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We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come
by Oliver Milman 19/7/23 The Guardian
The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.
The Trump administration has shut down more than 100 climate studies
by James Temple 2/6/25 MIT Technology Review
The Trump administration has terminated National Science Foundation grants for more than 100 research projects related to climate change amid a widening campaign to slash federal funding for scientists and institutions studying the rising risks of a warming world.
Glaciers will keep melting for centuries even if warming stops, study warns
by Stuti Mishra 3/6/25 INDEPENDENT
About 40 per cent of the world's glacier mass is already set to disappear due to past greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing loss not only contributes to sea-level rise but also threatens freshwater supplies and increases the risk of natural hazards in mountainous regions.
Can multivitamins improve memory? A new study shows 'intriguing' results
A team of researchers wanted to assess how a daily multivitamin may influence cognitive aging and memory. They tracked about 3,500 older adults who were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial. One group of participants took a placebo, and another group took a Silver Centrum multivitamin, for three years. The participants also took tests, administered online, to evaluate memory.
‘It was an accident’: the scientists who have turned humid air into renewable power
In the early 20th century, Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla dreamed of pulling limitless free electricity from the air around us. Ever ambitious, Tesla was thinking on a vast scale, effectively looking at the Earth and upper atmosphere as two ends of an enormous battery. Needless to say, his dreams were never realised, but the promise of air-derived electricity – hygroelectricity – is now capturing researchers’ imaginations again. The difference: they’re not thinking big, but very, very small.
The 'Game-Changing' Technology The Nuclear Industry Is Betting On For A Revival
by Alexander C.Kaufman 31/7/23 HUFFPOST
CAMDEN, N.J. ― On a bright, humid afternoon last September, Allen Hickman made the rounds on the floor of a factory that embodies the past, present and future of the nation’s atomic energy industry perhaps more than any other site in the United States.
Mercury exposure linked to high youth suicides in Canada First Nation
by Leyland Gecco 20/7/23 The Guardian
Researchers who studied three generations of mothers and their children from the community of Grassy Narrows, Ontario, have concluded that sustained exposure to the toxic metal helped cause a suicide rate three times higher than any other First Nations community – which are already far higher than among the country’s general population.
Could kinder, gentler fracking create a breakthrough in geothermal power?
by Mark Sumner 23/7/23 DAILY KOS
Hydro power is often mentioned, but only in the sense that while it plays a significant role in the current energy portfolio, there are few options for expansion. While wind and solar have been racing up, hydroelectric production has declined.
How to harvest water from clouds of fog
by Kat Lonsdorf Claire Harbage 10/06/23 NPR
This September morning, the air is cool. Murungi's wearing a wool hat and a maroon fleece, long pants and tall rubber boots. But the sun — strong at the equator — will soon warm the area. When the ground heats up during the day, its moisture evaporates into the air. Then when the night brings cooler temperatures, that moisture condenses, forming a fog of water droplets that Murungi and his wife collect.
Three independent studies say that blood platelet factor PF4 prevents and reverses cognitive decline
Although the percentage of older people with dementia is thankfully decreasing, from 13% to 10% in those over 70 from 2011-2019, the absolute number of people with dementia is actually increasing. That’s because the share of the U.S. population that is 65 and over ballooned by 38.6% from 2010-2020, in large part due to baby boomers (shown in dark blue below) crossing the 65-year mark. They’ll keep on doing that until 2031, so the 65+ population will continue to grow quickly until then.
It’s absolutely guaranteed’: the best and worst case scenarios for sea level rise
by Karen McVeigh 6/26/23 the Guardian
It is accelerating, too: the ocean rose more than twice as fast (4.62mm a year) in the most recent decade (2013-22) than it did in 1993-2002, the first decade of satellite measurements, when the rate was 2.77mm a year. Last year was a new high, according to the World Meteorological Organization. It is no coincidence that the past eight years were the warmest on record.
What Happens When You Tax Billionaires at 90 Percent?
by Thomhartmann 3/6/23 Daily KOS
“Succession” is over, but spoiled, entitled billionaire man-children are still very much with us, running social media companies, owning newspapers and television networks, and funding politicians and judges who then keep their taxes low and regulations minimal.
How the far right tore apart one of the best tools to fight voter fraud
On a night in January 2022, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin stepped on stage in a former airbase in Houma, La.
With American flags draped from the stage, the topic of the night was democracy.
