Bernie Sanders Hasn’t Forgotten About the Four-Day Workweek
A link in the article (which I omitted) cites a survey from Bankrate, published in August 2023, which said that “A majority of full-time workers and job seekers — 81% — support a four-day work week versus a traditional five-day schedule. Of those workers, 89% said they would be willing to make sacrifices to work just four days,” including working longer hours and going to their job location more often.
From Mother Jones:
The Vermont senator on Thursday unveiled a bill that seeks to establish a four-day workweek over the next four years, a proposal Sanders’ office described as critical to reducing workers’ toil, as well as timely considering the advancements workplaces will see thanks to artificial intelligence and automation.
“It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life,” a statement read. “It is time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay.”
The four-day workweek enjoys overwhelming public support. Studies have shown that it can vastly improve job satisfaction and often does not lead to a loss in productivity (but actual implementation plans are vital). The United Auto Workers called for a 32-hour work week during their historic 2023 strike. Though it was ultimately cut at the bargaining table, UAW President Shawn Fein made a fresh call to enact the measure at Thursday’s hearing.
Yet despite decades of efforts and a pandemic that supercharged workers’ consciousness to value their time, the shortened workweek remains elusive thanks to corporate fears buoyed by Republican opposition. That resistance was again on display at Thursday’s hearing. “Let the market decide,” Roger King, a senior attorney for the HR Policy Association, repeatedly said as he warned that the bill’s requirement for overtime pay would significantly hurt employers.
It’s unclear how Sanders expects his renewed effort to convince Republicans this time. In all likelihood, he won’t. But as more companies slide back to pre-pandemic policies, keeping the demands of labor alive in the halls of Congress appears more critical than ever.
Low-income communities will soon get $7 billion for local solar
Another example of the Biden-Harris administration putting the needs of marginalized individuals and communities first.
From Canary Media:
One of the Inflation Reduction Act’s most potentially transformative programs is close to being finalized — and now we have a window into how it could take shape.
States are vying for a share of a historic $7 billion in federal funding to help low-income families access clean solar power. This program, Solar for All, is poised to benefit more than 700,000 low-income households across the nation, according to a new analysis from the nonprofit Clean Energy States Alliance, shared exclusively with Canary Media.
Solar for All is a competitive grant program created under the IRA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Solar for All aims to deliver the savings, resiliency and health benefits of small-scale solar and solar-plus-storage systems to low-income households and households in disadvantaged communities. ✂️
Inequity has been a long-standing issue when it comes to residential solar adoption. In 2022, the median income for a solar household was about $117,000per year — or 70 percent higher than the U.S. median household income of $69,000, according to research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Low-income households also spend a greater proportion of their income on energy bills: on average, 8.6 percent, or nearly three times higher than other households. That’s a burden rooftop solar or community solar could help alleviate.
To help close the solar-equity gap, the EPA plans to announce up to 60 awards next month to support Solar for All programs across the U.S. that would help participants save 20 percent or more on energy bills.
EPA bans import and use of last form of asbestos in U.S.
After over 50 years of failed efforts to fully ban asbestos, this is what the EPA under a Democratic administration is able to accomplish.
From Axios:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a ban on the last form of asbestos still used in the U.S.
Why it matters: The carcinogen is linked to more than 40,000 deaths per year in the U.S., and chrysotile asbestos is still used in certain types of gaskets, car brakes, and other materials, per the EPA.
- 'The action marks a major milestone for chemical safety after more than three decades of inadequate protections," the EPA said in a statement.
Catch up quick: The final rule announced Monday has been pending since 2016 amendments to the country's chemical safety law.
- The EPA first banned asbestos in 1989, but a court decision two years later largely struck it down. Still, the use of asbestos in the U.S. has been declining for decades.
- Chrysotile asbestos, also known as white asbestos, is the only form known to still be "imported, processed or distributed" in the U.S, the EPA said.
Threat level: Roughly 255,000 people around the world die each year from asbestos-related conditions, according to the American Public Health Association.
- "Asbestos causes mesothelioma and cancer of the lung, larynx, and ovary, in addition to pleural diseases such as asbestosis; it is also strongly associated with cancer of the pharynx, stomach cancer, and colorectal cancer," the group wrote in 2019.
- "There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, and nearly 70 countries have banned it."
What's next: The import of chrysotile asbestos is banned immediately, but fully phasing out could take anywhere from six months to 12 years in some sectors.
- "EPA is requiring strict workplace safety measures to protect workers from asbestos exposure during any phaseout periods longer than two years," the EPA statement said.
The bottom line: "It's been more than 50 years since EPA first sought to ban some uses of asbestos and we're closer than ever to finishing the job," Environmental Working Group senior vice president Scott Faber said in the statement.
* * * * *
🍿 Repellent Republicans Rushing toward Ruin 🍿
Yeah, I know I said in the intro that I wouldn’t give you any stories about these idiots, but we all enjoy a little schadenfreude with our morning coffee, right?
RNC Hires Prominent 2020 Election Denier as Its “Election Integrity” Lawyer
These people are parody-proof.
