May 11, 2016

The Best Of Times

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 11TH- MARLEY

This Day In History: May 11, 1981

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Marley

Bob Marley was the first “third-world” global superstar and the artist responsible for bringing reggae to mainstream audiences. Marley’s unforgettable music alone would have earned him a place in music history, but his status as a moral and religious compass to countless admirers and followers set him above many other such celebrities.

Robert Nesta Marley was born on Feb. 6, 1945 in Nine Mile, Saint Ann, Jamaica. His mother, Cedelia Booker, was an 18-year-old Jamaican girl and his father, the non-present Norval Sinclair Marley, was a much older white English sea captain. Bob and his mother moved to the tough Trenchtown area of Kingstown when he was ten years old. …

Kobb is revolutionizing canned corn delivery technology. Click to see how @HPE is helping. https://t.co/010RHnSuYj pic.twitter.com/qXqSj1XPEk

— Onion Labs (@OnionLabs) May 11, 2016

Bernie Sanders Keeps Winning Primaries and Keeps Shaping the Anti-Trump Agenda

^{The senator is still in the running, still arguing that Democrats must adopt a boldly progressive economic message.}

For the second Tuesday in a row, Bernie Sanders has won a Democratic primary in a state that Hillary Clinton won in the party’s 2008 nomination race. Last week he took Indiana from Clinton. This week he has taken West Virginia.

The Sanders win in West Virginia was a big one. The senator secured 51 percent of the vote to 36 percent for the former secretary of state. He carried every county in the state—taking several with over 60 percent of the vote.

Sanders has now won 20 Democratic contests and 1,430 delegates.

The senator is still trailing Clinton, who has prevailed in 26 contests and secured more than 1,716 delegates. Even as she was losing West Virginia, Clinton picked up 11 pledged delegates. And with unelected superdelegates counted in, Clinton is over the 2,200 mark in a race where 2,384 delegate votes are needed to win the nomination.

Yet, with another primary state counted in his column, Sanders continues to upend the argument that Democratic race is done. …

The Americans Trump Betrayed by Courting Big-Money Donors

^{The billionaire won many of his supporters by promising to self-fund. Now he has hired a former hedge-fund manager with ties to George Soros and Goldman Sachs to fundraise for him.}

Last autumn, Scott McLellan, a retiree in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, saw a Facebook post by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, who declared, “By self-funding my campaign, I am not controlled by my donors, special interests or lobbyists. I am only working for the people of the U.S.!”

More than 300,000 people “liked” the post.

Trump’s pledge certainly stirred something in McClellan, who responded with a comment. Other politicians solicit money from special interests and lobbyists and are then controlled by them, he wrote, putting the country in “dire straits.” Whereas Trump would only take small contributions from regular Americans. “I sent $25 even though I am retired and on a fixed income with a strict budget,” he explained. “I am gladly and proudly sending him $25 each month until he is POTUS!!”

This week, Trump betrayed McClellan. …

10 Gruesome Cruise Ship Deaths

Cruises promise fun and exotic vacations, shining sands and glorious cities, five-star dining and fun-filled destinations, the lure of the seas and sun, and the ultimate in once-in-a-lifetime experiences. They usually deliver on those promises, but sometimes, things go horribly awry and a cruise ship becomes a death ship.

10. The Date Rape Drug Death Of Dianne Brimble

On September 23, 2002, the P&O Pacific Sky departed Sydney, Australia. Dianne Brimble and her daughter, Tahlia, boarded the ship along with Dianne’s sister, Alma Wood, and Wood’s daughter, Kari Ann.

Later that evening, Dianne left to go to the nightclub. Alma realized that Dianne had not returned to their cabin the following morning. Alma was later called to the ship’s medical center, where she was told that Dianne had passed away. Her naked body had been found on the floor of a cabin that was occupied by four unknown men. …

World’s carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return

^{Future in which global concentration of CO2 is permanently above 400 parts per million looms}

The world is hurtling towards an era when global concentrations of carbon dioxide never again dip below the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone, as two important measuring stations sit on the point of no return.

The news comes as one important atmospheric measuring station at Cape Grim in Australia is poised on the verge of 400ppm for the first time. Sitting in a region with stable CO2 concentrations, once that happens, it will never get a reading below 400ppm.

Meanwhile another station in the northern hemisphere may have gone above the 400ppm line for the last time, never to dip below it again. …

Ancient Space Dust Hints at a Mysterious Period in Earth’s Early History

^{And it could make the search for life on other planets much more difficult.}

^{Villarrica volcano in Chile}

Geologists tell a pretty broad-brush narrative of Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history. For its first half-billion years, the newly formed planet was a seething ball of lava constantly pelted by giant space rocks, including a Mars-sized object that sheared off a chunk that became the moon. Things calmed down when the Late Heavy Bombardment tapered off some 3.8 billion years ago, but volcanoes ensured Earth’s atmosphere remained a toxic stew of gases with almost no oxygen to speak of. It stayed that way for another billion years, when single-celled bacteria filled the oceans. Around 2.5 billion years ago, at the end of the Archean era, algae figured out how to make energy from sunlight, and the Great Oxygenation Event gave Earth its lungs. Complex life took its time, finally exploding in the Cambrian era some 500 million years ago. Evolution moved a lot faster after that, resulting in dinosaurs, then mammals, then us.

