If extreme temperatures continue, the southern yellow-billed hornbill will become extinct in the hottest parts of its range by 2027
Source: Goodbye Zazu: Climate Change Will Roast Desert Birds Into Extinction In Just Five Years
Golfing Cockatoos
A really interesting and fun to read article from GrrlScientist.
A new study finds that problem-solving cockatoos can combine simple tools to accomplish a task, which is a thing that only a very few primates were previously known to perform
Source: Golfing Cockatoos Demonstrate Their Ace Tool Using Skills To Play Golf
Better Headline
This would be my choice for the headline:
71% of Unvaccinated Have No Critical Thinking Skills
Source: Poll: 71% of unvaccinated say booster doses mean vaccines aren’t working | Ars Technica
USA, World Leader in Capitalism, Racism, and Stupidity
The COVID-19 pandemic — you know, the one right-wingers tried to claim didn’t exist, was nothing worse than the flu, and could be treated with horse paste — caused the largest drop in American life expectancy since WWII.
Go read the rest to understand my post title: Really, world, I can’t afford much of a drop in life expectancy
Lipstick on a Frog
ACIP voting member Helen “Keipp” Talbot, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, spoke of hospitals crammed with unvaccinated patients sick with COVID-19. “In all honesty, we could give boosters to people, but that’s not really the answer to this pandemic,” Dr. Talbott said. “I feel like we’re putting lipstick on frogs. This is not going to solve the pandemic.”
Source: CDC advisors OK boosters for 65+, those with health risks—not occupational risks | Ars Technica
We Lost the Race :-(
Earlier in the year I wrote about the fact that we were essentially in a race between achieving herd immunity through vaccination and the appearance of more infectious variants. Well – we lost the race. That is to say, anti-vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant lost the race for all of us. There is no way to sugar-coat this. We had a window of opportunity, and now the window is closed, and it is entirely due to people who refused, against all evidence, to get vaccinated. The delta variant is now surging, vaccine efficacy is waning, and children are now being affected in greater numbers.
First the anti-vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant brought back measles and increased infant suffering and death from pertussis. Now they have very likely guaranteed that there will be suffering and death from Covid-19 variants for decades to come.
Source: Masks Work | NeuroLogica Blog
DDT Problems In Humans
Enough time has finally elapsed that we can now measure the long term health impacts of DDT. We banned most uses of DDT after decades of ordinary people overusing DDT. A woman I worked with in the 80’s once bemoaned the banning of DDT because by spreading lots of it around her garden she kept the ants off her tomatoes. She did this because in the 50’s & 60’s industry insisted that DDT was completely safe for humans and other mammals. At the time of the banning in the early 70’s we were only seeing the early affects of our overuse in the population declines of birds, raptors in particular. Now that enough time has passed:
Scientists found health effects in grandchildren of women exposed to the pesticide
Source: Consequences of DDT Exposure Could Last Generations – Scientific American
About the Lab Leak Hypothesis
UPDATE June 10th 2021, as I find new articles they’re included in the list below.
Science reporting has always been atrocious. The facts and basics of how science works are more often wrong than right as presented in the media. Reporting on the origins of Covid-19 is no different. Two of the biggest errors that journalists keep making during the pandemic are, confusing possibility with probability, and giving too much weight to hypothesis from non-experts like Nicholas Wade.
Here’s a few of articles from actual scientists which include lots of information from other scientists who have even more actual subject matter expertise.
Source: Sandwalk: Real scientists discuss the lab leak conspiracy theory
Source: The Origins of SARS-CoV-2 | Science-Based Medicine
Source: The origin of SARS-CoV-2, revisited | Science-Based Medicine
Source: Sandwalk: Let’s analyze the Newsweek lab leak conspiracy theory article
Source: The COVID Lab-Leak Hypothesis: What Scientists Do and Do Not know – Scientific American
The Threat of Conspiracy
Dr. Novella has a very good piece up about conspiracy theory thinking.
Source: The Threat of Conspiracy Thinking to SBM – Science-Based Medicine
Honey Bees, Cows, Pigs & Chickens
What do they have in common, they’re all domesticated livestock in North America. This means that other than being great for producing food for humans, they generally harm the environment.
Source: The Problem with Honey Bees – Scientific American
Our native pollinators are what we should be working to conserve as they sustain healthy ecosystems.
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