#Sara Chodosh

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is a troubling article by UT Austin economist Dan Spears on predictions that world population growth will peak sometime during the 2060s to 2080s, and then will rapidly decline. We all know on some level that human population growth cannot continue at this pace, but the sudden drop that experts predict in the near future is alarming--as are the predicted consequences of a rapid human population decline.

This is a gift 🎁 link that will enable anyone to read the full article, whether or not they subscribe to The New York Times. Here are some excerpts from this interactive article.

The global human population has been climbing for the past two centuries. But what is normal for all of us alive today—growing up while the world is growing rapidly—may be a blip in human history. Children born today will very likely live to see the end of global population growth.A baby born this year will be 60 in the 2080s, when demographers at the U.N. expect the size of humanity to peak. The Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna places the peak in the 2070s. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington puts it in the 2060s. All of the predictions agree on one thing: We peak soon.

And then we shrink. Humanity will not reach a plateau and then stabilize. It will begin an unprecedented decline. Because most demographers look ahead only to 2100, there is no consensus on exactly how quickly populations will fall after that. Over the past 100 years, the global population quadrupled, from two billion to eight billion. As long as life continues as it has — with people choosing smaller family sizes, as is now common in most of the world — then in the 22nd or 23rd century, our decline could be just as steep as our rise.

The article goes on to say:

[...] What would happen as a consequence [of a rapid decline in human population]? Over the past 200 years, humanity’s population growth has gone hand in hand with profound advances in living standards and health: longer lives, healthier children, better education, shorter workweeks and many more improvements. Our period of progress began recently, bringing the discovery of antibiotics, the invention of electric lightbulbs, video calls with Grandma and the possibility of eradicating Guinea worm disease. In this short period, humanity has been large and growing. Economists who study growth and progress don’t think this is a coincidence. Innovations and discoveries are made by people. In a world with fewer people in it, the loss of so much human potential may threaten humanity’s continued path toward better lives.

I encourage you to read the rest of this article. Whether or not one agrees with Dr. Spears's arguments, they are thought provoking.

[edited]

____________________ Sara Chodosh created the graphics in the article, which were used to create the above gifs.

[fuojbe-beowgi]

"Quiz: You Can’t Say That! (Or Can You?)" by Jessica Bennett, Quoctrung Bui, Sara Chodosh and John McWhorter via NYT Opinion https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/22/opinion/words-you-cant-use-anymore.html?partner=IFTTT

[fumpkins]

Gene-edited animals could help humanity, but they're in 'regulatory limbo'

The capability to exactly modify genes with technology such as CRISPR has actually altered the bounds of possibility for science. That was shown just recently in the case of the as-yet-unconfirmed gene modified CRISPR infants, who each had a particular edit done as embryos (although that edit may be less simple than initially believed.) For the very first time ever, 2 human beings have the prospective to hand down transformed genes to their offspring.

The World Health Company reacted by forming a professional committee to develop a global advisory on gene modifying in human beings, in an effort to reach some sort of agreement on what is and is not alright. But gene modifying has actually currently gone much further, and is moving much quicker, in non-human animals and plants. Exist sweeping global declarations en route other animals should or should not be gene modified? “Not that I’m aware of,” states Larisa Rudenko.

Rudenko, who is now a scholar with MIT’s Center for Emerging Technology, was a senior consultant for biotechnology at the FDA for 15 years and recognizes with both the global and nationwide regulative landscapes surrounding animals.

Non-human animals aren’t controlled under global declarations in the exact same method human beings are, Rudenko states. There are a couple of factors for this. Initially, she states, the existing advisories surrounding animals tend to handle the methods human beings utilize animals for food or experimentation.

Those consist of files like the Codex Alimentarius, a set of global food requirements produced by the UN’s Food and Farming Company (FAO) and WHO. The Codex consists of info on how to evaluate the food security of genetically customized organisms, whether microorganism, plant, or animal.

Under global statutes, animals are likewise controlled by the World Company for Animal Health (OIE), in regards to what illness types like pigs or chickens might establish and pass to human beings. The OIE has no particular declarations on gene modifying, states Rudenko.

