained mostly organic materials, plus borax and some silica or ceramic. According to his daughter, it was “edible”; they’d fed it to dogs and horses without adverse effects.

Starlite coasted wood. The simulated nuclear blast made the char mark at left.

The White sands engineers speculate that the paint worked by combination of ablation and intumescence, controlled swelling. The surface, they surmised, formed a foam of char, pure carbon, that swelled to make tiny chambers. If these chambers are small enough, ≤10 nm or so, the mean free path of gas molecules will be severely reduced, reducing the potential for heat transfer. Even more insulting would be if the foam chambers were about 1 nm. Such chambers will be, essentially air free, and thus very insulating. For a more technical view of how molecule motion affects heat transfer rates, see my essay, here.

Sorry to say we don’t know how big the char chambers are, or if this is how the material works. Ward retained the samples and the formula, and didn’t allow close examination. Clearly, if it works by a char, the char layer is very thin, a few microns at most.

Because Maurice Ward never sold the formula or any of the paint in his lifetime, he made no money on the product. He kept closed muted about it, as he knew that, as soon as he patented, or sold, or let anyone know what was in the paint, there would be copycats, and patent violations, and leaks of any secret formula. Even in the US, many people and companies ignore patent rights, daring you to challenge them in court. And it’s worse in foreign countries where the government actively encourages violation. There are also legal ways around a patent: A copycat inventor looks for ways to get the same behavior from materials that are not covered in the patent. Ward could not get around these issues, so he never patented the formula or sold the rights. He revealed the formula only to some close family members, but that was it till May, 2020, when a US company, Thermashield, LLC, bought Ward’s lab equipment and notes. They now claim to make the original Starlite. Maybe they do. The product doesn’t seem quite as good. I’ve yet to see an item scorched as little as the sample above.

Many companies today are now selling versions of Starlite. The formulas are widely different, but all the paints are intumescent, and all the formulas are based on materials Ward would have had on hand, and on the recollections of the TV people and those at White Sands. I’ve bought one of these copycat products, not Thermashield, and tested it. It’s not half bad: thicker in consistency than the original, or as resistive.

There are home-made products too, with formulas on the internet and on YouTube. They are applied more like a spackle or a clay. Still, these products insulate remarkably well: a lot better than any normal insulator I’d seen.

If you’d like to try this as a science fair project, among the formulas you can try; a mix of glue, baking soda, borax, and sugar, with some water. Some versions use sodium silicate too. The Thermoshield folks say that this isn’t the formula, that there is no PVA glue or baking soda in their product. Still it works.

Robert Buxbaum, March 13, 2022. Despite my complaints about the US patent system, it’s far better than in any other country I’ve explored. In most countries, patents are granted only as an income stream for the government, and inventors are considered villains: folks who withhold the fruits of their brains for unearned money. Horrible.

The claim that Ukrainians are Nazis is also Ukraine’s claim to statehood.

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Recently Putin claimed he was going into Ukraine to fight Nazis. Twitter makes fun of this, but also shows many pictures of these Nazis. Under the hashtag #AzovBattalion, you’ll see many pictures of white boys with swastikas and Ukraine flags (see below). Perhaps these pictures are just Russian propaganda: According to our media there are no Nazis to speak of, and besides, the president of Ukraine is a Jew. Still, the pictures look real, and based on Ukraine history, there is quite a bit reason to think they are not an aberration. Still, to the extent that they represent Ukraine, these individuals are a major basis of Ukraine’s claim for independence. They are also a good reason to leave Ukraine out of NATO, IMHO.

Let’s go back to the late days of the Tartars and the early days of the Cossacks, about 1600. There is a painting, below depicting Cossacks of those days writing a letter to The Sultan (original in the Kharkov museum). They do not seem the most savory of people, but they do seem independent and egalitarian. The letter is not written by a noble, but by a committee of pirates, and not everyone is happy about it.

Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the sultan. These are the people who Putin claims should be loyal to Russia, but they have a long history of behaving otherwise. I like the scribe. A couple of people at left seem unhappy.

