Category Archives: Web Article Review

(U.S.) national security stories of 2018 (The Intercept)

The Intercept, which doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a left-leaning investigative news organization, has a round-up of national security stories from 2018. The biggest bombshell is a well-sourced claim that Saudi Arabia and UAE were on the verge of launching a military invasion of Qatar and were talked out of it by Rex Tillerson, who was then fired under pressure for Saudi and UAE lobbyists in Washington. Another interesting one claims that large AT&T buildings in major cities are hubs for NSA surveillance, including domestic surveillance. That’s just the tip of an iceberg consisting of allegations of lots of war crimes and torture, all backed up by a fair amount of evidence.

service jobs and automation

Gizmodo says automation of service jobs took great leaps forward in 2018, citing things like automated ordering kiosks in fast food restaurants. I have to admit, I kind of like it because I don’t feel guilty about making a special order, and I feel like I am much more likely to get what I want. And ordering and paying by mobile app has those advantages, plus cuts the wait time to zero and greatly decreases germ transmission.

The article talks about how Las Vegas unions have negotiated early notification and retraining programs to help deal with automation. And this is how we have to try to deal with at the level of the economy as a whole. Educate and train people for jobs where they can add value in the near future. teach them to think flexibly and creatively so they can come up with new ways to add value in jobs and roles nobody has even thought about yet, reduce barriers to starting a business or taking risks on a new idea, and share the wealth a bit more when all else fails.

ultrasound treatment for dementia

This article in New Atlas (which I don’t know anything about) reports on an ultrasound-based treatment for dementia and Alzheimer’s that has been successful in mice and is moving to human trials next year.

The ultrasound treatment was first developed back in 2015 at the University of Queensland. The initial research was working to find a way to use ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier with the goal of helping dementia-battling antibodies better reach their target in the brain. However, early experiments with mice surprisingly revealed the targeted ultrasound waves worked to clear toxic amyloid protein plaques from the brain without any additional therapeutic drugs.

“The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses,” explained Jürgen Götz, one of the researchers on the project back in 2015. “The word ‘breakthrough’ is often mis-used, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach.”

Top 10 Energy Charts of 2018

This is from something called the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A few things they have concluded are that particulate air pollution is taking two years off people’s lives on average worldwide, and much more in some developing countries, climate change will impact the economy, U.S. fuel efficiency policy incentivizes the auto industry to make inefficient types of vehicles (although it still takes human beings making cynical, unethical choices to actually do this), nuclear energy could be competitive if a carbon tax were to be introduced, and peak pricing for electricity actually works to reduce and shift demand.

best business stories of 2018 (Longreads)

A couple stories caught my eye. Once is about the collapse of Toys ‘R Us, and the other about what it would actually take to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., if we decided we want to do that.

I don’t see why pop-up urban toy stores, similar to the pop-up Halloween stores that set up shop temporarily in underused retail spaces, couldn’t work. You could have a curated collection of the coolest toys of the year set up in a very entertaining way, let kids actually play with them, and have roving salespeople and interactive displays where people can order the toys to be delivered to their homes, say with free 2-day shipping. You could use whatever existing low-cost retailer you want (Amazon, Walmart, whatever) while recreating some of the holiday magic of F.A.O. Schwartz and small town Main Streets of yesteryear.

the north pole

The Week has a fun feature about the North Pole. It reminds us that the fictional St. Nicholas lived in modern day Turkey, and it was an American cartoonist in 1866 who came up with the idea of a fat elf-like Santa (not the Coca-Cola corporation as your know-it-all uncle might tell you) living at the North Pole. Supposedly, nobody saw the North Pole in person until 1908. And on the less fun side, the article covers thawing permafrost, melting ice, and enormous fossil fuel reserves that are believed to exist under the Arctic ice cap, which on addition to their planet-poisoning potential just may be worth fighting for.

UK solid waste framework

The UK is tackling the idea of making companies responsible for the packaging they produce. This makes perfect sense because it will raise revenue in the short term, but hopefully give them the incentive they need to design with “reduce, reuse, recycle” in mind in the longer term.

