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50,532 | The Russian version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" had to scrap the "ask audience lifeline as the audience would intentionally give the wrong answer. This image can be found (for example) on Reddit with 36k upvotes. Is this claim true for Russian or any other version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"? | The Ask the Audience lifeline was removed from the show, but the reason is straightforward: they had to get rid of the audience due to COVID concerns. According to the Millionaire wiki , this change happened in all versions of the show. The Russian version ( Кто хочет стать миллионером? ) had the Ask the Audience lifeline from February 19, 2001 to March 21, 2020 . This is pretty easy to verify because the icon is the same: three silhouettes. I found a video showing that icon in three episodes : 2003, 2013, and 2017. Other videos show it in episodes from 2001 , 2005 , 2018 and January 2020 . The same icon is present in the September 26, 2020 episode , but it’s greyed out because there’s no audience. I also found out that the Philippines version removed Ask the Audience in 2010 (see 2013 video ), though the reason for this isn’t clear. But there are examples where the audience appears to sabotage the contestant. For example, a contestant on the French version used Ask the Audience: Qu’est-ce qui gravite autour de la Terre ? (What revolves around the earth?) A: La Lune (The moon) B: Le Soleil (The sun) C: Mars D: Vénus (Venus) 56% chose B, 42% chose A, and 2% chose C. The correct answer is A After the contestant chose his answer (the wrong one selected by the majority of the audience) and before the correct one was announced, you can hear some people laughing. This example is cited in the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior ( section quoted in full here ), which makes a number of claims about how much the audience can be trusted. It looks to be the source of the claim that Russian audiences are often untrustworthy, though they don’t explain how they determined this. They also say that the US audience gets the answer right 90% of the time. I also found an answer on Quora from someone who said they were on the show and voted on the wrong answer on purpose, contributing to the 5% who voted for that particular wrong answer. (Interesting even if it doesn’t prove much.) The audience does sometimes get the answer 100% unanimously wrong , though there are only a few examples of this happening, none from the Russian version. (These may not be examples of purposeful sabotage.) | {
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50,544 | I recently asked this question about a statistic quoted by Kurt Andersen designed to illustrate the current wealth distribution in the USA in his book Evil Geniuses . It provoked a great deal of (unintended) discussion as I only wanted to check whether his illustration was correct. But he makes many other claims in the book (which are more relevant to much of the unintended commentary). He specifically claims that the US distribution of income and wealth has skewed spectacularly in favour of the rich in the last three or four decades. In his words (my highlighting): Before 1980, all Americans’ incomes grew at the same basic rate as the overall economy. Since 1980, the only people whose incomes have increased at that rate are people with household incomes in the range today of $180,000 to $450,000. People with incomes higher than that, the top 1 percent, have gotten increases much bigger than overall economic growth. ( Meanwhile 90 percent of Americans have done worse than the economy overall. ) and During the grand decades between World War II and 1980, when U.S. median household income more than doubled, 70 percent of all increases in Americans’ income went to the bottom 90 percent. Since 1980, nobody’s income has doubled except for the richest 1 percent , and the incomes of the entire nonrich 90 percent of Americans have gone up by only one-quarter. Are these claims accurate in describing how inequality has skewed in the US since 1980? | According to Pew Research , the difference in median income classed by income strata, expressed in 2018 dollars, from 1970 to 2018, has skewed hard toward the rich, with both the middle and the poor losing ground as a relative share of total income in the US. It is important to note that, as far as Pew is concerned, the top quintile is the typical grouping for the rich, and the top 5% is a particular subset also analyzed in the article. Their analysis of the 90-10 ratio shows that, when compared with the G7, the USA has the greatest level of income disparity all told. Kurt Anderson's claims pass the smell test in light of this data, with the numbers he provides being ballpark accurate, when you normalize to 2018 dollars.
For those who are unfamiliar with why we express money in a given years currency, it's to account for inflation, so its a more accurate representation of buying power across time (where a dollar in 1970 would buy much more than a dollar in 2020). | {
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50,551 | According to this article (not in English) ( not paywalled version ) ( Google Translate translation ) the man in the article has a problem with his visa because he used a fictitious birthdate (as advised by the authorities) when arriving at the border because he didn't know the actual date he was born (he knew the year). He is quoted to say (my translation) “Out of more than 30 million Afghans, basically no one knows what a birthday is…” Is that really true? People have known the day of the year since prehistoric times, and that knowledge seems to have appeared independently on many places all over the world. AFAIK, such different artefacts like the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in England are aligned with winter/summer solstice or the equinoxes and I bet that you can find such "patterns" in ancient Chinese, Indian, South American etc cultures too. And these days where calenders are cheap, radio is universal since decades (and newscasts are common on radio and the usually mention today's date), even in poor countries, it seems to me very implausible that, even in a war torn and poverty stricken country like Afghanistan, people wouldn't keep track of important dates like when someone is born. What gives? | January 1st This has been reported by many mainstream news outlets including the Washington post which says January 1st is the popular birthdate assumed by citizens of Afghanistan. Washington post In Afghanistan, Jan. 1 is everyone’s birthday January 1 has become a de-facto birthday for thousands of Afghans NBC News NBC News claim to have interviewed several Afghans regarding the subject and they clarify that this is indeed the case. NBC News There are other complications, too. “Do you celebrate birthdays?” I ask NEWSWEEK translator Sayed, who assures me he is definitely 26. “Oh, no. Of course not,” he says, smiling shyly. In fact, there are no birthdays here, just once-in-a-lifetime type events like the “cradle celebration,” in which Afghans invite friends and family—mostly women—to celebrate a baby’s new bed. “There is only one real party in your life,” says Sayed. “So when you grow up there is no party, until your wedding. Poor families don’t even have big cradle celebrations. Actually, there is no money for parties here.” Independent According to the Independent an Afghan named Nazer explains that the reason for this is because people weren't well educated enough in the past to keep record of birthdays. Independent “I have been using the first of January for every online registration,” said Nazer Hussain, 23, a recent university graduate. “In the past, people weren’t well-educated enough to keep record of birthdays.” Hindustan times The Hindustan times explains that in the absence of official records, Afghans pick January 1 as their birthday Hindustan times In the absence of official records, Afghans pick January 1 as their birthday War The diplomat claims that the the loss of a newborn's birthday is caused by the war in Afghanistan. The Diplomat Consider, for instance, a family that welcomes a baby during a civil conflict. There is no official government to record the newborn’s date of birth. The family might write it on a piece of paper, but that piece of paper might later be destroyed in the war. This is not mere conjecture; it is the reality for Afghan society, and indeed in many countries that have experienced the tragedy of civil war: Vietnam, Sudan, Somalia, as well as Afghanistan. Aren't Afghans keeping track of their birthdays? This claim would appear to be true according to many mainstream news outlets that have found copious amounts of citizens of Afghanistan that are willing to vouch for this happening, and according to one source this tragedy is caused by the war which left Afghanistan with no official government to effectively record the birth dates of newborns. | {
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50,585 | According to a very highly upvoted post on Workplace.SE that says you should never accept a counteroffer: 80% of people who accept counter offers are gone from that company within 6 months, at the 12 month mark that goes up to 90% I looked at the sources that the post cited: Source 1 says “70-80% of people who accept either leave or are let go within a year”, but it gives no reference for those numbers. Source 2 says “According to national surveys of employees that accept counteroffers, 50%-80% voluntarily leave their employer within six months of accepting the counteroffer because of promises not kept. The majority of the balance of employees that accept counteroffers leave their employers within twelve months of accepting their counteroffer (terminated, downsized, fired, laid off).” But it does not cite exactly what surveys those numbers come from. Source 3 says “80% of all employees who accept a counter-offer are no longer with that employer after 1 year”, but it gives no reference for that number. Source 4 says “statistics show that 80% of people who have accepted a counter offer will not be at their current employer in six months and 93% will not be there in eighteen months’ time”, but it gives no reference for those numbers. Is there any reputable source that can back up the claim that about 90% of employees who accept a counteroffer from their current employer will be gone from that employer within a year? | There is no recent study to back up that claim As you (and others in the comments to that Workplace.SE answer) noticed, none of the articles cited have any citations themselves. While looking into this, I also found that it is easy to find other articles that are similar. They all mention a high percentage of people leaving within a short period after accepting a counteroffer, but none have an actual link to a source. The more honest ones don't use the hard numbers or acknowledge the lack of a source: From When to Take a Counteroffer From Your Employer (WSJ) ... says Ken Stempson, director of administration and human resources for IntelePeer Inc., a communications company. He says about half of employees take counteroffers, but the majority start looking for new jobs within six months From 6 Reasons Why Accepting A Counter Offer Is Madness (Consult Recruiting) There’s an oft-quoted statistic in the recruitment world that 80% of job seekers who accept a counter offer go on to leave their job within six months anyway.
Despite considerable ferreting around the internet, I can’t find the source of that fact anywhere. I suspect it might be the result of a snap poll around a recruitment office somewhere, circa 2001, and it’s become accepted lore. I also found Counteroffers, Secrecy, and Fear (Job Tips For Geeks) , which makes a very good point about secrecy: Statistics about counteroffers are impossible to measure when you consider the interests and incentives of the parties involved. Companies that counteroffer departing employees are best served to keep that fact private, as employees may pursue offer letters just for the sake of a raise or improvement and outsiders may question if the company pays market rates. Likewise, those who accept counteroffers may be concerned with the word getting out, as it may genuinely impact attitudes towards the employee. Employees who accept counteroffers are likely asked to keep quiet about what happened, and it’s usually in their best interest to do so. Based on the secrecy incentives on both sides, one might assume that the prevalence of counteroffers is likely higher than reported, and success/failure rate of counteroffer is difficult to assess. I did find two blog-post-like articles ( LinkedIn and FT Recruitment ) skeptical about the numbers that say it likely came from a WSJ study from the 1960s or 1970s, but unfortunately neither of them gave a link to the study (if someone finds a link to it, I'll be happy to add it into my answer). In both cases, they came to the conclusion that everybody has just been hearing and saying the 80% and 93% numbers for long enough that it's become accepted fact. | {
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50,617 | Attuned Vibrations is a vendor with articles making numerous claims about the benefits of certain audio frequencies. On the 528 Hz – The Love Frequency page, they claim that 528 Hz sound helped clean oil from the Gulf of Mexico. In 2010, John Hutchinson, an electromagnetic energy expert from Vancouver, B.C., Canada, helped purify poisoned water off the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill. He and his research partner, Nancy Hutchinson (formerly Nancy Lazaryan), used the 528 Hz frequency and other Solfeggio tones to reduce the oil and grease in polluted water ... Their results were certified by Dr. Robert Naman, President of
Analytical Chemical Testing Laboratory, Inc. of Mobile, Alabama. Dr.
Naman, an analytical chemist with almost 30 years in the field, tested
the samples and confirmed the complete removal of oil and grease from
the after treatment sample source tested. As you can see, the amount of oil and grease “before” the frequency
treatment was 7 ppm (parts per million, or milligrams per liter);
while the samples that had undergone the frequency exposure measured
less than 1 ppm. Was 528 Hz sound used to successfully clean polluted water in the Gulf of Mexico? Related questions: Does 528 Hz "facilitate DNA repair"? Does the sound of the Sun oscillate around 528 Hz? | Because there is no associated study, peer-reviewed or otherwise, it is difficult to prove a negative. That said, extraordinary claims (a particular frequency of sound makes oil disappear) require extraordinary evidence, which is not presented. Other details of the article make it reasonably certain that this is nonsense. Nancy Hutchinson (formerly Nancy Lazaryan), used the 528 Hz frequency and other Solfeggio tones to reduce the oil and grease in polluted water (Emphasis mine.) The "Solfeggio frequencies" are nonsense . They're related to numerology, though not by name, in terms of trying to find some magical correspondence (aside from frequency doubling by the octave) between the Solfege notes for a scale starting at 396Hz. 528Hz is supposed to be the "Transformation and Miracles" tone. Moreover, John Hutchinson is a well-established crackpot "inventor" . That the article cites him as an "electromagnetic energy expert" is rather like citing a homeopath as a "pharmaceutical expert". Without access to the cited demonstrative study, we cannot state definitively that this is false, but the trappings and company kept by the article strongly suggest that this is nonsense at best, and a hoax at worst. | {
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50,631 | Forbes states that: Abner Schoenwetter was importing seafood to sell to U.S. restaurants for over 12 years from Honduras. Those shipments were overseen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who inspected the shipments and found everything in order, including the plastic bags used to ship the frozen Caribbean lobsters (see the U.S. Department of Justice Charges here). That plastic, and not a box, is a "no-no" according to the Lacey Act which was enforced by another U.S. government entity, National Marine Fishery Service. Schoenwetter was prosecuted and was sentenced to 8 years in federal prison, which he completed in August of 2010 (he's still on probation). A similar claim is made by The Heritage Foundation : Four people, caught in the government's net, face as many as eight years in prison because U.S. officials have decided to prosecute them for alleged violations of the Lacey Act, a law that permits the government to indict individuals for importing "fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of ... any foreign law." On top of that, the government seized the entire shipment -- more than $4 million worth of lobsters. Unfortunately the link to the US Department of Justice is no longer available and I consider the claim outrageous if true, and both Forbes and The Heritage Foundation are at least somewhat biased. So is it true that Abner Schoenwetter spent 6.5 years in jail for importing lobsters in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes? | To summarize: Honduras has regulations about what lobsters can be fished (to prevent over-exploitation). The defendants knowingly broke these regulations and then tried to hide their illegal activities by breaking more laws to smuggle the lobsters into the US. Archive.org has the DoJ article . According to that, the Lacey Act states that fish/wildlife can’t be imported/sold/etc if foreign laws were broken. The relevant Honduran laws cited in the case are: Resolution 030-95 prohibited harvesting, processing, or selling any spiny lobster with a tail length shorter than 5 1/2 inches Article 70(3) of the Fishing Law prohibited harvesting or selling egg-bearing lobsters Article 30 of the Fishing Law required lobster fishermen to dock their vessels and unload their catch in a Honduran port before exportation Articles 35 and 37 of the Fishing Law required fishing vessels to report their catch in writing to Honduran authorities Agreement 0008-93 required that any lobster be inspected and processed in Honduras before exportation. Resolution 30-95 seems to be Decreto Legislativo 30-95 , which ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity An English translation of the Fishing Law is available online. Agreement 0008-93 (“Acuerdo 0008 del 93”) also has an English summary online The fact that the lobsters were in bags and not boxes was only briefly mentioned. No law was mentioned here, so it doesn’t seem to have had much or any impact on the case. In the end, the DoJ reports the charges were: Following a jury trial, all four petitioners were convicted of conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 371 for their part in the unlawful importation scheme. McNab, Blandford, and Schoenwetter were convicted of knowingly importing merchandise into the United States contrary to law in violation of 18 U.S.C. 545. [...] In total, McNab was found guilty on 28 counts, Blandford on 37 counts, Schoenwetter on 7 counts, and Huang on 17 counts. The referenced laws from that section are: 18 U.S.C. 371: Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States 18 U.S. Code § 545 - Smuggling goods into the United States See also Fisherman's tale at heart of battle over wildlife-trafficking law Case Law Database | {
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50,642 | A Time article about the upcoming emergence of Brood X cicadas in the U.S. has the following quote from a biologist: “It’s not something you can ignore,” says John Cooley, a biologist at the University of Connecticut. “When they come out it’ll be millions per acre.” I found another article about the Brood X cicadas with this quote from a professor: “Oh, it’s deafening,” said Matt Kasson, an associate professor of plant pathology and mycology at West Virginia University. [...] “You'll get tens of millions emerging per acre,” Kasson said. Cicadas are 1-2 inches long , so let's say the average cicada is 1.5 inches long. Based on photos, their width is about one-third of their length, so let's say the average cicada is 0.5 inches wide. That means the average cicada would take up an area of about 0.75 square inches. Since one acre is equivalent to 6,272,640 square inches, about 8,363,520 cicadas could fit in one acre if they were all side by side next to each other. So if there were millions of cicadas per acre, the ground would practically be covered with them if they were all sitting on the ground. If there were tens of millions of cicadas per acre, there would be multiple layers of them completely covering the ground. Of course, when the cicadas emerge, they won't all be sitting on the ground - they'll spend a lot of time at various heights in trees. But still, I am skeptical of the claims that there will be millions or tens of millions of them per acre. Is that really true? | According to Periodical cicada nymphs impose periodical oak tree wood accumulation Nature volume 287, pages 326–327 (1980): Densities of cicadas underground are very great — Dybas and Davis report emergence densities of over 300 nymphs per square yard or about 1,500,000 per acre. Where "Dybas and Davis" is A Population Census of Seventeen‐Year Periodical Cicadas (Homoptera: Cicadidae: Magicicada) Ecology 43, 432 (1962). On the other hand, this article ESTIMATING NYMPHAL POPULATIONS OF 17-YEAR CICADAS IN EASTERN OHIO, 1968 finds in the hundreds of thousands per acre (this is not Brood X though). | {
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50,647 | Health Impact News claims that many people are dying of COVID-19 vaccine injuries. Side by side comparison of 15 years of recorded vaccine injuries and deaths vs. 4 months of recorded COVID vaccine injuries and deaths.[...] It says that more deaths have happened after COVID-19 vaccinations, as reported to VAERS, compared to either the last 15 years combined. I understand that these adverse effects reports are correlations but don't imply causation but I wonder if the core of this statement is true. Is there is a caveat not presented? For example have there been more vaccines administered in the last months compared to the last 15 years? What is the best explanation for this or is the information wrong? | I think the explanation for "oddity" in those numbers (besides the fact that they don't capture causality) is that in usual circumstances vaccines are mostly administered to children, so most deaths are in that group. From a paper that looked at a similar (albeit not exactly the same VAERS year range): Deaths Reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, United States, 1997–2013 VAERS received 2149 death reports, most (n = 1469 [68.4%]) in children. Median age was 0.5 years (range, 0–100 years). [...] Most common causes of death among 1244 child reports with available death certificates/autopsy reports included sudden infant death syndrome (n = 544 [44%]) , asphyxia (n = 74 [6.0%]), [...] Because SIDS peaks at a time when children are receiving many recommended vaccinations, it would not be unexpected to observe a coincidental close temporal relationship between vaccination and SIDS. [...] VAERS generally cannot assess if a vaccine caused an adverse event. VAERS does not collect data on the number of individuals vaccinated; therefore, with no denominator data, it is not possible to calculate rates of adverse events. Likewise, VAERS does not collect data on the total number of vaccinated individuals who died; therefore, it is not possible to calculate death rates following vaccination. Because a large number of vaccines are given to young children (often simultaneously) at scheduled well-child visits, especially during the first year of life, deaths occurring in close temporal association following vaccination are likely to occur by chance alone. Clearly Covid-19 vaccines have a different demographic profile. In an April 2 Reuters fact-checking article it's been pointed out for instance that According to the latest data (here), 1,985 U.S. deaths of individuals who died after receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines have been reported to VAERS. Of these, 1,016 are listed as receiving doses from Moderna, 946 as Pfizer-BioNTech, 16 as Janssen, and seven as “unknown manufacturer.” In total, 1,579, or nearly early 80%, of these individuals were over the age of 65. [...] In a WebMD interview here , Dr. Joël Belmin, head of geriatrics and vaccination coordinator at l’hôpital Charles-Foix in Paris, said, “In older people, due to their great frailty, a significant amount of spontaneous mortality is expected. In a retirement home, one in five people die each year. It’s therefore difficult to directly attribute these deaths to the fact that these people were vaccinated.” So it's apples-to-oranges to compare deaths that predominantly occurred in such an 65+ age group to deaths that mostly occurred in children under one year (as in previous years' VAERS data). One theory that sometimes explains a higher number of reports for some vaccines is mentioned (with some empirical support) in the 1st paper--the Weber effect, which is generally applicable to new procedures: We noted that death reports appear to follow the Weber effect, a tendency for new medical products or products perceived to be new to have higher reporting rates for adverse events initially, which then decline despite steadily increasing prescribing rates. For example, the peak in number of death reports during 2001 appears to coincide with an increase in PCV7 use following its licensure and recommendation for use in 2000. RV5 was licensed and recommended in 2006, and the peak in the number of death reports after RV5 occurred in 2008. DTaP-HepB-IPV was first licensed and recommended in 2002 and the first death reports in VAERS were observed in 2003 with the highest number of reports in 2007, which was followed by a decline in subsequent years. The Weber effect has been correlated with the degree of media coverage as well. It also has been suggested as such (albeit without naming it) in re Covid-19 vaccines: experts said it’s not surprising that more death reports would be submitted to VAERS after COVID-19 immunizations compared with flu, given the increased attention on the vaccine. “The difference in deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccine and flu vaccine administration is likely due to the enhanced reporting of all events occurring after COVID vaccination compared to after influenza vaccination,” Dr. Robert Legare Atmar, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine who also evaluates vaccines, told us. As there's not much longitudinal data with Covid-19 vaccines, it's probably not yet possible to show a clear trend of over time (with purpose of sense some Weber effect). A couple of extra points (based on question-comments below): Although influenza vaccines are administered to the elderly in large numbers in the US, unlike for Covid-19 vaccines, there's no mandatory reporting by healthcare provides of all deaths (to VAERS) after an influenza vaccine; CJR's answer below has more details on that. One could say this is a "forced Weber" effect... The numbers on both sides of the comparison look plausible insofar as actually being from VAERS as they roughly correspond to figures from other reports/news (which did not attempt such a cross-temporal comparison though). This doesn't make the comparison attempted in the OP's source any more sound though. | {
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50,663 | Many sources indicate that there is a law on the books in Michigan requiring a married woman to get her husband's permission before cutting her own hair. According to the Huffington Post article The Craziest Laws That Still Exist In The United States , citing "The good folks over at Olivet Nazarene University": Michigan: It is illegal for women to cut their own hair without their husband's permission. The article above uses a page at Olivet Nazarene University as a source, but that page simply states the same assertion. It provides a generic list of sources (including several generic "crazy law" pages), but doesn't indicate which source, if any, applies to the hair cut law. Rob Sparks at radio station Mix 95.7 WLHT-FM, Grand Rapids, MI, claims : Apparently, ladies can’t cut their hair unless they have their husband’s permission to do so. Likewise, Vera Hogan, in her article "The ‘dumbest’ laws in Michigan" from the Tri-County Times of Fenton, MI claims, A woman isn’t allowed to cut her own hair without her husband’s permission. Is it actually illegal for a married woman to cut her own hair in Michigan without her husband's permission? If this is an actual law, where is it codified and what is the penalty? Is unauthorized self-haircutting by a wife a misdemeanor? Is it a felony? Is this actually a professional regulatory law against anyone other than licensed beauticians giving themselves a haircut (unauthorized practice of cosmetology) and whether the offender is a woman or married is an irrelevant detail? Is it not a criminal offense, but a civil cause for a fault divorce by her husband? ("Your honor, I request a divorce and full custody of our children on the basis that Mrs. Dumbface trimmed some of her split ends while I was drunk at the bar and incapable of consenting to her haircut. I also want 90% of her father's inheritance as a punishment for her bad behavior kthxbai.") | The claim is false. For at least 171 years (93%) of Michigan's 184 year existence, married women in Michigan have NOT needed their husband's permission to do anything to their hair. Since 1850, the Michigan constitution has stated a woman's property, whether acquired before or after marriage, remains her property. (Michigan became a state in 1837.) While it's debatable whether hair is personal property, the 1850 constitution and subsequent statutes " disavow a legal worldview in which one could imagine that a woman would require a man's permission to cut her hair. " There are variants of this claim that state " A woman’s hair is her husband’s legal property in Michigan. " or " A state law stipulates that a woman's hair legally belongs to her husband. " Another website went further to put both variants of this claim together: A Michigan law states that a wife's hair legally belongs to her husband. A woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission. My guess is the first statement, which most likely was never even true, led to the second statement. A 1981 Michigan law strongly implies a wife's hair does not legally belong to her husband: A woman's "real or personal property" acquired before or after marriage "is and shall remain the property of the woman and be a part of the woman's estate." It would make sense, then, that a woman can cut her own hair without her husband's permission. In 1981, the same Michigan law repealed a statute from 1855 titled "Rights of Married Women." @ Quuxplusone very nicely found the 1855 law here as "An Act relative to the rights of married women" (thanks!). The first 2 sections are substantially the same and, again, a woman's property "shall be and remain the estate and property" of the woman. This 1855 law became effective immediately and doesn't reference an even earlier law. Michigan became a state in 1837 , so it's possible this is the first Michigan law that references women's rights and a woman's property. Even earlier, Michigan had adopted an 1850 Constitution that gave women the same rights to their property: The real and personal estate of every female, acquired before marriage, and all property to which she may afterwards become entitled, by gift, grant, inheritance or devise, shall be and remain the estate and property of such female, and shall not be liable for the debts, obligations or engagements of her husband, and may be devised or bequeathed by her as if she were unmarried. Michigan's earliest 1835 Constitution does not mention property, except that if it's taken from someone for public use, they must be justly compensated. (Fun fact: Michigan created a permanent State Supreme Court in 1857 , 7 years after women's properties were explicitly protected in the 1850 Constitution.) I asked about hair as personal property on Law.SE. @ ohwilleke answered that "Hair is not personally property until it is removed from your body." However, the statutes "essentially put married women on equal footing with single adult women in terms of property ownership and legal status" and "more generally, disavow a legal worldview in which one could imagine that a woman would require a man's permission to cut her hair, although [the claim] is almost surely just an urban myth. Pre-1850, the government in Michigan, which was basically on the frontier at the time, was just too weak to maintain that kind of control over people." For at least 171 years of Michigan's 184-year-long existence (~93%), Michigan laws has recognized the equal footing of married women, suggesting there was never a law that married women need their husband's permission to get a haircut. I haven't found anything that suggests a woman's property ever becomes her husband's. There are many other websites citing attorneys practicing in Michigan who say such a law doesn't exist. Justia : While laws like this may have existed in the past, I did a brief
search of Michigan statutes currently in effect and it doesn't appear
as if this conduct is currently prohibited in Michigan. ― Attorney Nick
Leydorf A Michigan Fox station : I think that is a myth regarding the cutting of the hair, we actually
looked that one up, it's one people commonly say, I don't think we
were able to find that one. ― Attorney Daniel
Mead The question also asked "Is this actually a professional regulatory law against anyone other than licensed beauticians giving themselves a haircut (unauthorized practice of cosmetology) and whether the offender is a woman or married is an irrelevant detail?" There is a Michigan law that states : ... an individual shall not perform any form of cosmetology services, with or without compensation, on any individual other than a member of his or her immediate family without a license under this article. So individuals who aren't licensed and aren't an immediate family member cannot give another person a haircut, whether the other person is a woman or is married. Trying to track down the source of the claim, it seems it first originated from joke books/humor collections. I don't know/want to just assume what that says about the credibility of the claim. The absolute earliest I've confirmed the claim is on February 9, 1999 . Here, the claim is attributed as "from the book "Loony Laws" by Robert Pelton." The url ends with "lighter/silly.htm," which may or may not indicate the seriousness of the claim. This led me to search for any connection between Robert Pelton and this claim. The earliest I've found the claim directly associated with him in a publication is on March 2000 in an issue of Boys' Life (now Scout Life): In Michigan, a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission. This article includes quotes from Robert Pelton, though it does not directly attribute the law to him. (I cannot read or search his book directly.) Later, by October 2020, there was an easily searchable version of the law online in a self-described "humor collection" with exactly the same wording: In Michigan, a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission. The contributions are attributed to "VEKARIA S ([email protected])." If the website is to be trusted, the last update was on March 4, 2000, so the claim was added by March 2000. Finally, this old-fashioned looking website has several supposed US laws, including the claim, in another humor collection . It's only later that the claim began to appear in more mainstream sites. This April 7, 2004 article is the earliest news article I've found with the claim. I have already emailed some people in an attempt to track the claim's origin, which is a still ongoing search. I will update if I find something. | {
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50,693 | On May 6, 2021, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said: We all assume the risks are negligible. Vaccines aren’t dangerous...Every flu season, we give influenza shots to more than 160 million Americans. Every year, a relatively small number of people seem to die after getting those shots. To be precise, in 2019, that number was 203 people. The year before, it was 119... Every death is tragic, but big picture, we don’t consider those numbers disqualifying...So the question is how do those numbers compare to the death rate from the coronavirus vaccines now being distributed across the country?... Here’s the answer, which comes from the same set of government numbers that we just listed: Between late December of 2020, and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccines in the United States...The data we just cited comes from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System — VAERS — which is managed by the CDC and the FDA... It’s clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal. It’s not even close to what we’ve seen in previous years with previous vaccines. Is Carlson's claim correct, that unusually many people are dying after receiving COVID-19 vaccines? Full transcript EDIT: This question is related but not the same as Have more deaths occurred after Covid-19 vaccines than from vaccine injuries in the previous 15 years in total? . For instance, this claim only says "unusually more." And the other top answer cites ages differences in COVID vs vaccines in general. That point wouldn't apply to the flu vs COVID comparison that the source made here. | This has been fact-checked extensively: All following quotes are from the Washington Post . It may be a stunning picture, but it’s also a highly misleading and cherry-picked one.
