CharonY

I don't get why they would mention Merkel? The relationship between her and Putin was notoriously tense. The only think I could think of is that her government opposed NATO membership for Ukraine to prevent escalation in 2008 (and considering the political instability in Ukraine at that time, one could argue either way, I guess). Fun Merkel quote on Putin: That was following an incidence where Putin allegedly let his dog in, as Merkel was known to be afraid of dogs. Trump and many GOP cronies, on the other hand...

There have been a boom for carbon capture technologies for a little while now. The issue I have is that they often ride the "magic bullet" mentality where tech somehow will solve all the problems we have neglected to address for decades or centuries and all without having to put effort in. While their implementation in plants fore example seems to have benefits, I suspect that the promise to effect ratio for implementation at scale is still a bit off. But the same line easy solutions thinking is what is popular with folks like Musk.

We have two threads with this idea, but there are a couple of issues and the math is rather meh on the net benefit. But one important bit is that the biomass needs to be long-term sequestered in order to be removed from the atmosphere. If there is more biomass turnover (e.g. fish or repeated cycle of biomass to active zones) then CO2 will be released again. While it might not be a net release per se, it can reduce the capacity of the ocean to sequester CO2 (which is dependent on the partial pressure of CO2 at the surface). But it does sound saner than using nukes.

At 300C a pizza would fully cook (and subsequent burn) within 3-4 minutes, usually. So baking them in that temp for 20 mins seems a bit off. I suspect that there is some mistranslation going on, as the recipe also calls for yeast despite being yeast-free (microwaving water to lukewarm is typically also for activating yeast, so double-weird). Water (or rather steam) is often used to create the characteristic crust on baguettes (or what you can find in buns in Europe) as well as help with the rise in the early phase of baking. Commercial bread ovens (in Germany at least) typically have a steam function for that purpose. Not sure if already mentioned, but for bread you would generally want "strong" flour (i.e. protein content of >10%). Also as John already noted, freeze-thaw cycles damages cells, but not quantitatively (i.e. only a proportion at any given time).

Kneading helps to form a matrix that gives the bread enough structure once yeast does its things. Without kneading, you can have a similar effect with a wetter dough and let the fermentation process to happen very slowly. So the assumption I had earlier is that if freeze no knead dough, you will collapse whatever happened in the first rise and structurally it might not recover as there is not enough activity left in the yeast. A kneaded bread might be more resilient and even with less yeast activity one might retain some fluffiness (I would assume).

There was a German satirical comedy about 10 years ago where Hitler was the protagonist. It was rather successful, IIRC. If anything, I am a bit worried that the new generation does not realize the horrors to the same degree, especially with political party (the AfD) repeatedly trying to downplay the horrors of Nazism. There was already an investigation for antisemitism because of the use of balloons shaped like pigs with the Star of David. One additional issue is that the concert was located at a place (the Festhalle) where in 38 Jews were rounded up and transported to concentration camps, where they were murdered. But the court allowed the concert to go ahead as they ruled that the performance did not glorify Nazism or identified with Nazi ideology. That being said, I assume that some critics, including the International Auschwitz committee may have continued to push different angles.

In Germany it has become more acceptable to use Nazi imagery for artistic purposes, but glorification is still a hard line.

So they should be more politically correct ;)? But yes there has always been a risk if one wades into public discussions especially if one is not trained to navigate public opinion. That being said, I think we are still struggling how to navigate the whole social media landscape, which expands these types of issues from celebrities to regular folks (who definitely don't have PR folks working for them).

Once allegations have been made, the police has to investigate. My guess is he made enemies due to his anti-Israeli stance. Most likely it won't result in anything.

I don't think that this is true, if it is applied evenly. The issue many have is that they a) there are exclusionary criteria (not allowed to compete) that don't apply to cis peers or b) are excluded entirely. Rather than saying your are transgender, and you are only allowed in this space, you are basing it off certain performance criteria. Results could in theory be similar, but the process is also important.

Note that paralympics and similar divisions are not as straightforward as wheelchair or not. Rather they do have measures to scale impairment and either form divisions or alter scoring systems based on them. Wheelchair basketball teams need to fulfill certain handicap requirements. Members are scored based on their mobility and the team must stay within a certain level. I.e. it is not binary and allows participation of folks with limited upper body movements. Arguably something like that would be a way forward rather than outright exclusion. As per the other discussion it would be beneficial to quantify advantages (rather than using assumptions and extrapolations) assess ways to categorize these advantages and figure out a way to incorporate those findings (e.g. scoring or otherwise). And, as also previously discussed, if we find decent measures, one can form divisions based on them without even needing to figure out if or when someone transitioned. The worst way to deal with it is probably getting lawmakers involved.

Empiricism to the rescue!

No knead bread is usually uses higher hydration dough with slower fermentation (often by using less yeast), though. I am not sure whether that makes an issue if you want to freeze them. I can imagine that the product might become rather compact.

Yes, pollution famously does not spread in any shape or form.

You know what? Pre-Trump I would have thought it funny, too. Now, not so sure.

I had frozen bread dough only once, but fundamentally I would think that it does not require any specific treatment. Generally speaking, I would start with a regular bread recipe, go through the first rise (high yeast activity), punch it down, shape and freeze. It might make sense to add more yeast than normal so that after thawing there is enough activity.

