People love to generalize about the sociology, especially about the prevalence of activist research, political perspectives, and overwrought claims. I wish my new paper with Micah Altman, "The State of Sociology: Evidence from Dissertation Abstracts" answered these questions. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/a8uyp
#Trees are methane sinks
"Our paper details how we examined in situ woody surface (bark) methane exchange in upland tropical, temperate and boreal forest trees. [...] Sometimes we found a little methane emitted from the tree bases, but the higher up the tree we went, (> 1m above the forest floor) we observed something unexpected: Methane uptake from the atmosphere resulting in a net tree methane sink.
[...] Ultimately these procedures allow us to suggest that trees may contribute 24.6-49.9 Tg of atmospheric methane uptake globally. Similar in size to the only other land-based sink that we know of. And when taking these numbers for upland forest, we established that trees maybe 7% (temperate forest) to 12% (Tropics) better for climate than we’ve previously given them credit for."
Start of thread: https://x.com/GauciGauci/status/1816129071321063694
Most people think the Baby Boom in the United States was “officially” from 1946 to 1964, and yet neither of our two principal candidates for president in 2024 are Baby Boomers. How is this possible?
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2024/08/11/the-definitive-explanation-for-why-neither-donald-trump-nor-kamala-harris-are-baby-boomers/
It remains way past time to stop letting corporations unilaterally make a mess of the sky.
Not with Starlink, not with OneWeb, and not with Qianfan.
QT Andrew Jones @AndrewJonesSpace
2024 August 6
"China launches first satellites for Thousand Sails megaconstellation"
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-satellites-for-thousand-sails-megaconstellation/
A quite scornful commentary on the outcome of the prisoner exchange:
> "However, in reality, those who yesterday spoke against travel bans and sanctions were consciously or not arguing for the restoration of their rights *as a class* of extremely privileged Russians – and not on behalf of the majority of Russians who have never had an opportunity to travel or study abroad (69% according to Levada-Center 2022 poll) This is why, although they might sincerely think they are speaking in defence of their national collective, in reality they are arguing for class interest and inadvertently revealing how the main discourse among the small but vocal group of Russian ‘opposition think-leaders’ in Europe and the US is really about an ‘antipolitical’ technocratic approach. In addition, this quite narrow interpretation of Russian rights (travel to the West) gives more fuel for regime propagandists to deflect growing dissatisfaction of ordinary Russians by the war: ‘look, these westernized traitors are self-serving’…"
Climate change deniers make up nearly a quarter of US Congress
Climate denialists – 23 in Senate and 100 in House – are all Republicans and make US an outlier internationally
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/05/climate-change-denial-congress
'Analyses of R&D spending and equity investment in biotech predict that the industry is capable of weathering a drop in revenue due to lower drug prices, with no corresponding loss in new approved drugs.'
Really cool study investigating correlations and differences in music perception in relation to native langue, in particular whether your native tongue is tonal or not. TL;DR speaking a tonal language means you're better at perceiving pitch, but worse at perceiving rhythm!
"No way to prevent this" say users of only language where this regularly happens
https://xeiaso.net/shitposts/no-way-to-prevent-this/CVE-2024-5535/
Astronomers from the University of Helsinki have found that the rotational profile of a nearby #star, V889 Herculis, differs considerably from that of the Sun.
The star rotates the fastest at a latitude of about 40 degrees, while both the equator and polar regions rotate more slowly.
The observation provides insights into the fundamental stellar #astrophysics and helps understanding the activity of the Sun, its spot structures and eruptions.
#astronomy
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/space/rotation-nearby-star-stuns-astronomers
This is hilariously bad peak bubble bullshit marketing. The value proposition of this product is apparently you don't have any human friends so you want inane LLM babble at the press of a button to convey the impression of a "friend" interacting with you.
It's like a Furby without the fur.
Wind and solar energy overtake fossil fuels to provide 30% of EU electricity
Report finds 13 member states generated more energy from wind and solar power than coal and gas for first time in 2024
As many as 50,000 queer people currently serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the country offers them and their partners no legal protections.@timkmak’s Counteroffensive looks at what happens when an LGBTQ+ serviceperson is injured, killed or goes missing during the war, as well as the possibility of new legislation on civil partnerships, and the challenges of making that happen in a conflict zone.
https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/ukrainian-lgbtq-soldiers-face-injustice
#Ukraine #LGBTQ #UkraineRussia #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
'A dazzled Congress gave Netanyahu fifty-eight standing ovations, lasting about half of the speech’s duration and marking a record in US history, or perhaps any country’s history, at more than 400 percent the number Kim Jong Un receives in North Korea, thus breaking Netanyahu’s own record from 2015, when his forty-three-minute speech received forty-three standing ovations and rounds of applause from nearly every single US lawmaker. After a long, torturous hour of cheering and clapping, lawmakers scrambled on the House floor to shake Netanyahu’s hand.'
https://jacobin.com/2024/07/benjamin-netanyahu-address-us-congress/
Not sure what this account will be about, mostly boosting things I find interesting.