The most crucial thing to note at the outset is that just because someone died after getting the vaccine doesn’t mean they died because of it . So when Tucker Carlson says "a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccines in the United States" that can include people who died in a car crash, or who already had a terminal illness. He quotes no figures for "people who died because of the Covid vaccine." The statistics he is quoting are entirely irrelevant to the safety of the Covid vaccine. The data is unreliable. [...]data in the VAERS system is unverified. Anyone can submit claims about what happened to them or someone they know. The idea is to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tons of data to use and then evaluate potential links between vaccines and side effects. As The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss noted last month:"anti-vaccination activists routinely exaggerate the dangers of vaccines by misinterpreting and misusing data from EudraVigilance and from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a U.S. government database that allows anyone to self-report “possible side effects or health problems” experienced after a vaccine, even minor ones such as soreness at the injection site." In other words, the VAERS system contains any event that somebody, somewhere, with or without any medical or statistical training, with or without their own agenda, has reported as possibly being related to the Covid vaccines. It is intended as raw data that needs to be analysed, and the CDC has in fact done the analysis: The CDC, for its part, says it has analyzed the reports of deaths after coronavirus vaccines through May 3 and found no connection between the vaccine and deaths. “A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines,” it says. The flu figures are much more restrictive, and only contain deaths if they occur after one of a specific list of adverse effects that occurs in a relatively short time window. The figures Carlson quotes for Covid and flu vaccines are in no way comparable. Even without this counter-information, 30 people dying per day is not alarming. According to CDC data, an estimated 8,000 Americans die every day of all causes. That’s 1 in every 41,000 people, every day. If you apply that number to 135 million people who are vaccinated, you’d expect that more than 3,000 people who were vaccinated would be dying every day right now — again, of something. That’s significantly more than the 30 per day Carlson suggests is alarming. We expect about 8000 people a day to die in the US, and with 135 million vaccinated we expect about 3300 people with the vaccine to die each day - almost all of things entirely unrelated to the vaccine, but still (as Carlson puts it) "after getting the vaccine". (8000*135/328=3292). So having 3000 people with the vaccine die in a few months is not in the slightest unexpected. And the vaccinated population isn’t just a random sample of 135 million Americans; the earliest vaccine efforts focused on elderly people who were more susceptible to the worst of the virus — and were also more susceptible to dying of other causes. In other words, we’d expect more deaths from all causes of vaccinated people. The figures for people dying after the flu vaccine are wrong. There is no question that exponentially more than 203 out of 100 million people who got the flu vaccine in 2019 went on to die of something in the months that followed. Specifically about 2000 people (3000 * 100/135, or 8000 * 100/328) are expected to die every day after they get the flu shot (virtually all for entirely unrelated reasons), which is hugely different from the figure of 203 per year that Carlson quotes. Carlson actually flips between saying his numbers are "after getting the flu shot" and "from the flu shot", another reason to not take his piece seriously. In any case, he is quoting two completely different measures for flu and Covid, and is being misleading by trying to compare the two. Also please read Fizz's answer which explains why the reporting of deaths for Covid and flu vaccines are so different. See also: Politifact . Factcheck Fox's own medical correspondant Factcheck on VAERS content | {
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50,702 | In their 2020 study termed "Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses Along the Axis of Vaccination" [full text] , appearing in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , Lyons-Weiler et al. analyze a dataset spanning ten years of pediatric practice. Study Synopsis In a nutshell, this dataset contains a total of 21.777 actual patients and includes vaccination history, office visits, and billed diagnosis. First, the authors pool vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients. Second, the authors perform statistical analysis on the distribution of (a) office visits and (b) billed diagnosis among both groups. Findings seem to indicate a drastic enrichment (>95% CI) of various diagnosed diseases within the vaccinated group, compared to the non-vaccinated one (see image below). Based on those results, the study concludes: We can conclude that the unvaccinated children in this practice are
not, overall, less healthy than the vaccinated and that indeed the
vaccinated children appear to be significantly less healthy than the
unvaccinated Thoughts On the one hand, the authors include at least some statistical evaluations on the robustness of their results. On the other hand, the article is lacking any hypothesis why similar effects can't be found with the same methods on other datasets. Furthermore, many of their "disease" criteria are not actual diseases but a loose group of symptoms generally associated with a vague disease-like term that lacks proper definition, such as "behavioral issues". In summary, those results seem credible at first sight, but also highly counter-intuitive. Therefore, I am highly skeptical. Questions Are vaccinated people significantly more susceptible to a wide range of diseases? Is the approach of this study following good scientific practice? Which follow-up analysis are adequate to verify/falsify their hypothesis? Are there any studies that directly support/contradict those findings on a larger dataset? | Almost all studies in this arena are correlative-based and not causation-based, so that I would take them all with a grain of salt. I would all suggest that Weiler and Thomas (2020) omit some important data, such as those that die from the disease from which they could have been vaccinated, and these are important data points. You raise some good points as well. I am concerned about using office visits as a measure; as those who never took their children to their PCP to get vaccinated (what many consider very important treatment) may be much less likely to take their child to the PCP for minor future ailments. I am not going to spend too much time on if or not MDPI journals are reputable journals. Others have done this (search for MDPI at https://beallslist.net/ ). I will tell you they were on Beall’s predatory list for some time and are not well-regarded among scientists. Let us move on from the type of study (correlation) and quality of a journal (debatable) and look at what the accumulation of evidence suggests. This BBC article ( https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200915-the-mystery-of-why-some-vaccines-are-doubly-beneficial ) explains the current paradigm well. Scientists are unsure why some vaccines have such positive outcomes on health beyond what can be explained beyond the resistance to the disease they are protecting you from. Read this BBC piece and follow the links. It was around a year after the vaccinations began that they made an extraordinary discovery: those who had been vaccinated against measles
were 50% less likely to die than those who had not. "It was stunning,"
says Aaby – but not for the reasons you might at first think. *Today
Aaby to the BBC, 2020) Please review these three articles in Science, Frontiers, and Lancet (no question about the validity of these three journals), and you will get a very different picture. All three are far more robust articles than Weiler and Thomas (2020) and represent the currently accepted thinking. Uthayakumar, D., et al. (2008) https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.02869 Chumakov, K. et al. (2020) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc4262 Bunn, C,S,.et al. (2020) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(19)30742-X/fulltext Weiler and Thomas (2020) are one article in one very low-ranked journal, their research is worthy of more follow-up, but you will see the current scientific evidence does not suggest they are correct. Indeed the current paradigm based on solid evidence opposes this idea. It is good to challenge existing ideas with new data, and Weiler and Thomas (2020) should certainly not be discarded, but that paper will not move the scientific evidence on this topic one millimeter. The current evidence is that vaccines not only protect against the disease for which they are targeted but they appear to have positive health-outcomes far beyond the disease targeted as well. | {
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50,732 | Recently there was this answer on Politics.SE , which quotes extensively from Norman Finkelstein's book, Gaza: An Inquest Into its Martyrdom . In particular, there was deep disagreement from this quote from Page 265 What’s yet more telling, it couldn’t account for the minimal Israeli property damage during Protective Edge. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website tracked on a daily basis the damage caused by Hamas rockets to civilian infrastructure. Table 5 summarizes its entries. The official Israeli postmortem on Protective Edge alleged that “several residential communities on the border with the Gaza Strip . . . were battered by rocket and mortar fire.” Yet, even allowing that a certain percentage landed in open areas, how could the thousands upon thousands of Hamas rockets have inflicted so little damage? How could only one Israeli house have been destroyed and 11 others hit or damaged by a mega barrage of rockets? The obvious and most plausible answer was that the preponderance of these so-called rockets amounted to enhanced fireworks or “bottle rockets.” This seems to contradict other reports on the apparent destructive force of the rockets A 5-year-old boy was killed and at least seven were injured Wednesday when a Hamas rocket slammed into an apartment building in an Israeli border town — as fighting between Palestinian militants and the Jewish State intensified. There's a picture of a building on fire with a giant hole that appears to have been blown in the side (probably from the video in this tweet ). Are Hamas' Qassam rockets not very destructive or less destructive than expected? | Qassam rockets are essentially untargeted, flying improvised explosive devices (IEDs). As such, the objective is not to precisely hit a military target, but to strike terror in the civilian population (which it does successfully; for example, almost half of Sderot preteens show symptoms of PTSD ). Finkelstein is underselling how inaccurate these rockets are, and is underestimating the effectiveness of Israels defenses (Iron Dome, warning systems, etc), in an attempt to downplay the potential destructiveness of individual rockets. Of the 4500 rockets launched during Operation Protective Edge, 3600 fell in open spaces (and 200 exploded on launch or fell inside Gaza). 735 were intercepted by the Iron Dome. Only 225 of the 4500 (5%) fell in built-up areas. This resulted in "several dozen cases of damage to buildings", $20 million in direct damage to businesses, 2 deaths, and 69 people directly wounded (indicating a destructiveness well above bottle rockets). Looking beyond just the case of Protective Edge, rockets fired from 2005 to 2014 injured 2600 people and caused $160 million in property damage. Warhead weights range from 5 to 21kg (well above that of bottle rockets). | {
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50,772 | As the news of Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson being shot became public in May 2021, social media contained images which allegedly show a tweet posted by her stating: the white man will not be our equal but our slave However, searching for her name and this quote only reveals far-right blogs and news sites posting this claim , I couldn't find this anywhere else. Not on Wikipedia, not in the centrist or left-leaning media, not in the mainstream conservative media. Did Sasha Johnson tweet this? Is it a hoax? | The tweet is still available in the wayback archives . The account in question is suspended from twitter, but the archives show that this was an account that was only active for a short time in August 2020 with 3 followers and no blue checkmark. Absence any evidence linking Johnson to the account or the ideas espoused there, the most likely explanation is that it is a fake account created to discredit her. | {
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51,818 | Hannity said on Foxnews : The Wuhan facility was experimenting with gain of function with
coronaviruses NewsMedical defines the term " gain of function research " as: Gain-of-function research refers to the serial passaging of
microorganisms to increase their transmissibility, virulence,
immunogenicity, and host tropism by applying selective pressure to a
culture. Setting aside the question of who knew what at which point in time, is there evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology engaged in coronavirus research that "alters the virus in a way that increased its transmissibility, virulence, immunogenicity, and host tropism by applying selective pressure"? | With the specific question and definitions provided, and a fairly broad definition of "engaged in"? Yes. We even have a published paper. https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 A paper published in 9 November 2015. The abstract includes: Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and
characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus
SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that
group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can
efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human
angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in
primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to
epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments
demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with
notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based
immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy;
both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize
and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On
the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious
full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral
replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential
risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in
bat populations. One of the authors is Shi Zhengli, who the Wuhan Institute of Virology page lists as "Principal Investigator, Research Group of Emerging Viruses". Another is Ge Xing-Ye, who (like Shi Zhengli) is noted in the paper itself as working for "Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology". So, based on this alone, we can be pretty certain that at least two of the researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were involved in at least one paper that included gain-of-function research on one or more coronaviruses. It seems reasonably likely that there was more, given the habits of researchers in general, but I can't guarantee that, and I'm not going to be the one to hunt it down. Ironically, the point of the paper was to warn people of the possibility of a coronavirus-like outbreak. Edit: As a point of clarification, the above is an accurate answer to the rather broad question asked. In particular, the above paper is on gain-of-function research with respect to mice . We do not currently have any evidence indicating that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was performing gain-of-function research with respect to humans , and we do have some fairly strong evidence suggesting that medical researchers in general draw a significant distinction between gain-of-function research with respect to those two species. I have made certain adjustments to my answer accordingly, as it has been noted (fairly) that the original formation was unnecessarily easy to interpret as meaning more than it did. | {
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51,852 | I'd like to know if the claims about murders are accurate. The "3rd in murders" is clearly referring to absolute deaths by murder, as it can be seen here , USA holds the 96th position for rate of intentional homicide. So if the murders from these cities were removed from statistics, would the USA change its position from being the 3rd to being the 189th of 193 countries (as countries we consider the 193 members states of the UN)? | This is false no matter what way you try to frame it. Using the 2019 crime stats: Murders US: 15020 [ 1 ] Chicago: 491 [ 2 ] Detroit: 273 [ 3 ] New Orleans: 120 [ 4 ] St. Louis: 194 [ 5 ] Washington DC: 166 [ 6 ] These cities have a combined census population of 4.67m (out of 308.75m for the USA), which is ~1.5% of the total US population [ 7 ] Removing those 5 cities brings the murder total from 15,020 to 13,776 - an 8% drop (the total murder rate goes from 4.9 per 100,000 to 4.5 per 100,000). Based on the link in the original question [ 8 ], the ranking of the US wouldn't change in absolute numbers: Nigeria 17,843 United States 16,214 Colombia Americas 12,586 But would probably drop several positions in rate: United States 4.96 Kenya 4.93 Angola 4.85 Micronesia 4.67 Lithuania 4.57 Niger 4.44 | {
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51,864 | On the June 4, 2021, episode of Real Time with Bill Maher , the host makes the claim: In 1960s colleges awarded A's to 15% of the students. Now it is 45% of the students. Ref: Youtube clip from the show I was able to locate some supporting articles, such as timeshighereducation and theboar.org , yet they did not strike me as conclusive. Is the claim made in the show true? | Well I tracked down the origin of the claim: http://www.gradeinflation.com/ Specifically from [ 1 ]: The authors hypothesize the following to explain these results: On a national basis, the evolution of grading practices seems to be the result of a gradual abandonment of curve-based
grading (Figure 2). Grading practices for private and public schools, which were similar prior to the 1960s, were quite
different by the 1980s. Basically, their theory is that college classes went from assigning grades based on a curve to defining grade achievement requirements at the beginning. That's a reasonably consistent explanation, and I certainly know that many universities require a clear explanation of grading in the course syllabus nowadays. As always with "research" on the internet, the methods section (at least it exists) will not inspire confidence: We assembled our data on four-year school grades (grades given in terms of percent A–F for a given semester or academic
year) from a variety of sources: books, research articles, random World Wide Web searching of college and university
registrar and institutional research office Web sites, personal contacts with school administrators and leaders, and cold
solicitations for data from 100 registrar and institutional research offices, selected randomly (20 of the institutions
solicited agreed to provide contemporary data as long as the school’s grading practices would not be individually
identified in our work). I would overall rate this as plausible, but the quality of the work is poor enough that I wouldn't say it's true. | {
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51,916 | The mRNA vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna contain cholesterol. On the website for the UK National Health System NHS we may read: The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain egg or animal products. Another report indicates it contains no animal-derived cholesterol (but curiously notes that cow's milk was used in the manufacturing process): Do Vaccines Contain Animal Ingredients? The Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen vaccines are free of animal-derived ingredients, in contrast to many other vaccines that include shark squalene, gelatin, cholesterol, egg, and milk. Pfizer has reported that its vaccine used a cow’s milk component in the manufacturing process, but the vaccine does not contain this ingredient. — Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: "COVID-19 Vaccines: Safety and Efficacy" , Good Science Digest, Mar 31, 2021 However, Magdeburg University are working on an alternative source of cholesterol. They firmly deny that the current crop of vaccines are vegan. They even claim they are potentially unsafe: Vaccines based on mRNA […] are still based on animal cholesterol, which has several disadvantages. For the industrial production of vaccines, the cholesterol is extracted from sheep's wool or animal tissue, for example. Here, however, there is a risk of triggering brain diseases through unintentional transmission - damage to the brain known as prion disease. A very well-known form in cattle since the 1990s is BSE. A risk that could be eliminated in the future with the help of research from Magdeburg. — "Pflanzlich statt tierisch Uni Magdeburg macht RNA-Impfstoffe 'vegan' und sicherer", MDR, 31. May 2021. [Translated from German, LLC] Closer to the source: Chemists at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg […] have succeeded for the first time in producing pharmaceutical cholesterol from plant-based raw materials using a highly effective process. In the future this will make it possible to make available large quantities of the molecule urgently needed for the production and administration of modern mRNA-based vaccines, […] — Universität Magdeburg: "Gamechanger in der Impfstoffproduktion" , Press Release, 25.05.2021. [Translated from German, LLC] The general sources for injectable cholesterol are confirmed by one phospholipide manufacturer: Source of cholesterol The medicinal cholesterol CHO-HP is in great demand every year. However, because it is a multi-chiral substance and is difficult to synthesize, it is currently obtained by two methods: animal tissue extraction and lanolin extraction. […] However, with the emphasis on drug safety, cholesterol derived from lanolin will surely gradually replace cholesterol derived from animal organs. — "Introduction to the source and application of cholesterol" , AVT, 2020-09-30. All this gets even more complicated when looking at the list of prescribed/allowed ingredients as listed in the European Pharmacopeia (Ph. Eur.): Cholesterol For Parenteral Use – Cholesterolum ad usum parenteralem C27H46O [57-88-5] Mr 386.7 Definition: Cholest-5-en-3β-ol obtained from Wool fat (0134). [emphasis added, LLC] — Council of Europe: "European Pharmacopoeia", 10 2019. (p 2202) Let's focus on Pfizer/BionTech's Comirnaty/Tozinameran mRNA vaccine : Composition In addition to the mRNA molecule, the vaccine contains the following inactive ingredients (excipients): ALC-0315, ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), ALC-0159, 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DSPC), cholesterol [emphasis added, LLC] Comirnaty's package leaflet doesn't state the source of the cholesterol (which it normally has to do as well?). It is clear that a requirement for prior animal testing poses a problem for strict vegans, for any vaccine. Now it seems that there is also conflicting information out there for the actual ingredients used in manufacturing, and especially for the contents of the finished product: whether 'some animal derived products were used during manufacturing but not contained in final product' as well as 'some animal derived products are contained in the final product' that the 'product is vegan', which would at least require of it to be free of animal derived products in the finished product that the final product would by law be required to contain animal derived products, specifically cholesterol (As otherwise it would be not marketable at all, animal source being the only approved source, neither plant derived not fully synthetic sources allowed, even if structurally identical.) Some say the final product is vegan, while some say the exact opposite. Does Pfizer/BionTech's Comirnaty/Tozinameran mRNA vaccine contain in the final product animal-derived cholesterol, making it non-vegan ? | Does Pfizer/BioNTech's Comirnaty/Tozinameran mRNA vaccine contain anything derived from animals, specifically animal-derived cholesterol, making it non-vegan? No. Neither the cholesterol nor any other ingredient is animal-derived. The UK Department of Health and Social Care published a "Public Assessment Report" last updated on June 4, 2021 . In this report , they describe the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine's various ingredients, separating them into a section on the "active substance" (mRNA) and a section on the "excipients" (everything else in the vaccine). Excipients are " a constituent of a medicine other than the active substance ," and include the lipids (and cholesterol) used in the vaccine. The report writes that No excipients of animal or human origin are used in the finished product. This leaves the mRNA. According to the same report, the mRNA is not derived from animals either. To produce the mRNA, DNA is mass manufactured in Escherichia coli , a bacterium. The DNA is then converted (or, in biology parlance, transcribed) to RNA in vitro (i.e. not in an animal). Thus, no ingredients in the Pfizer vaccine are derived from animals. For those interested, the ingredients in the Pfizer vaccine are "mRNA,
lipids ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), 2
[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-
phosphocholine, and cholesterol), potassium chloride, monobasic potassium
phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and sucrose." The above is a complete answer. It remains nearly identical to my initial answer. Additional info to specifically address LangLangC's concerns: LangLangC believes that the UK government statement that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine does not contain excipients of animal origin (quoted in my answer) contradicts with the European Pharmacopoeia and therefore contradicts with "the law." LangLangC believes that the vaccine must fully comply with the European Pharmacopoeia and, therefore, the cholesterol must be animal-derived. I don't believe there is a contradiction or that EU law requires fully complying with the European Pharmacopoeia. The European Medicines Agency, which is responsible for regulating vaccines in the EU, has published an aptly-titled " Assessment report " on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. In this report, they devote a section to "Manufacture of the product and process controls." Here is the section on "Control of excipients." ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 are novel excipients, not previously used in an
approved finished product within EU. Additional information is
provided separately in Section A.3 of the dossier. DSPC is a non-compendial excipient sufficiently controlled by an
in-house specification. Cholesterol is sufficiently controlled according to the Ph. Eur.