I will also say that it is hard to find a middle ground if one starts from a muddle foundation. Look at this thread. The paper that started it off, argued, perhaps poorly that systemic issues including (but not exclusively) racism manifests itself in ways that are invisible if part of a system. That is not even controversial and what critical race theory posits: normalization of thing that can lead to unequal race (or other trait)-based outcomes are perpetuating racial injustice, but they may not be perceived as such, as whatever it is considered the norm. The case study (or all case studies, for the most part) are weak in conclusion and are more a collection of observations that are more or less useful. The two main aspects one might have discussed is how useful that line of thinking is or isn't for educational purposes (as opposed to a social science study that wants to actually elucidate and/or quantify such effects) as well as whether the editorial board handled things well (which is more a procedural discussion). Instead, it is interpreted as that the authors are randomly calling things, including whiteboards racist (they don't they spend a lot of time in the intro outlining what systemic racism is) and then we spend rest of the time talking about overreach. I don't think these things are necessarily productive as we really just lament how we perceive the world to be but do not anchor them to actually facts or data. It is not that perceptions are not valid, but the issue is that we tend to treat them the same. Everyone sees themselves as centred and reasonable, but there is often not a real way to calibrate that.

I think we should move the discussion off from the main thread, but I don't think of Grana Padano as a better or faster Parmigiano Reggiano, it is just a slightly different product. Like aged wine or whiskey, (somewhat) different notes for different tastes and occasions. An important bit is also the quality control of the process for these protected products. Some, such as dietary requirements for the animals, or cumbersome, long winded processes can have more or less subtle effects on quality. Many optimized methods can get close (e.g. by adding the major components affecting flavour), but there is often something missing in depth. Also I feel that because industrial production is so much more efficient, they scavenge off a lot of (unprotected) mid-class products. Regional products can still be great, but it is often hard to find them in grocery stores (and then they tend to be similarly expensive as European imports). What I found especially in the USA is that folks are so used to these products (e.g. American "cheese") and oversweetening of products that often many standard (and usually cheap) products such as sausages contain ungodly amount of sugars and fillers, whereas the actual meat remains on the bland side. I know it sounds snobbish (though someone with Italian heritage should be used to that) but the mass produced foods seem to twist the taste of folks toward sweet, overflavoured products. There are in fact studies about this phenomenon (mostly in the US) and while origin production might not be the best solution, it is a way to incentivize the maintenance of more convoluted, but ultimately less overproduced food.

A bit of sidetracking here, but I would like to add that addiction rates are typically not estimated by a singular method (such as wastewater surveillance), but typically incorporates other measures from multiple sources (e.g. injection site uses, surveys in homeless shelters, general interviews and so on). Wastewater analyses are generally robust to look for trends and relative changes. Using population estimates such as caffeine (but increasingly other biomarkers are getting more popular) some level of prevalence can be estimated but there are indeed challenges, depending on the type and size of the sewer system (some areas might have way longer residence times than others), biological activity. temperature, variability in flow and so on. That being said, any measure of drug use has its issues and ultimately the idea is to combine various independent approaches to provide the most accurate picture. An advantage of wastewater analyses is that it tends to be a good indicator of overall trend in a population and can be a good estimator for modeling purposes.

I have concerns. Most high quality products follow a similar process. But cheaper ones do take shortcuts in time. Bacterial activities, us where the flavor comes from, and many inferior products simply are not aged as much.

I think that disqualifies you from calling yourself an Italian. BTW, I do think that the protection has the benefit from preserving the old process over industrialized shortcuts that tend be more easy to find. In Europe, much of the protected stuff is actually reasonably cheap, too.

Though in is case folks had to misinterpret a perhaps suboptimal study and create a fake title to make it extremely woke, no? There are issues with case studies in general (medical case studies share some of them) but the title of the article illustrates how to make folks focus on the wrong thing. The refusal of the commentary is, if anything, an issue, though I would have liked to see the reviews.

That would be fine if we were a social sciences forum, I guess.

I think we have established that this is not what it is about. I think it is worthwhile to iterate that everyone has implicit biases (or whatever we call them). That in itself is not the issue, folks will be arseholes regardless of the situation. But what the paper is about (and the broader discussion) is the surrounding system in which these implicit biases create issues. In the US (but also elsewhere) there are explicit as well as unintentional system that result in unequal outcomes, depending on race (and gender), even if each group has the same amount (or lack of ) implicit bias. These structures are often invisible and it is a bit what the paper (if clumsily) seems to want to address. I.e. they claim that in their observational mini-cohort, due to the cultural background in which it happens, the different folks (Hispanic, White, Middle Eastern, men and women) behave differently within that structure. Again, the case study does not allow conclusion in itself, but it is something that they want to try to observe.

It is not on par as a typical study, but case studies are often like that. For example for unusual manifestations of diseases you might have descriptions of what is happening with a single patient. Most of the time they do not allow any valid conclusions (e.g. in terms of treatment efficacy), but the value is really that if someone sees something similar one can start thinking about the need of conducting a full (or pilot) study. I have seen studies in the social sciences which are fairly well designed, but ultimately, the higher the complexity of the question, the more difficult it becomes to control for all parameters. Interestingly, behavioral biology is undergoing a change where folks realized that some of the rigors common in behavioral animal studies might actually be detrimental to the science, as it dismisses individuality that increasingly is recognized in animals (and already assumed in social sciences). I would agree that the explanatory power of an average social science study is lower than that of natural sciences, and it generally takes many years until some sort of consensus can be formed. As a consequence they often lag behind (rapid) societal shifts.