Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Seaweeds are not plants – and six other surprising facts about aquatic flora
Crucial to life on earth
.webp)
As I highlighted in a recent paper, an extraordinary range of adaptations have evolved in aquatic plants for life beneath the water’s surface. Some flower underwater, others capture animals in ingenious traps. Here are seven facts that show how these remarkable organisms challenge our assumptions about what plants are and how they survive.
Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories. This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.
1. Plants can’t stop returning to water
Water lilies float their leaves on the surface, duckweeds drift freely and seagrasses live entirely submerged in the ocean. Some of these groups made their return over 100 million years ago. The repeated evolution of aquatic plants is one of nature’s most striking examples of convergent evolution.
Save kids' lives
Flu shots prevent 80% of death in kids
The team used data from the US Influenza Associated
Pediatric Mortality Surveillance System and survey data to estimate VE against
death and assess vaccination status in children aged 6 months to 17 years who
died of their infections from August 2016 through July 2025. The study excluded
the 2020-21 flu season.
“Seasonal influenza vaccination has been shown to reduce the
risk of influenza and severe complications among children aged 6 months
and older,” the study authors noted. “Since 2010, reported numbers of
influenza-associated pediatric deaths among children younger than 18 years
have ranged from 37 during the 2011 to 2012 season to 289 during the 2024 to
2025 season.”
Over half of flu deaths were in otherwise healthy
children
In total, 1,234 children aged 6 months to 17 years died
of flu. Overall, 48% of pediatric deaths occurred in children with one or more
underlying medical conditions and 52% in those without such conditions.
Of deaths in children with at least one high-risk condition, the greatest proportion of flu vaccination was in those with non-asthma lung disorders (35%), followed by immune-weakening conditions (33%) and genetic and mitochondrial disorders (29%) and was lowest among those with obesity (18%), diabetes (11%), and hemoglobinopathies such as sickle cell disease (8%).
Among 1,086 deaths with flu vaccination data, only 23% of
530 children with chronic conditions and 13% of 556 children without these
conditions were fully vaccinated against flu. By season, the proportion of flu
deaths in children vaccinated in the current year ranged from 26% in 2018-19 to
9% in 2024-25.
Federal health agencies say they need a big funding bump to prepare for future emergencies
Rebuild our ability to handle public health emergencies
Federal agencies
tasked with planning for and responding to public health emergencies say they
need a big bump in funding to prepare for future pandemics and antimicrobial
resistance, as well as chemical, biological, radiologic, or nuclear
threats. 
Public health decisions are made by this clown
The
multiyear budget, released July 15, proposes an allocation of
$53.3 billion over the next three fiscal years: 2027, 2028 and 2029. If funding
remains flat, the allocation will be $20 billion, or $33.5 billion less than
requested.
The
Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the federal
government's leading health security agency, says the budget is based on agency
professional judgment.
"These
investments will strengthen our ability to develop, manufacture, and deliver
lifesaving medical countermeasures when they are needed most," said John
Knox, ASPR's principal deputy assistant secretary and interim leader, in an
ASPR news release.
The proposed
budget comes at a time when many have criticized the federal government's deep cuts to
preparedness efforts amid the recent hantavirus outbreak and ongoing Ebola
outbreak in Africa.
Monday, July 27, 2026
Trump has a public nervous breakdown on Truth Social
He flaunts his dementia for all to see
By Will Collette
we know this. it’s not open to debate. we’ve all seen the erratic behavior. the pants-shittingly infantile tantrums. the utter lack of impulse control. the mood swings. the ever-shifting incoherence he wreaks on the world, as the family of raccoons that live inside his fat, waterlogged head randomly chew through all the wires.
The AI-slopped photo above of Trump and John F. Kennedy in front of the now half-destroyed White House is particularly ironic, given Trump's blasphemous destruction of Jackie's Rose Garden and treatment of the Kennedy Center.
Then there's this:
And this:
And this one featuring Cadet Bonespurs:
And this interpretation of how his endless war with Iran is going:
For Trump, this one is a pretty subtle attack in our renewed war on Canada:
When he isn't trying to come up with new things to name after himself or historic treasures he wants to turn into gilded bordellos, he spends his time with this shit.
He's out of control and that spells danger for all of us, MAGA and DSA alike. Since the Republican controlled Congress doesn't have the guts to deal with him, we need to deal with them on November 3.
Important state races crucial September 9 Democratic primary for Charlestown's state Representative
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
Microplastics Found in 84% of Serious Heart Attack Patients
Plastic pollution may be reaching the heart through the bloodstream
By European Society of Cardiology
The heart attack group also had a wider variety of plastics
in their blood. Polyethylene, one of the world’s most widely used plastics and
a common ingredient in packaging and consumer products, was the material found
most often.
Although the results do not show that plastic particles
trigger heart attacks, they add to concerns that pollution may be connected
to cardiovascular disease through inflammation, lung exposure, and
damage to blood vessels.
