A reporter reflects on conflicts over truth, trust and belonging in America

A reporter reflects on conflicts over truth, trust and belonging in America

Jose A. Del Real writes: The old textbook depository at 411 Elm St. isn’t especially eye-catching, but for nearly 60 years its awful past has loomed over downtown Dallas and, perhaps, all of American public life. “On November 22, 1963,” notes a modest historical marker fixed to its red-brick facade, “the building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed president John F. Kennedy from a sixth floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site.” Every…

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Lessons my terminal cancer has taught me about the mind

Lessons my terminal cancer has taught me about the mind

David J. Linden writes: When a routine echocardiogram revealed a large mass next to my heart, the radiologist thought it might be a hiatal hernia—a portion of my stomach poking up through my diaphragm to press against the sac containing my heart. “Chug this can of Diet Dr. Pepper and then hop up on the table for another echocardiogram before the soda bubbles in your stomach all pop.” So I did. However, the resulting images showed that the mass did…

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How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity’s technological revolution

How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity’s technological revolution

Clovis spearheads. wikimedia, CC BY-SA By Nicholas R. Longrich, University of Bath For the first few million years of human evolution, technologies changed slowly. Some three million years ago, our ancestors were making chipped stone flakes and crude choppers. Two million years ago, hand-axes. A million years ago, primitive humans sometimes used fire, but with difficulty. Then, 500,000 years ago, technological change accelerated, as spearpoints, firemaking, axes, beads and bows appeared. This technological revolution wasn’t the work of one people….

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New data suggests a massive collapse of Antarctic’s Thwaites Glacier in as little as five years

New data suggests a massive collapse of Antarctic’s Thwaites Glacier in as little as five years

Jeff Goodell reports: One thing that’s hard to grasp about the climate crisis is that big changes can happen fast. In 2019, I was aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a 308-foot-long scientific research vessel, cruising in front of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. One day, we were sailing in clear seas in front of the glacier. The next day, we were surrounded by icebergs the size of aircraft carriers. As we later learned from satellite images, in a matter of…

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Climate change is a justice issue – these 6 charts show why

Climate change is a justice issue – these 6 charts show why

African countries have faced dangerous droughts, storms and heat waves while contributing little to climate change. Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images By Sonja Klinsky, Arizona State University Climate change has hit home around the world in 2021 with record heat waves, droughts, wildfires and extreme storms. Often, the people suffering most from the effects of climate change are those who have done the least to cause it. To reduce climate change and protect those who are most vulnerable, it’s important to understand…

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Will nuclear fusion ever power the world?

Will nuclear fusion ever power the world?

Steffi Diem tells Gizmodo: If funding for fusion energy development continues to increase, then yes, fusion will power the world in the future. Since the 1990s, funding for fusion research in the United States has been for the science of fusion, not for the development of an energy source. The rest of the world has a wide portfolio of fusion research as well, and we are all racing to harness the power of fusion. Major recent advances in technology and…

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Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is backfiring

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is backfiring

Kori Schake writes: Western intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is contemplating an invasion of Ukraine, perhaps involving some 175,000 troops. Vladimir Putin’s government has already moved more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders, including into Belarus. Russian officials have been making outrageously paranoid and false accusations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for example, recently blamed NATO for the return of the “nightmare scenario of military confrontation.” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the United States is smuggling “tanks…

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Facebook’s strategy for fending off Congress: Divide and rule

Facebook’s strategy for fending off Congress: Divide and rule

The Wall Street Journal reports: The day after former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen went public in October, the company’s team in Washington started working the phones. To lawmakers and advocacy groups on the right, according to people familiar with the conversations, their message was that Ms. Haugen was trying to help Democrats. Within hours, several conservative news outlets published stories alleging Ms. Haugen was a Democratic activist. Later, Facebook lobbyists warned Democratic staffers that Republicans were focused on…

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Is fluvoxamine the Covid drug we’ve been waiting for?

Is fluvoxamine the Covid drug we’ve been waiting for?

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized two oral antiviral medicines for the early treatment of Covid-19. But don’t get too excited. The U.S. will still have a meager treatment arsenal this winter. The U.S. has been relying on monoclonal-antibody treatments, but most don’t hold up against the Omicron variant. One, by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, does better at neutralizing the variant, but supply is limited. Pfizer’s newly authorized antiviral pack Paxlovid will also…

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E.O. Wilson’s lifelong passion for ants helped him teach humans about how to live sustainably with nature

E.O. Wilson’s lifelong passion for ants helped him teach humans about how to live sustainably with nature

Edward O. Wilson in his office in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, in 2014. Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images By Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware E. O. Wilson was an extraordinary scholar in every sense of the word. Back in the 1980s, Milton Stetson, the chair of the biology department at the University of Delaware, told me that a scientist who makes a single seminal contribution to his or her field has been a success. By…

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Massive new bird flu outbreak could turn into global emergency

Massive new bird flu outbreak could turn into global emergency

The Daily Beast reports: Israel’s National Security Council has assumed control of a massive bird flu outbreak in the Galilee, which scientists warn could become a “mass disaster” for humans. Over half a billion migrating birds pass through the area every year, heading for warm African winters or balmy European summers, making this a catastrophic location for a major bird flu outbreak—right at the nexus of global avian travel. The virus can be deadly if it infects people. The World…

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How back-channel diplomacy can prevent war with Russia

How back-channel diplomacy can prevent war with Russia

James Bruno writes: Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Guns of August made such a deep impression on President John F. Kennedy that he asked his cabinet members, National Security Council staff, and all Army officers to read it. And when the world faced Armageddon over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the book’s lessons informed the commander in chief’s decision-making. Insisting that “we are not going to bungle into war,” Kennedy turned aside the hawkish recommendations of the military…

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Russian court orders oldest civil rights group Memorial to shut

Russian court orders oldest civil rights group Memorial to shut

BBC News reports: Russia’s Supreme Court has ordered the closure of International Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights group. Memorial worked to recover the memory of the millions of innocent people executed, imprisoned or persecuted in the Soviet era. Formally it has been “liquidated” for failing to mark a number of social media posts with its official status as a “foreign agent”. That designation was given in 2016 for receiving funding from abroad. But in court, the prosecutor labelled Memorial a…

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