It’s a great story, and scientists have been telling it for decades, but tiny fossilized space pebbles from Australia may upend it entirely, giving us a new narrative about Earth’s adolescence. These pebbles rained down on our planet’s surface 2.7 billion years ago. As they passed through the upper atmosphere, they melted and rusted, making new crystal shapes and minerals that only form where there is plenty of oxygen. A new paper describing the space pebbles will be published today in the journal Nature. It suggests the atmosphere’s upper reaches were surprisingly rich in oxygen during the Archean, when Earth’s surface had practically none. …

10 Haunted Asylums With Extremely Dark Pasts

No asylum or mental institution is a happy place by any stretch of the imagination. The fact of the matter is that when mental institutions, and the accepted approach to mental health, were in their infancy, many patients were mistreated and even died.

To say that these buildings have witnessed much suffering would be a huge understatement. If suffering and death can lead to a place becoming haunted, you’d think that mental institutions would be prime candidates. Here are 10 asylums and mental institutions where exactly that sort of activity is said to have occurred.

10. Waverly Hills Sanatorium ~ Kentucky

Widely regarded as one of the most haunted places on Earth, Waverley Hills Sanatorium is said to be home to a mysterious woman in chains, who can be seen running from the now abandoned building, a boy called Timmy who is obsessed with playing ball, a girl with no eyes called Mary, and the notorious Room 502, where the door slams shut if you dare to step inside its four walls.

uilt in 1910 in Jefferson County, Kentucky, Waverley Hills Sanatorium was in part a response to the TB pandemic that had swept through much of the United States since the start of the century. The asylum was instantly swamped with sick patients and had to be expanded almost immediately upon completion. The mortality rate was exceptionally high for TB, with the vast majority of those diagnosed dying from the illness. Those who succumbed to the disease would make their final journey out of the building through the “Death Tunnel,” a 150-meter (500 ft) chute that was used to lower bodies from the hospital to the bottom of the hill upon which it sat. …

Dehydration: Risks and Myths

Truth to tell, sometimes I don’t follow my own advice, and when I suffer the consequences, I rediscover why I offer it. I’ve long recommended drinking plenty of water, perhaps a glass with every meal and another glass or two between meals. If not plain water, which is best, then coffee or tea without sugar (but not alcoholic or sugary drinks) will do.

I dined out recently after an especially active day that included about five miles of walking, 40 minutes of lap swimming and a 90-minute museum visit. I drank only half a glass of water and no other beverage with my meal.

It did seem odd that I had no need to use the facilities afterward, not even after a long trip home. But I didn’t focus on why until the next day when, after a fitful night, I awoke exhausted, did another long walk and swim, and cycled to an appointment four miles away. I arrived parched, begging for water. After downing about 12 ounces, I was a new person. I no longer felt like a lead balloon.

It seems mild dehydration was my problem, and the experience prompted me to take a closer look at the body’s need for water under a variety of circumstances. …

Study Reveals How Popular Heartburn Drug May Harm Arteries

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which reduce acid produced in the stomach, are a popular over-the-counter heartburn medication. They have been recently found to speed up the aging of blood vessel cells in laboratory tests, raising potential heart health issues.

The accelerated aging of blood vessel cells exposed to antacid esomeprazole (brand name Nexium) could hinder these cells from optimally preventing blood from sticking and protecting against stroke and heart disease, according to findings from researchers at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.

Long-term exposure to PPIs, too, had been linked to impaired acid production of lysosomes – the part of the cell typically clearing waste – in endothelial cells, with the resulting waste buildup causing rapid cell aging. This effect was not seen in H2 blockers, another kind of antacid. …

FORGOTTEN HISTORY: THE STORY OF EMMA SHARP AND THE BARCLAY CHALLENGE

In 1809, Captain Robert Barclay Allardice made a bet with one of his pedestrian rivals, Sir James Webster-Wedderburn, that he could walk 1,000 miles (about 1,609 kilometers) in 1,000 hours. The wager? 1,000 guineas. To get around the major problem of needing to rest, Barclay figured if he walked back to back miles–a mile at the end of one hour and another at the beginning of the next–and repeated this strategy throughout the race, he would be able to rest in approximately 90 minute intervals throughout the near 42 day long race.

