May 12, 2020

Seth Meyers - Trump Goes Off the Rails on Twitter and Fox News: A Closer Look

Seth takes a closer look at Trump reeling off fantasies about the coronavirus just "going away" after two West Wing aides test positive and unemployment soars to its highest level since the Great Depression.

May 12, 2020

The Daily Social Distancing Show: Trump's Coronavirus Response Timeline

From “it’s a hoax” to “nobody knew,” here’s a timeline of Trump’s coronavirus response

May 12, 2020

The Daily Social Distancing Show: The U.K. Stays Alert While U.S. Restaurants Revolt

Boris Johnson changes “stay home” messaging to “stay alert,” American states reopen recklessly, and one man in South Korea shuts down Seoul’s nightlife by clubbing without a mask.

May 12, 2020

The Daily Social Distancing Show: White House Coronavirus Outbreak

Despite coronavirus spreading to his inner circle, President Trump still refuses to wear a mask and questions the effectiveness of testing.

May 11, 2020

Potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds

Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass

Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.

Scientists have identified thousands of previously undetected outbreaks of the deadly weather combination in parts of Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and North America, including several hotspots along the US Gulf coast.

Humidity is more dangerous than dry heat alone because it impairs sweating – the body’s life-saving natural cooling system.

The number of potentially fatal humidity and heat events doubled between 1979 and 2017, and are increasing in both frequency and intensity, according to the study published in Science Advances.

In the US, the south-eastern coastal corner from eastern Texas to the Florida Panhandle experienced such extreme conditions dozens of times, with New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi the hardest hit.

The most extreme incidents occurred along the Persian Gulf, where the heat and humidity combination surpassed the theoretical human survivability limit on 14 occasions. Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the World Cup will be held in 2022, was among the places to suffer – albeit briefly – these potentially fatal weather events.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-change-global-heating-extreme-heat-humidity



The number of potentially fatal humidity and heat events doubled between 1979 and 2017, and are increasing in both frequency and intensity. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

May 11, 2020

Researchers find human-driven pollution alters the environment even underground

The Monte Conca cave system on the island of Sicily is a vast system of springs and pools, sitting below a nature preserve. It might be presumed to be one of the few places untouched by human-driven pollution.

But new research published by a USF microbiology and geoscience team has found that even below ground, the microbial communities in the pools of water in the Monte Conca cave show signs of being altered by pollution from above.

Publishing in the prestigious journal, PLoS One, the team found that water flowing through the vast cave system produced changes in the microbial communities between the wet and dry seasons, with the microbial communities differing in bacterial composition and ecological functions. The study suggests that as surface water flows through agricultural and urban areas, it collects bacterial contaminants before entering cave systems.

The purpose of the study was to determine the impact surface runoff has on cave microbial communities using the Monte Conca spring pool as a model. The long-term impacts of these surface-derived bacterial contaminants or their impact on groundwater sources is currently not well known, said lead author Dr. Madison Davis of USF's Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.


Read more: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-human-driven-pollution-environment-underground.html



Monte Conca spring pool during the dry season. The white film on top is sulfur-oxidizing bacteria growing. Credit: University of South Florida

May 11, 2020

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - USPS

As the U.S. Postal Service faces financial catastrophe, John Oliver discusses why the service is so important, what brought it to this point, and what we can do to help.

May 11, 2020

I Could Have Shopped All Night - Covid-19 version of I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady

With many people isolated at home and physical stores closed during this pandemic, online shopping has become a 'thing', more than ever before. Perhaps, for young Eliza, a bit too much!

May 11, 2020

Unskilled American Somehow Still Employed - (The Borowitz Report)

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Despite an increasingly grim employment picture, an unskilled American man remains gainfully employed, labor experts confirmed.

With millions applying for unemployment benefits each week, experts expressed bafflement and outright astonishment that a man with no identifiable skills, talents, or competence appears to be secure in his job.

“This unskilled individual’s continued employment defies any kind of economic logic,” Davis Logsdon, who studies employment trends at the University of Minnesota, said. “Of the 33.5 million Americans who have applied for unemployment benefits over the past seven weeks, approximately 33.5 million are more qualified than he is.”

Even more perplexing, experts said, is the unskilled man’s persistent employment after failing at a series of other jobs during the past three years.

“The only explanation that makes sense, and I’ll admit it’s far-fetched, is that whoever hired him is equally unskilled,” Logsdon said.

Despite the man’s puzzlingly long record of employment, Logsdon said that ferocious economic headwinds could bring it to an abrupt halt, as early as November.


(Short article, no more at link): https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/unskilled-american-somehow-still-employed

May 10, 2020

SNL At-Home: Dreams

The cast of SNL has dreams of returning to their normal lives in New York City.