Stephan: The latest information on what microplastics are doing to our health. And yet, because our society only values profit, instead of wellbeing, microplastics continue to pollute our world in spite of all the recognized damage they do.
Credit: Prostock/stock.adobe.com
NANJING, CHINA — Microplastics may be the reason some people are more likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease, a new study warns. Researchers at Nanjing Medical University found higher quantities of these microscopic plastic particles in the feces of people with IBD than in their healthy peers.
The study notes that people regularly ingest these particles through contaminated drinking water or by eating foods (like fish) which consume them first.
“Human ingestion of microplastics (MPs) is inevitable due to the ubiquity of MPs in various foods and drinking water. Whether the ingestion of MPs poses a substantial risk to human health is far from understood,” researchers write in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The team suggests that exposure to microplastics may be the actual reason people develop IBD. Another possibility is the condition exacerbates the retention of MPs.
According to the CDC, around three million people in the United States have IBD, an umbrella term that includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Symptoms include crippling stomach pain, fatigue, flatulence, nausea, […]
Stephan: Millions of American children do not have enough to eat, millions of families cannot make ends meet. Our infrastructure is falling apart. But there is always enough money for war and the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about. Over half the Pentagon budget goes to for profit companies. Everything about our national budget is skewed to support the rich and disregard the poor or the needs of our civil society.
Peace activists gathered outside the Internal Revenue Service offices in Manhattan on April 15, 2021 to protest against spending federal tax dollars on the Pentagon and U.S. wars. Credit: Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty
President Joe Biden signed a record-shattering military budget earlier this week, and a new analysis published Thursday predicted that if recent contracting trends continue, the Pentagon will funnel $407 billion worth of public funds to private weapons makers this fiscal year—more than the federal government spent when sending $1,400 relief checks to most Americans in 2021.
Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, found that “from fiscal year (FY) 2002 to FY2021, 55% of all Pentagon spending went to private sector military contractors.”
“If the privatization of funds rate over the last 20 years holds,” Semler noted, “it means [the] military industry will get about $407 billion from Biden’s first military budget—$16 billion more than the $391 billion those $1,400 stimulus checks cost the government earlier this year.”
This is what worries me the most. Americans have not experienced major social violence within our boundaries in over 150 years. No American is alive who has direct memory of those events that led to the Civil War.
All Americans have also lived only under a democratic system of government and, thus, have no idea what another kind of system would be like. As a result of this factual reality I think a large percentage of us cannot really comprehend what the Republicans are trying to do. Indeed, I don't think the members of Congress really fully understand what they are doing. And I'm not sure any of these people are capable of understanding.
Half the people in the United States can only read at a 6th grade level, and 150 million (44%) can't even name the three branches of government. Democracy is dying in America because of ignorance and laziness.
Man Shrugging | January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot Photo composite illustration by Salon/Getty
In America (and around the world) the year 2021 was one of great sadness and frustration. By many indications, 2022 may be even worse.
America’s democracy crisis continues to escalate. The alarm is blaring but the American people, for the most part, continue to ignore it. Last Jan. 6, Donald Trump and his regime attempted a coup with the goal of nullifying the results of the 2020 presidential election and, in effect, ending American democracy. In many respects, Trump’s coup attempt was atypical, if not wholly unique.
It was publicly announced by Donald Trump and his agents months or even years in advance. Despite those warnings, law enforcement officials and national security leaders did little to prepare for it. Most of the mainstream news media and pundit class did not take the threat seriously, instead choosing to mock those truth-tellers who kept sounding the alarm.
Nearly a year after the attack, Donald Trump and the other high-level planners and conspirators have not been punished, and remain free to continue plotting the overthrow […]
Stephan: Here is another view on the state of American democracy. It is sad and pathetic, and agrees with my own views. This year we are going to see whether democracy survives in the U.S. Today, I would say it is 60%-40% that it will not.
People calling for stopping the vote count in Pennsylvania gather on the steps of the state capitol in Harrisburg on 5 November 2020. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty
Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague have produced an indispensable and alarming ground-level record of how Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election played out in precincts and ballot-counting centers in key states.
In their terrific new book, the veteran reporters Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague argue that the mob that invaded the Capitol in Washington almost exactly a year ago “had no more chance of overthrowing the US government than hippies in 1967 had trying to levitate the Pentagon”.
The “real insurrection” was the one “led by Trump and his coterie of sycophants” in Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. It “was only slightly better organized than the mob but considerably more calculated and dangerous”.
That real insurrection is the subject of this timely and important volume. The authors have used a stethoscope to examine the minutia of the American election process. The result is a thrilling and suspenseful […]
Stephan: Personally, although my wife and I love traveling neither of us would willingly fly at this time, or stay in a motel/hotel. But if you have to, or want to, here is some data-based research to give you the best potential safety.
To read the research paper upon which his report is based: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0070625
Credit: Dima Berlin/stock.adobe.com
WASHINGTON — Public transportation is the lifeblood for people living in many major cities around the world. However, where these commuters choose to sit on a crowded bus or train may increase their exposure to particles carrying COVID-19, a recent study warns.
Researchers at IBM Research Europe have developed a model showing the differences in ventilation depending on where someone sits on a mass transit vehicle. Thier study focused on the common characteristics of asymptomatic transmission, including air and droplet dynamics, heat transfer, evaporation, humidity, and effects of ventilation systems.
“By visualizing the droplets and the flow, you realize the number of physical phenomena taking place around us that go unnoticed, such as the complex interactions between natural body plumes, exhalation, and ventilation,” explains author Carlos Peña-Monferrer in a media release. “When it comes to preventing risk of infection, this is precisely what makes it difficult to contain.”
Pick the Window Seat
Using their model, the team looked at what happens to tiny droplets (aerosols) […]
