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Major study: Drug overdoses over a 38-year period reveal hidden trends
It's just the current cycle that involves opiates, but methamphetamine, cocaine, and others have caused the trajectory of overdoses to head the same direction

- It appears that overdoses are increasing exponentially, no matter the drug itself.
- If the study bears out, it means that even reducing opiates will not slow the trajectory.
- The causes of these trends remain obscure, but near the end of the write-up about the study, a hint might be apparent.
Fentanyl bust
BOSTON, MA - AUGUST 23: Bags of drugs are displayed on a table during a press conference held by the United States Attorney's Office at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston on Aug. 23, 2018 announcing federal or state drug, guns, and counterfeiting charges against 29 individuals following separate investigations targeting allegedly major drug dealers and repeat criminal offenders. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)A new study has just been published in Science.Org magazine detailing the progression of addiction in the United States from 1979 to 2016.
Named "Changing dynamics of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States from 1979 through 2016," it records the deaths from 600,000 overdoses during that 38-year period.
The results are more disturbing because one fact emerges: no matter the drug of choice for those who overdosed, or even the demographic backgrounds of those who overdosed, the mortality rate has increased every year since 1979.
Even more alarming: Even if, for example, the current opioid crises begins to be dealt with, the trajectory is such that deaths from that same drug would not lessen.
Indeed, more than 70,000 died from overdoses in 2017, and nearly 70% of those are were from heroin, opioids, and fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From the abstract:
"Better understanding of the dynamics of the current U.S. overdose epidemic may aid in the development of more effective prevention and control strategies. We analyzed records of 599,255 deaths from 1979 through 2016 from the National Vital Statistics System in which accidental drug poisoning was identified as the main cause of death. By examining all available data on accidental poisoning deaths back to 1979 and showing that the overall 38-year curve is exponential, we provide evidence that the current wave of opioid overdose deaths (due to prescription opioids, heroin, and fentanyl) may just be the latest manifestation of a more fundamental longer-term process. The 38+ year smooth exponential curve of total U.S. annual accidental drug poisoning deaths is a composite of multiple distinctive subepidemics of different drugs (primarily prescription opioids, heroin, methadone, synthetic opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine), each with its own specific demographic and geographic characteristics."
Despair and loss?
Near the end of the study, one of the key items that stands out is that "Sociological and psychological 'pull' forces may be operative to accelerate demand, such as despair, loss of purpose, and dissolution of communities."
In other words, the loss of good jobs with benefits, as well as neighborhoods where people felt like they lived among an actual community, are impacting overdoses and addiction.
- Relapse prevention during COVID-19 pandemic: staying sober - Big Think ›
- Relapse prevention during COVID-19 pandemic: staying sober - Big Think ›
U.S. Navy controls inventions that claim to change "fabric of reality"
Inventions with revolutionary potential made by a mysterious aerospace engineer for the U.S. Navy come to light.
U.S. Navy ships
- U.S. Navy holds patents for enigmatic inventions by aerospace engineer Dr. Salvatore Pais.
- Pais came up with technology that can "engineer" reality, devising an ultrafast craft, a fusion reactor, and more.
- While mostly theoretical at this point, the inventions could transform energy, space, and military sectors.
High frequency gravitational wave generator.
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
A craft using an inertial mass reduction device.
Credit: Salvatore Pais
Laser Augmented Turbojet Propulsion System
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
The best defense against authoritarianism? More educated citizens.
For democracy to prosper in the long term, we need more people to reach higher levels of education.
- It's difficult to overstate the impact of technology and artificial intelligence. Smart machines are fundamentally reshaping the economy—indeed, society as a whole.
- Seemingly overnight, they have changed our roles in the workplace, our views of democracy—even our family and personal relationships.
- In my latest book, I argue that we can—and must—rise to this challenge by developing our capacity for "human work," the work that only humans can do: thinking critically, reasoning ethically, interacting interpersonally, and serving others with empathy.
People with higher levels of education are less inclined toward authoritarian political preferences.
Credit: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analysis of data from the World Values Survey (WVS), 1994–2014.
<p>When considering human work and the future of democracy, it's impossible to avoid the rise of authoritarianism throughout the world. According to <a href="https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/authoritarianism/" target="_blank">new research</a> from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, the alarming increase of authoritarianism on a global scale can't be considered in isolation.</p><p>The postwar world order was based on the expectation in the West that democracy was spreading throughout the world, country by country, and would eventually become the preferred form of government everywhere. Foreign relations were based on the broad consensus that established democracies should be vigilant and unwavering in offering military and cultural support to emerging democracies. Democracy spread throughout Latin America and even appeared likely to take root in China. The end of the Cold War seemed to confirm the inevitability of democracy's spread, with only a few old-style authoritarian systems left in Cuba, North Korea, and other poor, isolated countries.</p><p>Today, the tide seems to be turning in the opposite direction. Authoritarianism—particularly in the form of populist nationalism—has returned to Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. China appears resolute in maintaining state control over political and cultural expression. And we now understand clearly that not even the United States and Western Europe are immune from authoritarianism's allure.</p>Researchers announce a new state of matter: swirlons
Starling flocks, schools of fish, and clouds of insects all agree.
