Tag Archives: whether

Sleepyhead – Henry Nicholls

by Myrna Posted on September 4, 2018

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Sleepyhead

The Neuroscience of a Good Night’s Rest

Henry Nicholls

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $17.99

Publish Date: September 4, 2018

Publisher: Basic Books

Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.


A narcoleptic's tireless journey through the neuroscience of disordered sleep Whether it's a bout of bad jet lag or a stress-induced all-nighter, we've all suffered from nights that left us feeling less than well-rested. But for some people, getting a bad night's sleep isn't just an inconvenience: it's a nightmare. In Sleepyhead , science writer Henry Nicholls uses his own experience with chronic narcolepsy as a gateway to better understanding the cryptic, curious, and relatively uncharted world of sleep disorders. We meet insomniacs who can't get any sleep, narcoleptics who can't control when they sleep, and sleep apnea victims who nearly suffocate in their sleep. We learn the underlying difference between morning larks and night owls; why our sleeping habits shift as we grow older; and the evolutionary significance of REM sleep and dreaming. Charming, eye-opening, and deeply humanizing, Sleepyhead will help us all uncover the secrets of a good night's sleep.

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Sleepyhead – Henry Nicholls

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The Great Lakes are having Great Snowstorms partly thanks to climate change.

by MaryjoQuigley Posted on December 28, 2017

It started with the cinematic, widely serenaded death of spunky little spacebot Cassini, closing out a 13-year mission to Saturn with a headlong dive into the planet’s gaseous atmosphere.

Meanwhile, back on a more familiar planet, an orbiting satellite named DMSP F19 quietly blinked out. The DMSP weather-tracking satellites have meticulously recorded Arctic sea ice coverage since 1978, which makes them one of our longest-running climate observations. But in 2015, Congress voted to mothball the last satellite in the series. Now, on the cusp of the biggest planetary shift humans have ever seen, we stand to lose one of our best means for understanding it.

Also this year, I started following LandsatBot, a project by Welsh glaciologist Martin O’Leary that tweets out random satellite views of Earth’s surface hourly. Like a geographic Chat Roulette, LandsatBot scratches the same imaginative itch that high-def images of Saturn’s rings do, but its alien views are all terrestrial. From satellite height, every landscape looks like an abstract painting, all fractal rivers and impressionist daubs of cloud.

These days, amidst an unending torrent of Game of Thrones gifs, signs of the end of democracy, and variations on that distracted boyfriend meme, I sometimes come across a Landsat image dropped without comment into the clutter. I stop and stare. Whether it’s an astroturf-green wedge of land somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago or the Crest-colored swirl of icy Antarctic seas, I try to imagine the world down there: A place I will probably never go, without landmarks or footprints, but irrevocably changed by us. Whether you recognize it or not, it’s home.

Amelia Urry is an associate editor at Grist.

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The Great Lakes are having Great Snowstorms partly thanks to climate change.

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Urban hunters are pretty delighted by the coyote takeover.

by AHVCarinatd Posted on December 27, 2017

It started with the cinematic, widely serenaded death of spunky little spacebot Cassini, closing out a 13-year mission to Saturn with a headlong dive into the planet’s gaseous atmosphere.

Meanwhile, back on a more familiar planet, an orbiting satellite named DMSP F19 quietly blinked out. The DMSP weather-tracking satellites have meticulously recorded Arctic sea ice coverage since 1978, which makes them one of our longest-running climate observations. But in 2015, Congress voted to mothball the last satellite in the series. Now, on the cusp of the biggest planetary shift humans have ever seen, we stand to lose one of our best means for understanding it.

Also this year, I started following LandsatBot, a project by Welsh glaciologist Martin O’Leary that tweets out random satellite views of Earth’s surface hourly. Like a geographic Chat Roulette, LandsatBot scratches the same imaginative itch that high-def images of Saturn’s rings do, but its alien views are all terrestrial. From satellite height, every landscape looks like an abstract painting, all fractal rivers and impressionist daubs of cloud.

These days, amidst an unending torrent of Game of Thrones gifs, signs of the end of democracy, and variations on that distracted boyfriend meme, I sometimes come across a Landsat image dropped without comment into the clutter. I stop and stare. Whether it’s an astroturf-green wedge of land somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago or the Crest-colored swirl of icy Antarctic seas, I try to imagine the world down there: A place I will probably never go, without landmarks or footprints, but irrevocably changed by us. Whether you recognize it or not, it’s home.

Amelia Urry is an associate editor at Grist.

Link to original:

Urban hunters are pretty delighted by the coyote takeover.

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Succulents Simplified – Debra Lee Baldwin

by Myrna Posted on September 27, 2017

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Succulents Simplified

Growing, Designing, and Crafting with 100 Easy-Care Varieties

Debra Lee Baldwin

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: May 21, 2013

Publisher: Timber Press

Seller: Workman Publishing Co., Inc.


