Zippin' along

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: Some experts say the worst of the oil crisis is far from over; A few pointers to help you stay reachable during travel; New study confirms earlier findings of effectiveness of shingles vaccine against dementia; and a look at how much Joni Mitchell’s Blue changed the world for singer-songwriters…🎶

Let’s get into it!

Roaming fees are ever more expensive these days, particularly because there are so many options for avoiding them. Various plans and types of access are available in most travel hubs, meaning you’d have to simply not care about costs to allow yourself to be charged blanket roaming fees.

According to tech expert Avery Swartz, an eSim card is a solid option for avoiding those fees, including the ones that are technically part of the most basic plans offered by Canadian providers.

It’s essentially a regular Sim card, except it downloads directly onto the device.

If you’ve ever used one of these, they can be very useful, but also defective, meaning if you aren’t connected to it while using data, your charges could skyrocket. That’s why Swartz also recommends downloading everything you might need to use when not connected to Wi-Fi, including maps.

“Even in Google Maps, type in any destination, and then there’s a little button that says, download offline map,” she said.

Activating phone tracking, taking pictures of important documents, etc.—she offers plenty of solid pieces of advice, which you can read more about here.

It’s long been believed that the shingles vaccine can have indirect but positive effects on the dementia risk of patients who receive it.

Several studies in recent years have added to the body of evidence with the currently-recommended shingles vaccine, called Shingrix.

Yet another study just concluded with similar results, this time also including what the researchers called a “natural health checkpoint” in the form of participants officially entering a long-term care facility for treatment in old age.

Nearly 510,000 participants were tracked, each entering a nursing home between Jan. 2017 and Dec. 2022.

18.8% of those who received a Shingrix vaccination during their first year in the facility had developed dementia by the time the researchers followed up four years later. Of the population that didn’t receive the vaccine, 24.6% developed dementia within four years, which amounted to a 24% lower risk among vaccine takers.

"This study looks at the newest vaccine only in an older, vulnerable adult population who were not up to date with shingles vaccination and are at a very clear clinical point in care: entering a skilled nursing facility," said pharmacoepidemiologist Kaley Hayes from Brown University.

"It fits into this large puzzle that's just starting to come together that the vaccines are effective at preventing shingles and also appear to have neuroprotective benefits as well."

If stories like this make you squeamish, perhaps it’s best to look away, lest you find out the larvae of a fly are being used to clean chronic human wounds.

Yep. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially green lit the use of Lucilia cuprina larvae for use in “maggot debridement therapy.”

The Lucilia sericata, also known as the common green bottle fly, was cleared for similar use in 2004, making the Lucilia cuprina the second species to earn such a designation.

Chronic wounds include pressure ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, and various others that don’t heal properly, or at all after an operation or injury. The fly’s larvae are used to remove dead and rotting tissue from the wound.

The process is referred to as maggot debridement therapy, and it works by having a trained physician apply sterile fly larvae to the wound, which then “secrete enzymes that break down dead tissue, turning it into a liquid that the larvae then eat,” said Cuprina Medical and Scientific Director Dr. Ronald Sherman in a press release.

Joni Mitchell is music royalty, and earned her way to it as one of the pioneers of the type of music that today is broadly referred to as written by a “singer-songwriter.”

Some may call it a generic term, but most afficionados understand what’s being conveyed when a musician is described in that manner.

Anyone who has such a title bestowed upon them almost certainly owes a little piece of that recognition to Joni, whose seminal work on 1971’s Blue blew the doors off of what was deemed commercially viable at the time.

An album so poetic and personal hadn’t been penned at such a high level until Blue, to the point where some have described it in hindsight as being able to listen to excerpts directly from Mitchell’s own diary, perhaps without permission.

The record’s songs covered topics ranging from heartbreak to hopelessness, and personal stories about giving up a child for adoption, or a shotgun marriage that happened too fast and ended just as quickly.

From Stevie Nicks to Taylor Swift, there’d be neither without Joni Mitchell.

Up to no good

From frenemies to straight up bad guys, we’re takin’ a look at classic TV villains and rivals with today’s trivia!