Category Archives: Robert Buxbaum

Einstein’s theory of diffusion in liquids, and my extension.

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In 1905 and 1908, Einstein developed two formulations for the diffusion of a small particle in a liquid. As a side-benefit of the first derivation, he demonstrated the visible existence of molecules, a remarkable piece of work. In the second formulation, he derived the same result using non-equilibrium thermodynamics, something he seems to have developed on the spot. I’ll give a brief version of the second derivation, and will then I’ll show off my own extension. It’s one of my proudest intellectual achievements.

But first a little background to the problem. In 1827, a plant biologist, Robert Brown examined pollen under a microscope and noticed that it moved in a jerky manner. He gave this “Brownian motion” the obvious explanation: that the pollen was alive and swimming. Later, it was observed that the pollen moved faster in acetone. The obvious explanation: pollen doesn’t like acetone, and thus swims faster. But the pollen never stopped, and it was noticed that cigar smoke also swam. Was cigar smoke alive too?

Einstein’s first version of an answer, 1905, was to consider that the liquid was composed of atoms whose energy was a Boltzmann distribution with an average of E= kT in every direction where k is the Boltzmann constant, and k = R/N. That is Boltsman’s constant equals the gas constant, R, divided by Avogadro’s number, N. He was able to show that the many interactions with the molecules should cause the pollen to take a random, jerky walk as seen, and that the velocity should be faster the less viscous the solvent, or the smaller the length-scale of observation. Einstein applied the Stokes drag equation to the solute, the drag force per particle was f = -6πrvη where r is the radius of the solute particle, v is the velocity, and η is the solution viscosity. Using some math, he was able to show that the diffusivity of the solute should be D = kT/6πrη. This is called the Stokes-Einstein equation.

In 1908 a French physicist, Jean Baptiste Perrin confirmed Einstein’s predictions, winning the Nobel prize for his work. I will now show the 1908 Einstein derivation and will hope to get to my extension by the end of this post.

Consider the molar Gibbs free energy of a solvent, water say. The molar concentration of water is x and that of a very dilute solute is y. y<<1. For this nearly pure water, you can show that µ = µ° +RT ln x= µ° +RT ln (1-y) = µ° -RTy.

Now, take a derivative with respect to some linear direction, z. Normally this is considered illegal, since thermodynamic is normally understood to apply to equilibrium systems only. Still Einstein took the derivative, and claimed it was legitimate at nearly equilibrium, pseudo-equilibrium. You can calculate the force on the solvent, the force on the water generated by a concentration gradient, Fw = dµ/dz = -RT dy/dz.

Now the force on each atom of water equals -RT/N dy/dz = -kT dy/dz.

Now, let’s call f the force on each atom of solute. For dilute solutions, this force is far higher than the above, f = -kT/y dy/dz. That is, for a given concentration gradient, dy/dz, the force on each solute atom is higher than on each solvent atom in inverse proportion to the molar concentration.

For small spheres, and low velocities, the flow is laminar and the drag force, f = 6πrvη.

Now calculate the speed of each solute atom. It is proportional to the force on the atom by the same relationship as appeared above: f = 6πrvη or v = f/6πrη. Inserting our equation for f= -kT/y dy/dz, we find that the velocity of the average solute molecule,

v = -kT/6πrηy dy/dz.

Let’s say that the molar concentration of solvent is C, so that, for water, C will equal about 1/18 mols/cc. The atomic concentration of dilute solvent will then equal Cy. We find that the molar flux of material, the diffusive flux equals Cyv, or that

Molar flux (mols/cm2/s) = Cy (-kT/6πrηy dy/dz) = -kTC/6πrη dy/dz -kT/6πrη dCy/dz.

where Cy is the molar concentration of solvent per volume.

Classical engineering comes to a similar equation with a property called diffusivity. Sp that

Molar flux of y (mols y/cm2/s) = -D dCy/dz, and D is an experimentally determined constant. We thus now have a prediction for D:

D = kT/6πrη.

This again is the Stokes Einstein Equation, the same as above but derived with far less math. I was fascinated, but felt sure there was something wrong here. Macroscopic viscosity was not the same as microscopic. I just could not think of a great case where there was much difference until I realized that, in polymer solutions there was a big difference.

Polymer solutions, I reasoned had large viscosities, but a diffusing solute probably didn’t feel the liquid as anywhere near as viscous. The viscometer measured at a larger distance, more similar to that of the polymer coil entanglement length, while a small solute might dart between the polymer chains like a rabbit among trees. I applied an equation for heat transfer in a dispersion that JK Maxwell had derived,

where κeff is the modified effective thermal conductivity (or diffusivity in my case), κl and κp are the thermal conductivity of the liquid and the particles respectively, and φ is the volume fraction of particles. 

To convert this to diffusion, I replaced κl by Dl, and κp by Dp where

Dl = kT/6πrηl

and Dp = kT/6πrη.

In the above ηl is the viscosity of the pure, liquid solvent.

The chair of the department, Don Anderson didn’t believe my equation, but agreed to help test it. A student named Kit Yam ran experiments on a variety of polymer solutions, and it turned out that the equation worked really well down to high polymer concentrations, and high viscosity.

