In case you were looking for something new to worry about today, this article in Wired says common sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea have become increasingly antibiotic resistant, and public funding for their treatment is at an all-time low.
Category Archives: Web Article Review
Fourth National Climate Assessment
Another week, another massive and massively depressing climate report. This one is the Fourth National Climate Assessment from basically all U.S. government agencies that have anything to do with climate science. A lot of it seems to have to do with the impacts of severe storms, droughts, and fires, which are already being felt and costing lives and money. I focused in on this paragraph from the executive summary about impacts on agriculture, and I’d like to dig more into the chapter on the subject if I can find the time.
Climate change presents numerous challenges to sustaining and enhancing crop productivity, livestock health, and the economic vitality of rural communities. While some regions (such as the Northern Great Plains) may see conditions conducive to expanded or alternative crop productivity over the next few decades, overall, yields from major U.S. crops are expected to decline as a consequence of increases in temperatures and possibly changes in water availability, soil erosion, and disease and pest outbreaks. Increases in temperatures during the growing season in the Midwest are projected to be the largest contributing factor to declines in the productivity of U.S. agriculture. Projected increases in extreme heat conditions are expected to lead to further heat stress for livestock, which can result in large economic losses for producers. Climate change is also expected to lead to large-scale shifts in the availability and prices of many agricultural products across the world, with corresponding impacts on U.S. agricultural producers and the U.S. economy. These changes threaten future gains in commodity crop production and put rural livelihoods at risk. Numerous adaptation strategies are available to cope with adverse impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production. These include altering what is produced, modifying the inputs used for production, adopting new technologies, and adjusting management strategies. However, these strategies have limits under severe climate change impacts and would require sufficient long- and short-term investment in changing practices.
NYT on Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Program
The New York Times has a disturbing article about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program. It is somewhat of an open secret that their nuclear program has been to bankroll Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program over the years. The U.S. and most media outlets that I am aware of have turned a blind eye to that, even as we have been attacked by some of their citizens and fought against their extremist proxies for 17 years now. We also fought two wars in Iraq at least partly to protect their government against aggression. Apparently they are asking for nuclear energy technology that can be used for peaceful purposes, but it can also be weaponized, and they are resisting efforts to include unconditional UN weapons inspections in any deal. Putting more nuclear materials within potential reach of these extremists, whether in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia itself, seems like a bad idea.
renewables can supply a reliable electric baseload
According to this 2011 article in The Conversation (a blog that is new to me), the idea that solar and wind can’t provide reliable electricity is just wrong. This article doesn’t even focus on batteries and other storage technologies, which have certainly improved since 2011. Basically, as long as the grid is fed by a variety of sources spread over a fairly large and varied geography, it will not be all that common that the renewables are not providing the necessary baseload. And in that case, standby gas generators can make up the difference without too much trouble. All this suggests that the “reliable baseload” argument is mostly fossil fuel industry propaganda. Just put it out there, and it will be picked up and repeated by know-it-alls for a long time. And the beauty of propaganda in our current age where everyone has a voice and all voices are equal is that this repetition is free, and the more something is repeated the more people will believe it, even smart people who are not experts in the subject will believe it and repeat it themselves, until it drowns out any accurate information released too little, too late.
UN test ban on gene drives
The UN is considering a test ban on gene drive technology under biological weapons conventions. The Gates Foundation, among others, is opposing this on the grounds that the technology could have large positive public health implications.
23 is not enough for me
This article in Wired explains how there is a lot more to sequencing the whole genome than just 23 genes. The cost of full sequencing has dropped to $1000, which is considered an enormous breakthrough, and it is expected to continue to fall. One company is even offering a $200 black Friday special even though they admit it is a loss leader.