From 1250 to the mid 1700s, Southern Ukraine was ruled, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Crimean Tartars, a group of horse-riding Mongols who nominally served the great Khan. Moscow paid dues to them, and in 1571 the Tartar ruler,  Devlet I Giray burnt Moscow to collect his dues. The early Cossacks were Black-sea pirates, and enemies of the Tartars. Around 1600, the Cossacks and Tartars realized they had a lot in common (alcoholism, pederasty…) and formed an alliance. Mainly this was against the Poles and Jews. A famous result of this alliance was the Khmelnytsky Uprising (about 1650). Khmelnytsky was the “Hetman” (Head man?), the elected, temporary ruler for the uprising. He has become a symbol of Ukrainian independence, but he was also a brutal murderer of virtually all the Jews and Catholics. Today, he graces Ukraine’s $5 bill, and sits atop a statue in Kyiv’s central square. This elevation of Khmelnytsky is no small insult to Jews, Catholics, and civilization.

Ukrainian Republic passport, 1919.

 In 1654, via the Pereyaslav Agreement, Khmelnytsky’s Tartar-Cossacks formed an allegiance with the Tsar while retaining autonomy in Ukraine. This autonomy eroded over the years, and ended with Bolshevik rule in the early 20th century. After WWI, Ukrainians briefly tried for independence, forming the Ukraine Peoples Republic and the Ukraine Democratic republic, from 1917 to 1921. The head of the Republic was called hetman, an elected leader but also a throwback to a mass-murderer.

Stalin punished the Cossack remnant before WWIi, and when the Germans invaded in 1939, many of the remaining Ukrainians supported the Nazi invasion, and provided some of the most brutal murders of Jews; the murderers of Baba Year, for example. Putin recalls this collaboration when he calls the Ukrainians Nazis, and I suspect that he’s more right than our press will admit. These #azovbattalion pictures don’t look faked. On the other hand, the autonomy of the Ukrainians and Cossacks, and their attempts at independence provide historical backing for Ukraine’s claim to independence. Putting this another way, the more you accept that Ukraine is full of Nazi sympathizers, the more you should accept them as a distinct society from Russia.

Ukrainians of the Azov Battalion with a statue of Khmelnytsky, or some other murderer.

As an idea of how the war might go, I should mention another group of Tartar-Cossacks. These were Moslems who operated between the Don and Volga Rivers in what is known as Chechnya. Chechnya fought Russia in a long, bloody, unsuccessful struggle, that is only recently ended. Russia may win in Ukraine, but it is not likely to win easily or cheaply if Chechnya is any model.

Robert Buxbaum, Mar. 2, 2022

Jews Believe in Life after Death for Jew and Gentile.

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It is a common misunderstanding that Jews don’t believe in the afterlife. We do, both for good Jews and for good gentiles. While the talmud is clear on this, the Old Testament presentation is vague and poetic. As an example, the Talmud, Pirke Avos 4:16, says, “This world is like a corridor before the World-to-Come. Rectify yourself in the corridor in order to be able to enter the Banquet Hall.” The Talmud and Bible (OT) go to great detail of what to do in the corridor, but there are only poetic allusions about the afterlife banquet. 

One Old-testament allusion is that death is described as going to sleep, or going to sleep with ones ancestors. Sleep here is understood as something that you generally wake up from. The added phrase, “with his ancestors” suggests a certain independence of person, even after death, so that we don’t all merge into a cosmic will. That this sleep is not burial is apparent, for example, with David,  (1 Kings 2:10) , “Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David.” First David’s soul left to sleep with his ancestors, and then he was buried. It’s the same with Solomon, (1 Kings 11:43), “Then Solomon slept with his ancestors and was buried”. This phrase appears also for Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:20), for Reboham (1 Kings 14:31), and for many others including Ahab (1 Kings 15:24). 

Now Ahab was an awful individual, and Jeroboam and Rechovoam weren’t exactly saints. According to Jewish tradition, you can be pretty bad and not lose your share in the world to come. The Talmud, (Sanhedrin 105a), says that, in general, “All Israel has a share in the world to come.” There are a few exceptions, Jews and gentiles who were so bad that they are no longer be part of God’s covenant, but those are rare. The Talmud says that Bilham was such an exceptional individual. He did his best to curse the Jews, and, as in (Gen. 12:3, and Deut 30:7), those who curse you are cursed. From the fact that Bilham lost his share we see that he originally had a share. All righteous gentiles do, according to Jewish tradition. 

Another, Old Testament source that righteous gentiles have a share in the world to come is from the death of Abraham (Gen 25:8-9). “Abraham expired and died, an old man and full of years, and was was gathered to his people, and Isaac and Ishmael, his sons buried him…” Abraham being gathered to his people is understood to mean that he went to join his dead ancestors in heaven — but all of Abraham’s ancestors were gentiles. He’s gathered to the good gentiles in heaven, to Noah and the Noachides. Noah was not a Jew, but he is described as righteous and as walking with God (Gen 6:9). Walking with God is another allusion to being good in this world, and going to heaven afterwards. Apparently righteous gentiles not only go to heaven, but get to gather with Abraham and Noah.

