Mystery ozone-damaging emissions are coming from China, scientists discover
hmmm
Category: Science and Stuff,
Cerebellum Plays Bigger Role In Human Thought Than Previously Suspected
And what they found was that just 20 percent of the cerebellum was dedicated to areas involved in physical motion, while 80 percent was dedicated to areas involved in functions such as abstract thinking, planning, emotion, memory and language.
…The cerebellum doesn’t directly carry out tasks like thinking, just as it doesn’t directly control movement, Marek says. Instead, he says, it appears to monitor the brain areas that are doing the work and make them perform better.
In essence, this structure appears to act as a kind of editor, constantly reviewing and improving a person’s thoughts and decisions, Dosenbach says.
Cerebellum Plays Bigger Role In Human Thought Than Previously Suspected : Shots – Health News : NPR
huh
Viking ship burial discovered in Norway just 50cm underground
The imposing burial mound that once covered it has long since been ploughed out. Another mound, Jelle mound, still rises high in the field, and the research has also traced the outlines of at least eight other previously unknown burial mounds that once surrounded it, and five nearby longhouses.
…“The ship burial does not exist in isolation, but forms part of a cemetery which is clearly designed to display power and influence.”
Viking ship burial discovered in Norway just 50cm underground | Science | The Guardian
Wild.
Meet The Mascot Of Our Broken World: The Plastic Pumpkin
“When you throw away that unnecessary plastic wrapper or dump a fake pumpkin that’s lost its charm, we don’t see the reality of it all ― the mining or drilling that’s gone into the energy it takes to make it, the transportation of it to our local store, the disposal of it to some tip that you probably don’t even know exists, or off onto a barge that then gets shipped abroad,” he said.
Weisman noted the true cost of our resource consumption over the past 50 years is now coming back to bite us.
…They wanted to grab all they could while it lasted, going farther and digging deeper and mining more and harvesting and shipping faster than ever before. Their aim? To create an illusion of abundance that has yet to wane.”
Today, the effects of this ecological exhaustion are stark: Nearly 90 percent of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted; 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air; forests, including precious wildlife habitats, have been ravaged to produce commodities like palm oil for snacks and cosmetics; and drinking water has been contaminated with everything from arsenic to mercury.
Meet The Mascot Of Our Broken World: The Plastic Pumpkin | HuffPost
hmmm
EU lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics across Europe
The ban includes a full prohibition of plastic plates and utensils, cotton swabs, straws and drink stirrers and calls for reduced use of plastic cups and other similar food packaging products.
…The ban targets pollution from cigarette filters, ordering manufacturers to reduce their plastic inclusion by 80 percent by 2030. And EU member states will be required to recycle 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2025.
EU lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics across Europe | TheHill
Fishing equipment? B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.
Ryan Zinke Has Fired the DOI Inspector General
And replaced her with a loyalist political operative who may not need Senate confirmation
Ryan Zinke Has Fired the DOI Inspector General | Outside Online
sigh
Discovery of Ancient Spearpoints in Texas Has Created Some Debate Among Archaeologists About the History of Early Americas
The triangular blades appear to be older than the projectile points produced by the Paleoamerican Clovis culture, an observation that’s complicating our understanding of how the Americas were colonized—and by whom.
…Clovis-style spear points began to appear around 13,000 to 12,700 years ago, and they were produced by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers.
…Archaeological and genetic evidence now suggests that humans made their way into North America between 15,000 and 16,000 years ago, and not 13,500 years ago as once believed.
…The discovery of pre-Clovis stemmed points at the Friedkin site suggests this manufacturing tradition emerged prior to the Clovis invention, and may have even served as a precursor.
…“The peopling of the Americas during the end of the last Ice Age was a complex process,” said Waters. “This complexity is seen in the genetic record. Now we starting to see this complexity mirrored in the archaeological record.”
…“Arguments about ethnogenesis [origin] and population relationships on the basis of [stone artifacts] alone are difficult at best. Here we have thousands of years and thousands of miles between a few pre-Clovis sites with differential levels of empirical support and acceptance in the broader archaeological community.”
…In other words, Potter doesn’t believe the researchers are justified in speculating that the artifacts represent a significantly new category of spearpoint.
…These soil processes, he said, can result in the vertical distribution of small artifacts, such as the ones described in the new paper.
Clearly, more work needs to be done in this area.
hmmm
Oh, Shit! Study Says Shit Called Microplastics Is In Your Shit
Due to their small size, microplastics are easily consumed by sea creatures, entering the food chain. This study, conducted by researchers from the Medical University of Vienna and the Environment Agency Austria, determined that these particles eventually reach humans.
