I have had some down-time over Thanksgiving and decided to update my web page. It was a shock to realize that other than some videos and a lot of shares of posts by others, I hadn’t posted anything personal since 2017. I...
Read MoreOn August 8, 2020 Melissa Berger and I departed on another of backpacking trips into the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. The trip is broken into 3 videos. This is part 2 of the trilogy. The video takes us from Cook Lakes, where...
Read MoreOn August 8th 2020, Melissa Berger and I embarked on another of our trips into the wilderness of the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. This video is Day 1 of that 7-day trip, taking us from Elkhart Park Trailhead 14-1/2 miles to...
Read MoreDay 4 of our trek to Everest Base Camp. It had begun raining earlier in the morning. As we approached Tengboche it began to snow. Next thing you know we were in a full blown snow storm.
Read MoreIn April of 2019 Melissa Berger and Keith Lamparter went to Nepal and attempted the trek to Everest Base Camp. The trek is captured and documented in this video.
Read MoreThe Democratic Party was supposed to enjoy permanent rule due to its [...]
Trump's problems today are more important than Biden's problems yesterday [...]
A lot of 2024 retrospectives have been based on vibes. Now we have some really good data. Here's what it says. [...]
Southern York has removed the state's culturally relevant and sustaining education guidelines from its teacher-training programs, offering a blueprint for other districts. [...]
Free Palestine is the rallying cry of a terrorist operation funded by foreign governments and designed to sow chaos, fear and violence in America's streets. [...]
JMC's Elliott Drago discussed with JMC Fellow Dr. J. Michael Hoffpauir political philosophy and what the ancients teach us about civic education [...]
The new Department of Justice "weaponization czar," Ed Martin, told FBN's "Mornings With Maria" Bartiromo that three things need to happen in response to alleged government abuses: "One is that we have to figure out exactly what happened. A lot of that's hidden, a lot of it's been misleading. The second thing is to hold people accountable." [...]
With this week's release of the Jake Tapper-Alex Thompson book about Joe Biden's deterioration and the determination of the Biden "Politburo" (his three top aides) to hide his infirmities from the American people and even the rest of the White House staff, we're going to be treated to a primo week or two of #demsindisarray. Usually, these Democratic self-flagellations are excessive and pointless. This one is needed. [...]
Democrats actively oppose the Trump administration's efforts to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, despite the administration's focus on those with criminal histories. [...]
The GOP's plan to fast-track Trump's agenda using the budget reconciliation process has its benefits - but also its drawbacks. [...]
House Republicans should pass the One Big Beautiful Bill. Now. [...]
Rising empires require collaborators to expand their influence and win over adversaries. In this respect, China and other anti-Western regimes increasingly count on green activists, investors, and media to advance their interests. Overall, the greens see China as "pivotal" in the global green-energy transition, as states Sustainability Magazine. [...]
There is no more important place for senators to be than the Senate floor, doing the work they were elected to do so Trump can do the same. [...]
Sometimes even the great ones need to get by with a little help from their friends [...]
Experts comment on the politicized editorial standards on Wikipedia during a panel discussion on Antisemitism and bias on the online encyclopedia, hosted by Boaz Hepner's "Chosen Links By Boaz" podcast. In this segment, they talk about the "international perspective" of Wikipedia editors in general and the outright activism on the site's Arabic-language version. [...]
Cheers's opening theme song said the eponymous bar was where everybody knows your name. But only one of its regulars was beloved enough to have his name shouted in unison every time he walked into the place. [...]
Iranian and US negotiators meet in Rome on Friday for a fifth round of nuclear talks, after a public disagreement over Tehran's uranium enrichment.The talks, which began in April, are the highest-level contact between the foes since the United States quit a landmark 2015 nuclear accord during President Donald Trump's first term.Since returning to office, Trump has revived his "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran, backing talks but warning of military action if diplomacy fails.Iran wants a new deal that would ease sanctions which have battered its economy. [...]
