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Did parasite manipulation influence human neurological evolution?

Did parasite manipulation influence human neurological evolution?

Christopher Packham writes: It seems so obvious that someone should have thought of it decades ago: Since parasites have plagued eukaryotic life for millions of years, their prevalence likely affected evolution. Psychologist Marco Del Giudice of the University of New Mexico is not the first researcher to suggest that the evolution of the human brain could have been influenced by parasites that manipulate host behavior. But tired of waiting for neurologists to pick up the ball and run with it,…

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The American diet is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S.

The American diet is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S.

Dariush Mozaffarian and Dan Glickman write: Americans are sick — much sicker than many realize. More than 100 million adults — almost half the entire adult population — have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Cardiovascular disease afflicts about 122 million people and causes roughly 840,000 deaths each year, or about 2,300 deaths each day. Three in four adults are overweight or obese. More Americans are sick, in other words, than are healthy. Instead of debating who should pay for all this, no…

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The anatomy of the coming recession

The anatomy of the coming recession

Nouriel Roubini writes: There are three negative supply shocks that could trigger a global recession by 2020. All of them reflect political factors affecting international relations, two involve China, and the United States is at the center of each. Moreover, none of them is amenable to the traditional tools of countercyclical macroeconomic policy. The first potential shock stems from the Sino-American trade and currency war, which escalated earlier this month when US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened additional tariffs on…

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The next recession will destroy Millennials

The next recession will destroy Millennials

Annie Lowrey writes: The Millennials graduated into the worst jobs market in 80 years. That did not just mean a few years of high unemployment, or a couple years living in their parents’ basements. It meant a full decade of lost wages. The generation unlucky enough to enter the labor market in a recession suffers “significant” earnings losses that take years and years to rebound, studies show, something that hard data now back up. As of 2014, Millennial men were…

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Elizabeth Warren’s message to the Democratic establishment

Elizabeth Warren’s message to the Democratic establishment

The New York Times reports: When Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts addressed a few hundred donors last week at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee, she called for “big, structural change” and hurled her familiar populist lightning bolts at the forces of concentrated wealth. But Ms. Warren did not attend the event just to recite her stump speech. She had another, more tailored message for the Democratic check writers, state party leaders and committee members who were gathered at…

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Bernie Sanders on his plan for journalism

Bernie Sanders on his plan for journalism

Bernie Sanders writes: Walter Cronkite once said that “journalism is what we need to make democracy work.” He was absolutely right, which is why today’s assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump presents a crisis—and why we must take concrete action. Real journalism is different from the gossip, punditry, and clickbait that dominates today’s news. Real journalism, in the words of Joseph Pulitzer, is the painstaking reporting that will “fight for progress and reform,…

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China’s spies are waging an intensifying espionage offensive against the U.S.

China’s spies are waging an intensifying espionage offensive against the U.S.

Mike Giglio reports: In early 2017, Kevin Mallory was struggling financially. After years of drawing a government salary as a member of the military and as a CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officer, he was behind on his mortgage and $230,000 in debt. Though he had, like many veteran intelligence officials, ventured into the private sector, where the pay can be considerably better, things still weren’t going well; his consulting business was floundering. Then, prosecutors said, he received a message…

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Universal emotions are the basis of our profound affinity with other animals

Universal emotions are the basis of our profound affinity with other animals

Stephen T Asma and Rami Gabriel: Charles Darwin closed his On the Origin of Species (1870) with a provocative promise that ‘light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history’. In his later books The Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), Darwin shed some of that promised light, especially on the evolved emotional and cognitive capacities that humans shared with other mammals. In one scandalous passage, he demonstrated that…

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Bolsonaro ‘most detested’ leader as he neglects the Amazon, says Brazil’s former environment minister

Bolsonaro ‘most detested’ leader as he neglects the Amazon, says Brazil’s former environment minister

The Guardian reports: Jair Bolsonaro’s neglect of the Amazon has made him “the most despised and detested leader” on earth, Brazil’s former environment minister has claimed, as the far-right leader again rebuked French president Emmanuel Macron for challenging his environmental record. Rubens Ricupero warned Bolsonaro was wreaking havoc on both Brazil’s environment and its global standing, as Bolsonaro used Facebook to scold Macron’s “inappropriate and gratuitous attacks” over the Amazon fires and insult France’s first lady. “These people are lunatics,”…

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Network of Trump allies pursue vendetta against journalists and political opponents of the president

Network of Trump allies pursue vendetta against journalists and political opponents of the president

The New York Times reports: A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists. It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting. Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it has compiled dossiers…

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When the internet chases you from your home

When the internet chases you from your home

Sarah Jeong writes: On the night of Aug. 15, 2014, Zoë Quinn was out having a drink with some friends in San Francisco when her phone began to blow up with messages. Something was exploding on the internet — a strange, incoherent maelstrom of outrage that would take over her life. Ms. Quinn, a 27-year-old video game developer, lived in Boston and was in San Francisco only to visit, but the visit turned into exile. “I never went home from…

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Syria and the West’s shameful failure to act

Syria and the West’s shameful failure to act

An editorial in The Observer says: The crisis in Syria does not feature high on the agenda at this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz. The absence of two key players – Russia and Turkey – means any substantive initiatives are unlikely. Donald Trump has washed his hands of the conflict, although Pentagon chiefs are resisting his demand to withdraw all US forces. European leaders, beset by many other urgent problems, seem to prefer not to think about Syria at all….

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Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

Nearly 900,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in EU, figures show

The Guardian reports: Close to 900,000 asylum seekers in the EU are waiting to have their claims processed, according to figures from the European statistics office. Women, men and unaccompanied children are living for years in uncertainty, with numbers of pending applications for international protection almost unchanged from two years ago when 1.1 million migrants were “stuck” in the continent. “Living in limbo is now the norm for those seeking protection,” said Karl Kopp of Pro Asyl, Germany’s largest pro-immigration…

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What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot

What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot

Kevin M. Kruse writes: Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the United States. Drivers there average two hours each week mired in gridlock, hung up at countless spots, from the constantly clogged Georgia 400 to a complicated cluster of overpasses at Tom Moreland Interchange, better known as “Spaghetti Junction.” The Downtown Connector — a 12-to-14-lane megahighway that in theory connects the city’s north to its south — regularly has three-mile-long traffic jams that last four hours or more….

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