A 17-year-old boy in Los Angeles County who became the first teen believed to have died from complications with covid-19 in the U.S. was denied treatment at an urgent care clinic because he didn’t have health insurance, according to R. Rex Parris, the mayor of Lancaster, California. Roughly 27.5 million Americans—8.5 percent of the population—don’t Read more about LA Teen Who Died of Covid-19 Was Denied Treatment Because He Didn’t Have Health Insurance. The US looks like a banana republic.[…]

The World Health Organization recommended Tuesday that people suffering COVID-19 symptoms avoid taking ibuprofen, after French officials warned that anti-inflammatory drugs could worsen effects of the virus. The warning by French Health Minister Olivier Veran followed a recent study in The Lancet medical journal that hypothesised that an enzyme boosted by anti-inflammatory drugs such as Read more about Avoid taking ibuprofen for COVID-19 symptoms: WHO[…]

Across the globe, governments are imposing travel limits in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus. The unintended consequence is a squeeze on migrant labor that’s a cornerstone of food production. American produce growers preparing to harvest crops are warning of a devastating impact on fruit and vegetables after the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Read more about Virus Travel Bans Threaten Labor for Global Food Harvests[…]

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have created a new, rubber-like material with a unique set of properties that could act as a replacement for human tissue in medical procedures. The material has the potential to make a big difference to many people’s lives. The research was recently published in the highly regarded scientific Read more about Nanostructured rubber-like material with optimal properties could replace human tissue[…]

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has been sneaking onto online chess sites using stupid pseudonyms and taunting his opponents by using pointless maneuvers with names like “the Bongcloud.” One YouTube commenter calls it “a revolution in the history of chess.” Slate documents the antics in an article titled “DrDrunkenstein’s Reign of Terror.” “DrDrunkenstein” is one Read more about World Chess Champion Plays Recklessly Online Using a Pseudonym[…]

Our rapidly evolving world forces us to adopt distinct patterns of behavior, and in the process, paves the way for new cognitive biases to emerge. Source: Infographic: 50 Cognitive Biases in the Modern World

The maintainer of the Actix web framework, written in Rust, has quit the project after complaining of a toxic web community – although over 100 Actix users have since signed a letter of support for him. Actix Web was developed by Nikolay Kim, who is also a senior software engineer at Microsoft, though the Actix Read more about ‘I am done with open source’: Developer of Rust Actix web framework quits, appoints new maintainer[…]

Now, some researchers have focused on the immune response, inducing it at the site of the tumor. And they do so by a remarkably simple method: injecting the tumor with the flu vaccine. As a bonus, the mice it was tested on were successfully immunized, too. Revving up the immune system This is one of Read more about Injecting the flu vaccine into a tumor gets the immune system to attack it[…]

The study, published in Lancet Public Health on Monday, is a review of existing research that looked at how commonly traumatic brain injuries happen among people. It specifically included studies that also took into account people’s housing situation. These studies involved more than 11,000 people who were fully or partially homeless at the time and Read more about Most People Experiencing Homelessness Have Had a Traumatic Brain Injury, Study Finds[…]

I have spent the better half of the last two years trying to convince companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DeepMind, and OpenAI that they need to hire philosophers. My colleagues and I—a small collective of academics that make up a program called Transformations of the Human at the Los Angeles-based think tank called the Berggruen Read more about Why tech companies need to hire philosophers[…]

a recent experiment by Microsoft Japan suggests with a 4-day workweek we may be more productive if we work less. In particular, it shows that a shorter workweek can actually impact productivity positively. In August this year, Microsoft Japan ran an experiment where for one month they had a 3 day weekend, taken Friday off. Read more about Microsoft finds workers are more productive with a 4-day workweek[…]

Elizabeth Warren has taken an attention-getting approach to attacking Facebook’s recent announcement that it won’t fact-check politicians’ posts. She’s running an ad on the social network that deliberately contains a falsehood. “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election,” reads the ad, which Warren also tweeted out Saturday. The ad immediately Read more about Warren runs a false Facebook ad to protest false Facebook ads – Politicians can lie on social media ads[…]

And it’s something becoming more and more common among open source developers.

The annual Misery Index ranks the most and least miserable countries, based on four economic factors—unemployment, inflation, lending rates, and GDP growth. Source: Visualizing The Most Miserable Countries in the World

Source: The rise of social media – Our World in Data An excellent resource, but the most fascinating I thought shows that technology adoption for most technologies since the 30s has been just as fast for most products.

A study out of Texas State University attempted to determine the number of available horticultural community service opportunities for individuals completing community service hours per their probation or parole requirements, and whether that brand of community service generates a calculable offset against the common nature of repeat offenses for an inmate population once released. […] Read more about Combating prison recidivism with plants[…]

In the mid-1950s, domesticated cats in Minamata, Japan mysteriously began to convulse and fall into the bay. The people of Minamata took on similar symptoms shortly after, losing their ability to speak, move, and think. Chisso Corp., a Japanese chemical company, had dumped more than 600 tons of mercury into the bay between 1932 and Read more about Marine plastic pollution hides a neurological toxin in our food[…]

Italians are some of the fastest speakers on the planet, chattering at up to nine syllables per second. Many Germans, on the other hand, are slow enunciators, delivering five to six syllables in the same amount of time. Yet in any given minute, Italians and Germans convey roughly the same amount of information, according to Read more about Human speech may have a universal transmission rate: 39 bits per second[…]

Professor Nikos Bozionelos, of the EMLyon Business School, France, and Dr. Sumona Mukhuty, Manchester Metropolitan University, asked staff in the NHS to assess their managers’ emotional intelligence—defined as their level of empathy and their awareness of their own and others’ emotions. The 309 managers were also assessed on the amount of effort they put into Read more about Managers rated as highly emotionally intelligent are more ineffective and unpopular, research shows[…]

Typically, it’s thought that we perceive harmful sensations on our skin entirely through the very sensitive endings of certain nerve cells. These nerve cells aren’t coated by a protective layer of myelin, as other types are. Nerve cells are kept alive by and connected to other cells called glia; outside of the central nervous system, Read more about Scientists Say They’ve Found a New Organ in Skin That Processes Pain[…]