Director Nadav Lapid said his new film "Yes" about a musician asked to re-write the Israeli national anthem is a response to his country's "blindness" to suffering in Gaza.Lapid has previously dissected his country's ills in "Synonyms", which won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2019, and "Ahed's Knee" (2021). In "Yes", he portrays a society buried under its own "dark side" since Palestinian militants Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. [...]
Before they were killed by a gunman outside a Washington Jewish museum, Yaron Lischinsky had planned to make a formal proposal of marriage to Sarah Milgrim in Jerusalem next week.As their deaths late Wednesday intensify the international spotlight on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, here is what we know about the two Israeli embassy staffers shot dead after attending a networking event for young professionals.- Yaron Lischinsky -The 30-year-old had worked as a researcher at the Israeli embassy in Washington since 2022. [...]
Fighting back tears, the head of the World Health Organization on Thursday urged Israel to have "mercy" in the Gaza war and insisted peace would be in Israel's own interests.In an emotional intervention at the WHO annual assembly, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the war was hurting Israel and would not bring a lasting solution. [...]
The suspect accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington was charged Thursday with murder, as international tensions over anti-Semitism erupted over the attack.Elias Rodriguez, 31, shouted "Free Palestine" as he was taken away by police after the shooting late Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum, prosecutors said in a court document. "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza," he told the officers. [...]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday his pick for the next head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, defying the country's attorney general and a significant segment of the public."Prime Minister Netanyahu announced this evening his decision to appoint Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet," a statement from the premier's office said. [...]
Palestinian residents of Maghayer al-Deir in the occupied West Bank told AFP on Thursday that they had begun packing their belonging and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP his community had decided to leave because its members felt powerless in the face of the settler violence. [...]
Under international pressure, Israeli has allowed dozens of aid trucks into Gaza as Palestinian officials report starvation-related deaths. [...]
Under international pressure, Israeli has allowed dozens of aid trucks into Gaza as Palestinian officials report starvation-related deaths. [...]
Under international pressure, Israeli has allowed dozens of aid trucks into Gaza as Palestinian officials report starvation-related deaths. [...]
Under international pressure, Israeli has allowed dozens of aid trucks into Gaza as Palestinian officials report starvation-related deaths. [...]
A state-approved Iranian movie featuring women constantly in headscarves premiered at the Cannes film festival on Thursday, with director Saeed Roustayi defending his decision to bend to the diktats of national censors.The Cannes Festival has long offered a platform for independent Iranian filmmakers whose work is lauded on the French Riviera but usually banned at home. Roustayi has previously defied his country's authorities. His last film in Cannes -- "Leila's Brothers" in 2022 -- landed him a six-month suspended jail term and film ban. [...]
Speaking at an Al-Monitor Global Institute Event in Washington, Barzani urged Kurdish unity and said Damascus must prove it can lead a divided Syria. [...]
Speaking at an Al-Monitor Global Institute Event in Washington, Barzani urged Kurdish unity and said Damascus must prove it can lead a divided Syria. [...]
Speaking at an Al-Monitor Global Institute Event in Washington, Barzani urged Kurdish unity and said Damascus must prove it can lead a divided Syria. [...]
Speaking at an Al-Monitor Global Institute Event in Washington, Barzani urged Kurdish unity and said Damascus must prove it can lead a divided Syria. [...]
In the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, the number and severity of antisemitic incidents continue to rise. [...]
In the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, the number and severity of antisemitic incidents continue to rise. [...]
In the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, the number and severity of antisemitic incidents continue to rise. [...]
In the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, the number and severity of antisemitic incidents continue to rise. [...]
Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture There have been many winners and losers over the past few months. Perhaps none have been revealed for having furious, unbridled power more than the U.S. equity [...]
Brij Khurana, Wellington Brij Khurana explores the dollar smile theory's impact on asset allocation and foreign investors' strategies amid currency fluctuations. [...]
