Costa Ricans live longer than Americans. What’s their secret?

Costa Ricans live longer than Americans. What’s their secret?

Atul Gawande writes: Life expectancy tends to track national income closely. Costa Rica has emerged as an exception. Searching a newer section of the cemetery that afternoon, I found only one grave for a child. Across all age cohorts, the country’s increase in health has far outpaced its increase in wealth. Although Costa Rica’s per-capita income is a sixth that of the United States—and its per-capita health-care costs are a fraction of ours—life expectancy there is approaching eighty-one years. In…

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The nine Democrats making Nancy Pelosi’s life harder are making a big mistake

The nine Democrats making Nancy Pelosi’s life harder are making a big mistake

Jamelle Bouie writes: Popular or unpopular, good economy or bad, the president’s party almost always loses seats in midterm elections. That there are so few exceptions — Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats in 1934, Bill Clinton and the Democrats in 1998, and George W. Bush and the Republicans in 2002 — proves the rule. The upshot is that if you are a member of Congress in the majority — and you share a party with the president — the die…

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A lucky few seem ‘resistant’ to Covid-19. Scientists want to know why

A lucky few seem ‘resistant’ to Covid-19. Scientists want to know why

STAT reports: Her husband collapsed just before reaching the top of the stairs in their small one-bedroom house in São Paulo, Brazil. Frantic, Thais Andrade grabbed the portable pulse oximeter she had purchased after hearing that a low oxygen reading could be the first sign of the novel coronavirus. Erik’s reading was hovering eight points lower than it had that morning. He also looked feverish. “When he hit 90% [on the oximeter], I said we can’t wait anymore,” Andrade recalled….

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For most of human history, equality was the norm. What happened?

For most of human history, equality was the norm. What happened?

Kim Sterelny writes: Most of us live in social worlds that are profoundly unequal, where small elites have vastly more power and wealth than everyone else. Very few of the have-nots find this congenial. As experimental economists have shown, we tend to enter social situations prepared to take a chance and cooperate in collective activities. But if others take more than their share, we resent being played for a sucker. We live in unequal worlds, and few of us are…

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The origin of consciousness

The origin of consciousness

Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka write: MuZero is an algorithm with a superhuman ability to learn: it has learned to play 57 different Atari video games as well as Chess, Go and Shogi, and defeated the greatest human masters in every one of them. Yet, this amazing algorithm and the computer in which it is implemented are as conscious as your washing machine. Its “intelligence”, manifest in its learning ability, has nothing to do with consciousness – the ability to…

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Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?

Twenty years after 9/11, are we any smarter?

Jordan Michael Smith writes: On a warm June evening in downtown Manhattan, tourists hoping to visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum are disappointed. The spot is closed after 5 p.m., a security guard repeats patiently to visitors. From behind a rope, the tourists look at the spaces where the Twin Towers used to be. The names of the 2,977 people killed by Al Qaeda in September 2001 are etched into bronze parapets surrounding two pools. Water flows down…

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The chance of a deal with the Taliban that the U.S. squandered twenty years ago

The chance of a deal with the Taliban that the U.S. squandered twenty years ago

Alissa J. Rubin reports: Taliban fighters brandished Kalashnikovs and shook their fists in the air after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, defying American warnings that if they did not hand over Osama Bin Laden, their country would be bombed to smithereens. The bravado faded once American bombs began to fall. Within a few weeks, many of the Taliban had fled the Afghan capital, terrified by the low whine of approaching B-52 aircraft. Soon, they were a spent force, on the…

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U.S. military gives Biden a deadline to decide on extending Afghanistan evacuations

U.S. military gives Biden a deadline to decide on extending Afghanistan evacuations

CNN reports: The US military is advising President Joe Biden that he must decide by Tuesday whether to extend the evacuation in Afghanistan beyond August 31, according to a defense official directly familiar with the discussions. Military advisers have told the White House that the decision must be made by Tuesday in order to have enough time to withdraw the 5,800 troops currently on the ground, as well as their equipment and weapons. If the President agrees, the military anticipates…

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Afghanistan again becomes a cradle for jihadism — and Al Qaeda

Afghanistan again becomes a cradle for jihadism — and Al Qaeda

Robin Wright writes: In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command. He has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul. During one of several interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing…

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Far-right extremists in United States applaud Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan

Far-right extremists in United States applaud Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan

Digital Forensic Research Lab reports: Supporters of far-right extremist movements in the United States applauded the Taliban after the group’s takeover of Afghanistan, cheering the development as an existential defeat of Western powers they believe are responsible for perceived declines in society. Some went so far as to frame the US defeat in the nation as a goal for their own movements to aspire toward. Extremists’ reactions to the Taliban’s domination of Afghanistan fits into three distinct buckets: support for…

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Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook

Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook

Rebecca Solnit writes: Personal virtue is an eternally seductive goal in progressive movements, and the climate movement is no exception. People pop up all the time to boast of their domestic arrangements or chastise others for what they eat or how they get around. The very short counterargument is that individual acts of thrift and abstinence won’t get us the huge distance we need to go in this decade. We need to exit the age of fossil fuels, reinvent our…

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The self is not singular but a fluid network of identities

The self is not singular but a fluid network of identities

Kathleen Wallace writes: Who am I? We all ask ourselves this question, and many like it. Is my identity determined by my DNA or am I product of how I’m raised? Can I change, and if so, how much? Is my identity just one thing, or can I have more than one? Since its beginning, philosophy has grappled with these questions, which are important to how we make choices and how we interact with the world around us. Socrates thought…

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As Biden faces a political crisis, Democrats look on in alarm

As Biden faces a political crisis, Democrats look on in alarm

The New York Times reports: With President Biden facing a political crisis that has shaken his standing in his party, Democrats across the country are increasingly worried about their ability to maintain power in Washington, as his administration struggles to defend its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and stanch a resurgent pandemic that appeared to be waning only weeks ago. While Americans watched devastating scenes of mayhem at the Kabul airport and ascendant Taliban forces last week, the steady drumbeat of…

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Afghan staff at U.S. Embassy losing faith in evacuation efforts, diplomatic cable says

Afghan staff at U.S. Embassy losing faith in evacuation efforts, diplomatic cable says

NBC News reports: Local staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are “deeply disheartened” by U.S. evacuation efforts and have expressed a sense of betrayal and distrust in the American government, according to a State Department diplomatic cable obtained by NBC News. Sent Saturday, the cable said that memos had been sent to Afghan staff at the Embassy on Wednesday, inviting them to head to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It told them to take food and…

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