Friday 7th June 2024
  • Visualizing the State of Refugees by Country - Visual Capitalist (No paywall)

    Where are people running to (and from)? This visual highlights refugees by country of origin and asylum in 2023.

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  • Which Countries Have the Most & Least Women in the Workforce? - Visual Capitalist (No paywall)

    More women in the workforce can indicate a shift towards women having more economic opportunities and facing fewer barriers at work.

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  • Why excessive positivity is bad for your health and mental well-being - New Scientist (No paywall)

    There are real benefits to a positive mindset, but the idea that we should always look on the bright side has gone too far. Research into toxic positivity can help restore balance

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  • Would an AI judge be able to efficiently dispense justice? - New Scientist (No paywall)

    Judges are only human and can make mistakes, so could an artificial intelligence make better and more efficient decisions?

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  • How an Ancient Human Species Formed Family Ties - Discover Magazine (No paywall)

    Sands swept over the tracks, which stayed buried for millennia, until 21st-century archaeologists uncovered nearly 600 of the footprints. Based on the size and shape of prints that likely had been laid within a few days, researchers reconstructed a unique snapshot of a Neanderthal community: A few adults accompanied about 10 teens and children, including a 2-year-old.

    But thanks to the Normandy footprints and to new clues from methods such as ancient DNA, the mysteries of Neanderthals’ relationships have recently started to resolve. The emerging evidence suggests Neanderthals formed tightknit communities, but may have been relative introverts, compared to our Homo sapiens ancestors. They lived “cozy, but without parties,” as archaeologist Penny Spikens, of the University of York in the U.K., puts it.

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  • Another summer of extreme heat is ahead—and you’ll feel every degree of it - Environment (No paywall)

    In the annals of human history, a subtle but relentless pulse has marked our anthropogenic impact on Earth. Since the industrial revolution dawned in 1850, our planet has steadily warmed each year , with the rate tripling since 1982. By the year 2050, experts estimate we’ll see a 2.7 degree Celsius average temperature rise—and a cascade of ecological repercussions.

    According to the study published in the journal Nature, humans are even more sensitive to temperature shifts than previously thought: Indeed, we can perceive temperature differences as small as 0.9°C with surprising accuracy. “Whether or not you’re aware of it, you are actually sensitive to it biologically,” says Laura Battistel, a cognitive and brain sciences student at the University of Trento who led the study.

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  • Are 'giant, flying' joro spiders really taking over the U.S.? - National Geographic (No paywall)

    While it’s true that joro spiders arrived in Georgia in 2014 by unknown means and can survive in the United States, their colonization of the continent isn't exactly imminent. So far, the spiders have been seen in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, with a few tiny satellite populations in places such as Maryland.

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  • Hamas Has Reinvented Underground Warfare - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)

    When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, it dragged Israel into one of the worst underground wars ever. By now, it is abundantly clear that the scale of Hamas’s subterranean complex is unprecedented and that the use of tunnels has contributed to casualties among civilians and soldiers. More consequentially, by sustaining underground operations over months, Hamas has delayed an Israeli victory, causing unimaginable diplomatic and political costs along the way.

    In terms of tunnel warfare, the only war that compares is World War I, in which countless British and German soldiers died trying to expose, mine, and dig tunnels. No other use of tunnels in warfare comes close—neither the entrenchment of Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan that enabled him to evade U.S. forces and plan attacks undetected; nor that of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali, where tunnels were used in launching attacks from nearly impregnable underground hideouts; nor that of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which used tunnels to conduct attacks on U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq and Syria. Hamas’s use of tunnels is so advanced that it more closely resembles how states use underground structures to protect command-and-control centers than what is typical for nonstate actors.

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  • How America Can Win the Coming Battery War - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)

    The United States has begun a green industrial transformation. The Inflation Reduction Act of August 2022—which, despite its name, includes many measures intended to address climate change—jump-started investment in U.S. clean energy manufacturing. In the first quarter of 2022, investment in U.S. clean energy manufacturing was $4 billion; in the first quarter of 2024 it was $17 billion, a 325 percent increase in just two years. The IRA has been a boon especially to the supply chain for electric vehicles. U.S. battery production is expected to jump from 257 gigawatt-hours in 2023 to over 1,000 gigawatt-hours by 2030: enough batteries for ten million vehicles per year, roughly the number produced in the United States annually.

    This battery boom is changing the geography and the politics of clean energy manufacturing. In a clever political play, the IRA, which was championed by progressives, has disproportionately benefited workers in politically conservative regions. The Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University found that 80 percent of announced U.S. battery production capacity will be in Republican-held congressional districts. Nationwide, the majority of the 400,000 jobs that the IRA is expected to create will end up in red areas represented by Republicans. Consider the state of Georgia, for example, which is on track to become the largest producer of battery cells in the United States. Although it is a purple state, where politicians from both major parties hold top offices, all of its battery plants are in Republican-held districts.

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  • A New Cold War Needs Its Own Rules - Foreign Policy (No paywall)

    Memories of the Cold War against the Soviet Union are fading. Many balk at the idea of having a new cold war with China and at any prospect of returning to a world where the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation hangs overhead. Some critics think efforts to cut strategic goods from trade with China go too far.

    Memories of the Cold War against the Soviet Union are fading. Many balk at the idea of having a new cold war with China and at any prospect of returning to a world where the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation hangs overhead. Some critics think efforts to cut strategic goods from trade with China go too far.

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