Drip drop

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. Researchers look at intermittent fasting, scientists discover ancient bacteria that’s resistant to antibiotics, and Dee Snider says, hold on, nobody’s dyin’ here 😎

Let’s get into it!

According to a new meta analysis of 22 studies, intermittent fasting is actually no more effective for weight loss than traditional dieting methods, and barely more effective than not dieting at all.

The studies were mostly short-term—lasting a year at most—and found intermittent fasting only sheds about 3% of a person’s body weight. Dieticians don’t consider anything less than 5% clinically significant.

“Intermittent fasting is not a miracle solution, but it can be one option among several for weight management,” said Dr Luis Garegnani, the lead author and director of the Cochrane Associate Centre at the Italian hospital of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

The analysis covered 1,922 people across the 22 studies from Europe, North America, China, Australia, and South America. It evaluated the results of people adhering to various fasting diets, including fasting every 48 hours, fasting two days a week, and time-restricted eating.

The most significant changes detected were to a person’s circadian rhythms, similar to a separate study Stake You Day covered earlier this year. As for weight-loss, it appears intermittent fasting has been little more than a trend rather than an effective way to lose weight.

Western Digital—the company known for manufacturing hard drives—has officially run out of inventory for 2026. Thanks, AI.

The company’s chief executive revealed on an earnings call the other day that its top customers have put in so many requests for the year, the company can’t produce enough to sell to anyone else until at least 2027.

“We’re pretty much sold out [of hard drives] for calendar 2026. We have firm POs [purchase orders] with our top seven customers,” CEO Irving Tan told investors.

On the same call, Tan revealed two of those seven companies have orders well into 2027 and one even has orders in for 2028.

As the unprecedented capital expenditures of the biggest AI companies continue to grow, the beast’s tentacles are firmly gripping nearly the entire supply chain of hard disk drives.

HDDs are particularly useful for storing massive datasets, so it’s not surprising that an industry now hopelessly addicted to data centers is eating up every hard drive it can get its hands on.

Scientists discovered a strain of bacteria in an ice cave in Romania that’s been frozen for 5,000 years. Despite no exposure to modern antibiotics, the strain appears to be resistant to several of them.

“This was a very interesting finding, and it opens a lot of other questions and research directions in the future,” Carmen Chifiriuc, professor of microbiology at the University of Bucharest, told CTV News.

Bacteria is the oldest type of organism on earth, and has been around so long because of its ability to adapt. That includes resisting the pressures, not just of modern antibiotic medications, but of the same types of microbes that exist in nature.

“Antimicrobial resistance is a natural phenomenon,” Chifiriuc said. “It has occurred as part of the ability of these bacteria to adapt and to gain competitive advantages in their natural ecosystems.”

The downside of discoveries like this is that the bacteria’s mutated antimicrobial genes could spread to other known harmful bacteria, exacerbating the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.

On the other hand, such bacteria can also evolve to outcompete harmful bacteria. It’s somewhat of an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” scenario, but in the case of treating illnesses like tuberculosis, colitis, and urinary tract infections, such a scenario could be a benefit to scientists and humanity.

Twisted Sister’s 50th anniversary tour was scheduled to begin in April in Sao Paolo, but earlier this month Dee Snider announced its cancellation, citing heart issues from years of giving 110% to his rock ‘n roll endeavors.

The announcement triggered a flurry of baseless online rumors suggesting Snider’s health was rapidly deteriorating, prompting the frontman to confront the noise head on.

"The rumors have run wild that I am on my death bed," he said the other day on his House of Hair radio show. "I am not. I just can't do those things that I did in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and even 60s. Alright? Otherwise I'm alive and well. I'm enjoying life."

"You won't see me on the stage kicking ass like I used to because that will mess me up," he said, while thanking fans for their support.

"Thank you very much for cheering me on. I'm OK. I just can't do that anymore. And you know what? The truth of the matter is: I don't want you to see me up there being less than you expect me to be. You got memories of a great show that I did? That's what I want to leave you with."

Now that’s odd

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