"That diamond on your wedding ring isn't as rare as you might think… Using sound waves, scientists uncovered a cache of diamonds distributed deep below the Earth's surface, and it amounts to over a quadrillion tonnes of the precious mineral." Well, we already new that De Beers already manipulated the market on diamonds (and is rumored to hold a lot of stock off-market to artificially raise the price). "'We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before.'" Well that's the trick, ain't it.
"An advanced new radio telescope, known as MeerKAT, has begun operations—and it has already captured a spectacular image that is the clearest view of our galaxy's center to date." My God, it's full of stars.
"Health officials are warning against eating crab meat from Venezuela, as it's been tied to diarrhea, vomiting and fever." Good safety tip, Egon.
An article on the current state of electronic motorcycles.
"That's why Friday's announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved TPOXX as the first treatment for smallpox is significant. Hopefully, no one will need to take TPOXX anytime soon. And, no, you probably won't be seeing any TPOXX and smallpox advertisements with dancing happy people on television in the near future. However, TPOXX does help address an important need. Most people do not routinely get the smallpox vaccine anymore, unless they are regularly handling smallpox or in the military."
"(Dr. Walter Koroshetz is) responsible for the institute's public health campaign called Mind Your Risks. Its goal is to let people know that there's a link between high blood pressure, stroke and dementia." High blood pressure (hypertension) shows links to dementia and Alzheimers. I don't think they have proven a cause and effect relationship, but there is some logic to it. As a note, one of the most common notes I see on head CTs of the elderly is "ischemic changes to white matter". This isn't something acute, and most often it's not even mentioned to the patient.
"Death rates from liver cancer increased 43% for American adults from 2000 to 2016, according to a report released Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The increase comes even as mortality for all cancers combined has declined." Gee, I'm sure out diet (all nutrition is first processed by the liver) has anything to do with it. Nope. Sure the presence of high-fructose corn syrup (ammonia byproducts of conversion) and artificial sweeteners like aspartame (processed into formaldehyde)in our foods have no affect here. Fuck cancer.
"But dig deeper and the implications of what they're selling might give many patients pause: A future in which everything you do — the things you buy, the food you eat, the time you spend watching TV — may help determine how much you pay for health insurance… With little public scrutiny, the health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans, including, odds are, many readers of this story." They already were building databases holding your medical claims, now they're going after psychometric data. It's time for single-payor. "Patient advocates warn that using unverified, error-prone "lifestyle" data to make medical assumptions could lead insurers to improperly price plans – for instance raising rates based on false information – or discriminate against anyone tagged as high cost." You say that like it's a bug and not a feature of the system. (Grokked from John)
"Eight animals have now died after a jaguar escaped from its habitat at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans."
"John Miller, 59, was arrested on Sunday morning after DNA evidence linked him to the rape and murder of April Tinsley, whose body was recovered three days after her family reported her missing in 1988, according to charging documents… Investigators said they arrested Miller after using a genealogy database to narrow down the DNA match to either him or his brother. The DNA was taken from the used condoms and evidence from the crime scenes, according to court documents."
"Iga, a small Japanese city and the birthplace of the ninja, is facing a serious problem — there aren't enough people training to be ninjas, not even for $85k a year." A podcast that treats the subject lightly (and through a Western understanding of Ninjas, garnered mostly through movies), but shows a very real problem.
"While unemployment has hit record lows, there's another number that also gets a lot of attention — underemployment. Around 33 percent of college graduates are underemployed." Another example of employers expecting to get overqualified candidates to fill positions (note, in a "full employment" situation, unless you're paying top dollar, that ain't gonna happen). Although I think the real problem here is not over expectation or mismatch between jobs and colleges, but mostly because business doesn't understand how to work properly now that we're in the age of the MBA executive.
"India has ordered its state governments to inspect childcare facilities run by the Missionaries of Charity — the Roman Catholic order founded by Mother Teresa — following arrests of a nun and a worker accused of baby trafficking." After scandals in Ireland and Australia (and rumors in Central America), they finally get to Mother Teresa.
How goes the Trade Wars? "The European Union and Japan have signed one of the world's biggest free trade deals, covering nearly a third of the world's GDP and 600 million people."
"The U.S. Treasury said on Monday that it will no longer require certain tax-exempt organizations including politically active nonprofit groups, such as the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood, to identify their financial donors to U.S. tax authorities." I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation for this. It isn't the real reason, but I'm sure there is one. (Grokked from Michele)
"Haiti's Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant resigned Saturday after days of riots sparked by a plan to raise prices on fuel."
"At least 273 people have died and 2,000 have been injured in the unrest that's rocked Nicaragua since April, according to the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS)."
"The US government charged a Russian national heavily involved in gun rights with being a spy for the Russian government in the US and developing relationships 'with US persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics.'" Interesting times. (Grokked in a roundabout way from Fran Wilde)
Sometimes we get focused on just the social media aspect of the Russian attack. "New charges against a woman who tried to build bridges between the Russian government and American political leaders via the National Rifle Association delivered a breakthrough in understanding one aspect of the attack on the 2016 election: 'infiltration.'"
"The question for the state’s politics is which side of that debate is more in touch with the state’s voters — the activists who are urgently pushing the Democrats to the left or the (Sen. Diane Feinstein), who trounced De León in the June primary, winning 44% of the overall vote compared with his 12%." Line up the circular firing squad again.
"Judge on Trump administration’s immigrant reunification efforts: 'HHS either does not understand the court’s orders or is acting in defiance of them'." Dear Judge, HHS had no intentions of ever reuniting these families.
"A federal judge in California has temporarily halted the deportation of immigrant families that have been reunited after being separated by the Trump administration."
So, how did the summit go? "US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin blew past the 90 minutes they were scheduled to spend with only interpreters at their sides on Monday, just hours after the US President blamed US policy for the dismal state of relations between the two countries."
"After face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump contradicted US intelligence agencies and said there had been no reason for Russia to meddle in the vote."
"'I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think that we've all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago, a long time, frankly, before I got to office,' Mr. Trump said during a joint press conference with Putin."
I think our intelligence community, like our diplomats overseas and everybody in the national security structure, had low hopes for this meeting, and the bar was pretty low for Mr. Trump, but he still didn’t get over the bar." (Grokked from Emma Audsley)
"Sunday's demonstrations capped a weekend in which the US president drew protests no matter where he went -- whether in Finland, in London or even at his own golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland."
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