A Major Polling Company Is Throwing Its Weight Behind Huge Conspiracy Theories
by Matt Shuham 14/7/23 HUFFPOST
Kari Lake had lost Arizona’s 2022 governor’s race by thousands of votes, falsely declared that she’d been robbed, and was trying to overturn the election results in court when, finally, she was declared the winner of the race in March.
A beautiful, broken America: what I learned on a 2,800-mile bus ride from Detroit to LA
by Joanna Pocock 26/7/23 The Guardian
Historically, chroniclers of the road have travelled by car – intrepid individuals in charge of their destinies. They also tend to be male. The only book I could find by a woman about crossing the US was America Day by Day by Simone de Beauvoir. It is also the only Great American Road Trip book that features Greyhound bus travel. Simone became my companion on the road.
‘This way of farming is really sexy’: the rise of regenerative agriculture
by Alexandra Topping 14/8/23 The Guardian
Hollie Fallick looks over Brading on the Isle of Wight, at a patchwork of fields bordered by ancient oaks, which stretches to the Solent. “We still have to pinch ourselves every day,” says the 30-year-old, as she surveys the 50 hectares (125 acres) she farms with her best friend, Francesca Cooper, 34.
Five geoengineering trials the UK is funding to combat global warming
by Robert Chris 3/6/25 The Conversation
The UK government recently announced plans to fund five small-scale trials related to geoengineering. It’s the first time a state research funding body has put serious money into what’s known as solar radiation management, or SRM, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting more of the Sun’s energy back into space.
Profound Paradigm Shift in Cellular Biology – DNA Damage Repaired by Antioxidant Enzymes
by CENTER FOR GENOMIC REGULATION 6/7/23 sciTechDaily
The human nucleus is metabolically active, according to the findings of a new study in Molecular Systems Biology by researchers at the CRG in Barcelona and CeMM/Medical University of Vienna.
A popular, but noxious, piping fix is sickening people. And it's throughout America's sewers.
by Emily Le Coz & Monique O.Madan 30/3/23 USA TODAY
A strong, epoxy-like odor that nauseated her and dozens of classmates and teachers at Spooner Middle School in Wisconsin. By the time they evacuated, Kaylie was feeling lightheaded. She passed out and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
How to improve US cities and tackle the climate crisis? Get rid of parking spaces
by Danielle Renwick 26/5/23 The Guardian
What could New York achieve if it repurposed some of its 3m curbside parking spots?
It could get rid of rats by moving trash off the sidewalks and into containers. It could create safe, cool play spaces for the more than 1m New Yorkers without easy park access. It could build bioswales to collect rainwater and prevent flooding during heavy storms.
Calculating the amount companies owe for causing global warming
Prior research has found that it is possible to tie certain environmental events to climate change—the current heat wave in parts of South Asia, for example, or excessive flooding in Myanmar and Bangladesh. As it stands now, governments wind up paying to restore order in such areas, or in some cases, insurance companies pay for those who have coverage.
Earth Matters: James Hansen warned us about climate change 35 years ago this month
by Staff Emeritus 1/6/23 DAILY KOS
“The present observed global warming is close to 0.4 degrees C [0.72 F], relative to ‘climatology,’ which is defined as the thirty-year (1951–1980) mean. A warming of 0.4 degrees C is three times larger than the standard deviation of annual mean temperatures in the 30-year climatology. The standard deviation of 0.13 degrees C i[0.23 F] is a typical amount by which the global temperature fluctuates annually about its 30-year mean; the probability of a chance warming of three standard deviations is about 1 percent. Thus, we can state with about 99 percent confidence that current temperatures represent a real warming trend rather than a chance fluctuation over the 30-year period.”—James Hansen testifying to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 23, 1988.
Experience exceeds awareness of anthropogenic climate change in Greenland
Although Greenland is a hub for climate science, the climate perceptions of Greenland’s predominantly Indigenous population have remained largely unstudied. Here we present two nationally representative surveys and show that Greenlanders are more likely than residents of top oil-producing Arctic countries to perceive that climate change is happening and about twice as likely to have personally experienced its effects. However, half are unaware that climate change is human-caused and those who are most affected appear to be least aware.
Hygroelectricity -- Nikola Tesla's Dream Reimagined?
by Irontortoise 6/7/23 DAILY KOS
In May, a team at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst published a paper declaring they had successfully generated a small but continuous electric current from humidity in the air…
‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis
by Oliver Milman 5/7/23 The Guardian
More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
Understanding the role of the sun in climate change
by Nicola Scafetta 6/7/23 PHYS ORG
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports the latter view and estimates that almost 100% of the observed warming of the Earth's surface from 1850–1900 to 2020 was caused by man-made emissions. This is known as the anthropogenic global warming (AGWT) theory.