Thomas Kolbe, Am. Thinker On Friday, Moody's downgraded the U.S. credit rating, sending shockwaves through the bond market. Japan, in particular, is under intense pressure, with yields on its [...]
Brian O'Connell, U.S. News & World Report The Gates portfolio is largely unchanged in early 2025, favoring stability in a rocky market. [...]
John Tamny, RCM Meta used to be Facebook. Why state the obvious? The answer is that what's obvious very much calls into question the FTC's antitrust case against Meta, the corporation [...]
Bret Swanson, Infomena How the exaflood demolished the Covid pseudocrats and empowered a counter-elite. [...]
Arvin Patel, RCM "Humans won't be needed for most things." This shocking declaration from businessman Bill Gates on NBC's "Tonight Show" in February [...]
Rep. Jason Smith, Fox President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' will bring tax relief and economic benefits to the American people. [...]
Andrew Prokop, Vox Trump is promising tax cuts and a new golden age. Here's what's really inside it. [...]
Donald Wilkie, RealClear Economists have a gaping hole in their understanding. Since the [...]
Larry Behrens, The Hill When President Trump returned to the White House, he immediately set out to reverse [...]
Kimberlee Josephson, RealClear On a recent episode of The Ezra Klein show, [...]
Roben Farzad, BusinessWeek September is that cruelest month for the stock market. It's the only month that has dropped on average since the Roaring Twenties. Come Monday night, when Wall [...]
Donald Lambro, Washington Times Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has to do two things really well at his convention: Lay out in dramatic terms how bad the Obama economy is and [...]
Carla Fried, CNNMoney Income-starved investors looking to amp up their portfolios have been turning to foreign bonds -- for obvious reasons. The 4.2% payout on the average foreign [...]
Ezra Klein, WonkBlog I see that the Republican convention will feature a debt clock ticking away behind the speakers. It will also, as I understand it, consist entirely of speakers who [...]
R. Ponnuru, Bloomberg While the Romney and Obama camps have made increasingly bitter accusations about each otherâ??s plans for Medicare, a bipartisan consensus on entitlements has emerged [...]
Rick Newman, US News By now, everybody knows what's wrong with the economy: There aren't enough jobs, Europe is stuck in a financial quagmire and Washington is playing chicken with tax and [...]
Doug Schoen, Forbes It's a testament to how bad the American employment market has gotten that the most recent jobs report was met with applause. The Labor Department's July jobs figures [...]
Jason Ma, IBD Corporations are scaling back investment, hiring and inventories ahead of steep year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, the most concrete sign to date that uncertainty over the [...]
Chances are, you’ve owned — or currently rock — a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers. And for good reason. The iconic silhouette flatters nearly every face shape and remains a forever mainstay of classic cool. Alongside the Aviator and cult-favorite Clubmaster, Ray-Ban’s lineup boasts several OG styles. But even sunglasses have micro-trends, and lately, you’ve probably […] The post Ray-Ban’s Balorama Are the Deep-Cut Shades to Wear This Summer appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It feels pretty safe to assume that if you were to ask people which celebrities they’d prefer to never hear from again, Harvey Weinstein would be on just about everyone’s list. And yet, here we are! On Tuesday, the disgraced movie producer/sex offender gave his first on-camera interview in eight years to conservative commentator Candace […] The post Harvey Weinstein Is “Angry at the System” appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Men are capable of doing a lot of cringey things that us women are pretty put-off by. They’re not asking women questions about themselves on dates, they won’t leave us alone at the gym, but the mannerism that I’m most uncomfortable with? Hearing them refer to groups of women as “females.” There are, unsurprisingly, many […] The post Please Don’t Refer to Women as “Females” appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
