Notices by Laura Helmuth (laurahelmuth@mastodon.social), page 2

Every debunking story has a process, and that process begins with a long sigh. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-study-on-ultraprocessed-fake-meat-and-heart-disease-really-found/

Meatfluencers claim their diets are what our ancestors ate. Only our ancestors didn't actually eat that way https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-follow-the-real-early-human-diet-eat-everything/

This is an important and exciting job opening for the next director of SciLine, a service that connects scientists and journalists and aims to improve and expand evidence-based coverage of policy issues and everything else. https://diversifiedsearchgroup.com/search/21203-aaas-director-sciline/

The moral panic over trans kids is a continuation of moral panics over comic books, video games, music lyrics & other grievance-driven nonsense that aims to control teenagers https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anti-trans-moral-panics-endanger-all-young-people/

What happens if a nuclear weapon goes off in space? Here's what we know from Starfish Prime and other tests from 60 years ago and why it would be even more catastrophic today https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-if-a-nuclear-weapon-goes-off-in-space/ by @parshallison.bsky.social

I love moments like this: “I was skeptical that it was anything special for a number of reasons. It just seemed too big and too bright.... But when we confirmed that it is, in fact, the new record holder, I just laughed. I had to walk down the hallway and look at the faces of the other scientists.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst-detects-the-earliest-most-distant-galaxy-in-the-known-universe-and-its/

Elephants call each other by name, and they respond to their own names. It's a type of communication previously undocumented in nonhuman animals https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elephants-call-their-relatives-by-name-across-the-savanna/

Why ARE bears friend-shaped? A beary scientific analysis of the meme "If not friend, why friend-shaped?" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-bears-friend-shaped/

The anti-reality industry pushes lies about abortion, climate, COVID, gender-affirming care, race, sex, evolution, education & more, and it's all connected https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-must-face-down-the-expanding-anti-reality-industry/ @SeattleBryn traces the intersectional awfulness on Scientific American

Derelict satellites pass within 1,000 kilometers of each other 1,000 times a year, and any collision would instantly double the amount of space debris. A space rush is filling up orbit with unregulated satellites, mostly from private companies, and we need better protections https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-too-much-trash-in-space/

A scholar of social movements & activism explains how the campus protesters are doing everything right and repressive university administrations are doing everything wrong https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/repression-draws-attention-to-campus-protests-like-those-over-the-conflict/

So much ice is melting from the poles that the water is redistributing Earth's mass and slowing its rotation https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-is-slowing-the-earths-rotation/

Wow oh wow oh wow an incredibly bright cyclical nova erupts every 80 years and looks like a new star -- and it's about to happen again https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-nova-will-soon-erupt-as-a-once-in-a-lifetime-new-star-in-the-night-sky/

Writing notes by hand is a better way to learn than typing, a whole bunch of studies now show. (Whether or not you can read the notes later is a different problem) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/

A few items FYI:
Saturn has a moon that looks like the Death Star.
That moon has a smooth surface with an ocean underneath.
The ocean is really new.
It exists because of squeezing.
The moon may be very new as well, or possibly the other moons that squeeze it.
What a wonderful world. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/saturns-death-star-moon-may-hide-a-massive-shockingly-young-ocean/

This is a really thoughtful story about what genetic studies can and mostly can't reveal about bisexuality or sexual orientation in general https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-bisexuality-genetic-its-more-complex-than-some-studies-imply/

Musk makes big claims with little detail, and announcing on Twitter that Neuralink implanted a brain-computer interface into a person “is maybe the biggest example of that.” Here's what we do & don't know, from actual BCI experts https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elon-musks-neuralink-has-implanted-its-first-chip-in-a-human-brain-whats-next/

So the darkness or faintness of a home COVID test line does correlate with viral load, and taking a few tests in a row can show whether somebody's getting better or sicker https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-fainter-lines-on-home-covid-tests-mean-youre-getting-better/

Pollution from coal-fired power plants killed 460,000 people between 1999 and 2020, according to a new estimate https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-power-kills-a-staggering-number-of-americans/

Vaporized metals from burned-up rockets, satellites & other space junk are floating around in Earth’s stratosphere & it's going to get worse https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/space-junk-is-polluting-earths-stratosphere-with-vaporized-metal/