Should I worry about ticks?
by Joel Snape 16/7/23 The Guardian
As arachnid superorders go, ticks are pretty evolutionarily successful. They’ve been around for at least 100 million years in one variety or another, with their main party trick – hanging around until they can latch a host to feed on – working on thousands of different animals across almost endless environments. But how concerned should you be about them in the UK? You won’t miss the blood they take, but they can cause a variety of unpleasant conditions in their hosts – and there’s some evidence that their population is growing.
As darkness descends on Gaza, I yearn for the world to see us, too
In Gaza, we have all been glued to the news for the last five days, watching in disbelief as strikes and counterstrikes have been exchanged and the death counts on both sides of the border mount. While every round of violence starts differently, they all end the same way here: with Palestinians paying a heavy price. We live in perpetual anticipation of a tragic ending.
Racism at heart of US failure to tackle deadly heatwaves, expert warns
by Nina Lakhani 6/8/23 The Guardian
Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet.
The Bruen Decision Is Not an "Originalist" Interpretation of the 2nd Amendment
by Old Rotohead 31/8/23 DAILY KOS
Self-proclaimed “originalists” tend to use their alleged doctrine as a fig leaf for enacting their prejudices. In addition to the subject of reproductive autonomy, that’s especially in evidence, it seems, with regard to the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court actually has a set of rules for legal interpretation which enshrines aversion of “originalism”:
Biden creates a new national monument near the Grand Canyon
President Biden designated a new national monument near the Grand Canyon on Tuesday. The move protects lands that are sacred to indigenous peoples and permanently bans new uranium mining claims in the area. It covers nearly 1 million acres.
Why Billionaires Fund Anti-Trans & Anti-Black-History Political Movements
by Thomnhartmann 16/8/23 DAILY KOS
Almost 12 percent of Americans, over 37 million of us, live in dire poverty. According to OECD numbers, while only 5 percent of Italians and 11 percent of Japanese workers toil in low-wage jobs, almost a quarter of Americans — 23 percent — work for wages that can’t support a normal lifestyle. (And low-income Japanese and Italians have free healthcare and college.)
Phoenix Roasts in Record-Breaking 110-Plus-Degree Heat, with No End in Sight
by Daniel Cusick 17/7/23 E&E News
Several million heat-tolerant Arizonans spent the weekend in air-conditioned semi-darkness, drawing their curtains shut as temperatures soared to nearly 120 degrees in one of America's largest metro areas.
Ready to cold plunge? We dive into the science to see if it's worth it
Your body's first reaction to a plunge in chilly water is the "cold shock" response. Your heart rate jumps. Stress hormones spike. You gasp suddenly, and may hyperventilate.
The 19th century sexual purity law that some want to revive
There has been a surprising and consistent theme in several of Kacsymaryk’s rulings: the Comstock Act, a 19th-century sexual purity law that has lain dormant for more than a century. Last spring, when Kacsmaryk ruled that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) never had the authority to approve mifepristone, a pill used in the standard protocol for medication abortion, which now accounts for more than half of abortions performed in the United States, he argued that the Comstock Act made it a federal crime to mail abortion pills.
Climate Change Breeds War in Africa
by Alan Singer 30/7/23 Daily KOS
Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, warns European nations that refugees from Sahel region will be moving north to escape violence, climate crises like droughts and floods, and food shortages.
Despite backlash, Masha Gessen says comparing Gaza to a Nazi-era ghetto is necessary
by Rachel Treisman, Leila Fadel 22/12/23 nrp
Israel's air-and-ground assault on Gaza has killed more than 20,000 people in the 10 weeks since the Hamas-led attack on Israel killed some 1,200 people and took more than 240 others hostage.
First, Murdoch papers targeted me. Now there is evidence they falsely implicated me in a cover-up
by Gordon Brown 31/7/24 The Guardian
Lewis and Robert Winnett, who was appointed by Lewis as editor of the Washington Post before quickly deciding not to take the job, are accused of benefiting from private investigators who broke the law. As these allegations surface, an “alternative truth” is being briefed that the Lewis team represents a nimble “no-holds-barred” British journalism, in contrast to what is alleged to have been the plodding, loss-making reporting of newspapers such as the recent Washington Post. It is Lewis’s claim that he can turn round the fortunes of the publication, which lost $77m last year, that appears to have endeared him to the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who is the paper’s owner. But as recent revelations demonstrate, the real dividing line is not between the disrupter and an entrenched resistance to change, but between ethics and the lack of them.