We find that Ishmael was “gathered to his people” (Gen 25:17), as was Isaac (Gen 35:29), Jacob (Gen 49:33), Aaron (Num 20:24), and Moses (Num 27:13). Ishmael was not a Jew, nor particularly righteous, but there he is gathered with Abraham. There is allusion to him being a robber in his early days, “a wild ass among men; his hand shall be against every man” (Gen 16:12). Apparently he repented, and we find him in heaven with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, and Moses. 

That we believe righteous gentiles go to heaven has been a problem for Jewish missionary work: if you can go to heaven without taking on the restrictions of becoming a Jew, why convert? For most non-Jews the right answer is, don’t convert, but live as a righteous gentile.

The details of heaven, and of the afterlife are not well spelled out in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, and not in the Talmud. Some Talmudic scholars took the sleep analogy literally to say that one awakens with the body one went down with, and even in the same clothes. One Talmudic rabbi wanted to be dressed nicely for his burial for that reason. Most rabbis do not expect their clothes to resurrect. In Jewish prayer (the Amida, 2nd section) we speak of revival of the dead in terms of plants coming back after a rain. This suggests a different body altogether. No one really knows. 

The Jewish tradition takes heaven as a gathering, and this suggests you can speak to one another after death. There is also a concept of punishment for sin; perhaps the punishment is confronting the people you wronged. We don’t know. We presume that the experience of heaven is more pleasant for those who do good, but the details are hidden. “An eye has not seen, other than the L-rd’s, what He will do for those who hope in Him” (Isaiah 64:3). Bilham says he wants the death of the righteous (Num 23:10), but not the life.

Jewish tradition assumes that one’s marriage bond continues in heaven, by the way. In the Talmud (Taanis 25a), men are described as sitting with their wives, and this provides another bit of evidence that the Jewish belief in heaven goes way back. In the New Testament, in several places we find a story of some rabbis challenging JC to explain what would happen if a woman had seven husbands; (Matthew 22: 24-28, Luke 20: 33-37, Mark 12:18-25). Which husband would she sit with, they ask. JC’s answer is that marriage does not continue after death, and that we would be as angels. The Jewish traction disagrees and says that we’d be more like we are now, with our wives, but the fact that JC and the rabbis are arguing about the marriage bond in heaven indicates that both sides agree there is a heaven.

One reason we imagine our wives will be with us is the idea of becoming one flesh (Gen 2:24), another reason has to do with the fairness of reward. We want to enjoy heaven as ourselves, and not as some angelic version of myself that enjoys playing the harp for a billion years. As for the mechanics of heavenly marriage, one rabbi I knew said that it would be his divine punishment and his wife’s heaven. He imagined his she would want to go shopping all the time, and he’d have to go along*.

Robert Buxbaum, Feb. 8, 2022 *S. Kauffman, of blessed memory.

Wood, the strongest material for some things, like table-tops

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Natural wood has a lower critical strength than most modern materials, and a lower elastic constant, yet it is the strongest material for some applications because it is remarkably light and remarkably cheap on a per-volume or weight. In some important applications, high strength per volume is the important measure, and in virtually every case high strength per dollar is relevant. Consider the table top: it should support a person standing on it, as one might do to change a lightbulb, and it should not weigh too much, or cost too much.

A 250 lb man on a table. The table should not weight too much, nor cost too much, yet it should support the man.

I’ve drawn a 9 foot by 4 foot table at left, with a 250 lb person in the center. Assuming that the thickness of the table is t, the deflection in the center, ∂, is found by the formula ∂ =FL3/4Ewt3. Here, F is the downward force, 250 lbs (a bit higher if we include the weight of the table), L is the length between the supports, 6 feet = 72 inches, E is the elastic constant of the table top, 2,300,000 psi assuming ash wood, w is the width of the table, 48″, and t is the thickness, let’s say 1″.

Using the formula above, we fid that the deflection of this tabletop is 0.211″ for a force of 250 lbs. That’s not bad. The weight of the 9′ table top is 125 lbs, which is not too bad either, and the cost is likely going to be acceptable: ash is a fairly cheap, nice-looking wood.

