Hey, there! Log in / Register
Ethanol is ethanol: Boston Beer recouping some of its losses on returned, stale beer
By adamg on Sun, 04/26/2020 - 4:29pm
CNBC reports Boston Beer - you know, Sam Adams - is distilling all the beer being returned by retailers and distributors by distilling it into higher-proof ethanol to be either blended into gasoline or made into hand sanitizer.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Watch out
If the President follows UHub, he will soon be recommending stale beer and gasoline as coronavirus remedies.
Cocktail recipe: 8 oz.stale beer, 1 jigger of gasoline (hi-test preferred),1 jigger of Clorox,1 tbsp. hydroxychloroquine, 1 dash azithromycin. Irradiate with UV, and shake well. A cure for what ails ya!
I'll just leave this here.
From the NIH: "Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: “The Cure That Time Forgot”?"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122858/
A cure for what ails ya.
For those who didn't and won
For those who didn't and won't actually read this whole thing, here are some tidbits:
Essentially, UV therapy as a treatment for bacterial infection and polio was shown to be less effective than antibiotics and the Salk vaccine, respectively, and Western medicine moved on. This paper is mostly arguing that increasing drug resistance in bacteria warrants looking again at UV therapy.
You'll note that coronavirus is not a bacterium.
'You'll note that coronavirus is not a bacterium.'
Right. It isn't. It's a virus.
You'll note that recent studies show that 2019-nCoV is extremely sensitive to UV wavelength light, in spite of it's non-bacterial status.
What we may be looking at here is a way to fight a virus using UV light.
You seem to have skipped over 25.2 by the way...
You didn't actually read that article, did you?
Because if you had, you would have noticed that the process involves pulling a person's blood out, pumping it into a chamber where it's exposed to UV light and then pumping it back into the person (there's even a photo of one of the charming devices). Nobody has proposed, as the Giant Brain in Chief did, sticking a light down somebody's throat to irradiate the lungs (let alone administering Lysol inhalers).
Also, as noted, the early work revolved around bacteria, not viruses. It may not mean much to you, but it's a key difference.
But maybe you were just being sarcastic.
Yup.
'...you would have noticed that the process involves pulling a person's blood out...'
Like kidney dialysis. Ya, believe it or not, I did read it.
'But maybe you were just being sarcastic.''
Sarcastic? Nope. Dead serious. Gotta think outside the box, AG.
Look, the blind Trump hate. I get it. I feel for you, staring at the abyss of a Biden candidacy.
The virus in question is extremely sensitive to certain light wavelengths. We're talking timeframes measured in seconds. That may be useful in fighting this infection.
There may be other uses hidden in this paper. It should be looked into. I hope that it is.
Or giving platelets.
Or giving platelets.
Well, now.
Here's something interesting.
'Nobody has proposed, as the Giant Brain in Chief did, sticking a light...'
Actually, someone started trials on, well, have a look...
https://aytubio.com/healight/
"Recent advances in light emitting diodes (LEDs) have made it much more feasible to manufacture and apply narrow band (NB) UVA light to internal organs."
"An abstract led by the team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was published in the United European Gastroenterology Journal, October 2019,..."
Starts out about C-19, but specifically says there's no FDA approval.
Stop advocating snake oil cures
DMC: You are advocating what amounts to snake oil cures. I understand Trump advocating poisons as a cure; he is most likely in the end stages of long term syphilis. So why are you advocating a "treatment" that is at best an extreme stretch for only certain situations?
Seriously, if you don't get here is the basic information: You are pretending to be a scientist and doctor in matters of life and death.
Please stop.
Damn, you're foolish.
Tell you what. Please show me in my comments where I advocated anything besides more research by the medical community? Please show me in my comments where I advocated anything besides taking an interest in the subject and trying to learn more about it?
I am not advocating 'snake oil cures'. Poisons? Hell, many medical procedures and cures involve substances that, if not carefully controlled, are poisonous.
You clever and insightful diagnosis of the President's advanced syphlitic condition notwithstanding, he's suggesting creative and unusual ideas that might bear looking into.