From Mother Jones:
A prominent election denier who wore multiple hats while aiding GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 election will serve as a top lawyer at the Republican National Committee. Christina Bobb, a former reporter for the fringe pro-Trump broadcaster One America News, will oversee the party’s “election integrity” operations. In Trumpworld, what puts a person in line for such a role is having worked tirelessly to subvert an election—and “election integrity” simply means anything needed to help Trump win.
Bobb has the necessary qualifications in spades. As the New York Times reported in 2022, Bobb embraced “conspiracy theories with a fervor that has at times seemed over the top even to her colleagues.” Indeed, she promoted the Big Lie with such zeal that she was sued for defamation. And not only does she appear to be a true believer, she’s been willing to sacrifice herself for the Trump cause, such as when she signed an affidavit to the Justice Department related to his stolen documents case that protected Trump and that she knew might be false. Such loyalty seems to have landed her this new job.
Last week, the RNC elected Trump’s picks to run the party ahead of the 2024 elections, including installing his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair, ally Michael Whatley as chair, and campaign adviser Chris LaCivita as chief of staff. The new leadership is moving swiftly to remove a significant number of staff, including those in top leadership roles, and hire new people more aligned with Trump. Enter Bobb. ✂️
“I’m honored to join the RNC and thrilled the new leadership is focused on election integrity,” Bobb said in a statement to CNN.
Katie Britt Claims People Mocking Her Deranged State of the Union Response “Can’t Handle the Truth”
Oh, puh-leeze!!
By Bess Levin in Vanity Fair:
Katie Britt, the junior senator from Alabama, delivered a State of the Union response that has been described, by Republicans, as a “disaster,” “parody-level terrible,” and “the stuff of nightmares.” Given the deafening bipartisan reaction, one might have expected Britt to consider the feedback, look inward, and try to evaluate where things went wrong. But one would expect wrong! Instead, Britt has lashed out at her detractors—a group that, again, includes members of her own party—and insisted they just don’t get it. Because they hate America.
In a fundraising email sent this week, Britt told supporters: “Following my speech, the left-wing media didn’t waste a second flooding the airwaves with despicable, disgusting messages about me. They attacked my character. They attacked my faith. They attacked my identity as a mother and a wife.” Conveniently, Britt did not address the fact that her speech included a massive deception about a sex-trafficking victim who the senator claimed had been brutally raped as a result of Joe Biden’s border policies, when the ordeal actually took place when George W. Bush was president. Instead, Britt pivoted to why criticisms of her are actually attacks on America.
“My heart is broken,” she said. “Not just for myself, but for my children, your children and the ENTIRE next generation of Americans. Why? Because I didn’t prepare a 20-minute speech and stand up to Biden in front of millions of Americans for ME. I did it for them, for YOU and your children, Friend!” Then she pulled a Donald Trump and tried to argue that people should be deeply concerned about what happened to her because it’s also happening to them even though that’s not at all what’s happening. “Friend, they’re not just laughing at me,” she wrote. “They’re laughing at every single American who dares to stand up to their radical agenda. Every patriot who fights to defend their American dream.” And, according to Britt, her detractors aren’t laughing because the vibes of her performance gave off “low budget horror movie” but because “they can’t handle the truth.”
Naturally, the email then pivoted to why people should send Britt money, linking readers to her campaign donation site where they were asked to “chip in” to “Help…send a STRONG message to the Democrats and the media that we won’t stand for their arrogance and ignorance.”
And finally, posted without comment:
Trump eyeing Paul Manafort for 2024 campaign role, Washington Post reports
* * * * *
The media messing up
Why is New York Times campaign coverage so bad? Because that’s what the publisher wants.
This has been obvious for a long time, but Froomkin is the first political commentator I’ve seen put it in print. Let’s have more truth-telling like this, please!
By Dan Froomkin in his blog Press Watch:
It’s an increasingly common critique of the New York Times: The largest, most influential news organization in the nation is not warning sufficiently of the threat to democracy — while at the same time bashing President Joe Biden at every opportunity. And it’s been a bit of a mystery. Why would a newsroom full of talented and mostly liberal reporters be engaging in such damaging behavior?
Well, mystery solved. It’s because that’s what the publisher wants.
Publisher A.G. Sulzberger — perhaps unintentionally — showed his hand in a speech on [March 4] at Oxford University on “Journalistic Independence in a Time of Division.” … the two biggest takeaways, in my view, were as follows:
One: Sounding the alarm, it turns out, is anathema to Sulzberger’s notion of independent journalism. Independent journalism should instead “empower our fellow citizens with the information they need to make decisions for themselves.” There are plenty of other people sounding the alarm, he insisted. ✂️
And two: According to Sulzberger, independent journalism requires being “willing to take a simple, easy, or comfortable story and complicate it with truths that people don’t want to hear.” He described it as a badge of honor that “independent reporting — the kind that doesn’t fully align with any one perspective — will never win over the partisans.” He expressed contempt for “echo chambers” that “celebrate work that conforms to their narratives and protest anything that challenges them.”
What does that mean — practically speaking — to the editors and reporters who work for him? In my view, the message is clear:
One: You will earn my displeasure if you warn people too forcefully about the possible end to democracy at the hands of a deranged insurrectionist. And two: You prove your value to me by trolling our liberal readers. That explains a lot of the Times’s aberrant behavior, doesn’t it?