As a simple, first approximation to the above, you can take Dp = 0, since it’s much smaller than Dl and you can take Dl to equal Dl = kT/6πrηl as above. The new, first order approximation is:

D = kT/6πrηl (1 – 3φ/2).

We published in Science. That is I published along with the two colleagues who tested the idea and proved the theory right, or at least useful. The reference is Yam, K., Anderson, D., Buxbaum, R. E., Science 240 (1988) p. 330 ff. “Diffusion of Small Solutes in Polymer-Containing Solutions”. This result is one of my proudest achievements.

R.E. Buxbaum, March 20, 2024

Of walking sticks, canes, scepters, and wands.

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Franklin’s walking stick, willed to General Washington. Now in the Smithsonian.

Many famous people carried walking sticks Washington, Churchill, Moses, Dali. Until quite recently, it was “a thing”. Benjamin Franklin willed one, now in the Smithsonian, to George Washington, to act as a sort of scepter: “My fine crab-tree walking stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a Scepter, he has merited it, and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman, Madame de Forbach, the dowager Duchess of Deux-Ponts”. A peculiarity of this particular stick is that the stick is uncommonly tall, 46 1/2″. This is too tall for casual, walking use, and it’s too fancy to use as a hiking stick. Franklin himself, used a more-normal size walking stick, 36 3/8″ tall, currently in the collection of the NY Historical Society. Washington too seems to have favored a stick of more normal length.

Washington with walking stick

Walking sticks project a sort of elegance, as well as providing personal protection. Shown below is President Andrew Jackson defending himself against an assassin using his walking stick to beat off an assassin. He went on to give souvenir walking sticks to friends and political supporters. Sticks remained a common political gift for 100 years, at least through the election of Calvin Coolidge.

Andrew Jackson defends himself.

I started making walking sticks a few years back, originally for my own use, and then for others when I noticed that many folks who needed canes didn’t carry them. It was vanity, as best I could tell: the normal, “old age” cane is relatively short, about 32″. Walking with it makes you bend over; you look old and decrepit. Some of the folks who needed canes, carried hiking sticks, I noticed, about 48″. These are too tall to provide any significant support, as the only way to grasp one was from the side. Some of my canes are shown below. They are about 36″ tall, typically with a 2″ wooden ball as a head. They look good, you stand straight, and they provides support and balance when going down stairs.

Some of my walking sticks.

I typically make my sticks of American Beech, a wood of light weight, with good strength, and a high elastic modulus of elasticity, about 1.85 x106 psi. Oak, hickory, and ash are good options, but they are denser, and thus more suited to self-defense. Wood is better than metal for many applications, IMHO, as I’ve discussed elsewhere. The mathematician Euler showed the the effective strength of a walking stick does not depend on the compressive strength but rather on elastic constant via “the Euler buckling equation”, one of many tremendously useful equations developed by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783).

For a cylindrical stick, the maximum force supported by a stick is: F = π3Er4/4L2, where F is the force, r is the radius, L is the length, and E is the elastic modulus. I typically pick a diameter of 3/4″ or 7/8″, and fit the length to the customer. For a 36″ beech stick, the buckling strength is calculated to be 221 or 409 pounds respectively. I add a rubber bottom to make it non–scuff and less slip-prone. I sometimes add a rope thong, too. Here is a video of Fred Astaire dancing with this style of stick. It’s called “a pin stick”, in case you are interested because it looks like a giant pin.

Country Irishmen are sometimes depicted with a heavy walking stick called a Shillelagh. It’s used for heavier self-defense than available with a pin-stick, and is generally seen being used as a cudgel. There are Japanese versions of self defense using a lighter, 36″ stick, called a Han-bo, as shown here. There is also the wand, as seen for example in Harry Potter. It focuses magical power. Similar to this is Moses’s staff that he used in front of Pharaoh, a combination wand and hiking stick as it’s typically pictured. It might have been repurposed for the snake-on-a-stick that protects against dark forces. Dancing with a stick, Astaire style, can drive away emotional forces, while the more normal use is elegance, and avoiding slips.

Robert Buxbaum, April 20, 2023.

My home-made brandy and still.

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MY home-made still, and messy lab. Note the masking tape seal and the nylon hoses. Nylon is cheaper than copper. The yellow item behind the burner is the cooling water circulation pump. The wire at top and left is the thermocouple.

I have an apple tree, a peach tree, and some grape vines. They’re not big trees, but they give too much fruit to eat. The squirrels get some, and we give some away. As for the rest, I began making wine and apple jack a few years back, but there’s still more fruit than I can use. Being a chemical engineer, I decided to make brandy this year, so far only with pears and apples.

The first steps were the simplest: I collected fruit in a 5 gallon, Ace bucket, and mashed it using a 2×4. I then added some sugar and water and some yeast and let it sit with a cover for a week or two. Bread yeast worked fine for this, and gives a warm flavor, IMHO. A week or so later, I put the mush into a press I had fro grapes, shown below, and extracted the fermented juice. I used a cheesecloth bag with one squeezing, no bag with the other. The bag helped, making cleanup easier.

