Silence of the wolves: How human landscapes alter howling behaviour Monga Bay
Meet one of NYC’s largest new residents: The fin whale Gothamist
Partying Like 1999? An NBubble Isn’t Here John Authers, Bloomberg. Key point: “There’s relatively little evidence of excessive use of leverage within financial markets, even if higher rates aren’t yet slowing down the US economy as had been expected.”
Major network outages in U.S. following two X-class solar flares The Watchers
Climate
Scientist sacked because he refused to fly home from Papua New Guinea starts his legal battle Canary
Plants can take up CWD-causing prions from soil in the lab. What happens if they are eaten? Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy
Water
Alberta’s Brutal Water Reckoning The Tyee
#COVID19
Solving the puzzle of Long Covid Ziyad Al-aly and Eric Topol, Science. “Preventing infections and reinfections is the best way to prevent Long Covid and should remain the foundation of public health policy.” “Remain,” lol. Commentary–
Long Covid is one of the world’s biggest challenges John Snow Project. So far. Hat tip, public health establishment (and, of course, their owners, masters, and thought leaders among the oligarchs):
Because nonpharmaceutical interventions to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission have largely been abandoned, vaccines are now the primary line of defense against both severe disease in the acute phase of the infection and Long Covid. Studies have consistently shown that vaccines reduce the risk of Long Covid by 15 to 75%, with a mean of ~40% reduction in risk. Yet vaccine policies in much of the world restrict boosters to older adults or those with risk factors for severe COVID-19, and with pandemic fatigue, the public’s appetite for boosters seems to be waning.
* * * Prevalence of persistent SARS-CoV-2 in a large community surveillance study Nature. N = 381. From the Abstract: “Persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections may act as viral reservoirs that could seed future outbreaks, give rise to highly divergent lineages, and contribute to cases with post-acute COVID-19 sequelae (long COVID)…. Individuals with persistent infection had more than 50% higher odds of self-reporting long COVID than individuals with non-persistent infection. We estimate that 0.1–0.5% of infections may become persistent with typically rebounding high viral loads and last for at least 60 days…. This work has profound implications for understanding and characterizing SARS-CoV-2 infection, epidemiology and evolution.” “Living with Covid” = “serial passage through the general population.” Important caveat: “The association between persistent infection and long COVID does not imply that every persistent infection can lead to long COVID (only 9% of individuals with persistent infection reported having long COVID) nor does it mean that all cases of long COVID are due to a persistent infection.”
Global Elections
Line of Succession New Left Review. “[T]he spectacle of a Biden-Trump rematch in the US, plus the dismal expectations for a Starmer government in the UK, suggest that problems with contemporary electoral systems are not confined to repressive or clientelist regimes.”
Khan loyalists sidelined as Pakistan’s rival parties reach power-sharing deal France24
China?
China revamps discipline inspection rules to ensure Xi Jinping’s instructions are carried out South China Morning Post. What, they weren’t already?
‘Disillusioned about China’, more Chinese aim for US via risky Darien Gap Al Jazeera
McKinsey-led think-tank advised China on policy that fed US tensions FT
Experts See Broad Prospects for China-Brazil Aerospace Cooperation InfoBrics
The first discovery of SFTSV in the Centre of Metropolitan Beijing, China (preprint) medRxiv. From the Abstract: “Severe fever with thrombocytopenia virus (SFTSV), an emerging tick-borne bandavirus, poses a significant public health threat in rural China. Since 2021, an increase in local cases has been noted in the rural-urban fringe surrounding Beijing…. Our survey revealed a diverse tick population in city parks…. These findings highlight the circulation of SFTSV in central Beijing, underscoring the need for urgent attention and enhanced surveillance measures.”
Japan
Kaiju Look The Baffler. The deck: “Godzilla’s radioactive origins.”
Syraqistan
Israeli minister says ‘proud’ of Gaza destruction Anadolu Agency. Video:
#Israel official states:
“I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.”— May Golan, Israeli Minister of Social Equality & Women’s Advancement
-MyLordBebo pic.twitter.com/b9KRRMAJX2
— Arthur Morgan (@ArthurM40330824) February 23, 2024
Israeli ground offensive in Rafah ‘aimed at making Gaza uninhabitable’ France24. Or rather, habitable when real estate interests move in and pave over the rubble, body parts and all.