If you’ve dabbled with menswear at all, you should know by now that U.K.-based retailer Mr Porter is king of the hill when it comes to copping upscale garms online. The rarified internet treasure trove carries the best brands, puts out the best editorials and, when it comes to the sale section, houses one of […] The post Menswear Guys Aren’t Ready for the Mr Porter Memorial Day Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The price of high-quality protein has never been on the accessible side, so we feel compelled to let you know when you can get a little more bang for your buck in the grocery department. Right now Vital Choice, the online fishmonger, has a few deals lasting throughout the Memorial Day Weekend (and beyond) that […] The post Vital Choice’s Frozen Fish Is on Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It’s getting warmer, and country music festivals are becoming more bountiful as we get into the summer months. Now, if you’re inspired by that kind of cowboy-core energy, Ariat is the best place to start. They’ve got an array of pieces that fit that aesthetic to a T — from your classic cowboy boots to […] The post Gear Up With Ariat’s Memorial Day Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The biggest challenge when making miso at home is patience. According to this how-to article, the fermented soybean paste takes “two days of active time and six months of inactive fermentation time.” And there’s no way to speed up that process. “The essence of miso-making is time — it’s an ingredient in itself,” says Sebastian […] The post The Homemade Bar: It’s Time to Embrace Miso in Your Cocktails appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Imagine this: you’ve been randomly selected for an upgrade on a long-haul flight. It’s a redeye, so you’re counting on getting some much-needed sleep. But there’s a catch — you’re traveling with your significant other, and they weren’t upgraded. Do you still take it? Do you give it to them? Do you turn it down […] The post Love at 35,000 Feet: Would You Give Up a First-Class Upgrade for Your Partner? appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
I’ve spilled coffee on myself on two commutes in the last two weeks. I’m about to turn 30 — what the hell is wrong with me? Maybe I’m filling the Yeti a little too aggressively. Maybe the drink holsters on my backpack (which is about to turn five) are starting to give way. Maybe I […] The post The Cognitive Benefits of Using Your Non-Dominant Hand appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
When deciding which wine to pair with a steak, it’s easy to reach for a big California cab and call it a day. Sure, that formula would work fine a lot of the time, but it’s not a perfect pairing for every cut or preparation. As a steakhouse enthusiast myself, I’m always looking for something […] The post A Nitty-Gritty Guide to Pairing Wine With Steak appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Pedro Pascal stepped out on the Cannes carpet this week in a brazenly sexy, black cutoff tee and set the vibe for the summer: Arms. I’ve had some arguably unconventional takes on the styles of tops I’d like to see men wear. Crop tops are one of my long-held male style beliefs about which I […] The post Take It From a Woman: It’s Cutoff Season. Here’s How to Not Look Like a Douche. appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The experience of watching a memorable film can be transformative, but who you’re watching it with can also shape how that goes. While there’s plenty of great writing about films themselves, there’s also a growing body of work dedicated to the actual experiences of moviegoing. Quentin Tarantino’s recent book Cinema Speculation is one example of […] The post Fathers, Sons and Watching “After Hours” appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Earlier this month, a date was finally set for the latest TV expansion of Game of Thrones. I’m not talking about the next season of House of the Dragon, which has yet to announce a release despite the second season wrapping up almost a year ago. No, George R. R. Martin’s fantasy world is getting […] The post “The Wheel of Time” vs. Too Big to Fail TV appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Memorial Day Weekend is still a couple of days away, but the deals have already begun. There are sitewide sales and individual discounts on a variety of women-specific products spanning across categories including beauty, apparel, fitness, lifestyle and more. We know Mother’s Day has come and gone, and you aren’t obligated to give another gift […] The post The Best Gifts for Her Are All On Sale This Memorial Day Weekend appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
