CharonY

I think it is way more likely that it is a behavioural pattern which developed when cooking and other forms of food processing became a key element of human dietary habits. Creating a cooking place make things less flexible and more efficient to do it more centralized with fewer times a day used for feeding. Many groups which rely on hunting tend to have 1-2 meals a day, but there is also eating throughout the day when they have plentiful access to preserved food. Also, it should be noted that while feeding might be regular, the timing might not be and depend highly on food source and related to e.g. hunting patterns, seasons and so on. I think that specifically three meals a day is a rather modern development and I wouldn't be surprised if it was linked to the rhythms created by the industrial revolution.

Most likely the formulation contained spores. The toxin itself can be deactivated by cooking, and Clostridium botulinum itself is not terribly hardy and it is an obligate anaerobe (i.e. does not survive oxygen). Spores, however are fairly hardy and can survive drying very well and are fairly heat resistant. They can be inactivated by prolonged autoclaving and potentially heating for an extended amount of time. However they usual inactivation times typical for bacteria which are required for food preparation, will be insufficient. Most likely, sufficient spores survived the process to cause infections in infant guts (but I would need to read up the reports to see what was actually found). Unlikely, the production requirements should be identical.

I think one of the original ideas is that if set up as non-profit, they would be sustainable, but not profitable. But from what I remember they made significant losses. What I don't remember if whether they managed to address the challenges of food deserts. I.e. whether e.g. local and especially low-income folks were using them (or could use them). Somewhat independent of that some food banks have started to set up grocery hubs, essentially free grocery stores like other food banks, but giving folks more of a grocery experience in order to promote agency and reduce stigma. But of course, it is an entirely different idea. That is one of the things I am looking most forward to. That is, an alternative to unlimited power due to unlimited money.

Yeah, I was curious about that and there are reports of a fairly wide range of issues. But essentially in all cases they need significant subsidies. But assuming that there are indeed addressing issues, these might be worth it.

The slide is not inevitable, but Norway is not a particular good example as the far right Progress party had the highest vote count ever. While Geert Wilder's party lost seats, they were still tied. Granted it suggests that in the respective parlamentarian system shifts are possible (though the PVV remains in second place). Another example could be Poland, where the the opposition managed to form a government coalition pushing the right-populist PiS out of power (which still holds the most seats, just not the majority). But in the presidential election, a PiS-backed candidate won. I think the one thing that typically happens is that once populist parties are in power, they generally mess things up as most are just not very competent and are driven by ideology, rather than good policy ideas. In parallel, they are also often ignored by moderate parties. I think only within the last 10-15 years did they get enough votes in at least some countries so that they were impossible to ignore. Moreover, they have started to dismantle accountability measures and have been better at using propaganda (especially via social media) to distort reality to such a degree that voters somehow become unable to see the failures as what they are. The US is a highly visible variation of it and I think to some degree, because it is a different country some folks have an easier time spotting that than within their own. And another point on the super-rich. In some cases their wealth is now larger than that of many nations, resulting in massive powers without control. Add to that those folks also control, directly or indirectly, modern information consumption and public discourse, it sure looks dystopian.

I am a bit less optimistic. If not that, folks would have weaponized other elements. While neoliberalism also got a hold of Europe, radicalization also happened. There is always disenfranchisement that can be leveraged and I just think folks got better at doing that. Or conversely, population resilience against such movements have diminished.

They worked a long time on in, but the progress was slow. It feels that in the last decade or so, things accelerated. Whether due to accumulated power or just something else happening is not quite certain to me, But, it is important to note that this is not just an US thing. Brexit was already mentioned and in addition, there are a lot of countries that have slid into autocracies in Europe and elsewhere. I am not saying that they can all be tracked to the same reason, but collectively they are part of a larger trend.

I think this thread hits certain notes that are both, silly and dead serious. The world is changing at the whims of folks who are not masterminds but for the most part horrible manchildren. As a result, the premise of OP should be ridiculous, but given that rationality is bleeding out of the world, the likelihood seems nonzero, as it otherwise should be. To quote the mightiest British King (but referring to the world as a whole): "It is a silly place". Resulting in Quebec detaching itself from the continent. And mandating that English languages is only allowed to be printed in Braille.