Well, Daan with two 'a's, guess what. Read the paper I cited. I draw your attention to this, (25.2) " UV also reversed cytokine production and blocked cytokine release."
Why does this count?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/claryestes/2020/04/16/what-is-the-cytokine-...
UV light may be a way to fight something called the 'cytokine storm'.
You are pretending to be really smart.
Please stop.
It seems like A LOT of work
It seems like A LOT of work to be a Trump surrogate. You ever get stressed out/over worked/ over burdened by having to constantly defend him? Gotta be a full time job and then some
You are not a doctor, are you?
You are not a doctor, are you? Not an oncologist, or a practitioner in any field that prescribes what you call "cures" in a process that involves balancing the harm of the "cure" with the benefit? Then you are, in fact, worse than a snake oil salesman.
Glad you're not a proofreader
Please ibby, cite where I called anything a 'cure'.
'I am not advocating 'snake oil cures'.' was what I said. Subtle difference.
I am advocating research into what might possibly be ways to fight this virus, or other ones that come down the pike.
Your comments are like snot rockets appearing on my computer screen.
Why advocate for this research here?
Do you expect that there's a bunch of medical researchers with nothing better to do just sitting around checking UHub to see what the latest buzz is on possible research topics? And further, why does your advocacy just seem to be posting random links to medical research papers in blog comments with no actual extra context or discussion?
Because I gotta be honest, this is reading a lot less like "advocating for research" and a lot more like "some rando insulted my glorious leader, time to pull out all the stops to defend a statement that the guy himself won't defend anymore!" (remember when he said he was being sarcastic? Or is that fake news now too?)
I was a lifelong Democrat.
You people are atrocious.
Among my comments, "...Please show me in my comments where I advocated anything besides taking an interest in the subject and trying to learn more about it?"
I'm talking to lay people here. Take an interest. Read. Use www.duckduckgo.com. Instead of shooting snot rockets at the screen, try to educate yourself. I know it's hard, but try.
My links aren't all random. They're just not to your liking.
I'm reading it
but I'm not sure what you want me to do about it - I'm not a medical researcher. What am I supposed to take away from a random medical paper posted with no further context? What is the lesson you want me to learn about the links you're posting, other than at one time there was a study about something that was maybe slightly related to a rambling comment the President made that he later backtracked on? Why not make an actual point instead of complaining that no one's giving you the benefit of the doubt?
"ibby"?
You can't even read, can you?
No, you aren't. You don't even know what research is. You demonstrate your ignorance with every comment.
You need to learn some pretty foundational biology
Before you start citing partly or mis-understood papers.
https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=biology is a good place to start.
UV light in the lung is a very different situation from blood UV. You really need to learn some fundamental things about lung physiology and immune response before citing stuff like this as support for, well, anything.
UV is unlikely to quell a cytokine storm in lung epithelium simply because those storms usually start with damaging cells ... and UV damages lung epithelial cells (blood cells are a different type of cell). It might be able to damage the mast cells that are storming, but what happens in a laboratory environment with blood is not necessarily what will happen invivo in the lung.
I roll my eyes here kind of like how I roll my eyes at "promising cancer treatments" that "kill cancer cells in a test tube" ... anyone who has spent any time in a bio lab knows that deionized water kills a lot of cells in a test tube, too (cells like it salty) ... so does bleach.
Bleach, you say?
Someone should look into that.
'I roll my eyes here...'
Well, all I am advocating is that people a lot smarter than me (which undoubtedly includes all uhub commenters...) keep an open mind about research.
I'm not selling anything.
I'm just saying that I understand the desperate need to try to hit Trump with everything and anything, but that should not cloud your thinking to the fact that something might be there as far as light wavelength goes. After all, there are several companies doing just this type of research.
The actual R&D? Above my pay grade. I'm not interested in stuff like that.
I'm more interested in the blinky lights aspect of it. Many years ago, a researcher at MIT Lincoln labs was experimenting with the effects of laser light on, I believe, trying to kill individual cells using a finely tuned laser.