There are other, more abstract elements to consider. For example, the animal kingdom is big, and dealing with all types of animals the exact same method wouldn’t make good sense: recommending versus experimentation on a feline or a monkey is qualitatively various from recommending on experimentation on a flatworm.

In addition, various locations in the world see animal rights and suitable animal treatment really in a different way, whereas there is some standard on which nearly everybody can concur in concerns to human experimentation. “We have various norms that we tend to apply to people that don’t always apply to animals,” states Rudenko. “Maybe it would be possible to draw up an international consensus on primates.”

In the meantime, however, gene modifying on animals is controlled in a different way all around the world, states James Murray, a teacher of animal science at the University of California, Davis. The exact same holds true for plants, which scientists have actually had the ability to gene edit for about twenty years, Murray states. On concerns surrounding gene modifying in the food supply, this distinction in guideline “is causing trade disruption on the plant side and will clearly cause disruption on the animal side,” he states. In the United States, modified genes in animals undergo drug guidelines under the FDA; in Europe, the modified animals themselves are greatly controlled as GMO foods.

The stakes here are high, due to the fact that they’re connected to human health: take the example of Murray’s Nubian goats. His group established animals that produce a human protein that assists deal with diarrhea in their milk. These goats, which are in all other aspects typical, could possibly make milk for households in establishing countries, offering them with food while likewise assisting kids with illness that trigger diarrhea. The World Health Company states diarrheal illness is the 2nd leading cause of death around the globe in kids under 5, and the leading reason for poor nutrition. The goats and other transgenic animals are in “regulatory limbo,” as Megan Molteni composed for Undark. But they could possibly help millions. “Harmonization of regulations is something that would benefit everybody,” Murray states.

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New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2019/03/16/gene-edited-animals-could-help-humanity-but-theyre-in-regulatory-limbo/

[venuscomb]

Why We Love Dinosaurs  Boria Sax, Nautilus

The Surprising History (and Future) of Dinosaurs  Chantel Tattoli, Paris Review

How Do We Know What Dinosaurs Looked Like?   Sara Chodosh, Popular Science 

What It’s Like to Dig for Dinosaur Bones   Steve Macone, The Atlantic  

How We Elected T. Rex to Be Our Tyrant Lizard King   Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine

How to Weigh a Dinosaur   Elizabeth Yuko, Lifehacker           

WATCH: How to Build a Dinosaur   Kimberly Mas, Vox      

How to Outrun a Dinosaur   Cody Cassidy, Wired            

This Is What Dinosaur Meat Tasted Like   Hilary Pollack, Vice    

The Day the Dinosaurs Died  Douglas Preston, The New Yorker                      

What If the Asteroid Never Killed the Dinosaurs? Daniel Kolitz, Gizmodo

How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds Emily Singer, Quanta Magazine

On America’s Wild West of Dinosaur Fossil Hunting Lukas Rieppel, Literary Hub        

To Date a Dinosaur Laura Poppick, Knowable Magazine    

‘The Nation’s T. rex’: How a Montana Family’s Hike Led to an Incredible Discovery Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post      

Why Does the U.S. Army Own So Many Fossils? Sabrina Imbler, Atlas Obscura            

How Jurassic Park Changed the Way Movies Looked at Dinosaurs Keith Phipps, Vulture       

The Real Science of Bringing Back the Dinosaurs Matt Blitz, Popular Mechanics          

The Best Places to Visit for Dinosaur Lovers of Any Age Julie Vick, Afar                    

The Best Books on Dinosaurs Recommended by Paul Barrett, Five Books                                                                                                                   

[leanpick]

Opinion | Ukraine’s Refugees Are Fleeing Brutality. Let Them In.

Opinion | Ukraine’s Refugees Are Fleeing Brutality. Let Them In.