The fruit press, used to extract liquid. A cheese cloth bag helps.

I did a second fermentation with both batches of fermented mash. This was done in a pot over a hot-plate on warm. I added more sugar and some more yeast and let it ferment for a few more days at about 78°F. To avoid bad yeasts, I washed out the pot and the ace bucket with dilute iodine before using them– I have lots of dilute iodine around from the COVID years. The product went into the aluminum “corn-cooker” shown above, 5 or 6 gallon size, that serves as the still boiler. The aluminum cover of the pot was drilled with a 1″ hole; I then screwed in a 10″ length of 3/4″ galvanized pipe, added a reducing elbow, and screwed that into a flat-plate heat exchanger, shown below. The heat exchanger serves as the condenser, while the 3/4″ pipe is like the cap on a moonshiner still. Its purpose is to keep the foam and splatter from getting in the condenser.

I put the pot on the propane burner stand shown, sealed the lid with masking tape (it worked better than duct tape), hooked up the heat exchanger to a water flow, and started cooking. If you don’t feel like making a still this way, you can buy one at Home Depot for about $150. Whatever route you go, get a good heat exchanger/ condenser. The one on the Home-depot still looks awful. You need to be able to take heat out as fast as the fire puts heat in, and you’ll need minimal pressure drop or the lid won’t seal. The Home Depot still has too little area and too much back-pressure, IMHO. Also, get a good thermometer and put it in the head-space of the pot. I used a thermocouple. Temperature is the only reasonable way to keep track of the progress and avoid toxic distillate.

A flat-plate heat exchanger, used as a condenser.

The extra weight of the heat exchanger and pipe helps hold the lid down, by the way, but it would not be enough if there was a lot of back pressure in the heat exchanger-condenser. If your lid doesn’t seal, you’ll lose your product. If you have problems, get a better heat exchanger. I made sure that the distillate flows down as it condenses. Up-flow adds back pressure and reduces condenser efficiency. I cooled the condenser with water circulated to a bucket with the cooling water flowing up, counter current to the distillate flow. I could have used tap water via a hose with proper fittings for cooling, but was afraid of major leaks all over the floor.

With the system shown, and the propane on high, it took about 20 minutes to raise the temperature to near boiling. To avoid splatter, I turned down the heater as the temperature approached 150°F. The first distillate came out at 165°F, a temperature that indicated it was not alcohol or anything you’d want to drink. I threw away the first 2-3 oz of this product. You can sniff or sip a tiny amount to convince yourself that this this is really nasty, acetone, I suspect, plus ethyl acetate, and maybe some ether and methanol. Throw it away!

After the first 2-3 ounces, I collected everything to 211°F. Product started coming in earnest at about 172°F. I ended distillation at 211°F when I’d collected nearly 3 quarts. For my first run, my electronic thermometer was off and I stopped too early — you need a good thermometer. The material I collected and was OK in taste, especially when diluted a bit. To test the strength, I set some on fire, the classic “100% proof test”, and diluted till it to about 70% beyond. This is 70% proof, by the classic method. I also tried a refractometer, comparing the results to whiskey. I was aiming for 60-80 proof (30-40%).

My 1 gallon aging barrel.

I tried distilling a second time to improve the flavor. The result was stronger, but much worse tasting with a loss of fruit flavor. By contrast, a much better resulted from putting some distillate (one pass) in an oak barrel we had used for wine. Just one day in the barrel helped a lot. I’ve also seen success putting charred wood cubes set into a glass bottle of distillate. Note: my barrel, as purchased, had leaks. I sealed them with wood glue before use.

I only looked up distilling law after my runs. It varies state to state. In Michigan, making spirits for consumption, either 1 gal or 60,000 gal/year, requires a “Distilling, Rectifying, Blending and/or Bottling Spirits” Permit, from the ATF Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”) plus a Small Distiller license from Michigan. Based on the sale of stills at Home Depot and a call to the ATF, it appears there is little interest in pursuing home distillers who do not sell, despite the activity being illegal. This appears similar to state of affairs with personal use marijuana growers in the state. Your state’s laws may be different, and your revenuers may be more enthusiastic. If you decide to distill, here’s some music, the Dukes of Hazard theme song.

Robert Buxbaum, November 23, 2022.

Curing my heart fibrillation with ablation.

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Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Atrial fibrillation, A-Fib in common parlance, a condition where my heart would sometimes speed up to double its normal speed. I was prescribed metopolol and then atenolol, common beta blockers, and a C-Pap for sleep apnea. None of this seemed to help, as best I could tell from occasional pulse measurements with watch and a finger pulse-oxometer. Besides, the C-Pap was giving me cough and the beta blockers made me dizzy. And the literature on C-Pap did not impress.

So, some moths ago, I bought an iWatch. The current versions allows you to take EKGs and provides a continuous record of your heart rate. This was very helpful, as I saw that my heart rate was transitioning to chaos. While it was normally predictable, it would zoom to 130 or so at some point virtually every day. Even more alarming, it would slow down to the mid 30s at some point during the night, bradycardia, and I could see it was getting worse. At that point, I agreed to go on eliquis, a blood thinner, and agreed to a catheter ablation. The doctor put a catheter into my heart by way of a leg vein, and zapped various nerve centers in the heart. The result is that my heart is back into normal behavior. See the heart-rate readout from my iWatch below; before and after are dramatically different.

