What is Really Behind Memorial Day
Flesh Eating Bacteria Found in Sargassum
https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/perfect-pathogen-storm.php
‘Pathogen’ Storm: Vibrio Bacteria, Sargassum and Plastic Marine Debris
Some cultivation-based data show beached Sargassum appear to harbor high amounts of Vibrio bacteria. (Photo credit: Brian Lapointe, FAU Harbor Branch)
By gisele galoustian | 5/18/2023
A new study uncovers how the interplay between Sargassum spp., plastic marine debris and Vibrio bacteria creates the perfect “pathogen” storm that has implications for both marine life and public health. Vibrio bacteria are found in waters around the world and are the dominant cause of death in humans from the marine environment. For example, Vibrio vulnificus, sometimes referred to as flesh-eating bacteria, can cause life-threatening foodborne illnesses from seafood consumption as well as disease and death from open wound infections.
Since 2011, Sargassum, free-living populations of brown macroalga, have been rapidly expanding in the Sargasso Sea and other parts of the open ocean such as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, including frequent and unprecedented seaweed accumulation events on beaches. Plastic marine debris, first found in surface waters of the Sargasso Sea, has become a worldwide concern, and is known to persist decades longer than natural substrates in the marine environment.
Currently, little is known about the ecological relationship of vibrios with Sargassum. Moreover, genomic and metagenomic evidence has been lacking as to whether vibrios colonizing plastic marine debris and Sargassum could potentially infect humans. As summer kicks into high gear and efforts are underway to find innovative solutions to repurpose Sargassum, could these substrates pose a triple threat to public health?
Maasai Are Getting Pushed Off Their Land So Dubai Royalty Can Shoot Lions
Tanzania’s government wants big tourism money. Herders don’t want to lose their livelihood
A friend from Tanzania had this response to this outrage…
Started Last year, they started moving villages out of the reserve when they have been living for 100’s of years, some refused and had to be moved by force. Very Sad story, and not the first time. They even had big middle east military plane suspected to be loaded with wildlife for Zoos in Emirates.
T.I.A (That Is Africa)
Critics have argued that the Tanzanian government doesn’t want Maasai herding cattle where safari-goers expect to see giraffes and elephants.
As noted in this Bloomberg article
Scientists insist proper land use planning could have helped avoid today’s conflicts, and conservationists say photographic tourism concessions would bring far more money into the state budget than hunting, leading to suspicions that the corruption uncovered in 1996 and 2017 persists.
One Masai, who has an Economics degree pointed out that…
Uneducated Maasai women have few options beyond marriage, and in polygamist societies, that often means as a second or third wife. Since women in such situations compete for status by having more children, “if you want to depopulate this area, just educate every Maasai girl to university level,” he says. “It’ll be solved in 15 years.”
Ray Bradbury on Religion and Science being two sides of the same coin
Exodus of Wealthy from New York
Shows up in the falling tax revenues
The Brutal Unspoken Mafia Prison Rules that Russia Lives By
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/16/russia-prisons-wagner-group-ukraine-crime-culture/
The criminals that ran the black market during the Communist days, came to power during the chaos of the 1900s, during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In November 1996, to consolidate his power, Putin and his friends founded the Ozero Cooperative, which bonded together oligarchs and the mafia families. Over the many years of the state within the state that was the gulag system, a bizarre caste system arose in the prisons. At the bottom of the cast where the so-called Roosters. Recruiting these Untouchables into the Ukraine “Special Operation” has upset this brutal hierarchy and troop morale.
The lowest caste, and the one that every prisoner fears degradation to, are the roosters, also known as the “offended,” the “pederasts,” or the “downcast.” That is a position to which it is extremely easy to fall down to, but one that you can never climb up from. They’re forced to do all the worst jobs—such as cleaning the cell’s latrine, washing everyone’s underwear—because no, your average Russian prison does not have any washing machines—and often serving as sexual slaves. They also get the worst sleeping spots in the cell, usually next to the latrine.
A rooster is untouchable outside of sex. One is not allowed to share anything with a rooster except as a payment for services—not only is it taboo to touch them, but also anything that they have touched, as that instantly moves one to their caste. Their kitchenware is explicitly marked as such, for one, and whenever transferring cells, they’re supposed to publicly announce their suit status and move in with “their own” accordingly.
. Gay and transgender prisoners are automatically placed among the roosters, but so are those who foolishly admit to having given oral sex to a woman—an act that, as among the ancient Romans or the modern Italian mafia, is seen as fundamentally impure.
A rooster’s status is truly miserable. It’s driven many people to suicide and made people so miserable that they used to rebel and intentionally touch blatniye inmates as a last attempt of revenge—sure, they would be instantly killed by other inmates, but the prisoner who previously belonged to the higher caste would instantly be a rooster inside the prison system and out, and would never be able to move upwards in the hierarchy
Diet Soda is killing you and not helping you lose weight
Just in case you were planning on shedding a few pounds before the Summer, the World Health Organization has informed us that diet sodas aren’t a fast track to success. According to a recent write-up in Science Alert, artificial sweeteners have no added health benefits when compared to traditional sugar and should not be utilized as a means of achieving weight loss. This news is devastating to many, as poor weight management can be a leading cause of deadly diseases such as diabetes and certain forms of cancer, which are leading causes of death all over the world.
Knowingly eating artificially sweetened foods might contribute to the “idea of ‘it’s better for me so I can eat as much as I want,'” registered dietitian Alissa Rumsey told Axios.
Sugar substitutes aren’t as satisfying as the real thing, so “for some people, this leads to them continuing to eat and graze on foods to try to find that feeling of satisfaction
AI Beatles doing God Only Knows from The Beach Boys
Russia’s Nukes Probably Don’t Work — Here’s Why
https://wesodonnell.medium.com/russias-nukes-probably-don-t-work-here-s-why-bd686dec8b6
Lack of Maintenance Like the Rest of their Equipment
6 min read
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a curious thing happened: Putin’s modern, lethal fighting force turned out to be a broken-down, two-bit shadow of its former self.
There are many reasons for this, but the biggest seems to be unbridled corruption at a level that shook even the most hardened analysts in Western defense intelligence.
Particularly egregious was the poor maintenance on display with most, if not all, of Russia’s war machines.
Looking back now, with the benefit of time (and watching Russia flounder around in Eastern Ukraine for over a year), it’s easy to see how funds intended for operations and maintenance might have been diverted.
Hell, this story of a Russian army commander stealing engines from Putin’s prized T-90 tanks is a perfect example.
How The West Industrialized Russia
Russia is often portrayed as the invincible military power. And
yet, this reputation is based on two wars – Napoleonic and
WWII. In both cases Russia won only thanks to the alliance
allied with the leading economic powerhouse of that era.