To the Editor: Re “A Historic Exodus From Ukraine,” by Sara Chodosh, Zach Levitt and Gus Wezerek (Opinion, March 17): As we follow the war in Ukraine, we are horrified by the devastation we see and inspired by the courage of the Ukrainian people. As a nation, we are providing substantial foreign aid and military supplies to Ukraine. As individuals, we are supporting organizations that provide…

[nytcorrection]

"How to Think About Ukraine, in Maps and Charts" by Sara Chodosh, Nathaniel Lash, Zach Levitt, Yaryna Serkez and Gus Wezerek via NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/VYo3BH6

[javierpenadea]

"Millennials Confront High Inflation for the First Time" by BY JEANNA SMIALEK, SARA CHODOSH AND BEN CASSELMAN via NYT Business https://ift.tt/3rgGfsh

[volk-morya]

Excerpt:

Mucus seems like a great way to keep someone from chomping down on you. If your predator's breathing apparatus is suddenly clogged with slime, they're liable to stop worrying about dinner and start finding ways to clear the gunk from their gills. But there’s something of a timeline issue with this theory, as hagfish only secrete their goo after they’ve been attacked. It does help them escape, but they have to survive a shark bite first.

It turns out their skin is the key to escaping that first round unscathed. To figure this out, biologists at several universities collaborated to make a shark-tooth guillotine, the details of which they published alongside their results in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Not many animals will even try to attack a hagfish, and mako sharks are some of the proud few, so the researchers gathered mako teeth and glued them to the edge of a metal plate. This plate could be pulled back into the top of the guillotine, compressing a spring as it went, such that it shot down when released. Your bog-standard dropping guillotine wasn’t going to provide enough force to mimic a real shark attack, but the spring-loaded mechanism did the trick.

Once they had assembled their death machine, the biologists got a bunch of Pacific and Atlantic hagfish. And since a live hagfish would never consent to sitting still under a teeth-laden guillotine, they were euthanized first. Sorry, hagfish lovers. When the hagfish were unaltered, the shark teeth punctured skin almost every time—but the muscle underneath didn’t get damaged even once. So it seemed like hagfish skin, once thought to be bite-resistant, wasn’t especially tough after all. But skin is much easier to heal than muscle, you can’t expect to come out of an encounter with a shark totally unscathed.

Read more here.

Written by Sara Chodosh

[fumpkins]

What is a super blood wolf moon?

This post has actually been upgraded, since you still appreciate the moons.

Blue moons, strawberry moons, supermoons. For some factor your news aggregation algorithm of option believes you actually actually actually need to know everything about these moons. “Catch This Weekend’s AMAZING SUPERMOON,” one heading (or, like, 500 of them) will reveal. “The Supermoon Isn’t Actually A Big Deal And You’re All Ruining Astronomy,” another will grouse.

The current example is the super blood wolf moon eclipse, which seems like the name of an emo tune I would have carried out a contemporary dance regimen to in 9th grade, however is, in reality, a huge occasion set to take place on January20 As we’ll discuss below, there is absolutely nothing really magical or hardcore or otherwise unique about this moon, and it will not look like a bloody wolf head in the sky or anything wild like that. We get these super- duper-lunar occasions by smashing together all the qualifiers we have actually traditionally utilized to monitor moons throughout the year, and in the age of the web we can go a little overboard.

Consider this your go-to resource for all moon-gazing news. Here’s what you require to understand about the most recent lunar occasion.

Routine Ol’ Moon

Appearance, it’s fine if you do not understand. There are most likely loads of folks who walk pretending they completely understand why that thing in the sky appears to grow and smaller sized at routine periods who completely do not

The moon orbits Earth, and it’s tidally locked– that implies it constantly reveals us the exact same face, rather of twirling around like our world does. That’s why you can constantly see the male on the moon (or the moon bunny, depending upon your cultural choices) even as it spins around us. However while the moon is huge and brilliant in the sky when it’s complete, that’s just since it’s showing light from the sun. However the moon is constantly moving, so it’s getting struck with sunshine at various angles. It’s unnoticeable to us throughout the “new moon,” since our satellite is parked best in between us and the sun; the so-called dark side of the moon is illuminated like a Vegas, however the side we can see is in shadow. A moon takes place when the earth is right in between the sun and the moon, so sunshine strikes the part we can see. And all the other stages are simply the shift from among those extremes to the other.

Super Moon

The moon isn’t constantly precisely the exact same range from Earth, since its orbit isn’t completely circular. We call the closest point perigee, and the most remote point is apogee. 2018’s closest perigee and most remote apogee both took place in January, and the distinction had to do with 30,000 miles.

