Sabrina Stierwalt, PhD, - QuickandDirtyTips.com
Stephan: An SR reader who is the mother of an 8th grade daughter sent me this at the request of her daughter, who felt it would be a good article for SR. And she was right. Thank you Dorothy.
Solar and wind farm
Credit: Stanford University
Earlier this month came the news that China plans to invest $361 billion into renewable energy projects over the next three years. A few days later, President Barack Obama penned a single author article in the journal Science, “The irreversible momentum of clean energy,” in which he outlined four reasons the trend toward increasing use of clean energy does not show signs of slowing down or stopping.
Even in the currently very divided U.S. political climate, public support for increasing our use of renewable energy sources is one thing that most of us do agree on. Some are concerned about pollution. Others are concerned about the national security risk posed by relying on other countries for our energy needs. Whatever the reason, according to a 2016 study from the Pew Research Center, 89% of the public supports expanding our solar power efforts, including 83% of those who identify as conservative Republicans and 97% of liberal Democrats. Additionally, 83% of thoe polled support […]
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Gretchen Livingston, Senior Researcher Family and Fertility - Pew Research Center
Stephan: In the midst of the growing and virulent racism on the part of White Christofascists, there is another and much healthier trend going on that has received almost no attention in news media, although it is actively represented in television drama series.
For the past six months I have been watching series on Netflix, HBO, Starz, Showtime and other channels, looking for cultural trends -- this is a particularly good place to catch them as they are starting -- and one of the things I have taken note of is the growing racial equality and inter-racial romances in the series.
Now here is some social outcome data to confirm what I was observing: "One-in-seven U.S. infants (14%) were multiracial or multiethnic in 2015, nearly triple the share in 1980, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data." I take this as good news.
One-in-seven U.S. infants (14%) were multiracial or multiethnic in 2015, nearly triple the share in 1980, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. This increase comes nearly a half century after the landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage.
Multiracial or multiethnic infants include children less than 1 year old whose parents are each of a different race, those with one Hispanic and one non-Hispanic parent, and those with at least one parent who identifies as multiracial. This analysis is limited to infants living with two parents because census data on the race and ethnicity of parents is only available for those living in the same home. In 2015, this was the case for 62% of all infants.
The rapid rise in the share of infants who are multiracial or multiethnic has occurred hand-in-hand with the growth in marriages among spouses of different races or ethnicities. In 1980, 7% of all newlyweds were in an intermarriage, and by 2015, that share had more than doubled to 17%, according to a recently […]
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Will Knight, Senior Editor for AI - MIT Technology Review
Stephan: It is my view that AI while it holds great promise also threatens catastrophe because the ethics of humanity do not rise to a level where they can counteract humanity's greed and lust for power. I think the Terminator movies have a strong precognition aspect to them. Here is one of the best articles I have read about AI and what is going on with this technological trend.
Credit: Keith Rankin/MIT
Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey. The experimental vehicle, developed by researchers at the chip maker Nvidia, didn’t look different from other autonomous cars, but it was unlike anything demonstrated by Google, Tesla, or General Motors, and it showed the rising power of artificial intelligence. The car didn’t follow a single instruction provided by an engineer or programmer. Instead, it relied entirely on an algorithm that had taught itself to drive by watching a human do it.
Getting a car to drive this way was an impressive feat. But it’s also a bit unsettling, since it isn’t completely clear how the car makes its decisions. Information from the vehicle’s sensors goes straight into a huge network of artificial neurons that process the data and then deliver the commands required to operate the steering wheel, the brakes, and other systems. The result seems to match the responses you’d expect from a human driver. But what if one […]
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David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Morgan M. Medlock, M.D., M.Div., - New England Journal of Medicine
Stephan: I think everyone knows by now that I do not care about politics or political polemic except from an anthropological perspective. What I care about, and SR covers, are social outcome trends as defined by actual research data.
I say this as preamble to this report which should concern every American. The data is clear, Donald Trump and the Republican Party are literally poisoning the social wellbeing of the United States.
Citation: N Engl J Med 2017; 376:2295-2299June 8, 2017
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMms170211
A small but growing body of evidence suggests that election campaigns can have both positive and negative effects on health. Campaigns that give voice to the disenfranchised have been shown to have positive but short-term effects on health. Such associations have been observed among black South Africans at the time of Nelson Mandela’s 1994 election, among black Americans during Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, and among Hispanic and black Americans when Barack Obama was nominated for President in 2008.1 Thus, increases in psychological well-being, pride, and hope for the future are likely to be evident among Donald Trump supporters.
At the same time, events linked to the recent presidential campaign and election have given rise to fear and anxiety in many Americans. Research suggests that these events can have negative health effects on people who have been direct targets of what they perceive as hostility or discrimination and on individuals and communities who feel vulnerable because they belong to a stigmatized, marginalized, or targeted group. It is worth exploring the scientific research in this area and […]
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Avi Salzman, - Barron's Next
Stephan: Here is another SR prediction confirmed. I have predicted for several years that whatever the federal government in the U.S., and particularly the Trump administration does, the world trend is to exit the carbon energy era. Even in the U.S. with its pro-carbon policies this is happening as this report spells out. As important as the report is the source. Barron's is a part of the financial sector's mainstream media.
Under a recent utility deal, solar power sold for under three cents per kilowatt hour, the lowest level on record in the U.S.
Credit: Getty stock photo
Solar power has become incredibly cheap to generate, and that makes it more likely that the world will continue to move away from fossil fuels, even as America withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord.
A deal signed late last month marked a new milestone for American solar power. NextEra Energy signed a contract to sell solar energy to Tucson Electric Power for less than three cents per kilowatt hour (the way that electric companies measure the cost of electricity), according to a press release from Tucson Electric Power. That’s less than half what the company has paid for similar contracts in recent years, and it appears to be a new record for the U.S.
“This price is a bit of an eye-opener,” said Barry Perry, the CEO of Fortis, which owns Tucson Electric Power. “There’s been a dramatic decline in the cost of […]
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