Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
You can nuke your friends and enemies in Bethesda’s upcoming Fallout 76, and people aren’t happy about it. Video games have always trivialized violence, but some fans and critics feel that the inclusion of a nuclear war mechanic is a step too far. Waypoint’s excellent article about this subject pointed out that nuclear war is…
Photo: Getty By 2030, we as a collective 7 billion humans will know our fate, or at the very least, the fate of the most vulnerable among us. A landmark report released on Sunday sets the clock ticking for humanity and its quest to keep global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels….
Image: AP The steady erosion of abortion rights in the United States has been nothing if not subtle; through the last decade, a certain kind of restraint has generally been rewarded in the anti-abortion movement. Sweeping bans—at 15 weeks, sometimes earlier—tend to fail for being unconstitutional on their face. But waiting periods, counseling requirements, insurance…
CERN in the winter Photo: CERN A group of 19 physicists penned a statement denouncing the talk given last week by Italian physicist Alessandro Strumia at a workshop on women in high energy physics held at CERN in Switzerland. More than 200 physicists, including Nobel Prize winner David Gross and several prominent physicist-authors, and at…
Police in Gilbert, Minn., are warning residents about a group of youthful residents unable to handle their alcohol. They’ve been drifting around town looking disoriented, narrowly avoiding getting hit by cars. But these aren’t teenagers getting drunk. Instead, it’s the local bird population. “The Gilbert Police Department has received several reports of birds that appear…
Firefighters from Brea, Calif., inspect and cut fireline on Aug. 1, 2018, as the Ranch Fire burns near Upper Lake, Calif. A day earlier, it and the River Fire totaled more than 74,000 acres. (Stuart W. Palley/For The Washington Post) Brady Dennis Reporter focusing on environmental policy and public health issues Chris Mooney Reporter covering…
It is unsettling, and maybe emblematic of many American lives today, to perch safely but uneasily on the edge of catastrophe. Rainfall in eastern North Carolina passed thirty inches during Hurricane Florence, cutting off the coastal city of Wilmington from road access, and this week the state’s rivers are swelling as they return the water…
Twenty-seven US states specifically target clinics that provide abortions with laws called “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers,” also known as TRAP laws. They exist to regulate the operation of clinics beyond what is necessary for patients’ safety. There are a wide range of regulations imposed by TRAP laws that require drastic, expensive, or impractical changes…
Low air quality, even at pollution levels well below current Environmental Protection Agency thresholds, is associated with increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in later life, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Researchers Kelly C. Bishop, Nicolai V. Kuminoff and Jonathan D. Ketcham of Arizona State University cross-referenced…
In June, while the earth was experiencing a record-breakingly hot summer, a scientific paper was published in Nature Geoscience suggesting the planet’s long-term temperature rise could be double what was previously predicted by climate models. Drawing on the collaborative efforts of 17 international scientists, the same bleak study argued that the effects of climate change,…