Tweet

Some of the few things Trump says that you can believe

Human culture is changing too fast for evolution to catch up

Is tech making you nuts?

Jose Yong, Northumbria University, Newcastle

frank60/Shutterstock

Research is showing that many of our contemporary problems, such as the rising prevalence of mental health issues, are emerging from rapid technological advancement and modernisation. 

A theory that can help explain why we respond poorly to modern conditions, despite the choices, safety and other benefits they bring, is evolutionary mismatch.

Mismatch happens when an evolved adaptation, either physical or psychological, becomes misaligned with the environment. Take moths and some species of nocturnal flies, for example. Because they have to navigate in the dark, they evolved to use the moon for direction. But due to the invention of artificial lighting, many moths and flies are drawn to street lamps and indoor lights instead.

The same happens for humans. A classic example is our “sweet tooth”, which motivated ancestral humans to search for calorie-rich foods in nutritionally scarce environments. This sweet tooth becomes mismatched to the modern world when food companies mass produce foods laden with refined sugars and fat, hijacking an otherwise useful trait. The result is tooth decay, obesity and diabetes.

The modern world is replete with things that make our once-adaptive instincts go awry. For instance, humans evolved to live in kin-based, nomadic tribes of approximately 50 to 150 close-knit people. Our adaptive need to belong functions well in such settings. In large cities populated by hundreds of thousands of strangers, however, people can end up feeling lonely and like they have not many close friends.

Are You Eating Like the Rest of America?

How U.S. Diets Have Changed Over 20 Years

By TUFTS UNIVERSITY 

American diets show slight improvements over two decades, according to a Tufts University study, yet significant dietary disparities persist. The economic and health impacts of poor diets continue to be substantial, particularly affecting underprivileged communities.

The Toll of Poor Nutrition on American Health

Poor diet continues to take a toll on American adults. It’s a major risk factor for obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers, and more than one million Americans die every year from diet-related diseases, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Poor diet and food insecurity is also costly, attributing to an estimated $1.1 trillion in healthcare expenditures and lost productivity. These burdens also contribute to major health disparities by income, education, zip code, race, and ethnicity.

In a study from the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University published today (June 17) in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers found that diet quality among U.S. adults improved modestly between 1999 and 2020. However, they also found that the number of Americans with poor diet quality remains stubbornly high. Most notably, disparities persist and, in some cases, are worsening.

Feeling Sick After Your COVID Vaccine?

According to Scientists, It’s Actually a Good Sign

By UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO 

According to a UCSF-led study, symptoms such as headaches, chills, and fatigue could indicate an enhanced immune response. 

Despite the fact that fewer than 25% of Americans have received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, over 23,000 deaths have been recorded in the United States this year.

One of the most common reasons for bypassing the COVID vaccine is concern about side effects like tiredness, muscle and joint pain, chills, headache, fever, nausea, and feeling generally unwell. But a new study, led by UC San Francisco, has found that the symptoms indicate a robust immune response that is likely to lessen the chances of infection.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, is based on symptom reports and antibody responses from 363 people, who had the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines when they were first introduced.

After the second dose of the vaccine, the researchers found that those with seven or more symptoms had nearly double the antibody levels of those who did not have symptoms. The participants were mainly in their forties to sixties and had not had the virus.

Affordability, Environment Loom Large in Consideration of Westerly Housing Development

In nearby Westerly, battle rages over country club vs. housing development

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

Photo: Winnapaug Country Club | Westerly, RI Golf Course

As the clock rounded 11:30 p.m., everyone sitting in Town Hall was eager to go home.

Feet tapping, heads in hands, attendees of a Planning Board meeting Tuesday night listened to town planner Nancy Letendre read from a memo she had written to the board about why a proposed 2,300-unit development on the Winnapaug Country Club didn’t fit into Westerly’s comprehensive plan.

Besides approving prior meeting minutes, nearly the entirety of the 5-and-a-half-hour meeting was dedicated to discussion on the potential redevelopment — the culmination of about six months of public debate on the matter.

Developer Winn Properties and its expert witnesses argued that adding the housing units — they claimed 30% would be affordable — would accomplish many of Westerly’s housing goals and wouldn’t negatively impact the local environment. 

But detractors, many of whom belong to the group Keep Westerly Green and wore that color to show their opposition to the project, said the large number of units would change the character and jeopardize the town’s environmental health.

