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Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions

https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/brookhaven-labs-rhic-concludes-25-year-run-with-final-collis...
20•gnufx•2h ago•8 comments

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

https://xorvoid.com/sectorc.html
61•valyala•3h ago•12 comments

I write games in C (yes, C)

https://jonathanwhiting.com/writing/blog/games_in_c/
105•valyala•3h ago•80 comments

Software factories and the agentic moment

https://factory.strongdm.ai/
75•mellosouls•6h ago•147 comments

Speed up responses with fast mode

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/fast-mode
35•surprisetalk•3h ago•43 comments

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

https://www.spritely.institute/hoot/
138•AlexeyBrin•8h ago•26 comments

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

https://susam.net/twenty-five-years-of-computing.html
86•vinhnx•6h ago•11 comments

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
846•klaussilveira•23h ago•253 comments

First Proof

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05192
60•samasblack•5h ago•49 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
1080•xnx•1d ago•615 comments

Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

https://spillhistorie.no/2026/02/06/interview-with-sierra-veteran-al-lowe/
59•thelok•5h ago•8 comments

The F Word

http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2026/02/friction.html
13•zdw•3d ago•0 comments

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

https://rlhfbook.com/
88•onurkanbkrc•8h ago•5 comments

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2009/commands-with-comma/
509•theblazehen•3d ago•188 comments

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

https://jesperordrup.github.io/vocal-guide/
226•jesperordrup•13h ago•80 comments

Microsoft account bugs locked me out of Notepad – Are thin clients ruining PCs?

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/windows-locked-me-out-of-notepad-is-the-thin-...
34•josephcsible•1h ago•26 comments

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

https://github.com/Momciloo/fun-with-clip-path
21•momciloo•3h ago•2 comments

We mourn our craft

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/we-mourn-our-craft/
298•ColinWright•2h ago•354 comments

Coding agents have replaced every framework I used

https://blog.alaindichiappari.dev/p/software-engineering-is-back
246•alainrk•8h ago•392 comments

72M Points of Interest

https://tech.marksblogg.com/overture-places-pois.html
34•marklit•5d ago•6 comments

France's homegrown open source online office suite

https://github.com/suitenumerique
601•nar001•7h ago•264 comments

Selection Rather Than Prediction

https://voratiq.com/blog/selection-rather-than-prediction/
11•languid-photic•3d ago•4 comments

A Fresh Look at IBM 3270 Information Display System

https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/a-fresh-look-at-ibm-3270-information-display-system
43•rbanffy•4d ago•9 comments

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/07/ai-spending-economy-shortages/
171•1vuio0pswjnm7•9h ago•233 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
120•videotopia•4d ago•36 comments

History and Timeline of the Proco Rat Pedal (2021)

https://web.archive.org/web/20211030011207/https://thejhsshow.com/articles/history-and-timeline-o...
20•brudgers•5d ago•4 comments

Show HN: Kappal – CLI to Run Docker Compose YML on Kubernetes for Local Dev

https://github.com/sandys/kappal
27•sandGorgon•2d ago•14 comments

Where did all the starships go?

https://www.datawrapper.de/blog/science-fiction-decline
89•speckx•4d ago•99 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
207•limoce•4d ago•112 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
282•isitcontent•23h ago•38 comments
Open in hackernews

The Lumina Probiotic May Cause Blindness in the Same Way as Methanol

https://substack.com/home/post/p-168042147
64•exolymph•7mo ago

Comments

trhway•7mo ago
>The Lumina Probiotic aka BCS3-L1 is a genetically modified strain of Streptococcus Mutans that was originally billed as producing ethanol and acetoin instead of lactic acid, outcompeting the wild type upon inoculation and thus dramatically reducing incidence of caries caused by acid buildup on the teeth.

i'm yet to see an alcoholic whose regular "mouth washing" by ethanol leads to good teeth (despite ethanol being very powerful antiseptic) .

jostmey•7mo ago
According to the article as I understand it, the bacteria in question directly produces formate, the suspected culprit behind the vision loss. Ethanol being produced by the bacteria is not the relevant information here
trhway•7mo ago
my point is about selling proposition of that probiotic - production of ethanol which i'd not expect to be long term healthy on its own merits, even without formate.
3eb7988a1663•7mo ago
Various metabolic processes in the body already produce methanol and ethanol. Now as to the relative quantities involved, I have no idea what can be produced by bacteria in the mouth.
jostmey•7mo ago
Yeah, that is the big question here... how much is being produced. Also, how variable is the product from batch to batch? Could one batch be producing byproducts at much higher quantities than another batch?
floren•7mo ago
The idea is that the wild-type Streptococcus that already lives in your mouth produces lactic acid, which is bad for your teeth. The modified bacteria produces ethanol instead, which is neutral for your teeth. I don't believe there's any assertion that the ethanol is helpful to your teeth, just that you're going to have some bacterial colony in your mouth, so they are trying to change the byproducts of that colony to something less bad.
rfl890•7mo ago
If you want to learn more about this Lumina probiotic stuff, read this article: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-...
brendanfinan•7mo ago
Wait, you're telling me I can get clean teeth AND free booze
hlieberman•7mo ago
n=1 isn't necessarily data, and I have other questions (the formate concentration of the probiotic variant is 4x over JH1140, but JH1140 is itself a mutant; what's the formate production of an average wildtype strain?). Methanol can cause blindness in as little as 4mL, so the amounts we're talking about are relatively small; 4mL of methanol ≅ 99mmol.
refurb•7mo ago
I doubt an oral colony could produce enough formate to be an issue.