The factor you appreciate this middling modification in range is that it turns a moonsuper When a moon takes place near perigee, it’s going to look a smidge larger. Perhaps. If you’re fortunate. Truthfully, the distinction is not that extensive, however if you remain in a position to picture the supermoon beside something that reveals the small boost in scale, it can look quite cool. January’s super blood wolf moon eclipse is super since the date lines up with the closest the moon will get to us throughout January, however the moon will not in fact be at its closest for the year up until February’s supermoon, which you can anticipate lots of excessive excitement over.

Micro Moon

See above; it’s the reverse of the super one. Size isn’t whatever.

Blood Moon

Objectively the most metal moon, these just take place throughout overall lunar eclipses (which can take place a couple of times a year in any provided area). When the moon slips through our shadow, we provide it a reddish tint. The moon can likewise look orange whenever it’s increasing or setting, or if it hangs low in the horizon all night– the light bouncing off of it needs to take a trip through thicker environment there, which spreads more blue light away. However you’ll most likely just see that deep, ominous red throughout an eclipse.

A great deal of headings about moons are simply ridiculous (you do not require to be especially thrilled about a blue moon, it simply appears like a routine ol’ moon), however you must absolutely present of bed to take a look at a blood moon if one is going to show up in your area. However anybody who stuffs both “blood” and “eclipse” into their name for a moon is simply attempting to win the seo video game; a blood moon is simply a lunar eclipse that’s going through a stage and attempting to get all their buddies to call them by a cool label they comprised. Ryan F. Mandelbaum at Gizmodo makes the case that we must actually simply stop tossing the expression “blood moon” around and call them lunar eclipses, which is difficult however reasonable, since they’re lunar eclipses and not proof of bloody fights in between the sky gods.

Blue Moon

In March of 2018, we had our 2nd “blue moon” of the year, to much recognition. And while that’s not always unique in an oh-gosh-get-out-and-look-at-it kinda method, it’s definitely unique: a blue moon is a label for when 2 moons fall in the exact same calendar month, and we had not formerly had 2 in one year considering that1999 We will not have it take place once again up until2037 Astronomer David Chapman described for EarthSky that this is simply a peculiarity of our calendar; when we stopped doing things based upon the moon and began attempting to follow the sun and the seasons, we stopped having one dependable moon each month. The moon cycle is 29.53 days long usually, so on most months we still wind up with a single brand-new moon and a single complete one. However every when in a while, things sync up so that one month takes a moon from another. In 2018 (and in 1999, and once again in 2037) both January and March stacked moons on the very first and last nights of the month, leaving February in the dark.

Getting 2 blue moons a year is unusual, however we have private blue moons every couple of years. Likewise, enjoyable reality: not in fact blue. A moon can undoubtedly handle a moody blue shade, however this just takes place when particles of simply the best size distribute through the sky– and it has absolutely nothing to do with the moon’s status as “blue.” Huge clouds of ash from volcanic eruptions or fires can do the technique, however it does not take place typically, and the stars would definitely need to line up for 2 such unusual circumstances to take place simultaneously.

Paschal Moon

You might have heard that the super unique 2nd blue moon of 2018 was likewise a Paschal moon. This is real! That simply implies it was the very first moon of spring, which is typically utilized to identify the date of Easter Sunday. All of this is simply calendar rubbish and we decline to enter into it even more.

Snow Moons, Worm Moons, Strawberry Moons …

Often you’ll see a heading that assures a moon with a lot of qualifiers it makes your head spin. A superblueblood worm moon, mayhaps? Or a super blood wolf moon? Great deals of sites will inform you that “wolf moon” is the conventional name of the very first moon of the year in “Native American” cultures, which is sort of a odd thing to declare considered that there are 573 signed up Tribal Nations in the U.S. alone today, not to point out traditionally. The concept that starving, howling wolves were such a universal consistent in January that all of The United States and Canada with its diverse cultures, locations, and languages spontaneously created the exact same label is– well, it’s dumb. It’s a dumb concept.