Succulents are hot. And Debra Lee Baldwin, the bestselling author of Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens , is the ideal guide for gardeners, crafters, and DIYers looking for an introduction to these trendy, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant plants. Along with gorgeous photos packed with design ideas, Debra offers her top 100 plant picks and explains how to grow and care for succulents no matter where you live. Step-by-step projects, including a cake-stand centerpiece, special-occasion bouquets, a vertical garden, and a succulent topiary sphere, will inspire you to express your individual style. Whether you’re a novice or veteran, have an acre to fill or a few pots, live in Calexico or Canada, Succulents Simplified is a dazzling primer for success with succulents wherever you live!

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Succulents Simplified – Debra Lee Baldwin

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Trump friend and climate foe Sam Clovis is up for a big job at the USDA.

by JCNCharole Posted on May 15, 2017

In early May, laborers harvesting cabbage in a field near Bakersfield, California, caught a whiff of an odor. Some suddenly felt nauseated.

A local news station reported that winds blew the pesticide Vulcan — which was being sprayed on a mandarin orchard owned by the produce company Sun Pacific — into Dan Andrews Farms’ cabbage patch.

Vulcan’s active ingredient, chlorpyrifos, has been banned for residential use for more than 15 years. It was scheduled to be off-limits to agriculture this year — until the EPA gave it a reprieve in March. Kern County officials are still confirming whether Sun Pacific’s insecticide contained chlorpyrifos.

More than 50 farmworkers were exposed, and 12 reported symptoms, including vomiting and fainting. One was hospitalized. “Whether it’s nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, seek medical attention immediately,” a Kern County Public Health official warned.

If chlorpyrifos’ presence is confirmed, the EPA may have some explaining to do. The Dow Chemical compound is a known neurotoxin, and several studies connect exposure to it with lower IQ in children and other neurological deficits.

The Scott Pruitt–led agency, however, decided that — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — the science wasn’t conclusive.

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Trump friend and climate foe Sam Clovis is up for a big job at the USDA.

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Foreigners Are Fleeing From Treasury Bonds, But It’s Probably Not Trump’s Fault

by HallieLockhart Posted on February 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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Bloomberg reports that foreigners are tripping over themselves to unload their holdings of US treasuries:

In the age of Trump, America’s biggest foreign creditors are suddenly having second thoughts about financing the U.S. government.

….From Tokyo to Beijing and London, the consensus is clear: few overseas investors want to step into the $13.9 trillion U.S. Treasury market right now. Whether it’s the prospect of bigger deficits and more inflation under President Donald Trump or higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, the world’s safest debt market seems less of a sure thing — particularly after the upswing in yields since November. And then there is Trump’s penchant for saber rattling, which has made staying home that much easier.

….Combined with the unpredictability of Trump’s tweet storms, interest-rate increases in the U.S. could further sap overseas demand….Right now, it’s just “much easier to stay home than go abroad,” said Shyam Rajan, Bank of America’s head of U.S. rates strategy.

Hmmm. The age of Trump? According to the Treasury Department, the selloff started in June:

Preliminary figures from Japan suggest that December will be much the same as November, which means foreigners will have sold off nearly a half-trillion dollars worth of treasuries in six months. That’s 7 percent of their total holdings. The only other time there’s been a selloff this sustained was at the tail end of the dotcom boom.

But is it Trump’s fault? Nobody thought he had a chance of winning until November, so it’s hard to see how he could have caused uneasiness with federal debt back in June. I don’t imagine Trump has done the US debt market any favors, but on this score, at least, I suspect he’s getting more blame than he deserves.

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Foreigners Are Fleeing From Treasury Bonds, But It’s Probably Not Trump’s Fault

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What Does Donald Trump Know? Anything?

by mittiedamico8 Posted on December 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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At about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, China agreed to return the Navy drone they had seized in the South China Sea. Four hours later, Donald Trump tweeted his thoughts about this: “China steals United States Navy research drone in international watersâ&#128;&#149;rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.” Then, a few hours later, he bizarrely changed tack: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!” Did Trump know when he wrote those tweets that the Chinese had already agreed to return the drone?

That information would have been known to Trump had he received the “Presidential Daily Brief” prior to posting his first tweet. Whether he did that Saturday, or whether he or his staff even bothered to check with the State Department or the Pentagon about the status of the matter before weighing in, is unknown. Officials in Trump’s transition office did not respond to queries from the Huffington Post.

Trump has said that he finds the PDB repetitive and that he does not need a daily briefing because he is smart. His staff has said Trump is receiving the briefing about three times a week.

That’s from S.V. Date, and I love the second excerpted paragraph. It makes Trump look like the idiot he is, but there’s nothing objectionable about it. That’s exactly what he said. Trump can hardly cry foul at this characterization.

He will, of course, because he and his team have made a whole new profession out of grievance mongering. You’d think that he expected to govern without criticism or something—and judging by the remarkable volume of whining out of Trump and his team, maybe he did. But since he refuses to speak with the press, and his staff does nothing but kvetch and tap dance, we may never know.

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What Does Donald Trump Know? Anything?