By the end of the meeting, it was clear that most of the Planning Board members sided with the latter group. As they spoke, one by one, explaining their likely vote for denial, whispers among the green shirts grew louder, with some throwing up fist pumps or thumbs up.

Ultimately, the board didn’t vote Tuesday to deny the project — instead it voted to allow the town planner to draft a decision denying the project, which the board is expected to vote on at its next meeting.

Although it’s unlikely the project will move forward as planned, the fight over its approval highlighted a debate in town over issues like affordability and the environment that are unlikely to go away.

He's got all the answers

Definitely not in a cult

An active brain can protect you from dementia, but stress might eat up your ‘cognitive reserve’

Keep your mind working or lose it

Manasa Shanta Yerramalla, Karolinska Institutet and Shireen Sindi, Karolinska Institutet

Some people have the biological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s – proteins called amyloid and tau that gum up the brain – but have no disease symptoms. Researchers suggest that this could be because some people build up a “cognitive reserve” – the brain’s ability to find new ways to handle and overcome problems.

People with greater cognitive reserve seem to be better at staving off dementia symptoms, but when stress levels are high or persistent, they can weaken this reserve by making it less likely that they will socialise and less likely that they will be physically active – both of which are known to protect against dementia.

Stress itself has also been linked to faster cognitive decline and an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

New research finds the Planetary Health Diet lowers our risk to most major causes of death.

This diet will likely keep you alive longer — and help the planet

Brian Bienkowski, Environmental Health News

People who closely follow an environmentally conscious plant-heavy diet that also includes modest portions of meat and dairy, dubbed the Planetary Health Diet, have a 30% lower risk of premature death from common causes such as cancer and heart disease, according to new research.

The study, led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published today in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that our diets can play dual roles of saving us and the planet.

How a Network of Nonprofits Enriches Fundraisers While Spending Almost Nothing on Its Stated Causes

Beware of telephone charity fund-raising pitches

by Ellis Simani for ProPublica

In September 2020, the Federal Trade Commission joined regulators in four states to sue four men behind a notorious telemarketing company called Outreach Calling. The FTC alleged that the company, which it described as a “sprawling fundraising operation,” had raised millions on the promise of helping the needy — cancer patients, veterans, firefighters — but instead used the money to line its pockets.

The case was meant to put fundraisers on notice. The FTC would not only go after charities that improperly spent donor dollars, but it would “aggressively pursue their fundraisers who participate in the deception,” a news release said.

The executives and corporate entities behind the operation were fined more than $58 million. They were also banned from all charitable fundraising for life. But regulators kept one door open in most of the settlements: the ability to continue fundraising for political purposes.

For Thomas Berkenbush, who was a co-manager at Outreach, that provision would prove to be a windfall.

Before the deal with the FTC was even finalized, Berkenbush filed paperwork to establish a new company, Office Edge LLC. Since then, Office Edge has been paid about $866,000 for fundraising from organizations that similarly claim to be working on behalf of cancer patients, veterans and firefighters. The difference? These groups are not charities, they’re political nonprofits that claim to use donations to influence elections and support broad political causes.

The groups that are hiring Berkenbush are known as 527s, after a section of the tax code. They include federal political action committees — organizations that raise money to elect or defeat candidates and are regulated by the Federal Election Commission — but also a lesser-known group of nonprofits. 

These 527 groups limit their direct support to political candidates, removing them from the jurisdiction of the FEC or similar state agencies and leaving their regulation to the IRS. They do not have restrictions on how much donors can contribute, but the donations are not tax deductible.

A ProPublica investigation has connected Berkenbush to a network of at least 10 of these 527 groups that have raised more than $33 million on the promise of supporting admirable causes, but that have spent little on activities that could be construed as having a political purpose. Most of the money goes to fundraisers who have only been paid by 527s in the group ProPublica identified.

Experts say that it’s hard for the public to follow the business practices of 527 groups because of how difficult it is to access the records that the IRS publishes about their activity. Data about 527 organizations is published on an IRS website in a hard-to-use data file with a limited search interface. On top of that, experts said that there is lax oversight by the federal agencies in charge of regulating the groups.