By comparison, consider using a 1/4″ thick sheet of structural aluminum, alloy 6061. The cost will be much higher and the weight will be the same as for the 1′ thick piece of ash. That’s because the density of aluminum is 2.7 g/cc, more than three times that of ash. Aluminum 6061is four times stiffer than ash, with an elastic constant of 10,000,000 psi, but the resistance to bending is proportional to thickness cubed; and 1/4 cubed is 1/64. We thus find that the 125 lb tabletop of Al alloy will deflect 3.11 inches, about 16 times more than ash, far too much to be acceptable. We could switch to thicker aluminum, 3/8″ for example, but the weight would be 50% higher now, the cost would be yet 50% higher, and the deflection would still be too high, 0.92 inches. Things get even worse with steel since steel is yet-denser, a 1/4″ sheet of steel would deflect about as much as the 3/8″ aluminum, but would weigh about twice as muc. For this application, and many others like it, wood is likely the best choice; its light weight per strength and low cost can’t be beat.

Robert E. Buxbaum, January 11, 2022

Professors being replaced by videos, entertainers.

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In a previous post, I presented data to the effect that, while college is a benefit to those who major in moneymaking fields, STEM, English, and philosophy, it is a money loser for those in film, history, language, political science, etc.

Most students don’t mind if the information itself can be forgotten on graduation day, but the better students do mind. Professors in these fields motivate their better students by luring them with the chance to become professors. A vision of stylish offices, and deep satisfaction is dangled before the student, while tuition and a total commitment is asked in return. The chance of an actual job is virtually nil. This is the background to murder in popular, dark-academia stories like “The Secret History” by Danna Tartt, and a Hitchcock movie, “rope” (see my essay here).

Things are getting more depressing for those aspiring to become professors. Now, aspiring professors have to compete with taped programs made by other professors, some well known, some already dead. And some professors — those without tenure — have to compete with their own taped programs. Tapes of old lectures are available free to the university. It’s a financial boon for the university to be able to collect tuition without having to pay a living professor who gives essentially the same lecture year after year. If the professor is untenured, the university can fire him or her, and use the tape from last year, or they can purchase a series of lectures by a Nobel laureate. It’s a great deal for the majority of students and for the university, but deadly to the aspiring few.

Robert Buxbaum, December 3, 2021

The Pope’s crusade against agricultural greed.

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The Pope goes to long lengths to show how much he supports the poor, oppressed people of the world; he washes the feet of Muslim prisoners, he campaigns against Israeli occupation of Palestine, and scolds America, but not China they must reduce carbon output. Usually he picks the wrong villains, in my opinion. His latest effort is against the producers and distributors of food, the agribusinessmen. If only they would charge less, everyone would have more, or so he says.

On World Food Day, Pope Francis placed the blame on capitalism in the food market. Some examples of his speech and tweets follow: “The fight against hunger demands we overcome the cold logic of the market, which is greedily focused on mere economic profit and the reduction of food to a commodity, and strengthening the logic of solidarity.”

In the Pope’s view the cold logic of the market is the source of hunger. I think it is the source of his food and mine, and for the most part everyone’s.

“Thinking about these situations, in God’s name I want to ask The big food corporations to stop imposing monopolistic production and distribution structures that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry.”

The Pope blames high food prices on producers and distributors who are, in his words, “withholding bread from the hungry.”  Of course, all the bread the Pope eats comes from these producers and distributors. It is the same for the bread of all the Archbishops and virtually all the priests; it all comes from these agribusinessmen, who charge more than he would like. They are also the source of the church’s wine, and meat, and vegetables. Folks who do not grow food themselves, and who do not transport it, or process charge those who do these things as greedy, withholding monsters. That any of them have food is only because of these monsters; without them, the poor of the world would starve to death. If he thinks he can do better, he should try, perhaps giving up his time washing feet.

The Pope believes that big food corporations are causing starvation and withholding food from the hungry.

Free market pricing is how farmers know what to produce, where, and who to sell too. It’s also how customers know what to buy and keep, and what to throw away, or save for a special occasion. Without these clues, farmers would grow things people don’t want, and much of the good stuff would go to waste.

High prices for some foods is the indicator that causes agribusiness individuals (the so-called greedy) to see an unmet need. They then employ people in the manufacture and distribution of these foods reducing the employment in the production of other foods where the margins are smaller. These food-price signals are also the fuel for technological innovation — the innovation that has made food abundant and relatively affordable, especially in the capitalist west.

