Are Infectious Diseases A Social Justice Issue? A History Of The World In Six Plagues Has Answers
As we approach the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdowns, there has been ample time to look at what went wrong, and perhaps how we didn't learn much from history.There are many examples and while politicians ignored it, storytellers have not. In "The Division" game, for example, eco-terrorists spread their pathogen using cash. That made sense. If you are a zealot, disease can do what eugenics and population control efforts did not; get rid of a lot of poor and minority people without controversy, and no one can be blamed because disease is both egalitarian and exculpatory.
Unless it isn't.
Chemical Looping Plastic And CO2: Science Even Environmental Groups Can’t Hate
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 35 million tons of plastics are generated just in America, and 12.% of that becomes is garbage like plastic containers and bags and even appliances.Sorry folks, politicians in states like California who insist it's being recycled are lying to you, scientists know better. What really happens to plastic, even if your government is shipping it to China to be "recycled" is landfilling and incineration. A new study finds that measuring how much carbon dioxide a potential chemical looping system would pump out compared to conventional processes to produce synthesis gas could reduce emissions by up to 45.
Gym Paradox: People Want To Get Healthier But Until They’re Healthier Don’t Feel Comfortable
Gym Bro, Curl Gurl, Gym Rat if you choose not to identify as any gender - everyone knows what it means, and it can be pretty intimidating if you walk into a fitness center as a new member. Imagine feeling like you have to get in shape before you can join a gym to get in shape.Fitness executives don't want that but store managers know not to alienate their best customers for someone who will join on a special deal, go for a month, and then cancel the first time they download RocketMoney and remember they have a gym membership.
Two Fewer Almonds: That’s All You Need To Prevent Weight Gain
When people see labels or menus listing the calories in their food, it doesn't change their consumption in any way beyond what experts call "statistical wobble." About two fewer almonds worth of calories per meal. But two almonds over time can add up to a lot.That's the conclusion in the data of a systematic review by The Cochrane Collaboration. The team of academics reviewed 25 papers which discussed the impact of calorie labeling on consumption and found a minute reduction in the foods selected - about 11 calories.
Brits Associate Accents With Crime But Trust Scottish Accents Most
With Burns Night this weekend, Scotland will celebrate its heritage. In the First Among Equals country to the south that controls them, Scottish accents used to mean trouble. Now, it is the sound of safety for both English men and women.A new study finds that the English, even some Welsh and Scottish, associate a "working-class" accent with criminal behavior. In a jury trial, that could have serious ramifications, but it likely also matters before that. Arrests and voice identification, for example. You're more likely to be one of The Usual Suspects(1) if your accent is criminal.
The Toxic Masculinity Of Disney Movies
Once upon a time, stories were just stories. They were fantasies that took people to a new world.In the 21st century, cultural pundits insisted that books, films, video games and television shape our personalities. It began in the 1980s when Democrats wanted to censor lyrics in music, and then video games in the 1990s, and then smoking and guns out of films, and now they ban books by everyone from Hemingway to Chaucer to protect us from being poisoned by content not institutionally controlled.(1)
First they came for the Disney princesses, and I said nothing, because I am not a girl...
AI And The Poetry Problem
Artificial Intelligence is artificial, but it is not intelligence. That could change some day but it isn't happening soon, Large Language Models are fine for a few things but limited in most. That is why Ben Affleck can talk in a hurry and assure fellow film creatives that their jobs are safe. LLMs can't write a great script.Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela – The Secret History Of Organized Crime In 1343
Italy as we know it today had not been such since the days of the Roman Empire. You can see that last remnant today in the existence of The Vatican smack in the middle of Rome but at one point they held a substantial amount of territory.Like Americans, Italians are inherently rebellious. If you are on a plane flight and a flight attendant complains about someone smoking a cigarette, savvy travelers know it's an Italian in the bathroom. It is part of the reason Americans love Italian people. Unlike Americans, Italians had to fight not only each other for over a thousand years, they had to fend off French and Germans and even Africans.
Thanksgiving Science: Did COVID-19 Revive Family Dinners?
If cultural pundits can invent an Anthropocene Epoch then a Digital Epoch makes even more sense. In 2000, only in Japan did you see people on trains four inches from other humans chatting other humans on other trains, most of whom they'd never meet. Now that is everyone in the developed world.Halloween Horror Science: Are Chickens That Learn A Bigger Threat To Us Than AI?
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) vegetarian advocacy group has a paper out arguing that common broiler chickens not only learn more than the obvious, like which bowl has food, they get happier learning.
Their marketing of the paper suggests they know who their key demographic is; middle-aged wealthy white women. And if you want them, you invoke "The Gilmore Girls", a show about a genius single mother with an equally intelligent daughter and they are best friends and talk really fast and use a lot of Proust references.