US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network
by Jason Wilson 22/8/23 The Guardian
The founder and sponsor of a far-right network of secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges in the US is a former industrialist who has frequently speculated about his future as a warlord after the collapse of America, a Guardian investigation has found.
California shores up beaver protection in nod to their ‘ecological benefit’
by Guardian staff and agencies 26/7/23 The Guardian
California is embracing beavers and the role they play in the ecosystem after years of viewing the animals as a nuisance for chewing down trees and blocking up streams.
Microplastic-eating plankton may be worsening crisis in oceans, say scientists
by Karen McVeigh 9/11/23 The Guardian
A type of zooplankton found in marine and fresh water can ingest and break down microplastics, scientists have discovered. But rather than providing a solution to the threat plastics pose to aquatic life, the tiny creatures known as rotifers could be accelerating the risk by splitting the particles into thousands of smaller and potentially more dangerous nanoplastics.
Trump’s EPA aims to cut pollution rules projected to save nearly 200,000 lives: ‘People will be hurt’
by Oliver Milman and Dharna Noor 19/3/25 The Guardian
A push by Donald Trump’s administration to repeal a barrage of clean air and water regulations may deal a severe blow to US public health, with a Guardian analysis finding that the targeted rules were set to save the lives of nearly 200,000 people in the years ahead.
New maps show where snowfall is disappearing
Snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, a new analysis and maps from a NOAA climate scientist show.
Just add sugar: Research shows common antioxidant can be more beneficial through glycosylation
by Sydney Dahle 14/5/23 PHYS ORG
Polyphenols are a class of compounds found in many plant-based foods. Polyphenols help prevent cellular damage in the body and can help to prevent diseases such as cancer or heart disease. However, many of them do not dissolve in water, making it difficult to fully take advantage of their health benefits.
Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows
by Damian Garrington 20/7/23 The Guardian
Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.
The most famous extinction event in the planet’s history is happening again — in Santa Cruz
by Corinne Purtill 31/5/23 Los Angeles Times
The heat of impact generated massive fires that annihilated everything around them and sent colossal plumes of pollutants soaring into the atmosphere. Within a day or two, toxic clouds of pulverized rock, sulfate aerosols and wildfire soot had blanketed the planet, blocking all but a tiny fraction of the sun’s energy and bringing photosynthesis to a virtual halt for the only known time in history.
‘Wings’ on poles: Bill Gates-backed wind power tech promises 75% cheaper energy
by Jijo Malayil 30/5/25 Interesting Engineering
US-based firm Airloom Energy’s innovative renewable energy technology to maximize wind power’s potential has now gained significant backing from investors. The list also includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the innovation platform led by Microsoft founder Gates, and the state of Wyoming.
Trump funding cuts ripple through rural America
by P.J Huffstutter 29/03/25 Reuters
Trump's administration also rolled out cuts to other federal funding that has kept small agriculture businesses like Yates' Greenbrier Dairy churning.
‘Even a freeway is redeemable’: world’s largest wildlife crossing takes shape in Los Angeles
by Katharine Gammon 6/4/25 The Guardian
Above the whirring of 300,000 cars each day on Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, an ambitious project is taking shape. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing is the largest wildlife bridge in the world at 210ft long and 174ft wide, and this week it’s had help taking shape: soil.
China population decline accelerates as birthrate hits record low
by Helen Davidson 01/17/24 The Guardian
China’s population decline has accelerated, with a second year of record-low birthrates.
Antioxidants in fruits and flowers seem to counteract harmful effects of microplastics, study shows
By Tom Perkins 2/24/25 The Guardian
The paper focuses on microplastics’ reproductive toxicity and plant compounds called anthocyanins, which are widely found in nuts, fruits and vegetables. The new review of scientific literature on anthocyanins finds that the compounds are probably protective against a range of plastic-induced effects on hormones, reductions in testosterone and estrogen, decreased sperm counts, lower sperm quality, erectile dysfunction and ovarian damage.
The government will give homeowners $2,000 to buy kitchen-transforming stoves: 'Tons of power without … major home electrical upgrades'
Induction units, on the other hand, are totally gas-free. All they need is a plug on your wall since they run entirely on electricity and energy-efficient battery storage. This means they cook food faster and cheaper and keep your lungs healthier at the same time — a true win-win.
