More than 27 percent if all medically important antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used to raise pigs.
Credit: North Dakota Department of Agriculture

The use of antibiotics in animal agriculture is a major part of the problem. More than 70 percent of the medically important antibiotics sold in the U.S. are sold for use in food animals. This is not because cows are particularly susceptible to strep throat; the majority of antibiotics used on animal farms are not used as treatment for diagnosed diseases in animals. Rather, most animals raised for food are raised on factory farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). To produce animal products cheaply and on a large scale, animals are packed together, creating crowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions. Such conditions are inherently disease-promoting for animals. To deal with the likelihood of infections and disease associated with poor conditions without actually changing those conditions, antibiotics have become a convenient Band-Aid. As factory farming has become the predominant model for raising animals for food, more […]

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Corporate accountant
Credit: Shutterstock

As the mid-April deadline for filing 2018 tax returns was approaching, accountants and tax preparers had their share of clients who were angry over some of the deductions that the GOP-sponsored Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 took away. But giant corporations made out much better than individual taxpayers with modest incomes, and in a new report for Yahoo Finance, journalist Kristin Myers offers some details on how little mega-corporations paid for fiscal year 2018 compared to previous years.

The Economic Policy Institute has reported that most U.S. workers saw little or no benefit from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And some middle-class taxpayers in blue states, after losing valuable deductions, complained that their taxes had increased thanks to the Republican tax law.

However, the United States Treasury Department brought in less revenue. Considering the “net figures,” Myers writes, “big businesses paid $91 billion less in 2018 than it had the year prior.”

Myers also points out that “while companies were able to avoid paying taxes thanks to the new […]

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The Woolsey Fire
Credit: The Woolsey Fire seen from Topanga Canyon in California. Photo courtesy of Peter Buschmann/USDA
/Flickr

In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire scorched nearly 100,000 acres of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, destroying forests, fields and more than 1,500 structures, and forcing the evacuation of nearly 300,000 people over 14 days. It burned so viciously that it seared a scar into the land that’s visible from space. Investigators determined that the Woolsey Fire began at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a nuclear research property contaminated by a partial meltdown in 1959 of its failed Sodium Reactor Experiment, as well as rocket tests and regular releases of radiation.

The State of California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) reports that its air, ash and soil tests conducted on the property after the fire show no release of radiation beyond baseline for the contaminated site. But the DTSC report lacks sufficient information, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It includes ‘few actual measurements’ […]

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Chinese 373 mph train
Credit: Popular Mechanics

A state-owned rail company in China has built the prototype for a blazingly fast maglev train. The new prototype, built by the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), is being designed to carry passengers at 373 mph (600 km/h). China hopes the train will be serving passengers in 2021.

“Take Beijing to Shanghai as an example — counting preparation time for the journey, it takes about 4.5 hours by plane, about 5.5 hours by high-speed rail, and [would only take] about 3.5 hours with [the new] high-speed maglev,” said CRRC deputy chief engineer Ding Sansan, head of the train’s research and development team, in a statement to CNN.

The prototype has been in development for around three years, Ding says. His team feels they have created a lightweight and high-strength train body that will serve as a testing foundation for five more prototypes after this one. To compliment and serve the progress Ding’s team is making, CRRC Qingdao Sifang, a subsidiary of […]

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