My heart rate for the last month, very variable before the ablation treatment, 2 weeks ago; a far less variable range of heart rates in the two weeks following the treatment. Heart rate data is from my iPhone and iwatch — a good investment, IMHO.

The reason I chose ablation over drugs or no therapy was that I read health-studies on line. I’ve go a PhD, and that training helps me to understand the papers I’ve read, but you should read them too. They are not that hard to understand. Though ablation didn’t appear as a panacea, it was clearly better than the alternatives. Particularly relevant was the CABANA study on life expectancy. CABANA stands for “Catheter ABlation vs ANtiarrhythmic Drug Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation – CABANA”. https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/clinical-trials/2018/05/10/15/57/cabana.

2,204 individuals with persistent AF were followed for 5 years after treatment, 37% female, 63% male, average age 67.5. Prior hospitalization for AF: 39%. The results were as follows:

  • Death: 5.2% for ablation vs. 6.1% for drug therapy (p = 0.38)
  • Serious stroke: 0.3% for ablation vs. 0.6% for drug therapy (p = 0.19)
  • All-cause mortality: 4.4% for ablation vs. 7.5% for drug therapy (p = 0.005)
  • Death or CV hospitalization: 51.7% for ablation vs. 58.1% for drug therapy (p = 0.002)
  • Pericardial effusion with ablation: 3.0%; ablation-related events: 1.8%
  • First recurrent AF/atrial flutter/atrial tachycardia: 53.8% vs. 71.9% (p < 0.0001)

I found all of this significant, including the fact that 27.5% of those on the drug treatment crossed over to have ablation while only 9.2% on the ablation side crossed to have the drug treatment.

I must give a plug for doctor Ahmed at Beaumont Hospital who did the ablation. He does about 200 of these a year, and does them well. Do not go to an amateur. I was less-than impressed with him pushing the beta-blocker hard; I’ll write about that. Also, get an iWatch if you think you may have A-Fib or any other heart problem. You see a lot, just by watching, so to speak.

Robert Buxbaum, August 3, 2022.

What I learned by running for office.

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I’m an enemy of unity and a harborer of prejudice. During the election, I was told that all Republicans are, and I’ve come to accept it as true. I’d run for county water commissioner (drain commissioner) as a Republican, see web-site, and the charge is fair. I wasn’t happy to that George Will write to not for any Republicans because, in his opinion, we’re all prejudiced, and thus a Democrat is better for all jobs. When George, or anyone else, talks about getting rid of the prejudiced, it sounds to me like he wants to get rid of me and those who think like me. We’re to be replaced by those who think like him, or (since he has few solid ideas) whose ideas are gleaned as an average of those running the respectable media (It turns out there are only a fairly few people running the respectable media).

Biden seems to have fallen into the presidency. He didn’t campaign, but the press and a lot of people didn’t like Trump, and could not settle on anyone with opinions.

I didn’t like how the Water department was run, or how the costs were distributed, and some of this has to do with prejudice — engineering aesthetics, I call it. After living with these prejudices or aesthetics, I’ve come to think of them as part of me. I worked to form my opinions — opinions of what was fair, and who was likely to do good work, and what was good engineering. My prejudices and opinions were developed over many years. They’re not perfect, but I like them. I don’t want to have to exchange my opinions and prejudices for the government’s. If I felt otherwise, I would not have run for office. I also resent sensitivity training — the person running them rarely shows any sensitivity, IMHO.

One of the things that anti-racists hate, and I support is zionism. It’s a founding principle of Black Lives Matter that black people in the US can’t be free so long as the zionist state (Israel) exists. Why is this? There is an assumption that all black peoples are one, and that zionists are oppressors. Not that you could tell a Palestinian from a zionist by skin color, but it’s a truth that the faculty of Princeton endorses.

Not long ago the faculty of Princeton University voted unanimously for BDS including a ban on any zionist speaker from speaking on campus. The faculty also picked George Will as the graduation speaker in 2020. Most of the professors chose to not vote, but of those who did (1/7 of the total including many Jews) the pro-BDS vote was unanimous. As a result, if Einstein were to rise from the grave, with the unified field equations finally worked out, he’d have to speak off-campus because he was a zionist, and the university is committed to BLM and anti prejudice. (Tell me again, how does anti-zionism help black lives to matter?; how does BLM help you get clean water or good sewage treatment?)

In terms of sewage treatment or bringing clean water, I’ve found that the sort of person willing to do the work is usually someone with an opinion, and that usually it’s a rough opinion. My sense is to let people have their opinions and to say, if you treat the sewage right, I treat you right. Good work isn’t cheap, and people who do it can’t be culled from those with the right views and political opinions.

While campaigning I told leaders of the pipe-fitters union that I could tell that the Pontiac sewage plant was badly run just by smelling the air around the plant — you shouldn’t be able to smell a sewage plant from miles away. They said that was a racist statement. I then told them that the boilers were rusty, and that at the roof of the digester cad caved in, at least a year ago. They said they’d already endorsed the Democrat, and only spoke to me as a courtesy.