monograph with additional tests for residual solvents and microbial
contamination. The other excipients (sucrose, sodium chloride, potassium chloride,
disodium phosphate dihydrate, potassium dihydrogen phosphate and water
for injection) are controlled according to respective Ph. Eur.
monograph. The processing aids ethanol and citrate buffer are controlled
according to Ph. Eur. standards and for HEPES and EDTA, reference is
made to the active substance. I find it very telling that every single excipient that is listed in the European Pharmacopoeia is described as "controlled according" to the pharmacopoeia except for cholesterol, which is "sufficiently controlled according" to the pharmacopoeia. This different phrasing for cholesterol allows for the cholesterol to not be animal-derived, in agreement with the UK government report. I will now address other sources in LangLangC's question and LangLangC's answer: Sources from LangLangC's question. Article from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine The Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen vaccines are free of animal-derived ingredients, in contrast to many other vaccines that include shark squalene, gelatin, cholesterol, egg, and milk. Pfizer has reported that its vaccine used a cow’s milk component in the manufacturing process, but the vaccine does not contain this ingredient. I could not corroborate this statement with any other source. Searches of "cow" and "cow's milk" with "Pfizer" returned no relevant results. The linked source is a "dead link" and has not been archived. @ Jack Aidley discusses this in an answer that I find insightful: "We have no information allowing us to be certain as to how, or why, cow's milk is being used by Pfizer but given what we do know I would suggest it is quite plausible that it is being used in quality control testing, although casein is also sometimes used in bacterial growth media I would be surprised if that was the case for E. coli." -- Read Jack Aidley's full answer here Two German news sources on synthetic cholesterol mdr.de and University Magdeburg At the moment, most of the cholesterol required by industry comes from animal sources: either by extraction from fat from sheep's wool or from animal tissue. Through human and veterinary medical devices there is a risk of transmission of spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), an irreversible damage to the brain. -- University Magdeburg, translated from German As @laolux pointed out , this says most and not all of the cholesterol required by industry and not medicine specifically. Additionally, Sigma-Aldrich sells "synthetic cholesterol, animal component-free" so I completely doubt the University Magdeburg's press release that they are developing synthetic cholesterol for the very first time. Quote from AVT (Shanghai) Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd The medicinal cholesterol CHO-HP is in great demand every year. However, because it is a multi-chiral substance and is difficult to synthesize, it is currently obtained by two methods: animal tissue extraction and lanolin extraction. […] However, with the emphasis on drug safety, cholesterol derived from lanolin will surely gradually replace cholesterol derived from animal organs. This is irrelevant to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine specifically. European Pharmacopoeia Reading monographs 0593, 0993, and 2397 , which are relevant for cholesterol (and which I cannot access), might give me new insight. I currently have no comments here. Ingredients list of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine I agree the vaccine contains cholesterol. Sources from LangLangC's answer. EMA Assessment report on Moderna vaccine No comment. Control of excipients (P.4) It should be confirmed that cholesterol will be controlled in line with Ph. Eur. monograph Cholesterol for parenteral use (2397) for future batches and not Ph. Eur. monograph Cholesterol (0993). I cannot access this source. Regardless, "it should be confirmed" does not mean it has been confirmed. The manufacturer Evonik partnering with Pfizer/BioNTech Commercial lipid quantities are to be produced at Evonik's Hanau and Dossenheim sites in Germany as early as the second half of 2021 as part of a strategic partnership with BioNTech. […] Evonik already supplies one of the most important lipids for mRNA vaccines in pharmaceutical quality to multiple customers: A non-animal derived cholesterol under the brand name PhytoChol®. LangLangC seems to use this as a source for the fact that Pfizer/BioNTech isn't currently using manufactured cholesterol. I will cite an article from Vox. “Relatively small amounts of mRNA are enough to immunize a lot of people,” explained Pieter Cullis, a biochemistry professor who has been described as the “grandfather” of the lipid nanoparticle technology, and is the co-founder of the company Acuitas Therapeutics, whose tech has been licensed for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. “The holdup seems to be more on the manufacturing of the other components like the ionizable cationic liquid and cholesterol, which are two of the larger components of the lipid nanoparticle.” The quote talks about a partnership between Acuitas Therapeutics, a different manufacturing company, and Pfizer. The article also talks about manufacturing cholesterol for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Merck sources To meet the high demand for lipids, a key component of mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics, Merck, a leading science and technology company, has launched a new, high-purity synthetic cholesterol product, nine months ahead of schedule. Merck press release Earlier on in the article, the press release includes "One of a few companies that produces lipids in quantities needed to meet demand for mRNA therapeutics, including Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine." This does not say Merck is the only company producing lipids (such as cholesterol) for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It's entirely possible (even probable) other partners are involved. EMA Assessment report on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine The same report writes that "Cholesterol is sufficiently controlled according to the Ph. Eur. monograph" instead of just "Cholesterol is controlled," which was done for all other excipients included in the monograph. I find that difference telling as it allows wiggle room for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to have used cholesterol that is not animal-derived, as the UK government report states. @ Daniel Hatton found a document dated June 2021 that says: Cholesterol for parenteral use (2397) Definition: revised to allow the use of synthetic cholesterol; Test section indicates which tests
apply depending on the source of the cholesterol used (derived from wool fat or synthetic). @LangLangC found another document that says the "implementation date" of the above edition supplement is January 1, 2022. German law source I don't know how strictly this particular law is enforced. LangLangC also writes "How this apparent 'deficiency' that the EMA asked Moderna specifically to rectify — but both manufacturers seem to ignore by the second half of 2021 — might be compatible with for example the German law AMG $55,8: remains to be seen (and is probably out of scope here)." All this said, I will be sending a few emails to better understand what exactly is going on with the incomplete compliance with the Ph. Eur. | {
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51,934 | Joe Biden says in a BBC snippet that the Second Amendment, from the day it was passed , limited the type of people that could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn't buy a cannon. Is that really so? Did the 2nd Amendment really limit the purchase of cannons from the day it was passed? I'm aware that much later legislation like the 1934 National Firearms Act substantially limited the types of weapons that could be purchased and this legislation was found constitutional by the US Supreme Court. But was the purchase of cannons really limited around the time the (or from the day) the 2nd Amendment was passed? | Did the 2nd Amendment really limit the purchase of cannons from the day it was passed? No. The 2nd Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" and does not single out cannons or any other weapon individually. The Second Amendment states simply (.gov site) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. and does not mention anything about cannons specifically (e.g. that the people do not have the right to keep cannons). PolitiFact looked into Biden's statement and concluded it was false. They mentioned documented examples of privateers , who are individuals, owning cannons during the American Revolutionary War . Here's a relevant snippet: The Biden campaign didn’t offer evidence to support his statement,
and historians of the period are dubious laws against private cannon
ownership existed. There are documented instances of privateers, or privately owned
vessels that legally attacked enemy ships during wartime, setting sail
with cannons during the period. [...] But the Biden campaign was unable to point to a specific law. "The vice president's point is that to help end the tragic epidemic of mass shootings that is taking so many American lives, we need to ban weapons of war from our streets," the campaign told PolitiFact. Historians say they are doubtful that there were laws to bar individual ownership of cannons during the Revolutionary War period. "It seems highly unlikely that there were restrictions on the private ownership" of cannons, said Julie Anne Sweet, a historian and director of military studies at Baylor University. [...] The 1899 book "A History of American Privateers" by Edgar Stanton Maclay notes several cases in which privateers during the Revolutionary War set sail using cannons. This is my guess as to how the claim started appearing. The claim has been circulating for at least 8 years (without a connection to Biden). In the 1980 case State v. Kessler, this is what the Oregon Supreme Court wrote of the term "arms" when trying to interpret the intention of the writers of the Oregon Constitution (and, indirectly, the Indiana Constitution): The term "arms" was not limited to firearms, but included several handcarried weapons commonly used for defense. The term "arms" would not have included cannon or other heavy ordnance not kept by militiamen or private citizens. (from Justia ) It was apparently a point of discussion whether states could restrict gun rights more than the US federal government as the 2nd Amendment prevents the federal government from infringing on this right, but does not necessarily prevent the state from doing so as well (explicitly at least). This essay on congress.gov goes into detail on the issue. In the present day (only recently in 2010), the Second Amendment has been determined to apply to states. And, more importantly, because the District of Columbia is a federal enclave, the Court did not have occasion to address whether it would reconsider its prior decisions that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. The latter issue was addressed in McDonald v. Chicago [a 2010 Supreme Court case], where a plurality of the Court, overturning prior precedent, found that the Second Amendment is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment and is thus enforceable against the states. The first sentence of the essay sums up the source of the confusion well. For over 200 years, despite extensive debate and much legislative action with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms, as well as proposals to substantially curtail ownership of firearms, there was no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects. | {
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51,956 | There is this new study that came out, alleging, that COVID-19 vaccines cause two deaths for every three deaths they prevent, which sounds pretty bad. I was wondering how valid this analysis is and what other view points exist on the topic. Quote: Abstract: Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews
without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and
benefits. Method: We calculated the number needed to vaccinate (NNTV)
from a large Israeli field study to prevent one death. We accessed the
Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) database of the European Medicines Agency
and of the Dutch National Register (lareb.nl) to extract the number of
cases reporting severe side effects and the number of cases with fatal
side effects. Result: The NNTV is between 200–700 to prevent one case
of COVID-19 for the mRNA vaccine marketed by Pfizer, while the NNTV to
prevent one death is between 9000 and 50,000 (95% confidence
interval), with 16,000 as a point estimate. The number of cases
experiencing adverse reactions has been reported to be 700 per 100,000
vaccinations. Currently, we see 16 serious side effects per 100,000
vaccinations, and the number of fatal side effects is at 4.11/100,000
vaccinations. For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to
accept two inflicted by vaccination . Conclusions: This lack of clear
benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy. Source: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/693/htm Now obviously this all hinges on the deaths reported in the adverse reaction data base to be causal, but even if they aren't, doesn't this put these vaccines in comparison to other vaccines in a bad light, or is this completely normal for most vaccines? | A series of comments on the article's PubPeer appears to entirely invalidate the paper's conclusion; the paper commits several classic errors which have been previously discussed on skeptics.se. First is misuse of adverse event databases, exactly as discussed here. These sorts of adverse event databases do not establish causality; it is simply a list of all the times people have reported to have been affected shortly after getting a vaccine. The database used by the authors specifically states that it cannot be used this way. Second, a risk-reward comparison for vaccination invariably suffers from its own success. As an absurd example, before SARS-CoV-2 had been transmitted to the U.S., the US had a 0% mortality rate from SARS-CoV-2. If the entire U.S. was then vaccinated at a 0.01% rate of serious adverse events, some 32,800 people would die and practically none from the virus, for a risk-reward ratio of infinity . This ignores the 619,000 people who would otherwise have died. (Note that it is possible to produce a risk-reward for a certain snapshot in time. Here's one example .) | {
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51,965 | The Riemann Hypothesis is a mathematical hypothesis that describes the distribution of prime numbers. It is one of the seven Millennium Problems put forth by the Clay Mathematics Institute, notorious for its difficulty and has a $1,000,000 prize for the person that is able to prove it. Several attempts at a proof have been made in the past (including that of a Fields medallist ), but so far, they have all failed and it is considered an unsolved problem. Since yesterday, I have been seeing news that an Indian mathematical physicist named Kumar Easwaran has claimed to solve the Riemann Hypothesis. This article, for example, describes the peer-review process: Over five years ago, Eswaran had placed his research on the internet.
The research paper was titled 'The final and exhaustive proof of the
Riemann Hypothesis from first principles'. Despite all this, the
editors of international journals were reluctant to put the paper
through a detailed peer review, according to a report in The Times of
India. “The hypothesis was important to prove as it would enable
mathematicians to exactly count the prime numbers,” said Eswaran. With over thousands of downloads, in 2020, an expert committee was
constituted to look into the proof developed by Eswaran. The committee
comprised of eight mathematicians and theoretical physicists. More than 1,200 mathematicians were invited by the committee to take
part in an open review in which – the referees would willingly have
their names and institutional affiliations revealed in an open manner.
This is necessary so that nothing is done anonymously. Also, nothing
should remain hidden from the other experts to see. Soon after, seven
international scholars responded to the call. After scrutinising the comments of the seven reviewers and the
responses of the author, the committee concluded that Eswaran's proof
of the RH is correct. So, has the committee actually come to the conclusion that the Riemann Hypothesis has been solved by Kumar Eswaran? Note: As of writing this question, the Clay Mathematical Institute's webpage on the RH states that the problem is unsolved. I have not yet come across any international news outlet covering this. All the articles I have read are by Indian news outlets. If this is actually true, wouldn't international news and SciComm also publicize this? | Summary The current version of the question asks two things: Have mathematicians concluded that an Indian mathematical physicist has solved the Riemann Hypothesis? No. There isn't a single professional mathematician who publicly stated that they have read Kumar's proof and determined that it is correct. So, has the committee actually come to the conclusion that the Riemann Hypothesis has been solved by Kumar Eswaran? Yes , the committee stated that they believe Kumar has solved the problem. But only one member of the committee is a mathematician, and the committee stated that it arrived at its conclusion by relying on the opinions of reviewers, all of whom either explicitly disagree with the committee's conclusions or are themselves not mathematicians. Furthermore, the reasoning provided by the committee for how they arrived at their conclusion is plagued by many misleading statements and an apparent lack of understanding of mathematical reasoning and the meaning of mathematical proof, reducing any credibility the committee might have had otherwise to zero. The detailed analysis below requires no mathematical background to understand. For what it's worth, I'm a professional mathematician with expertise in the areas related to the Riemann hypothesis, but the validity of my answer does not depend on that fact in any way. Detailed analysis The main source for the claim from the news media saying Eswaran's proof has been validated appears to be this 208-page report titled "Open reviews of the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis of Kumar Eswaran: An Expert Committee's Report". The effort that the makers of this report put in is impressive, and they are academics with (presumably) some credibility in their respective fields, so I can see why this would catch the attention of the media. In the Foreword of this document, Dr. K.T. Mahhe, who has the also-impressive title "Chairman Sreenidhi Group of Institutions", writes (page i of the report, emphasis in the original): I can vouch for the fact that, under the circumstances, this expert committee has done due diligence; it has done its utmost to conduct an intellectually rigorous, honest, and fair assessment of the proposed proof. On the basis of the assessment, this expert committee has concluded that Dr. Kumar Eswaran’s proof of the Riemann Hypothesis is correct. Moreover, the expert committee writes towards the end of its summary opinion (pages 1-2 of the report): After careful perusal of all the arguments in the proof and the reviews from the experts who have responded, the Committee felt that there are no negative arguments that could technically invalidate the proof and therefore have arrived at the firm conclusion that the proof by Dr. K. Eswaran is both credible and acceptable and that the RH can be considered as proven. Sounds great, right? But wait, let's dig deeper. The names and titles of the 8 members of the expert committee are listed on page 3 of the report PDF. Only one of them, K. Srinivasa Rao, is a mathematician. Only four of them, listed as "Members of Technical Committee", signed the summary opinion. Those four include K. Srinivasa Rao, two physicists, and Vinayak Eswaran, the brother of Kumar Eswayan who is apparently a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The experts' summary opinion is itself troubling. First, the statement "there are no negative arguments that could technically invalidate the proof" is concerning, and not something I'd ever expect a mathematician to say. Mathematical proofs aren't considered valid by default until someone can point out a "negative argument" that "technically invalidates it"; actually it is the exact opposite, the burden of convincing people that the proof is correct lies fully with the person claiming to have a proof. So the criterion the experts seem, by their own admission, to be applying in determining that the proof is correct is prima facie invalid. Second, the experts who signed the opinion don't claim to have read the proof and understood it . They only state that they reached their conclusion "after careful perusal of all the arguments in the proof" and after reading six reviews of the proof written by seven reviewers who read Eswayan's paper. (To be fair, two of the experts — both physicists — were themselves reviewers.) So apart from those two physicists, the other experts' conclusion (including that of Rao, the only mathematician in the group) is actually reached through a second-hand reliance on other sources of authority. Now, the summary opinion provides quotes from each of the six reviews from the seven reviewers, as a way of supporting the conclusion that "the RH can be considered as proven". Let's examine those quotes, what they contain, and, tellingly, what they omit, which can be found by looking at the full reviews appended later in the report. Review 1: "By Prof. Ken Roberts and Prof. SR Valluri. Univ. of Western Ontario, Canada." We found Dr. Eswaran's work quite stimulating of mathematical ideas, and believe that his work should be brought to the attention of a wider scholarly audience, That is, the proof (or selected portions of the methodology) should be published. The Riemann Hypothesis has resisted the efforts of many of the best mathematicians for over 120 years,...” (in email to convener page 58). Hmm. Well, do Profs. Roberts and SR Valluri actually say they think the proof is correct? Nope. In fact, in their detailed report, included later in the document, they write (page 66) "We are at present undecided on whether the proof is accurate in all respects. There are some aspects which we believe require clarification in order to construct a fully justified proof." In the email on page 58, they wrote: "Our report is incomplete, in that we did not examine all aspects of the proposed proof. There are some aspects of the Riemann zeta function with which we are not sufficiently familiar in order to speak authoritatively." This is not mentioned in the summary opinion. Review 2: "By Prof. WladislawNarkiewicz (sic), University of Worclaw (sic), Poland, A well-known Polish Number Theorist." This review is in the form of very detailed technical discussions over emails conducted by Professor WladislawNarkiewicz who had worked through many parts of the paper and asked queries and examined the replies, the discussions extending nearly 60 pages (page 86 -140). The committee commends the painstaking review and discussion which was conducted in the spirit of an open and sincere investigation revealing the many subtleties of RH - we thank him. His entire discussion is given in this report for the benefit of readers and posterity. In his penultimate email Professor Narkiewicz said that arguments were “heuristic”, though he says “I agree that the similarity of the considered sequence of values of the lambda-function with a random walk gives some reasons to believe in the truth of the conjecture”(page 129) Prof Narkiewicz’s final reply ended with this sentence: “I want also to stress that the word "heuristic" has no negative meaning. A lot of work of really great mathematicians has been performed in a heuristic way. This applies not only to old times (Euler, Laplace, the Bernoulli’s, ...) but also to recent times”(page 139). Hmm. The experts certainly seem to think Prof. Narkiewicz is an authority on the subject and that his opinion counts for a lot, since they thought to include in the report a printout of his Wikipedia page (pages 86-87). But, does he actually say he thinks the proof is correct? Nope. Actually, in the 60 page email correspondence he states very clearly and multiple times that he believes the proof is incorrect. (See pages 88, 94, 100, 110, 129.) But the experts don't mention this in their summary, instead taking one of Narkiewicz's quotes out of context, and a weak quote at that that says nothing about the proof's correctness or lack of correctness. Review 3: "By Professor German Sierra, Dept. of Physics University of Madrid, Spain" This is the only negative review (page 141-143) The Reviewer seems to have believed (erroneously) that Eswaran was trying to prove the randomness of primes and also imputed that he (Eswaran) felt Equal Probabilities is sufficient for the proof. Eswaran, in his reply,(page 144-154) protested that he does not hold to either of these views. Since there was no reference by the Reviewer of more than 3/4th of the paper, Eswaran requested that the Reviewer kindly read the rest of the paper for the details of the actual proof. Since the Reviewer did not respond, this Review has necessarily to be treated as incomplete and infructuous. Again, there is a conceptual error in this dismissal of Prof. Sierra's negative review. The experts seem to be assuming the premise that in order to determine that the proof is incorrect, one has to read all of it. This is not true, and is the opposite of how mathematical proofs work: to decide that it's true you need to read all of it, but to decide that it's not a valid proof it's enough to find one incorrect (or vague, or meaningless " not even wrong "-style) step. (Indeed, the history of claimed proofs of the Riemann hypothesis and other famous conjectures shows that historically they have almost always been able to be dismissed fairly easily by finding one obviously wrong or nonsensical statement, and the criticism "how can you dismiss it? You haven't even read all of it!" is a perennial complaint from crackpot proof-claimers with a poor grasp of mathematical reasoning.) Review 4: "By Prof. M. Seetharaman, Formerly Dept. of Theoretical Physics Univ of Madras" (one of the expert committee members) This Reviewer after studying the papers of Kumar Eswaran, was very definitive and said the following; “The author’s analysis is exhaustive, unambiguous, and every step in the analysis is explained in great detail and established. The conclusions of the author and his result must therefore be considered proven.” (Page 7) This reviewer is not a mathematician. But okay. Review 5: "By Professor V. Srinivasan, Formerly Professor of Physics and Dean Univ of Hyderabad" (also one of the expert committee members) Professor Srinivasan reviewed the various steps of the proof saying that “by Judiciously using the properties of the random walk problem”, it was shown “that Riemann’s Hypothesis is true. There is also a numerical proof given.” “I compliment the author for solving the Riemann’s Hypothesis.”(Page 38-39) This reviewer is also not a mathematician. And his use of the phrase "numerical proof" indicates yet another misunderstanding of how mathematical proofs work, and that he attributes a completely different meaning to the word "proof" than what mathematicians mean when they use that word. Review 6: "By Professor Vinayak Eswaran, Dept of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad." Professor Vinayak, who is Kumar Eswaran’s younger brother had taken the trouble to spend the best part of two years to understand and study the background material and understand the proof of RH. Therefore he was invited by the Committee to write a review of the proof. He has submitted a very detailed review that summarized all the arguments of the proof and says that there is no doubt that the Riemann Hypothesis is proved. He also submitted an essay which discusses why the RH was so difficult to prove, as there is perhaps only one way it could have been done (pages 8-35) This man is not a mathematician. Even if he were not a close family member of the person whose proof he is evaluating, his opinion about the proof is mostly irrelevant in the context of the current discussion. Conclusion The 208-page report contains many claims that are misleading, either intentionally or unintentionally. Since I am a professional mathematician I can state unequivocally that it adds zero credibility among professional mathematicians to Eswaran's claims of having found a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. And if professional mathematicians won't accept the claim, there is no meaningful sense in which the Riemann hypothesis can be considered as "solved" by Kumar Eswaran at this point in time. | {