Methanol toxicity hits in the range of grams of methanol over a short period.

I have no idea how the bacteria are applied (oral rinse) but maybe enough got ingested to colonize the intestines? That could produce enough formate.

gleenn•7mo ago
Stuff like this is pretty horrifying and sad after we are deregulating the FDA as we speak so this stuff will be harder to catch and also as we are killing all the science research to help fix this poor soul's eyes after the damage was done. Sad and horrifying.
readthenotes1•7mo ago
Did the FDA ever regulate stuff like this?
palmfacehn•7mo ago
It is marketed as a cosmetic to avoid clinical trials. However, the FDA has approved other dangerous drugs, like Vioxx. Notably, Lumina was brought to market in 2024, before any "cuts to science".

https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/060924/brushing-w-...

kstrauser•7mo ago
My wife’s a doctor, and she had patients begging her for leftover samples of Vioxx after it was pulled from the market. Lots of people with rheumatoid arthritis were willing to take the heart trouble risk in exchange for stopping the pain.

I don’t intend to argue we should kept Vioxx around, just to point out that the calculus can get complicated. I would vastly rather protect my heart than get rid of the insignificant amount of pain I experience. Turn that dial up far enough and people could rationally make the other choice.

striking•7mo ago
Yes and no.

> Around that time, the patent they had for this bacterial strain expired. Aaron Silverbook, who founded a company called Lantern Bioworks, saw a way to rescue this technology from the regulatory red tape: what if it wasn’t filed as a drug but as a probiotic? He made a deal with Oragenics to acquire the recipe and aimed to get it approved by the FDA through its much less stringent probiotic pathway. He first sold it in Próspera, a libertarian charter city on a Central American island where any biotech product can be sold as long as the buyer signs a waiver, and now the product, renamed Lumina, is gaining hype on social media among cryptocurrency enthusiasts and DIY experimenters. You can even preorder the product for USD 250, to be shipped in June of this year.

from https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-...

jostmey•7mo ago
I wonder how much variability there is in the product from batch-to-batch. Could one batch be producing unwanted by products at a much higher quantity than another batch?
bpodgursky•7mo ago
It's a bacteria that's meant to colonize your mouth, the concern isn't byproducts in the initial dose, it's whether the bacteria after colonization produce harmful byproducts.
6177c40f•7mo ago
Very unfortunate situation, but I'm doubtful that it's the bacteria causing it. As far as I can tell, it just doesn't produce enough formate. The body is pretty good at metabolizing formate, so it really only causes blindness from large, acute exposures, not smaller chronic exposure, AFAIK. Combine that with no other reports of blindness from other users of the Lumina probiotic, nor any similar issues appearing in rodent studies, and the bar for evidence is pretty high.
palmotea•7mo ago
> nor any similar issues appearing in rodent studies

That's addressed in the OP:

> And in case you were wondering, this wouldn’t have shown up in the original BCS3-L1 rodent toxicity studies either as most non-primate animals metabolize formate much more efficiently, including rats. This has led to difficulties creating a rodent model of methanol toxicity, in fact.

6177c40f•7mo ago
I'm not certain they're correct there, as various studies seem to quote different numbers. Either way, I'm not sure rats are so much more efficient that it would matter: e.g. if the half-life in rats was a few tens of minutes vs the hour or so half-life in humans, would that make the difference between no toxicity and toxicity? Still, I haven't seen other people report vision loss, so maybe the point is moot anyway.

Although, it doesn't preclude some kind of uncommon impairment to formate metabolism, which would explain why it doesn't happen to other people.

spoaceman7777•7mo ago
This article is entirely wild medical speculation, with a sample size of one, from someone who claims to have given away all of this Lumina product, and only using a bit of "residue". They also mention using a narcotic supplement with a history of contamination, which creates pretty good odds of other supplement and/or substance use.

The article is also from a blog that was only created 2 hours ago, and has this one post.

I'm not sure why this is all the way up the front page, but it seems very unwarranted.

ghostly_s•7mo ago
They also seem to be relying on DIY medical treatment even after apparently having this serious condition diagnosed by a professional.
pazimzadeh•7mo ago
yeah very weird article

> At best it seems that I’ll likely never see a bright light or vibrant color ever again for the rest of my life, unless we get an aligned AGI that can fix me (<1%) or we start funding the NIH again and the scientists actually come back (0%).

I understand they are upset because of the symptoms involved but the lack of logic and knowledge here is something else. They mentioned they have used Kratom, which can apparently cause eye issues. Have they used anything else?

I do agree that vendors of genetically modified bacteria need some kind of plan or kill-switch for getting rid of their living therapeutics from your body.

If you are desperate then the Streptococcus mutans should respond to oral antibiotics penicillin, amoxicillin, erythromycin, and cephalosporins.

spiffytech•7mo ago
The author also started taking Lumina only 3 months ago, while supposedly it takes 1–2 years to colonize the mouth. Isn't that a very aggressive timeline for severe side effects?
BrenBarn•7mo ago
The fact that the blog was created just to post this is somewhat understandable if the author really believes they're in the situation they're in. It definitely sounds like a desperate cry for help. I agree there is a lot of speculation in the post, but that's also understandable if the person is experiencing something scary. I hope they're wrong and it sounds like there's a decent chance they could be.
m3kw9•7mo ago
Could be some sort of vitamin or mineral deficiency if I was to give you a positive angle, you really should check that as this >1% vs your other hypothesis. Check out nutritional optic neuropathy. Let us know
MichaelBosworth•7mo ago
He did check that out. His test results ruled it out.
misuzu•7mo ago
My guess would be that it's migrated to the gut or something