“I want to expose people to really random, obscure stuff.” William Elliott is the Bar Director of Tigre, a Manhattan hotspot from the same team behind Brooklyn’s Maison Premiere. While the vibe at Tigre is less cocktail bar and more lounge, you’re also going to find some unusual and interesting bottles that fall outside the […] The post Have a Weird Bottle of Booze at Home? Make a Sonic. appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Back in college, I earned a semester-long suspension after getting escorted out of a 500-person auditorium by the Boston Police Department for derailing a celebrity professor’s lecture. Per the pledging rules enforced by my upperclassmen “brothers,” the fraternity initiation prank demanded my carrying of a Power Rangers lunch box stocked with Marlboro Reds, condoms, Twinkies […] The post Is Premium Whiskey Worth the Splurge? appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
What we’re drinking: Jefferson’s Reserve Cask Strength, a 130-proof cask-strength take on the brand’s signature bourbon Where it’s from: Jefferson’s Bourbon launched in 1997 as a family collaboration with Trey Zoeller and his father, bourbon historian Chet Zoeller. The brand was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2019 and will soon have a new $250 million […] The post Review: Jefferson’s Reserve Cask Strength Offers a Distinct Flavor appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Henry Abbott is an award-winning journalist and founder of the Substack TrueHoop. He previously ran ESPN’s 60-person NBA team, guiding it to a National Magazine Award. This essay draws from his new book Ballistic— a provocative exploration of how we get sports injuries wrong, and what that means for a nation plagued by chronic pain […] The post The MRI Is Too Late: A New Way to Think About Sports Injuries appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The footwear market is, in a word, weird. Sneakers are supposedly dead, but also, not really — after all, you can’t wear loafers all the time, and given that boots season is rapidly coming to a close, it might be time to invest in a new pair of shoes. The Samba wave is over, GATs […] The post Pretty Much Every Good Sneaker Is on Sale During Nike’s Memorial Day Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Two years ago in Dubai, I handled what immediately became one of my favorite modern watches, the Ming 29.01 Dubai Edition Worldtimer. Housed in the Malaysian brand’s distinctive 29-series case and featuring numbers and city names in Arabic on the dial, it was unlike any travel watch I’d ever seen, and completely captured my imagination. […] The post The Ming 29.01 Midnight Is a Worldtimer for the Modern Jet Set appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Anthony Peregrine, Telegraph During the First World War, Albert Séverin Roche captured 1,200 Germans, and was shot nine times - so why is his story all but forgotten? [...]
Staff, HistoryExtra Second World War battles took place across the globe; some lasting days, others months or even years. But which are the most significant? Here, Professor Evan Mawdsley from [...]
Cowan Brew, Warfare History Network Robert E. Lee's Confederate cavalry prepared a last desperate charge on the Union lines at Gettysburg. [...]
Roger Crowley, Historytoday The Crusader state of Acre was the most cosmopolitan city in the medieval world. Its inhabitants thought it too valuable to destroy. They were wrong. [...]
Robin Catalano, BBC A surprise dead-of-night attack helped lead to US independence from the British. Now, a series of events are commemorating the region's pivotal role in shaping the nascent [...]
Joshua Zeitz, Politico Executive-branch positions offer former elected officials power — at a price. [...]
Gary Schmitt, Law & Liberty Debates over executive power, along with centuries-old precedent, reveal inherent tensions within the Constitution only the people themselves can resolve. [...]
Miguel A. Faria, RealClearHistory Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, who had [...]
Myles Burke, BBC When Midnight Cowboy came out 56 years ago this week, it instantly upended Hollywood's idea of a mainstream hit. In its Academy Award-winning year, the BBC spoke to one of its [...]
Arissa H. Oh, Time After the Korean War, Americans began adopting children from South Korea. This fueled global practices of adoption. [...]
Elizabeth Yuko, HISTORY The answer depends on how you frame the question. [...]
Michael Scanlon, SSRN This is a near-author's cut of an essay entitled "Odysseus Lost" that was published by Chronicles on January 26, 2024. The Chronicles version, which benefited f [...]
Andrew J. Bacevich, New York Times An implicit question haunts this illuminating and richly detailed memoir by Michael G. Vickers, the senior intelligence official at the center of [...]
Sean Durns, Washington Examiner "Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power," the American intellectual Henry Adams wrote in 1862, "and the human race commit suicide, [...]
