All posts by nedhamson

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

Three women media workers shot dead in eastern Afghanistan

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The news editor of a local radio and TV station in eastern Afghanistan says three women employees have been gunned down in two separate attacks,  Shokrullah Pasoon, of Enikass Radio and TV in Jalalabad, said Tuesday one of the women was walking home when gunmen opened fire

Pomona approves $4-per-hour ‘hero pay’ for grocery workers

Grocery stores in Pomona will be required to pay workers $4 an hour in “hero pay” on top of their regular wages after the City Council late Monday, March 1, approved an ordinance in support of the measure.

The council unanimously approved the ordinance, which will be in effect for the next 120 days, to support frontline retail workers facing greater risk of exposure in the coronavirus pandemic. The ordinance applies to retailers that employ 300 employees nationally and more than 10 within Pomona, and covers both grocery and pharmacy workers.

The ordinance will target the majority of large retail establishments within the city, including Stater Bros., Food 4 Less, Cardenas and Target. Under the ordinance, retailers are prohibited from retaliating against employees by reducing compensation and companies must notify workers of the new rules.

The move to support workers comes as grocery stores across the country have remained open throughout the pandemic as essential service providers. While many grocery stores have implemented various safety protocols such as plexiglass dividers at check stands and daily temperature checks, the stores have been among the hardest hit in terms of virus outbreaks in Los Angeles County.

Pomona joins a growing number of local governments that has pushed for “hero pay” ordinances for retail workers, including Montebello, Santa Ana, the city of Los Angeles and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.

The California Grocers Association has already filed lawsuits against some cities to stop such measures, most notably Long Beach. Last week, a federal judge denied the association’s lawsuit to temporarily overturn Long Beach’s ordinance on the basis that it failed to establish a likelihood of success on its claims. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

Pomona City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said Monday evening the city is not aware of any pending lawsuits from the CGA but noted the city is susceptible to any forthcoming claims.

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Multiple grocery workers called and emailed comments in support of the extra pay, recalling stories of coworkers contracting the virus on the job. United Food and Commercial Workers 1428, which represents unionized grocery store employees in Pomona, reported 74 COVID-19 positive cases in the city, equaling 46% of their represented employees there, according to a staff report.

“Our members have stood up every day just to do this job, to make sure our communities have what they need,” said Mark Ramos, UFCW Local 1428 president, who called into the meeting.

Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level | Brazil | The Guardian

Health experts and lawmakers have warned Brazil is steaming into the darkest days of its coronavirus catastrophe, as fatalities soared to new heights and one prominent politician compared the crisis to an atomic bomb.

Politicians from across the spectrum voiced anger and exasperation at the deteriorating situation on Monday, after Brazil’s weekly average of Covid deaths hit its highest level since the epidemic began last February and hospitals around the country reported being swamped.

According to the newspaper O Globo, intensive care units in 17 of Brazil’s 26 states were near capacity, while six states and the capital Brasília had run out of intensive care beds altogether.

Source: Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level | Brazil | The Guardian

Rep. Jim Jordan Calls for ‘Cancel Culture’ Hearing in the House – (translation: he wants to protect hate speech and promote pretend cause)

Appealing to cancel culture is just another way for Republicans to claim victimhood and argue that they’re the ones who are the most marginalized in society. Any minor consequence they face for their hateful rhetoric and ideology is a viscous attack and the worst thing that has ever happened to them, which in some cases is probably true. Source: Rep. Jim Jordan Calls for ‘Cancel Culture’ Hearing in the House

Humans and Megafauna Extinction

this trend of increasing extinction rate due to human activity has not ended. It is, in fact, accelerating. The background extinction rate is about 1 species per million per year, which means we should be experiencing about 10 extinctions per year. Instead, we are observing about 30,000 extinctions per year. Some scientists argue this means were are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, which seems a reasonable conclusion. This is no longer due to direct hunting, but due to loss of habitat and human-caused climate change. Those are things we can do something about, if we wanted to.

One cartoon-cliché of “prehistoric” time is that everything was bigger. We grow up absorbing a picture of the vague deep past as including dinosaurs, cavemen, and big versions of everything. While this is an oversimplification, and tends to mash vastly different periods into one (the past), the notion that mammals, at least, tended to be bigger in the past is accurate. When mammals replaced dinosaurs as the dominant megafauna on land, they became really big (although not as big as the biggest dinosaurs they replaced). But then over the last 2 million years average mammals sizes have been steadily decreasing. The big question is – why?

I recently wrote about the North American megafauna, and the debate between whether their extinction about 12 thousands years ago was caused primarily by humans (the overkill hypothesis) or climate change. But this debate exists for the entire planet – every continent except Antarctica. This continues to be a debate because large-scale cause and effect is difficult to prove in evolutionary history. We can test various hypotheses by predicting correlations and patterns in the fossil record and then looking for them. Sometimes we can extrapolate from current observable trends, or even changes in the laboratory. But the steady reduction in the average size of mammals requires looking for large correlations – what factor does this trend most have in common around the world? Many scientists think the clear answer is – humans.

Starting with Homo erectus, wherever humans go around the world they are followed by a wave of megafauna extinction. Could this just be a general trend unrelated to humans? Perhaps the world’s climate has been changing in such a way over the last two million years that explains a selective advantage to small size. Climate cannot be ruled out as a factor, but the evidence increasingly supports the notion that human hunting played a major factor.

I am always suspicious of nice clean stories in evolution, so I will add a huge caveat that any hypothesis about A causing B is likely to be a massive oversimplification. But some factors can have dominant effects. Around 2 million years ago we start to see the first evidence of Homo erectus using fire. At this same time erectus clearly dramatically ramped up their hunting, and also this was the first time a human species spread throughout the world. Cooking meat would have been a huge energy and nutritional advantage, and hunting requires a lot of land, and hence the need to spread out. This shift in our human ancestors correlates nicely with dramatic reductions in the average size of mammals, wherever humans went.