It is dark before the dawn, but Israeli settler colonialism is at an end Islamic Human Rights Commission
* * * Yemen’s Houthis strike Israeli, US, British targets Anadolu Agency
The Stunning Effectiveness of Houthi Harassment American Purpose
* * * Turkey’s 5th generation fighter jet Kaan makes maiden flight: report Turkish Minute
European Disunion
The state of financial knowledge in the European Union Breugel. The deck: “Financial literacy is essential in modern economies, where saving and preparing for retirement has shifted increasingly to the individual.” Ah, “financial literacy.” Note lack of agency.
Dear Old Blighty
Starmer is high in the pantheon of charlatans who have sought high office in this country Richard Murphy, Funding the Future
Starmer reported to parliamentary Privileges Committee over Hoyle threat The Sqwawkbox
New Not-So-Cold War
NATO Gives Ukraine the Go-Ahead to Cross Putin’s Red Line Newsweek
Putin Leads High Level Delegation to Inspect New Tu-160M Strategic Bombers Military Watch
* * * Russia was ridiculed at the start of the war. Two years on, it has reasons to be confident CNBC
Russia defiant two years into war reshaping global energy S&P Global
Armored vehicles and Patriots sent to Ukraine without solid sustainment plan, says Pentagon IG Breaking Defense
* * * War zone or not, Ukraine seeks to reclaim its role as a hub for clinical trials STAT (JT McPhee). Life’s little ironies….
In interview with Fox News, Zelenskyy explains why he fired Zaluzhnyi Ukrainska Pravda
South of the Border
Uruguay Stepping into Strong Position on Global Seed Stage Seed World
Antitrust
Why Was JetBlue-Spirit Blocked and What Does it Mean for the Airline Industry? Hubert Horan, ProMarket
The Fed Is Behind the Capital One/Discover Merger Matt Stoller, BIG
Law is not Code: On Algorithms and the Concept of Law (PDF) Studiengesellschaft für Wirtschaft und Recht (ed), Algorithmen im Wirtschaftsrecht (2023).
Digital Watch
Reddit says it’s made $203M so far licensing its data TechCrunch. Outright theft from Reddit’s poster, as with all AI, at least that bankrolled by Silicon Valley.
Social-Media Company Reddit Files for IPO WSJ. Crime pays.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman Revealed as One of Reddit’s Biggest Shareholders Hollywood Reporter. The head thief.
* * * Google sends Gemini AI back to engineering to adjust its White balance The Register. Think of it this way: An identity is a bundle of properties, skin color and gender prominent among them (in the vulgate, a checklist). Google is now going to tweak those bundles, either by adding additional properties, or by kludging some sort of algorithm on top of whatever it is that its black box does. Well and good. And what happens when the bundle of properties includes political views, especially disfavored ones?
* * * Most big legacy news publishers across 10 countries are blocking OpenAI’s crawlers, report finds Nieman Lab
The Bezzle
Inside the Biggest Art Fraud in History Smithsonian
Manufacturing
Rolls Royce tackles Trent engine issues as profits take flight Leeham News & Analysis
Supply Chain
British Columbia’s multimillion-dollar mining problem The Narwhale
The Final Frontier
Intuitive Machines lands on moon in nail-biting descent of private Odysseus lander, a 1st for US since 1972 Space.com
Zeitgeist Watch
Can This Body of Evidence Show Us How to Become Happier? Hilda Bastian, Living with Evidence
Don’t date robots — their privacy policies are terrible The Verge
Getting the Pump Harpers
More Than 40 Percent of Americans Know Someone Who Died of Drug Overdose; 13 Percent Say Deaths Have Disrupted Their Lives RAND
Class Warfare
America’s Richest Men Ask the Courts to Make Unions Illegal Harold Mayerson, The American Prospect. It would be amusing if the Trump Court, heeding the siren call that “Republicans must become the party of the working class” (not), turned them down.
The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine Texas Monthly
Amazon Made Airport Workers Toil In 100-Degree Heat Without Shade Jalopnik
Do You Own Your Body? JSTOR Daily
What Can You Do With a ‘Failed’ Postmodern Utopia? Atlas Obscura
A Forthcoming Documentary Examines How Civic Life in America Is a Matter of ‘Join or Die’ Colossal
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
Stunning drone footage captures wolves digging tunnels through deep snow in China’s Xinjiang. #wolf #snow #Xinjiang #rare #China pic.twitter.com/HxLUcvEe7L
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) February 22, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