Today, slightly more than a million people have had their whole genomes sequenced. Compare that to the 17 million estimated to have had their DNA analyzed with direct-to-consumer tests sold by 23andMe and Ancestry. They use a technology called genotyping, which takes about a million snapshots of a person’s genome. That might sound like a lot, but it’s really less than 1 percent of the full picture. Genotyping targets short strings of DNA that scientists already know have a strong association with a given trait. So say, for example, scientists discover a new gene that increases your risk of developing brain cancer. If that gene is not one that 23andMe looks at (because how would it know to look if the gene hasn’t been discovered yet), then you’d have to get tested all over again to learn more about your brain cancer risk. Whole genome data on the other hand, once you have it, can be queried with computer algorithms whenever a new genetic discovery gets made.
Here’s a good example of just how much more info is in a whole genome: Earlier this year, 23andMe got FDA approval to give consumers information about their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. More than 1,000 mutations in these genes are known to increase women’s chances of breast and ovarian cancers by as much as 75 and 50 percent, respectively. 23andMe’s test picks up the three BRCA mutations most commonly found in individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and geneticists have voiced concern that the results could leave people with a false sense of security. Veritas’ tests, on the other hand, scan for all of them and, according to the company, turn up five to seven variants of varying concern in those two genes for the average customer.
ISO standard for stand-alone toilets
ISO has put out a new standard for toilets that are not connected sewer systems, describing what they are supposed to do as opposed to what they are supposed to look like. This means inventors and entrepreneurs have something to shoot for, and if they meet the standard they will have a strong marketing tool. The entire plumbing and wastewater industrial complex (which I am part of) might want to take note. There is always the possibility of a “killer app” along the lines of the digital camera or cell phone coming along and making an entire centuries-old system of infrastructure suddenly obsolete.
There is one risk nobody is talking about – the possibility that aliens cruise by every few decades, note that we are still shitting in our own water supply, and decide we have not yet reached a level of technology that would make us worth invading.
disturbing numbers on U.S. suicides
The U.S. suicide rate is climbing alarmingly at a time when rates are falling in other modern democracies. What is going wrong with our society? Other than these three paragraphs, this long article is about some examples of practical steps psychologists can take to prevent suicide.
Over the last two decades, suicide has slowly and then very suddenly announced itself as a full-blown national emergency. Its victims accompany factory closings and the cutting of government assistance. They haunt post-9/11 military bases and hollow the promise of Silicon Valley high schools. Just about everywhere, psychiatric units and crisis hotlines are maxed out. According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now more than twice as many suicides in the U.S. (45,000) as homicides; they are the 10th leading cause of death. You have to go all the way back to the dawn of the Great Depression to find a similar increase in the suicide rate. Meanwhile, in many other industrialized Western countries, suicides have been flat or steadily decreasing.
What makes these numbers so scary is that they can’t be explained away by any sort of demographic logic. Black women, white men, teenagers, 60-somethings, Hispanics, Native Americans, the rich, the poor—they are all struggling. Suicide rates have spiked in every state but one (Nevada) since 1999. Kate Spade’s and Anthony Bourdain’s deaths were shocking to everybody but the epidemiologists who track the data.
And these are just the reported cases. None of the numbers above account for the thousands of drug overdose deaths that are just suicides by another name. If you widen the lens a bit to include those contemplating suicide, the problem starts to take on the contours of an epidemic. In 2014, the federal government estimated that 9.4 million American adults had seriously considered the idea.
equipment for clearing snow from bike lanes and ADA ramps
Washington D.C. is clearing snow from bike lanes and ADA ramps at intersections this winter. Philadelphia, do you want to continue to be a second-class, amateurish city or do you want to put on your big boy pants and be a first class international city.
the death toll in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan
According to this article from Brown University, around a half million people have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since the U.S. invasions, around half of them civilians. For me, this continues to bring doubt on the idea that here is any such thing as a humanitarian war that helps more people than it hurts.
This total is only people killed by violence – it does not include “indirect deaths” due to “loss of access to food, water, health facilities, electricity or other infrastructure.”
Obviously, it doesn’t include horrible conflicts the U.S. is less directly involved in (but still involved in) such as Syria and Yemen.
I also read this depressing article in Foreign Policy in Focus saying the ongoing civil war in South Sudan is much nastier than I realized, with a death toll around 400,000 and counting.