» 2020 » April Epicene Cyborg

The US for decades has as a matter of policy tried to reduce the number of hospital beds, which among other things has led to the shuttering of hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Hero of the day, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo pursued this agenda with vigor, as did his predecessor George Pataki.

US Government’s Handling of Coronavirus Crisis Has Led to Severe Undercounting of Deaths, Public Health Officials Say.

The postal service is not a federal agency. It does not cost taxpayers a dollar. It loses money only because Congress mandates that it do so. What it is is a miracle of high technology and human touch. It’s what binds us together as a country.

Educated Fools.

Quick Comment on “Making Money” from the Bailout.

First sighting of mysterious Majorana fermion on a common metal.

COVID-19 vs. the Economy: When is it Time to Reboot?

500 Years Ago, This Port Linked East to West. Its Fate Was to Fade Away. Malacca gave birth to the notion of Asian Fusion centuries before it became a culinary trope. Its decline speaks to the promise and perils of globalization.

Aubade by Philip Larkin.

Old Batman movies now look like they’re from another dimension. World has changed too much for them to make sense now, on several different levels.

Emperor Joseph’s Solution to Coronavirus. Before modern medicine, the Habsburg monarchy kept epidemics at bay for more than a century and a half.

It’s Biden’s World.

The Cantillon Effect: Why Wall Street Gets a Bailout and You Don’t.

High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2.

Astronomers measure wind speed on a brown dwarf.

Most eccentric known M-dwarf binary system discovered.

The Pandemic is Playing To Almost Every One of Amazon’s Strengths.

Iceland finds that half its citizens with coronavirus have shown no symptoms.

The Staggering Economic Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Coronavirus economy plans are clear: No return to normal in 2020. Or perhaps ever. This is not 1918.

How Privacy-Friendly Contact Tracing Can Help Stop the Spread of Covid-19.

Anthropologists describe the first skeleton of a Homo naledi child. The bones hold clues about when human children started taking so long to grow up.

What Will Tomorrow’s Workplace Bring? More Elbow Room, for Starters. The pandemic may result in fundamental changes, altering how office buildings are designed. In the short term, expect more hand sanitizer and less “hot-desking.” Eliminating open plan offices isn’t worth all the deaths, but I’ll take it.

Fed announces unlimited purchases of MBS and Treasuries, adds multifamily mortgages.

U.S. Allows Google Internet Project to Advance Only if Hong Kong Is Cut Out. National-security concerns had held up approval of 8,000-mile line from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

A circuit board from the Saturn V rocket, reverse-engineered and explained.

Soil gets its smell from bacteria trying to attract invertebrates.

Why the Wealthy Fear Pandemics. The coronavirus, like other plagues before it, could shift the balance between rich and poor.

Pandemic hasn’t crushed broadband networks—even rural areas are doing OK. Showing in yet another way that caps are BS.

Resetting the Bomb. Another era of debt-fueled profiteering is ending with a bailout. How we’re institutionalizing the unfairness economy.

Virus Throws Millions More Out of Work, and Washington Struggles to Keep Pace. Federal efforts to keep businesses operating and workers employed have so far failed to stop the bleeding as the coronavirus tears through the economy in devastating ways.

What Was the Last Time an Economy Froze Like This? Lessons for today from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Someone else finally noticed the closest parallel.

Week 3 of the Collapse of the US Labor Market.

More than half of renters say they lost jobs due to coronavirus: ‘They could face housing situations that spiral out of control.’

COVID-19 Should Make Us Rethink Our Destructive Relationship With the Natural World.

Keep the Parks Open. Public green spaces are good for the immune system and the mind—and they can be rationed to allow for social distancing.

Data Science: Reality Doesn’t Meet Expectations.

Capitalism’s Response to Coronavirus Makes a Strong Case for Socialism.

Almost a Third of Young People Have Lost Their Jobs So Far.

How the Coronavirus Bailout Repeats 2008’s Mistakes: Huge Corporate Payoffs With Little Accountability.

Trump as the ultimate triumph of neoliberalism.

A regular workout was shown to ease depression and lift moods.

Denim, as a Crime-Solving Tool, Has Holes. Jean-etic testing doesn’t work.

‘Never Seen Anything Like It’: Cars Line Up for Miles at Food Banks.

Meat plants are shutting down as workers get sick.

Newly engineered enzyme can break down plastic to raw materials. The resulting chemicals can be used to make brand-new bottles.

Mystery illnesses are on the rise with women, whom doctors are dismissing as “nervous Nellies.”

Anti-China Hysteria Is Ultimately Not About Covid-19, Racism Or Communism, But Power.

Refusing To Vote For Truden Is The Same As Voting For Bimp.

Truckers brave personal and economic risks to replenish shelves.

With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19.

New Zealand isn’t just flattening its coronavirus curve. It’s squashing it.

New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates.

Wisconsin Primary Voters Receive ‘I Voted’ Gravestones.

COVID-19 Thoughts 2.

The Age of Collapse. Why Everything’s Collapsing, and What to Do About It.

Where Have All the Heart Attacks Gone? Except for treating Covid-19, many hospitals seem to be eerily quiet.

Experiment finds that gravity still works down to 50 micrometers. Sensitive gravity test fails to find hidden dimension. Next: find old wardrobe.

How SEO Ruined the Internet.

Italy Is Sending Another Warning. This is what a country a month into lockdown looks like: desperate, hungry and scared.

‘A Band-Aid on a gunshot wound’: How the restaurant industry is responding to COVID-19 relief.

There Is No Plan for the End of the Coronavirus Crisis.

A Short History of Decline. From 18th-century Britain to Trump-era America, concerns about geopolitical weakness have gone hand in hand with sexual panic.

Sheltering in Place with Montaigne.

The scholar’s vocation. A century ago, Weber both diagnosed the ills of the corporatised, modern university, and pointed out the path beyond it.

The WHO Ignores Taiwan. The World Pays the Price.

In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa.

“Essential” Workers Are Dying. America’s underclass is becoming more visible in the coronavirus crisis.

The Curse of the Ship of Gold. How a brilliant scientist went from discovering a mother lode of treasure at the bottom of the sea to fleeing from authorities with suitcases full of cash.

The coronavirus crisis will change America in big ways. History says so. Not so sure, if it abates soon enough. We’ll see.

Women were four times more likely than men to report to think it was right to limit people’s freedom in order to block the Coronavirus spread, and three times more likely to request more severe punishment for risky behaviors. No surprise; women across cultures always tend to more social conformity and enforcement.

“Silent Carriers” Are Helping Spread The Coronavirus. Here’s What We Know About Them.

Denying the reality of the coronavirus has made it more dangerous for everyone.

Brown fat can burn energy in an unexpected way.

It will take some time, but rest assured: a coronavirus vaccine is coming, and it will work.

Does My County Have an Epidemic? Estimates Show Hidden Transmission.

Woman A Leading Authority On What Shouldn’t Be In Poor People’s Grocery Carts.

Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them.

This Is a Historic Crisis. Where Is Democratic Leadership? Leadership in name only.

Hard sweeps and natural selection obscured by Bronze Age admixture.

The Fight Against COVID-19: “Bending the Curve” & Then What?

Meet the female shoplifting gang who ruled London’s West End.

Finland, ‘Prepper Nation of the Nordics,’ Isn’t Worried About Masks. Unlike their neighbors, the Finns never stopped stockpiling after the Cold War. Now Finland sits on an enviable supply of medical and survival gear in the Covid-19 era.

Defusing an Economy “Rigged to Blow.” What technological disasters — like the Deepwater Horizon explosion — can tell us about why our economy seems to lurch from crisis to crisis.

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