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Greenpeace Shows How Many Companies Are Failing to Ban Microbeads

by PearlineVentura Posted on September 10, 2016

Microbeads are bad news, but fortunately most of us know that by now. There has been growing resistance to the miniscule pieces of plastic, added to personal care products for their ability to exfoliate skin, or sometimes just to look pretty in a see-through bottle. These microbeads, however, wreak environmental havoc as soon as theyre washed down the drain. The outcome is described here by campaign group Beat the Microbead:

Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter out microbeads and that is the main reason why, ultimately, they contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling around the worlds oceans. Sea creatures absorb or eat microbeads. These microbeads are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we are also absorbing microbeads from the food we eat. Microbeads are not biodegradable and once they enter the marine environment, they are impossible to remove.

After learning that microplastics have been found in 170 types of seafood, Greenpeace East Asia decided to take action. It launched a survey of 30 of the worlds largest cosmetics and personal care companies, assessing four main criteria:

1) Whether or not these companies have a commitment on microbeads, and whether its publicly accessible and easy to read
2) How microbeads are defined for the companys commitment
3) When the company plans to meet its deadline for the commitment
4) Whether the commitment covers all of the companys products

The result is theMicrobeads Commitment Scorecard, available as anoverviewandin greater detail. Companies such as Beiersdorf (owner of Nivea and Eucerin), Colgate-Palmolive, L Brands (La Senza, Victorias Secret, Bath & Body Works), and Henkel (Schwarzkopf and Persil) all scored highest in relation to the other companies; however, all of these top-scorers exhibit microbead commitments that fall short of an acceptable standard, mostly because of their definition of microbeads is too narrow and may allow for other, insoluble plastic polymers to be used in products.

At the very bottom of list, in the fail category, lie brands such as Revlon, Este Lauder (MAC), and Amway. The first two have not stated dates for phasing out microbeads and all continue to use plastics in their skin care products.

The good news? You dont need these brands and their nasty plastic pollution (nor the chemicals that will continue to exist in their products, even if they do get around the banning microbeads.)

There are great alternatives out there that use all-natural, plastic-free ingredients to exfoliate your skin. Some that you may want to investigate are Celtic ComplexionsGentle Creme Exfoliant(very luxurious and made with jojoba beads),Ethiques Gingersnap Facial Scrub Bars(they smell like cookies), and Fable NaturalsQuinoa & Almond Fresh Skin Exfoliant(made with organic oats and almonds).

Written by KatherineMartinko.This post originally appeared onTreeHugger.

Photo Credit: Beat the Microbead/Facebook

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Greenpeace Shows How Many Companies Are Failing to Ban Microbeads

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Someone Is Trying to Freak Out New Hampshire’s Undecided Voters

by JeannetteDme Posted on February 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Some voters in New Hampshire opened their mailboxes today to find an envelope stamped in red with “important taxpayer information enclosed.” Inside was a letter featuring an official-looking seal that listed not only the recipients’ voting records, but those of their neighbors.

“WHAT IF YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR NEIGHBORS, AND YOUR COMMUNITY KNEW WHETHER YOU VOTED?” the mailer asked. “We’re sending this mailing to you, some of your friends, neighbors, colleagues at work and community members to make them aware of who does and does not vote.”

A mailer circulated to New Hampshire voters today by a mysterious group

The mailer listed the recipient’s name, his or her record of voting in the last few elections, and the names, addresses, and voting records of nine neighbors. Mother Jones was shown two copies of the mailer, one sent to a registered independent voter in Manchester and the other to a registered Democrat; complaints about this mailer began popping up on the internet this afternoon.

The mailer is very similar to one circulated by Ted Cruz’s campaign to undecided Iowa voters just days before the caucuses. Cruz’s controversial mailer warned of “voting violations” and listed what it said was the voting records of the recipient and his or her neighbors, although the voting data appeared to be incorrect if not made up entirely. (At least one of the New Hampshire mailers featured false voting-record data, according to the recipient.)

Unlike the Iowa mailer, which prominently listed the Cruz campaign as its source, there is no indication who sent the New Hampshire letter. In small print at the bottom of the letter a disclaimer notes that it is “Paid for by Public Policy Matters,” a group that has no obvious web presence. If the New Hampshire mailers are not from Cruz, it’s possible that someone wants to remind New Hampshire’s coveted independent voters of Cruz’s Iowa stunt.

Update: Ted Cruz’s spokesman, Rick Tyler, told Mother Jones that the Cruz campaign did not send the mailers. “All of our mail has a Paid for by Cruz for President disclaimer. Not ours,” Tyler emailed.

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Someone Is Trying to Freak Out New Hampshire’s Undecided Voters

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10 Superfoods to Keep You Well in Winter (Infographic)

by OlenWkmecjs Posted on January 28, 2016

Whether you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, winter aches and pains or an unfortunate case of the flu, maintaining a healthy diet is key to helping the symptoms. This infographic from Door to Door Organics gives 10 examples of superfoods you can introduce into your diet this winter to help you feel your best.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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10 Superfoods to Keep You Well in Winter (Infographic)

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