Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Why Voting in 2016 Could Be Nearly Impossible For Some Americans

What a Cutie Pie!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/serious-grumpy-baby-mood-changes-jackson-5_us_56dda726e4b03a4056792f0a

Monday, March 7, 2016

Got the Right Stuff?

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/watch-us-epically-fail-nasas-astronaut-test/?mbid=nl_3716

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Quote from Salon -

I hate to have to say it, but the conclusion stares us in the face: We’re a stupid country, full of loud, illiterate and credulous people. Trump has marched straight to the nomination without offering anything like a platform or a plan. With a vocabulary of roughly a dozen words – wall, Mexicans, low-energy, loser, Muslims, stupid, China, negotiate, deals, America, great, again – he’s bamboozled millions of Americans. And it’s not just splenetic conservatives supporting Trump or your garden-variety bigots (although that’s the center of his coalition), it’s also independents, pro-choice Republicans, and a subset of Reagan Democrats.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/america_youre_stupid_donald_trumps_political_triumph_makes_it_official_were_a_nation_of_idiots/

Another Reason to Vaccinate

From Now I Know -

The Measles Mystery

In the 1960s, children throughout the America began receiving a vaccination for measles. And as the chart above (via Wikipedia) shows, the vaccine, by and large, made the disease history. But that's not all that happened. As NPR reported, after widespread use of the vaccine began, "childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half." Somehow, the measles vaccine was keeping other diseases at bay, too.

And until recently, no one knew why.

The measles vaccine, like most others, is designed to inoculate the patient against a specific disease. The modern measles vaccine (the "MMR"), as the UK's National Health Service explains, "contains weakened versions of live measles, mumps and rubella viruses. The vaccine works by triggering the immune system to produce antibodies against measles, mumps and rubella." Those antibodies, though, aren't useful against other diseases -- the MMR shot won't prevent a child from getting anything else.

But, as noted above, that's exactly what was happening. Children who were inoculated against the measles were significantly less likely to die from other diseases than children who hadn't received the vaccine.

At first, the medical community thought this was simply because those receiving vaccinations had better access to medical care than those who didn't. But when the vaccine made its way to other nations -- often poorer nations -- the same thing happened: the incidence of measles fell, but so did the incidence of other diseases. So scientists looked for other explanations. And as it turns out, the most likely reason is that measles is more dangerous than we originally thought.

In a paper published in the May 8th issue of Science, a team lead by a Princeton biology postdoc and Emory medical student named Michael Mina explained why: the measles virus didn't just cause measles, but also weakened the immune system overall. How? As the New York Times reported, "studies suggest that measles infection depletes B and T lymphocytes, specialized white blood cells that produce antibodies that 'remember' the measles virus, providing immunity against further attacks." Mina compared this to amnesia, as he told NPR in the above-linked article:

Well, say you get the chicken pox when you're 4 years old. Your immune system figures out how to fight it. So you don't get it again. But if you get measles when you're 5 years old, it could wipe out the memory of how to beat back the chicken pox.

That's been known for a while, but the effects were believed to be short-lived, perhaps only as long as the measles virus was active in a person's system. Mina and team came to a different conclusion. Per their research, this "immune amnesia" can last two or three years -- long enough where children are exposed to lots of different diseases to which they have become once again vulnerable.

Avoiding the measles, therefore, also avoids this eradication of the immune system. So while the measles vaccine itself doesn't increase the body's ability to fight non-measles disease, the net result is the same: for years after inoculation, the measles shot reduces the spread and effect of other, unrelated childhood diseases.

http://nowiknow.com/the-measles-mystery/

~~~~~~~~~~

Moral of the story - vaccinate your kids!

Turning the Tables on the Typical Soup Kitchen

http://www.upworthy.com/a-soup-kitchen-disguised-as-a-restaurant-is-making-a-big-difference-in-kansas-city?c=upw1

Friday, March 4, 2016

Unlikely Volunteer Mourners

An excerpt from NPR -

'Today We Are His Family': Teen Volunteers Mourn Those Who Died Alone

On the drive to Fairview Cemetery in the Boston neighborhood of Hyde Park, six seniors from Roxbury Latin boys' school sit in silent reflection. Mike Pojman, the school's assistant headmaster and senior adviser, says the trip is a massive contrast to the rest of their school day, and to their lives as a whole right now.

Today the teens have volunteered to be pallbearers for a man who died alone in September, and for whom no next of kin was found. He's being buried in a grave with no tombstone, in a city cemetery.

"To reflect on the fact that there are people, like this gentleman, who probably knew hundreds or thousands of people through his life, and at the end of it there's nobody there — I think that gets to all of them," Pojman says. "Some have said, 'I just gotta make sure that never happens to me.' "

The students, dressed in jackets and ties, carry the plain wooden coffin, and take part in a short memorial. They read together, as a group:

"Dear Lord, thank you for opening our hearts and minds to this corporal work of mercy. We are here to bear witness to the life and passing of Nicholas Miller.

"He died alone with no family to comfort him.

"But today we are his family, we are here as his sons

"We are honored to stand together before him now, to commemorate his life, and to remember him in death, as we commend his soul to his eternal rest."

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/25/463567685/today-we-are-his-family-teen-volunteers-mourn-those-who-died-alone

The Afterlife of a Subway Car

Fascinating!

Be sure to go all the way to the end of the article. What you see might surprise you.

http://www.viralforest.com/subway-cars-dumped-coral-reef/

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Sound Familiar?

An excerpt from The Root -

Why Successful Black Men in Brazil Won’t Marry Black Women

“Black is a slave. Black is not good,” said black Brazilian actress Polly Marinho, in explaining the thinking behind why interracial marriage is more common the higher up the socioeconomic ladder a black Brazilian goes.