It worked. He completed the walk on July 12, 1809, 42 days after it commenced. The 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours walking feat became widely known as the “Barclay Match”. …

The Challenge of Genderless Characters

^{What a 30-year-old novel reveals about hidden biases}

^{The cover art for Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel Sphinx}

In Maggie Nelson’s bestselling 2015 novel The Argonauts, she describes her partner as “neither male nor female” but “a special—two for one.” That characterization comes to mind when reading the dedication of Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel Sphinx, which states, simply, “To the third.”

Sphinx is the fragmented retelling, “ten or maybe thirteen” years after the fact, of a romance between two characters whose genders are never revealed. It was recently translated into English for the first time by Emma Ramadan. In the book, as in Nelson’s work, gender is both central to the text and completely besides the point. The narrator, je (as Ramadan writes), is a disillusioned theology student who leaves academia for the vibrant Parisian night scene. Thrust by tragic circumstance into the DJ booth of a club called Apocryphe, je discovers both a knack for mixing music and a new hobby in “the contemplation of bodies.” …

Queen caught on camera saying Chinese officials were ‘very rude’

^{Chinese foreign ministry spokesman refuses to say whether ‘golden era’ still goes on after Queen’s criticism of Beijing officials}

The “golden era” of UK-China relations appears to have lost some of its glitter after the Queen accused Chinese officials of being “very rude” to the British ambassador during President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to Britain last year.

During a garden party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, a pool cameraman working on behalf of British broadcasters filmed her discussing Xi’s trip with Metropolitan police commander Lucy D’Orsi.

When D’Orsi was introduced as the officer responsible for security during the visit, the Queen was heard to remark: “Oh, bad luck.”

Later, the Queen told her guest: “They were very rude to the ambassador” – referring to Barbara Woodward, Britain’s first female ambassador to China. …

5 Things You Learn At A Hospital In An Active Warzone

War, huh. What is it good for?

Fucking people up, for one. It’s super good at that. And where there are war zones, there are hospitals full of hardworking people putting those victims back together. What you may not have realized is that medicine often doesn’t discriminate — these guys will stitch together comrades, enemies, and civilians all in the same shift. That right there can make for some awkward goddamned moments.

We talked to “Jim,” a mental health specialist, and “Sara”, a medic in Camp Bucca Iraq. We also spoke with “Bill,” a nurse in Afghanistan. They said …

#5. It’s Their Job To Make The Enemy Feel Better

Ronald Bucca was a New York City Fire Department marshal who died on 9/11, after running into one of the towers and climbing all the way up to the blazing impact site on the 78th floor. For some reason, the military decided to honor his memory by naming a prison camp in Iraq after him. Tens of thousands of insurgents and suspected insurgents, including the current leader of ISIS and most of his top men, spent time at Camp Bucca.

^{Like the state pen and prison gangs, but on an international scale.}

Jimothy McFakename (Note: Not his real name) was a mental health specialist at Camp Bucca: He took 19 weeks of specialized training to be able to help council his fellow soldiers … and also, any insurgents the U.S. military captured. Yes, a big part of Jim’s job was providing therapy to the enemy. So it’s theoretically possible, albeit unlikely, that Jim was at one point the official government-mandated shoulder-to-cry-on for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

So, what kind of patients did Jim deal with on a day-to-day basis? …

The Code Switch Podcast Is Coming! Get A Sneak Peek!

You’ve been asking for it. We’ve been cranking on it. And now, it’s happening: the Code Switch podcast!

Check out the trailer and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss the first episode later this month!

So, what’s this podcast all about? Everything you come to Code Switch for: deeply reported, urgent, hard-to-pin-down stories about race and culture. Conversations about the messy ways our identities crash into everything else in our lives, whether we realize it or not.

What it’s like to be a black professor teaching white students about whiteness? What’s up with people of color and (not) camping? Are there rules for profiting off another culture’s food? Those are a few of the questions we’re tackling right out of the gate, and we’d love to hear from you on what else to dig into. Hit us up: @NPRCodeSwitch. …

Don’t call it mezcal: Mexico may force artisanal producers to use a new name

^{As the smoky liquor becomes mainstream, small mezcaleros are decrying new rules that would prohibit them from calling it by its 300-year-old name}

^{Mom-and-pop mezcal makers are accusing regulators of trying to industrialize and standardize an artisanal activity, along with appropriating the name.}

Miguel Ángel Partida pours an early morning slug of mezcal into a hollowed-out bull’s horn, and watches bubbles form around the rim. From the way they rise, he estimates his homemade liquor has 50% alcohol.

“If it doesn’t do this, it’s not mezcal. It’s another alcoholic beverage,” he says at his home in Mexico’s western Jalisco state.

Partida and his family have made mezcal for five generations, enduring the Mexican revolution, the Cristero rebellion and various attempts by governments – and the tequila industry – to rein in renegade mezcaleros. They even survived losing the legal right to use the name “mezcal” and are obliged to sell theirs as “agavate distillates”.