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52,000 | On June 30, 2021, the Turkey Health Ministry announced the availability of a 3rd dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for certain categories of people (namely, medical workers and those older than 50). The announcement says: Third doses are recommended because after six months, the effects of antibodies produced by COVID vaccines decrease. Third doses boost antibody levels, strengthening the immune system. Is there scientific evidence behind this claim? I assume there must be one because it possibly affects millions of people who belong to the target age. A general vendor-agnostic answer would be the best. However, if there exists a research which is specific for a certain vaccine type or even a vendor, I would gladly accept that, too. | Does the third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine “boost antibody levels”? Yes, at least in certain cases. Two published studies in patients with solid organ transplants (i.e. people who are immunocompromised) have reported that more patients have an antibody titer after a third vaccine dose compared to before the third dose, and that patients with a low-positive antibody titer before the third dose have a high-positive antibody titer after the third dose. Here's a correspondence article published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers gave a third vaccine dose to 40 patients who had solid organ transplants (all doses were the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine). They found that the number of patients with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 increased from 40% before the third dose to 68% four weeks after the third dose. The prevalence of anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 0 to 4; 0 of 101 patients) before the first dose, 4% (95% CI, 1 to 10; 4 of 101 patients) before the second dose, 40% (95% CI, 31 to 51; 40 of 99 patients) before the third dose, and 68% (95% CI, 58 to 77; 67 of 99 patients) 4 weeks after the third dose (Figure 1). ... All 40 patients who had been seropositive before the third dose were still seropositive 4 weeks later; their antibody titers increased from 36±12 before the third dose to 2676±350 1 month after the third dose (P<0.001). [...] This study showed that administration of a third dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine to solid-organ transplant recipients significantly improved the immunogenicity of the vaccine , with no cases of Covid-19 reported in any of the patients. Here's a different study with 30 patients who had received solid organ transplants that also reported positive results (the doses were a mix of Pfizer/BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna; read the paper for details or see 1 ): Of the 6 patients with low-positive antibody titers before the third dose, all had high-positive antibody titers after the third dose. In contrast, of the 24 patients with negative antibody titers before the third dose, only 6 (25%) had high-positive antibody titers after the third dose. Two (8%) had low-positive antibody titers, and 16 (67%) remained negative. [...] It is encouraging that antibody titers increased after the third dose in one third of patients who had negative antibody titers and in all patients who had low-positive antibody titers . In addition, the vaccine reactions seem acceptable, given the benefits that these vaccines can confer. @ Acccumulation had previously found a preprint that supports the same conclusion. 90 (healthy) people were given a third dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. Findings: [...] 90 participants received a third dose and antibody titres were significantly higher following a third dose (FRNT50 612 [IQR 351-920]) when compared with the response 28 days after a second dose (FRNT 50 319 [IQR 176-591]. T-cell responses were also boosted after a third dose. Reactogenicity after a late second dose or a third dose was lower than reactogenicity after a first dose. Interpretation: A longer delay before the second dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 leads to an increased antibody titre after the second dose. A third dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 induces antibodies to a level that correlate with high efficacy after second dose and boosts T-cell responses. These are the only published studies I have found. 1 These are the vaccines that people received in the second study I cited. For the first 2 doses: During the initial vaccination, 57% of the 30 patients received 2 doses of the 162b2 vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech), and 43% received 2 doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna). For the 3rd dose: 15 patients received the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine (Johnson & Johnson/Janssen), 9 received the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna), and 6 received the 162b2 vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech). | {
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52,003 | CNN reports At least 150 people were killed by gun violence in more than 400 shootings across the country during the Fourth of July weekend Ref: CNN.com In the article this data is based on data from ' Gun Violence Archive '. ( gunviolencearchive.org ) I was unable to verify the reliability of this source, thus I am skeptical. Did approximately 150 die in the US from gun violence during the 4th of July weekend 2021? | Update (7/6/21): Within 12 hours of my writing this answer, CNN has edited their article. The original claim can be seen here . CNN now acknowledges "a 26% drop [presumably in deaths] from last year's holiday weekend." The tone of their article has slightly changed and CNN has stopped portraying the deaths over the 4th of July weekend as part of "a surge in violent crime," while continuing to report on a larger trend in violent crime. Were at least 150 people killed by gun violence from July 2 to July 4? At least 150 people were killed by firearms from July 2 to July 4. (Suicides and unintentional deaths are included in the 150 death figure. 1 ) Based on CDC firearm mortality figures for 2019, 150 deaths from firearms over a 3 day period is not unusual. Furthermore, I verified the sources for 150 deaths recorded on the Gun Violence Archive as occurring between July 2 and July 4, inclusive. CNN writes (the sentence quoted in the question is not complete): At least 150 people were killed by gun violence in more than 400 shootings across the country during the Fourth of July weekend as major cities nationwide confront a surge in violent crime, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive. The data, which includes the number of shooting incidents and gun violence victims nationally over a 72-hour period from Friday through Sunday , is still evolving and will be updated. Therefore, this means July 2, July 3, and July 4. Per the CDC , in 2019, there were 39,707 people in the US killed by firearms. That's approximately 108.8 deaths per day. If the number of deaths each day is about the same, 150 deaths over 3 days is not too unreasonable (and is actually lower than expected). CNN cites the Gun Violence Archive . They track the number of gun deaths and include a link to a source for every incident. As of my writing this answer, the Gun Violence Archive has recorded 235 incidents resulting in a gun death from July 2 to July 4, inclusive, that have collectively resulted in a total of 258 deaths. For the sake of providing a comprehensive answer, I looked through the sources for the first 150 deaths (working backwards from the last entry on July 4) and confirmed that they are all legitimate. To be clear, some of the deaths recorded, such as this one are from accidental shootings, so not all the deaths reflected in the figure are murders. 1 The first source listed , which @ pinegulf has problems accessing , writes: Two Men Dead and a Third Man in Custody in Fourth of July Shooting in
Pontiac By B. Thompson JUL 4, 2021 PONTIAC, MI – Two men were shot to death outside a Pontiac residence shortly after 1 p.m. today and the man Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputies believe is responsible for the shooting is in custody. The victims, ages 29 and 30 and Pontiac residents, were found on the lawn of a residence in the 500 block of Valencia Drive. Deputies were sent to the residence at 1:11 p.m. on the report of multiple shots fired. The suspect, a 21-year-old Pontiac man, is being held in the Oakland County Jail. 1 I have not found a government definition of "gun violence." This document from the US Department of Justice writes: Violence is the “intentional use of
physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or
community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological
harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation” (OJJDP 2014, 14). Applying this definition to the scope of this
literature review, youth gun violence is when a gun or firearm is present in the process of a youth (ages
10–24) intentionally using force or power to threaten or harm others. If that definition of gun violence is correct, then strictly speaking, the claim is incorrect. | {
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52,020 | Dr Elizete Kaffer is a Brazilian dermatologist. In a video (in Portuguese) she claims, starting from 0:54 (enphasis on the part that I translated): [After talking about hidden sources for pathologies, e.g. symptoms of eye pathologies can have sources in problems in the epidermis. At 0:34 we see "correlation / embryology / organs and systems", and "Metabolical changes in 1 organ - systemic symptom in another organ!!!".] Então, o alimento neutro, ele vai ser o quê? Um alimento que, se você tiver muito bem, sobrando energia - não sabe que fazer da vida, quer ter um pouco de prazer - , você vai lá e come um alimento neutro, ou seja, o eletrão tá parado. Aí você vai gastar a sua energia, vai sujar o seu corpo para fazer esse alimento, girar, o eletrão dele girar para a esquerda. Então, a base, se você não detectar isso, é a base de todas as doenças. Todas as doenças começam com alimentos dissonantes. Which I translate to: Our body's electrons are stuck, but certain foods make the electrons spin to the left, and the body has to expend energy on it. That's the cause of all disease. Is this correct? A second translation, from a native speaker: [After talking about hidden sources for pathologies, e.g. symptoms of eye pathologies can have sources in problems in the epidermis. At 0:34 we see "correlation / embryology / organs and systems", and "Metabolical changes in 1 organ - systemic symptom in another organ!!!".] So, the neural food, what is it going to be? Something that you will eat when you are feeling good, you have extra energy and you're feeling without aim in life... so you will eat this neutral food, that is, the [food's?] electron is stopped. Then you will spend your energy, you will dirty your body to make that food, spin, its electron spin to the left. Thus, the source, if you don't detect this problem, this is the source of all diseases. All diseases start with dissonant food. | The quoted text seems to refer to quantum-mechanical " spin ". However "left" or "right" spin are not part of that concept, and it has nothing at all to do with the food we eat. It is also unclear how an electron can be "stuck". Taken as a whole the first sentence seems to be nonsense. " That's the cause of all disease. " is clearly false. We know what causes lots of diseases. For instance, many are caused by infectious agents . We can see how one person with the disease infects others, and we can isolate the agent that causes the disease. Electron spin has nothing to do with this. In short, the quoted text is just woo; the misappropriation of scientific vocabulary in the service of nonsense. | {
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52,027 | Some time ago there was news of a manuscript stolen from a Syrian museum, seized from smugglers in Turkey. There are many other articles about this as well. Turkish police seize ancient manuscript from smugglers —Suspects in central Kırşehir province attempt to sell ancient leather manuscript thought to be stolen from Syria Turkish police recovered an ancient leather manuscript from suspected antiquities traffickers in a central province, security sources said on Tuesday. […] The 16-page ancient book written in Hebrew bore different bird figures, a hexagonal shape and a red stone on the cover page. […] According to suspects’ testimonies to the police, they bought the manuscript in the southeastern Mardin province and were planning to sell it in Istanbul for a large sum of money. The ancient manuscript was stolen from Syria city museum during the conflicts and was brought to Mardin illegally, the suspect said in their testimonies. Is this manuscript ancient and authentic? It looks like it could be a modern fabrication, it's in a very good shape. There are more photos here . | No. That is anything but what is claimed it is. This is a rather large scale scam now often titled "Turkish Golden Leather Brownies" or some variation thereof. And completely fake. The word ancient may be ambiguous, to a certain extent, but this was produced in very recent years. And all are in on this by now: the forgers, the 'sellers', the police and the media reporting on this. It is certainly not that 'ancient', and not anything remotely 'ancient Jewish'. The codex format has to be categorized from 'highly unusual for the alleged timeframe' up to impossible (for something like an alleged ~"2500 year old ancient Torah"), as these are to this day preferably in scroll format. A 'Jewish bible' in codex form may be the inspiration for this, but the old and known Aleppo Codex is from the 10th century. Any older codex "stolen from a Syrian museum" would have been a sensation and widely known before it was stolen. The 'Golden Brownies' Turkish Fake Manuscripts There has been a whole series of codices and scrolls turning up in Turkey in police seizures from 'smugglers' that are being proclaimed as Syrian loot. They are characterised by being nonsense texts and garish pictures loosely imitating Muslim, Jewish and Christian manuscripts Often written using gold ink (or gold leaf?) rough tatty edges crumbly dark brown or brown-orange leather (I bet it's acid-treated). Sometimes written on heavily stained 'papyrus' (or is it banana leaves?) pages - usually 20-30 - roughly bound with thongs of lightish or greyish leather They seem all to have turned up in recent years (mostly post 2016). When they first appeared, Sam Hardy and I considered they were fakes, a verdict that many have accepted, though Turkish policemen and eager journalists writing about crime in the Middle East do not seem yet to have got the message, and possibly buyers too, as the more recent ones are getting sloppier. Where are they from? I pulled out the most accessible information and quickly plotted them, the codices are being seized in south west Anatolia, codices and ('torah' and other) scrolls in Northwest Anatolia while only two have in fact come from nearer Syria (Adana province - here and here). They seem part of the same series as the rest. A group of six came from Usak and another four recently seized at Denizli - is this perhaps near the centre of their production? But the map does tend to suggest that these items are not 'surfacing' on the Syrian-Turkish border. — Paul Barford : "The 'Golden Brownies' Turkish Fake Manuscripts", Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues, Sunday, 17 February 2019. To which I might add that the ample use of illustrations is suspicious as well, be it the dragon or the hamsa in the pictures in question. The same goes for the apparently ubiquitous use of the Star of David hexagram on the covers of those forgeries. While now this is supposedly a universally recognized symbol of Judaism, actual use in this (in the case of this 'Golden brownie', pseudo-) religious context is quite a bit younger than commonly thought. Speaking again against it being 'evidence for old', but contrarily for this piece being a youngish & haphazard forgery. What is visible in 'Hebrew lettering' seems to be quite gibberish: For the page with the dragon I read in the first line: ההאלאלה Which doesn't make any sense to me. The letter forms also appear to be imitating a rather old style. But Hebrew paleography experts might not be that interested in determining to which timeframe exactly these clumsy forms should be associated with. But codex format combined with letter shaping again makes no sense at all. The 10th century Aleppo codex looks more like this: One might argue that it could represent a form of code, cipher or be used for decorative, meditative, hermetic , or kabbalistic purposes — in short: also meant to be unintelligible for 'outsiders' — but it does not appear to be a straight Hebrew language religious text? Googling these letters in combination then leads to just one hit: a 'politically incorrect' forum. Why and how are they produced? Further to my earlier post on the phenomenon of a constant stream of 'Golden Brownies' (GBs) emerging in Turkey, I note that yet another "Torah" (curious that almost all of these fake manuscripts are from religious minorities in that region) has been trumpeted in the Turkish press (Daily Sabah, 'Turkish police nab 3 suspects trying to sell ancient Torah for $1.25M', 25 March 2020; Hurriyet Daily News, 'Gendarmerie seizes historical Torah in Turkey’s Mus', undated). Not only is the object not even remotely a Torah (the first five books of Moses typically in scroll form), it is so obviously a modern piece of tat that a mere moggy can spot it as farcical. Have any of these insanely-priced GBs ever actually been sold at all or were they intended to serve another purpose? It's strangely convenient that their purported "sellers" are constantly being caught, it's strangely unnatural that they are seldom found with anything else of remotely comparable value, and I sense a possibility that the whole operation may have been deliberately engineered as a sickening political tool - a devious way of covertly promulgating antisemitic propaganda in broad daylight. Any other artefacts supposedly "recovered" with the GBs would be merely 'smoke and mirrors'. What better way to ensure support for an authoritarian regime than to stimulate mass fear of a 'hidden enemy'? It matters nothing that a few scholars recognise the fakery; the target is the general public and neither Turkey nor Syria will be the first country to fall for that fear tactic and endorse a tyrant. — David Knell : "Leather books from Turkey: more thoughts" , Ancient Heritage. Thoughts on ancient artefacts, their collection and ethical issues For real artifacts from Syria that were looted we see: Sources have reported the possession of vulnerable objects by both rebels who were ‘safekeeping’ the objects (and the site) as a ‘confidence-building measure’ with Israel and jihadists who were negotiating to exchange the objects for prisoners from the Assad regime (Issacharoff, 2013). Ultimately, it is possible that both sources were correct and the differences in descriptions were dependent upon the political needs of the describers, as Failaq al-Rahman was both an element of the Free Syrian Army and an ally of Jabhat al-Nusra. Non-state propaganda around the world Following a nondescript report of the seizure of a supposedly ‘ancient leather-bound bible’ (which was a poor-quality fake) from four men (two Syrian citizens, one Iraqi citizen and one Turkish citizen) in Turkey, where the provenience of the object was explicitly stated to be a ‘mystery’ (Russia Today, 2018), insecure information was spread through unknowing consumers and lurid propaganda was spread by religious activists. There is an increase in production of forgeries of art and antiquities in Turkey, including specifically forgeries of texts of religious minorities that are attributed to Syria (Barford, 2019). Lots of these various materials are shifted together, from genuine antiquities to fake antiquities to fake art (cf. Antakya Gazetesi, 2019). Sometimes, when law enforcement agencies identify crimes-in-progress, they conduct undercover operations. The criminals, who necessarily target clients who have more money than sense, believe they have found marks. After all, the law enforcement agents try to convince the criminals that they have found marks. (And, when the marks are not undercover cops, they believe that they are clever enough to outwit the criminal and turn a profit on the enterprise, yet are stupid enough to want to buy visibly poor forgeries.) So, the criminals ask for a ridiculously high price. Then, as soon as the criminals have attempted to sell illicit cultural goods (whether by trying to sell looted antiquities or stolen artefacts or by trying to fraudulently sell fake objects), they are detained by the law enforcement agents. The agents do not bargain the criminal down; they simply wrap up the sting, then register the claimed object and the desired price (e.g. Cumhuriyet, 2020). In a circle jerk that is beneficial to everyone except those outside it, the agency, the state and the media collude in advancing the narrative that these serious economic and political crimes are being effectively policed. — Samuel Andrew Hardy : "fuelling of an illicit market and financing of political violence in Syria, feeding of propaganda around the world" , conflict antiquities, illicit antiquities trading in economic crisis, organised crime and political violence, 02 Apr 2020. That 'the media' is in on this — or pick the heuristic razor you prefer — or at the very least extremely lazy copypasta producers without any source checking done whatsoever, here is proof: Even the Jerusalem Post copies from Reuters this laughably sick headline: 2,500-year-old golden Torah seized in Turkey from suspect's car -
The ancient artifact was simply wrapped in a plastic bag wedged in the pockets of a nearly otherwise empty cloth bag in the trunk of a car. Police can then be seen removing the golden Torah from the plastic bag with gloved hands, before removing it from ancient protective casing. Pages in which ancient inscriptions are written are shown.
Five people were arrested, the source added.
The incident comes shortly after similarly dated biblical scrolls were previously thought to be, were verified By REUTERS, JERUSALEM POST STAFF MARCH 28, 2021 These pictures are re-used in the following article header, and they indeed quite atrocious to look at in context: Turkish police would soon announce they had found what they believed to be a Torah that was between 2,000 and 2,500 years old. A Jewish manuscript that was as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls? The news quickly spread to local and international media. When Rabbi Mendy Chitrik , Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Turkey and director of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States , heard the news, he rolled his eyes. Though Turkish police have not yet released expert analysis of the artifact, it’s almost certainly a fake — and obviously so. For one, the object in question is bound as a book, not a scroll. It also contains the Star of David, which only became a recognizable Jewish symbol in the middle ages, as well as niqqudot — Hebrew diacritical marks created in the late first millennium AD and rarely used in religious texts. Gold lettering would also not be valid ink for a religious manuscript under Jewish law. Not to mention that some of the text itself looks to be complete gibberish. It’s far from the first such artifact Chitrik has seen. As a rabbi living in Istanbul for more than two decades, he’s frequently contacted by tourists, collectors or concerned community members about a “Jewish artifact” they saw in one of Istanbul’s many bazaars and antique shops. Another counterfeit manuscript found in Turkey, it features the slogan of the Mossad around a black sun, a motif generally associated with Norse paganism and more recently white supremacist groups. “Every day I get these messages,” Chitrik said. “I stopped downloading them on my phone because it takes up too much space. They say ‘Rabbi, why don’t we save this ancient megillah from Iran or this ancient prayer book from Syria or the Torah scroll from Iraq.’ It’s all fake. Fake, fake, fake from beginning to end.” — David Ian Klein: "In Turkey, counterfeit Jewish artifacts are commonplace – and often sloppy" , Forward, 9 Apr 2021. For comparison, around the same date for reporting this, and around roughly the same age for dating an ancient Torah text scroll, (note how the Reuters/JPost reporters are oblivious to the fact that they do not show any scroll but a codex emulation in that video) the Jerusalem Post showed this: — Rossella Tercatin: "Lost biblical scroll may have been 2,700 years old, Israeli scholar says" , The Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2021 19:15 If there had been any such an ancient artifact in "the Syria city museum", the world would have known that this codex exists, given all the remarkable and incongruent features of it. On the other hand, the world would now have been quite astounded to learn that the expert smugglers and forgers even managed to find Syria city, even with a museum in it. This codex as presented in the article is certainly not 2500 years old, as neither is the codex presented in question, and if those spreading this obvious lie are found in Turkish 'police', Reuters and Jerusalem Post, then that's that. | {
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52,110 | I have recently started receiving Youtube advertisements for "Established titles", claiming to sell you a square foot of land in Scotland, entitling you to call yourself some variant of "Lord". Their website states: Our Title Packs are based on a historic Scottish land ownership custom, where landowners have been long referred to as "Lairds", the Scottish term for "Lord", with the female equivalent being "Lady". It seems that they have a competitor or two offering a similar deal. Is there any truth to this claim? Can any land owner, let alone someone whose holdings are worth around $50, in Scotland indeed style himself "Laird"? | The Court of the Lord Lyon, the official authority on these things, states on the matter (bolding mine): A dwelling house of whatever size presents no problem, but the ownership of forestry land or “amenity” land on which there is no house and for which planning permission for a house would not be obtainable would not necessarily be sufficient to bring the owner into the Lord Lyon’s jurisdiction. The ownership of “souvenir” plots of land of a few square feet or thereby such as are marketed from time to time, is insufficient to bring anyone within the jurisdiction of the Lord Lyon King of Arms. So, just getting a coat of arms, let alone the title of Laird, requires ownership of a substantial amount of land. Therefore, the claim is false. | {
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52,122 | According to The Independent , Donald Trump moved more than $200,000 donated to his Make America Great Again PAC into his own private business accounts, according to an analysis of his federal filings. The money was moved in February, a month after Mr Trump left office. Money donated to PACs is meant to be spent solely on campaign efforts. The way this is written, it sounds like he embezzled funds. Is this true that Trump moved money donated to his 'Make America Great Again' PAC into his own private business accounts? | The original Forbes article links to the FEC Filings — these show payments from the Make America Great Again PAC to a few Trump Businesses, including payments categorized as rent to Trump Tower Commercial LLC and Trump Restaurants LLC. So there is no question that the FEC filings indicate that the PAC paid money to Trump owned business interests. From a quick look, more than $200k in total in 2021 seems plausible, but I have not seen an indication that this much was paid in February alone. The Forbes article provides a more precise statement on the amounts and dates of various payments. In case it is not obvious, rental payments for office space and other facilities are completely normal operating expenses for PACs. Trump Tower, 725 Fifth Av., is listed as one of the business addresses in the MAGA PAC’s FEC registration . The business models of both Trump Tower LLC and Trump Restaurants LLC are based on leasing space in Trump Tower . | {
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52,127 | An article ("Westerners used to wear masks" by Andrew Gulliford, June 13, 2020) in The Journal of Cortez, Colorado, claims that it was a regular practice of bandits in the "Wild West" to wear facemasks while committing robberies. It claims: Because of the coronavirus, we are now asked to wear masks while working and shopping downtown. Westerners used to wear masks a century ago, so the fashion has come back around. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wore bandannas while they robbed banks and trains.... Any up-and-coming train robber in the late 19th century had to have the requisite cowboy boots, cowboy hat, cowhide vest, pistols in hand-tooled leather holsters and the all-important red bandanna worn tightly across the bridge of the nose. How else would the public know they were being robbed? You just had to wear the right uniform. The article then describes an alleged robbery in Wyoming in which the robber in question had his face mask fall off in the middle of perpetrating the crime. No sources are provided for any of these assertions. Was wearing a facemask a common practice in the United States among armed criminals in the "Wild West" era (mid-late 19th century)? Are there any first-hand sources, such as photographs, court depositions of witnesses or victims of robbery, etc. that would indicate that masks were a common practice? | Yes, of course. This was quite common. — The Evening News, Detroit MI Michigan, July 4, 1901 'Last train robbery of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid'
'Original reporting' Sundance supposedly turned up again almost a year later in the town of Elko, Nevada. At midnight on April 3, 1899, Sundance, Harvey Logan, and George Currie, wearing masks, reportedly burst into the Club Saloon on Railroad Street while the bartender was counting the day’s receipts. […] No sooner had the locomotive stopped than two masked men jumped into the engine compartment and ordered Jones and his fireman, Dietrick, to move the train up the tracks across the bridge. […] — Thom Hatch: "The Last Outlaws. The Lives and Legens of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", New American Library: New York, 2013. On Tuesday, November 3, 1908, the paymaster for the Aramayo, Franke & Company silver mine left the mine’s office in Tupiza, Bolivia for the corporate headquarters in Quechisla. The next day, the payroll caravan ran into two white-masked men armed with rifles and pistols. The two robbers demanded that the paymaster hand over the two mules carrying the payroll. — Leonard John Lanier: "Did They Die With Their Boots On?", ecu.edu 06, 2017 ( PDF ) That was less embarrassing than getting a train stopped and blasting its safe, only to discover that two successive charges of dynamite couldn’t dent it. They had a repeat performance with another train safe, also tougher than both them and their dynamite. During one of these abortive attempts, clever Al successfully knocked off his own mask. — Robert Barr Smith and Laurence J. Yadon: "Oklahoma Scoundrels. History's most Notorious Outlaws, Bandits and Gansters" , The History Press: Charleston, 2016. [1843] After further discussion, during which time Haines carefully surveyed the premises, he took leave, promising to call again in a few days.
