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Seed banks — the last line of defense against a global food crisis

Seed banks — the last line of defense against a global food crisis

The Guardian reports: As the risks from the climate crisis and global conflict increase, seed banks are increasingly considered a priceless resource that could one day prevent a worldwide food crisis. Two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction, and though researchers estimate there are at least 200,000 edible plant species on our planet, we depend on just three – maize, rice and wheat– for more than half of humanity’s caloric intake. There are roughly…

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Energy requirements of a good life are surprisingly low

Energy requirements of a good life are surprisingly low

Anthropocene magazine reports: The average global energy consumption—79 gigajoules per person per year—is sufficient to power a healthy, comfortable life for everyone on the planet, according to a new study. The analysis is part of a growing body of research aimed at figuring out how to achieve climate goals while also providing modern energy resources to those who lack it. The findings suggest that this balance might be easier than expected to strike: the world doesn’t need a massive expansion…

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Trump’s most loyal lawmakers are actually losing money

Trump’s most loyal lawmakers are actually losing money

The Daily Beast reports: Last year, it was a fundraising feast for the MAGA Goon Squad. But in 2022, without the donor stimulus of an attempted insurrection, things are going in the wrong direction. The first three months of the year took more than $275,000 combined out of the pockets of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—the foursome of America First, Donald Trump-loving, exhibitionist election objectors. All told, it was their…

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Jupiter’s moon Europa may have water where life could exist, scientists suggest

Jupiter’s moon Europa may have water where life could exist, scientists suggest

The Guardian reports: Subterranean pools of salty water may be commonplace on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, according to researchers who believe the sites could be promising spots to search for signs of life beyond Earth. Evidence for the shallow pools, not far beneath the frozen surface of the Jovian moon, emerged when scientists noticed that giant parallel ridges stretching for hundreds of miles on Europa were strikingly similar to surface features discovered on the Greenland ice sheet. If the extensive ice…

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Bleak assessments of the Russian economy clash with Putin’s rosy claims

Bleak assessments of the Russian economy clash with Putin’s rosy claims

The New York Times reports: Russia’s central bank chief warned on Monday that the consequences of Western sanctions were only beginning to be felt, and Moscow’s mayor said that 200,000 jobs were at risk in the Russian capital alone, stark acknowledgments that undermined President Vladimir V. Putin’s contention that sanctions had failed to destabilize the Russian economy. The bleak assessments from two senior officials align with the forecast of many experts that Russia faces a steep economic downturn as its…

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The U.S. can prosecute Russian leaders for war crimes

The U.S. can prosecute Russian leaders for war crimes

Tom Nachbar writes: Since April 4, when President Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a war criminal, many commentators have focused on how Russian leaders might be subject to international war crimes trials. But there is another option that should be on the table: a U.S. prosecution. It is a remarkable thing for the president of the United States to personally accuse a foreign leader of being a war criminal. Such an allegation should not be made unless…

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Rep. Jamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’

Rep. Jamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’

The Guardian reports: When it comes to fighting for democracy and climate change – two of Jamie Raskin’s top priorities – the whole thing feels a bit like a game of chicken and egg to the Democratic congressman. On the one hand there is the planet, heating up quickly past the limit that is safe and necessary for human survival, while Congress stalls on a $555bn climate package. On the other, a pernicious movement, spurred by Donald Trump and other…

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Democratic state activists are working to decarbonize trillions. They don’t need Joe Manchin’s permission

Democratic state activists are working to decarbonize trillions. They don’t need Joe Manchin’s permission

The Nation reports: Republican state leaders are on the warpath against BlackRock, the largest financial asset manager in the nation. The company’s sin? Statements by BlackRock leadership that climate change is a long-term threat, and that the company will pursue investments that promote a reduction in emissions. In January, West Virginia declared that it was barring the company from managing its state pension funds. Texas passed legislation in February prohibiting any firm divesting from fossil fuels from managing state assets….

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Global data reveal half Covid survivors may still have symptoms four months after infection

Global data reveal half Covid survivors may still have symptoms four months after infection

Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: Worldwide, 49% of COVID-19 survivors reported persistent symptoms 4 months after diagnosis, estimates a meta-analysis of 31 studies published late last week in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. University of Michigan researchers, who conducted a systematic review on Jul 5, 2021, also found the prevalence of long COVID at 1 month at 37%, while it was 25% at 2 months and 32% at 3 months. Fifty studies were identified in the review, and…

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Could gut microbes regulate appetite and body temperature?

Could gut microbes regulate appetite and body temperature?

Science reports: With more microbes than cells in our body, it’s not surprising that bacteria and other invisible “guests” influence our metabolism, immune system, and even our behavior. Now, researchers studying mice have worked out how bacteria in the mammalian gut can ping the brain to regulate an animal’s appetite and body temperature—and it involves the same molecular pathway the immune system uses to detect bacterial pathogens. “It’s quite an important finding,” says Antoine Adamantidis, a neuroscientist at the University…

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A universe without mathematics is beyond the scope of our imagination

A universe without mathematics is beyond the scope of our imagination

Mathematics is the language of the universe. (Shutterstock) By Peter Watson, Carleton University Almost 400 years ago, in The Assayer, Galileo wrote: “Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe … [But the book] is written in the language of mathematics.” He was much more than an astronomer, and this can almost be thought of as the first writing on the scientific method. We do not know who first started applying mathematics to scientific study, but it is plausible…

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The courage to speak the truth

The courage to speak the truth

Timothy Snyder writes: Once, after a debate in 2009 in Bratislava, I looked over at the notes that the Czech thinker (and by then former president) Václav Havel had been keeping for himself. He had written “love and truth” on a sheet of paper, and then doodled flowers around it. Havel was the author of a famous secular east European statement about risk in politics. He wrote “Power of the Powerless” in communist Czechoslovakia, three decades before that debate, under…

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Atrocities in Ukraine war have deep roots in Russian military

Atrocities in Ukraine war have deep roots in Russian military

The New York Times reports: In a photograph from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, a woman stands in the yard of a house, her hand covering her mouth in horror, the bodies of three dead civilians scattered before her. When Aset Chad saw that picture, she started shaking and hurtled 22 years back in time. In February 2000, she walked into her neighbor’s yard in Chechnya and glimpsed the bodies of three men and a woman who had been…

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Here’s what the Facebook Papers say about Donald Trump, the 2020 Election, and January 6

Here’s what the Facebook Papers say about Donald Trump, the 2020 Election, and January 6

Gizmodo reports: In the hours following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, employees at Facebook tasked with preventing “potential offline harm” found themselves under siege by a mob of a different sort. Reports of abusive content from users were flooding in. As one employee put it in an internal forum, many of the flagged posts “called for violence, suggested the overthrow of the government would be desirable, or otherwise voiced support for the protests.” The same day, Instagram employees…

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