Some journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetimes
I thought this was especially well-stated, especially the final line: “If you’re a journalist and you find this election boring, you’re in the wrong damn business.”
By Mark Jacob in his blog Stop the Presses:
Clearly, the personality-driven news media are disappointed by Trump vs. Biden. They want fresh faces so they can scour the candidates’ old social media posts, critique their fashion choices, and interview their high school teachers for humorous anecdotes.
But when they do get fresh faces, they often blow the opportunity to examine their records. Witness the New York Times’ profile of North Carolina governor nominee Mark Robinson last week. The Republican was described as a “firebrand” and a “fiery outsider” in a Times story that downplayed his hate speech toward Jews and LGBTQ people, his ridicule of school shooting survivors, and his many other crackpot comments. (The version that’s online now is a repair job after the Times was roundly denounced for its first effort, yet even that version fails to say Robinson is a Holocaust denier.) ✂️
But even with ultra-familiar characters like Trump and Biden, a lot of voters have missed key facts. For example, polling shows low awareness of some of Trump’s most extreme statements. If the media are focusing on candidates’ issues rather than their fashion choices, there’s always more to explore. Which is one reason it’s a huge misreading of our political situation to see this year’s election as a “rerun” of 2020. ✂️
Yes, it’s a race between two old white guys we already know. But the choice is stark. When the Times argues ridiculously that neither Biden nor Trump is a “change candidate,” it’s ignoring the fact that both of them have clear visions for transforming American politics.
Biden’s agenda calls for making the super-rich pay more taxes, capping prescription drug prices, restoring abortion rights, addressing the climate crisis and creating stronger alliances to confront the growing threats facing the world’s democracies. Trump’s agenda calls for him to become a dictator and create alliances with other dictators, as well as to harass his opponents with the Justice Department, send troops into American cities, put millions of immigrants in camps and crack down on the press.
The future of a 248-year-old democracy is at stake. From a political perspective, it’s the most crucial year of our lifetimes. If you’re a journalist and you find this election boring, you’re in the wrong damn business.
* * * * *
Good news from my corner of the world
From my neighborhood
Some witty folks who live a few blocks away from me installed an old gumball machine where their yard meets the sidewalk, named it “Infinite Jest,” and stocked it with little plastic capsules containing really bad jokes. Here’s a photo of the joke dispenser and the groaner I got today:
Oregon researchers create super-realistic artificial human skin with 3D printer
This really belongs in medical news, but I’m proud it happened in Oregon. It’s exciting that this breakthrough is already being used in place of human or animal subjects to test the safety and efficacy of cosmetics and skin care products. The partnership between medical researchers and a cosmetic company does make me a bit queasy, but it looks like the results will help a lot of people.
From The Oregonian:
Researchers at the University of Oregon, in tandem with French skin care company L’Oréal, have come up with a way to create a super-realistic equivalent of human skin. So far, they’re using it to test products to protect and heal human flesh.
Their breakthrough technique, detailed in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, uses a 3-D printer to create multilayered skin-like cell colonies in just 18 days, according to University of Oregon officials.
“This is the first known case of replicating quality skin tissue at full thickness, using different kinds of cells separated by a membrane,” said Ievgenii Liashenko, a research engineer in the university’s Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.
To replicate complex, multilayered human skin, the researchers designed an artificial two-layer version, with a membrane separating the two.
L’Oréal is currently using the artificial skin to test cosmetics and skin care products. Researchers at UO and L’Oréal say they plan to explore other potential uses, including healing diabetic foot ulcers and creating skin grafts for burn patients.
Portland City Council unanimously bans gas-powered leaf blowers
About time, damn it!!
From KOIN:
On Wednesday, the council unanimously voted to ban the landscaping appliances in an effort to “improve public health and quality of life for residents and landscape workers,” according to Commissioner Carmen Rubio. “Gas leaf blowers emit toxic pollutants, particulate matter, and noise that creates negative health impacts for people nearby,” Rubio said in a statement after the decision was announced. “This policy is the culmination of many years of hard work and advocacy to make Portland a healthier and cleaner place to live.”
The city’s reasons for the proposed ban include air and noise pollution, health concerns, and disproportionate impacts on specific groups.
“Gasoline leaf blowers most commonly have two-stroke engines that incompletely combust their fuel, resulting in the emission of benzene and additional carcinogenic substances,” the ordinance proposal states. “The use of gasoline leaf blowers can cause direct harm to people within the vicinity by contributing to localized air pollution, creating excessive noise and causing other negative health impacts to their operators who disproportionately identify as Latinx or Hispanic.”
Rubio first introduced the ordinance to outlaw the private and commercial use of all gas-powered leaf blowers in the city. However, gas-powered blowers will still be permitted during the fall and early winter through 2028 – as the latest electric leaf blower technology remains inadequate for removing wet leaves.
The ordinance will take effect in Portland on Jan. 1, 2026, and the year-round prohibition will take effect in 2028. Citizens found in violation of the ordinance would face a series of penalties for each offense. First-time offenders would receive a warning. A second fine would result in a $250 fine. A third offense would rise to $500, and a fourth offense costs $1,000.
* * * * *
Good news from around the nation
Who Runs the World? Women Mayors.
“Men run for office to be somebody; women run to do something.”