- Scientists discover that active particles take a pass on Newton's Second Law.
- Active particles exist in a "swirlonic" state of matter.
- Swirlonic behavior explains some of the more dazzling natural phenomena such as starling swarms and shape-shifting schools of fish.
Lawbreakers
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcwMzc5NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3NTExNzM4Nn0.HI6HiDo4WitAWTCUr1KPULnvRHCGoZcxvaI9viBM2v4/img.jpg?width=980" id="4f3ec" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1a5d7f236b8371c99d7a4414160ff74d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="967" />Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Big Think
<p>According to <a href="https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-3/Newton-s-Second-Law" target="_blank">Newton's Second Law</a>, the acceleration of an object depends on both the force acting upon it and the object's mass. Its acceleration increases in accordance with the force being exerted, and as its mass increases, the object's acceleration decreases. These things don't happen with swirlons.</p><p>It appears that the Second Law relates only to passive, non-living objects at small and large scales. Swirlons, however, are comprised of active, living matter that moves courtesy of its own internal force. In this context, individual starlings are analogous to self-propelled particles within the larger swirlonic object, their flock.</p>Spotting swirlonic motion
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcwMzgyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDM2MDgzMX0.KrEacUm8yaSsZciDVItiO_UTqzbDYd_y0Gj2qXxNbFg/img.jpg?width=980" id="ce03e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b9f876eede09e4952b8d32a80c44f80a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="960" />Credit: Johnny Chen/Unsplash
<p>The scientists at Leicester, led by mathematician <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/mathematics/extranet/staff-material/staff-profiles/nb144" target="_blank">Nikolai Brilliantov</a>, came upon swirlonic matter as they developed computer models of self-propelled particles similar to simple bacteria or nanoparticles. They were interested in better understanding the movement of human crowds evacuating a crowded space, and these particles served as human stand-ins.</p><p>The word "swirlonic" comes from the circular direction in which the scientists witnessed their particles milling about in clusters that operated together as larger quasi-particles.</p><p>"We were completely baffled," <a href="https://le.ac.uk/news/2021/february/swirlonic" target="_blank">says</a> Brilliantov, "to witness how these quasi-particles swirl within active matter, behaving like individual super-particles with surprising properties including not moving with acceleration when force is applied, and coalescing upon collision to form swirlons of a larger mass."</p><p>Brilliantov tells <a href="https://www.livescience.com/swirlonic-matter-unusual-behavor.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Live Science</a>, "[They] just move with a constant velocity, which is absolutely surprising."</p><p>It's not the first time such behavior has been seen, but the first time it's been identified as a distinct state of matter. Says Brilliantov, "These patterns have previously been observed for animals at different evolution stages, ranging from plant-animal worms and insects to fish, but rather as singular structures, not as a phase which borders other phases, resembling gaseous and liquid phases of 'normal' matter."</p><p>The researchers also saw that swirlonic particles operate on a sort of "one for all, all for one" basis. With passive particles such as water, different individual particles can exist in different states: some may evaporate into gas as others remain as liquid. The models of active particles, on the other hand, stuck together in the same state as either a liquid, solid, or gas.</p>Moving forward, and back, or up, or down together
<p>Brilliantov and his colleagues hope to explore swirlons further, moving beyond their simulation into real-world investigations and experiments.</p><p>The researchers are also developing more sophisticated models that mimic the behavior of swirlonic animals such as starlings, fish, and insects. In these models, the active particles will have information-processing capabilities that allow them to make movement decisions as living creatures presumably do. They hope these models will reveal some of the secrets behind flocking, schooling, and swarming.</p><p>Another future possibility is creating man-made active particles that can self-assemble. Other Leicester experts agree that this is reason alone to continue researching swirlons.</p><p>In any event, says study co-author <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/mathematics/extranet/staff-material/staff-profiles/it37" target="_blank">Ivan Tyukin</a>, "It is always exciting to consider deepening our understanding of novel phenomena and their guiding physical principles. What we know to date is so much less than what there is to know. The phenomenon of the 'swirlon' is part of the tip of the iceberg of hidden knowledge. It leaves us with the eternal question: 'what else don't we know'?"</p>Is it time to decriminalize prostitution? Two New York bills answer yes in unique ways
One bill hopes to repeal the crime of selling sex and expand social services; the other would legalize the entire sex trade.
