Links 7/23/2020

July 23, 2020
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Animals Sense Earthquakes Before They Happen. Can They Help Us Predict Disasters? Discover (David L)

Earliest evidence for humans in the Americas BBC (Kevin W)

Top Scientists Just Ruled Out Best-Case Global Warming Scenarios Bloomberg (David L)

First active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica Guardian

Renewable Energy Is Seizing Market Share During The Pandemic OilPrice

OpenAI’s new language generator GPT-3 is shockingly good—and completely mindless MIT Technology Review (David L)

How Extremophile Bacteria Living In Nuclear Reactors Might Help Us Make Vaccines Forbes (UserFriendly)

Experimental Blood Test Detects Cancer Up To Four Years Before Symptoms Appear Scientific American

#COVID-19

Coronavirus latest: Global infections top 15 million DW

Why Armed Groups in Latin America Are Enforcing COVID-19 Lockdowns MSN (Kevin W)

Keeping Canadians safe: Canada-U.S. border closure extended Canada Immigration News

Science/Medicine

Covid-19 Vaccines With ‘Minor Side Effects’ Could Still Be Pretty Bad Wired (resilc). Acetaminophen? Are you kidding? I refuse to have that stuff in the house. IMHO it should never have been approved as an OTC drug. From StatPearls at the NIH site:

Acetaminophen toxicity is the second most common cause of liver transplantation worldwide and the most common in the US. It is responsible for 56,000 emergency department visits, 2600 hospitalizations, and 500 deaths per year in the United States.

T-cells may hold the key to Covid-19 vaccine Asia Times

Now French, German studies say HCQ doesn’t prevent, treat Covid in primates, human lung cells The Print (J-LS)

Covid-19 is pushing doctors to the brink. Medicine needs to recognize they’re human and need help. Washington Post (Dr. Kevin). As we warned. Anti-Covid measures are significantly about keeping the medical system from breaking down.

MIT scientists design a reusable SILICONE face mask with replaceable N95 filters that will cost just $15 DailyMail

US

US tourist boat at Niagara Falls is PACKED with people while those on Canadian vessel next to it are socially distanced Sun (resilc)

How McKinsey Is Making $100 Million (and Counting) Advising on the Government’s Bumbling Coronavirus Response Mother Jones

A public health employee predicted Florida’s coronavirus catastrophe — then she was fired: ‘This is everything I was trying to warn people about’ Yahoo (J-LS)

Almost 8 Million Americans Are Out of Work Without Childcare Bloomberg. Several school districts in AL just announced remote learning for the first nine weeks of the school year.

The Latest in School Segregation: Private Pandemic ‘Pods’ New York Times (resilc)

NFL-Total of 95 players test positive for COVID-19, union says Reuters

Political Responses

ALEC Develops Bill for Corporate Liability Protections Amid Pandemic Intercept

“Trump Voters Are Old and They Don’t Want to Die”: Why Trump Finally Flip-Flopped on Mask Wearing Vanity Fair (Dr. Kevin)

Finance/Economics

Small Businesses Brace for Prolonged Crisis, Short on Cash and Customers Wall Street Journal. As we predicted, but the stories are still very sad.

Turns Out Mass Death Is Bad For The Economy Huffington Post (UserFriendly)

Bay Area Tech Workers Consider Moving Amid Layoff Fears Axios

China?

Oil and gas fueling South China Sea tensions Asia Times (Kevin W)

U.S. Move on Houston Consulate Risks American Footprint in China Bloomberg

Chinese consulate in San Francisco is harboring a military-linked researcher wanted for visa fraud, FBI says CNBC

7 things to know about the EU virus recovery plan RTE (PlutoniumKun)

Syraqistan

House Democratic Leadership Teams Up With Republicans To Keep US Troops in Afghanistan Antiwar (resilc)

If Congress Wants the War in Afghanistan, Trump Should Force them to Authorize It American Conservative (resilc)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled. MIT Technology Review (David L)

New York Bans Use of Facial Recognition In Schools Statewide VentureBeat

Security Breach Exposes More Than One Million DNA Profiles On Major Genealogy Database BuzzFeed

Trump Transition

House passes major conservation bill, sending it to Trump’s desk The Hill (UserFriendly)

Why Did Republicans Abandon American Idealism? Literary Hub (resilc)

2020

Trump Vincibility Watch: How the Horrifying Comeback Could Unfold Slate

Re-animated Strom Thurmond to speak at DNC Convention Beet Press (UserFriendly)

The states at the center of the 2020 voting crisis Axios

Black Injustice Tipping Point

How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Enslaved People? History (Chuck L)

Police State Watch

Former Bush DHS secretary rips Trump for treating department like ‘the president’s personal militia‘ The Week

Trump to send ‘surge’ of federal agents to cities BBC. Oof. After our Middle East “surges” did so well!

Trump announces he’s sending federal agents to Chicago The Hill

Mothers across U.S. stand up to federal agents at anti-racism protests Reuters

Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty Has a Message for Trump and the Feds Marie Claire (David L)

Plastic Handcuff Use by NYPD During Anti-Brutality Protests Strikes a Nerve The City

Ohio corruption case throws focus on US nuclear plant troubles Financial Times

Tesla Turns a Profit For the Fourth Quarter In a Row, Chooses Austin For Next Gigafactory The Verge

Guillotine Watch

The Sacklers Could Get Away With It New York Times (resilc)

Class Warfare

The Debt Predators Project Syndicate (David L). Important.

Homeless Encampments Springing Up in Pittsfield Parks iBerkshires (resilc) 🙁

Antidote du jour. mgl thinks this is a moth, found on Park Strip in downtown Anchorage:

And a bonus (guurst). So handsome! Enough to make me think I should run a banana plantation so I could have birds like these.

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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