🔴 🇯🇵 **Japan’s birth rate dropped sharply in 1966, influenced by cultural beliefs**

Tuna Acisu

_“The reason behind this drop is unusual. Children born in 1966 had the “fire horse” as their birth sign. According to astrological predictions, women born that year would bring bad fortune, especially for their future husbands.”_

🔗 ourworldindata.org/data-insigh.

🔴 🗺️ **1794 Samuel Dunn Wall Map of the World in Hemispheres**

_"A General Map of the World, or Terraqueous Globe with all the New Discoveries and Marginal Delineations, Containing the Most Interesting Particulars in the Solar, Starry and Mundane System."_

attribution: Thomas Kitchin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil.

🔴 🇬🇧 **The British Reader is in Decline as The Reading Agency Reveals Half of UK Adults Don’t Read Regularly**

23 July 2024

“Only 50% of UK adults now read regularly for pleasure, down from 58% in 2015.[5]

15% of UK adults have never read regularly for pleasure, an 88% increase since 2015.[6]

35% of UK adults are “lapsed readers” who used to read but have stopped.

Young UK adults (16-24) face the most barriers to reading, with 24% saying they’ve never been regular readers.”

🔗 readingagency.org.uk/the-briti

@bookstodon

: attributed to William Notman, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil.

🔴 **Housekeeping**

It is kindly brought to the attention of visitors to this account that 'automated post deletion' has been enabled. Toots will be deleted once they reach a two week threshold.

🔴 💻 **Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore**

Siân Boyle

_What will happen if we don’t get a handle on our declining cognitive health? The former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris told US Congress in 2019 that billions of people – “a psychological footprint about the size of Christianity” – now receive their information from platforms whose business model “links their profit to how much attention they capture, creating a ‘race to the bottom of the brain stem’ to extract attention by hacking lower into our lizard brains – into dopamine, fear, outrage – to win”._

🔗 theguardian.com/commentisfree/

Image attribution: Markus Spiske markusspiske, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil.

🔴 📖 **A Reading Question**

Do you find that reading the second half of a book takes less time than reading the first half? In other words, is the ascent harder than the descent?

@bookstodon

attribution: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil.

🔴 **More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100**

_“The striking change between now and 2100 is the expected growth in the African population. In 2023, its population is around 1.4 billion; by 2100 it's projected to reach just under 4 billion.”_

Hannah Ritchie (2019) - “More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'ourworldindata.org/region-popu' [Online Resource]

🔴 **Isaac Newton’s wealth ‘intimately connected’ with slavery, author says**

Hannah Devlin

_"During the scientist’s 30-year tenure at the mint, the book outlines, Newton oversaw an influx of gold mined primarily by enslaved Africans in Brazil. And as master of the mint, he took a small fee for every coin that was minted."_

🔗 theguardian.com/science/2024/n

@histodon @histodons @earlymodern @bookstodon

attribute: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia.

🔴 No Time To Blog

Set up a blog at the start of November and have not had the time to write anything apart from the customary 'Hello World' post.

attribution: Sophie Janotta (Sophieja23), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia

🔴 🌊 Global mean sea levels have increased by around 25 centimeters since 1880

Hannah Ritchie

"There are two key drivers of sea level rise. First, water expands as it gets warmer. Second, ice on land — in the form of ice sheets and glaciers — melts and adds water to ocean basins.

Both of these processes have accelerated due to climate change."

🔗 ourworldindata.org/data-insigh

@climatechange @environment

I enjoy looking at city skylines at night whether that be or still .

attribution: Canary_Wharf_at_night,_from_Shadwell.jpg: Dave Papederivative work: Pointillist, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia.

🔴 🌍 The global number of people aged 65 years and older is set to double within the next thirty years

Simon van Teutem

“Today, there are around 830 million people aged 65 and older in the world. According to the latest UN data, it is projected to grow to 1.7 billion by 2054.”

🔗 ourworldindata.org/data-insigh

🔴 🌍 Packaging is the source of 40% of the planet’s plastic waste

Veronika Samborska

"Packaging accounts for 37% of total plastic waste in the United States. It’s 38% in Europe, and in China, it's 45%. Together, these regions account for 60% of global packaging waste generation."

🔗 ourworldindata.org/data-insigh

: I have followed a number of accounts recently. Some of them are through flipboard and others are private accounts. The toots from the flipboard account such as Flipboard UK (see image) are showing in my home timeline but still have the 'egg timer' sign and I am being asked if I want to cancel follow request. The other set of accounts (private) just have the cancel request with the "egg timer" and none of their toots appear in my home timeline. I was wondering if there is anything I can do to resolve this situation?

🔴 Sentinelese contacts: anthropologically revisiting the most reclusive masters of the terra incognita North Sentinel Island

"In terms of similarities, genomic studies reveal that the ancestors of the Asian clade migrated from Africa through India, entering Australia around 48,000 years ago (Sasikumar, 2023). Subsequent sub-clades, such as M31, migrated to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands around 37,000 years ago (Palanichamy et al., 2006; Barik et al., 2008), showing genetic affinity with the Burmese populace (Sasikumar, 2023)."

Paul, S., Justin, A. & Chatterjee, S. Sentinelese contacts: anthropologically revisiting the most reclusive masters of the terra incognita North Sentinel Island. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11, 1512 (2024). doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-039

@anthropology

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