From Ms. Magazine:
More and more, women serving as mayors are part of the feminist frontline for advancing equal rights and are leaders on issues of concern to women voters. As St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said, “Men run for office to be somebody; women run to do something.”
Many mayors like Jones are focusing on issues with large gender gaps, for which women report a higher level of concern and different voting preferences than men. Poll after poll shows significant gender gaps on issues related to equality, reproductive rights, gun violence, climate change, domestic and sexual violence and more. ✂️
Jones shared data to back up her work to make change happen: Between 2022 and 2023, St. Louis experienced a 21 percent decrease in homicides, a 22 percent decrease in violence overall and a 50 percent decrease in youth violence. ✂️
Jones reminded her audience [at the United States Conference of Mayors] that there are more African American women mayors in office now than at any other time in history. “Karen Bass in Los Angeles; Muriel Bowser in Washington, D.C.; and Latoya Cantrell in New Orleans all are running big cities. It’s changing the tide for what people see, as women of color are leading large cities and small. … A lot of times, women feel like they can’t run because they don’t have everything. Women like to be prepared, ultra-prepared, to meet the moment.
“For women who are considering a run for office, all you have to do is care about your community. And if you care enough to want to change things, consider running for office.”
And another good news story about mayors:
This Is a “Solvable” Crisis: Denver’s Mayor on How the City Is Handling Migrant Arrivals
Denver’s mayor nails it: “We think Denver can not just survive but thrive with these newcomers arriving.”
From Mother Jones:
On his first day in office in the summer of 2023, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston declared a state of emergency to combat homelessness. He activated the city’s emergency operations center, aiming to place 1,000 people into transitional housing by the end of the year. … By the end of the summer hundreds of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, were coming to Denver every day. Johnston, a former school principal and state senator said he soon realized, “we had a really significant crisis.” To date, Denver, with a population of about 700,000, has received almost 40,000 migrants—the most per capita of any city in the country.
It has forced Johnston to make pragmatic but severe decisions. He reinstated limits on how long migrants can stay in shelters and announced cuts to the city’s services to balance the budget. But he has also refused to buy into Abbott’s plot to turn public opinion against migrants. “I want it to be clear who is not responsible for this crisis that we’re in,” he said during a press conference last month. “The folks who have walked 3,000 miles to get to this city.”
Overall, Johnston has tried to welcome migrants. And on the federal level, he has pushed for changes to make that easier. He asked the Biden administration to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to thousands of Venezuelan migrants, so they could be eligible for work. The Biden administration did just that last September. ✂️
”We think this is a deeply solvable problem and we think the problem is not attributable to the people who are walking 3,000 miles to try to seek asylum from a country that’s persecuting them and making it impossible to survive. … We think Denver can not just survive but thrive with these newcomers arriving.
We just need a couple of key components. That’s what we pushed the federal government for. We need more work authorization. The biggest problem we have is folks who arrive in the city and tell me, “Mr. Mayor, I don’t want any help, I just want to work.” At the same time, CEOs will call me and say that they have open jobs every day that they can’t fill, and they want to be able to hire the migrants that are here. The only problem is we have the federal government standing in the way of hard-working employees who want to work and employers who want to hire them, and the government’s refusing to let them do that. We need federal resources to help us support people.
From the sale of Yeezy shoes, Adidas is donating $150 million to anti-hate organizations
This is what all corporations need to do with any product created or endorsed by hate-spewing celebs like Kanye West. Thank you, Adidas!
From GoodGoodGood:
After ending its longtime relationship with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, in 2022, Adidas was still left with $1.3 billion worth of Yeezy shoes in warehouses. It decided to sell some of those remaining shoes — and is doing something good with sales.
The company just announced it has already or is planning to donate more than $150 million from the sales of the shoes to organizations fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate.
So far, it’s made donations to the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, which is run by social justice advocate Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother.
* * * * *
Good news from around the world
EU Parliament, Council agree to ban products made with forced labour
The U.S. definitely needs to do this, too.
From Reuters:
[On March 5,] the European Union Council and the European Parliament...reached a provisional agreement to ban the entry of products made with forced labour into the European single market.
The agreement clarifies the different responsibilities [of] the EU Commission and the member states in identifying the companies exploiting forced workers and banning their products. The deal intends to break these companies' business model, Pierre-Yves Dermagne Belgium's Economy and Labour Minister said in a statement.
"With this regulation we want to make sure that there is no place for their products on our single market, whether they are manufactured in Europe or abroad," he said. Belgium currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
The bans would be enforced on goods made outside the EU by forced labour and on products manufactured in the EU with parts made abroad by forced labour.
The provisional agreement still needs to be formally approved by the European Parliament and the Council to be enforced.
African Forest Farming Initiative Making A Difference to Thousands with Tree-Planting and Microlending
This is a win-win-win: for the African ecosystem, for carbon-capture, and for boosting local farming communities.
From Good News Network:
An NGO has realized that the irreplaceable value and beauty of African wilderness might be protected if, rather than pouring billions into funding park infrastructure and rangers, the farmers of Africa are taught simple agro-forestry techniques.
Enter Trees for the Future, which on the surface seems to be just the latest in Africa’s tree-planting schemes, but which actually promises to be a direct stimulant to rural farming economies rather than a carbon-capture scheme.