The west has lead in food innovation precisely because of the motivation of food profit. Monsanto invents and distributes seeds for fast-growing grains precisely because there is profit in it, and it is these seeds that reduces the price to the consumer. Colonel Sanders invented the high-pressure fryer because it allowed him to fry more chicken faster. The result is profits for KFC and lower prices for the consumers. It is only because of the so-called corporate greed that western consumers have so many options at such low prices that obesity is a big problem, and starvation is virtually unknown. In the US you can buy $1 hamburgers when the minimum wage is about $10/hour. That is, you can buy a hamburger with the income from 6 minutes of work. You can not do that in any country ruled by enlightened leaders where profit is banned.

Charity proliferates in a free market because many of the people have excess give it willingly targeted to help. They give to the Church, or to the poor directly, or in ways that help the poor indirectly. Such giving makes a bond between giver and recipient and cheers both. Almost immediately, the recipient of the charity enters the capitalist market to trade excess and unneeded items for items that are needed. Perhaps the recipient got too many cans of food, but no shoes, or no can-opener. The market allows a rectification at a fair exchange.

And as for the mandate to lecture world leaders on the evils of capitalism, there is none. Moses, in the desert offers to buy food and water at the market prices. On a similar note Jesus pointed out that financial authority rested with the Emperor, not with the religious leaders. In this vein, Pope Galasius I wrote to Emperor Anastasius in AD 494 that there were two systems: the sacred authority of the priests, and the royal power. In the west, the royal power over food is the marketplace, and it has shown itself to be smarter and more giving than the smartest, most charitable religious leaders.

Robert Buxbaum, November 29, 2021. Having complained about the pope I would like to say that Cardinal Tim Dolan, Archbishop of New York does a wonderful job. His main efforts are education and helping immigrants: needed work. And, as best I know, he has never criticized any productive business for charging too much.

Who watches the watchmen; who protects from the protectors?

One of the founding ideas of a limited government, as I think our founders intended, is that the power of the state to protect carries with it several dangers. The first of these is cost, all good services and all good protections come at a cost. Generally that is achieved by taxation or by inflation, or by imposing regulations that do more harm than good. Once a tax for a service is accepted the service is really removed, and there is a tendency to over tax or over inflate to maintain it and to mis-distribute the service as well. The people do not become wealthier, or better served, but the people distributing the services win out. There are those who would say we are living through this today.

Another problem with a big, protective government is that the protectors can turn on the people they are supposed to protect. This can be small issues, like firing people who refuse to vaccinate, or large matters like imprisoning enemies. The history of the world is littered with examples of governments taken over by their own police or army. Generally the excuse is that the police is protecting the people from some bigger danger: rioters, disease, subversives. But once the police take over, they are hard to remove. They tend to see anyone who wants to limit their power as another subversive, and they tend to treat treat such people ruthlessly.

In the French Revolution, the group who ran the guillotine was the “committee for public safety”. First they killed to protect the folk from dangerous monarchists, then the clergy, and capitalists, and eventually anyone they considered a threat: That is anyone who considered them a threat. A similar outcome occurred in Russia, the removal of the Tzar lead to a rein of terror by Stalin. Harry Truman wrote saying that the CIA was another Stalinist police force, and wrote that congress was afraid of them. (see his Op-ed here). It seems that FBI director James Comey used made-up evidence of Russian collaboration to try to remove Trump (see NY Post story here).

A final problem with a powerful group of protectors is that it can be bought by outside agents. Rudolf Hess was Truman’s agent for dealing with the UN to promote world peace. It also turns out that he was also a Soviet agent. In Britain in the 50s to 70s, the assistant head of spying, the second in command of MI6, was Kim Philby a Soviet agent. The Soviets helped Philby’s rise by destroying the reputation of anyone who might do the job well. To this day, we regularly find Chinese and Russian agents in our FBI, NSA, and CIA. There is no better place to gather information and spread lies than with the organization that is supposed to protect us.

The title of my essay comes from a satrical poem/ essay written by Juvinal, in first century Rome (read it here). The more famous line is Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Juvenal points out that not only is group of watchmen/protectors a danger in itself so that, if you hire a watchman to keep your wife chaste, she is likely to stray with the watchman, but he also points out that the watchmen are expensive, and that they are easily bought. Juvenal also points out that cruelty and vanities are common outcomes of a large retinue; if the wife or one of her high eunuchs feels disregarded, everyone lower will be beaten mercilessly. It’s a problem that is best solved, in the home and in politics in general by having a small staff — just what’s really needed. This, I think, was the intent of the founders of our country who limited the number of services provided.