…Microplastics have been found in seafood, bottled water, and even the air. With the amount of plastic packaging in our everyday lives, it’s difficult to avoid the synthetic material.
…”Plastics ultimately reach the human gut. Of particular concern is what this means to us, and especially patients with gastrointestinal diseases.”
…The smallest microplastic particles are capable of entering the blood stream, lymphatic system and may even reach the liver,” he continued.
Microplastics Were Found in Human Stool for the First Time, Study Says | Fortune
Sigh…
How tiny magnets could save a historic warship that once sailed for King Henry VIII
The Mary Rose sank in 1545 off England’s southern coast during the Battle of the Solent, a skirmish with the French fleet of King Francis I. The ship was raised in 1982, with about 40 percent of the structure surviving.
How tiny magnets could save a historic warship that once sailed for King Henry VIII
Huh
So many people have had their DNA sequenced that they’ve put other people’s privacy in jeopardy
A new study argues that more than half of Americans could be identified by name if all you had to start with was a sample of their DNA and a few basic facts, such as the region where they live and about how old they might be.
More than 1 million Americans have already published their genetic information, and dozens more do so every day.
…One of them is the rise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Companies such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe can sequence anyone’s DNA for about $100.
…The other essential element is the proliferation of publicly searchable genealogy databases like GEDmatch. Anyone can upload a full genome to these sites and powerful computers will crunch through it, looking for stretches of matching DNA sequences that can be used to build out a family tree.
…After a long day of painstaking work, they researchers were able to correctly name the owner of the DNA sample.
The authors said the same process would work for about 60% of Americans of European descent, who are the people most likely to use genealogical websites, Erlich said. Though the odds of success would be lower for people from other backgrounds, it would still be expected to work for more than half of all Americans, they said.
…If you can find a person’s third cousin in a genealogical database, then you should be able to identify the person with a reasonable amount of sleuthing, Erlich said.
hmmmmm
$180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge
The global plastic binge which is already causing widespread damage to oceans, habitats and food chains, is set to increase dramatically over the next 10 years after multibillion dollar investments in a new generation of plastics plants in the US.
…The new facilities – being built by corporations like Exxon Mobile Chemical and Shell Chemical – will help fuel a 40% rise in plastic production in the next decade
…“Around 99% of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies, like Exxon and Shell, that have helped create the climate crisis. There is a deep and pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics.”
…The huge investment in plastic production has been driven by the shale gas boom in the US. This has resulted in one of the raw materials used to produce plastic resin – natural gas liquids – dropping dramatically in price.
…“There has been a revolution in the US with the shale gas technologies, with the fracking, the horizontal drilling. The cost of our raw material base has gone down by roughly two thirds.”
…“In the US, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to expand plastic production capacity… All this buildout, if allowed to proceed, will flood the global market with even more disposable, unmanageable plastic for decades to come.”
…A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute with most ending up in landfill or the sea.
$180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge | Environment | The Guardian
Again, straws aren’t really the problem, folks.
Haloperidol And Other Antipsychotics No Better Than Placebo For ICU Delirium, Study Finds
Powerful drugs that have been used for decades to treat delirium are ineffective for that purpose, according to a study published online Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Antipsychotic medications, such as haloperidol (brand name, Haldol), are widely used in intensive care units, emergency rooms, hospital wards and nursing homes.
“In some surveys up to 70 percent of patients [in the ICU] get these antipsychotics.”
…But the drugs can have serious side effects.
…”There’s not a shred of evidence in this entire investigation that this aggressive approach to treating delirium with antipsychotics, which is commonplace and usual care, did anything for the patients,” he concludes.
…Both she and Ely advocate for a more holistic approach to treating delirium — getting patients off drugs and off breathing machines as soon as possible and getting them up and about as soon as they’re able.
hmmmm
Everyone saw the French Quarter attack. Few saw the mental health care failures behind it.
A review of Paul’s UMC medical records by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune raised significant questions. Four hours after he was admitted, a doctor wrote that Paul was “having auditory hallucinations” and that he was “a potential threat to himself and other people as well as gravely disabled.”
This assessment gave the hospital a legal right to involuntarily commit Paul for up to three days for observation and treatment, with the possibility of holding him an additional 12 days following a re-examination by the coroner. And yet doctors still chose to discharge him, just one day later.
Behavioral health experts said this is not uncommon, that people in need of psychiatric treatment are released on a regular basis, a result of the state’s gutting of its mental health care funding and infrastructure.
…Paul is one of hundreds of homeless kids who cycle through Covenant House and other outreach programs every year, Foots said, many suffering from the same mental health disorders as him, some more severe. If the level of care doesn’t improve, and if hospitals continue to turn away people in need because they lack the necessary beds and funding, she fears what happened to Paul and the men he injured could become more commonplace.