Jonathan Jarry, McGill University Did Nazis love yoga? That is the provocative title of one chapter in the recently published book Conspirituality: How New Age [...]
Reuters History buffs will be able to stroll close to the spot where legend says Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome authorities open a new walkway on the ancient site on [...]
Hannah Osborne, Live Science A giant predator that lived 240 million years ago was decapitated with a single, brutal bite from a deadlier creature, scientists have said. [...]
Christine Chung, New York Times A submersible craft carrying five people in the area of the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic has been missing since Sunday, setting off a search and [...]
Agence France-Presse MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay will melt down a bronze eagle found on a sunken World War II-era German destroyer off its coast 13 years ago, and recast it as a dove [...]
Chicago Sun-Times writer Marco Buscaglia used the popular LLM ChatGPT to create the 2025 "summer reading list" they wanted for subscribers and had enough confidence in the result that he didn't check the work. The problem was that LLMs are not really AI, despite claims by companies selling this stuff that they are. They are certainly not Intelligent. So while the list had real authors, half of the books did not exist.read more [...]
A new paper argues that academic ecology is culturally corroded. 'Stay in your lane', 'do you want to die on that hill?' and other territorial and undermining behavior were reported by 44% of predominantly ecologists who responded to a survey. They say it was most common as graduate students, a third of the time by their own supervisor. Of those, 18 percent reported they had experienced it multiple times.read more [...]
A whistleblower revealed a shocking document written by the French Ministry of Agriculture to the European Commission.In response to America retaliating against Europe by placing tariffs on European goods the way European has them on American goods, the French government declared that for the first time this century they wanted 'access to innovation' - which means modern science and technology.They want food sovereignty, and most bizarre of all from the French, fair competition. All things France has historically opposed in the name of the Green Deal and their Farm to Fork Idyll.read more [...]
It is often joked that 'prostitution was the first profession' and, that it is not a profession aside, the sentiment may be true. Someone with a lot of food and the ability to prevent it being taken may have worked out a deal with someone who had no food but willingness to satisfy a different basic need. It would still mean food gathering was the first profession but that's not as funny.Lots of animals barter and steal and fight, humans are not even very good at it compared to most creatures, but the anthropological consensus is that humans are the [...]
A new paper suggests that the world's largest polluters remain safe from the environmental damage they help create and the countries least to blame face the greatest threats because of, oddly, violent conflict.This is counter-intuitive but it is the same argument we used to read about "virtual water". Those arguments are fine in a spreadsheet, it gets advocates worked up, but fails in the real world as readily as most economic projections do.(1) The authors argue that they correlate armed conflict and the environment.read more [...]
In the 1950s, the global infestation of bed bugs was nearly eradicated, thanks to the pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, popularly known as DDT. Due to outcry from environmentalists and concern about Rachel Carson's Silent Spring(1), and over the objections of scientists, the attorney who had been appointed to run the new Environmental Protection Agency created by President Nixon, William Ruckelshaus, banned it.(2)read more [...]
Richard Garwin, who died on May 13, 2025, at the age of 97, was sometimes called “the most influential scientist you’ve never heard of.” He got his Ph.D. in physics at 21 under Enrico Fermi – a Nobel Prize winner and friend of Einstein’s – who called Garwin “the only true genius” he’d ever met.read more [...]
Over the last decade, there has been growing international focus on the role of food in conflict, particularly in Africa. The continent has seen an increase in jihadist terrorism in several regions. Violence, like that exercised by terrorist organisations, is linked with food security conditions, causing a vicious circle of hunger and conflict. Terrorism generates food disruptions. It undermines production systems and supply routes. read more [...]
With a new president in the White House bringing in a former Natural Resources Defense Lawyer and long-time anti-science progressive, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., there is new concern about erosion of American leadership in science and health.If leadership is just spending money on things like theater in foreign countries or paying yourself $100,000 to rewrite data from government surveys on why some people don't trust vaccines, we are not losing much.(1)Hopefully with Republicans agreeing about some of the more ridiculous positions of the left - seed oils and vaccines are bad - acceptance of science will blossom among the nearly [...]