High rises made out of wood? What matters in whether ‘mass timber’ buildings are sustainable
by Brent Sohngen 12/11/24 The Conversation
Companies behind these “mass timber” projects say that wood is a lower-carbon alternative to steel or concrete and brings other benefits, such as faster construction time and lower cost than concrete and steel. Advocates say the wood materials, made of compressed layers of wood with glue, offer good fire safety as well.
Scientists say they’ve confirmed evidence that humans arrived in the Americas far earlier than previously thought
When the discovery of fossilized footprints made in what’s now New Mexico was made public in 2021, it was a bombshell moment for archaeology, seemingly rewriting a chapter of the human story. Now new research is offering further evidence of their significance.
Wind-powered cargo ship sets sail in a move to make shipping greener
The shipping industry produces more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, accounting for nearly 3% of human-caused global emissions. In July, the sector pledged to reduce its planet-heating pollution to net zero “by or around 2050.” The use of wind is one way towards this. While it’s not a new concept (sailing ships date back more than 5,000 years) new wind assisted propulsion technologies have been making an appearance in recent years.
50 years ago on 9/11, Nixon and Kissinger killed Allende and Chile's Socialist Democracy
It’s hard to believe that Henry Kissinger is still alive. He is 100 years old now. For some reason, war criminals live to ripe old ages. Augusto Pinochet, the dictator who ruled Chile with a tyrannical iron fist for decades after the coup, lived to be 91. Kissinger and Nixon orchestrated the coup that killed Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile and replaced him with Pinochet, as declassified documents show, “Because Kissinger thought that Allende’s 'model' effect can be insidious."
For 50 years I’ve let friends and strangers share my house – this kind of communal living can make for better lives for all
by Lynne Segal 11/11/23 The Guardian
It’s more than half a century since I first set foot in Heathrow from Sydney, in my mid-20s, clutching my 14-month-old baby in one hand and what little remained of my luggage in the other. My large suitcase, stuffed with books and clothes, had vanished at a stopover at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka, where I narrowly avoided arrest as my infant son had startlingly managed to push an empty trolley into the glass duty-free shop, smashing part of it. I was surrounded by a hubbub of people and noise, and one man in khaki uniform who kept sidling up to me saying quietly, “Get on to the plane.” Slowly, I separated myself from those surrounding me and did just that. Twelve hours later, I landed in London, exhausted and bewildered.
PFAS levels in ground and air could be higher than expected, research suggests
by Tom Perkins 6/26/23 The Guardian
Background levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in the ground and air may be much higher than previously thought, federal testing of spatially random soil samples from across New Hampshire suggests.
Could Vienna’s approach to affordable housing work in California?
by Kristy Lang 4/30/24 The Guardian
In the past two years, at least four delegations of housing experts and political leaders from California have visited the Austrian capital, hoping to unlock the secrets of why Vienna regularly comes top in surveys of the world’s most livable cities.
Neuroscientists link low self-awareness to stronger brain reactions to moralized issues
by Eric W. Dolan PsyPost 4/01/25
A new study published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience reveals that people who hold strong moral convictions about political issues make decisions more quickly—but that these choices are shaped by both emotional brain responses and metacognitive ability. The research shows that moral conviction activates specific brain regions involved in emotion and cognitive control, and that people with lower self-awareness about their own decision accuracy show stronger brain responses to morally charged political issues.
Financial models on climate risk ‘implausible’, say actuaries
by Camilla Hodgson Financial Times 7/03/23
Financial institutions often did not understand the models they were using to predict the economic cost of climate change and were underestimating the risks of temperature rises, research led by a professional body of actuaries shows.
How tariffs supercharge home construction costs.
by Greg from Vermont 12/25/24 DailyKos
Canadian softwood lumber and plywood products are used widely across the country and dominate the New England market. The framing materials can be 30 to 50 percent of the cost of the house. The proposed tariff of 25 percent will be added directly to the cost of those elements. 1
Watch Out: Tornado Alley Is Migrating Eastward
by By Mark Fischetti, Matthew Twombly & Daniel P. Huffman 5/11/23 Scientific American
Although tornadoes touch down in many places across the eastern half of the country, from the 1950s through the 1990s they struck most often in Tornado Alley, an oval area centered on northeastern Texas and south-central Oklahoma. More recently, that focus has shifted eastward by 400 to 500 miles. In the past decade or so tornadoes have become prevalent in eastern Missouri and Arkansas, western Tennessee and Kentucky, and northern Mississippi and Alabama—a new region of concentrated storms.1