“I work with these kids every day and I know they are all very troubled,” Foots said. “I see their mental illness, but they rarely get the help they need. Just like Dejuan. Those damn voices in his head got ahold of him and he just lost it.”
…He paced frantically while hitting himself and repeating, over and over again, that he needed his medicine.
Then, as if someone pulled a string, he slumped to the floor near the kitchen.
Foots knelt down, her face inches from Paul’s, and locked eyes with him. She said he needed to focus, that he was in control of his mind, no one else. Ignore the people in your head, she instructed him. Staff members told Foots to keep her distance. She refused.
…“The police told me when they got him, ‘At least he’s going to emergency. They’re going to give him some medicine. He’s going to be better and everything is going to be good,’” Foots said. “And that’s what I told Dejuan, but that’s not what happened.”
…Paul was given 10 mg of Zyprexa, an antipsychotic typically prescribed to people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. A toxicology screen came back positive for marijuana. Paul confessed that he smoked marijuana every day since he was 15 and that over the past several weeks he had rarely slept more than four hours a night.
…According to his medical records, Paul told the doctors at UMC he had “racing thoughts about everything and feels stuck in his own head.” If he could get some Vyvanse, a drug prescribed to people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he said he would feel “much better and everything would be OK.”
…In this case, however, despite receiving confirmation of Paul’s diagnosis and prior care, UMC doctors refused to give him his medication, his medical records show. There was no explanation provided in the records.
…Warden Perry Stagg, who was seated nearby, interjected to ask Paul if he had been given his medication at the prison. When Paul said no, that the nurse said they can’t prescribe it, Stagg said they would try to figure out potential substitutes “to get him back where he needs to be.”
Since former Gov. Bobby Jindal gutted the mental health care system, taking care of people like Paul has become part of the prison’s job, Stagg said.
“Unfortunately, the Department of Corrections has become the de facto mental health hospital for the state,” he said. “We need to get these mental health services back available on the street and try to catch some of these guys before they commit a crime.”
…“I’m an old, conservative Republican, a lock‘em up and throw away the key kind of guy. Until I came to the Department of Corrections and realized that, hey, that’s not always the answer. There are reasons for some of this stuff and some of this stuff can be corrected.”
hmmmm
I pulled a 1,500-year-old sword out of a lake
I pulled a 1,500-year-old sword out of a lake | Life and style | The Guardian
Queen Saga, long may she reign.
French Plastic Use: Key facts and figures
The production of plastic packaging has been increasing since the summer of 2013, with growth of 2.4% in 2016, and an acceleration in the first half of 2017: + 3.5%. By comparison, output of manufacturing industries across all sectors stagnated in 2016 (+ 0.3%) and grew by 1.7% year on year in the first half of 2017.
…Packaging is the main plastics user sector with nearly 45.1% consumed in France and 39.9% in Europe (source PlasticsEurope 2017).
Key facts and figures – Elipso
hmmmm
We Depend on Plastic. Now We’re Drowning in It.
Roughly 40 percent of the now more than 448 million tons of plastic produced every year is disposable, much of it used as packaging intended to be discarded within minutes after purchase. Production has grown at such a breakneck pace that virtually half the plastic ever manufactured has been made in the past 15 years. [emphasis: mine] Last year the Coca-Cola Company, perhaps the world’s largest producer of plastic bottles, acknowledged for the first time just how many it makes: 128 billion a year. Nestlé, PepsiCo, and others also churn out torrents of bottles.
…The waste that clogs Manila’s beaches and waterways…. Much of it consists of sachets—tear-off packets that once held a single serving of shampoo, toothpaste, coffee, condiments, or other products. They are sold by the millions to poor people like Siena and his family, who can’t afford to buy more than one serving at a time. Sachets blow around Manila like leaves falling from trees. They’re not recyclable, so no waste picker will retrieve them. Crispian Lao, a member of the National Solid Waste Management Commission, says, “This segment of packaging is growing, and it has become a real challenge for solid waste management.”
…When Greenpeace cleaned the Freedom Island beach, it posted a tally of the brand names of the sachets its volunteers had collected. Nestlé ranked first, Unilever second. Litterbugs aren’t the only ones at fault, says Greenpeace’s Abigail Aguilar: “We believe that the ones producing and promoting the use of single-use plastics have a major role in the whole problem.”
…Johnson & Johnson is switching from plastic back to paper [emphasis: mine] stems on its cotton swabs.
We Depend on Plastic. Now We’re Drowning in It.
Repeat after me: Straws aren’t the problem. The increase in single use plastic products and plastic packaging is.
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