How Microplastics Enter the Human Body
“Micro and nanoplastics are tiny plastic particles that are
found virtually everywhere in the environment, including the air we breathe,
the water we drink, and many foods we consume,” said first author Dr. Pasquale
Paolisso of Sant’Andrea Hospital at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. “In
recent years, scientists have begun to detect these particles in human tissues
and organs, raising concerns about their potential health effects.”
“However, very little was known about whether these
particles are present in the coronary circulation, the blood flowing through
the arteries that supply the heart, or whether environmental exposures such as
smoking and air pollution might influence their presence.”
Microplastics generally measure less than 5 millimeters (0.2
inches), while nanoplastics can be small enough to interact with cells and
biological tissues. Scientists have already reported plastic particles in human
blood, lungs, placenta, and breast milk, but their long-term health effects
remain uncertain.
How we got to have clam cakes and stuffies
Stanford Scientists Solve a 252-Million-Year-Old Mass Extinction Mystery
By Stanford University
 |
| Representative samples of the modern fauna (left three samples) and the Paleozoic fauna (right four samples). Credit: Sarah Leibovitz |
The shells scattered along modern beaches are clues to an ancient catastrophe. Clams and snails are common today partly because their distant relatives survived the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history, while many of their former rivals nearly vanished.
A new Stanford-led study
helps explain why.
About 252 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic extinction
event eliminated 96% of marine species and 70% of land animals. Known
as the “Great Dying,” it was far more destructive than the later disaster that
wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.
Why Some Ocean Animals Vanished
Yet the crisis was not equally deadly for every branch of
animal life. Some groups that had dominated the oceans for hundreds of millions
of years suffered catastrophic losses, while others endured and eventually took
their place.
Brachiopods were among the biggest casualties. These shelled animals resemble clams but belong to a completely different evolutionary group. Before the extinction, they were among the most abundant creatures on the seafloor. Crinoids, or sea lilies, and several other mostly stationary bottom dwellers also declined sharply.
The antifa terrorism threat the Trump administration describes does not exist
But since when is being imaginary not a feature in Trump's rants?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio invited representatives from more than 60 countries to Washington to hear an argument that many of them appear not to believe: that a transnational far-left terrorist movement called antifa threatens the democratic world.
At the event, allies were asked to mobilize against that enemy despite nations like the Netherlands and Germany politely noting to their host that they cannot find evidence of any such group.
Some intelligence analysts have declined to brief on antifa at interagency meetings because they do not regard it as a serious counterterrorism threat.
As a terrorism scholar who spent a decade running the State Department office that designates terrorist organizations, I understand their confusion. The threat the administration describes does not exist in the form the administration describes it.
Antifa is not a group
As I and others have written before, antifa is not a group. It is a movement and an ideology, a loose commitment to opposing fascism. In its most organized form, it amounts to scattered local collectives like Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon.
Jan. 6 insurrectionist and former Republican state
Rep. Justin Price claims Antifa and not him stormed the Capitol
There is no membership roll, no command hierarchy and no funding structure. There is no leader of antifa – the Trump administration has not named one – and there is no record of deadly attacks attributed to a U.S.-based organization called antifa.
Groups like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have killed tens of thousands of people and have a documented chain of command. Antifa does not. You cannot decapitate a movement with no head, and you cannot sanction an organization that does not exist.
As such, the Trump administration created one.
Sunday, July 26, 2026
Trump would love to steal the election. But he's floundering.
Republicans would rather talk about almost anything else than his conspiracy theories.
Whenever Donald Trump does something alarming, disturbing, or seemingly ill-considered, his opponents immediately begin trading theories about what his true motivations are.
Is today’s crazy statement or decision just a ruse to
distract the public from something else, probably Jeffrey Epstein? Is he laying
the groundwork for future actions that are even worse?
Last week’s speech revealed Trump’s impotence
In advance of the primetime address he delivered last
Thursday, Trump went through the usual motions, promoting it as an
earth-shaking speech that would alter the American political landscape.
“It doesn’t get bigger,” he
said beforehand. “It’s going to be a very big announcement.” White
House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt tried to tamp down speculation about the
content of the speech while heightening the dramatic tension, saying “nobody
knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone
should tune in.”
But nobody was fooled.
Just as there are only so many times you can hear Trump say
“It’s like nothing anyone has seen before” before the hyperbole loses all
meaning, yet another allegation that elections are being stolen no longer
registers as revelatory or urgent. That’s especially true when Republicans have
worked so hard for so many years to prove that voter fraud is organized and
widespread, with an enormous amount of time, effort, and money spent by the
entire conservative movement, yet have come up with essentially nothing.
Everyone knew what Trump would deliver — some lies, some
innuendo, some banal facts portrayed as deeply sinister. And no one was less
enthusiastic about the speech than the Republicans actually trying to win
elections this November.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)