They were using something called a 'tuneable pulsed eximer laser'. When you get some down time and are really bored, go to Lincoln and look in their antiques section for a laser about four feet long. The company's name began with a 'T' and was located in Needham. So, no, not Candela.
I built and tested the triggering system for it.
What can I say? I like blinky lights.
Stay safe, take care of yourself.
For someone who claims to hate socialism,
you sure are good at being publicly owned.
Even if this is the treatment Trump was referring to...
Why wouldn't he have discussed that potential privately with the number of medical experts he's in close communication with to get their thoughts, then had them help him craft a more clear and precise statement of what the suggestion was, rather than just blurt out a bunch of garbled statements in a live press conference that clearly led to more confusion?
Also, what medical research was he referring to when he was talking about injecting disinfectants into the body? I'd love to see a citation for that, if you have one.
"...discussed that potential privately..."
You are quite correct.
Perhaps he's not guilty of spouting insane bullshit, but being indiscreet about it.
As far as H2O2 in the body, look it up. I found a couple, fairly recently (the 1980's) used to oxygenate the blood (apparently it was used in some type of anaerobic bacteria or viral infection) but didn't bookmark and I'm too lazy to do it again.
Well, time to go outside soon and play in the rain.
The Emperor's Clothes
Were beautiful, I tell you!
Partly understood can be worse than not understood
Check out Coursera for a biology course or two - your "interpretations" of medical research are, well, a little off.
Note that UV light would be useless for something like Coronavirus in the lungs of an intubated person because the virus is long gone. It would be like trying to send in troops to neutralize resistance forces after using a nuclear weapon on the area.
In ARDS, the immune rampage is the problem. In fact, you don't even need a virus to trigger ARDS - a broken rib can do it. UV could actually make that worse because it damages cells - and damaged cells call for the immune cavalry!
Always remember folks: "did something in a test tube" isn't exactly great news for in vivo application - even water kills things in a test tube.
Yep
'Check out Coursera for a biology course or two - your "interpretations" of medical research are, well, a little off.'
Are you kidding me? Hell, it's a gentleman's 'C' at best. Or 'D'.
All I'm doing is telling people that more light is good. Do research. Read about it.
Possibly really short bursts of some wavelength of UV, brief enough to kill a virus but not overly damaging to surrounding cells? Hell, I dunno. Not my calling. But...what can be done with LEDs today is amazing. Where I come from, it's science fiction. Power level, burst strength, wavelength.
Science. It's our friend. Let's use every damn tool we can find.
You've been bamboozled
That's not from the NIH. They're just a card catalog.
The author is at MGH, in an experimental group that has the broad mandate to "use light to heal things" (paraphrasing). But for most of the researchers there, that means things like laser surgery or photosensitivity of chemicals. This guy is has some of that mandate too...after all he's an organic chemist, not a medical doctor...but he's been allowed to pontificate on the sorts of "light therapies" that Trump apologists are claiming he was referencing (but he wasn't, he wasn't even serious in suggesting we use UV light on or in the body, just ask him).
So, he wrote this book chapter. That's right, this isn't research, it's a chapter of a book about the history and futility of ultraviolet light therapies (a tip-off was that medical research articles don't have historical headshots and cartoons that are literally just "this is what DNA damage looks like"). Now, in this chapter (and book) they try to drum up the idea that we should revisit these wonky ways people thought they might cure the body in the 40s and 50s ("hey we used to cut off limbs to save the person...and still do sometimes! Come on, let's shove light on their blood and see what happens too!"). But these light therapies can never explain any positive reaction they get (his own book chapter says "if we shine the light on the body it's a positive immune effect, but if we pull the blood out first, it's a negative immune effect...huh!"). And I'm sure if we tried really hard we could explain it through more science of it...but to what end? The effects are minor and can never be generalized to actually curing anyone of anything in the history of all the research on it.
People who want to revisit it are guys like this...who are a bit out of their league and are convinced they've found something worth studying. I say let them...if they can find a funding source, go at it. Who knows...MAYBE there's a diamond in that rough. But the rest of us are panning the river where we constantly keep finding bigger and better diamonds already.