Robert Buxbaum June 25, 2021

IFL Science grows up.

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I used to follow an Australian science blog, called “I Fucking Love Science.” Elise Andrew and her crew scanned the literature with a keen eye for the interesting. They regularly posted to Facebook and alerted science nerds like me to all sorts of new science bits with minimal commentary, minimal advertisements, and no politics. On average they found 6 or 8 really interesting posts, per week, generally one or two on fundamental physics, one or two on materials, one or two on biology or medicine, one or two astronomy, perhaps a chemistry post. My post about the color of the sky on Mars was ignited by a picture of the Mars sky that I saw on IFL Science — the sky was yellow, and I had just written about why the sky on earth was blue, and not green.

But, as with all quirky things, this one matured. The name changed to “IFL Science” — a change that I suspect was designed to promote sharing. There were more advertisements, and click bait — “this starlet lost a ton of weight,” “you won’t believe what this famous person’s partner looks like now,” etc. And there was politics, vaguely presented as science. Ms Andrew wrote more and more of herself, making herself into a personality whose travels and speaking tours would interest us. And there were non-science, guest bloggers too: People telling you who to vote for and more importantly who to vote against. All for the good of the world, she said, but it was her opinion, and not what I’d gone to IFL for.

The science got less technical, too and more popular. More pretty pictures and misleading headlines. Currently there is no math, no equations, no chemical diagrams. A top story of this week told of a semi-interesting approach for women with constipation — something that “would change everything.” When you click on the story, you find that women put their finger in their vagina and work out the poop that way, something called “splinting.” It’s sort of science, but not the sort that made me love science. Another top story — the top one from today is as follows:

Top story from IFL science today, Feb 28, 2021. Is there really no fuel use? No. The fuel is a battery, and the speed in 4m/s (9mph), and the plane looks nothing like this.

If you follow the links to here, it turns out that the plane (unmanned) looks nothing like this. It uses electric energy from a battery to move ionized air rearward at an efficiency far lower than with a propeller. The forward speed is 4 m/s (9 mph) and the maximum distance covered was 55m, half a Canadian football field. As presented in IFL science, it’s a misleading, non-math clickbait for something that’s interesting engineering — sort of. As for being Star Trek like, no. To move this plane, you need air.

I’m sorry, you can not make quantum mechanics for dummies. No dummy will understand it. You can make a book that’s not quantum mechanics for dummies, or a quantum book not for dummies. Just saying.

In the treatment of the work of the recent Noble laureates, IFL Science didn’t talk about the work so much as the biographies of the people, and their struggles, and that two of the people who won Nobels for their work in biology were women — for an advance related to CRISPERS– but that wasn’t science. I’d prefer to know what the advance was, and how it works. I’d prefer to figure out that these were women from their names or from the pronouns like, “she” or “her”. There was also no information about other two researchers (males, I assume, or perhaps females who had less-interesting biographies?). It was the same with the Physics Nobel except that I already knew there was a black hole at the center of the galaxy, and that those who found it are long dead. Instead the Note Prize was being awarded for a photograph of the black hole. Interesting (sure doesn’t look like a black hole to me). Is there something they learn from the photo. I’ve noted that we are likely within a black hole, and I show why this is using some, not too difficult math.

Having griped along this way, I have to say that that IFL isn’t that bad, it’s just non-mathy, popular, and a little grown up. That’s sad, but it’s not toxic. Grownups make money, and please customers, and that’s how it goes. To quote a wonderful book, The outsiders, “Nothing gold can stay.” In my own blog, I try to be more math-y, and more science-y. My model is Isaac Asimov, a writer who excited me to love science from when I was 8 to when I entered college, nine years later (1972). He would die of AIDS from a transfusion, 20 years after that.

Robert Buxbaum, February 28, 2021

Locked down so long, it’s looking up: the up-side of COVID-19.

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I’m not crazy about the COVID isolation, but there are up-sides that I’ve come to appreciate. You might too. Out of boredom, I was finally got into meditation. It was better than just sitting around and doing nothing.

It’s best not to look at isolation as a problem, but an opportunity. I’ve developed a serious drinking opportunity.

And it’s an opportunity to talk to myself. I told myself I’ should quit drinking. Then I figured, why should I listen to a drunk who talks to himself.

A friend of mine was on drugs, but then quit. Everyone in his house is happy, except for the lamp. The lamp won’t talk to him anymore.

The movies are closed, and the bars, and the gyms. It gives me another reason not to go to the gym.

Did you know that, before the crowbar was invented, crows used to drink at home.

The real reason dogs aren’t allowed in bars: lots of guys can’t handle their licker.

There’s time to spend with my children. And they look like me.

I like that I don’t commute. Family events are over zoom, funerals (lots of funerals), meetings, lectures. They come in via the computer, and I don’t have to dress or attend. No jacket, no pants… no travel …. no job.

My children are spending more time with us at home. We have virtual meals together. I discovered that I have a son named Tok. He seems to like my dad-jokes.