Businesses and manufacturers will pay the full cost of recycling or disposing of their packaging waste, under a major new government strategy unveiled by the Environment Secretary today (Tuesday 18 December 2018).
The move will overhaul England’s waste system, putting a legal onus on those responsible for producing damaging waste to take greater responsibility and foot the bill.
The announcement forms part of the government’s ambitious new Resources and Waste Strategy, the first comprehensive update in more than a decade. It will eliminate avoidable plastic waste and help leave the environment in a better state than we found it for future generations.

this is your year on drugs

Alternet has a wrap-up of the year in (U.S.) drug policy. To summarize:

  • The opioid overdose situation is still awful even compared to the height of the 1980s-90s crack epidemic, but does not seem to be getting any more awful. Deaths from heroine and prescription drugs have fallen, but fentanyl abuse has increased and kept the overall body count about the same as recent years.
  • Cities including my own are moving forward on safe injection sites under medical supervision, which are the norm in many other developed countries, but the federal government is still against them.
  • Sentencing disparities that used to disproportionately put people of color in prison are being reduced. Even the more blatantly racist of our two major political parties seems to be on board with this.
  • Marijuana legalization at the state level continues to march on, and the federal government continues to look the other way.
  • Industrial hemp became completely legal.
  • Predictably, legalization advocates are moving on to other drugs like pschedelics.

Trends in Ecology and Evolution 2018 Horizon Scan

Trends in Ecology and Evolution does an annual “horizon scan” of hot topics for the coming year. Below is their list for this year. The article is open access.

  • “Thiamine Deficiency as a Possible Driver of Wildlife Population Declines” – Thiamine is a form of vitamin B. Pollution and subtle changes in algae eaten by fish and birds may be causing its depletion. This is not fatal in and of itself but may be weakening animals so that they succumb to other things.
  • “Thiamine Deficiency as a Possible Driver of Wildlife Population Declines” – It’s affecting deer, moose, and elk in North America, and now reindeer in northern Europe.
  • “Breaks in the Dormancy of Pathogenic Bacteria and Viruses in Thawing Permafrost” – Some viruses and bacteria may be able to lie dormant in permafrost for thousands of years, long enough for populations of animals and humans to lose their immunity. Permafrost is melting.
  • “RNA-Based, Gene-Silencing Pesticides” – Messing with RNA can control pests such as the mites affecting honey bee colonies. The good thing about this form of genetic engineering is that it is not passed down from one generation to the next.
  • “Genetic Control of Mammal Populations” – Islands such as New Zealand are trying to use gene drives to wipe out pests such as rats. Not control them, but completely eliminate them once and for all. There are some obvious benefits, but this is also a little terrifying when you think that we now have the ability to engineer the complete extermination of a particular species in short order.
  • “Use of Lasers in Commercial Deep Water Fishing” – Sounds a little scary, but it’s an alternative to dragging heavy nets that destroy the bottom. 
  • “Use of Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Harvesting Atmospheric Water” – This is literally sucking humidity out of the air. Of course, we can all do this with our air conditioners and dehumidifiers, but that takes a lot of energy and this process apparently does not.
  • “Aquaporins Engineered to Increase Plant Salt Tolerance” – This is messing with plants so they can grow in saltier soil. Seems like a good idea, except there is potentially moral hazard here because good farming practices should stop good soil from becoming salty in the first place.
  • “Effect of Culturomics on Conservation Science, Policy, and Action” – This is just processing and analyzing large amounts of text.
  • “Changes in the Global Iron Cycle” – Iron can actually be a limiting nutrient in some ecosystems, particularly in the oceans. Melting glaciers and ice bergs have an effect on this – I won’t pretend to fully understand it.
  • “Underestimation of Soil Carbon Emissions” – Soils contain a lot of carbon, the decay of organic soils may give off more carbon than thought, and there could be an accelerating feedback loop as warmer temperatures accelerate the decay, which in turn cause warmer temperatures.
  • “Rapid Climatic Changes on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau” – This affects the Southeast Asian and Indian monsoons, among other things.
  • “International Collaborations to Encourage Marine Protected Area Expansion in the High Seas” – Okay, I guess they had to throw in something positive.
  • “Belt and Road Initiative in China” – Basically, China talks a good game on sustainability and the potential is there, but the on-the-ground reality is not very sustainable so far.
  • “Potential Effects on Wildlife of Increases in Electromagnetic Radiation” – This is about cell signals causing cancer. In wildlife, because this journal is about wildlife. But it’s a little concerning for us humans too.