Rediet Abebe tackles inequality through algorithms

Rediet Abebe tackles inequality through algorithms

Rachel Crowell writes: When Rediet Abebe arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate in 2009, she planned to study mathematics. But her experiences with the Cambridge public schools soon changed her plans. Abebe, 29, is from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city. When residents there didn’t have the resources they needed, she attributed it to community-level scarcity. But she found that argument unconvincing when she learned about educational inequality in Cambridge’s public schools, which she observed struggling in an…

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Scientists think play is valuable, but they’re not quite sure why

Scientists think play is valuable, but they’re not quite sure why

By Chris Woolston Anyone who has ever chucked a tennis ball in the general vicinity of a border collie knows that some animals take play very seriously. The intense stare, the tremble of anticipation, the apparent joy with every bounce, all in pursuit of inedible prey that tastes like the backyard. Dogs are far from the only animals that devote considerable time and energy to play. Juvenile wasps wrestle with hive mates, otters toss rocks between their paws, and human…

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There’s another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people a year

There’s another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people a year

Rebecca Solnit writes: It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus…

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The Amazon rainforest now emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs

The Amazon rainforest now emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs

Alex Fox writes: The Amazon rainforest may now emit more greenhouse gases than the famously lush ecosystem absorbs, according to new research. Long considered to be a bulwark against climate change because of its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, a new study suggests rising temperatures, increasing drought and rampant deforestation have likely overwhelmed the Amazon’s ability to absorb more greenhouse gases than it emits, reports Craig Welch for National Geographic. The sobering findings appear in a new study published earlier…

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U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

Marty Makary writes: The U.S. will soon achieve herd immunity against the novel coronavirus, but the U.K. will get there sooner. That’s because medical leaders across the pond put the priority on first-dose vaccination, delaying booster shots so that more people could get the initial shot. Fifty-nine percent of British adults are now vaccinated with one dose, vs. only 38% in the U.S. Far more Americans are fully vaccinated—21% have received either a booster or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson…

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Joe Biden just might be the Democrats’ Ronald Reagan

Joe Biden just might be the Democrats’ Ronald Reagan

Matt Lewis writes: Maybe it’s time we conservatives start taking Joe Biden seriously. After steamrolling Republicans and passing a $1.9 trillion COVID-relief package on a party-line basis, Biden is now pushing for $2.3 trillion in infrastructure spending along with a proposed corporate tax hike to pay for it. If we ignore that much of this so-called infrastructure spending is for things like “human infrastructure,” not roads and bridges, we are still talking about a HUGE amount of money—and it’s only…

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Kill the Senate filibuster and save U.S. democracy before it’s too late

Kill the Senate filibuster and save U.S. democracy before it’s too late

Noah Bookbinder writes: I worked as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee for eight years. I heard senators that I admired repeat the apocryphal story of George Washington supposedly explaining to Thomas Jefferson that the Senate was “the saucer that cools the tea,” preventing the House from rushing through ill-advised legislation. While the filibuster was not part of the framers’ plan — and indeed some of the framers warned against a supermajority requirement for legislation — it seemed consistent…

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Major companies like FedEx and Nike paid no federal taxes

Major companies like FedEx and Nike paid no federal taxes

The New York Times reports: Just as the Biden administration is pushing to raise taxes on corporations, a new study finds that at least 55 of America’s largest paid no taxes last year on billions of dollars in profits. The sweeping tax bill passed in 2017 by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Donald J. Trump reduced the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. But dozens of Fortune 500 companies were able to further…

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Five ways fungi could change the world, from cleaning water to breaking down plastics

Five ways fungi could change the world, from cleaning water to breaking down plastics

Shutterstock By Mitchell P. Jones, Vienna University of Technology Fungi — a scientific goldmine? Well, that’s what a review published today in the journal Trends in Biotechnology indicates. You may think mushrooms are a long chalk from the caped crusaders of sustainability. But think again. Many of us have heard of fungi’s role in creating more sustainable leather substitutes. Amadou vegan leather crafted from fungal-fruiting bodies has been around for some 5,000 years. More recently, mycelium leather substitutes have taken…

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Inside the ‘Lord of the Flies’ factionalism now plaguing Trumpland

Inside the ‘Lord of the Flies’ factionalism now plaguing Trumpland

Politico reports: Just one month after Donald Trump left the White House, a top donor to his campaign received a call on his personal cellphone from a Republican candidate seeking financial support. The call was unsolicited, according to four people familiar with the situation, and it rubbed the donor, whose friends had received similarly unexpected fundraising pleas, the wrong way. Shortly thereafter, the firm Jones Day, which served as counsel to Trump’s campaign committee, sent out a letter to former…

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Georgia’s new voting laws are all the evidence we need for federal voting rights protections

Georgia’s new voting laws are all the evidence we need for federal voting rights protections

Jessica Levinson writes: In 2013, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicted, with prescient clarity, what is happening right now in Georgia. Ginsburg knew then, when the Supreme Court threw out half of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, that it would be open season for voter suppression in states previously covered under the act. And here we are facing that reality with a sweeping and unquestionably restrictive new voting law passing on a party-line vote in Georgia late last…

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Most Republicans don’t want to make it easy for every citizen to vote

Most Republicans don’t want to make it easy for every citizen to vote

Pew Research Center reports: As partisan conflicts over voting access take center stage in Congress and in scores of states around the country, the share of Americans who say “everything possible” should be done to make voting easy has declined since 2018 – with the decrease coming entirely among Republicans. Currently, a majority of U.S. adults (59%) say that everything possible should be done to make it easy for every citizen to vote. A smaller share (39%) says that citizens…

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Republicans have been waiting for a Matt Gaetz scandal to break

Republicans have been waiting for a Matt Gaetz scandal to break

The Daily Beast reports: After Rep. Matt Gaetz accused a Florida lawyer of a $25 million extortion scheme to make sex trafficking allegations disappear, Republicans on and off Capitol Hill on Wednesday largely kept their mouths shut. Gaetz—the Trump-loving, Fox News-grinning, 38-year-old Florida Republican—has a less-than-sterling reputation among his congressional colleagues. More than a half-dozen lawmakers have spoken to these reporters about his love of alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as his proclivity for younger women. It’s well-known among…

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Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others. The assertion called into question the precautions that the agency had urged vaccinated people to take just last month, like wearing masks and gathering only under limited circumstances with unvaccinated people. “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during…

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