A recent study adds another layer to this story. Dr. Miki Ben-Dor and Prof. Ran Barkai from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University suggest in their paper that this trend is all about energy efficiency. Early humans would get the most energy back for their effort by hunting larger game. It’s just a matter of energy economics, which is a recognized factor in evolutionary pressure. Once humans develops the tools to kill big game, and the cooperative hunting, the trend was set in motion. They killed the biggest game because it was most energy efficient. Combine that with cooking, and they essentially conquered the world.

This would create a clear steady evolutionary pressure wherever humans went against large body size, and so body size steadily decreases. The factor is also huge – species that go extinct are between 100 and 1,000 times larger than those that survive. In North Amercia, for example, megafauna extinction resulted in a decrease in average body size from 216 pounds to 17.  Researchers favoring this hypothesis also point out you would not have to kill every single last member of a species to make them go extinct. Just adding a significant stressor, especially to species that tend to have few young, would be enough. Sure, there were likely other environmental stressors as well, but persistent human hunting eventually drove them to extinction.

The Tel Aviv researchers then add another factor – as humans started working their way to smaller and smaller animals, they would necessarily have to become more intelligent, and this does correlate with increased brain size. Hunting smaller game is more challenging, you have to be fast and clever. You also get less energy back for your effort, so you have to be really efficient, which requires more cleverness. Eventually, they argue, average animal size decreased so much as a result of human hunting that this strategy was no longer sustainable. That is when the shift to agriculture and domesticating animals happened. This, of course, created a separate set of pressures on animals, such as land use, water diversion, and disruption of habitats.

One important bit of evidence for the general association of human hunting and reduced animal size is the fact that, absent humans, there is no such trend observable in the fossil record. In other words, there is no trend separate humans where animal size decreases steadily. Climate change itself does not result in either an increase or reduction in average animal size. Only human hunting seems to be a consistent factor.

While the evidence seems to be piling up for the overkill hypothesis to explain the general trend of decreased mammal size over the last two million years, this debate is certainly not over. As I said, the evidence is mostly correlational, with leaves room for alternate interpretations. Humans may have been following this trend (hunting smaller and smaller game) rather than causing it. But right now there are solid arguments to be made for the overkill hypothesis.

There is nothing we can do about this now, of course, but – this trend of increasing extinction rate due to human activity has not ended. It is, in fact, accelerating. The background extinction rate is about 1 species per million per year, which means we should be experiencing about 10 extinctions per year. Instead, we are observing about 30,000 extinctions per year. Some scientists argue this means were are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, which seems a reasonable conclusion. This is no longer due to direct hunting, but due to loss of habitat and human-caused climate change. Those are things we can do something about, if we wanted to.

 

The post Humans and Megafauna Extinction first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Kerry View Two

Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Number two of seven from the Kerry County side near the top of Healy Pass, R574. Coolcreen townland is in the foreground of this photograph, the aspect turned 90 degrees to portrait mode, compared to View One..

In 1911, the Irish National Census lists nineteen (19) persons of five (5) families listed with the names O’Sullivan, Sullivan and Shea. From this view this is a puzzle until the map is examined. The land transitions from this rock to a steep, then leveling slope down to Glanmere Lake and a stream running from the heights, neither visible in this view, with plenty of reasonably level, fertile acreage.

Beara Peninsula, Coolcreen townland, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland.

You can easily view a higher resolution versions by clicking on the photograph to open a browser tab.

Click photograph for a larger version.

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

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Biden to announce ‘historic partnership’: Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, officials say

The administration officials indicated Biden would wield the powers of the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law, to give Merck priority in securing equipment it will need to upgrade its facilities for vaccine production, including the purchase of machinery, bags, tubing and filtration systems.

In teaming up with Merck, Johnson & Johnson has a partner with a century-long tradition of making vaccines. In the United States, Merck is the sole supplier of the combination childhood vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella. It developed Gardasil, which protects against the human papillomavirus. And it won Food and Drug Administration approval for an Ebola vaccine in 2019.

Source: Biden to announce ‘historic partnership’: Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, officials say

There is a comfort zone of not only happiness, but also sorrow.the possibility of something worse going on keeps up from getting out of our current situation.many times both our thoughts and work have merit, preparation is also complete, just the courage needed to move forward,we can not gather there itself.but it is also true that we can not always remain where we are.

My experience

It is not easy to follow the path leading to progress. Many kinds of fear disturb. The heart is saying something, the mind is saying something. Outside our safe circle, we find ourselves very weak. Every new start scares us. So in order to move forward, we have to first overcome our inner fear. Whether we are happy or sad, like our life or dislike, we become accustomed to living in a way. We find it difficult to keep pace with new responsibilities. We are afraid of losing, of laughing at others, of losing relationships, of losing what is at hand. For new changes, we also have to change our habits. So every new beginning makes us trouble. We tend to avoid moving forward.

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Stories served on our plate

Lyrical smile

Who are we? What are we choosing to be? What do we want the world to see in us? Are you ready to show the people the story you choose

If you are willing to keep everything transparent to the world then you are the bravest person ever known. Not all people are willing to share what has been placed in their plate or what their heart has caught. There are people like me afraid even to decide their page of story. The people like me who know exactly how to fake a smile. The pain that catches them makes them hypocrite but who are to blame for their hypocrisy? Should we blame the circumstances or should we blame the people who put them through this unbearable pain? Maybe we should stop the blame game and make sacrifices and become a saint and make compromises in every situation we are…

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