According to a report in the Guardian, 41,000 hectares, an area 7 times larger than the island of Manhattan, have been turned into forest farms where native trees anchor a diverse mix of subsistence and cash crops that’s more friendly to birds and insects than mono-crop agriculture.
Rather than the dozens of tree-planting initiatives around the world (and the many in Africa), the stated goal is to create 230,000 jobs, not plant a given number of trees; though Trees for the Future believes that this amount of employment in agro-forestry will amount to something like a billion trees.
“This is a massive restoration movement using regenerative agriculture,” Vincent Mainga, the Kenya director of Trees for the Future told the Guardian. “This model is very easy to adopt. We work with the farmers for four years. After that, they can understand all the components and they can use what they learn from our technicians to produce thriving farmlands, usually with a surplus. It is self-sustaining.”
Can Cities Drive SUVs Off Their Streets?
The backlash against SUVs appears to be growing. “Good!” sez Grumpy Cat.
From Reasons to Be Cheerful:
In early February, Paris took a decisive step to deter visitors from driving enormous cars like SUVs in the city center. Voters approved a measure that would triple parking fees for SUVs and other large vehicles. If Paris City Council approves this measure in May, on-street parking fees for heavy vehicles will be as high as $240 for six hours, as opposed to $80 for regular cars. (Exceptions will be made for Paris residents who park in their own neighborhoods, people who use heavier vehicles because of disabilities, and professional vehicles such as taxis.) Residents of Lyon, the third-largest city in France, will vote on a similar proposal this month, and in Grenoble, residents have already voted to increase parking prices for SUVs who park in city-owned parking structures.
There are several reasons a city like Paris might want to discourage people from driving ginormous vehicles. Not only do SUVs and other large cars guzzle more fuel (and therefore emit more greenhouses gases) than regular cars, but they’re also more lethal to pedestrians and cyclists. New research published by the Virginia-based nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that trucks, SUVs, and vans with hood heights greater than 40 inches were nearly twice as likely to cause a fatality in crashes with pedestrians than shorter, lighter vehicles. This adds to a growing body of research that shows bigger, heavier vehicles are more lethal in crashes — even to other cars. Children are particularly vulnerable. In New York City, half of the children killed on city streets between 2014 and 2019 were struck by SUVs or other large vehicles; in 2022, that percentage rose to a grisly 80 percent. Finally, heavy vehicles like SUVs, which can weigh over 6,000 pounds (three tons), also take a greater toll on roads.
Following Paris’ example, Germany’s Environmental Agency (BUND) called for higher parking fees on SUVs, and so did the Association of German Cities. (So far, only the city of Tübingen has implemented such a policy.) That said, in seven European countries, the taxes residents pay when buying a combustion-engine car or truck more than double the cost of the vehicle. Those countries are Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Turkey, the Netherlands and Norway.
Though he’s unaware of any American city that has introduced a parking reform similar to Paris’s, Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World, thinks a policy like this is far more likely to be adopted in the US than one might expect. ✂️
...a few places in the US...are charging more for the registration of these behemoth vehicles. Quite a bit more.
In 2022, Washington D.C. became the first city in the US to pass legislation to raise registration fees for larger vehicles. … Starting in October 2023, the annual registration fee for a vehicle weighing over 6,000 pounds increased to $500. … New York State is considering similar legislation.
‘I am not a typo’ campaign urges tech giants to correct their autocorrect systems in the name of inclusivity
This is a good example of the way systemic racism/chauvinism can manifest itself in unlikely places. It’s also a good example of how to fight back.
From Positive News:
The I Am Not A Typo campaign is calling on tech giants to ‘correct autocorrect’ in the name of equality and to better reflect a modern, multicultural UK
‘Priti’ is among the 41% of names of babies born in recent years that are routinely flagged as errors. Now a campaign – I Am Not A Typo – is calling on tech giants to ‘correct autocorrect’ in the name of equality and to better reflect a modern, multicultural UK.
“My name is Dhruti. Not Drutee, Dirty, or even Dorito. And yet these are all words my name has been changed to, often because of an autocorrect decision or a rushed message,” says writer and journalist Dhruti Shah, who is backing the cause. “My first name isn’t even that long – only six characters – yet when it comes up as an error or it’s mangled and considered an unknown entity, it’s like saying that it’s not just your name that’s wrong, but you are.”
Research behind the campaign found that almost 5,500 names given to boys and girls in England and Wales in 2021 alone received the wavy red line treatment courtesy of Microsoft’s UK English dictionary. They include names of African, Asian and Eastern European origin, as well as favourite monikers from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Popular names like Ottilie – given to more than 1,700 girls between 2017-2021 – and Eesa, given to almost 1,500 boys, were deemed typos...
A billboard has gone up this morning (11 March) in central London with quotes and commentary from experts recounting their personal experiences. ✂️
Alongside billboard ads, those behind the campaign have penned an open letter to tech giants, pointing out a stunningly simple fix: the Office for National Statistics publishes an annual chart of popular babies’ names, which could easily be added – they say – to electronic dictionaries. “Our names are the most important words in our lives – part of our identity,” write organisers. “Our children should not be othered by the technology that is integral to their lives. And it’s up to the arbiters of that technology to fix it.”
