Lights out!

By Michael deAdder

Eat safe

 

Lightning season is here

Fast facts and how to stay safe

Chris Vagasky, University of Wisconsin-Madison

As the weather warms, people spend more time outdoors, going to barbecues, beaches and ballgames. But summer isn’t just the season of baseball and outdoor festivals – it’s also lightning season.

Each year in the United States, lightning strikes around 37 million times. It kills 21 people a year in the U.S. on average.

For as often as lightning occurs – there are only a few days each year nationwide without lightning – there are still a lot of misunderstandings about nature’s largest spark. Because of this, a lot of people take unnecessary risks when thunderstorms are nearby.

I am a meteorologist who studies lightning and lightning safety, and a member of the National Lightning Safety Council. Here are some fast facts to keep your family and friends safe this summer.

Cornell Study Links Motherly Care to Extended Human Life

Your mother's gift 

By CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

A Cornell University study explores the role of maternal care in the evolution of long lifespans in humans and other mammals. Research by Matthew Zipple indicates that species where offspring rely on prolonged maternal care tend to live longer and reproduce less frequently. This pattern extends beyond primates to other mammals and supports theories linking longer lifespans to enhanced maternal and grandmother support, providing insights into phenomena such as menopause and intergenerational health.

The relationship between mother and child may offer clues to the mystery of why humans live longer than expected for their size – and shed new light on what it means to be human – according to a new Cornell University study.

“It’s one of the really mysterious things about humans, the fact that we live these super long lives as compared to so many other mammals,” said Matthew Zipple, a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University. “What we’re putting forward is that a part of the explanation for our long lifespan is this other foundational aspect of our lives, which is the relationship between the mother and her child.”

The paper was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

In their models, Zipple and co-authors found consistently that in species where offspring survival depends on the longer-term presence of the mother, the species tends to evolve longer lives and a slower life pace, which is characterized by how long an animal lives and how often it reproduces.

CDC Recommends Updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 and Flu Vaccines for Fall/Winter Virus Season

The CDC's new guidance on COVID shots

Centers for Disease Control

The CDC recommended the updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines and the updated 2024-2025 flu vaccines to protect against severe COVID-19 and flu this fall and winter.

It is safe to receive COVID-19 and flu vaccines at the same visit. Data continue to show the importance of vaccination to protect against severe outcomes of COVID-19 and flu, including hospitalization and death. 

In 2023, more than 916,300 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19 and more than 75,500 people died from COVID-19. During the 2023-2024 flu season, more than 44,900 people are estimated to have died from flu complications.

Key Senate Panel Launches Probe of Big Oil-OPEC Collusion

Sheldon Whitehouse goes after Big Oil

JULIA CONLEY for Common Dreams

Announcing a probe into potential efforts by fossil fuel companies to illegally coordinate with international oil producers in order to fix prices, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday wrote to 18 oil giants demanding that they turn over communications with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, commonly known as OPEC.

Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote to companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, weeks after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Company of attempting to collude with OPEC.

Text messages, WhatsApp communications, and records from in-person meetings showed that Scott Sheffield tried to collude with representatives of OPEC countries to manipulate oil and gas production worldwide and raise oil and gas prices.

The commission made its discovery while reviewing a plan by ExxonMobil to acquire Pioneer in a $64.5 billion deal.

Really clear choice

Fair question

 

Success follows failure less often than expected, study finds

Benefits of failure are overrated

American Psychological Association

Ed Wexler

The platitude that failure leads to success may be both inaccurate and damaging to society, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Researchers conducted 11 experiments with more than 1,800 participants across many domains and compared national statistics to the participants' responses. 

In one experiment, participants vastly overestimated the percentage of prospective nurses, lawyers and teachers who pass licensing exams after previously failing them.

Is Your Pregnancy Diet Safe? The Latest Research on Fish and Mercury

Fish is good for you but mercury isn't. Watch your intake.

By UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER 

Researchers have introduced a novel approach to evaluate the neurodevelopmental effects of fish consumption during pregnancy, focusing on the balance between mercury exposure and nutritional value. This study highlights the potential benefits of consuming low-mercury fish and the risks associated with high-mercury varieties.

Be a good neighbor

Survey Trolls, Opt-In Polls, and the New Era of Survey Science

A major reason not to trust polls

By Teresa Carr

Last December, a joint survey by The Economist and the polling organization YouGov claimed to reveal a striking antisemitic streak among America’s youth. One in five young Americans thinks the Holocaust is a myth, according to the poll. And 28 percent think Jews in America have too much power.