My wife is finding it particularly tough. Most every day I see her standing by the window, staring, wondering. One of these days, I’ll let her in.

I asked wife why she married me. Was it for my looks, or my income, or my smarts. She smiled and said it was my sense of humor. 🙂

My wife is an elementary school teacher. She teaches these days with a smart board. If the board were any smarter, it would go work for someone else. It’s necessary, I guess. If you can’t beat them, you might as well let the smart board teach. I think the smart board stole the election. It began by auto-correcting my spelling. Then it moved to auto correct my voting. The board is smarter and better than me (Hey, who wrote this?)

some mask humor
I’ve learned to love masks, though some of them are hot.

You’d think they’d reduce the number of administrators in the schools, given that it’s all remote. Or reduce the price of college. It would be nice if they’d up the number of folks who can attend. So far no. Today the Princeton alumni of Michigan is sponsoring video-talk by Princeton alumnus, George Will. I wanted to attend, but found there was limited seating, so I’m on the waiting list (true story). By keeping people out, they show they are exclusive. Tuition is $40,000 / year, and they keep telling us that the college is in service of humanity. If they were in the service of humanity, they’d charge less, and stream the talk to whoever wants to listen in. I have to hope this will change sooner or later.

Shopping for toilet paper was a big issue at the beginning of the pandemic, but I’ve now got a dog to do it for me. He goes to the store, brings it back. Brings back toothpaste too. He’s a lavatory retriever. (I got this joke from Steve Feldman; the crowbar joke too.)

I don’t mind that there are few new movies. There are plenty of old movies that I have not seen, and old TV shows too.

This fellow is the new head of Biden’s COVID-19 task force. He’s got a science-based plan for over-population and the disease.

I like that people are leaving New York and LA. It’s healthy, and saves on rent. Folks still travel there, mostly for the rioting, but lockdowns are nicer in Michigan.

More people are hunting, and hiking, and canoeing. These are active activities that you can do on lockdown. The old activities were passive, or going out to eat. Passive activities are almost a contradiction in terms.

We’re cooking more at home, which is healthier. And squirrel doesn’t taste half bad. If I live through this, I’ll be healthy.

I’m reading more, and have joined goodreads.com. I’ve developed a superpower: I find can melt ice cubes, just by looking at them. It takes a while but they melt.

A lot more folks have dogs. And folks have gotten into religion. Wouldn’t it be great, if after death we fond that dyslexic folks were right. There really is a dog.

Let’s love the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse.

There was an election last week. My uncles voted for Biden, which really surprised me. They were staunch Republicans when they were alive. My aunt got the ballot and convinced them. She was a Democrat when she was alive.

I got pneumonia vaccine shot, and a flu shot. That wasn’t a joke. I think it’s a good idea. Here’s why. People mostly die from pneumonia not the virus.

Before COVID, the other big crisis was global warming. Al Gore and Greta Thunberg claimed we had to shutter production and stop driving to save the planet. COVID-19 has done it. The next crisis is over-population. COVID is already curing that problem — not so much in China, but in the US, Europe, and South America.

Just As a final thought, let’s look at the bright side of the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse. Take Monty Python’s advice and Always look at the bright side of life.

Robert Buxbaum, November 20, 2020.

Tale of a fast, accurate home COVID test

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My son works at a company called Homodeus. It’s part of 4Catalyzer, an umbrella of seven medical biotechnology companies with a staff of 300 scientists and engineers. One of the Homodeus products, still waiting FDA guidance is a COVID-19, RNA self-tester called Homodeus Detect. It tests for COVID RNA directly, not for antibodies, with tests are much faster than hospital tests, taking 45 minutes, but more complex than the unreliable test strips. So far, the Detect tests have shown no false positives or false negatives. That would suggest 100% reliable, except but there are a fair number of invalid tests. The invalid tests are lares due to the complexity, and also to the fact that you are testing snot, essentially. There is no blood-taking involved, unlike with the test strips, but  just a nasal swab, and the cost is moderate, about $35 per test. However you have to do some lab work. After you swab your nose, you put the swab in a heated liquid bath where chemicals break up the snot and dissolve the shells on any viruses or pollen present. After 30 minutes, you pass the liquid onto a detector strip that contains a conjugate protein that binds to SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Your answer appears 15 minutes later as one of three lines: one for positive, one for negative, or one indicating an invalid test. Invalid tests show up more often than they like, about half the time, especially when the test is done by amateurs. 

Getting an invalid test result is a downside of the current product, but I don’t think it should prevent sales. You get better at doing the test, and speed and lack of false positives and negatives is a bigger plus. It seems worthwhile to fast-track offer this test for doctors offices and hospital admissions, at least. I’d also like to see it used for airplane boarding and interstate travel, so that a person traveling might avoid the two week quarantine that many states impose. I’d certainly pay $200 or more to avoid a two-week quarantine, and if I have to do a second or third test, I’d do that too. 

At least some people realize it’s a big advantage to know if you are currently infections.

