Links 4/4/2024 | beragampengetahuan – Beragampengetahuan

The Magic of Bird Brains The New Yorker

Climate

Polar vortex is ‘spinning backwards’ above Arctic after major reversal event Space.com

Greenland’s glaciers are melting 100 times faster than estimated LiveScience

Extractivism in the Anthropocene Monthly Review

Burn boss trial moving from Grant County, Oregon to federal court Wildfire Today

Movement of crops, animals played a key role in domestication (press release) Washington University

A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change The Atlantic

Pandemics

A bird flu outbreak at the largest U.S. chicken egg producer could affect egg prices NPR. Commentary:

Imagining the respond I’d get if I texted some folks to remind them to cook their eggs well 🍳

-“You have a mental illness”
-“I’m not listening to your propaganda”
-“Eating raw cookie dough right now 🤘🏼”
-“You’re not a doctor”
-“I have to live my life”

Yeah, I’ll hold off

— chantzy (@chantz_y) April 3, 2024

What we know about H5N1 bird flu in cows — and the risk to humans STAT

CDC sequencing of H5N1 avian flu samples from patient yields new clinical clues Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

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Incident allergic diseases in post-COVID-19 condition: multinational cohort studies from South Korea, Japan and the UK Nature. Under the heading “Plausible Mechanisms”:

The impacts of post-COVID-19 conditions on immune regulation have been under investigation, which may assist in understanding an increased risk of developing allergic diseases including asthma and AR after the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection. First, disruptions in T cell homeostasis can result from post-COVID-19 conditions. It is well-established that viral infections, in general, stimulate morphological alternations including tissue remodeling, and trigger immune responses, which contributes to the initiation of allergic diseases. Moreover, regulatory T cells perturbation driven by post-COVID-19 conditions induces uninhibited action of effector cells and enables latent SARS-CoV-2, which may lead to post-acute sequelae of allergy. Also, a ‘cytokine storm,’ which is linked to the severe form of COVID-19, contributes to hyperinflammation and allergic sensitization that may be implicated in critical sequelae in respiratory tracts.

Wait, what? What about “immunity debt”?

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Statistics did not prove that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was the early epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic (abstract only) Journal of the Royal Statistics Society (January 2024) vs. Confirmation of the centrality of the Huanan market among early

COVID-19 cases (preprint) arXiv (March 2024).

Laboratory-acquired infections and pathogen escapes worldwide between 2000 and 2021: a scoping review The Lancet

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Nirmatrelvir for Vaccinated or Unvaccinated Adult Outpatients with Covid-19 NEJM. N = 1296. From the Abstract: “Nirmatrelvir in combination with ritonavir [Paxlovid] is an antiviral treatment for mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19)…. The time to sustained alleviation of all signs and symptoms of Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants who received nirmatrelvir–ritonavir and those who received placebo.” Oh well. Enormous publicity for a failed pill, while proven non-pharmaceutical interventions are mocked and degraded. (To be fair, the study was funded by Paxlovid’s maker, Pfizer, so maybe Pfizer just wants to get out of that business, for liability reasons or whatever. The nice thing about cleaning the air would be that [pounds head on desk] such issues could not arise, since — at least so far — air is not property and cannot be bought, sold, or rented.)

Call for Endorsements: Statement urging CDC/HICPAC to protect health care workers and patients National Nurses United. Deadline: April 12.

COVID-sniffing dogs deployed in Alameda County KRON. “The [two] dogs can sniff-test approximately 300 people in 30 minutes.” On Covid sniffer dogs, see NC from three [family blogging] years ago. Can’t do sniffing as a service, I guess, so no capital allocated.

China?

‘Good intentions’: China’s canteens for seniors are losing money and shutting down from lack of demand and ‘Worrying malaise’: China’s economic and social fortunes rest on its youth, but they are lying flat and ‘letting it rot’ South China Morning Post

Why Has China’s Automobile Exports Increased Significantly? – Analysis Infobrics

Tokyo in talks with Manila over sending troops to the Philippines beragampengetahuan

Majority in Southeast Asia would choose China over US, survey suggests Al Jazeera. So don’t force them to choose!

The Koreas

Are we at peak K-pop? Goldman doesn’t think so beragampengetahuan. On K-Pop, see NC here.

Myanmar

Commentary: How the Myanmar regime is surviving Channel News Asia

Syraqistan

‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza 972. A must-read. Exeptionally nasty.