Well, that's interesting.
Recycling old beer is fine, but what about this:
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/17108/weekly-ethanol-production-...
We are literally swimming in ethanol. It's easy to denature, which will avoid the IRS proof gallon tax. So...why haven't I seen 91% in a CVS in several weeks?
Reply
Because 91% rubbing alcohol is isopropanol, not ethanol.
"Because 91% rubbing alcohol is isopropanol, not ethanol."
No shit. So what? There's a lot of empty shelf space in your local CVS where a good disinfectant should be. There's plenty of ethanol sitting in storage in tank cars. Denature it to get around the IRS proof gallon tax and it would be a fine substitute.
I'm not sure the particular virus we're fighting cares what is killing it.
Isn't this where the free market should step in?
If it'd be cheap and easy to do, and there's a lot of demand, seems like some fine capitalist should already be on it, no?
They don’t have a unit price
They don’t have a unit price sticker for it.
It isn’t packaged.
It isn’t warehoused.
Pricing hasn’t been determined.
Yes, it COULD be done but large corporations are not very nimble even when they could sell it at a high price and make some profit. Possibly storage limitations as well.
I only see ethanol in hardware stores or mixed in my Sterno.
I was really late trying to get some Everclear.
Blew it. Should have tried on Friday the 13th.
But yeah... a sharp merchandiser would have seen an opportunity more than a month ago.
So maybe there is something blocking the supply chain, or processing it.
There's ethanol around
Some drugstores sell both Isopropyl and (denatured) ethanol side by side in the "first aid" section. Personal preferences, I guess. I believe one of them is less drying on the skin than the other but I don't recall which.
I've seen everclear 190 in liquor stores pretty recently.
Everclear is out there
Alcohol in drugstores is not these days.
Seriously, if you need to make your own sanitizer, go for the everclear. But I'm seeing a lot more small-batch sanitizer showing up these days, so you probably won't have to.
Steve Albini is that you?
I really hope this is a Big Black reference
Not relevant
The main reason that rubbing alcohol is isoproponol is because you can't drink that.
That, and ethanol has other uses that are usually of higher priority.
Ethanol is a fine sanitizer. Short Path Distillery sells ethanol-based hand sanitizer (denatured with peroxide and some other stuff). Works just fine.
My advice for Jim Koch
Crawl on your belly to your buddy Trump and beg for a handout.
What's the point of being a bootlicker if you can't even get a benefit for your company?
Now that's smart!
Recycle, Reuse.
UV & SARS-COV-2 Virus
Apparently:
-- some virologist needs to comment here:
SARS-COV-2 and all Corona Viruses being RNA-type of viruses are particularly susceptible to being "killed" by solar-like UV and perhaps even more by non-solar UV-C
So first -- what does it mean by "killing" something which is not really alive [in the sense of a bacterium or other type of cellular organism]
Anyway -- instead of making dumb jokes or offensive comments -- we need to think about how to "live" with the SARS-COV-2 virus as there is no guarantee that we will have an effective and safe for everyone vaccine anytime in the near future
UV maybe a very powerful tool in our "anti-virus" toolbox
Yes, UV for external use is well known
Kitchens and other crowded places have long had UV lights installed. And, yes, Lysol and bleach do, in fact, kill viruses, even coronaviruses, on surfaces.
But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a man whose sole scientific background appears to be that he had an uncle who retired as an MIT professor in 1973 taking those well known uses of UV lights and disinfectants and "suggesting" that lights be stuck into people or bleach injected into people's veins or sprayed in their lungs.
I realize that's a subtle difference in usage that might escape some people, but it's been done before - in Auschwitz - and it didn't end well for the patients.
That's two so far.
Put this bootlicker and the dmc dude on the list of people willing to defend literally ANY idiotic thing their failed casino boss dreams up on the fly. Even when the failed casino boss disavows it as "sarcasm" the very next day.
Don't you feel stupid now, Nowy and DMC? Or is that even possible?