Because this test measures virus RNA, and not antibodies, it indicates infection virtually as soon as you’re infected. That’s a benefit for those wishing to fly, or to meet with people, an advantage that is not lost on Elon Musk at least (see tweet). The test also shows negative as soon as the virus is gone, and that’s big. In recent months the FDA has fast-track approved an antibody indicating test from Abbott Labs, but that test has many false readings and only indicates infection several days afterward, and it does not indicate when you are no longer infectious. 

The FDA has not offered to fast track this test, or any other like it for approval. They have not even indicated what sort of reporting and privacy requirements they want, so things sit in limbo, both for Homodeus, and for competing companies. Here is a story in USA today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/07/29/fda-opens-door-rapid-home-covid-19-tests/5536528002. One big issue that the FDA is contact tracing. The FDA would like to be able to trace all the contacts of anyone who tests positive, while maintaining privacy as demanded by the 4th Amendment.

One way around the 4th amendment concerns would be to require anyone who uses the test to sign a waiver allowing the government to trace their contacts. Alternately there could be a block-chain enabled app that would come with the test. An app coms already providing a timer for when to move to the next step, and it includes a machine-vision system to help analyze dim lines on the indicator. Perhaps the FDA would accept block chain as a way to allow full reporting while maintaining privacy The FDA has yet to provide guidance on what they want, though. Without guidance or fast-track approval, things sit in limbo. Here is a scathing legal analysis from the Yale Law Journal.

You can get a free test, but have to do it at Homodeus headquarters in Guilford, Connecticut. It’s free, and results appears in about 45 minutes.. Homodeus has been manufacturing the test in quantity; if you are interested, use the following link to sign up: https://www.homodeusinc.com/research. Healthcare providers are particularly welcome.

The Homodeus detect test kit. Picture from this article in the New Haven Register.

Why did the FDA fast-track approve Abott’s antigen/ antibody test. Maybe because the tests rethought to not lead to lower mask use. Alternately, Abott has more political pull. You can read the FDA’s explanation here. In my biassed opinion the Homodeus product is good enough to fast track especially for hospitals and healthcare providers. It could save lives while allowing the economy to reopen.

Robert Buxbaum, November 15, 2020 (with massive help from Aaron M. Buxbaum)

Pneumonia vaccine in the age of COVID

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A few days ago, I asked for and received the PCV-13 pneumonia vaccine, and a few days earlier, the flu shot. These vaccines are free if you are over 65, but you have to ask for them. PCV-13 is the milder of the pneumonia vaccines, providing moderate resistance to 12 common pneumonia strains, plus a strain of diphtheria. There is a stronger shot, with more side-effects. The main reason I got these vaccines was to cut my risk from COVID-19.

Some 230,00 people have died from COVID-19. Almost all none of them were under 20, and hardly any died from the virus itself. As with the common flu, they died from side infections and pneumonia. Though the vaccine I took is not 100% effective against event these 13 pneumonias, it is fairly effective, especially in the absence of co-morbidities, and has few side effects beyond stiffness in my arm. I felt it was a worthwhile protection, and further reading suggests it was more worthwhile than I’d thought at first.

It is far from clear there will be a working vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COV-19. We’ve been trying for 40 years to make a vaccine against AIDS, without success. We have also failed to create a working vaccine for SARS, MERS, or the common cold. Why should SARS-CoV-2 be different? We do have a flu vaccine, and I took it, but it isn’t very effective, viruses mutate. Despite claims that we would have a vaccine for COVID-19 by early next year, I came to imagine it would not be a particularly good vaccine, and it might have side effects. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of evidence that the pneumonia vaccine works and does a lot more good than one might expected against COVID-19.

A colleague of mine from Michigan State, Robert Root Bernstein, analyzed the effectiveness of several vaccines in the fight against COVID-19 by comparing the impact of COVID-19 on two dozen countries as a function of all the major inoculations. He found a strong correlation only with pneumonia vaccine: “Nations such as Spain, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Peru and Chile that have the highest COVID-19 rates per million have the poorest pneumococcal vaccination rates among both infants and adults. Nations with the lowest rates of COVID-19 – Japan, Korea, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand – have the highest rates of pneumococcal vaccination among both infants and adults.” Root-Bernstein also looked at the effectiveness of adult inoculation and child inoculation. Both were effective, at about the same rate. This suggests that the the plots below are not statistical flukes. Here is a link to the scientific article, and here is a link to the more popular version.

An analysis of countries in terms of COVID rates and deaths versus pneumonia vaccination rates in children and adults. The US has a high child vaccination rate, but a low adult vaccination rate. Japan, Korea, etc. are much better. Italy, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, and Peru are worse. Similar correlations were found with child and adult inoculation, suggesting that these correlations are not flukes of statistics.

I decided to check up on Root-Bernstein’s finding by checking the state-by state differences in pneumonia vaccination rates — information available here — and found that the two US states that were hardest hit by COVID, NY and NJ, have among the lowest rates of inoculation. Of course there are other reasons at play. These states are uncommonly densely populated, and the governments of both made the unfortunate choice of sending infected patients to live in old age homes. At least half of the deaths were in these homes.

Pneumonia vaccination may also explain why the virus barely affected those under 20. Pneumonia vaccines was available only in 2000 or so. Many states then began to vaccinate about then and required it to attend school. The time of immunization could explain why those younger than 20 in the US do so well compared to older individuals, and compared to some other countries where inoculation was later. I note that China has near universal inoculation for pneumonia, and was very mildly hit.