True to his word, late one night ten days later Haines and two other masked men armed with pistols, knives, and clubs, broke into Mulford’s house. […] It looked as though the Morrises had embarked on a new and better life when around midnight on October 10, 1844, six masked men burst into his cabin and abducted Katherine, Martha, David, and James. — Ken Lizzio: "Pirates of the Prarie. Outlaws and Vigilantes in America's Heartland", Guilford Press: Lanham, 2018. On October 6, 1866, at 6:30 in the evening, an Ohio & Mississippi train left Seymour with three Reno Gang members aboard: John and Sim Reno, along with Frank Sparks. When the train was beyond the town, the three forced their way inside the express car. John poked a Navy Colt into messenger Elam Miller’s face and he surrendered his keys. The masked outlaws scooped up ten thousand dollars in gold coin and thirty-three dollars in bank notes from one small safe. When they tried to pry open a larger safe, they had no luck. […] — Gerry and Janet Souter: "Guns of Outlaws. Weapons of the American Bad Man", Zenith Press: Mionneapolis, 2014. Other newspaper headlines: "Masked Robber terrorizes Town." — Kingston Daily Freeman, Volume XXXVIII, Number 231, 16 July 1909 "Masked Bandits Hoold Up Train" — Kingston Daily Freeman, Volume XLII, Number 20, 9 November 1912 Kentucky was famed for its fine women, excellent bourbon whiskey, and Thoroughbred racehorses, including the nineteenth-century champion Salvator, pictured on this circa 1910 postcard. But not to be ignored was the state’s reputation for violence and lawlessness. Note the pistol and the group of masked night riders on their way through a tobacco field. (Collage of “Kentucky’s Fame,” ca. 1910, Kramer Art Company Postcard Proofs, 1999PH10.46, Kentucky Historical Society.) — Maryjean Wall: "How Kentucky Became Southern. A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders", University Press of Kentucky: Lexington, 2010. ( p94, gBooks ) Just the collage from a dictionary of Western 'personalities', all paragraph excerpts from different people: This time he went to work with a flour-sack mask and a double-barreled shotgun, performing his first stage holdup on July 26, 1875, somewhere around Sonora, California. He pulled two more stage robberies that same year, the task apparently becoming so much fun … The coroner’s jury exonerated the lawmen, and the outlaw was laid to rest on August 20, 1878. This time he did not wear his flour-sack mask. He did not leave until January 19, 1896. On August 13, he and several confederates walked into the Montpelier, Idaho, bank, put on their masks, and robbed it. […] When Ed’s neighbors decided they had enough, they picked an interesting night to take action. Cash’s wife was giving birth, and on hand was a doctor, plus a couple of local women, all of whom must have looked aghast on April 9, 1894, when seven masked men came knocking on the door. […] The stage carried eight passengers and $26,000 in gold, but three masked men stopped it. During the resultant shootout, one passenger and a shotgun guard were slain. […] [1881] Six months later, on September 8, the Bisbee stage was held up by several masked men. City Marshal Virgil Earp and Deputies Wyatt and Morgan Earp arrested cowboys Pete Spence and Frank Stilwell. […] William Fredericks was born in Germany and still had his heavy German accent when he showed up in California. In May 1890, masked and carrying a shotgun, he stopped a Mariposa County stage, found the strongbox empty, and got only a few pennies from the driver and one female passenger. […] On January 7, 1882, Hume was a passenger aboard the “Sandy Bob” stage when masked highwayman stopped it halfway between Tombstone and Contention in Ari- zona Territory. Nine male travelers, including Hume, were highjacked at the point of a shotgun. He lost two fine revolvers and $70 in cash. […] On June 22, 1877, at two o’clock in the morning, masked vigilantes caught four Notch-Cutters at a dance. The vigilantes rode away, leaving all four hanging from a tree limb. Things quieted down now for a while, but in 1883 the killings began again. […] — Leon Claire Metz: "The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters", Facts on File: New York, 2003. And from 'Arizona's official historian': The handkerchief was one of the most utilitarian articles a cowboy could have in his possession. It could be used as a mask to filter the dust when riding drag behind the cattle herd. It came in handy as a sling for broken arms or as a tourniquet. It made a good wash rag when needed and could filter dirty water for drinking. It was also great sunburn protection and good for weather all around. (I’ve worn a neckerchief as a mask while on horseback in northern Colorado when the wind chill was about 40 below.) And, if you got tired of working for wages, you could use one to mask your face while robbing a train or bank. — Marshall Trimble ("is Arizona’s official historian"): "Why do almost all the Old West characters wear handkerchiefs around their necks in TV shows and movies?" , Truewest — History of the American Frontier, July 1, 2005. (Hat tip to ocmment from David Hammen) | {
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52,134 | According to Forest Maready's "The Moth in the Iron Lung" and several other sites brought to my attention by social media posts, the poliovirus wasn't as virulent as thought. Claims by the book's author include (as summarized by their YouTube video ): Everyone used to be immune to poliovirus. Paralysis from the virus didn't start until the 1800s. Diagnosing polio was difficult and therefore misdiagnosed with other diseases such as meningitis. The authors then attribute the "polio" epidemic to the use of arsenic and DDT Poisoning as shown by this graph: (Both graphics from: Jim West: "Pesticides and Polio: A Critique of Scientific Literature", February 8, 2003 .) The purpose of this presentation from the author is to show that the polio vaccine wasn't as effective (if not effective at all) as once claimed. Many anti-vaxers are using this as a reason to prove that vaccines aren't actually as effective as claimed. My question is if there has been any research into the claims that pesticides used during that time caused paralysis that was attributed to the poliovirus. Has there been any research into the lowering of poliovirus diagnoses directly related to the reduction in the use of these harmful substances? Finally, is there strong evidence that the vaccine is directly tied to the reduction in poliovirus diagnoses? | I'll address your last question first, starting with the mantra of science and statistics: Correlation doesn't equal causation There is a common anecdote in my home country about the mayor of a coastal city that commissioned a study to understand factors that relate to the number of drownings. One of the factors that the study showed to be strongly correlated to increase in drownings was the increase in ice cream sales in the beach kiosks. Therefore, the mayor decided to ban ice cream sales in beach kiosks. Of course it didn't work; ice cream sales correlate to drownings because they share a common cause: the number of people at the beach That's why for a vaccine (or any new medication to be cleared for use, for that matter), there is a need for clinical trials. They exist to document evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between receiving the vaccine and not getting the disease. The Salk trials in the 50s are considered one of the largest medical experiments at the time and were done with what's considered to this day the gold standard of clinical trials - the double control with placebo One group of children received the polio vaccine, a second group of children received an injection containing only culture media, and the control group didn't receive anything and was only monitored. Note that we're talking hundreds of thousands of children in the vaccine and placebo groups, and millions in the control, so the results cannot be chalked up to coincidence. If the vaccine was not effective in preventing polio, all three groups would have the same infection rates. This was not the case. The group who received the vaccine had SIGNIFICANTLY lower infection rates than the other two control groups, who either received a placebo shot or no shot at all. Additionally, the Sabin vaccine was developed and rolled out in the 60s and it is still prevalently used in many countries due to ease of transport and application (it is oral drops) - and the added benefit of flushing out pathogenic strains from the water supply, creating another layer of protection The person who made this graphic only looked at US data, so another thing to be considered is the polio-free country list with the dates , the large majority of the countries achieved polio-free status far before the worldwide ban on DDT and it also includes countries that still use DDT to this day for malaria vector control | {
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52,137 | Variations of this image circulate claiming that a man named Patrick King won a court case in which he challenged the province to provide an isolated sample of the virus, which they failed. The rumors claim that for this reason, Alberta is ending all restrictions soon. Is this take accurate? | Short version: Mr. King is misrepresenting the words of a document he received in an ongoing court case against him. He misconstrues the document to mean there is no proof that the virus causing COVID exists. At about the time Mr. King made his interpretation public, the chief medical officer of health for the Province of Alberta, Canada (where Mr. King's case is being tried) announced that many of the public health regulations put in place to handle COVID19 will be relaxed and/or removed in the next few weeks. The two events are merged together as a claim of "victory" by Mr. King and others who deny the existence of COVID19. Longer version with (some) references. This appears to be a disingenuous conflation of a completely misrepresented text in a court document with events that happened independently of the court case against Patrick King. First, the court case. Patrick King is trying to get out of paying a $1200 fine for flouting public health regulations that were aimed at reducing the spread of COVID19. Last December, he took part in a protest and was fined for being part of a group of more than 10 persons assembled in public, in violation of the then active rules limiting public gatherings. His defense is based around his belief that COVID19 is a hoax and does not exist. No virus, no basis for the public health regulations, no basis for him to pay the $1200 dollar fine. There have been ongoing hearings since May 4,2021. Mr. King has been representing himself in court. Patrick King gave an interview that was posted on the Stew Peters show on August 3, 2021, referring to events that took place between July 16, 2021 and August 3, 2021. Mr. King had tried to get a subpoena issued to get proof of the existence of the virus that causes COVID19 from the chief medical officer of health (CMOH) for Alberta, Canada. His application for the subpoena was denied. Mr. King showed a picture of part of a document he received from the court. This document gives various reasons why the request for a subpoena was denied. The only way to actually see this document is to watch the video recording of the interview (document is shown at about the 5 minutes, 30 seconds mark.) Edit: see below. The document itself is now available. Screenshot of the video: Point number 8 is the part that seems to have caused all the excitement: Mr. King has no evidence showing that the evidence sought from the CMOH is likely to be material to the Provincial Court proceeding contrary to ss. 698 and 699 of the Criminal Code. As such, the Justice of the Peace did not have jurisdiction to issue the subpeona, and it should be quashed on this basis. There's two important things to take from that passage: The request for the subpoena should be quashed (dropped, denied.) Mr. King has no evidence to show that the evidence he wants subpoenaed would have any bearing on his case. The thing that everyone is all excited about is the line above that: The CMOH Has No Material Evidence What that means is that the CMOH has no evidence with a bearing on the case. It does not say that the CMOH has no evidence. It says it has no evidence pertaining to the case. In other words, any proof the CMOH could provide that the COVID virus exists (or doesn't exist) has no bearing on Mr. King's case. Moreover, point (8.) says that Mr. King cannot prove that the evidence he wants from the CMOH would be relevant. The COVID deniers are all claiming that "The CMOH Has No Material Evidence" means that the CMOH can't prove that the COVID virus exists - but all that line means is that the proof is irrelevant to the case. Now the conflation: On July 28, 2021, the CMOH for Alberta announced plans to lift many public health restrictions. This occurred at about the same time that Mr. King received the document mentioned above. The result was that the COVID deniers have taken their misinterpretation of the words from the court and combined the independent announcement of the lifting of COVID restrictions in Alberta, Canada as a victory for their ideals. In truth, Ms. Hinshaw has been pushing to lift the restrictions for months. There is apparently even some speculation that Ms. Hinshaw has been pushing to lift the restrictions as part of some campaign to push privatization of the health care system in Alberta. Mr. King and his followers are totally misrepresenting the facts so that they can claim a "victory" for their beliefs. Note 1: This is not just my interpretation. Even in the places where Mr. King's video is spread and supported, many people who deny that COVID19 exists are also stating that Mr. King's interpretation is wrong. Thanks to @richardb for providing more information on the background. Things actually get worse for Mr. King's view when you see the entire background. The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms has obtained copies of the court transcripts and the subpoena denial. You can download or read the full documents at the given link. Because he is not a lawyer and is representing himself, Mr. King failed to provide notice before the trial that he was going to challenge the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (like the US Constitution.) Without that notice, the trial is only about whether or not he actually broke the law at the time he was issued the ticket for not following the health and public safety regulations during a protest on December 5, 2020. In July 2021, Mr. King tried to subpoena Ms. Hinshaw from the CMOH in order to get information he believes will prove that the regulations were invalid since COVID (he believes) doesn't exist. His subpoena request was denied because his case isn't about the validity of the law due to his failure to give notice of a challenge to the charter before the trial started. The trial is only about whether or not he broke the law. Whether the law was a good law or
not has no bearing on whether or not he broke it. Trial transcript from May 4, 2021. It includes the subpoena request and some other things. Response to the subpoena request. This is the document that is shown in the video as "proof" that the CMOH has no proof that COVID exists. The page after the one shown in the video puts the lie to the whole thing as it makes very clear why the subpoena request was denied. Here's what the video shows: Here's the page after: The Provincial Court proceeding is about the December 5, 2020 enforcement of the law (when Mr. King was issued the ticket), not the rationale for the law. The CMOH does not have, and Mr. King does not seek from the CMOH, any evidence about the ticket issued to Mr. King on December 5, 2020. Further, there can be no constitutional challenge to the Act, or order issued by the CMOH under the Act, in the absence of a proper notice to the Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General of Alberta under the Judicature Act , RSA 2000, c. J-2. Mr. King has not given any such notice in the Provincial Court proceeding. You might make an argument that Mr. King misunderstood point (8.) because he doesn't understand the special use of the term "material evidence." Points (10.) and (11.) are so clear as to exclude any misunderstanding. Mr. King ignored them, and misconstrued point (8.) to claim his "victory." | {
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52,156 | There's a study that concluded that wearing face masks for extended periods of time (8h-10h) causes a hypoxia: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8152240/ COVID-19 virus has caused the world’s deadliest pandemic. Early April 2020, the Delhi Government made it compulsory for people to wear face masks while going outdoors to curb disease spread. Prolonged use of surgical masks during the pandemic has been reported to cause many adverse effects. Intermittent hypoxia has been shown to activate erythropoietin (EPO leading to increased hemoglobin mass. This study including 19504 blood donors spanning over one and a half year shows that prolonged use of face mask by blood donors may lead to intermittent hypoxia and consequent increase in hemoglobin mass. It seems peer reviewed and published in a real journal, is it credible and authentic? Are the conclusions valid? | This study has way too many problems to draw such a conclusion. It can only be taken as an indication that it may be worth further study, or may corroborate or contradict other, more carefully controlled, studies. The main problem is simply that by the nature of the study, the authors are comparing two groups of people, at two different times and circumstances. They cant go back to the people in the second (2020/covid) group to check for individual data previously. Essentially they gamble that the profile of blood donors in Delhi did not change so that any change is likely due to mask-wearing. But that's an assumption, not a fact. There have been other studies in other fields where it appeared two things were linked, and only more careful studies showed that the assumptions were incorrect or dubious. So we must tread very carefully. A good paper will try to anticipate other factors ("confounds") that might have muddied the results, work around those it can, and at least highlight or try to estimate the effect of those it can't, so others are aware, and can either allow for it, form their own views, or design further experiments to address them. A bad paper will just conclude without such careful in-depth thought. We don't know what factors might exist, or which factors might have had an effect (if any). Without reading the paper in-depth, I can guess at a few that I'd expect a gold-plated experiment would address. For example: We need to consider how representative blood donors are, of society at large, to draw such a conclusion from blood-donor-only data. If you study only blood donors, you will potentially exclude or under-represent huge swathes of society, with other characteristics. Anyone under 18. Anyone over (say) 65. Ages with above or below average representation among donors (maybe the population is older, but donors tend to be younger or whatever). People with a huge range of specific medical conditions. Rural dwellers (fewer local centres). Probably some ethnicities/genders/intersections are perceived to be socially suspicious or dissuaded by their cultural norms, and won't be as represented. Probably much more. Perhaps fitter people have lowered Hb but someone with already lowered Hb doesn't have as much of a reduction. We just don't know. The criteria and characteristics of blood donors as a group is very different from society overall. So all we can say is these results apply to the kinds of people who donate blood. Not to "people generally". The tests used for blood donor measurements are often designed to emphasise a pass/fail level, rather than an exact amount (which doesn't matter so much) . As a result, how reliable and precise are the levels recorded? Do biases get introduced in the donation filtering process? For example, suppose women donors or people with certain clothing indicating religious beliefs, tend to have the measuring device placed slightly differently to avoid touching their religious clothing (or to go over it), or actual contact if that's taboo. Or women are seen as more fragile and borderline results more likely to be rounded down than up. Or Sikhs/Muslims seen as more suspicious, or whites/the poor (stereotype promiscuous/more likely infected) as more likely to have undetected HIV, and such bias tends to subtly impact how these donors are talked to/assessed/deterred. Or the questions asked are problematic for some groups. Or maybe some policy/criterion change had the effect of excluding some poor health people in the first group, but this had been removed prior to covid, so the excluded poor health people were prone to return in the 2nd group. Perhaps staff had more time to investigate borderline donors' health in a bit of depth before covid, so that borderline-pass cases were more often rejected after review, raising the average in the first group. As a variant on this, what if a more wary/cautious mindset existed in the medical services overall (including donor centre staff) due to the pandemic, and all measurements in 2020 were more likely to be rounded down than up, compared to normal where the staff are less looking for problems? Was the centre materially the same? Are we sure? People typically wait a while before a nurse measures them. Plenty of time that if the centre itself has some change, it could have had an effect. Suppose the AC is off or windows closed in the 2nd group to reduce spread, or patients are asked to wait in a more stuffy area, or the hospital waiting area was cleaned every hour by some cleaning product that lingered in the air and in high ongoing uses could affect a subset of patients breathing. Suppose by the time of the 2nd group, they called patients upstairs to a different room, and rushed their stats gathering (hospital pressures under covid) so patients were more likely to have run upstairs and been in slight oxygen debt. Suppose they used less experienced staff for taking patient stats, because of covid staff pressures, or they had budget pressures or a new supplier and their measuring devices were less well-calibrated or had systemic differences between the groups. Could time of year, pollen/asthma, air humidity (wetter or drier air), or other seasonal changes have had any effect? People may also pant if hot and the windows are closed, and CO2 could be higher, oxygen absorption may differ with moisture in some ways, or people may experience other changes to metabolism/physiology related to the time of year/weather. Did they match records of those donors who were in both groups, and analyse statistically the variation between Hb levels for individuals who appeared in both groups , or only compare the overall distribution of results at a group level? Did they compare also, say, a third or fourth group, taken at the same time of year as the 2020 (covid era) group but from say 2017 or 2018 , to check if two or three groups before the covid era group, were comparable? In which case that would help emphasise if there was something truly different with the 2020 (covid) group. They didn't, and this seems a crucial control, to me. Was the profile of blood donors affected by other events (causation not correlation) ? For example, we might speculate that (1) a lot of people had low-grade health conditions due to say, asymptomatic covid, (2) vaccine reactions, (3) changes to daily life affecting stress levels hence low-level changes to usual heart rate, breathing or other autonomous functions, for many people, (4) changes to diet and exercise, (5) reduction in health and respiratory/heart/blood system efficiency due to lockdowns or lack of work, (6) changes resulting from changing behaviours/commerce/travel, affecting polluters such as vehicles and industry, affecting the air in Delhi which is hugely polluted, or (7) changing how people breathed, if your work and life change due to lockdown then you might breathe deeper or lighter, (8) or be more/less exposed to the air if you have to change between walking/bus/tuktuk....... Also we can imagine what kind of people are more or less likely to donate blood during a lockdown or pandemic . Blood donation is unpaid in India, but we might speculate that people in less than excellent health or economic circumstances (which correlates strongly with poorer health and other conditions) are disproportionately deterred from donating normally, because there is not so huge pressure or reward, they work longer hours, or are less able to take time and travel to do so, and during a pandemic, they may have more time and opportunity, see news that hospitals need support, and see it as their duty to help others since they can now do so and it's urgently needed. So perhaps the health profile of those giving, will become poorer anyway. Or maybe it's the other way around. We can speculate that more affluent, economically secure, healthy, and educated, were more prone to stay at home and * not * go out for non-essential matters during the pandemic, because they were used to avoiding risks and watching their health, whereas poorer and less secure donors (on average having poorer health) were more likely to be fatalistic and carried on as normal. In addition, there are other relevant studies to guide us, already. Did they use those or refer to them? Some countries like Japan have long social histories of mask-wearing before covid . Are there studies of such groups? Do Japanese long term maskers, vs. new (2020) maskers vs non-maskers (pre-covid) vs. non-maskers (2020) show a consistent difference in oxygen levels? Masks are also worn in many other contexts. Are there studies showing changes to blood Hb in Japan or elsewhere, when a mask is worn for a long time, or does a person's average mask-wearing times changes ? For example, many jobs needed masks even before covid - forensic and lab technicians, "clean room" computer and technology workers, people working with hazardous chemicals or cement dust (construction)..... And in any case is it medically important or not , that's another issue. Are there studies showing actual effects? Like assessment tests of mental performance/ability, or long term vs short term effect, or effect of a few hours a day vs continual vs none, or recovery curves if any needed? And so on. The point is, without better comparisons and controls, we don't know what happened , literally, all we know is oxygen, as marked by Hb, is down among donors, but why? Could be any of these, or something else, or indeed, yes, could be masks. Fortunately, other credible studies do exist. This one for example studies the impact of mask-wearing for doctors during surgery. This one is in progress for exercisers. This one studies the effects of N95 masks during pregnancy. The overall conclusion of these seems to be that there is a moderate reduction in blood oxygen, and a slight elevation of demands on the body as a result. But not really enough to be a danger to health. More a level to be aware of and manage how hard you push yourself and your body while wearing a mask. That's paraphrased. You can read the originals, or google for others - I stopped at 3. | {
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52,170 | A recent BBC article says that the latest IPCC report says methane is responsible for 0.3°C out of 1.1°C of all cumulative warming since pre-industrial times. According to the IPCC, around 0.3C of the 1.1C that the world has already warmed by comes from methane. I searched the report for "0.3" and "methane" and didn't find that. Is this claim true? UPD: This is THE report, actually. I didn't find it there too, though (I searched for "0.3°C") | Yes, this seems to be (approximately) true. According to this paper from 2016. The total radiative forcing due to changes in the carbon dioxide concentration is roughly 1.6 watts per square meter (see figure 3), the same figure for methane is about 0.65 watts per square meter (allow for some error margin due to reading from a graph by eye). This corresponds to methane being responsible for just over 1/3 of the global warming effect, which correlates with the 0.3 °C of 1.1 °C mentioned by the BBC. I have not (yet) been able to find an explicit mention of this particular statement in the IPCC report . The report does however extensively discuss the role of (reduction of) methane emissions in managing future temperature rises (and cites the above paper). Of particular importance is the fact the methane stays in the atmosphere much shorter than carbon dioxide. A consequence of this is that effectively global warming due to CO 2 is proportional to the cumulative emission of CO 2 over human history, while the effect of methane is pretty much proportion to the current rate of emission. This means that we can obtain much more immediate (and relatively short term) effects on the global temperature by limiting methane emissions, while limiting CO 2 emissions gives a much slower (but long term effect). Methane can thus play an important role managing global warming while we are waiting on the effects of policy changes in CO 2 emissions. You were looking at the wrong IPCC report. The linked report is the special report from 2019, while the BBC article is about the first part of AR6 released yesterday, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/ . The BBC is most likely referring to (and slightly misquoting) the data in Figure SPM.2. This figure says that 0.5 °C of the observed rise in temperature can be attributed to methane, which is one third of the total 1.5 °C of temperature rise that can be attributed to greenhouse gasses. This is slightly higher than the sum of 1.1 °C temperature rise due to human influences, which also includes some other net negative effects. The BBC likely took the 1.1 °C total change, and one third attributable to methane and multiplied then (erroneously) to get the 0.3 °C figure. | {
