Welcome to the MLB Star Power Index — a weekly undertaking that determines with awful authority which players are dominating the current zeitgeist of the sport, at least according to the narrow perceptions of this miserable scribe. While one’s presence on this list is often celebratory in nature, it can also be for purposes of lamentation or ridicule. The players listed are in no particular order, just like the phone book. The loudest of siren calls known to humankind? ‘Tis the siren call of the replenishing burger, and we have scant control over when it meets our ears. At a funeral? Might soon be burger time. Passing traffic on the shoulder of the road while steering with your knees so as to be able to light a… Source link

Let’s start by saying quarterback is important position in the game. And yes, Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback in the league. But having the best quarterback doesn’t mean you have the best team and will win the Super Bowl (otherwise Aaron Rodgers would have a dozen Lombardis). Football is a team game. Last year teams quarterbacked by Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff and Ryan Tannehill all went to the playoffs. Drew Brees, in such poor shape that he couldn’t lob the ball much 20 yards with any mustard, even led his team to a 2 seed. Tyler Heinicke led a team that almost pulled off an upset against the eventual champs! Quarterback is the most important position in the game, but it’s not the sole determining factor of team success. I know that some media chucklefaces like to spout… Source link

Labeling misinformation online is doing more harm than good. The possibility that COVID-19 came from a lab accident is just the latest example. Social media companies tried to suppress any discussion of it for months. But why? There’s no strong evidence against it, and evidence for other theories is still inconclusive. Pathogens have escaped from labs many times, and people have died as a result. Social media fact-checkers don’t have any special knowledge or ability to sort fact from misinformation. What they have is extraordinary power to shape what people believe. And stifling ideas can backfire if it leads people to believe there’s a “real story” that is being suppressed. Misinformation is dangerous. It can keep people from getting lifesaving medical treatments,… Source link

I discussed the new interest in the lab leak with another science journalist who was interested in why so many reporters are still treating the natural spillover hypothesis as the only possibility. We agreed this isn’t like the connection between carbon emissions and climate change, where there’s a scientific consensus based on years of research and multiple, independently-derived lines of evidence. Here, even if a few scientists favored the natural spillover early on, the question is still open. Source link

Bill Gates has been in the news recently—but for all the wrong reasons. His book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need is far more significant to the body politic than his other recent appearances in the news. The book reads (of course) like a dystopian novel, replete with all the standard climate-change nonsense the thinking world encountered, then summarily dismissed, in Earth in the Balance by Al Gore, another figure known to the public as one thing (politician, in Al’s case) but coveting something else—the mantle of an environmental prophet. Prophet Bill, like the earlier Prophet Al, is (of course) upset by greenhouse gases—really upset. To rid the planet of them, particularly in the form of that non-pollutant gas called… Source link

Labelling misinformation online is doing more harm than good. The possibility that Covid-19 came from a lab accident is just the latest example. Social media companies tried to suppress any discussion of it for months. But why? There’s no strong evidence against it, and evidence for other theories is still inconclusive. Pathogens have escaped from labs many times, and people have died as a result. Social media fact-checkers don’t have any special knowledge or ability to sort fact from misinformation. What they have is extraordinary power to shape what people believe. And stifling ideas can backfire if it leads people to believe there’s a “real story” that is being suppressed. Misinformation is dangerous. It can keep people from getting lifesaving medical treatments, including… Source link

Labelling misinformation online is doing more harm than good. The possibility that Covid-19 came from a lab accident is just the latest example. Social media companies tried to suppress any discussion of it for months. But why? There’s no strong evidence against it, and evidence for other theories is still inconclusive. Pathogens have escaped from labs many times, and people have died as a result.  Social media fact-checkers don’t have any special knowledge or ability to sort fact from misinformation. What they have is extraordinary power to shape what people believe. And stifling ideas can backfire if it leads people to believe there’s a “real story” that is being suppressed. Misinformation is dangerous. It can keep people from getting… Source link

Westport’s famous pink Remarkable Bookcycle is now stationed on the sidewalk in front of 173 Main Street, the future home of Cold Fusion Gelato. The mobile free library offers free novels and children’s books to anyone who stops by, curated by a team of volunteer Remarkable Librarians. The bicycle was painted and retrofitted by Ryan Peterson with the lead of novelist Jane Green. The name and color come from the famous Remarkable Bookshop, which sat just up from the bike’s current spot before its closure. … Source link

I realize I have not written much about COVID 45. This blog usually concerns the little, odd, interesting features of infectious diseases. While a disaster, there has not been much with COVID that has been all that odd or interesting to write about. The literature/science has been changing so fast that most entries would be outdated as soon as published. But it has been 500 days of COVID, and it looks like we are nearing the end of the initial bolus of disease. So, what have I learned/concluded? My take. Your mileage may vary. Not that COVID is ever going to go away. A remarkable number of Americans prefer being vulnerable to COVID, able to get ill or pass it on to others and kill them. Huge swaths of the world will remain unvaccinated and a reservoir for… Source link

I realize I have not written much about COVID 45. This blog usually concerns the little, odd, interesting features of infectious diseases. While a disaster, there has not been much with COVID that has been all that odd or interesting to write about. The literature/science has been changing so fast that most entries would be outdated as soon as published. But it has been 500 days of COVID, and it looks like we are nearing the end of the initial bolus of disease. So, what have I learned/concluded? My take. Your mileage may vary. Not that COVID is ever going to go away. A remarkable number of Americans prefer being vulnerable to COVID, able to get ill or pass it on to others and kill them. Huge swaths of the world will remain unvaccinated and a reservoir for… Source link