Two Years After Dobbs Decision, Magaziner Recommits to Restoring Roe v. Wade as Law of the Land

First, we have to win in November

Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Representative Seth Magaziner issued the following statement: 

“Women deserve the right to make their own decisions about abortion – not politicians,” said Rep. Magaziner. “The extreme politicians and judges who want to roll back the rights of millions of Americans have made clear they were not going to stop at Roe – now they’re trying to restrict access to birth control, in vitro fertilization and other reproductive health care services. We can’t let them succeed. I’m fighting to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land once again.” 

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, stripped away the right to abortion and abandoned nearly 50 years of precedent in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. Since then, abortions have been banned in almost all circumstances in 14 states and counting. In at least half a dozen others, they are heavily restricted, making it nearly impossible for people to access care. 

In state legislatures and courts across the country, extreme lawmakers and judges are attempting to further restrict abortion, put doctors at risk of prosecution for providing abortion services, criminalize interstate travel to obtain abortion care, and curtail access to reproductive health care – including in vitro fertilization and birth control. Currently, one in three women are living without access to abortion. 

Several high-profile stories have highlighted the dystopian reality of a post-Roe America, including a woman who had to carry her dead fetus for two weeks, a ten-year-old rape victim who had to travel to receive an abortion, and doctors who are unable to provide health care services to save the lives of pregnant women. 

Rep. Magaziner is an original cosponsor of  H.R.12: Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which is the only legislation that enshrines the principles of Roe v. Wade into law. WHPA creates a statutory right for health care providers to provide abortion care and for their patients to receive that care, free from medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion and impede access. 

Additionally, Rep. Magaziner is a cosponsor of H.R.7059: Abortion Care Capacity Enhancement and Support Services (ACCESS) Act of 2024, to authorize a grant program to increase capacity for providing abortion services and other sexual and reproductive health care. 

Rep. Magaziner is also a cosponsor of H.R.7056: Access to Family Building Act, to establish a federal right to access assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization (IVF). He is the proud father of a child who was conceived through IVF. 

Rep. Magaziner is a member of the Pro-Choice Caucus and received a 100% score on the Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) 2023 congressional record on reproductive freedom.

Trump's debate prep

Beware of rip currents!

 

The Delusion of Advanced Plastic Recycling Using Pyrolysis

Solution or a bigger problem?

By Lisa Song, Illustrations by Max Gunther, special to ProPublica

Last year, I became obsessed with a plastic cup.

It was a small container that held diced fruit, the type thrown into lunch boxes. And it was the first product I’d seen born of what’s being touted as a cure for a crisis.

Plastic doesn’t break down in nature. If you turned all of what’s been made into cling wrap, it would cover every inch of the globe. It’s piling up, leaching into our water and poisoning our bodies.

Scientists say the key to fixing this is to make less of it; the world churns out 430 million metric tons each year.

But businesses that rely on plastic production, like fossil fuel and chemical companies, have worked since the 1980s to spin the pollution as a failure of waste management — one that can be solved with recycling.

Industry leaders knew then what we know now: Traditional recycling would barely put a dent in the trash heap. It’s hard to transform flimsy candy wrappers into sandwich bags, or to make containers that once held motor oil clean enough for milk.

Now, the industry is heralding nothing short of a miracle: an “advanced” type of recycling known as pyrolysis — “pyro” means fire and “lysis” means separation. It uses heat to break plastic all the way down to its molecular building blocks.

While old-school, “mechanical” recycling yields plastic that’s degraded or contaminated, this type of “chemical” recycling promises plastic that behaves like it’s new, and could usher in what the industry casts as a green revolution: Not only would it save hard-to-recycle plastics like frozen food wrappers from the dumpster, but it would turn them into new products that can replace the old ones and be chemically recycled again and again.

So when three companies used ExxonMobil’s pyrolysis-based technology to successfully conjure up that fruit cup, they announced it to the world.

“This is a significant milestone,” said Printpack, which turned the plastic into cups. The fruit supplier Pacific Coast Producers called it “the most important initiative a consumer-packaged goods company can pursue.”

“ExxonMobil is supporting the circularity of plastics,” the August 2023 news release said, citing a buzzword that implies an infinite loop of using, recycling and reusing.

They were so proud, I hoped they would tell me all about how they made the cup, how many of them existed and where I could buy one.

So began my long — and, well, circular — pursuit of the truth at a time when it really matters.