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Author: From elsewhere

We thought we were saving the planet, but we were planting a time bomb

We thought we were saving the planet, but we were planting a time bomb

Claire Cameron writes: At first, it looked like a sunset. It was just after five o’clock in June. I was running in Toronto beside Lake Ontario when I stopped to glance at my watch and noticed that the sky was no longer blue but a rusted orange. It took only a few breaths to realize the bonfire smell in the air was the drifting product of faraway wildfires. It’s quite possible you had a similar experience this summer: The plumes…

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Don’t expect a ‘theory of everything’ to explain everything

Don’t expect a ‘theory of everything’ to explain everything

Dennis Overbye writes: What good are the laws of physics if we can’t solve the equations that describe them? That was the question that occurred to me on reading an article in The Guardian by Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist at University College London who spends his days running computer simulations of black holes, stars, galaxies and the birth and growth of the universe. His point was that he and the rest of us are bound to fail. “Even if we…

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Cheese consumption might be linked to better cognitive health, study suggests

Cheese consumption might be linked to better cognitive health, study suggests

PsyPost reports: A recent scientific publication by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)’s Nutrients journal suggests there might be a correlation between regular cheese consumption and better cognitive health in the elderly population. Over the years, the nexus between dietary habits and their impact on physical well-being has been firmly established. However, the realm of cognitive health and its relation to food intake is an area that’s still being actively explored. Dairy products, especially milk and cheese, have previously been…

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The young conservatives trying to make eugenics respectable again

The young conservatives trying to make eugenics respectable again

Adam Serwer writes: The pseudoscience of eugenics is making a comeback on the American right. In August, the HuffPost reporter Christopher Mathias unmasked the Substack writer and academic Richard Hanania as “Richard Hoste,” a pseudonym under which Hanania blogged for white-supremacist websites about the evils of “race mixing,” advocated for the sterilization of people with a “low IQ” and for the deportation of all “post-1965 non-White migrants from Latin America,” and declared that “women’s liberation = the end of human civilization.” He also wrote…

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Trump’s Georgia charges thrust Coffee county in to the spotlight. Its people seek accountability

Trump’s Georgia charges thrust Coffee county in to the spotlight. Its people seek accountability

The Guardian reports: The Coffee county board of elections in Georgia held its first meeting on Tuesday after being mentioned more than 50 times in Fulton county’s indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for allegedly participating in a criminal conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Local residents, still frustrated over a lack of accountability for officials who may have known about the conspiracy, pressured the reluctant board for an independent investigation. The small, rural county 200…

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The real issue in the UAW strike

The real issue in the UAW strike

Ronald Brownstein writes: The United Automobile Workers’ strike against the Big Three manufacturers that began earlier today is exacerbating the most significant political vulnerability of President Joe Biden’s drive to build a clean-energy economy. A trio of bills Biden passed through Congress during his first two years in the Oval Office has generated a torrent of private-sector investment into clean-energy projects. But so far most of that green investment and the jobs it will create are flowing into red-leaning communities…

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Journalists have to be truthful, not neutral

Journalists have to be truthful, not neutral

Margaret Sullivan writes: Christiane Amanpour has reported all over the world, so she recognizes a democracy on the brink when she sees one. Last week, as she celebrated her 40 years at CNN, she issued a challenge to her fellow journalists in the US by describing how she would cover US politics as a foreign correspondent. “We have to be truthful, not neutral,” she urged. “I would make sure that you don’t just give a platform … to those who…

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Western voters support foreign aid. Fearful governments are blocking it

Western voters support foreign aid. Fearful governments are blocking it

Tim Hirschel-Burns writes: International negotiations often follow a similar pattern: Global north countries promise bold action, summits come and go, and resources fail to materialize. In June, the ambitiously titled “Summit for a New Global Financing Pact” ultimately generated a road map of future meetings and announcements that rich countries would meet commitments they were supposed to have fulfilled years ago. This pattern has only hardened the assumption that global north countries are unlikely to prioritize the needs of the…

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The ‘Hispanic Paradox’ intrigues a new generation of researchers determined to unravel it

The ‘Hispanic Paradox’ intrigues a new generation of researchers determined to unravel it

Usha Lee McFarling reports: For 40 years, researchers have unsuccessfully tried to explain — or debunk — the “Hispanic Paradox,” the finding that Hispanic Americans live several years longer than white Americans on average, despite having far less income and health care and higher rates of diabetes and obesity. Now, armed with more comprehensive data, powerful genomic tools, and a rich cultural awareness of the communities they study, a new generation of scientists is finally making headway. These researchers, many…

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‘Species repulsion’ enables high biodiversity in tropical trees

‘Species repulsion’ enables high biodiversity in tropical trees

Veronique Greenwood writes: For ecologists, tropical rainforests hold many enigmas. A single hectare can contain hundreds of tree species, far more than in forests closer to the poles. Somehow these species coexist in such dizzying abundance that, as naturalists and ecologists have sometimes noted, tropical forests can feel like botanical gardens, where every plant is something new. For such throngs of species to be packed so densely, they must coexist in a very particular balance. Evolution seems not to favor…

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Mitt Romney: ‘A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution’

Mitt Romney: ‘A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution’

In an extract from his biography of Mitt Romney, McKay Coppins writes: [T]here is something familiar about the unnerving sensation that Romney is feeling late on the afternoon of January 2, 2021. It begins with a text message from Angus King, the junior senator from Maine: “Could you give me a call when you get a chance? Important.” Romney calls, and King informs him of a conversation he’s just had with a high-ranking Pentagon official. Law enforcement has been tracking…

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What Republicans are doing to Wisconsin is a warning sign to all Americans

What Republicans are doing to Wisconsin is a warning sign to all Americans

Andrew Gawthorpe writes: If you need a reminder that the Republican party’s problem with democracy extends beyond the antics of Donald Trump, look no further than Wisconsin. A battle is under way there which began before the January 6 insurrection was even a twinkle in Trump’s eye, and which will do much to determine the future of democracy in America whether Trump ultimately answers for his crimes or not. It’s no exaggeration to say that Wisconsin and its state capitol,…

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Wisconsin Republicans vote to fire top election official as denialists tighten grip

Wisconsin Republicans vote to fire top election official as denialists tighten grip

The Guardian reports: Wisconsin’s top elections official suffered another blow on Thursday when the Republican-controlled state senate voted to fire her by a party line vote of 22 to 11. Meagan Wolfe’s status as elections administrator will now likely be determined in court. Legal experts and the Wisconsin attorney general have disputed the move by Republican senators to remove Wolfe, a respected and accomplished non-partisan leader. Her removal would affect the administration of elections in 2024 and illustrates the increasingly…

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For Hannah Arendt, hope in dark times is no match for action

For Hannah Arendt, hope in dark times is no match for action

Samantha Rose Hill writes: As Hannah Arendt and her husband Heinrich Blücher waited in Montauban, France in the summer of 1940 to receive emergency exit papers they did not give into anxiety or despair. They found bicycles and explored the beautiful French countryside during the day and delighted in the detective novels of Georges Simenon at night. In the words of Helen Wolff: ‘Hannah, in her high-spirited way, made of this anguishing experience a kind of gift of time.’ It…

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