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Category Archives: Nutrition
Covid-19: Global coronavirus cases pass 50 million
More than 1.25 million coronavirus-related deaths have been reported, Johns Hopkins university says.
Coronavirus: Hauliers included in Denmark restrictions
Rules for travel from Denmark were tightened after a coronavirus strain spread from mink to humans.
Does the USA Need to Heal Now?
In my extended social circle, some people are calling for unity and healing now that Joe Biden will be the next President. Others aren’t so sure that healing is really what’s needed.
The offer basically sounds like this:
It’s time to repair the wounded relationships between the people who supported a lying, racist sociopath path for President and those who wanted to replace him.
That’s a crappy offer. It doesn’t land well. The most airy-fairy people I know seem to be swallowing it and trying to invite people into some awkward reconciliation phase, but most seem to be declining this offer and searching for a better one, at least for now.
There’s some stress and sadness too because people aren’t sure if there is a better offer on the table right now.
The problem with this offer is that this election wasn’t really about the usual politics where otherwise good people may have different views about certain subjects. This election went into much darker territory.
Even though Biden won, which caused great relief, lots of people around the world (and in the USA too) were still shocked and dismayed to see that more than 70 million Americans cast their ballots for Trump – voting against racial justice, against global cooperation, against the environment, against human decency, against science, against health, and against so much more that people care about. How can they not see this as being so, so backwards in this day and age?
And it is truly backwards. My international friends are right in their assessment.
While some blame the media, Trump has been one of the most communicative Presidents ever. Anyone can watch his speeches or read his tweets. Even when there’s a Twitter warning label attached, you still get to see the original messages. There’s an over-abundance of primary source material for all the world to see. Fox News may add fuel the fire, but there’s more than enough coming from the White House itself, direct and unfiltered.
More people voted from Trump in this election than voted for Obama each times Obama won. Fortunately a lot more people voted overall, which pushed Biden into record territory, gaining more than 75 million votes.
So what do people of good conscience do about this?
Some people are starting with a bit of celebrating. People have been dancing and cheering in the streets in some cities. But it’s a bit of a black celebration. Even if you do celebrate, what comes next?
Do we now offer hugs and handshakes and say, “Oh well, your guy lost the election… better luck next time”?
Are we suppose to pretend that people who voted for Trump are just good people who slightly lost their way or just voted for their party or for financial reasons? And now that he’s on his way out, they should be fine in a month or two?
I think a lot of people realize that there’s no going back. The cat is out of the bag. Too many Americans scared the hell out of the world, first by voting for Trump in 2016 and then again this year. Now the world and the rest of the country want answers – why did this happen, and what will be done to prevent this from happening again?
Patching things up with delusional friends and family members isn’t going to cut it. That would only be a temporary bandage, and too many people would still be left with a feeling of lingering dread that we could be right back here again in 2024.
There are complex issues to be unwound and resolved regarding causes and solutions. I’m not going to get into that now, but at this point I will say that I think a first good step is to decline the healing offer. It’s a phony offer, tantamount to sweeping these issues under the rug. We can’t do that. This was a wake-up call, so stay woke about it.
I for one won’t be reaching out to ex-friends who went nutter and became Trump supporters. This has nothing to do with politics. And it’s not really even about values or beliefs, however delusional those beliefs may be. It’s about their behaviors and the effects of their behaviors. I hold them accountable for their actions. To offer some form of healing is just foolish at this point.
Such people didn’t wound me. They just caused me to lower my assessments of them. They violated my boundaries for friendship, and so they got tossed out of my social circle. I’m not going to invite them back in if the boundary violations would remain unresolved.
This isn’t about holding a grudge, and it’s not about forgiveness. It’s about the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries and intelligent standards. I’m not going to reach out just to be re-exposed to such people’s misaligned behaviors and fanciful conspiracy theories. They’ve shown me how low they’re willing to go, and I accept that as their choice.
It’s not even really accurate to say that I don’t trust them. I do trust them to continue behaving as they’ve been behaving. I trust that they’ll continue promoting conspiracy theories, being okay with lying, promoting racist ideas, voting in support of racist policies, and taking irresponsible actions that will result in more infections and deaths. I trust that what they’ve shown me is likely to continue in some form, and I’d rather remain aware of this instead of pretending that it isn’t there.
I will not be an enabler for such people, so I won’t invest in relationships with them. There is nothing to heal because this isn’t a wound. It’s simply part of reality to be accepted.
Truth alignment is empowering. Start by looking at the USA and acknowledge that yes, a whole lot of Americans really have gone full-tilt nutter. Let that sink in. There’s no need to resist this realization.