* * * * *
Good news in medicine
NIH Study Provides Long-Awaited Insight Into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
I have a friend who has suffered from CFS for 40 years, and I know how much she struggled in the early years to convince her doctors that her symptoms weren’t “all in her head.” This new study is welcome news for sufferers of this debilitating disease.
From JAMA:
In the eyes of the medical community, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, has had a legitimacy deficit for decades. Now, a team of 75 multidisciplinary scientists and clinicians from across the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and collaborators have completed an extensive inpatient study of a carefully selected group of people with postinfectious ME/CFS, published in Nature Communications.
Led by neurologist Avindra Nath, MD, clinical director for the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the researchers report several physiological differences between people with ME/CFS and healthy volunteers.
“Overall, what we show is that ME/CFS is unambiguously biological, with multiple organ systems affected,” Nath said in an interview with JAMA. “It’s a systemic disease, and the people living with it deserve to have their experiences taken seriously.”
… With outbreaks in Nevada and New York in the 1980s, chronic fatigue syndrome—a name chosen by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—attracted national attention. The term myalgic encephalomyelitis has been more frequently used in the UK and other countries outside the US. For patients, a point of frustration is the word fatigue, which is a temporary experience for most people but is chronic in ME/CFS. This often leads physicians, as well as friends and family, to discount the severity of the symptoms. Individuals’ complaints are often interpreted as having a psychological basis, the IOM [Institute of Medicine] report acknowledged.
“The word fatigue warped mainstream medicine’s understanding of ME/CFS for decades,” Liz Burlingame, leader of the Georgia chapter of ME Action, a patient advocacy group, said in an interview. “These are people who can’t function.” Burlingame, who said she developed ME/CFS in the 1990s after an influenza infection, shared that she has had to adopt the practice of brushing her teeth sitting down and resting afterwards.
The IOM expert panel wrote in their 2015 report that “the health care community generally still doubts the existence or seriousness of this disease.” Since then, ME/CFS has seen an increase in attention from the NIH and an acceleration of research, both in the US and other countries.
LSD-Based Medication for GAD [Generalized Anxiety Disorder] Receives FDA Breakthrough Status
Very promising news for anxiety sufferers.
From Medscape:
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted breakthrough designation to an LSD-based treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) based on promising topline data from a phase 2b clinical trial. Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc is developing the treatment — MM120 (lysergide d-tartrate).
In a news release the company reports that a single oral dose of MM120 met its key secondary endpoint, maintaining "clinically and statistically significant" reductions in Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) score, compared with placebo, at 12 weeks with a 65% clinical response rate and 48% clinical remission rate.
The company previously announced statistically significant improvements on the HAM-A compared with placebo at 4 weeks, which was the trial's primary endpoint.
"I've conducted clinical research studies in psychiatry for over two decades and have seen studies of many drugs under development for the treatment of anxiety. That MM120 exhibited rapid and robust efficacy, solidly sustained for 12 weeks after a single dose, is truly remarkable," study investigator David Feifel, MD, PhD, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Kadima Neuropsychiatry Institute in La Jolla, California, said in the news release.
"These results suggest the potential MM120 has in the treatment of anxiety, and those of us who struggle every day to alleviate anxiety in our patients look forward to seeing results from future phase 3 trials," Feifel added.
* * * * *
Good news in science
A new world of 2D material is opening up
I find materials science endlessly fascinating.
From Science Daily:
Materials that are incredibly thin, only a few atoms thick, exhibit unique properties that make them appealing for energy storage, catalysis and water purification. Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have now developed a method that enables the synthesis of hundreds of new 2D materials. Their study has been published in the journal Science.
Since the discovery of graphene, the field of research in extremely thin materials, so-called 2D materials, has increased exponentially. … The largest family of 2D materials is called MXenes. MXenes are created from a three-dimensional parent material called a MAX phase. It consists of three different elements: M is a transition metal, A is an (A-group) element, and X is carbon or nitrogen. By removing the A element with acids (exfoliation), a two-dimensional material is created. Until now, MXenes has been the only material family created in this way.
The Linköping researchers have introduced a theoretical method for predicting other three-dimensional materials that may be suitable for conversion into 2D materials. They have also proved that the theoretical model is consistent with reality.
To succeed, the researchers used a three-step process. In the first step, they developed a theoretical model to predict which parent materials would be suitable. Using large-scale calculations at the National Supercomputer Centre, the researchers were able to identify 119 promising 3D materials from a database and a selection consisting of 66,643 materials.
The next step was to try to create the material in the lab. ✂️
But to confirm success in the lab, verification is necessary -- step three. The researchers used the scanning transmission electron microscope Arwen at Linköping University. It can examine materials and their structures down at the atomic level. In Arwen it is also possible to investigate which atoms a material is made up of using spectroscopy.
"We were able to confirm that our theoretical model worked well, and that the resulting material consisted of the correct atoms. After exfoliation, images of the material resembled the pages of a book. It's amazing that the theory could be put into practice, thereby expanding the concept of chemical exfoliation to more materials families than MXenes," says Jonas Björk, associate professor at the division of Materials design. The researchers' discovery means that many more 2D materials with unique properties are within reach. These, in turn, can lay the foundation for a plethora of technological applications. The next step for the researchers is to explore more potential precursor materials and scale up the experiments.