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52,177 | We see this poster, for example from the official site of the city of Toulon: (Explaining that citizens now either need to show a certificate for having 1. covid-vaccination 2. covid-test negative younger than 48 hours or 3. covid convalescent for less than 6 months.) Which seems to be 'live' on the streets in France now. If you look closely, the lower left corner says: W-0333-001-2003 — 20 janvier 2020 Does this mean that the French government already 'knew' in January 2020 exactly how policy in late summer 2021 should be? For notability: that it did is the reading for this 'poster-date' found on many sites, like on Twitter at for example 'Occult_agenda' or 'President_Lisa_Trump' and many more by now, often labeled/hash-tagged as 'plandemic' or 'agenda' and discussed widely as "true, see…" … Especially noteworthy since the first confirmed coronavirus 'case' in France was announced four days after the alleged date of this poster: on January 24, 2020. (Despite the virus now known to be circulating much earlier, but still.) However, I see quite a bit of reason for doubt here: Could be a mere typo Could mean something like that the number immediately before is for identifying a regulation for 'any public posters' and the date simply gives the 'version number'/date for that regulation—similar to listing a paragraph-number of a law… So, the question is twofold: what is the exact meaning of/explanation for this date as printed on the poster, and when exactly was this poster commissioned? | According to several French newspapers, e.g. Liberation , the explanation is that the 2020 date was a typo. Plusieurs affiches sur le pass sanitaire indiquent une date au 20 janvier 2020, avant les premières mesures sanitaires en France. Elle est tout simplement due à une faute de frappe lors de la création du document, corrigée depuis. Several posters about the health pass indicate a date of 20 January 2020, before the first health measures in France. This is simply due to a typing error when the document was created, which has since been corrected. In slightly more detail, it seems the all posters were made on top of a re-used InDesign template, which wasn't updated. Le gabarit (sur le logiciel de graphisme Adobe InDesign, c’est un fond de document qui permet de conserver les mêmes éléments comme les en-têtes et pieds de pages pour différents visuels) utilisé pour les affiches sur les mesures barrières était erroné, à cause d’une «faute de frappe». «Le copyright sur l’affiche des gestes barrières devait être “20 janvier 2021” et non “20 janvier 2020”», explique le cabinet du Premier ministre, qui plaide «l’erreur humaine». The template (in the Adobe InDesign graphic design software, it is a document background that allows to keep the same elements such as headers and footers for different visuals) used for the 'barrier measures posters' was wrong, because of a "typing error". "The copyright on the 'barrier measures' poster should have been "20 January 2021" and not "20 January 2020"," explained the Prime Minister's office, pleading "human error". As additional proof that this was a copy-paste error, Liberation says that in the original PDF posted (now only available on the Wayback Machine), there is an additional error, namely that the title field in the PDF properties was not updated to mention the "health pass" but had the old title of "barrier gestures" that were featured in another poster. C’est sur ce même gabarit erroné qu’a été conçue la fameuse affiche sur le pass sanitaire. La preuve ? Dans le fichier PDF original du pass sanitaire, maintenant supprimé du site du gouvernement mais consultable dans les archives du site WayBackMachine, le titre du document mentionnait toujours «gestes barrières français» (au lieu du pass sanitaire). The same erroneous template was used to design the famous poster on the health pass. The proof? In the original PDF file for the health pass, now removed from the government website but available in the WayBackMachine archives, the title of the document still reads "French barrier gestures" (instead of the health pass). My screenshot (with evince) of the properties of the fumbled version via wayback machine linked by Liberation: The title field matches that of earlier posters properly on "barrier gestures", from March 2020, such as this one . Also note that the catalogue entry for the first "barrier gestures" poster has nearly the same verbiage (highlighted below) as in the subject field of the infamous poster on the health pass: "les gestes à adopter pour se protéger du coronavirus" in the subject field of the health-pass poster is out of place. The catalogue entry for the gestures poster has the verbiage
"les gestes à adopter pour se protéger et protéger les autres du coronavirus" (there's a slight addition there to "protect others"). There are newer versions of this "gestures" poster in which that verbiage can be found in the subject fields inside the PDF as well. The government website doesn't carry this particular version of the "gestures" anymore, but one (dated 14 October 2020) can be found carrying even the W-0333-001-2003 reference id, which was probably a duplication error as well; I think the reference ids are/were also supposed to be unique to each poster. | {
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52,181 | Top google result The Meat You Eat: Steroid Use in Livestock claims Each year, U.S. farmers raise some 36 million beef cattle. 99% of all beef cattle entering feedlots in the United States are given steroidal hormone implants to promote faster growth There are six anabolic steroids given, in various combinations, to nearly all animals entering conventional beef feedlots in the U.S. and Canada: Three natural steroids (estradiol, testosterone, and progesterone), and Three synthetic hormones (the estrogen compound zeranol, the androgen trenbolone acetate, and progestin melengestrol acetate). How much of this is true? | TLDR: roughly true, although the overall percentage of US feedlot cattle given such implants is around 90%, not 99%, according to 2013 USDA data, although it's higher in some US regions, for some types of cattle (and lower in others). Some corroborating evidence: only 2% of [2016] US beef exports (by weight) were in the Non Hormone Treated Cattle program. Basically, steroids are approved for used in beef for such purposes, but the amounts are [supposedly] regulated by testing the end-product. From AskUSDA (2019) Are hormones used for livestock safe for consumers? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that animal drugs and medicated feeds are safe and effective for animals, and that food from treated animals is safe for humans to eat. Certain steroid hormones have been approved for use at very low concentrations to increase the rate of weight gain and/or improve feed efficiency in beef cattle. No steroid hormones are approved for use in poultry. All of the steroid hormonal growth-promoting drugs are available for over-the-counter purchase in the United States, and are generally administered by the livestock producer at specific stages of production. Residue levels of these hormones in food have been demonstrated to be safe, as they are well below any level that would have a known effect in humans. Food Safety and Inspection Service enforces FDA rules through a sampling and testing program that is part of its overall meat and poultry inspection program. For more information visit FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine's website. If you want some kind of confirmation-by-repetition, albeit somewhat free of stats on the exact angle you ask, University of Minnesota [2019] says that the issue comes up in US trade disputes, with China nowadays. (There were similar disputes with the EU in the past. The US apparently won the latter at the WTO, although Wikipedia could be fairly misleading in that regard; the dispute apparently continued for one or two decades.): An update on beef exports and the hormone dispute [...] Unfortunately, there are barriers that prevent U.S. beef products from reaching their full export potential. China’s growing middle class makes it a prime location for U.S. beef exports. However, U.S. beef exports to China have been much less in volume than predicted. This is due to China’s restrictions on beef from cattle implanted with growth promoting hormones. Most cattle producers in the U.S. implant their cattle to improve production efficiency. China would need to revise its trade barriers to be more open to beef that has been implanted with growth promoting hormones for the U.S. to increase beef exports to that country. [...] Europe has had a non-hormone treated cattle (NHTC) program since 1999. Although the U.S. has been able to supply specifically to this program for a premium, the duty-free volume is limited to 20,000 metric tons and there is a loss of production efficiency. [...] The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of growth promoting hormones such as estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, trenbolone acetate and zeranol. More than 20 countries use these hormones regularly [...] Small pellets are implanted under the skin in the animal’s ear between the skin and the cartilage on the backside of the ear. The implants release the hormone compound over time into the bloodstream. Once the animal is harvested, the implanted ear is discarded. So there is no chance that an implant could enter the food supply chain. [...] In the retail case, beef cannot be marketed as “hormone-free” because all plants, animals and humans produce hormones naturally to properly regulate biologic functions. Beef can be labeled “naturally raised” or “raised without hormones” and must abide by the USDA voluntary claim standards “FSIS Labeling Guideline on Documentation Needed to Substantiate Animal Raising Claims for Label Submissions.” So I guess you/one could try to find out how much of the beef in the US is raised under the latter labels, which seemingly preclude the aforementioned implants. And finally some stats that may answer your question quantitively Implant formulations containing steroidal hormones with anabolic activity have been used safely in U.S. beef production since 1956. Commercially available implant formulations for use in U.S. beef cattle production contain naturally occurring estradiol-17β (E2), the synthetically modified prodrug of E2, estradiol benzoate (EB), or an estrogen-like compound (i.e. zeranol). These compounds are utilized either alone or in combination with progesterone, testosterone propionate, or trenbolone acetate in differing amounts and ratios of active compounds in the final implant pellets. [...] APHIS (2013) reported that more than 90% of all cattle entering the feedlot were administered an anabolic implant once, and approximately 80% of steers and 99% of heifers weighing less than 318-kg received 2 or more anabolic implants. This paper has a lot more detail on the compounds used. And the APHIS report cited has this graph: Unfortunately, as it's somewhat typical of other USDA reports I ran into, they break things down by farm ("feedlot") rather by number of heads/cattle... You'll note in that graph that the more intensive (larger headcount) farms have a higher use of implants.
So claiming that usage is north of 90% by headcount overall in the US is probably not an unreasonable extrapolation/conclusion, although 99% may be pushing it into exaggeration. Actually, the report itself says: Regardless of cattle weight or feedlot capacity,
about 90 percent of heifers and steers were implanted at
least once. (table 1) Somewhat interesting perhaps, the "Central" US region reached 99% for one category of cattle. According to some newer data , the number of NHTC (non-hormone treated) cattle has been increasing in the US, but again, this is [annoyingly] reported in feedlots not heads... The NHTC program is a USDA-approved program created in 1999, when the European Union and the United States agreed to control measures for trade of non-hormone treated beef. By definition, these cattle could not receive growth-promoting implants. The percentage of lots enrolled in the NHTC program grew from 5.2% to 23.8% from 2010 through 2018 (Table 1) [omitted here]. The largest increase was 8 percentage points from 2017 to 2018. Unfortunately, just because a feedlot participates in the NHTC programme doesn't help knowing what proportion of their cattle is NHTC.
Also that data is based on a sample of "67 summer video auctions" so it may or may not be representative of the US production as a whole... Some equally vague-ish 2020 data just from Nebraska , vague-ish because it lumps together all "value added programs", which include NHTC, but also unrelated brandings... A multitude of value-added programs are available to producers. Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC), Verified Natural Beef, Verified Grass-fed, organic, Nebraska produced, Whole Foods, Walmart-Prime Pursuits, and
BeefCARE, are some examples. It is estimated that 15-20 percent of the cattle in Nebraska are currently entered into some form of value-added program, up from 5-10 percent five years ago. And some 2017 export (numbers-based) discussion suggested that the NHTC programme didn't amount too all that much, tonnage-wise... only 2% of US beef exports by weight: CBW’s Steve Kay was the first to start applying scrutiny to qualifications for entry. He reported earlier that while USDA’s Non Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) program has been in existence since 1999, it appeared that only a tiny percentage of the 30 million cattle slaughtered in the US in 2016 went through the program. “Little data is available on the amount of NHTC beef produced and sold in the US, but beef exports to the European Union in 2016, which all must be NHTC beef, totalled only 23,500t, worth about $245,000,” he said. “This was just 9pc of the amount to beef shipped to Japan, the US’s largest market, in 2016, and just 2pc of total US exports of beef and beef variety meats. The US only half-filled its 45,000t tariff-free quota to the EU last year. Only 13 US entities are currently approved sources of NHTC, and all but one are small businesses.” “The tiny production of NHTC beef is important to consider when looking at prospective exports of US beef to China,” Mr Kay said. | {
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52,191 | The original article is on Newsweek which I personally consider a reliable source. The virginity check, which extended to military fiancées, involves someone placing two fingers into the vagina to determine whether or not they've had intercourse, due to the state of the hymen. | Yes The invasive virginity test: began at an unknown time but probably around 1965 (a retired police officer remembered having the test in 1965). was exposed by Human Rights Watch in 2014. At this time, according to the HRW report, it was defended by the military. was criticized by the Indonesian government's own Center for Political Studies in 2015 as a nonsensical practice and a violation of human rights. was still conducted in 2018 . This article mentions how the test was given to police recruits as well as prospective wives of soldiers. abandoned in 2021 as you discovered. Sharyn Graham Davies ( 2015 , 2018 ) traces the practice to the superstitious masculinity of the totalitarian Suharto regime. The worry was that the appearance of an unchaste woman would put the masculine integrity of the Indonesian state in doubt. Although the regime fell in 1999 and at that time Indonesia legally adopted a commitment to human rights, the military maintains many beliefs from Suharto times. From the 2018 study, explaining normative practices for hiring policewomen in Indonesia: Recruits must: be between the ages of 17.5 and 22; be unmarried and remain so for at least two years – after two years women can marry and with their husband’s permission continue working; pass psychological tests; have strong religious beliefs; have graduated from high school; not wear glasses; and be prepared for transfer to any region across Indonesia. Further, recruits must be over 165cm tall and have a body in proportion to their height, and they must be pleasing to the eye ( enak dilihat ), which often means having fair skin (see Saraswati, 2013). Body measurements are taken of recruits, with male officers literally measuring women’s bust sizes (Chanel Bombon, 2014). Recruits must also parade on a cat-walk in front of a male selection committee where their beauty is assessed. The general consensus among Indonesian activists seems to be that this practice was illegal but the law could not be enforced, as it was practiced by police themselves. Most Indonesians were probably not aware of this practice -- it was an internal police behavior. While America certainly doesn't do this, Americans sometimes are shocked to learn what police learn in training as well. | {
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52,204 | There are several articles and videos on the net claiming that the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai is not connected to a wastewater treatment plant by a sewer system, but that instead the sewage is transported away using trucks. Examples: inhabitat.com: "it isn’t hooked up to a municipal wastewater treatment system – so when you poop in the Burj Khalifa, that waste is actually trucked out of the city." gizmodo.com: "The trucks take all this poop to a sewage treatement facility outside of the city. It's the same with most skyscrapers in Dubai, according to Kate Ascher, author of The Heights." wonderfulengineering.com: "The skyscraper [...] is not connected to a municipal wastewater treatment system. In simple words, the poop collected from the building is carried out of city via trucks." en.wikipedia.org: "Sewage from areas of Dubai not connected to the municipal piped network at the time was collected daily from thousands of holding tanks across the city and driven by tankers to the city's only sewage treatment plant at Al-Awir." Is this claim true? | This story has an inkling of truth, but the specific claim raised in the title of the question is false. The one link in the question that is correct (or at least was correct in 2015) is the link to the Wikipedia page, which does not mention the Burj Khalifa. Sewage from the Burj Khalifa is not transported away by trucks. From Mechanical and Electrical Systems for the Tallest Building/Man- Made Structure in the World: A Burj Dubai Case Study A complete soil, waste and vent system from plumbing fixtures, floor drains and mechanical equipment arranged for gravity flow and, ejector discharge to a point of connection with the city municipal sewer is provided. A complete storm drainage system from roofs, decks, terraces and plazas arranged for gravity flow to a point of connection with the city municipal sewer system is provided. This story about the Burj Khalifa not being connected to the municipal sewage system got its start in a 2011 book by Kate Ascher, The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper . In 2011, Terry Gross interviewed Kate Ascher for an episode of NPR's Fresh Air. They talked about skyscrapers in general, about the Burj Khalifa, and then about Dubai's treatment of human waste: GROSS: Right. So you know, you write that in Dubai they don't have like, a sewage infrastructure to support high-rises like this one. So what do they do with the sewage? ASCHER: A variety of buildings there [Dubai]; some can access a municipal system, but many of them actually use trucks to take the sewage out of individual buildings. And then they wait on a queue to put it into a wastewater treatment plant. So it's a fairly primitive system. Note that Ascher did not claim in this interview whether the Burj Khalafa was or was not connected to the municipal sewer system. Apparently the specific claim started with a BoingBoing article written the very next day in a poorly researched article Gizmodo next used the BoingBoing article as the source for its poorly researched article. | {
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52,229 | It's very common in the USA for video games to come with a health warning that playing them can cause seizures. For example, the 2010 release of Sega's Sonic Colors for Nintendo Wii contains the following warning in its instruction manual: Some people (about 1 in 4000) may have seizures or blackouts triggered by light flashes or patterns, and this may occur when they are watching TV or playing video games, even if they have never had a seizure before. Is there medical evidence that video games can trigger seizures in people with no prior history of seizures? It's not clear if this warning is present due to actual medical evidence or whether it is more a reflection of best practices or regulatory compliance issues (e.g. the presence of a statute requiring the warning despite no medical evidence to support it). I have no problem believing that video games can be a identified risk factor for people who already have a diagnosed neurological disorder such as epilepsy. | Yes, video games can cause seizures, even in people without a prior history. For example, as described in the 1994 paper Video game induced seizures: Fifteen patients who experienced epileptic seizures while playing video games are described together with a review of 20 cases in the English literature. Nine of the 15 cases and all but two of the reported cases experienced their first seizure while playing video games. Reflex Seizures and Reflex Epilepsies cites the 1 in 4000 number, though this is for photosensitive epilepsy, while what it terms “video game-induced epilepsy” has many more triggers: photosensitivity pattern sensitivity emotional and cognitive excitation (excitement or frustration) proprioceptive stimulation (movement/praxis). Fatigue, sleep deprivation and prolonged playing are facilitating factors. For photosensitive epilepsy, there are now tools available that analyze video for seizure risks. PEAT is one example (free tool for non-commercial use), and HardingTest.com is another (paid service which performs the test required for TV broadcast in countries like the UK and Japan). This is great for analyzing cutscenes, and while it can be used on gameplay videos, there’s no guarantee that the player won’t do things (such as spin around in circles in a first person game) that could trigger a seizure (and sometimes this is done on purpose to trigger what is known as a self-induced seizure ). | {
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52,234 | Michael Yeadon, a former vice president at Pfizer and lately known as, e.g., making unsubstantiated claims about COVID vaccinations , has made the claim in question in a video interview (archived version available here ). Specifically, in the interview he says that Young people are not susceptible to COVID-19. If they acquire the virus they usually have no symptoms and they shrug it off very easily so they are not at risk. It's a crazy thing then to vaccinate them with something that is actually 50 times more likely to kill them than the virus itself. This claim has recently started circulating in social media, e.g., in the form of the picture below. It should be pointed out that the girl in the picture is almost certainly completely unrelated to the claim since the same girl appears, e.g., in the thumbnail of this YouTube video posted in the beginning of May, 2019. Is there any evidence supporting the claim that for young people, vaccinating against COVID-19 is substantially more dangerous than the virus? The text of the image (translated from Spanish) is: Children have 50 TIMES more probability of dying from the Covid vaccine than from the virus. Dr. Michael Yeadon, Former vice president of Pfizer Obtain more information on Defending The Republic.org/Covid Our principal responsibility as parents is protecting the children. | As per context from the Bannon-hosted interview, the claim was made in the context of the US FDA approval for vaccinating the 12-15 y.o., so I'll address it [only] in that regard. The claims is unsubstantiated from what I/we know so far, simply because there were zero deaths in the vaccinated group in the clinical trial that led to this (provisional) approval. No thromboses or hypersensitivity adverse events or vaccine-related anaphylaxis was seen. Few participants in any cohort (≤0.4% through 1 month after dose 2) had serious adverse events, and none were considered by the investigators to have been vaccine-related. No deaths were reported . Now in the video, immediately after the quoted claim he goes on to talk about VAERS data, but this is not directly in support of his previous claim (on youth) but to make another one comparing VAERS data with that from previous years (i.e. on other vaccines), which is another anti-vaxxer meme by now. Entertaining that he might have done a quick calculation based on VAERS data in youth... that still doesn't pan out for me to anywhere near his 50x claim. In a recent CDC report "8.9 million U.S. adolescents aged 12–17 years had received Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine" and the "CDC reviewed 14 reports of death after vaccination". The usual anti-vaxxer method (from the previously linked question) is to assume all are caused by the vaccine, which would give 14 / 8.9M = 1.57 deaths per million vaccines. On the other hand, again from CDC data (warning: it's a dynamic page, numbers may change in the future--see footnote below for what data was used) in the same 12-17 age group there are 125+102 = 227 deaths from Covid-19... out of (approx.) 1.136M + 0.773M = 1.909M infections in the same age group, so that's 227 / 1.909M = 118.9 deaths per million infections. So instead of 50:1, as Yeadon claims, the ratio I came up with is 1:75, in the opposite direction, even using anti-vaxxer methodology. The CDC insofar could not attribute any of those VAERS deaths as being caused by the vaccine; the report additionally says: Impressions regarding cause of death did not indicate a pattern suggestive of a causal relationship with vaccination; however, cause of death for some decedents is pending receipt of additional information. Despite his credentials, Yeadon has made quite a few other unsubstantiated claims about the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccines and generally downplayed the risk from the virus. Some of his more recent claims have been so improbable... that there was fact checking that he even said that... e.g. he prognosticated that vaccine booster recipients will die in two years and that it's part of a "mass depopulation" programme amounting to "deliberate execution potentially of billions of people". Screenshots of the (dynamic) CDC data used "Data as of: Sunday, August 22, 2021 1:18 PM ET. Posted: Sunday, August 22, 2021 3:03 PM ET": As a comment on the other answers, the mortality rate for a given disease (unlike the case or infection fatality rate ) is obviously very dependant on the prevalence of the disease, meaning the mortality rate goes to zero as prevalence goes to zero, because the denominator for the mortality rate is the whole population, not just those infected (or showing symptoms). And surely enough, disease prevalence is a considered a factor in deciding whether to vaccinate a population, even if IFR/CFR for that disease is (or would be) high in case of an outbreak, e.g. there's no campaign or general recommendation to vaccinate Americans against Ebola, but there is one for those who work in specific areas. But it's a textbook case of faulty generalization to say something like "Americans don't get vaccinated against Ebola, therefore Ebola is not dangerous/deadly". Even in the case of Covid-19 vaccination, some countries, e.g. Germany progressed from a recommendation ( in June ) to vaccinate just the adolescents who had additional risk factors to vaccinating everyone over 12 ( in August ). I haven't found a direct quote from STIKO (my German sucks), but they've been paraphrased as taking prevalence into account: The advisory board to the German government said the U-turn had been made due to an evaluation of new scientific observations and data that showed young people face a high risk of getting Covid due to the more transmissible Delta variant. and also the US rollout having had few problems in terms of side effects in children, plus the delta variant spreading... STIKO said that they adjusted their recommendations based on new data about the potential side effects of the currently-available coronavirus vaccines, particularly after the large-scale vaccination rollout across adolescent populations in the USA. According to the committee, almost 10 million young people have already been vaccinated in the US. [...] In addition, now that the Delta variant of COVID-19 is the dominant strain in Germany, STIKO said that mathematical modelling shows there is a significantly higher risk of young people getting infected in the event of a possible fourth wave in the autumn. So, yeah, disease prevalence matters in such decisions, but it's not clear at all [to me] from the Bannon interview that Yeadon is talking about this issue. | {