Even though it may seem otherwise, my relationship with such people is still rooted in compassion. That’s because I was raised as a religious nutter myself. I can look at the Trump supporting nutters today and still recognize something of myself in them. I don’t feel like it’s impossible to understand them. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let them drag me into the nutter abyss with them, and it doesn’t mean I want to invest in listening to their daily nonsense; I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime.
When I was a religious nutter (and a different kind of nutter a bit later, like a shoplifting nutter), it didn’t serve me when non-nutters swept my nuttiness under the rug and still tried to relate to me based on our commonalities. That just empowered me to remain in nutter land. They might have thought they were being tolerant, but they were just being short-sighted and foolish. They weren’t doing what was best for me.
What really helped was when I encountered people who stood firm in non-nutter land, and they made it clear where I was standing. Their certainty (which was really truth alignment) nudged me to start having doubts, which led to reconsideration of my beliefs, which led to a whole lot of growth and transformation. This in turn eventually led to helping more people escape nutter land, people who expressed gratitude for this afterwards.
Nutters don’t need hugs and handshakes to patch things up. They need constant and unwavering reminders that they’re standing in nutter land. They need truth, not denial and pretending.
Being a Trump supporter is stupid, plain as day. The reasons people use to justify such behavior are irrelevant. Voting for Trump is a stupid action, no matter the reason. We can assess its stupidity based on the results alone, which are measurably dreadful.
Being a Trump supporter was stupid four years ago. It was stupid a week ago. And it’s stupid today. If you are a Trump supporter, your behavior is stupid, no doubt about it. You don’t have to remain in nutter land though. There is an exit door. Walk through it when you’re ready.
I’m here to support, encourage, and serve the non-nutters of the world. The only service I offer to the nutters is to doggedly remind you that you’re still in nutter land, but you must choose to leave. That’s the gateway that shifts you from unconscious growth to conscious growth.
If you choose to stay in nutter land or if you pretend you’re not there when it’s pretty damned clear that you are, then I’ll just keep reminding you how dreadfully stupid you’re being. And if you don’t banish me from your life for good – if you keep that door open just a tad – then we both know you’re eventually going to leave nutter land and come play with the smart people. It’s only a matter of time.
Personally I don’t think nutter land should be abolished. I think it serves a worthwhile purpose. Its presence can be healthy for us, especially as a reminder. The presence of nutter land raises the stakes and helps us gain clarity about what we’d like to create and experience instead. If supporting Trump is ridiculously stupid, where is the ridiculously smart path? I think it’s good to be aware that nutter land is always nipping at our heals, challenging us to dream bigger and bolder and to not get complacent.
Nutter land woke me up too during the past four years. The sheer lunacy of that last four years got me feeling more engaged in the game of life. It got me to finally register to vote for the first time ever. And I must say that it was fun casting one of the votes that kept Nevada blue. I picked a good time to start voting. It really did feel like my vote mattered. I loved being part of the team that said to the nutters, “You shall not pass!”
They also helped me see the importance of being anti-racist (not a passive non-racist), including participating in a diversity committee in an organization I belong to, which is still ongoing.
The nutters reminded me of the importance of full engagement with life. And for that I actually feel grateful. I’m still going to stand firm against their various insanities though.
So I don’t think polarization is a problem. I think it’s good and healthy. The more extreme the nutters become, the more their behavior encourages me to sculpt my character in different ways – if only to counter-balance their nuttiness. The more they assert their insanities, the more they encourage me to grow in ways I may have been overlooking.
So the healing offer is declined. There’s nothing to heal. There is a lot of work to be done, but the nutters can’t stop us from doing it. They’re just going to make everyone else stronger, more attentive, and more resolved. And many nutters will soon leave nutter land because nutter land is becoming a dreadful place to stay.
One-Minute Relationship Challenges
While you can do lots of different 30-day challenges solo, consider that you can also do them with a relationship partner.
Rachelle and I often do 30-day challenges together, especially with other Conscious Growth Club members. This month we’re doing NaNoWriMo together, so we’re each writing novels by chipping away at the word count day by day.
For another type of partner challenge, consider doing one specifically to connect with your partner in some pleasant way – emotionally, physically, romantically, etc. I suggest that you make it a super easy commitment – just one minute per day.
Anyone can find the time to connect for an extra minute. Here are some examples for what you can do as a daily couples challenge for a month:
- Share a one-minute hug.
- Kiss each other for one minute, and surrender to the sensuality of the experience.
- Lovingly gaze into each other’s eyes for one minute.
- Set an intention for your day together.
- Share one thing you like, love, or appreciate about your partner.
- Share one idea for a trip or experience you’d like to have together someday.
- Give your partner a one-minute neck massage or head scratching.
- Cuddle or caress each other for one minute.
- Send each other one supportive, loving, or sexy text message.
