Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Tokyo reports over 5,000 COVID-19 cases for 4th straight day

The Tokyo metropolitan government reports 5,074 new coronavirus cases, topping the 5,000 level for the fourth straight day.

Source: Tokyo reports over 5,000 COVID-19 cases for 4th straight day

Separatist languages: the history of 13 linguistic conflicts around the world – Mágica Mistura 能

O português brasileiro ainda é a mesma língua usada em Portugal? Alguns especialistas argumentam que não. O idioma falado por aqui foi imposto aos indígenas por clérigos e disseminado na boca de uma população majoritariamente formada por marinheiros, artesãos e outros lusitanos pobres e marginalizados. Eles sequer sabiam ler e escrever. Com o passar dos…

Source: Separatist languages: the history of 13 linguistic conflicts around the world – Mágica Mistura 能

Google partial translation: Is Brazilian Portuguese still the same language used in Portugal? Some experts argue not. The language spoken here was imposed on indigenous peoples by clerics and disseminated in the mouths of a population mostly made up of sailors, artisans and other poor and marginalized Portuguese people. They didn’t even know how to read and write.

Birds from Walden blue heron

Blue herons are pure magic! Elegant magic…

Words from Walden

blue heron

This beautiful bird can be found at the edge of the pond, often sneaking through the long grass in search of frogs.

The heron stands tall and straight in its posture helped by its long legs. Slow to move unless it has to.

 Colours of a purple-ish grey-blue separate the truly majestic-looking creature from other similar typed birds such as osprey and flamingos. 

This huge bird has a massive wingspan and simultaneously looks elegant and cumbersome at the same time while trying to take off. 

It furiously flaps its wide wings barely clearing the treeline as it flys away in an upwards path that does not allow much leeway for mistakes.

 At times it will fly through the tree branches because it can not clear the treetops, yet it still manages to not crash into the leaves. 

Always making seemingly hard work look easy, the heron eventually reaches…

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Post #308: Game of Thieves in the Amazon — In the Human Interest – Mel Gurtov

Barbara Crane Navarro

Here is the audio version (broadcast August 17, 2021): The UN-appointed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a new report, based on the latest scientific findings, that once again warns that we are at the point of no return on global warming (For a summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/climate/climate-change-report-ipcc-un.html. For the report, IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf). The report represents[…]

Post #308: Game of Thieves in the Amazon — In the Human Interest – Mel Gurtov

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Demand for meat is driving deforestation in Brazil – changing the soy industry could stop it — Palm Oil Detectives

Barbara Crane Navarro

Angela Guerrero, Stockholm University and Malika Virah-Sawmy, Humboldt University of Berlin Soy may have a pretty innocuous reputation thanks to its association with vegan food and meat alternatives. But don’t be fooled – crops of this pale legume are behind much of Brazil’s epidemic of deforestation. Since 2000, Brazil has doubled its total area of[…]

Demand for meat is driving deforestation in Brazil – changing the soy industry could stop it — Palm Oil Detectives

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DON’T BUY GOLD — For all Amazonian tribes, the forest is the most precious asset. – THE PRODIGY OF IDEAS. — Tiny Life

Barbara Crane Navarro

AGUA BRANCA GOLD MINING VILLAGE, PARA STATE, BRAZIL – 2010/11/08: Gold mining, Amazon deforestation – hydraulic mining known as “chupadeira system”, a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. Workers clear the designated work front and then dug down to the level of ore-bearing material. Large and deep holes are made in forest land. Amazon rain forest deforestation, Agua Branca gold mining village, Para State, Brazil. (Photo by Ricardo Funari/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images)

For all Amazonian tribes, the forest is the most precious asset. For all Amazonian tribes, the forest is their home and their life. But whites don’t see a forest, they only see gold. They seek it, they want it at all costs, they demand it and they will cause the death of all. Because if[…][…]

DON’T BUY GOLD — For all Amazonian tribes, the forest is the…

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Me cautiva

Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

Usted me gusta. La descubro en los poemas y en los textos que le dedico, en las letras y en las palabras que le escribo, y también en los pétalos de las flores que recolecto. Usted me encanta. La siento en la lluvia, cuando, loco y ocurrente, recibo incontables gotas que mojan mi cabeza, mi piel y mi ropa. Usted me fascina. Escucho su voz en la lluvia, en la sinfonía del mar y en los susurros del viento. Usted me cautiva. Cada encuentro e instante a su lado, es un deleite, un encanto. Usted me embelesa. Es tierra y cielo, rumor y silencio, ruta y destino. Usted es mi delirio. He aprendido, a su lado, que el amor se vive y se siente, se experimenta y se sueña, se cultiva y se disfruta. Usted late en mí. La percibo en mi alma, en mi vida…

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India Approves World’s First DNA Covid Vaccine – Slashdot

ndia’s drug regulator has approved the world’s first DNA vaccine against Covid-19 for emergency use. The three-dose ZyCoV-D vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 66% of those vaccinated, according to an interim study quoted by the vaccine maker Cadila Healthcare. The firm plans to make up to 120 million doses of India’s second home-grown vaccine every year. Previous DNA vaccines have worked well in animals but not humans. Cadila Healthcare said it had conducted the largest clinical trial for the vaccine in India so far, involving 28,000 volunteers in more than 50 centers. This is also the first time, the firm claimed, a Covid-19 vaccine had been tested in young people in India — 1,000 people belonging to the 12-18 age group. The jab was found to be “safe and very well tolerated” in this age group.

DNA and RNA are building blocks of life. They are molecules that carry that genetic information which are passed on from parents to children. Like other vaccines, a DNA vaccine, once administered, teaches the body’s immune system to fight the real virus. ZyCoV-D uses plasmids or small rings of DNA, that contain genetic information, to deliver the jab between two layers of the skin. The plasmids carry information to the cells to make the “spike protein,” which the virus uses to latch on and enter human cells.

ZyCov-D is also India’s first needle-free Covid-19 jab. It is administered with a disposable needle-free injector, which uses a narrow stream of the fluid to penetrate the skin and deliver the jab to the proper tissue. Scientists say DNA vaccines are relatively cheap, safe and stable. They can also be stored at higher temperatures — 2 to 8C. Cadila Healthcare claims that their vaccine had shown “good stability” at 25C for at least three months — this would help the vaccine to be transported and stored easily. Source: India Approves World’s First DNA Covid Vaccine – Slashdot