Lots of cultures have conventional names for the moon in a provided month or season, so there’s rather a list to draw from if you’re attempting to actually plump up a story on a slightly-bigger-than-average view of the moon. However these are all based upon human calendars and activities and folklore; you will not go outdoors and see a pink moon in April, though I want it were so.

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New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2018/12/29/what-is-a-super-blood-wolf-moon/

[ourrandomremediesthings]

Was genuinely curious as to why I have so much fat in my neck because it seemed a weird place to have it, so I was struggling to accept it as cute like the rest of me

Thank you Sara Chodosh for being the only one who actually explained fat deposits (including for men and trans) and a reminder to love you for you, in the midst of a long list of links of Fat Bad - Cosmic Surgery Good

https://www.popsci.com/why-fat-goes-to-my-whatever/ (The link)

[koliasa]

A guide to the solar system’s biggest secrets

https://tinyurl.com/yb2jhvkw A guide to the solar system’s biggest secrets - https://tinyurl.com/yb2jhvkw What comes after Pluto? (Sara Chodosh/) Astronomers have spent centuries filling in their sketches of our corner ...

[sanjeevarao]

A guide to the solar system’s biggest secrets

A guide to the solar system’s biggest secrets

What comes after Pluto? (Sara Chodosh/) Astronomers have spent centuries filling in their sketches of our corner of the Milky Way. But these charts, like all maps, are only approximations of reality. Their blind spots likely harbor some unknown entities—bodies too small, too close to the sun, or too far away for us to see. Here are some celestial objects that stargazers have suspected of dodging…

[xtruss]

Animals: Which Animal is the Most Powerful? Strength, in Numbers.

— By Sara Chodosh | January 1, 2018 | Popular Science

In a battle royale for Most Powerful Animal, a red kangaroo might take the martial-arts belt, thanks to a bone-shattering kick that delivers 759 pounds of force. ­Evolution has nudged wild creatures to hone their blows, bites, and brute strength for ­survival. For ­humans to even measure up, we must methodically shape our bodies with ­specialized ­practice and diet. But what if you pit all of us brutes against each other? That's just what we did, ­creating the following four competitions to find out who puts the "king" in animal kingdom.

A quick investigation to find the king in the animal kingdom. Sean McCabe

80

Degrees a Tasmanian devil can open its jaws to chomp carrion snacks or rivals' faces. This gives its bite a force 3.6 times its weight.

150,000

Muscle units in an Asian elephant's trunk. Its nose has the strength and flexibility to store and spray a gallon of water—or uproot a tree.

15

Duration, in milliseconds, of an African secretary bird's cobra-killing kick. In sub-Saharan regions, these predators help control reptile populations.

Punches and kicks. Sean McCabe

In the ring, a taekwondo master with a black belt—and a 136-mile-per-hour kick that hits opponents with 2,300 pounds of force—could go toe to paw with a kangaroo. But the average human gym rat, who lacks the training to focus his kick, would be McGregored in round one.

In 2016, English strongman Eddie Hall set the current world record for a dead lift by hoisting 1,102.3 pounds, more than the weight of a concert grand piano. Asian elephants, by comparison, can shift 770 pounds with their trunks alone. Not bad, humans.

If the saltwater crocodile’s horrific bite doesn’t snap a wild boar’s spinal cord, its underwater death spin will surely take it down. With a literal ton of brute force in its jaw, a croc easily out-crunches its closest competitor, the tiger, with a bite six times as strong.

Strength-to-weight ratio. Sean McCabe

Because big animals weigh more, they're relatively weak for their size. So tiny critters carry this category: A mantis shrimp's punch delivers more than 3,000 times its weight, and a mite shorter than a tenth of an inch can bench-press nearly 1,200 of its fellows.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2018 Power issue of Popular Science.

[nytcorrection]

"How to Think About Ukraine, in Maps and Charts" by Sara Chodosh, Nathaniel Lash, Zach Levitt, Yaryna Serkez and Gus Wezerek via NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/VYo3BH6

[workmoneyfun]

What Hand Sanitizer Can — And Can't — Kill, Visualized - Digg | Data visualizer Sara Chodosh from Popular Science created this useful chart which shows which tiny microbes that hand sanitizer is effective against.... https://digg.com/2020/what-hand-sanitizer-can-kill-visualized