Dianna Cowern, Physics Girl, fundraiser 2024 and other news

First physics video by Dianna in 3 years!


Here’s the transcript of the end of the video where they talk about her health:
7:12 First physics video in 3 years.
7:14 This is so exciting.
7:15 Back physics girl. We're starting strong
7:18 and doing nutrinos. This is a cool
7:20 topic.
7:21 Stopping for myself.
7:23 But working from the bed
7:25 as you have to with long co. Yeah. We're
7:27 deciding to stop now after filming for
7:29 about 15 minutes because you're already
7:30 feeling your energy drop a little bit.
7:32 Yes.
7:33 Yeah. I'm feeling a little dizzy. I'm
7:34 feeling like like
7:36 as time is going on, you're asking
7:38 questions and more and more I'm looking
7:39 at you like like what the languages he's
7:42 speaking.
7:43 Cut. But this is really cool that we get
7:44 to uh film again.
7:45 I know. I You have no [clears throat]
7:47 idea how excited I am.
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Oh, that was lovely!
Did you see the writing at the end? Something like 'I've never seen a joke about neutrinos. If I did, it went right past me'. Ha.

I could definitely relate to doing work in bed, and that feeling that comes from being upright and engaging in conversation for too long, when thinking gets harder. I'm so pleased that she is able to do the videos again.
 
I liked the comments —

I’m 65 years old. I’ve seen the end of the Vietnam War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, election of Obama, and personal joys of marriage, raising kids, etc. I am a pretty stoic person, but seeing your post is making me teary. Love & science <heart-emoji>
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My daughter just ran through the house like Paul Revere announcing Physics Girl has a new video.
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This is the first comment I have ever made to any video. I feel great joy that you have returned. What a triumph. As a 73 year-old woman with long COVID and CFS/ME for nearly four years, I have followed your recovery closely. You are a beacon of resilience and hope.
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I never saw one of her videos before, I had no idea this is what she was doing before 3 years ago.

Now I can - or should not - ask my doctor if - maybe the altered gravitational array (on/off -line and also variable) is an abnormal disturbance by only 2 of the 4 fundamental forces, so:

- not an abnormal disturbance by some electro-magnetic force in and around the chemistry of my electrified central and sensory-motor nerves, with disturbance by some electro-strong force

- rather an abnormal disturbance by some electro-weak force and by gravity abnormally altering some gravitational parameter,s as indicated by loss in some fine-tuning of dimensional feedback, for example in the thighs, upper arms, etc, and detectable *(by the person).

But what might alter the grave bodily impact of detecting maybe 30 neutrinos a day, under water that is the 90% body fluid now and then knocking electrons about as the lady says: boink
 
Dianna just posted a selfie of her on Instagram with two friends who visited. I don’t know Xyla Foxlin, but I know Ian Hecox. I’ve been watching Smosh for over 6 years now.

I’m wondering if maybe I should try to contact Smosh and see if they’d consider doing a charity stream for ME/CFS. They’ve done charity streams before for a variety of causes. Does anyone think this is a good idea? Feel free to move to another thread if necessary.
 
SugarSquared said:
Dianna just posted a selfie of her on Instagram with two friends who visited. I don’t know Xyla Foxlin, but I know Ian Hecox. I’ve been watching Smosh for over 6 years now.

I’m wondering if maybe I should try to contact Smosh and see if they’d consider doing a charity stream for ME/CFS. They’ve done charity streams before for a variety of causes. Does anyone think this is a good idea? Feel free to move to another thread if necessary.
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Xyla is in the maker/creator space, she’s into aviation, rockets, and woodworking. She was involved in campaigning for better mental health conditions for pilots a while back - I think they risk losing their permit if they get a diagnosis so most pilots stay away from therapy. Seems like a recipe to get suicidal pilots (what the rule was trying to avoid).

In general the community around Diana seems to be aware of ME/CFS and LC. Some very high profile creators have been in videos with her after she got sick, and e.g. SciShow (Hank Green) covered ME/CFS and the PACE trial a while back (thread).

But I also get the impression that they have good intentions, but also that they’d be too uncritical of the biobabble.
 
SugarSquared said:
Dianna just posted a selfie of her on Instagram with two friends who visited. I don’t know Xyla Foxlin, but I know Ian Hecox. I’ve been watching Smosh for over 6 years now.

I’m wondering if maybe I should try to contact Smosh and see if they’d consider doing a charity stream for ME/CFS. They’ve done charity streams before for a variety of causes. Does anyone think this is a good idea? Feel free to move to another thread if necessary.
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If the money goes to SequenceME and not OMF, then yes.
 
SugarSquared said:
That would be my goal. I don’t want to promote the OMF until something actually meaningful comes out of their stuff and not just hype.
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You could also consider the WE&ME foundation, as they value smart opinions from this forum and often finance and support reasonable projects, including sequence ME.

As this creators as far as I know are mostly U.S. bound I wondered if there really isn't one single charity or project in North America that would be worth supporting. Because sometimes people donate more if it's local, for reason of trust and proximity and because there are often tax benefits only when donating inside the country.
 
Silip said:
As this creators as far as I know are mostly U.S. bound I wondered if there really isn't one single charity or project in North America that would be worth supporting. Because sometimes people donate more if it's local, for reason of trust and proximity and because there are often tax benefits only when donating inside the country.
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As a Canadian, I really can’t think of one. I’d want it to go more to research and the OMF is pretty much the only place for that. The way that I envision this would be Smosh doing a charity stream as they previously have done, and there I don’t think that the tax benefits argument comes into play because the viewers are from all over the world.

I’ll probably only reach out in a couple of months or when I get the energy to. I get very excited and imagine a lot of things in my head of how it can go, but as I’ve learned from my efforts of reaching out to researchers for the buspirone-prolactin test, it’s a lot harder to get these things done than I’d like. I think, before this, I want to reach out to some endocrinology and neurology people at UBC and spend my energy making sure I write a good email. Hopefully being a UBC student makes them more interested.
 
forestglip said:
Podcast featuring Dianna Cowern:

The Finest: "Physics Girl spent her life explaining science. Then science couldn't explain her illness" (October 1, 2026)
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They provide a transcript.
From a quick glance, Dianna's husband Kyle Kitzmiller about SGB:

Cowern: A lot of people that get the ME/CFS version of Long COVID do not ever get better or they improve, but they maybe have relapses, you know, five or 10 years down the line. And I would say I'm at maybe like 30% or 40% capacity right now. And that's about as good as I've been since that crash right after my hike.

Evans: Wow.

Cowern: And at my worst, I would say I was at maybe 1% or 2% of my full capacity.

Wallace: But in recent years, things have improved for people with Long COVID and other post-infectious chronic illnesses. Awareness has never been better, and treatments are being studied, thanks in part to people like Kyle.

Kitzmiller: I'm actually really proud to be part of the patient advisory committee for the Stella Ganglion Block clinical trial. After I saw Dianna get healthier with it, I formed a team and started to fundraise for a clinical trial. We've been working with the NIH for the past year, and that trial is about to start recruiting. They're also doing a trial on baricitinib and tirzepatide, which is like a GLP-1 type drug. And there's one more, oh, low-dose naltrexone. But if we get treatments that work and we can show that they work, that is going to guide science a lot faster than any sort of lab research that we can do and help people so much faster. The other good thing about doing clinical trials and even applies to the four of these is if they do pick up a signal, then insurance will start to cover those treatments for patients with Long COVID, hopefully.
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