All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Are You a Plant?

CRAIN'S COMMENTS

Some days, there’s nothing worth a few words, and other days are rich with content. Some seem full of grief and sadness, and others are funny and puzzling.

The alternative title for this post is: “What else that we think we know about our world is wrong?”

PIEZO proteins are responsible for the human sense of touch. Despite the importance of touch, these proteins were only identified about ten years ago. However, they are what enables skin contact to be converted into signals to the brain.

The news from Scripps Research Institute is that plants have these proteins as well, enabling them to sense the hardness of soil (and presumably objects like rock) around their roots and direct root growth. One protein in this class is concentrated in root tips, PZ01.(1)

So we’re not quite as different from plants as we thought.

We already have Simard’s research indicating that plants…

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‘I am seeking justice’: Tulsa massacre survivor, 107, testifies to US Congress | US news | The Guardian

For nearly a century she was denied a voice by a culture of silence. Finally, at the age of 107, Viola Fletcher got a national stage on Wednesday to bear witness to America’s deep history of racial violence.

Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of a massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921 when a white mob attacked the city’s “Black Wall Street”, killing an estimated 300 African Americans while robbing and burning more than 1,200 businesses, homes and churches.

She was just seven years old at the time.

For decades the atrocity was actively covered up and wished away. But Fletcher and her 100-year-old brother are seeking reparations and, ahead of the massacre’s centenary, appeared before a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies.

Congressman Steve Cohen, chairman of the panel, acknowledged coronavirus restrictions and said: “Those in the room, I’d like to ask you to keep your face mask on at all times unless you’re speaking – or unless you’re over a hundred years old.”

Source: ‘I am seeking justice’: Tulsa massacre survivor, 107, testifies to US Congress | US news | The Guardian

Flouting CDC Guidance, Some Schools Are Lifting Mask Mandates – Mother Jones (Me: buy more coffins – people are going stupid again over pandemic)

Another district following suit is Cobb County, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. Last Thursday, just hours after the CDC made its initial statement on vaccinated people no longer needing to wear masks, Cobb County superintendent Chris Ragsdale issued an announcement: “In accordance with the new guidance, Cobb Schools will no longer require fully vaccinated individuals to wear a mask,” he wrote. The district doesn’t plan to verify vaccination status—the new rules will work on an honor system.  Source: Flouting CDC Guidance, Some Schools Are Lifting Mask Mandates – Mother Jones

The GOP Is Turning the January 6 Insurrection Into a New Lost Cause – Mother Jones

They looted congressional offices, vandalized the building, and assaulted hundreds of law enforcement officials. The insurrection left five dead—including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick—and marked a dark day in the history of the United States. Among the countless photos that went viral was one of a man flying a Confederate flag inside the Capitol. That such a symbol was still proudly waved in America only foreshadowed the egregious whitewashing to come. Source: The GOP Is Turning the January 6 Insurrection Into a New Lost Cause – Mother Jones

SARS-CoV-2 variants dashboard

This dashboard provides an overview of the proportion of variants of concern and variants of interest in EU/EEA Member States together with sequencing volumes and complements the ECDC country overview report. Data are sourced from TESSy or the GISAID EpiCoV database. Where data are available from more than one source for a country, the source used is the one with the highest number of sequences in the last two weeks.

The dashboard is updated every Thursday afternoon. Data behind the dashboard are available for download.

Source: SARS-CoV-2 variants dashboard

Oregon counties vote to secede to Idaho | TheHill 

Voters in five rural Oregon counties approved measures on Tuesday to consider joining the state of Idaho, a part of a long-shot grassroots movement to break with a state dominated by liberal voters west of the Cascade Mountains…

Actually moving the lines would require a vote from the Oregon legislature, which is firmly controlled by Democrats. Oregon and Idaho would have to strike a formal deal, which would then need to be ratified by the U.S. Congress.

Congress has only approved measures to change state lines on three occasions: Kentucky was carved out of territory previously owned by Virginia in 1792. Maine was carved out of Massachusetts in 1820. And West Virginia was admitted to the union in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, as Union counties separated themselves from the Confederacy.

Source: Oregon counties vote to secede to Idaho | TheHill