BC will take in refugees, but only hipsters. Alberta will try to join the red states, First Nations in Alberta will let them join but keep the land beneath them. Saskatchewan will try to announce that they will join, but get too drunk to remember which side, but to be fair, no one remembers Saskatchewan. Or Manitoba. Ontario will write a stern letter to both sides, asking them to cut it out, and Doug will post a mean meme. But they are too busy fighting their own war against bicycles, speed cameras, and Toronto. Quebec will use that as an excuse to cut themselves from English-speaking Canada. According to a study New Brunswick is too busy hating itself. PEI will get ready for war, all three of them. But they have to go fishing on the weekend. Newfoundland and Labrador: they made an oral commitment. But since no one can understand them it is unclear what it was. The territories send the most ferocious moose and bear-mounted force but they will not arrive before the end of the war. But realistically, Canada would likely close the borders and hunker down, like everyone else. Either that, or just burn down the White House again. Trump has already started.

Also, a lot of of weird things can be made into belief systems. While cults are probably the most obvious examples, there are a lot of movements (anti-vaccination, diets, various pyramid schemes and so on) which build a whole belief system based on little to no data, a lot of assumptions and, inevitably, some sort of grift. (The number of podcasters selling their protein powder is too darn high!).

Also, right hands. I am fairly sure that it breaks his mind a bit that people of colour can get a Nobel but he doesn't get one.

The way it is explained to me is that there is a list somewhere associated with security risks. I forgot the details but in the list for biosecurity there were things like knowledge about certain pathogens, use of fermenters, freeze dryers and a couple of random other things. The reasoning is that this knowledge is useful for building bioweapons (and kimchi).

That is just not true. That would somewhat require all languages came into existence fully formed

I think expecting reason from an administration that not only a non-existing white holocaust in SA and then trying to make it reality by inviting refugees is a bit of a tall order. Also, I would not be surprised if they use AI or some other stupid pattern-based method to flag folks from certain "undesired" countries where they assume some risk of overstaying. But one would only really see that if one looks at broader patterns, a Nobel Laureate is of course a special consideration. If it is targeted, one possibility is that Soyinka was incarcerated in the wake of the civil war. Even before this administration, the US does flag individuals in some cases often without further understanding of the situation. For example, a microbiologist who has ever used a freeze dryer (a very standard piece of equipment) could add a few flags already.

Yeah, what a mystery. In all seriousness, I suspect that they are starting to flag repeat visits from countries where folks do not have the right shade of mayonnaise. It seems to be part of a larger effort of ehm, "diversity" efforts by the administration. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-refugee-white-people.html

I know that this is in the philosophy section, but it sounds more like you are talking about pattern recognition in the brain. And fundamentally it is constructive process, in a way it tries to create an output based on sensory inputs, but also what is present in memory as well as the current state of mind. If afraid, for example cues are more likely to be interpreted as dangerous, for example. But there is no right or wrong at that point as only in hindsight (which means following a corrective pattern matching process) can the brain figure out whether something was identified rightly or wrongly. The interview situation seems to be rather different to the scenario outlined in OP, though (and is more philosophical in nature).

I think it depends on the context and time a fair bit. Independent scientists outside of academia or industry are very rare and were probably more common until sometime around the 19th century but Lovelock could be such a rare example. At least considering the period where he was self-funded. Before that he did consultant work, IIRC where it would be considered a private entity but not entirely independent as such. Most folks would rather fall into externally funded, but usually academia-affiliated group. One of the reasons being that most public funds require some sort of affiliation (to reduce risk of money funneled to grifters, for example).

In academia an independent researcher is a specific designation for a PhD-level person not on a traditional faculty track (which is usually a mix of some sort with teaching and research duties), but which is not associated to someone who is (like a postdoc). They are not terribly common, but can include folks leading core facilities, or so-called research professor positions. They often are soft-money based, (i.e., externally or service funded), but there are exceptions. In the online world this designation takes a different meaning, usually referring to folks to lazy to understand the basics and diving right into WAG. Doing "a research" here often means casually watching random videos until they consider themselves an expert.