- Write one supportive, loving, or sexy sentence on a sticky note, and post it where your partner will see it.
- Take a romantic, playful, or silly photo together.
- Do one simple act of kindness for your partner.
Of course you can do more. One minute is such a nice minimum though. It’s long enough that you can do something meaningful in that time, yet it’s so short as to offer little resistance. Even if it’s the end of the day and you’re getting tired, you can still do your one-minute commitment.
Since it’s only a minute, how can your partner resist doing it with you if you make the invitation? Better yet just command your partner to do one of these with you. 😉
Even if you’d normally do some of these anyway, committing to one specific action as a daily challenge somehow makes it feel a bit different, adding a twist of specialness to the familiar.
This month Rachelle and I are sharing a one-minute kiss each day. We kiss often anyway, but not always for a minute or more straight. We’re both playfully enjoying this little challenge, which is hardly a challenge at all – just a nice shared experience to have each day. This has added an extra sparkle to our connection this past week, which has been especially nice given how crazy this week has been for the country and the world.
Sometimes a simple one-minute action becomes a catalyst for more. Usually we end up kissing well beyond a minute, and we don’t necessarily stop at just kissing. It’s easy to frame the action commitment as a minute of kissing though, knowing that it will often lead to more.
This is similar to the idea of micro-habits shared by James Clear in his excellent book Atomic Habits. When you start with a one-minute habit, you won’t likely feel much resistance, and once you do the first 60 seconds, you’ll often feel like doing more.
Greater Manchester’s NHS hospitals suspend non-urgent care
Greater Manchester hospitals are treating “more Covid patients than at the peak of the first wave”.
Indian fossils support new hypothesis for origin of hoofed mammals
New research published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a fossil family that illuminates the origin of perissodactyls — the group of mammals that includes horses, rhinos, and tapirs. It provides insights on the controversial question of where these hoofed animals evolved, concluding that they arose in or near present day India.
With more than 350 new fossils, the 15-year study pieces together a nearly complete picture of the skeletal anatomy of the Cambaytherium — an extinct cousin of perissodactyls that lived on the Indian subcontinent almost 55 million years ago.
Among the findings includes a sheep-sized animal with moderate running ability and features that were intermediate between specialized perissodactyls and their more generalized mammal forerunners. Comparing its bones with many other living and extinct mammals, revealed that Cambaytherium represents an evolutionary stage more primitive than any known perissodactyl, supporting origin for the group in or near India — before they dispersed to other continents when the land connection with Asia formed.
This new landmark article was selected for publication as a part of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir Series, a special yearly publication that provides a more in-depth analysis of the most significant vertebrate fossils.
Cambaytherium, first described in 2005, is the most primitive member of an extinct group that branched off just before the evolution of perissodactyls, providing scientists with unique clues to the ancient origins and evolution of the group.
“The modern orders Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates), Perissodactyla, and Primates appeared abruptly at the beginning of the Eocene around 56 million years ago across the Northern Hemisphere, but their geographic source has remained a mystery,” explained Ken Rose, emeritus professor at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study.
Prof. Rose became intrigued by a new hypothesis suggesting that perissodactyls may have evolved in isolation in India. Then India was an island continent drifting northwards, but it later collided with the continent of Asia to form a continuous landmass.
“In 1990, Krause & Maas proposed that these orders might have evolved in India, during its northward drift from Madagascar, dispersing across the northern continents when India collided with Asia.”
Armed with this new hypothesis, Rose and colleagues obtained funding from The National Geographic Society to explore India for rare fossil-bearing rocks of the correct age that might provide critical evidence for the origin of perissodactyls and other groups of mammals.
The first trip to Rajasthan in 2001 had little success, “Although we found only a few fish bones on that trip, the following year our Indian colleague, Rajendra Rana, continued exploring lignite mines to the south and came upon Vastan Mine in Gujarat.”
This new mine proved much more promising. Rose added: “In 2004 our team was able to return to the mine, where our Belgian collaborator Thierry Smith found the first mammal fossils, including Cambaytherium.”
Encouraged, the team returned to the mines and collected fossilized bones of Cambaytherium and many other vertebrates, despite challenging conditions.
“The heat, the constant noise and coal dust in the lignite mines were tough — basically trying to work hundreds of feet down near the bottom of open-pit lignite mines that are being actively mined 24/7,” he said.
Through the cumulation of many years of challenging fieldwork, the team can finally shed light on a mammal mystery. Despite the abundance of perissodactyls in the Northern Hemisphere, Cambaytherium suggests that the group likely evolved in isolation in or near India during the Paleocene (66-56 million years ago), before dispersing to other continents when the land connection with Asia formed.
Variety in the migratory behavior of blackcaps
Through a large-scale study with so-called geolocators, researchers led by Miriam Liedvogel of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, were able to uncover some of the mysteries surrounding the phenomenon of the blackcap’s bird migration.