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52,240 | The source is in this tweet by Tim Ferriss dated Sep 10, 2014. I've listened to the podcast referenced there ( correct link ) and searched the transcript of that podcast on YouTube , but couldn't find any of those six sentences. Another "source" is this Australia Business Insider article , which points to the source of that quote being Blake Masters's Notes from Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup 2012 class at Stanford, but couldn't find any advice to program your mind there either. | No: This is ¾ of the/a slogan of/blurb for the tabletop RPG Eclipse Phase , not a quote from Peter Thiel. Eclipse Phase describes itself as “the post-apocalyptic game of transhuman horror”. The full quote is Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it. You can see the quote on the page for the first edition of the game, from 2009 ; you can see that this goes back to the release of the book by looking back in the Wayback Machine and finding the August 26, 2008 version of their page advertising the core rulebook book back when it was not yet released . This quote also did not previously originate with Peter Thiel. While one can’t prove a negative, the evidence points to the following sequence of events: Blake Masters takes a course with Peter Thiel in (northern hemisphere) Spring 2012 at Stanford and publishes his notes on the class on his blog. Blake Masters’s blog, at the time , used the Eclipse Phase quote as an unsourced epigraph in the masthead. On or around April 3, 2012, John Chew assembles a partial PDF of Masters’s notes and includes the unsourced Eclipse Phase quote between Masters’s name and the link to Masters’s blog post which links to the notes. Business Insider misunderstands Masters’s blog or Chew’s PDF thereof and attributes the quote to Peter Thiel in very similar listicles published on January 30, 2014 on Business Insider India and Business Insider Australia (the latter of which is currently broken). The quote and the incorrect attribution spread from there. Here’s the evidence. Per Google, there are no references online to this quote colocated with Thiel’s name prior to January 1, 2012 , besides a note on the TVTropes page for Eclipse Phase (which contains the quote) that Eclipse Phase contains a character named “Petra Thiel”. ( If I include “Peter” in the search , I also get an “Ask Ubuntu” page that’s picked up a link to this question. I won’t mention Stack Exchange links in what follows; during the duration of this research, even the time-bound results have changed as Google indexes Stack Exchange pages that point to this page.) Extending the search through January 1, 2013 explains the reference you found to Blake Masters’s CS183 notes: We find a PDF from April 3, 2012 (per Google and per the date in the PDF) of some of the notes from said Blake Masters on the class (CS183: Startup) he took from Peter Thiel at Stanford in Spring 2012. The PDF is not from Masters , however; it’s Masters’s notes collected by John Chew . The PDF starts with the full four-part Eclipse Phase quote, unsourced, between Masters’s name and a link to a page on Masters’s tumblr , which contains links to the same notes without the Eclipse Phase quote. If we look back in time, we can see that at least between April 17, 2012 and November 11, 2012 , Masters’s blog used the full Eclipse Phase quote, unsourced, as part of the masthead on every page; this is potentially the source for the quote in Chew’s PDF. After November 11 2012 , Masters got the domain blakemasters.com instead of blakemasters.tumblr.com , and excluded his site from the Wayback Machine ; Masters’s website returns to tumblr.com in the Wayback Machine on July 12, 2021 , when it looks identical to today’s version without the quote. As of now, Masters’s tumblr page links to more notes than the PDF; the PDF only links to the notes for classes 1–5, whereas the tumblr page has notes for classes 1–19. Given the April date, this is probably because the PDF was assembled before the notes were complete; however, the Wayback Machine version of the notes from April 17, 2012 only includes classes 1–4, so the timing presented here is probably not accurate down to the “day” level of granularity. Extending the search through January 1, 2014 adds no more results, but extending it one more month, through Feburary 1, 2014 , finds the first explicit connections between the Eclipse Phase quote and Peter Thiel: there are now two more results, very similar Business Insider listicles published on January 30, 2014 on Business Insider India and Business Insider Australia (the latter of which is currently broken). They both attribute the full (four-part) Eclipse Phase quote to Peter Thiel. They source it to Masters’s blog during the period where it was off Tumblr ( http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup , which now redirects to the page we were looking at above ), so we cannot examine the exact contents; however, as we see above, there are two plausible paths for associating the Eclipse Phase quote with the course notes, either from the blog’s masthead (if the quote was still present) or Chew’s PDF. After this, the association of the Eclipse Phase quote with Thiel begins to spread, although still with all four parts and mostly not as something directly attributed to Thiel. Extending the search four more months, through June 1, 2014 , finds the archive of a blog by Hervé Lebret which refers to the full Eclipse Phase quote as “the sentence which comes at the top of each series of class notes”, not as something by Thiel in particular. Extending the search four more months, through October 1, 2014 , finds a September 23, 2014 blog post by Joshua Berk that attributes the Eclipse Phase quote to Peter Thiel in the blog’s sidebar; it’s not clear when this quote was added, as the page is not in the Wayback Machine. Extending through November 1, 2014 , we get a reference which cites the quote correctly: a blog post from October 4, 2014, by L.M. Sacasas cites the Eclipse Phase quote as “that tag line on Masters’ website”. Running the search for 2015 gives three results: an image incorrectly attributing the full Eclipse Phase quote to Peter Thiel ; and two versions, the official web page and an unofficial PDF , of a Harper’s article entitled “Come With Us If You Want to Live: Among the apocalyptic libertarians of Silicon Valley”, by Sam Frank, which describes the Eclipse Phase quote as Masters’s “motto” which comes from “a science-fiction role-playing game”, and mentions it after talking about Masters’s Tumblr. From 2016 on , we mostly see random references to the quote that are incorrectly attributed to Peter Thiel, typically in lists of quotes or as one-off comments, with a few exceptions (not to mention the many Stack Exchange pages that mention this question): Blake Masters’s “Talent Bureau” page features the abbreviated quote in some sort of “tagline”-like position, and does not attribute it; a Reddit comment by /u/gynoidgearhead cites the full quote as “ Eclipse Phase tag line (later cribbed by Peter Thiel)”; and of course, this question itself , which by now has gone into some detail on why the Eclipse Phase quote is just that, and not due to Peter Thiel :-) Some extra context about Eclipse Phase , to help see why the quote might have become connected to Peter Thiel: Eclipse Phase describes itself, as mentioned above, as “the post-apocalyptic game of transhuman horror”, and involves player characters with separate stats for their mind and body (“ego” and “morph”), hence the first two points; they are part of a conspiracy to protect humanity, hence the fourth point. The third point is thematically linked, as mind uploading allows for cheating death and genetic engineering is omnipresent in the setting. As the first three points are broadly transhumanist, and Peter Thiel is ( per Wikipedia’s categorization scheme ) at least something of a transhumanist, this could be the reason for people’s enduring belief in the spurious connection. | {
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52,294 | Wikipedia says so ( since 2013 ), and there's a list on IAEA website that seemingly backs that up... but it's not wholly clear what the list actually means (image/table cropped to Poland.) Wikipedia's write-up/interpretation: The states that have ratified the Convention but have since denounced it and withdrawn from the agreement are Bulgaria, Hungary, Mongolia, and Poland. On the other hand, Poland's gov't website says they are (still) in... The PAA bears responsibility for the performance by Poland as the contracting party of below treaties, conventions and international agreements: [...] Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, done at Vienna on 26 September 1986 (Date of ratification by Poland: 24.2.1988) Image cropped to remote lots of other treaties: So, did Poland really withdraw, i.e. fully denounce the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident ? (And if so, when?) Hungary's website is less clear on dates, but also says : Hungary is a contracting party to the following international conventions on the peaceful, safe and secured use of atomic energy: [...] Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident
(ENC) So the Wikipedia claim seems in doubt on that as well. | I think the reference to withdrawal may have been a mistake. treaties.un.org has a status table for this treaty. They show that Poland ratified the treaty in 1988 but with the following reservation : The Polish People's Republic does not consider itself bound by the provisions of paragraph 2 of article 11 of the Convention. This paragraph stated that parties to the treaty agreed to have disputes arbitrated by the International Court of Justice. Paragraph 3 explicitly allowed parties to make such declarations, essentially "opting out" of that arbitration process. In 1997, Poland withdrew this reservation , so that they now agree to the entire treaty, including the ICJ arbitration clause. I think this may account for the "withdraw" in the IAEA table, which may then have been misinterpreted by the Wikipedia editors as meaning denunciation. | {
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52,320 | In June, George Takei tweeted : Republicans are mocking Biden for showing grief over the loss of his dog. If you lose your dog but feel nothing, you might be a Republican. As of today, this tweet has 14K retweets and 100K likes. Did Republicans mock Biden for showing grief over the loss of his dog? Are there any prominent examples? | I'm not sure what level of Google-exhaustion one needs to show before drawing a negative conclusion on an existence question like this, but it's probably quite safe to conclude that there are no prominent Republicans who have done this, or there would be a media furore, by analogy with the one that did happen further back in the spring when Newsmax aired a weird segment about the same dog--something about the dog not being presidential enough in their view. (And I mean there was even coverage in the foreign press, at least in the French and Spanish press about that incident.) There is one fairly obscure website that makes a similar claim to the Tweet in question, but the only examples it gives are at best some mockery of the level of news coverage that the dog's death had, and some rather odd numerology stuff. Similarly with the latter, there's some QAnon talk of a secret message or some such behind the death of Biden's dog. None of those seem to meet the exact claim that Biden's grief reaction was mocked. It turns out that's not the whole story surrounding the reactions to the dog's death. There was some press coverage ( even international) of an article (and related tweet) by National Review columnist Dan McLaughlin. Laurel's answer has more details on this. | {
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52,365 | British energy company Octopus Energy claims on their blog : If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by 2060. This doesn't seem very far away. Is this true? | No First, this figure is for petroleum. For coal, the figure is much larger. Some of the figures I found for coal were 133 years , "anywhere from 68 years to a hundreds of years" , and 357 years (in that last one, "we" may be referring to just the US). Second, this number is for proven oil reserves. Proven oil reserves is oil that is (1) known and can be extracted (2) at current market prices (3) with current technology. More deposits being found, oil prices increasing, and better extraction technology can all increase the amount of proven oil reserves. According to Forbes , only about a third of oil is extracted. This would give another century in current oil reserves, plus all the oil left over from past reservoirs: And beyond just crude oil, which is about 83% of total supply, there is a rapidly expanding stockpile of biofuels, natural gas liquids, synthetic fuels, and other sources that will continue to broaden the availability of liquid fuels. Additionally, ~66% of the oil in a reservoir is frequently left behind because it's too expensive or difficult to extract. Some of this is not practical to recover for any reasonable price. Just how much is "left" is much fuzzier than it might seem at first glance, but it's certainly more than the forty years that Octopus Energy claims. | {
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52,379 | The phrase "Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the Bible" is attributed to Napoleon on many sites but there are no further details (date, context,etc.) available, nor a trace of primary sources. Some examples: AZ Quotes , Quote Fancy , Love Expands . | It's difficult to prove a negative, especially when the purported quote is a translation with no reference to the original. But signs point to no. I tried searching for a possible French original and found nothing, but there are so many possible ways this could have been said that the only word that is very likely to be present is “Bible” (spelled the same in French). Most of Napoleon's writings are available in searchable form online (but not all of them, and it's possible that he could have said it and not written it). I search for occurrences of “Bible” in Napoleon's writings on Gallica (this includes books written by others that include large amounts of quoted text), and searched for "Bible" throughout all the documents (which have some overlap) and found nothing remotely like this sentence. The OCR quality is mostly good, but a few are bad, so I could have missed something. Of particular interest is the Dictionnaire Napoléon, ou Recueil alphabétique des opinions et jugements de l'empereur Napoléon Ier (“Napoleon dictionary, being an alphabetical collection of the opinions and judgements of the emperor Napoleon I”), which jumps from Bessières to Bichat (no bible ) and from Crevier to cuirassiers (no croire or croyance or other word from the same family, and I can't think of a word with another root that would be plausibly translated by “believe”). Searching in English, it's notable that on Google Books , there are no occurrences of "will believe anything as long as" "bible" before 2000. The earliest hit is an article published by the Creation Research Society which presents the exact quote as a “famous quip”, without attribution. “Bible Counseling” by Mallet et al. 2003 is the earliest book I can find that attributes the quote to Napoleon. Like all of its successors, it doesn't provide any specific reference. (Note: Google Books links may or may not work for you due to Google's restrictions. Repeating the search should work, but some results may be region-restricted.) In conclusion, this seems to have been made up and passed around by English-speaking Protestant apologists. (I have to say, though: I can understand making up a quote like this, but why on earth attribute it to Napoleon?) | {
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52,409 | According to Unherd's summary of a CMU study [Title:] The most vaccine-hesitant group of all? PhDs [...] more surprising is the breakdown in vaccine hesitancy by level of education. It finds that the association between hesitancy and education level follows a U-shaped curve with the highest hesitancy among those least and most educated. People with a master’s degree had the least hesitancy, and the highest hesitancy was among those holding a Ph.D. The National Review also reproduced the graph above, with even fewer details. I suspect the study only concerned Covid-19 vaccines, but that's not too clear in Unherd's take. So is this a true relationship in general (between PhDs and vaccines in the US), or particular to one specific period and vaccine? As a "sanity check" I looked for surveys inside universities, and found one , which doesn't quite match those findings above that supposedly was using a nation-wide representative sample. In this Wayne State survey, graduate students and post-docs had less hesitancy than undergraduates, and faculty had even less than both: Granted industry-working PhDs would not be capture in the latter. There's also the issue that a university faculty is substantially older than students. | The graph accurately represents the survey result but the survey cannot be taken as an accurate representation of the true position. If you follow the link to the paper that Unherd has you'll see the following data on page 17: The fourth column is "COVID-19 vaccine hesitant % (95% CI)". The data itself came from an online survey via Facebook: This analysis used the COVID Trends and Impact Survey (CTIS) 9 , created by the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and conducted in collaboration with Facebook Data for Good. It appears they've used a subset of the data for their paper (as a side note the January 6th start date does coincide with an update made to the survey ): The analysis sample includes 5,121,436 survey responses from participants who completed the survey at least once January 6 to May 31, 2021 The survey itself does have some published limitations . Looking through those, there are two caveats I find noteworthy. The first is the second sample limitation: Non-response bias. Only a small fraction of invited users choose to take the survey when they are invited. If their decision on whether to take the survey is random, this is not a problem. However, their decision to take the survey may be correlated with other factors—such as their level of concern about COVID-19 or their trust of academic researchers. If that is the case, the sample will disproportionately contain people with certain attitudes and beliefs. This implies the potential for the sample to be unrepresentative of the US population as all self-selected surveys inevitable are. The second caveat is from the section about response behavior : While less than 1% of respondents opt to self-describe their own gender, a large percentage of respondents who do choose that option provide a description that is actually a protest against the question or the survey; for example, making trans-phobic comments or reporting their gender identification as “Attack Helicopter”. Additionally, these respondents disproportionately select specific demographic groups, such as having a PhD, being over age 75, and being Hispanic, all at rates far exceeding their overall presence in the US population, suggesting that people who want to disrupt the survey also pick on specific groups to troll. The first caveat indicates an unknown level of reliability about the views of the population, while the second indicates that the responses are clearly not representative. Because PhDs make up around 2% of the sample size, having even "less than 1% of respondents" attempt to disrupt the data for PhDs means we cannot be confident about the accuracy of such data as representing the population. As such we need to take the data for PhDs with a major grain of salt. It could still be useful to look at the data for PhDs over time, but any comparison with other groups cannot be trusted without further studies being done that reach the same conclusions. A truly trustworthy analysis would need to randomly sample the population as self-selecting surveys can be very, very unrepresentative. | {
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52,441 | Telegraph.co.uk reports that 'A Black History Month website' has made claims such as : [white people are the] genetically defective descendants of albino mutants [white man can] “fantasise that he is genetically equal to the black male”. Telegraph did not mention which website was in question, nor was there direct link to (archived) source.
Archives of most likely source blackhistorymonth.org.uk/ has many edits and rudimentary search yielded me with nothing. Thus, source is wrong or claims never existed. Either way, I remain skeptical. Did 'A Black History Month website' make claims that whites are genetically inferior? If so, which site? | It is indeed the site that you found. The article was entitled " Frances Cress Welsing: Melanin Theory ". Frances Cress Welsing was a homophobic black supremacist writer. She claimed that the melanin in the skin of black Americans is able to talk to plants and can pick up signals from outer space and sense the existence of extrasolar planets . The website also had a part 2 and part 3 which credited Welsing with "changing our conversations on racism". The Telegraph article notes that this website is privately run, "controlled by a white man," and that "one of the founders of the Black History Month celebration" complained about the website. It's not clear what this privately run website has to do with the UK's Black History Month. Anyone can create a website about anything. | {
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52,448 | It's been somewhat mysteriously reported that FB employees couldn't fix some router (BGP) misconfiguration in a timely manner because "the people trying to figure out what this problem was couldn't even physically get into the building" to work out what had gone wrong. It's also mentioned that "The shutdown meant ads weren't served for over six hours across its platforms." FB may not want to say more because of embarrassment or something, but it sounds like a rather odd story. Is there any corroborating evidence that lack of physical access was the culprit for the prolonged outage? | It took "extra time" to get onsite. From Facebook's report about the outage : ...these facilities are designed with high levels of physical and system security in mind. They’re hard to get into, and once you’re inside, the hardware and routers are designed to be difficult to modify even when you have physical access to them. So it took extra time to activate the secure access protocols needed to get people onsite and able to work on the servers. This doesn't break down how long it took them to get into the building vs. how long it took them to be able to modify the hardware and routers. It's not too hard to imagine how this distinction could be lost and attributed solely to just being unable to enter the building. We do know that getting into the building did prolong the outage to some degree, though for all we know it could have been just a few minutes. | {
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52,457 | I would like to verify the following chart (e.g. take Norway) in a New York Times article : (Note that multiple references in the article appear to define a toddler as being 0-2 years of age. They say "Denmark, for example, spends $23,140 annually per child on care for children 2 and under," which matches their graph.) Looking through OECD links and searching their website, I found this OECD article updated September 2021: The graph says Norway spends $11,900 PPP adjusted on child care per toddler (an excel file can be downloaded from the article for the exact numbers on the graph). There is no reason for this $11,900 statistic to substantially disagree with the NYT's $29,726 except if the units disagree. The NYT could be using nominal instead of PPP adjusted dollars, and they could define children differently (e.g. is it per child enrolled or just living in the country). Neither of these explanations seem to work. We can try to unadjust from PPP to nominal using the OECD PPP index , the max value for Norway since 2017 is 154 over 100. Thus, the maximum nominal amount I could reasonably get for Norway is: $11,900 X 1.54 = $18,326 nominal child care per toddler . The enrollment rate interpretation does not work because it balloons the US number into the few thousands. The reasoning in the article suggests they might have used spending as a percent of GDP to somehow get their number. However, I can't find the relevant calculations anywhere, e.g. at The Hamilton Project mentioned in their chart's source. Given the $11,900 PPP per child statistic directly from the OECD, I can't see how the NYT chart could possibly be correct? Is anyone able to verify the $29,726 number or show how the NYT's calculated it--and comment on its correctness? (Ideally, this verification would be based on OECD sources since that's the source in the NYT graphic. Of course, any answers that might shed light are welcome.) | Following the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) links in the story, these numbers appear to be not generated by the New York Times, but straight from OECD's "Indicator B2. How do early childhood education systems differ around the world?" See column 6 in Table B2.3 "Financing of early childhood education and care (ISCED 0) and change in expenditure (2018)" https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b35a14e5-en/1/3/3/2/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/b35a14e5-en&_csp_=9689b83a12cab1f95b32a46f4225d1a5&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book#chapter-d1e12572 OECD's methodology for deriving those numbers is explained in " ANNEX 3: SOURCES, METHODS AND TECHNICAL NOTES " of Education at a Glance 2021, which credits some Norway-specific figures to Statistics Norway . | {
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52,474 | UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps claims that Brexit is not one of the causes of the UK lorry driver shortage which is causing shortages of food in supermarkets and shortages of fuel in petrol stations. Is he correct? (Accepting that the driver shortages likely have more than one cause and that Covid is likely to be a contributing factor). He claims that countries within the EU have their own driver shortages which are equal to or greater than those in the UK. Is this true? Asked about the role of Brexit in the driver crisis, he said EU countries such as Poland and Germany had “very large and even larger” shortages. “I’ve seen people point to Brexit as the culprit here; in fact, they are wrong,” he said. “Because of Brexit, I’ve been able to change the law and alter the way our driving tests are taken in a way I could not have done if we were still part of the EU. Brexit has actually provided part of the solution.” Grant Shapps will do ‘whatever it takes’ to fix lorry driver shortage | As of today, it doesn't appear to be the case that Germany is suffering from a similar fuel shortage as the UK, and it's not affected by a "driver crisis" as severe as the one in the UK. This contradicts what Grant Shapps claimed on September 24. Apart from my daily experience in Germany, I'm basing this argument on reputable German newspapers who report on the UK crisis as an unusual event. However, Shapps may still have a point when he says that the shortage is not only caused by Brexit. For instance, German newspaper Die Zeit points out in a recent analysis that there are additional causes, and warn that Germany may be affected in the near future as well: Der Fahrermangel [in Großbritannien] wirkt sich nicht nur auf Tankstellen aus. Er führt auch dazu, dass in Supermärkten Regale leer bleiben. Das hat zwar mit dem Brexit zu tun, denn ausländische Fahrer ohne Aufenthaltsgenehmigung mussten das Land nach dessen Austritt aus der EU verlassen. Aber eigentlich liegt das Problem tiefer. DeepL.com translation: The driver shortage [in the UK] isn't just affecting gas stations. It is also leaving supermarket shelves empty. It's true that this has to do with Brexit, because foreign drivers without residence permits had to leave the country after it left the EU. But the problem actually lies deeper. According to their analysis, German transport companies are already understaffed. While the UK is requiring about 100,000 additional truck drivers, there is a need for between 45.000 and 60.000 drivers in Germany as well. The article states that the shortage is due to changes in the overall demography of Germany, the general unattractiveness of the job, the abolition of obligatory military service in 2011 (recruits used to be able to acquire a driving license for trucks in the military), and fierce competition by drivers from other EU countries with lower wages. The German magazine Focus published a similar analysis , citing a transport company representative who warns that conditions like in the UK are not impossible in Germany as well: "Der Fahrer-Mangel wird dazu führen, dass Verhältnisse wie in Großbritannien auch bei uns nicht auszuschließen sind. Zurzeit kompensieren wir den Mangel mit Fahrern aus dem Ausland, doch in Polen zum Beispiel werden mittlerweile so gute Löhne gezahlt, dass das Arbeiten in Deutschland für die Fahrer nicht mehr so attraktiv ist. Und es mangelt an Nachwuchs. In meiner Spedition zum Beispiel habe ich normalerweise pro Jahr vier Auszubildende – aktuell ist es nur einer", so Linnenkamp. Deepl.com translation: "The shortage of drivers will mean that conditions like those in the UK cannot be ruled out here either. We are currently compensating for the shortage with drivers from abroad, but in Poland, for example, wages are now so good that working in Germany is no longer so attractive for drivers. And there is a shortage of young talent. In my freight forwarding company, for example, I normally have four trainees per year - currently there is only one." German public-service broadcaster ZDF similarly acknowledges a driver shortage in Germany. According to their figures, there is about a million active German truck drivers, and an annual need of an additional 20,000 drivers to compensate for retiring or quitting personnel. Yet, their article quotes industry representatives who emphasize that the situation in Germany is still very different from the UK. Aktuell sei man von einer Einschränkung der Grundversorgung, wie derzeit in Großbritannien, weit entfernt, betont der Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik (DSLV). Langfristig müsse der Beruf jedoch an Attraktivität gewinnen, damit künftig keine Versorgungsengpässe entstehen. DeepL.com translation: At the moment, we are far away from a restriction of the basic supply, as is currently the case in Great Britain, emphasizes the German Freight Forwarding and Logistics Association (DSLV). In the long term, however, the profession must become more attractive so that no supply bottlenecks occur in the future. To summarize : As far as Germany is concerned there is no fuel shortage, unlike in the UK. If Grant Shapps claims that EU countries such as Poland and Germany had very large and even larger shortages, this claim is not true at least for Germany. However, other EU countries including Germany do see a shortage in truck drivers which may cause interruptions of the supply chains in the future. Brexit, then, may indeed not be the only culprit for the current situation in the UK – although closing the job market to drivers from the EU will without a doubt have contributed to it. | {
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52,583 | It's not an unheard of notion that employers, particularly large tech companies, might use automated systems to reject candidates, without any human involvement. This article claims the following: ... an ATS will scan your resume for keywords and relevant work history to make a snap decision on whether you will advance to the next round ... If this automated rejection was considered a useful feature by employers, then I would expect that Applicant Tracking System (ATS) companies to be advertising it. That is, I would expect descriptions on their websites talking about how their system accurately filters out bad resumes/CVs. But, when I tried to use a search engine to search for such advertisements, I instead found just stuff about claimed ways to "beat the bots" and get a resume/CV past these filters. The existence of those sites does not prove companies are now, or ever did do this. Going directly to the companies websites themselves hasn't turned up any claims about entirely automated screening yet either. On one ATS company's website, I saw mentions of using AI/Machine Learning but I was unable to find any specific claims of automated rejection of resumes/CVs. Some examples of claims about using AI/ML regarding applications from this page created by an ATS company : Allow recruiters to immediately identify and prioritize highly qualified candidates through automated review of 100% of inbound resumes Help sourcers, recruiters, and hiring managers find top talent by surfacing profiles similar to their favorite candidates in seconds That first claim seems too vague to say whether it includes entirely automated rejection. The second one sounds like it would influence the order in which resumes are looked at, including making some resumes not get looked at by a human at all, because they end up at the bottom of the pile. But, that's not the same thing as rejecting a candidate entirely automatically. Is there any evidence that any ATS companies have definitively advertised entirely automated rejection, now or in the past? | I only looked at the first ATS system I found when I searched ( Freshteam ). It seems to have the features you're asking about: Automate tasks for screening better Now that the incoming candidate information is correctly categorised and structured after parsing, your ATS can identify candidate filters better. Using Autopilot you can automate certain screening tasks and work more efficiently. So, if you want to reject a candidate with less than 3 years experience, the parsed profile will be processed and rejected by your ATS automatically. You simply need to provide a condition and action to your autopilot, and it will take care of the rest. The page also mentions the ability to "easily filter for candidates using keywords and tags". | {
