Water holdin' you down

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is being drawn to dangerous levels; American credit card debt is approaching an all-time high; blood thinners may slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s; and the reason behind the current book boom.

Let’s get into it!

A study published in the European Heart Journal by Swedish researchers found those who take blood-thinning cardiovascular medication may be indirectly slowing the symptoms of cognitive decline if they also develop Alzheimer’s.

Specifically, the research team analyzed data on over 7,300 people from the Swedish Register for Cognitive Disorders/Dementia. The people in the data were either taking newer anticoagulants to treat atrial fibrillation, older anticoagulants, or not taking any.

They found those on the new anticoagulants scored 0.2 points better per year on the Mini-Mental Status Exam (MMSE), which is a test commonly used for determining cognitive health in those with various types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s. The test is scored out of 30, with 30 representing perfect cognitive health and anything between 0 and 9 representing severe cognitive decline.

0.2 points better per year represents what one of the researchers called a “modest” improvement. On the other hand, the newer anticoagulant group in the study also displayed “significantly” slower rates of cognitive decline compared to the others.

The study was limited in that its conclusions were drawn observationally. Regardless, the researchers stated their confidence in their findings and encouraged further study on the topic.

The digitization of everything has had an impact on books and music possibly more than any other physical product. Kindles and Kobos have become household names, along with Spotify and Apple.

Yet despite the unprecedented access consumers have to more books and music than ever before, a physical book boom is currently underway. Are consumers feeling nostalgic about books like they started to feel about vinyl? That feeling has been tracked in some circles, but the reason behind the boom is more insidious.

Independent sellers have been reporting record-setting book sales in recent months, and the reason appears to be AI.

It’s likely the books are being bought and almost immediately destroyed. If you scan a book digitally without destroying the physical copy, you’re pirating it, which is exactly what Anthropic recently paid a $1.5 settlement for. Notably, the lawsuit did not result in a ruling that would prevent AI companies from training large language models on books, but it did uphold existing piracy laws.

Also of note, while there are plenty of copies of most books the average person can think of, there are also plenty of super rare books that AI companies in pursuit of “superintelligence” will want to get their hands on, and ultimately destroy once they do.

Stake recently reported on the Spinal Tap moment Judas Priest experienced when Rob Halford fell off his bike at a show in Toronto.

Another Spinal Tap moment occurred recently in California, but it happened to a band from Toronto. What the hell’s goin’ on with Toronto?

Rush had gotten back together with drummer Anika Nilles filling in for the late legendary Neil Peart. It was her first gig with the band, and was understandably a little antsy.

Alex Lifeson, on the other hand, said he wasn’t particularly nervous, even given the significance of the moment. That changed when they opened the show with Xanadu in a fog so thick, he couldn’t even see his pedal board.

Dry ice is a super cool prop live performers love to use, because it accentuates the light show and, realistically, is just cool on its own. However, it kind of loses its cool (no pun intended) when you stop being able to see through it, and it becomes the only thing you see.

Now imagine you’re Nilles, you lose grip on one of your drum sticks, it starts into the void, and you’re sitting there with one stick trying to play a Neil Peart song as the other goes flying away.

Like the pro she is, she caught it before it disappeared over her toms, and continued the forever search for lost Xanadu.

Plenty of fun in ’81

There was lots of exciting pop culture going on during this week in 1981, and we’ll be quizzin’ you on just that with today’s trivia 😎