But new rules will now require them to label their liquor something completely foreign: “Komil”.

The word, from the indigenous Nahuatl language, means “an intoxicating drink” – but few mezcaleros had even heard of it until late last year, when Mexico’s finance ministry released new regulations governing denomination of origin (DO). …

10 Crazy Hypotheses To Explain Odd Astronomical Observations

The universe is full of mysteries, and the explanations are often crazier than the observations. While it sometimes might seem like the solutions are pulled out of a hat, the hypotheses and theories are always backed by cold, hard science.

10. Early Dark Matter Was A Party Animal

Dark matter remains annoyingly mysterious due to its refusal to interact with fellow particles and forces. Now, a new idea formulated by a team of 18 scientists explains the mysterious substance’s bashful nature. They propose that dark matter wasn’t always a cosmic recluse. In the universe’s younger, scalding plasma phase, dark matter commingled with normal matter fabulously thanks to the surrounding frenzy, which spurred it on. But as the universe cooled, dark matter settled down and lost its ability to influence electromagnetic forces.

Dark matter’s Jekyll and Hyde act is due to the play of quarks, the elementary particles that stack together to form the always useful hadrons, such as neutrons and protons. At low temperatures, quarks coagulate into the aforementioned larger units, but at the wildest temperatures, they may interact indiscriminately with other particles. Interestingly, the fact that ordinary and dark matter congregations are so similar in size suggests that some sort of equilibrium was struck between the two early on. …

Godless Universe: A Physicist Searches for Meaning in Nature

^{The natural world is the only world, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll argues in a new book}

It is time to face reality, California Institute of Technology theoretical physicist Sean Carroll says: There is just no such thing as God, or ghosts, or human souls that reside outside of the body. Everything in existence belongs to the natural world and is accessible to science, he argues. In his new book “The Big Picture: On the Origin of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself,” out this week from Dutton, Carroll describes a guiding philosophy along these lines that he calls poetic naturalism. It excludes a supernatural or spiritual realm but still allows plenty of room for life to have a purpose.

“I think we can bring ideas like meaning and morality into our discussions of the natural world,” Carroll says. “The ways that we talk about the universe are what make it meaningful.” He eloquently argues that point in his far-ranging book, which takes on the origins of consciousness, the likeliness of God based on a rigorous application of Bayesian probability statistics, and many other “big” questions that scientists are often loath to tackle.

Scientific American spoke with Carroll about his philosophy and how we can all take a closer look at just what we truly, deeply believe. …

Meet The Tiny Critters Thriving In Your Carpet, Kitchen And Bed

With the weather warming, it’s the season for spring cleaning. But before you reach for the broom and mop, consider who else is sharing your home. The variety of uninvited guests in your dustpan may surprise you.

A recent study published in the journal PeerJ took up the challenge of cataloging the large numbers of tiny animals — arthropods — that live in modern human dwellings. In 50 houses in and around Raleigh, N. C., the research team found about a hundred different species of arthropods in each home. The tally included familiar types — like flies, spiders and ants — but also some species that are less well known, such as gall wasps and book lice. …

Windows Continuum: What happened when I used a Windows 10 phone as my PC

^{One week, one Windows phone, and a few peripherals. Why did I sign up for this again?}

I’m sitting at my desk on a Monday afternoon, ready to smash something. I’ve spent the past four hours trying to finish a task that usually takes less than half that time. But this isn’t a typical day. It’s the first day in a week where I vowed to work exclusively in Windows 10 Mobile’s desktop Continuum mode via my Lumia 950 instead of on my proper PC. Goodbye AAA games, traditional desktop applications, and easy multi-tasking. Hello, mobile software and a struggling app ecosystem. Why did I sign up for this again?

Because Continuum offers an interesting premise: Instead of toting around a laptop, just plug a phone into an external mouse, keyboard, and monitor to switch to a desktop-like experience.

Imagine being able to leave the laptop at home, and just grab your phone and a few cords. Then, when you’re out and about, scrounge up your peripherals and boom! Instant desktop replacement.

I’m not the only one thinking this way. …

DOCTORS AREN’T BOUND BY THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH

Myth: Doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath.

A binding agreement, as much a social contract as Social Security or Medicare, the traditional Hippocratic Oath holds those who swear to it to a strict code of professional and personal conduct. Contrary to popular belief, though, most doctors never take this oath, and, actually, most of us are probably glad they never do.

Original Hippocratic Oath

Although scholars disagree about when it was written, or even who wrote it, the general consensus is that the Hippocratic Oath was penned about 2500 years ago. Most commonly attributed to Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, the ancient vow demands a lot from doctors, including a certain level of chastity, charity and swearing to pagan gods. …