2018-11-10
2018-11-08
2018-11-01
2018-10-29
2018-10-24
2018-10-23
2018-10-22
2018-10-21
2018-10-17
Re: Forced back to catch and release
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials – faced with a lack of housing space, an agreement that limits how long they can detain families and a massive increase in the number of border crossers – are having to resort to releasing illegal immigrants and asylum seekers "out of the front door" in Arizona.
2018-10-14
The future
Beginning around 5 billion years from now, the Sun will expand, becoming a swollen star called a red giant. By 7.5 billion years in the future, its surface will be past where the Earth's orbit is now, consuming the Earth.
In 500 million years the tectonic plate movement and geological activity on planet Earth will have stopped, causing it to have a similar fate to Mars. The planet will be dry, lifeless and very cold.
Within half a million years it is extremely likely that the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt, wiping out life in several nearby states and causing an environmental catastrophe worldwide. However, we are already due for an eruption, and the underground volcano has shown increased activity over the last 30 years. This is a disaster of enormous scale waiting to happen; we just don't know when it will happen. Fortunately people are looking for ways to relieve some of the pressure that is building up beneath the National Park.
Within 100 years we will be almost completely out of fossil fuels, so we will have to rely on other energy sources. The last remaining fossil fuel will be coal, which is estimated to be gone by the year 2150.
Within 50 years machine intelligence will surpass that of all humans combined. This event has been dubbed "the singularity", and it will forever change our fate. From that moment on machines will make most of the technological advances, and possibly at an ever accelerating rate. Over time humans will become more integrated with technology, and we will no longer be purely biological.
2018-10-13
2018-10-12
2018-10-10
The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz
Funny. I don't necessarily agree with his final conclusion about redistributing wealth, but the video is thought provoking
Fwd: Award winning teacher Kerstin Westcott's resignation speech in Green Bay...
This is from my friend Al:
This is one of the saddest teacher testimonies I've seen on YouTube. What's sadder is the general public's complete ignorance of how bad our public school systems have become. Keep in mind, this teacher is speaking about the school system in Green Bay, Wisconsin. If it's that bad there, imagine how bad it is in New York, LA, Chicago, etc.
https://youtu.be/-SRCY8FqoyQ
https://youtu.be/-SRCY8FqoyQ
2018-10-09
Fwd: France violent protests across country
The marches on Tuesday, October 9 are the first since June and are taking place in cities across France including Nice, Marseilles, Tours, Rennes and Bayonne.
Students, employees and pensioners have all been protesting against what they believe is the "destruction of the social model".
Images have emerged of French armed police officers tackling protesters, severely injured people and police even using tear gas to control the demonstrators.
Unions including The General Confederation of Labour and Workers' Force unions are holding protests in Paris against "ideological policies" and reforms.
One protester held a banner which read "Macron, assassin of the social system".
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1028966/france-protests-emmanuel-macron-nantes-latest
2018-10-08
2018-10-06
2018-10-05
Origin of birds
The present scientific consensus is that birds are a group of theropod dinosaurs that originated during the Mesozoic Era. A close relationship between birds and dinosaurs was first proposed in the nineteenth century after the discovery of the primitive bird Archaeopteryx in Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds
I keep hearing that dinosaurs are not extinct, but still exist in the form of birds.
I do not think that birds are dinosaurs in the way that the vast majority of people would think of dinosaurs, which is as very large reptiles, with maybe a few smaller versions. Instead, they are evolved from dinosaurs.
However, theropods are one type of dinosaur that is now thought to have more resemble birds in both their morphology and behavior, with many of them having feathers, including the mighty T-Rex. Birds are also theropods.
Some people are trying to activate dormant genes in chickens to see if they if they can produce some dinosaur characteristics. For example, with a little fiddling they produced a chicken with teeth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds
I keep hearing that dinosaurs are not extinct, but still exist in the form of birds.
I do not think that birds are dinosaurs in the way that the vast majority of people would think of dinosaurs, which is as very large reptiles, with maybe a few smaller versions. Instead, they are evolved from dinosaurs.
However, theropods are one type of dinosaur that is now thought to have more resemble birds in both their morphology and behavior, with many of them having feathers, including the mighty T-Rex. Birds are also theropods.
Some people are trying to activate dormant genes in chickens to see if they if they can produce some dinosaur characteristics. For example, with a little fiddling they produced a chicken with teeth.
2018-10-03
2018-10-02
2018-09-30
Still Not Convinced You Need a Flu Shot? First, It’s Not All About You - The New York Times
In a good year, we might see as few as 114,000 people hospitalized with flu-associated illnesses. In a bad year, that number rises to more than 700,000.
In 2014, more than 57,000 people died of influenza/pneumonia. It was the eighth-most common cause of death, behind diabetes (just under 80,000 deaths). It's also the only cause of death in the top 10 that could be significantly reduced by a vaccine. Lowering risks of heart disease, cancer or Alzheimer's are much, much harder to do.
In 1995, the worst year of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, fewer than 51,000 people died of it. In 2014, just over 6,700 deaths were attributable directly to H.I.V. Yet it is H.I.V., not the flu, that people dread far more.
Because the flu is so common, we tend to minimize its importance. Consider the contrast with how the United States responded to Ebola a few years ago. We had a handful of infections, almost none of them contracted here. One person died. Yet some states considered travel bans, and others started quarantining people.
Worldwide, just over 10,000 people died in the 2014-15 West African outbreak of Ebola: a relatively new, frighteningly contagious illness that people feared could become a global pandemic. It's not surprising that it got a lot of attention. Yet the tens of thousands who died of influenza in the United States the same year barely made the news.
In 2014, more than 57,000 people died of influenza/pneumonia. It was the eighth-most common cause of death, behind diabetes (just under 80,000 deaths). It's also the only cause of death in the top 10 that could be significantly reduced by a vaccine. Lowering risks of heart disease, cancer or Alzheimer's are much, much harder to do.
In 1995, the worst year of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, fewer than 51,000 people died of it. In 2014, just over 6,700 deaths were attributable directly to H.I.V. Yet it is H.I.V., not the flu, that people dread far more.
Because the flu is so common, we tend to minimize its importance. Consider the contrast with how the United States responded to Ebola a few years ago. We had a handful of infections, almost none of them contracted here. One person died. Yet some states considered travel bans, and others started quarantining people.
Worldwide, just over 10,000 people died in the 2014-15 West African outbreak of Ebola: a relatively new, frighteningly contagious illness that people feared could become a global pandemic. It's not surprising that it got a lot of attention. Yet the tens of thousands who died of influenza in the United States the same year barely made the news.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)