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World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés says Israel targeted staff in Gaza ‘car by car’ BBC. Commentary:

World leaders have expressed outrage after seven aid workers with the charity World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli air strike on their clearly-marked vehicles in central Gaza ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/kZyuO3L0Ql

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 2, 2024

WCK painted their logo on the roof of their car, presumably to signal peaceful intent to airborne observers. The IDF strike hit the logo, dead center.

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How Hezbollah attacks displace 60,000 Israelis, six months on Reuters

Gallant: War in the North will be a catastrophe for Lebanon, Hezbollah Jerusalem Post

Such a strange and sad feeling in Israel this evening. I sort of pain deep down – a feeling that is maybe shared in Beirut and other parts of the Middle East this evening.

A war with Hizbullah is all but inevitable: everybody knows it, and the media prepares people for it.… pic.twitter.com/MpGRzYzMAc

— Alon Mizrahi | without equality there’s no freedom (@alon_mizrahi) April 3, 2024

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The Israeli raid on Damascus, an ‘unprecedented’ escalation of tensions France24

Two Iranian Generals Killed in Israeli F-35 Strike on Damascus Diplomatic Building: Focus on Air Assassinations Continues Military Watch. A round-up. And at least the F-35 is good for something.

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US opposes Palestine’s bid to become UN member state Anadolu Agency

Displeasure with Biden’s handling of Hamas-Israel war was on display at closed-door White House meeting NBC

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing Politico

Troop-Starved Ukrainian Brigades Turn to Marketing to Attract Recruits NYT

SITREP 4/3/24: Zelensky Steps Closer to Mobilization Plunge Amid Dire Warnings Simplicius the Thinker

The Ukrainian Army Is No Longer Mechanized Moon of Alabama

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Vote on aid to Ukraine in US Congress may be postponed for several weeks – Bloomberg Ukrainska Pravda

‘He’s a damn fool’: Marjorie Taylor Greene slams Mike Johnson over Ukraine CNN

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In rare call, Russian defense minister warns French counterpart against sending troops to Ukraine AP

Ukrainians returning home to get dental treatment BBC

German companies help Russia rebuild occupied Mariupol Ukrainska Pravda

South of the Border

Launching Of The Tonelero, The Third Brazilian Scorpène Submarine Entirely Made In Brazil Naval News

Venezuela’s Maduro accuses US of building ‘secret’ bases in disputed region Essequibo France24

Global Elections

I am not convinced that we are facing any good electoral outcome this year Funding the Future

India’s electoral bonds laundry: ‘Corrupt’ firms paid parties, got cleansed Al Jazeera

X rolls out support for posting Community Notes in India ahead of elections TechCrunch

Politics and Punishment: LDP Options in the Slush Fund Scandal Nippon

Antitrust

Liberal Democat Seal of Approval™:

Thanks to @jonstewart for having me on to talk about @FTC‘s work to lower the cost of asthma inhalers, the importance of holding corporate executives accountable for lawbreaking, and how monopolies can use their power to bully, coerce, and censor speech.

— Lina Khan (@linakhanFTC) April 2, 2024

The Supremes

Conservatives Don’t Have a Monopoly on Originalism The New Republic

Spook Country

Havana syndrome’ might have been a Russian attack. The U.S. can’t stop investigating. Editorial Board, WaPo

Digital Watch

The Mystery of ‘Jia Tan,’ the XZ Backdoor Mastermind Wired. Makes you wonder what else is back-doored _{MR SUBLIMINAL Everything. See here.}.

Couchfish: A Bike On A Rock Couchfish. “[A]lgorithms ‘flatten’ our tastes, bringing all to the lowest common denominator.” Worked example.

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Google considers charging for AI-powered search in big change to business mode beragampengetahuan. Now we can be sure AI is crap.

Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites Retro Dodo. And that’s before we get to Google’s enormous theft of content from those same independent sites for so-called “training sets”; the same content it now proposes to charge for.

Google to delete search data of millions who used ‘incognito’ mode NPR

Google Podcasts is gone — and so is my faith in Google The Verge. Faith? What are you, stupid?

Supply Chain

Oil, other commodities have reasons to hold up in big election year – Jim Roger S&P Global

Saffron: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Spice JSTOR

Sports Desk

The biggest villain of Indian cricket Times of India. Hardik Pandya.

Imperial Collapse Watch

Navies are obsolete, but no one will admit it Crooked Timber. If China can manufacture 1,000 weapons-grade drones a day, that means that in a little under three years, they can send a million drones at one of our carriers.

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.