I think for those things one would need to start looking at the structure in more detail. DNA is fairly flexible but much is due to the helical backbone. Intercalation between base stack does bend the structure for example, but imagine it as "filling" is, at least to me, more confusing. It is more inserting into tight stacks and creating a partial unwinding of the helix or sometimes a just a bending. Also, not terribly important, but since students sometimes do that, I have to note that one shouldn't confuse agar with agarose. Especially if one does not want to spend time cleaning up the gel chambers.

I would assume that oxygen is actually fairly soluble in vegetable oil at RT. I am not sure specifically about vegetable oil, but in most lipids (IIRC) the dissolved oxygen at a given temp and pressure was always significantly higher than in water. I think what you are looking at is a bit if a physics questions. I.e. the diffusion of the respective compounds through at the lipid/water interface. If you have little headspace, and a sufficiently large oil volume and either a small surface area with the liquid beneath and/or a significantly slow diffusion rate, most of the oxygen in the headspace could be contained in the oil, with little being released via diffusion. There, the with sufficient abundance of facultative anaerobic bacteria the oxygen is likely going to be consumed before the yeast gets a chance.

I don't think that this platform has essential oils activated. Would need a higher subscription tier than we have.

One aspect where influencers are good at is manipulating emotion. There is an increasing body of lit that shows how misinformation is linked to emotional responses and that truthfulness and facts only play minor, if any role. The authors of a recent paper have written an article on their findings. In short there are folks who virtue signal by perpetuating known (even to them) falsehoods. (https://theconversation.com/winning-with-misinformation-new-research-identifies-link-between-endorsing-easily-disproven-claims-and-prioritizing-symbolic-strength-265652) Regarding OP: As others have noted, whether a discussion makes sense heavily depends on what you want to get out of it. There will be cases of (preciously few) good faith debates. But as outlined above, there are also plenty of cases where the facts deliberately don't matter and it becomes a performance.

Maybe, but there is also maybe something else at play. There are certainly different ways to read it. For example, it is possible that in Italy and Germany conservative forces held sufficient power so that the ideologically similarly aligned fascist movements could be gain power in a somewhat "regular" way. Another possibility is because at that point fascist held power in Germany and Italy, they thought that a violent grab to power was possible or perhaps even inevitable. Again, I am pretty sure someone has looked into it, but I certainly didn't. I strongly suspect that this is at least some part of it. And especially among young folks I hear a lot of of disillusionment when it comes to the capitalist system, heavily fueled by the affordability crisis and that most won't be able to afford houses as even their parents did. This makes them naturally being interested in finding someone to blame and solve the problem. And generally speaking the centre tends to try to maintain some sort of status quo, whereas more extremist voices purport solutions (whether real or not). It is part of the reason why especially young men have shown a swing to the right (including MAGA), which generally provides an outlet for grievances and often promises easy (if unrealistic) solutions. In fact we see that play out in real time, and I do wonder how long it takes until folks realize they have been had. Especially the working class is going to feel the financial squeeze. While this all seems rather similar to what we have been discussing, it is also of note that there are not real extreme left powers of relevance in the US, so there is some uncharted territory.

It feels that there is a resurgence of Marxism, especially as society is barreling towards exactly what he has been worried about (with some modern twists). To large degree it is fueled by recent economic crises, but perhaps most importantly, by rising inequality which goes beyond a more qualitative difference. Add to that that we are entering a new era where it is entirely unclear whether labor is worth anything, and where somehow all the wealth apparently is generated virtually it might be time to rethink how the economy is and isn't working for people.

There are no ratios. 1:2 refers to the distance between the first genus on your table compared to the second. So, Racophorus : Polypedates. If you look at the listed traits all are identical except webbing. So the difference except webbing is 0 (i.e. no distance/identical). The difference in webbing is "full" vs "partial". Here it boils down how you evaluate that difference. If you think that full vs partial is the same as full vs absent, then the score would be the same (e.g., 1). If you think full vs partial is less of a difference, then you could e.g. score it with a 0.5. You would follow the approach for all possible combinations (hence, the matrix shape).