Scientists Have 3D-Scanned Thousands of Creatures Creating Incredibly Intricate Images Anyone Can Access for Free
What a wonderful project!
From Good News Network:
Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online. Now, researchers have published a summary of the project in the journal BioScience reviewing the specimens they’ve scanned to date, offering a glimpse of how the data might be used to ask new questions and spur the development of innovative technology.
“When people first collected these specimens, they had no idea what the future would hold for them,” said Edward Stanley, co-principal investigator of the oVert project and associate scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Such museums got their start in the 16th century as cabinets of curiosity, in which a few wealthy individuals amassed rare and exotic specimens, which they kept mostly to themselves. Since then, museums have become a resource for the public to learn about biodiversity.
But, the majority of museum collections remain behind closed doors—accessible only to scientists who must either travel to see them or ask that a small number of specimens be mailed on loan—and oVert wants to change that. “Now we have scientists, teachers, students and artists around the world using these data remotely,” said David Blackburn, lead principal investigator of the oVert project and curator of herpetology at the Florida Museum.
Beginning in 2017, the oVert team members took CT scans of more than 13,000 specimens, with vertebrate species across the tree of life, including over half the genera of all amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and mammals. … The models give an intimate look at internal portions of a specimen that could previously only be observed through destructive dissection and tissue sampling.
“You want to protect specimens, but you also want to have people use them,” Blackburn said. “oVert is a way of reducing the wear and tear on samples while also increasing access, and it’s the next logical step in the mission of museum collections.”
And here’s 30 minutes worth of images from oVert:
* * * * *
Good news for the environment
Broadcasting Audio of Healthy Reef Sounds Can Spur Degraded Coral to New Life
Another among several recent pieces of good news about the restoration of degraded coral reefs.
From Good News Network:
A reef that has been degraded—whether by coral bleaching or disease—can’t support the same diversity of species and has a much quieter, less rich soundscape. But new research from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows that sound could potentially be a vital tool in the effort to restore coral reefs.
A healthy coral reef is noisy, full of the croaks, purrs, and grunts of various fishes and the crackling of snapping shrimp. Scientists believe that coral larvae use this symphony of sounds to help them determine where they should live and grow. So, replaying healthy reef sounds can encourage new life in damaged or degraded reefs.
In a paper published last week in Royal Society Open Science, the Woods Hole researchers showed that broadcasting the soundscape of a healthy reef caused coral larvae to settle at significantly higher rates—up to seven times more often.
“What we’re showing is that you can actively induce coral settlement by playing sounds,” said Nadège Aoki, a doctoral candidate at WHOI and first author on the paper. “You can go to a reef that is degraded in some way and add in the sounds of biological activity from a healthy reef, potentially helping this really important step in the coral life cycle.”
Corals are immobile as adults, so the larval stage is their only opportunity to select a good habitat. They swim or drift with the currents, seeking the right conditions to settle out of the water column and affix themselves to the seabed. Previous research has shown that chemical and light cues can influence that decision, but Aoki and her colleagues demonstrate that the soundscape also plays a major role in where corals settle.
Huge “first-of-its-kind” rewilding project to bring back lost species and create ecotourism paradise in South Africa
I hope this collaboration between a local government and an environmental organization will inspire other similar partnerships. If this succeeds, it will be a wonderful win-win.
From BBC Wildlife Magazine:
Work is underway on a massive “first-of-its-kind” rewilding project to develop South Africa’s Loskop Dam Nature Reserve and adjacent areas into one of the largest protected wildlife reserves in the country, providing refuge for diverse species of threatened wildlife.
Located 110 miles east of Pretoria in north-east South Africa, Loskop Dam Nature Reserve is home to at least 30 endangered species, including southern white rhino, Temminck’s pangolin and Sable antelope, and unique plants, such as the critically endangered Middelburg Cycad. The reserve is rich in cultural heritage, too, with over 50 sites that are important to local communities, including ancient graves.
An agreement officially began on 1 March 2024 for a strategic partnership between the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MPTA) and international wildlife charity The Aspinall Foundation. The reserve is seen as having huge potential for ecotourism, due to the fact that it’s close to the economic hub of Johannesburg but still undeveloped.
This is the first time one of South Africa’s provincial conservation agencies has collaborated in this way with an international NGO. ✂️
Loskop Dam’s natural balance will be restored though a series of wildlife supplementations (or restocking) and reintroductions, including a planned translocation of critically endangered black rhino and several species of cat, large and small. ✂️
Security will be key. The MPTA and The Aspinall Foundation are now working to improve the protection of the reserve, including providing additional rangers and equipment, anti-poaching activities, and upgrading fences. There are also plans to quadruple the size of the reserve.
Traditional Aboriginal fire practices can help promote plant diversity: Study
From native tribes in the U.S. to Aboriginal tribes in Australia, traditional knowledge of how to use fire to maintain healthy ecosystems is inspiring positive changes in environmental policy around the world.
From Mongabay:
For generations, Aboriginal Martu people in the northwestern deserts of Australia managed their ancestral lands and shaped their landscapes using fire. Burning small, frequent and low-intensity fires in diverse fire patterns, they promoted the growth of an array of species in what is often called “pyrodiversity.”