Robert E. Buxbaum, November 27, 2021. As a more-fun way to present watchmen getting excessive, here is a parity song, “Party in the CIA,” by Weird Al. …Better put your hands up and get in the van, Or else you’ll get blown away, Stagin’ a coup like yeah… Party in the CIA.

Vaccines have not decreased the US COVID death rate

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I’m not sure why this is, but a quick look at the death statistics shows that it is no lower today than it was a year ago. Vaccines seem to help the individual, but they don’t seem to do much for society as a whole.

Johns Hopkins data. COVID 19 death rate in the USA.

That the death rates are the same as last November is bad, especially since one major effect of COVID has been to wipe out nearly all our old folks, decreasing the lifespan of US men by 2-3 years. With a 70% vaccination rate (adults, 60% overall), and few old people, you ‘d expect our death rate this year would be lower than last.

Currently, at least, the trend-line looks positive, but that’s likely a mirage. It is common to add more deaths to the tally, retroactively a few weeks out as many deaths take weeks to report and more weeks to be counted as COVID. For what it’s worth, I’m vaccinated, two shots and a booster. I also take aspirin, and have gotten a pneumonia shot. I think it helps. What do I know?

Robert Buxbaum, November 18, 2021

Deadly incurable viruses abound: The plagues to come.

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As we discuss the effectiveness of the various COIVD vaccines, and ask if we will need another booster in a year, this time for the delta variant, or epsilon, it’s worth noticing that none of these is that deadly, especially if you’ve had a previous version. There are far worse viruses out there, like Ebola-Zaire, for example. This virus kills 60-90% of the people infected, typically by causing the body’s connective tissue to dissolve. Now that’s a deadly virus; imagine an ebola pandemic.

We live surrounded by many really deadly viruses, most of them incurable. In general our protection from them is that they usually show a slow infection rate or a slow progress to death. Drug resistant leprosy is one of these. Here’s the beginnings of a list of deadly viruses we could worry about: Lassa, Rift Vally, Oropouche, Rocio Q Guanarito, VEE, Marburg, Herpes B, Monkey Pox, Dengue, Chikunguanya, Hantavirus, Machupo, Junin, Rabies-like Mokola, drug-resistant leprosy, Duvenhage, LeDantec, Kyasanur, Forest Brain virus, HIV-AIDs, Simliki, Crimean-Congo virus, Sindbis, O’nyongnyong, Sao Paulo, SARS, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Reston, Mid-East Respiratory (MERS), Zika, Delta-COVID. (I got 2/3 of this list from a 1993 book called “The Hot Zone” about the first US outbreak of Ebola — Washington DC in 1989 — a good book, worth a read).

Ebola is a string-like virus with loops. It causes your body to dissolve and bleed out from every pore. The strings form crystals that are virtually immortal.

As an ilk, these viruses are far older than we are, older than the first cellular creatures, and far tougher. They are neither dead nor alive, and can last for years generally without air, water or food if the temperature is right. Though they do not move on their own, nor eat in any normal sense, they do reproduce, and they do so with a vengeance. They also manage to evolve by an ingenious sexual mechanism. In a sense, they are the immune system of the earth, protecting the earth from man or any other invasive life form. We humans have only survived the virus for 100,000 years or so. Long term, the viruses are likely to win.

Zika is a ball-shaped virus. Incurable, it causes encephala. Ball-viruses are not as immortal as string viruses. COVID is a ball virus with spikes, a crown virus.

Some viruses are string shaped; Marburg and Ebola are examples. Such viruses can crystalize and live virtually forever on dry surfaces. Other viruses are ball-shaped, COVID and Zika, for example. These are more easily attacked on surfaces, e.g. by iodine. They become inactive after just a few minutes in air– and are killed instantly by iodine, alcohol, bleach, or peroxide.

Most viruses enter by cuts and body fluids. This is the case with AIDS and herpes. Others, like measles, shingles, and Zika, enter by way of surfaces and the hands. Virus-laden droplets collect on surfaces and are brought to a new host when the surface is touched and hand-transported to the nose or eyes. A few viruses, like SARS, Ebola, and COVID-19 can enter the body by breathing too. I’ve collected some evidence in favor of Iodine as a surface wipe, a hand wipe and as mouthwash in this previous essay.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, November 3, 2021. The US has three facilities where they deal with the most deadly, contagious viruses. One is in Washington DC; they had leak in 1989, a part of the ebola outbreak. China has only one such facility, in Wuhan, China. It’s one block from where the COVID-19 outbreak supposedly originated. Have a nice day.