Want to lose 16% of your retirement just like that? Run a computer simulation where the worst thing you fear is true. A new paper sounds the alarm over a crash in virtual climate wealth. It isn't science, it is just a computer simulation and therefore more like dystopian 1960s fiction than science. read more [...]
Though organic™ farmers sell bucolic imagery of hoeing by hand and sunsets over fields of corn, it is just marketing to the gullible. All farmers who make more than enough money to pay their real estate taxes(1) are high-tech gurus. They use real-time data on the health of their land and their crops, they want to use just enough product to get the most food with the least environmental strain.It's a long way from the $3 billion environmental imagery of farmers with leaky backpacks drenching plants in science and cackling like Scrooge McDuck on a pile of coins about it.read [...]
With former Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dictating a lot of science policy for the Trump administration, anti-science activists have been quietly cheering even though they uniformly voted for his opposition.They need a win. Claims that bees are dying off have been met with a resounding thud, we have more bees than at any time since records have been kept. Concerns about GMOs have fared as poorly. Trillions of animals have been fed using GMOs and neither any of them or the billions of people who ate food grown using them have gotten so much as [...]
In wealthy countries, the richest and the aspirational well-off can afford to pay extra for food only grown using toxic pesticides they are assured are healthy for the planet, but the 99.99999% have to think about affordability.Every time a chemical is removed due to manufactured outrage by environmental groups and the fifth columnists they get implanted inside presidential administrations, it is the poor that pay the price. Cereal crops are a staple for those worried about food security, and are the earliest victims of pathogens and pests. And then the first target for activists in a $3 billion industry devoted [...]
In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration an Alzheimer’s therapy shown in clinical trials to modestly slow disease progression but side effects, brain swelling and bleeding, occurred in some.Though clinical trials have taken twice as long and cost twice as much due to government regulations, they can't cover everything and a successful doesn't mean broader demographics won't show different effects. Lawyers are gleeful at the opportunity to sue but they will be disappointed in the latest results for lecanemab. Adverse events associated with lecanemab treatment in clinic patients were rare and manageable.read more [...]
You've heard that you should get eight hours of sleep per night, a whole industry has built up trying to help people who can't do that, but like BMI, organic food, and 'alcohol in moderation is okay', there is no science to it.read more [...]
The human race has made huge progress in the past few thousand years, gradually improving the living condition of human beings by learning how to cure illness; improving farming; harvesting, storing, and using energy in several forms; and countless other activities. Progress is measured over long time scales, and on metrics related to the access to innovations by all, as Ford once noted. So it is natural for us to consider ourselves lucky to have lived "in the best of times". Why, if you were born 400 years ago, e.g., you would probably never even learn what a hot shower is! And [...]
Almost 2,000 years ago in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, India, someone deposited a cache of gems inside a reliquary (a container for holy relics), along with some bone fragments and ash. The gems were precious, but the bones and ash even more so, for according to an inscription on the reliquary, they belonged to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. read more [...]
A Fallen Spacefarer Returns to Earthread more [...]
A few drops of saliva can now reveal what used to require a scalpel, a syringe or a scan.Scientists have developed ways to analyze spit for the tiniest traces of illness – from mouth cancer to diabetes, and even brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. Unlike blood tests or biopsies, saliva is easy to collect, painless and inexpensive. During the COVID pandemic, some countries used saliva-based testing for rapid screening.read more [...]
Humans are the only species on earth that uses language, combining sounds into words and words into sentence with infinite meanings. We do this using linguistic rules for calls and sentence structure. "A dog eats" tells us one thing while "a big dog" means another while "you're such a dog" from a friend at the bar means something else completely.Humans have mastered syntax.How did that evolve? The comparative approach, comparing the vocal production of other primates, with that of humans, provides some answers. Other primates typically use a single call type while some species combine calls, it is mostly as an [...]