I also took the flu shot, and had taken the MMR (measles) vaccine last year. The side effects, though bad, are less bad than the benefits, I thought, but there was another reason, and that’s mimicry. It is not uncommon that exposure to one virus or vaccine will excite the immune system to similar viruses, so-called B cells and T-cell immunity. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic, read it here, shows that other inoculations help you fight COVID-19. By simple logic, I had expected that the flu vaccine would help me this way. The following study (from Root-Bernstein again) shows little COVID benefit from flu vaccine, but evidence that MMR helps (R-squared of 0.118). Let men suggest it’s worth a shot, as it were. Similar to this, I saw just today, published September 24, 2020 in the journal, Vaccines, that the disease most molecularly similar to SARS-CoV-2 is pneumonia. If so, mimicry provides yet another reason for pneumonia vaccination, and yet another explanation for the high correlations shown above.

As a final comparison, I note that Sweden has a very high pneumonia inoculation rate, but seems to have a low mask use rate. Despite this, Sweden has done somewhat better than the US against COVID-19. Chile has a low inoculation rates, and though they strongly enforced masks and social distance, it was harder hit than we were. The correlation isn’t 100%, and masks clearly do some good, but it seems inoculation may be more effective than masks.

Robert Buxbaum, November 7, 2020.

How to avoid wet basements

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My house is surrounded my mulch — it absorbs enough rainwater that I rarely have to water.

Generally speaking water gets to your basement from rain, and the basic way you avoid wet basements is by providing some more attractive spot for the rainwater to go to. There are two main options here: divert the water to a lake or mulch-filled spot at least 8 feet away from your home, or divert it to a well-operated street or storm drain. My personal preference is a combination of both.

At right I show a picture of my home taken on a particularly nice day in the spring. Out front is a mulch-filled garden and some grass. On the side, not shown is a driveway. Most of the rain that hits our lawn and gardens is retained in 4 inches of mulch, and waters the plants. Four inches of mulch-covered ground will hold at least four inches of rainwater. Most of the rain that hits the house is diverted to downspouts and flows down the driveway to the street. Keeping some rainwater in the mulch means you don’t have to pay so much to water the trees and shrubs. The tree at the center here is an apple tree. I like fruit trees like this, they really suck up water, and I like the apples. We also have blueberries and roses, and a decorative pear (I like pears too, but they are messy).

In my opinion, you want some slope even in the lawn area, so excess rainwater will run to the sewers and not form a yard-lake, but that’s a professional preferences; it’s not always practical and some prefer a brief (vernal ) lake. A vernal lake is one that forms only in the spring. If you’ve got one, you may want to fill it with mulch or add trees that are more water tolerant than the apple, e.g. swamp oak or red cedar. Trees remove excess water via transpiration (enhanced evaporation). Red Cedars grow “knees” allowing them to survive with their roots completely submerged.

For many homes, the trick to avoiding a flooded basement is to get the water away from your home and to the street or a retention area.

When it comes to rain that falls on your hose, one option is to send it to a vernal lake, the other option is to sent it to the street. If neither is working, and you find water in your basement, your first step is to try to figure out where your rainwater goes and how it got there. Follow the water when it’s raining or right after and see where it goes. Very often, you’ll discover that your downspouts or your driveway drain into unfortunate spots: spots that drain to your basement. To the extent possible, don’t let downspout water congregate in a porous spot near your house. One simple correction is to add extenders on the downspouts so that the water goes further away, and not right next to your wall. At left, I show a simple, cheap extender. It’s for sale in most hardware stores. Plastic or concrete downspout pans work too, and provide a good, first line of defense agains a flood basement. I use several to get water draining down my driveway and away from the house.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, your driveway or patio slopes to your house. If this is the case, and if you are not quite ready to replace your driveway or patio, you might want to calk around your house where it meets the driveway or patio. If the slope isn’t too great, this will keep rainwater out for a while — perhaps long enough for it to dry off, or for most of the rainwater to go elsewhere. When my driveway was put in, I made sure that it sloped away from the house, but then the ground settled, and now it doesn’t quite. I’ve put in caulk and a dirt-dam at the edge of the house. It keeps the water out long enough that it (mostly) drains to the street or evaporates.

A drain valve. Use this to keep other people’s sewer water out of your basement.

There is one more source of wet basement water, one that hits the houses in my area once a year or so. In our area of Oakland county, Michigan, we have combined storm and sanitary sewers. Every so often, after a big rain, other people’s rainwater and sanitary sewage will come up through the basement drains. This is really a 3rd world sewer system, but we have it this way because when it was put in, in the 1900s, it was first world. One option if you have this is to put in a one-way drain valve. There are various options, and I suggest a relatively cheap one. The one shown at right costs about $15 at Ace hardware. It will keep out enough water, long enough to protect the important things in your home. The other option, cheaper and far more hill-billy, is to stuff rags over your basement drains, and put a brick over the rags. I’ll let you guess what I have in my basement.

Robert Buxbaum, June 13, 2019