Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

“A commercial operator using a backpack #leafblower for an hour generates the same amount of smog-forming emissions as a car driving 1,000 miles”

California’s all-electric shift is ramping up. Here’s what will start vanishing from shelves. - San Francisco Chronicle https://apple.news/A8-93zOjmQeaddSG1oq_Tag

Biden’s EPA proposes water rule to finally ditch lead pipes within 10 years

The rule could generate up to $34.8 billion in health benefits each year.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/bidens-epa-proposes-water-rule-to-finally-ditch-lead-pipes-within-10-years/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Investors now own more than 50% of Toronto’s new condos — and experts say they’re driving up housing prices for everyone

https://www.thestar.com/real-estate/investors-now-own-more-than-50-of-toronto-s-new-condos-and-experts-say-they/article_4b6d2ff0-c528-5670-937f-3d34d040ed85.html

> How a heady mix of privatization, ineffective rent control and cheap capital fuelled an investment boom that made Toronto housing unaffordable for regular families

A decent synopsis of the global climate crisis – "The climate crisis explained in 10 charts":

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/30/the-climate-crisis-explained-in-10-charts-co2-green-energy-cop28

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

How long does it take to get infected with #COVID19

STUDY calculated “an indoor air model for calculating the time needed for a susceptible person to inhale one infectious dose when being in the same room as the infectious person. This time can be as short as 6 min when a highly infectious individual enters the room or only 1 min if the infected person already has been in the room long enough to reach steady-state concentration of viruses in the air.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47829-8

Dubious lung float test: The test, which has been around for centuries and remains essentially unchanged in spite of medical advances, is typically used in cases when births occurred outside of a hospital. Critics have likened the test to witch trials, when women were deemed to be witches based on whether they floated or sank. Many medical experts say that air can enter the lungs of a stillborn child even without breathing. Air can enter when the baby’s chest compresses as it squeezes through the birth canal, through CPR or during the ordinary handling of the body. If the body is decomposed, gases may cause the lungs to float. https://www.propublica.org/article/lung-float-test-stillbirths-boston-university-northeastern-law

Fascinating paper.

“Infectivity of exhaled SARS-CoV-2 aerosols is sufficient to transmit covid-19 within minutes”

Note that the study uses TCID50 from an immune naive human challenge study.

Alsved, M., Nyström, K., Thuresson, S. et al. Sci Rep 13, 21245 (2023).

#ventilation #iaq

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47829-8

Rules to help journalists avoid the mistakes of 2016 in 2024:

- Ban repeat liars from live interviews

- Never put a lie in the headline

- Use a truth sandwich when reporting on lies

- Don’t take the bait (stop rewarding drama with visibility)

- Abandon the social media algorithm (don’t let Xitter dictate the news cycle)

Any others?

https://framelab.substack.com/p/trump-2024-has-the-press-learned

“In the meantime, we need to do something about the quality of the air we inhale. We could have dramatically reduced these multi-pathogen waves if our gathering places filtered and treated the air we share. If we wore decent P2 or N95 respirators (masks that filter out the airborne particles on which these pathogens hitch a ride), we could better protect ourselves and those around us.”

From: @mackayim2022
https://mastodon.social/@mackayim2022/111509387536390401

This news makes me sick to my stomach. Israelism is a movie about Jews like me, raised as Zionists but after travel to Israel and observing the profound repression Israel imposes on Palestinians have come to reject the Zionist project. (In my case, the Sabra and Shatila massacres during the invasion of Lebanon were the final straw.) Zionists recognize the ideological threat Jews like me pose to them so they paint us as anti-Semites, closing down free debate on campus.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/university-pennsylvania-hunter-college-israelism-screening_n_6568e323e4b028b0f3cf8517

A reason to be sceptical of the puffery about AI "transforming" education is that institutions are already full of edtech that tracks students, as this nice @themarkup piece illuminates, and this is the same edtech now selling "AI" to schools and unis https://themarkup.org/machine-learning/2023/11/30/he-wanted-privacy-his-college-gave-him-none

Meta sues FTC, hoping to block ban on monetizing kids’ Facebook data https://arstechnica.com/?p=1987539

"A billionaire minimum tax of just 25% would raise $440 billion over the next 10 years.

Imagine what we could do if we just made billionaires pay their taxes like everyone else."

--Joe Biden
November 30, 2023

#POTUS #President #JoeBiden #BillionaireTax #EatTheRich

Henry Kissinger, who famously sabotaged the 1967 Vietnam peace talks in order to become Nixon’s national security advisor, has died. It’s rare when you can pinpoint a number of deaths to a political appointee but the 1975 peace deal was exactly the same as the 67 guidelines, and more than a million people died because of his decision, including 60% of all US casualties.

Is there an undergraduate science student in your life? NOW is when all the cool 2024 summer research & internship applications begin to open. Like this one :) https://www.jotform.com/232224386007147

Suncor keeps reporting accidental toxic air releases in Commerce City, and a watchdog group focused on air pollution cites the most recent incidents in a new lawsuit against the EPA for greenlighting Suncor operations.

https://coloradosun.com/2023/11/30/suncor-pollution-lawsuit-epa-colorado-air/?utm_content=bufferfd30c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Mastodon&utm_campaign=buffer

"Why were there so few female scientists? Why was science considered a masculine enterprise? Reflecting on these issues, Keller embarked on two projects: her studies on gender and science, and her biography of US geneticist Barbara McClintock."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03819-4

I am able to support Jews and condemn Israel.

I am able to wish for a free and self determined Palestine and condemn Hamas.

The world is not binary. You can be outraged at dead babies before you see which flag metaphorically drapes their corpse.

This is bad for everyone. And pointless.