Notices by Kathmandu (kathmandu@stranger.social)

@Infoseepage

Thank you for the explanation.. That 'testing for all the other types they could, and those coming up negative' could explain the phrase "presumptive positive" in news articles. And yes, I'd heard that only a few labs can test for H5N1.

@mcnado @abbynormative

@mcnado

I had the impression that H5N1 bird flu was a specific form of Flu A?

@abbynormative

@Infoseepage

I understand. But in my experience, almost nowhere is willing to fiercely enforce mask rules. So 'masks required' translates into actuality as 'most people will be masked, most of the time'.

It's still better than not having the mandate.

@Infoseepage

You may have noticed that policies on sexual harassment are not always properly enforced, either.

@Infoseepage
I don't think the con staff is willing to be mask police.

But having a mandate made clear in advance selected for people who are willing to at-least-mostly comply, and greatly improved the mask % compared to not having a mandate.

I'm attending Arisia science-fiction convention this weekend. THEY HAVE A MASK MANDATE. And it has completely reversed the usual ratio: 95% of people masking, majority N95 or KN95, only about 5% of people maskless.

It's so pleasant and relaxing to see most people masked again.

#YallMasking

@molly0xfff

My brother, in his teens, used to lie in bed reading with the book in one hand and lifting a weight with the other hand.

He built quite a bit of muscle that way.

@ethanjstark@hachyderm.io
For evidence resources, @augieray has a spreadsheet of Covid studies and papers, with pull-quotes in column G (if it doesn't work in your first browser, may need to try another).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12VbMkvqUF9eSggJsdsFEjKs5x0ABxQJi5tvfzJIDd3U/edit?gid=2023681543#gid=2023681543

@ikuo1000

For anyone curious: Ranked-choice is what we use in Cambridge. It's *wonderful*. It almost completely removes the bitter party partisanship. Candidates focus on the issues, and you just vote for your favorites in order. 🙂

If your first-choice candidate doesn't get enough votes, your ballot gets applied to your second-choice candidate. You never have to worry that voting for your favorite might let the really bad candidate in.

@jeffgilchrist

Wow, that's a lot of respiratory distress being inflicted on the poor little 0-3s.

@QasimRashid

Feminists warned the right-wingers would try this, if they got Roe repealed.

I didn't think it would be quite this soon, but here we are.

Good news - researchers in the UK found that potato stems contain fibers similar to cotton fibers. This could become a new source of material for textiles. Since the stems are currently treated as a waste by-product of potatoes, we wouldn't need to use any new land or water for this new source of fiber! We might be able to reduce the resources used to grow cotton.
A team is working on making thread from 75% cotton / 25% potato, to use in existing machinery.

https://www.fibe.uk/media
#hopepunk

@trendless
Interesting. I'm still catching up from "the brain has immune privilege" to "the brain just has different immune regulation"*, but several lines of research seem to be converging on "Alzheimer's is related to infection and/or a result of problems fighting infection".

And that could be wonderful, if we find ways to prevent it or treat it.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633103/

@zakalwe
The great economist John Kenneth Galbraith backs you up. He pointed out that if CEOs were so crucial to the performance of the company, when a CEO retired, the company would crash while the CEO would show great success on a new project. But in fact the company keeps going as it was, and the CEO produces nothing on his own. Conclusion: CEOs don't usually make a difference to the company's performance.

@gemelliz @KimberlyN @Snowshadow

@mcnado
It's been clear to me for months now that Israel's plan of campaign is "Drive them all into the sea". Or into Egypt, they don't care. Drive everyone into a tiny space, and slaughter everyone who doesn't leave.

This is supported by their public statements. They've said repeatedly that they believe *everyone* in Gaza is part of Hamas. So when they say "We won't stop until we have wiped out Hamas" ...that means wiping out everyone.

@HopePunkFTW This seems like your kind of thing:
"To save their soil, Kansas tribe shifts to regenerative agriculture—and transforms their farms."

Crop rotation, adding flower strips along the edges to sustain pollinators, stopping the neonicotinoids, and they get better results!

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-soil-kansas-tribe-shifts-regenerative.html #science #hopepunk