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What shape society must take in a post-pandemic world

What shape society must take in a post-pandemic world

Jill Lepore writes: In March 2020, Boris Johnson, pale and exhausted, self-isolating in his flat on Downing Street, released a video of himself – that he had taken himself – reassuring Britons that they would get through the pandemic, together. “One thing I think the coronavirus crisis has already proved is that there really is such a thing as society,” the prime minister announced, confirming the existence of society while talking to his phone, alone in a room. All this…

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At COP26, a consensus that developing nations need far more help countering climate change

At COP26, a consensus that developing nations need far more help countering climate change

Inside Climate News reports: When the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference ended in overtime two weeks ago, there was recognition that developing nations—which have contributed least but suffer most from climate change—need far greater funding to adapt. At COP15, held in 2009 in Copenhagen, the world’s wealthiest countries pledged to give poorer nations yearly climate funding, to reach an amount of at least $100 billion a year from 2020 through 2025. The $100 billion figure was a nice, round…

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Calling climate change a ‘crisis’ doesn’t do what you think

Calling climate change a ‘crisis’ doesn’t do what you think

Grist reports: The way people talk about our overheating planet has been getting pretty spicy. Bland, neutral-sounding phrases like global warming are out; evocative words like crisis and emergency are in. Some activists have argued that more urgent language will jolt people into realizing that climate change is already here, prompting a speedier effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As an opinion piece in the Guardian once put it: “Our planet is in crisis. But until we call it a…

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Nurdles — the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of

Nurdles — the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of

The Guardian reports: When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry. Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which…

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New study links major fashion brands to Amazon deforestation

New study links major fashion brands to Amazon deforestation

The Guardian reports: New research into the fashion industry’s complex global supply chains shows that a number of large fashion brands are at risk of contributing to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, based on their connections to tanneries and other companies involved in the production of leather and leather goods. The report, released Monday, analyzed nearly 500,000 rows of customs data and found that brands such as Coach, LVMH, Prada, H&M, Zara, Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Teva, UGG and Fendi…

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Interesting research, but no, we don’t have living, reproducing robots

Interesting research, but no, we don’t have living, reproducing robots

John Timmer writes: Scientists on Monday announced that they’d optimized a way of getting mobile clusters of cells to organize other cells into smaller clusters that, under the right conditions, could be mobile themselves. The researchers call this process “kinematic self-replication,” although that’s not entirely right—the copies need help from humans to start moving on their own, are smaller than the originals, and the copying process grinds to a halt after just a couple of cycles. So, of course, CNN…

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How the Omicron variant rattled the world in one week

How the Omicron variant rattled the world in one week

The Wall Street Journal reports: Over coffee at his office on Tuesday, Tulio de Oliveira, director of South Africa’s Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation, let a colleague in on a secret. “There’s something going on,” he told Alex Sigal, a virologist growing coronaviruses at a South African laboratory. “They’ve found a variant they’ve never seen before.” For days, case numbers in the nation had been rising rapidly. Puzzled lab technicians had been getting back Covid-19 tests that were positive,…

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WHO chief: Omicron backlash against Africa shows why world needs pandemic treaty

WHO chief: Omicron backlash against Africa shows why world needs pandemic treaty

Politico reports: It’s time for a new pandemic treaty, the chief of the World Health Organization said on Monday. The emergence of the new Omicron coronavirus variant amid vaccine inequity and the rapid imposition of travel bans on southern African nations “demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics,” said WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a special session of the World Health Assembly. Countries are gathering at the session where they will agree to start negotiations…

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Trump allies work to place supporters in key election posts, spurring fears about future vote challenges

Trump allies work to place supporters in key election posts, spurring fears about future vote challenges

The Washington Post reports: In Michigan, local GOP leaders have sought to reshape election canvassing boards by appointing members who expressed sympathy for former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged. In two Pennsylvania communities, candidates who embraced election fraud allegations won races this month to become local voting judges and inspectors. And in Colorado, 2020 doubters are urging their followers on conservative social media platforms to apply for jobs in election offices. A year after…

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Brainwashing has a grim history that we shouldn’t dismiss

Brainwashing has a grim history that we shouldn’t dismiss

Joel E Dimsdale writes: In 1937, the longtime Bolshevik leader Georgy Pyatakov was tried in Moscow for treason, sabotage and other alleged crimes against the Soviet Union. He gave a false confession, declaring: ‘Here I stand before you in filth, crushed by my own crimes, bereft of everything through my own fault, a man who has lost his Party, who has no friends, who has lost his family, who has lost his very self.’ He was executed for his alleged…

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Humans have evolved to stay active even in old age, new hypothesis claims

Humans have evolved to stay active even in old age, new hypothesis claims

Science Alert reports: In the modern western world, people tend to reduce their levels of physical activity as they get older. But with this inactivity comes a raft of adverse health effects, so why didn’t evolution engineer us so that people could maintain a decent quality of life as they inevitably slow down? In a newly published paper, researchers argue it is because we aren’t meant to reduce our physical activity as we age at all. Enter the ‘active grandparent…

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These ‘living robots’ self-replicate — and it’s not terrifying

These ‘living robots’ self-replicate — and it’s not terrifying

The Daily Beast reports: You might have missed the debut of the Xenobots last year when the world was falling apart, but they made quite a splash in the science and tech community. These Pac-Man-shaped synthetic organisms designed by supercomputers can organize into larger groups and be programmed to fulfill specific functions. They’re certainly not robots in the traditional sense, but they’re also too artificial to qualify as typical living organisms. They’re part cell, part machine, and completely one-of-a-kind. As…

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Why insects are more sensitive than they seem

Why insects are more sensitive than they seem

Zaria Gorvett writes: One balmy autumn day in 2014, David Reynolds stood up to speak at an important meeting. It was taking place in Chicago City Hall – a venue so grand, it’s embellished with marble stairways, 75ft (23m) classical columns, and vaulted ceilings. As the person in charge of pest management in the city’s public buildings, among other things, Reynolds was there to discuss his annual budget. But soon after he began, an imposter appeared on one of the…

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How dangerous Omicron is, won’t be known for weeks

How dangerous Omicron is, won’t be known for weeks

Science reports: At 7.30 a.m. on Wednesday, Kristian Andersen, an infectious disease researcher at Scripps Research in San Diego, received a message on Slack: “This variant is completely insane.” Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh was reacting to a new SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence found in three samples collected in Botswana on 11 November and one picked up a week later in a traveler from South Africa to Hong Kong. Andersen looked at the data and then replied: “Holy shit—that…

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