Linkee-poo keep comin' up with love but it's so slashed and torn

"Insurance companies that have long said they’ll cover anything, at the right price, are increasingly ruling out fossil fuel projects because of climate change — to cheers from environmental campaigners."

"Photos and satellite imagery from the central United States show how the region’s worst drought in at least a decade has pushed the Mississippi River and its tributaries to drop to record lows this month." (Grokked from John)

"The Greek electrical system has hit a new milestone, after running completely on 'clean' renewable energy for the first time."

"The U.S. Mint will begin shipping coins featuring actress Anna May Wong on Monday, the first U.S. currency to feature an Asian American."

"There are plenty of machines that can wash and dry clothes. So why isn't there a way to similarly automate the dreaded folding process?… Researchers have looked into it over the years — and, as it turns out, robots just aren't good at folding laundry." They may rule the future, but it'll be a very messy future. Can't wait for the speculative fiction that foils the robot uprising by throwing t-shirts at them and they implode like Norman in I, Mudd.

"A Scottish woman named Joy Milne made headlines in 2015 for an unusual talent: her ability to sniff out people afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative illness that is estimated to affect nearly a million people in the U.S. alone. Since then a group of scientists in the U.K. has been working with Milne to pinpoint the molecules that give Parkinson’s its distinct olfactory signature. The team has now zeroed in on a set of molecules specific to the disease—and has created a simple skin-swab-based test to detect them."

"Drink eight glasses of water a day. Coffee will make you dehydrated. Drinking extra water can help you lose weight… You've probably heard these claims about water and hydration before. But are they true?"

Anyone who has been around me long enough will hear me spout off about how what we think of as consciousness, this movie in our head, is not reality. It isn't what our eyes see or our ears hear, although it's informed by them. It's a fully holographic projection in our heads. So when out off the corner of your eye you think you see A but when you can focus on it it's actually B, I will tell you that literally you saw A, because that's what your mind fed this consciousness. Whelp… "According to a new theory, choices are formed unconsciously and become conscious around half a second later." Your conscious brain is too slow to keep up with reality. And that is nothing new. (Grokked from Dan)

"In the study, Barreiro and his colleagues found that Black Death survivors in London and Denmark had an edge in their genes – mutations that helped protect against the plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis. Survivors passed those mutations onto their descendants, and many Europeans still carry those mutations today… But that edge comes at a cost: It increases a person's risk of autoimmune diseases." Evolution giveth, and taketh away.

"What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures."

"Each year, child protective services agencies inspect the homes of roughly 3.5 million children, opening refrigerators and closets without a warrant. Only about 5% of these kids are ultimately found to have been physically or sexually abused."

"The U.S. is exporting more LNG to Europe as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine and cuts made to natural gas supplies ahead of winter, but there has been a buildup of LNG vessels waiting to unload at ports with European infrastructure unable to handle the increased LNG shipments." EU storage is at 93% capacity. (Grokked from Levin Armwood)

"Five months after the deadly mass shooting that claimed the lives of 10 Black people and injured three others at a Buffalo, N.Y. grocery store, the New York Attorney General's office released a scathing report calling on the state legislature to pass new laws to stop the livestreaming of homicides."

"The state of Texas is sending public school students home with DNA kits designed to help their parents identify their children 'in case of an emergency.'" One, how fucked up is that? And two, never give the government your DNA if you can avoid it.

"The Internal Revenue Service is increasing its inflation adjustments for the 2023 tax year after prices for rent, groceries and gas have reached heights not seen in 40 years… The announcement of adjustments is an annual occurrence, but in a year of high inflation, the move to raise the standard deduction and income thresholds where tax rates take effect may mean savings for people in all income brackets."

"California is slowly clawing back some of the estimated $20 billion in unemployment money stolen by domestic and international criminals, money earmarked for jobless relief during the height of the pandemic."

How to buy a US election… "More than $1.6 billion has been spent or booked on TV ads in a dozen Senate races, with $3 out of every $4 being spent in six states — Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and Ohio, according to an NPR analysis of data provided by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact… Most of that money is coming from dark money outside groups with little-to-no donor transparency — and Republicans are getting a huge boost from them."

"Two right-wing conspiracy theorists who placed thousands of robocalls with false information to largely minority and Democratic voters in Cleveland in the months before the November 2020 election pleaded guilty on Monday to a felony charge."

"A jury on Tuesday acquitted on all counts a think tank analyst accused of lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a discredited dossier about former President Donald Trump… The case against Igor Danchenko was the third and possibly final case brought by Special Counsel John Durham as part of his probe into how the FBI conducted its own investigation into allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin."

"Baseless claims that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic are being used to rig voting in Brazil are circulating online and in far-right media in the U.S. — even though neither company's hardware or software is being used in the current election there." It's not about the veracity of the lie, it's about the lie itself.