“Our new poll makes alarming reading,” declared The Economist. The results inflamed discourse over the Israel-Hamas war on social media and made international news.

There was one problem: The survey was almost certainly wrong. The Economist/YouGov poll was a so-called opt-in poll, in which pollsters often pay people they've recruited online to take surveys. According to a recent analysis from the nonprofit Pew Research Center, such polls are plagued by “bogus respondents” who answer questions disingenuously for fun, or to get through the survey as quickly as possible to earn their reward.

In the case of the antisemitism poll, Pew’s analysis suggested that the Economist/YouGov team’s methods had yielded wildly inflated numbers. In a more rigorous poll posing some of the same questions, Pew found that only 3 percent of young Americans agreed with the statement “the Holocaust is myth.”

These are strange times for survey science. Traditional polling, which relies on responses from a randomly selected group that represents the entire population, remains the gold standard for gauging public opinion, said Stanford political scientist Jon Krosnick. 

But as it’s become harder to reach people on the phone, response rates have plummeted, and those surveys have grown exponentially more expensive to run. Meanwhile, cheaper, less-accurate online polls have proliferated.

On the eve of Independence Day, extremists on the Supreme Court declared Donald Trump a king.

The Court’s immunity ruling is unhinged and dangerous

By Mitchell Zimmerman 

If you hadn’t read the news in four years — or just arrived from another galaxy — the Supreme Court’s de facto grant of immunity to Donald Trump for his alleged federal crimes might sound almost reasonable.

There are “unique risks,” six right-wing justices warned, that if a president were required to answer criminal charges, his energies would be “diverted.” He might become “unduly cautious,” less willing to take “bold and unhesitating action.” 

But if you’ve followed even a shred of news, you know this reasoning is utterly unhinged — and dangerous. The risk the right-wing majority refuses to consider is that a president might “boldly” and “unhesitatingly” try to overturn our constitutional democracy. 

The real danger isn’t that an “unduly cautious” president will worry too much about being charged with crimes. The danger is that a faithless president can use the enormous powers of the presidency to overturn an election he lost. That’s what nearly happened after the 2020 election — a matter the majority says not one word about..

Nonetheless, the six hold that when a president is performing “core constitutional powers” — engaging in actions which the Constitution says he can do — he is totally immune to criminal prosecution. 

In the oral argument of the case, Trump’s attorneys were asked about the seemingly absurd notion that a president would be immune to prosecution if he officially ordered the assassination of a political rival. They didn’t dispute it. And now the Supreme Court just adopted that absurd theory.

Similarly, a president would now enjoy “absolute immunity” from prosecution if he told the attorney general, “Forge evidence that my opponent sold secrets to China and arrest him for treason.” He could freely sell national secrets to Russia. Auction pardons. Or assassinate unfriendly judges.

Where does this outrageous theory come from? Not the Constitution.

The six right-wingers’ ruling has no basis in law or logic — and turns the lessons of our history upside down. The Constitution includes no language granting the president immunity from criminal charges, and the Founding Fathers were dead set against an all-powerful executive. 

The Founders considered it a feature, not a fault, that under the proposed Constitution the president would be restrained. They maintained the president wouldn’t pose a threat to liberty because he wouldn’t be above the law, unlike the King of England. 

As Alexander Hamilton wrote, former presidents who’d committed crimes during their presidency would thereafter be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” 

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court acknowledged, in theory, that a president is not 100 percent above the law. Even Trump’s own lawyers conceded the point.

Nonetheless, the six ignored Trump’s concessions and will now require his federal criminal trial to go through a time-consuming process to assess the immunity claims. That will delay the trial until after the election — which could give Trump the power to fire all of the prosecutors and dismiss the charges against himself if he wins.  

Why would the conservative justices do all this to protect Trump? So they can continue to impose their right-wing power on America.

The extremists currently enjoy a six-three Supreme Court majority. But Justice Thomas is 76 and Justice Alito is 74. Their seats could become vacant in the next four years and potentially flip. By protecting Donald Trump from prosecution, they’re trying to prevent that outcome.

The upcoming election could determine whether the far-right majority is flipped on its head — or paves the way for a deeper assault from extreme judges and politicians.

Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning. His writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Cheap!

 

Eat safe