While research is still mixed on whether pyrodiversity helps promote biodiversity, a recent study found evidence that pyrodiversity practices under active Indigenous stewardship can do so, drawing a reference from findings in Martu communities.
These fire practices, also known as cultural burning, first began as a First Nations practice to improve the health of the land and their people. For more than 60,000 years, communities used it to manage land, plants and animals and also to hunt. ✂️
The majority of arid Martu landscapes are dominated by spinifex (Triodia spp.), a type of grass with a sharp spine that out-competes other plant species in long unburnt areas. In this case, burning plays a crucial role in the ecosystem by reducing the grass to its roots and enhancing the growth of subshrubs, herbs and other edible species such as bush tomatoes (Solanum spp.), Scaevola parvifolia and wollybutt grass (Eragrostis eriopoda) that are significant to Martu communities for their diets, medicine or culture.
“It’s not dead after it’s burnt,” explained Waka Taylor, a Martu elder. “The burnt ground can rejuvenate with all different types of bush foods.”
* * * * *
Good news for and about animals
Brought to you by Rascal and the beautiful spirits of Rosy and Nora.
Newly Discovered Fossil Named For David Attenborough Pushes Back Era of Toothless Birds by 50 Million Years
Rascal thinks it would be fun to have teeth, but he admits he doesn’t really need them, considering how sharp his little hooked beak is.
From Good News Network:
No birds alive today have teeth. But that wasn’t always the case—many early fossil birds had beaks full of sharp, tiny teeth. Now though, in a paper in the journal Cretaceous Research, scientists have described a new species of bird that was the first of its kind to evolve toothless-ness; its name, in honor of naturalist Sir David Attenborough, means “Attenborough’s strange bird.”
“It is a great honor to have one’s name attached to a fossil, particularly one as spectacular and important as this. It seems the history of birds is more complex than we knew,” Sir David Attenborough said on the occasion. ✂️
Imparavis attenboroughi was a member of a group of birds called enantiornithines, or “opposite birds,” named for a feature in their shoulder joints that is “opposite” from what’s seen in modern birds. Enantiornithines were once the most diverse group of birds, but they went extinct 66 million years ago following the meteor impact that killed most of the dinosaurs. Scientists are still working to figure out why the enantiornithines went extinct and the ornithuromorphs, the group that gave rise to modern birds, survived. ✂️
“If you were to go back in time 120 million years in northeastern China and walk around, you might have seen something that looked like a robin or a cardinal, but then it would open its mouth, and it would be filled with teeth, and it would raise its wing, and you would realize that it had little fingers.”
“Scientists previously thought that the first record of toothlessness in this group was about 72 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous. This little guy, Imparavis, pushes that back by about 48 to 50 million years. So toothlessness, or edentulism, evolved much earlier in this group than we thought,” says [Alex] Clark [a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum and the paper’s corresponding author].
How Webster the dog found his home in Oregon’s prison for women
What a good, good boy!
From The Oregonian:
Webster did everything right.
He mastered commands and learned to ignore ear-splitting sounds. He offered quiet company or brought goofball energy, depending on what he sensed the situation demanded. A yellow Labrador retriever, he spent most of his first 18 months at Oregon’s women’s prison in Wilsonville, a service dog in training. His would be a life of noble purpose.
Each year, more than a dozen dogs like Webster pass through Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, where a select group of incarcerated women train and care for them as part of a longstanding program that not only prepares dogs for service but also gives prisoners purpose. The cycle plays out over and over: Puppies enter prison, then leave more than a year later as exceptionally well-mannered dogs ready for the next phase of training.
Yet Webster would not get the chance to gently guide a child’s wheelchair or help someone with their prosthetics. He would not end up alerting a deaf person to the sound of their name being called or interrupt the nightmares of a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Webster washed out of the training program; a diagnosis of elbow dysplasia disqualified him from his vocation. That left Heather Ohmart considering Webster’s next best purpose. As the veteran trainer who runs the service dog program at Coffee Creek, she knew the women there loved him. How could they not? The Lab’s bottomless optimism and chestnut eyes the size of quarters provided comfort even in the bleakest environment. Webster greeted each of them like a friend. He was, in short, a very good boy.
What if Webster returned to Coffee Creek, Ohmart wondered, only this time in a new role? So about a year ago, Webster came back to J Unit, this time as a pet.
Portland’s Bookstore Cats Are on the Prowl
Cats and books just belong together, whether they’re hanging out in a bookstore or library or are curled up in your lap while you’re reading.
From Willamette Week:
...in the bibliophile’s paradise that is Portland, bookstore cats have endured, carrying on a long-standing tradition of felines prowling among dusty shelves that soothe their naturally solitary nature.
For all their inscrutable adorableness, the presence of bookstore cats is rooted in pragmatism. As far back as the 1700s, the ruling classes of Europe drafted cats to protect their treasures, with the concept of a “bookstore cat” taking hold as proprietors adopted them for reasons both aesthetic and practical (including pest control, especially during periods of plague).
Today, bookstore cats are so ubiquitous that many are findable via the app ShopCats, which can be used to locate more than 10,000 felines living in public spaces—including such unlikely spots as the Tigard sex shop Fantasy.
* * * * *