~~~~~~~~~~

The 2010 census in Brazil showed that out of all the women over 50 who had never had a spouse, a majority of them were “pretas,” a term commonly used to refer to dark-skinned black women. It’s also obvious to all Brazilians that once black Brazilian men attain a certain social status, they choose white women as their life partners. Brazil’s most famous soccer player, Pelé, has been married three times, but never to a black woman. Nearly all of Brazil’s top male samba singers are married to white women. A study conducted of high-level black Brazilian businessmen in 2011 found that out of the 50 interviewed, 49 were married to white women (pdf).

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/03/why_successful_black_men_in_brazil_won_t_marry_black_women.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Introducing Open eBooks

I know first hand the power of reading and how books can transport you to another world and help to transform you into the person you are destined to be.

You know my story.

I was raised in the tiny town of China, Texas, where thank God, my Mom somehow found the money to buy books and magazines, so that I always had something to read. She understood too well the limitations that home presented, but she found a way for me to see the world through literature.

I will forever be grateful to her for that.

So, this initiative to get books into the hands of children everywhere is monumental.

Life changing.

Please join me in spreading the word about this incredible opportunity of discovery and adventure for kids through books.

http://openebooks.net/index.html

Wintergatan - Marble Machine (Music Instrument Using 2000 Marbles)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/martin-molin-marble-machine-music_us_56d74bade4b0bf0dab3454b1

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Fido vs Spot — Animal vs Robot

Dumb and Proud of It

An excerpt from Rolling Stone - (Bold is mine)

Revenge of the Simple: How George W. Bush Gave Rise to Trump

Bush was just an appetizer — Trump would be the main course

By Matt Taibbi March 1, 2016

People forget what an extraordinary thing it was that Bush was president. Dubya wasn't merely ignorant when compared with other politicians or other famous people. No, he would have stood out as dumb in just about any setting.

If you could somehow run simulations where Bush was repeatedly shipwrecked on a desert island with 20 other adults chosen at random, he would be the last person listened to by the group every single time. He knew absolutely nothing about anything. He wouldn't have been able to make fire, find water, build shelter or raise morale. It would have taken him days to get over the shock of no room service.

Bush went to the best schools but was totally ignorant of history, philosophy, science, geography, languages and the arts. Asked by a child in South Carolina in 1999 what his favorite book had been growing up, Bush replied, “I can’t remember any specific books.”

Bush showed no interest in learning and angrily rejected the idea that a president ought to be able to think his way through problems. As Mark Crispin Miller wrote in The Bush Dyslexicon, Bush's main rhetorical tool was the tautology — i.e., saying the same thing, only twice.

Take This Test

Can You Guess Which of These Books Are Banned in Prison?

See if you have what it takes to be a prison censor.

By Bill Keller

For this week’s Quizzical, here’s a quiz from the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering criminal justice reform. The original quiz is here and is republished below with permission.

For those doing time in prison, books and magazines can be a refuge, a civilizing influence and a source of skills that might help make them employable citizens when they get out. To those who run the prisons, the wrong books and magazines can seem a source of disorder and danger.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/quizzical/2016/03/quiz_can_you_guess_which_of_these_books_are_banned_in_prison.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis

Yes, But . . .

From The Root -

11 Actresses Who Could Play Nina Simone Without Blackface

For colored girls whose dark skin ain’t enough ...

Colorism is real. It's the reason women like Jennifer Lopez and Sofía Vergara represent Hispanic culture in Hollywood. It's the reason darker skin is mostly celebrated by black people. There's a melanin comfort zone or a threshold in Hollywood that is rarely disturbed.

So when the powers that be decided that they would create a biopic for the troubled, yet extremely talented and dark-skinned songstress Nina Simone, we were excited. This meant that Hollywood was confronting that threshold. But not so fast—because they cast Zoe Saldana as the leading lady.

The trailer for Nina, the Simone biopic that shockingly stars a medium-complected Saldana as the late singer, has been released. The film was heavily criticized in production when several photos of a painted-on Saldana were leaked. And it seems that the film will still be getting the side eye from many of us because Saldana is fully painted in blackface, black body—I bet they even painted her toes.