Many species of birds have always migrated south in the fall to spend the winter there, including the small blackcap, which often weighs only a few grams and yet covers thousands of kilometers. However, changes in our landscapes and climate change are not leaving migratory birds unaffected. They change their behavior, the destinations of their journey, the time of their departure or even the decision whether to fly away at all. So far, these habits have been studied either experimentally with birds in captivity or by irregular recaptures of ringed birds.
A group of international researchers led by Miriam Liedvogel from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön has now for the first time conducted a large-scale study with geolocators. These are ultra-light, tiny devices that are attached to the backs of free-flying birds and record the light intensity with exact time data. After the birds have been caught again, the respective flight route can be calculated exactly. Altogether the scientists could document and analyze the migrations of 100 individual birds.
Different migration destinations depending on the breeding area
It was already known beforehand that there is a migration divide in Europe: east of this imaginary line, the blackcaps migrate southeast in the fall, and west of this line, they move southwest. Through targeted breeding experiments, it was already successfully shown in the 1990s that the direction of migration is inherited by the parents. These experiments also showed that offspring crossed in captivity between western- and easterly blackcaps show an intermediate orientation, i.e. they migrate exactly in the direction of the south. The assumption was that this would be avoided in nature, since the southern route would lead the birds over the Alps, the Mediterranean and possibly over the Sahara desert.
The scientists were now able to show that this intermediate orientation direction does indeed occur in nature and that the birds that choose this migratory direction also successfully return to their breeding areas despite the ecological barriers they have to overcome in this way. The area in which the orientation preference changes is surprisingly narrow and covers only 27 kilometers.
Some birds move north
Another exciting finding from the data obtained concerns a group of birds which, at the end of the year, do exactly the opposite of what one would expect: they do not migrate to the warm south but northwards and spend the winter in Great Britain. Since the 1960s, there has been a steady increase in the number of blackcaps that choose this strategy, probably due to milder winters and the winter feeding in English gardens. The new investigations show for the first time that these birds come from brood-areas scattered over whole Europe. Why do they not let themselves be dissuaded from this strategy by uncomfortable winters?
On the basis of the evaluated data it was to be recognized that these birds returned in the spring approximately ten days earlier to their breeding places than those which spent the winter in the south. The hibernators from Great Britain possibly had an advantage in the search for breeding places. For the evolutionary scientists, these findings are only a beginning. Bird migration behavior is largely genetic, and this study now lays the groundwork for finding the genes that control where birds migrate and when they fly.
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Materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Rivers melt Arctic ice, warming air and ocean
A new study shows that increased heat from Arctic rivers is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and warming the atmosphere.
The study published this week in Science Advances was led by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, with contributing authors in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Finland and Canada.
According to the research, major Arctic rivers contribute significantly more heat to the Arctic Ocean than they did in 1980. River heat is responsible for up to 10% of the total sea ice loss that occurred from 1980 to 2015 over the shelf region of the Arctic Ocean. That melt is equivalent to about 120,000 square miles of 1-meter thick ice.
“If Alaska were covered by 1-meter thick ice, 20% of Alaska would be gone,” explained Igor Polyakov, co-author and oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ International Arctic Research Center and Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Rivers have the greatest impact during spring breakup. The warming water dumps into the ice-covered Arctic Ocean and spreads below the ice, decaying it. Once the sea ice melts, the warm water begins heating the atmosphere.
The research found that much more river heat energy enters the atmosphere than melts ice or heats the ocean. Since air is mobile, this means river heat can affect areas of the Arctic far from river deltas.
The impacts were most pronounced in the Siberian Arctic, where several large rivers flow onto the relatively shallow shelf region extending nearly 1,000 miles offshore. Canada’s Mackenzie River is the only river large enough to contribute substantially to sea ice melt near Alaska, but the state’s smaller rivers are also a source of heat.
Polyakov expects that rising global air temperatures will continue to warm Arctic rivers in the future. As rivers heat up, more heat will flow into the Arctic Ocean, melting more sea ice and accelerating Arctic warming.
Rivers are just one of many heat sources now warming the Arctic Ocean. The entire Arctic system is in an extremely anomalous state as global air temperatures rise and warm Atlantic and Pacific water enters the region, decaying sea ice even in the middle of winter. All these components work together, causing positive feedback loops that speed up warming in the Arctic.
“It’s very alarming because all these changes are accelerating,” said Polyakov. “The rapid changes are just incredible in the last decade or so.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Alaska Fairbanks. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Covid: Liverpool testing trial sites doubled after queues on first day
Up to 12,000 people got tested on day one of a city-wide trial, Liverpool’s public health boss says.