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52,656 | I recently found an image of a tweet shared on Reddit showing CNN using a photo of Darell Brooks (the man who recently drove an SUV into a parade crowd) that makes him look more white. Presumably, that would be to fit a political agenda. The tweet also claims this what not the first time they've done this. Did CNN use "lightened" photos of Brooks, and is this something they have a history of doing? The original tweet : | No. The source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/22/us/what-we-know-about-suspect-in-waukesha-parade-tragedy/index.html credits 'Waukesha Sheriff's Department'. The NY Post has an article where they say of the same photo Darrell Brooks, the suspect in the deadly Christmas parade attack in
Waukesha, Wisconsin, was captured in a glaring new mugshot ahead of
his first court appearance Tuesday on charges of intentional homicide. The 39-year-old bearded suspect is seen in dreadlocks and wearing a
green jail vest in the wide-eyed mug, which was taken Tuesday morning. The images are identical. The source is Waukesha Sheriff's Department, not something CNN have altered. CNN: NY Post: | {
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52,676 | A tweet claims WHO skipped a letter of the Greek alphabet when designating new COVID-19 variants to avoid using "xi". News of new Nu variant, but WHO is jumping the alphabet to call it Omicron, so they can avoid Xi. Is there any information why it was skipped? Can it be verified that the letter "Xi" was skipped for political reasons, to avoid the connection to the Chinese president Xi Jinping? | Yes, according to a reporter for the Telegraph : A WHO source confirmed the letters Nu and Xi of the Greek alphabet had been deliberately avoided. Nu had been skipped to avoid confusion with the word "new" and Xi had been skipped to "avoid stigmatising a region", they said. Paul Nuki | {
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52,709 | From Reuters today, in the article Supreme Court conservatives appear willing to gut abortion rights : About one in four American women has had an abortion, [attorney Julie] Rikelman added. According to the article, this statement was made during oral arguments. Per the Associated Press , the case being argued is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . Is the quoted statement true? | TL/DR: Rikelson's actual claim is supported by a 2017 estimate. The quoted claim is slightly different. Population Group Abortion Rates and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion: United States, 2008–2014 was published in 2017, but was based on 2008-2014 data (so these figures are around a decade old). They used survey data from around 8,380 women who had had abortions, and other sources to make an estimate of the lifetime incidence of abortion. an estimated 23.7% of women aged 15 to 44 years in 2014 will have an abortion by age 45 years if the 2014 abortion rates continue throughout their reproductive lives. This is a drop from earlier estimates: The proportion of women expected to have an abortion by age 45 years declined from 30% in 2008 to 24% in 2014. This pattern parallels, but was less pronounced than, the decline in the abortion rate during that same period. That nearly 1 in 4 women is anticipated to have an abortion during her reproductive years demonstrates that it is not an uncommon experience. The paper describes several potential sources of error and bias in the production of this estimate, but it seems a reasonable basis from which to make the claim. @fredsbend makes a legitimate point that there is a nuanced distinction between the claim in the question that 1 in 4 women have had an abortion, versus this reference that estimates (slightly under) 1 in 4 women will have had an abortion. I investigated what was actually said in the Supreme Court case being discussed: On page 48 of the transcript (p49 of the pdf), attorney Julie Rikelson says: one out of every four women makes the decision to end a pregnancy. I read that as matching the study, and shows that the Reuters article slightly misquotes her. Meanwhile, on page 96 of the transcript (p97 of the PDF), the Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar claims: one in four American women have had an abortion which is subtly different and would be an overestimate, compared to the study result. | {
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52,720 | Psiram has a page about conspiracy theories around covid vaccines and them supposedly containing graphene oxide and graphene hydroxide. They link to credible sources debunking the claim that vaccines contain graphene oxide, but their section on graphene hydroxide is unsourced: Im November 2021 verbreitete der deutsche Chemiker Andreas Noack die Verschwörungstheorie, dass Hersteller von Corona-Impfstoffen heimlich ihren Impfstoffen Graphenhydroxid beimischten. Das angeblich verimpfte Graphenhydroxid verhalte sich im menschlichen Körper wie ein "molekulares Rasiermesser" und schade dem Organismus. Der Erzählung nach handele es sich um eine nur ein Atom starke "Klinge aus Kohlenstoff", die der menschliche Körper nicht abbauen können, und die daher im Körper verbleibe. My translation: In November 2021, the German chemist Andreas Noack spread the conspiracy theory that producers of Corona vaccines secretly add graphene hydroxide to their vaccines. The supposedly used graphene hydroxide behaves like 'molecular razors' in the human body that the body can't break down, and which thus stays in the body. What is the evidence and how valid is this claim? | The evidence is very questionable and does not support the claim. The linked source, and the claim, both attribute the discovery of the proof to Dr Pablo Campra Madrid , affiliated with the Universidad de Almería (UAL). This is a real person, and the report he published with his findings is available online. However, the linked source is dated Dec 1st, and the report was published on June 28th - and has be thoroughly debunked since then. The above debunkers are from Maldita.es, which describes itself as independent journalistic platform focused on the control of disinformation and public discourse through fact-checking and data journalism techniques The debunking was first published on Jul 2nd, updated with additional expert feedback on July 5th, and the current version is dated Nov 8th. Given the thorough debunking of Campra's already widely-circulated report, the claim that Dr Noack made ground-shaking revelations by revealing Dr. Campra's June 28th study on November 18th does not stand muster. For those who do not read Spanish, the main points of Maldita's analysis are: Dr Campra's report has not been peer-reviewed Its conclussions have been officially disavowed by the UAL Critically, the provenance and custody chain of the single sample analyzed by Dr. Campa are unknown. He claims to have received a refrigerated vial via courier on June 10th, but absolutely anything could be in that vial. Dr Campra claims, in his report, to have received the sample, and a request to analyze it, from Ricardo Delgado Martín, who has participated in previous vaccine-disinformation efforts . Dr Campra uses spectrophotometry to assess the contents of the vial. This technique uses the fact that different compounds absorbs different wavelengths of light in different amounts. RGO presents an absorption peak at 270nm, while peak absorption in the sample was observed between 260-270nm. This is compatible with there being RGO in the sample -- but it is also compatible with a host of alternative explanations, including the fact that nucleic acids (such as the mRNA that the vaccine is known for) have their peak absorption rates between 260-280nm. Therefore, spectrophotometry results are far from conclusive . Dr Campra also uses fluorimetric spectrophotography to quantify the quantity of RNA found in the sample. However, he appears to not have followed lab protocols requiring calibration of the Qubit 2.0 fluorometer prior to use; so the low amounts of RNA reported could be explained by improper measurement or measurement error . Finally, Dr Campra also uses optical and electromicroscopy to attempt to visually identify RGO in the sample. However, as noted by several quoted experts images included in the report and identified as RGO by Dr. Campra could correspond to many alternative nanometric polimeric structures . Therefore, if the proof of the claim submitted by OP is to be found in Campra's report, there is no solid evidence to support the presence of RGO in Pfizer's vaccine . | {
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52,761 | Operation Moneybags is a video purporting to be a documentary covering medical experiments on British troops, The film has an opening card (27 seconds in) stating: This film was made during the course of an experiment to test the possible effects of the drug, lysergic acid diethylamide - LSD 25 for short - on troops in the field. This drug has been widely used in hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders. I'm doubting the legitimacy of both the video and the claim. The video is not dated, and seems to be either something which wasn't intended for general distribution, or possibly is fake. Is this video what it claims to be (an educational video on the study of LSD as a pacifier drug)? Has LSD ever been 'widely used in hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders'? | Yes, LSD has a history of psychiatric use In terms of the number of doses administered in an official clinical setting, it might not fit the definition of widely, but it has been tried out for wide number applications. From its first synthesis in 1938 to Bicycle Day in 1943 (when the developer Hofmann discovered its mind altering effects by accident) there was little usage. Since then, the manufacturer Sandoz explored possible clinical applications and eventually took it to market as Delysid: more here . Variants of this product in images: The package insert leaflet from ~1950: — Albert Hofmann, LSD, mein Sorgenkind, Stuttgart 1979. (partly on the web ) The 1964 Sandoz catalogue entry for Delysid lists as applications in English language: Psychoneuroses Delysid is used in analytical psychotherapy to elicit release of repressed material and to provide mental relaxation, particularly in anxiety states and obsessional neurosis […] Psychoses Delysid intensifies the reactions of psychotic patients, and useful information can be obtained by its use in selected patients. In certain forms of psychosis, particularly schizophrenia, and in chronic alcoholism, high doses may be necessary to produce the typical response to Delysid. […] Throughout the 1950s research into LSD and eventual clinical practice grew substantially, until, as a DEA-report puts it: Sandoz Laboratories, the drug’s sole producer, began marketing LSD in 1947 under the trade name “Delysid” and it was introduced into the United States a year later. Sandoz marketed LSD as a psychiatric cure-all and “hailed it as a cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behavior, ‘sexual perversions,’ and alcoholism.” In fact, Sandoz, in its LSD-related literature, suggested that psychiatrists take the drug themselves in order to “gain an understanding of the subjective experiences of the schizophrenic.” In psychiatry, the use of LSD by students was an accepted practice; it was viewed as a teaching tool in an attempt to understand schizophrenia. From the late 1940’s through the mid-1970’s, extensive research and testing were conducted on LSD. During a 15-year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books, and 6 international conferences, and LSD was prescribed as treatment to over 40,000 patients. — DEA: "LSD: The Drug" ( web-archive capture from 27 Apr 1999 - 22 Sep 2021 ) Wikipedia summarises this report: Sandoz Laboratories introduced LSD as a psychiatric drug in 1947 and marketed LSD as a psychiatric panacea, hailing it "as a cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behavior, 'sexual perversions,' and alcoholism." The movie in the question is an official government production found at the Imperial War Museum: Object description Record of the Moneybags Trial (abbreviated version of Small Change) when volunteer subjects from 41 Royal Marine Commando engaged in a field exercise after imbibing the hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) at Porton, 27 November - 4 December 1964. — "A Trial of an Incapacitating Drug [Main Title]", Imperial War Museum, Catalogue number, MGH 4464 | {
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52,810 | This popular tweet (over 10000 retweets) claims that: This study shows that after three months the vaccine effectiveness of
Pfizer & Moderna against Omicron is actually negative. Pfizer
customers are 76.5% more likely and Moderna customers are 39.3% more
likely to be infected than unvaxxed people. It offers the following image as proof: It also links this study: Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron or Delta variants following a two-dose or booster BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccination series: A Danish cohort study I want to verify two things: Is this assessment of the study accurate? Is the study itself trustworthy and accurate? | No it doesn't. That is directly mentioned in the study: The negative estimates in the final period arguably suggest different behaviour and/or exposure patterns in the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts causing underestimation of the VE. This was likely the result of Omicron spreading rapidly initially through single (super-spreading) events causing many infections among young, vaccinated individuals. This study essentially compared vaccinated and unvaccinated people directly, it didn't try to adjust for many confounding factors. This is a really simple study, it's only 6 pages in total. It's more like looking at raw data, there are a ton of potential confounders here that simply aren't part of this study. You can see from the quoted paragraph that the authors clearly think that the negative values are an artifact of the study design, and not any real effect. | {
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52,843 | Not The Bee has posted this commentary with a screenshot of some kind of an official WA authorities account claiming that dancing at private parties is not permitted: I tried to verify if this is the case and I found this info page , where the following information is listed: Certain high-risk music events are not permitted as dancing is banned Dancing is not permitted except at weddings. It's not clear but it could be interpreted that it is also forbidden at private parties. Is it? | Indeed, there is a state-government ban on dancing under certain conditions in Western Australia covering the 2021/2022 new year. The relevant legislation states: These directions come into effect at 6.00am on Tuesday 28 December 2021 and continue in effect until 6.00am on Tuesday 4 January 2022. Prohibition on music events and dancing ... A person must not engage in dancing at premises in the affected area other than:
(a) if it occurs at a wedding; or
(b) at a home where the participants are all members of the same household . A person who owns, controls or operates premises in the affected area must not allow a person to engage in dancing at those premises other than where it occurs in the circumstances set out in paragraphs 8(a) and 8(b). EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ACT 2005 (WA) ( pdf ; screenshots: 1 2 ) And here is a press release: Following four days of public health and social measures and nine local COVID-19 cases in addition to case 1133 detected so far, linked to the Perth Mess Hall outbreak, the acting Chief Health Officer has advised Perth and Peel will need to continue public health and social measures to keep WA safe. The following public health and social measures will continue from 6am Tuesday morning, December 28 until 6am Tuesday morning, January 4 (pending the latest health advice): Music festivals and large high-risk events remain cancelled, dancing (except for weddings) is banned and nightclubs remained closed; and ... Public health and social measures to continue until January 4 , Government of Western Australia, media statement, 27 December 2021. Similar claims can be found on other WA government webpages here ("dancing (except for weddings) is banned"), here ("Dancing is not permitted except at weddings."), and here ("Dancing is not permitted except at weddings."). The Facebook comments are real and can be seen here . Here's my screenshot: Facebook screenshot taken January 1, 2022 (click to enlarge). In the same thread, the WA Government Facebook account also makes some "clarifying" comments: Facebook screenshot taken January 1, 2022 (click to enlarge). | {
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52,857 | Boris Johnson has listed the return of crowns to pint glasses as one of the Brexit wins of 2021. “But that’s not all. From simplifying the EU’s mind-bogglingly complex beer and wine duties to proudly restoring the crown stamp on to the side of pint glasses, we’re cutting back on EU red tape and bureaucracy and restoring common sense to our rulebook.” I did find this article from 2012 saying the EU would require a CE mark to certify the glasses were of the correct size. Consequently, the new glasses now appearing in British pubs and bars carry a CE mark - which, in French, stands for European Conformity'. But nothing in the article suggests the EU prevented the tradition crown marking being added to a glass as well. Was it simply an economic issue, extra costs of getting two engravings? Or did the EU actually ban the use of the crown markings? Or was the UK allowed to use the crown marking on pint glasses even when it was a member of the European Union? | According to this 2007 article , the European Commission confirmed that the UK could indeed go on printing the crown on pint glasses, as long as it wasn't confused with the CE marking. The Tories even hailed this as a victory. The EU Commission confirmed that the crown stamp could be used alongside the CE marking: In response to a letter from Conservative MEP John Bowis, Vice-President of the European Commission Gunter Verheugen explained that national markings indicating the reliability of the measurement are not allowed next to the CE marking. However, he added that if the crown stamp was now considered as voluntary and meaning something else, "a Crown stamp look-alike could naturally be affixed to the glass, as long as it is done in such a way that it is not confused with the CE marking." Conservative MEPs John Bowis and Malcolm Harbour blamed the problem on UK authorities interpretation of the EU Directive, rather than the EU itself, and were pleased at the outcome: John Bowis MEP said: "This always appeared to be a case of over-interpretation of a Directive by the UK authorities . I do not believe the Crown marking would deceive the public about the meaning or form of the CE marking. On the contrary, it would reinforce consumer confidence. Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour, Internal Market Spokesman, has also been working closely on this issue. He added: "This is another example of British civil servants interpreting EU law in an excessively pernickety way. We always considered that a dual marking would not confuse consumers and are pleased that the Commission has confirmed our view." | {
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52,912 | Pages like those from the National Vaccine Information Center NVIC or the Centers for Disease Control CDC make the following claim: In 1875, Rudolf Steiner discovered that chickenpox was infectious to others after he took liquid from the chickenpox blisters of an infected individual and spread it to healthy volunteers. — NVIC: "What is the history of Chickenpox in America and other countries?" , no reference given for that. or: In 1875, Rudolf Steiner demonstrated that chickenpox was caused by an infectious agent by inoculating volunteers with the vesicular fluid from a patient with acute varicella. — CDC, Adriana Lopez, MHS; Theresa Harrington, MD, MPH&TM; and Mona Marin, MD: Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases CDC Varicella Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (The Pink Book). 13th ed. 2015.) This is quite a remarkable claim to make. On sites 'critical of virology' ('in general'), this is used to show that entities like the CDC or NVIC are very sloppy in 'just making up' ludicrous stories, like the above, and of course about 'viruses causing disease' as a collateral: So here we are, left with a bit of a conundrum. Are we to believe that a 14 year old Rudolf Steiner performed experiments and wrote a paper proving chickenpox infectious in 1875? Does this paper even exist? […] Would these experiments even constitute proof of infection in the first place? If this work is such a seminal moment in the history of chickenpox, why is this paper seemingly impossible to find? If such a paper exists and was written by a 14 year old Rudolf Steiner, it appears from his statements later in life that he was unconvinced by his own proof for the infectiousness of disease. Steiner was very much a believer in the mental and spiritual cause of disease and not a physical one such as being infected with “virus” particles. It was the person’s fear, anxiety, or even knowledge of the disease itself which manifested the symptoms rather than the action of a non-living obligate parasite. For now, without an actual copy of Rudolf Steiner’s own work to base these unsubstantiated repeated claims on, it remains a mystery that hardly constitutes proof of the infectiousness of the chickenpox or any other “virus.” — Mike Stone: Viroliegy: "Did Rudolf Steiner Demonstrate Chickenpox Infectiousness in 1875?" , January 6, 2022. There are of course indeed reasons to doubt the original claim made by the CDC: Rudolf Steiner is a well known historical figure, not least as a "polymath" , and some of his adherents will claim him to be some kind of genius. But did he do what the CDC above claims? Show proof of contagiousness of a viral disease, when his later writings demonstrably show a very different approach to illness and especially contagious diseases? And especially since in 1875, Steiner would have been indeed only 14 years old? | No, but Johann Steiner did. As identified in the blog referenced in the question, Rudolf Steiner, the well-known polymath would only have been 14 in 1875, so is an unlikely author of the paper. Does this throw into question the very existence of the paper? Not necessarily - as also identified in the blog, there are many citations to the paper which don't mention the author's first name, or mention a different initial: Steiner P. Zur inokulation der varicellen. We in Med Wochenschr 1875; 25:306. Steiner G: Zur Inokulation der Varicellen. Wien Med Wochenschr 1875;25:306. STEINER: Zur inokulation der Varicella. Wien Med Wochenschr 25:306, 1875 So it seems that what's happened here is an embarrassing confusion between the real author, and the more famous figure sharing their surname. The "Wien Med Wochenschr" in those citations is the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (roughly translated as "Viennese Medicine Weekly Magazine") and in Vol 25, Nr 16, dated 17 April 1875 , we find the paper "Zur Inokulation der Varicellen" credited to Prof Steiner (Vorstand der pädiatrischen Klinik zu Prag) ["Prof Steiner (Head of the Pediatric Clinic in Prague)."] A bit of digging uncovers a Johann Steiner heading a pediatric clinic in Prague at the right time. In this biography (in German) , it identifies him as working on varicella: Steiner, Johann (1833–1876), Pädiater und Fachschriftsteller [...] führte er ab 1874 die in dem Kinderkrankenhaus errichtete Kinderklinik [...] [...] befaßte sich S. in erster Linie mit verschiedenen Kinderkrankheiten, insbes. mit den Varicellen und deren Impfbarkeit [...] Machine translation: Steiner, Johann (1833–1876), pediatrician and specialist writer [...] He led the children's clinic built in the children's hospital from 1874 [...] [...] dealt primarily with various childhood diseases, especially with the varicella and their vaccinability [...] At some point, somebody seems to have been looking for a first name for the "Prof Steiner" who authored this famous paper, and guessed at the more famous Rudolf. This mistake has then been copied by other people who, even if they tracked down the original paper, wouldn't immediately realise that he was not the author. Note: This answer is Community Wiki, because all the research is from LangLangC's answer , I just think that answer emphasises all the wrong things. | {
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52,925 | The Blaze reports Joe Rogan charged CNN of "yellow journalism" on Friday, accusing the network of literally altering the Instagram video he posted last fall in which he announced he had become infected with COVID-19 The pictures in question seem to be this one . APnews makes counter claim. False. An analysis of the video used by CNN in a report about talk show host Joe Rogan contracting COVID-19 found no sign that the color had been altered. CNN confirmed no changes were made to the color of the video. As pointed out in prior question in Skeptics digital photography is not as straight forward as it might seem. Did CNN alter Joe Rogan's appearance in their coverage regarding his Covid-19 infection in late 2021? | As stated in the question, this is the link showing purported digital alteration by CNN in Mr. Rogan's original Instagram video. The video states that the top video was from CNN and the bottom video was from Mr. Rogan's Instagram. From CNN's Youtube Channel, this is the video shared in Anderson Cooper's report on Mr. Rogan getting COVID-19. This is the original video from Mr. Rogan's Instagram page stating that he had COVID (fast forward to 0:28 to get to the point where the CNN video seems to start). As the Associated Press stated , it appears that the only real difference between the CNN video and the original Instagram post seems to be some video compression issues due to the video being a copy of the original. For example, compare the quality of the first two screenshots below by looking at the tree branches above Mr. Rogan's head. By contrast, the comparison video seems to have applied a filter of some kind to the original video. From AP: “In this purported original, the Facebook post appears different from the original Instagram video,” Farid said. “It appears that the color is shifted towards red and away from the yellow/green appearance in the original Instagram video.” I have tried to take screenshots from the same frame in each video to illustrate the comparison between the original Instagram video, the CNN video, and the comparison Instagram video. For the record, all of these screenshots were taken using a Firefox browser, however I got similar results trying the video in Chrome/Edge/Brave. Screenshot from original Instagram post Screenshot from CNN Screenshot from comparison video The CNN video seems to match the original Instagram video fairly well, and substantially better than the video posted in the comparison video. | {
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52,932 | According to Scotty Kilmer, in his video, "The Truth About My Worsening Condition" : There is not enough electricity [currently] to charge the batteries of cars like Tesla that have lithium ion or lithium iron phosphate batteries. There would have to be something like six times as much electricity [generation as there currently is] being generated in the United States to get [electric] cars for everybody who is driving [fossil-fuel burning] cars. For the purpose of eliminating claims that aren't made, I've added my own interpretation in brackets. | tl;dr: The claim is false. The claim is that there would need to be six times as much electric generation, but if all cars in 2019 had been electric, only 1.43 times (43%) more generation would have been needed to power them all. This was most likely within the capacity of the existing power system. Internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) statistics, 2019 The claim is about the present day, but for this analysis I'm going to use 2019 data, the last full year before the pandemic started. Per the U.S. Federal Highway Administration , in 2019 there were 276,491,174 registered vehicles in the U.S. (including both passenger and freight vehicles) which traveled a total of 3,261,772,000,000 miles. Less than 2 million of these were EVs ( source ), which I'll treat as a rounding error. The table down below breaks them down by vehicle type. Buses and motorcycles are listed separately for some reason, but I lumped them together as "other" for completeness. Electric vehicle (EV) data Per the Electric Vehicle Database, the average passenger EV has a battery capacity of 59.3 kWh and a range of 196 miles (315 km). Capacity estimates are harder to come by for heavy duty vehicles, as there aren't many of these on the road yet. However this recent Autoweek article looking at freight trucks mentions a range of capacities from 220 to 475 kWh, with a corresponding range of ranges from 125 to 250 miles. Using the data from the FHA, the average heavy duty vehicle would need to travel less than 100 miles per weekday: 300,050,000,000 mi / 13,085,643 vehicles / 261 weekdays = 88 mi/weekday/per vehicle ...so I'll use the low end of the battery capacity range. The charging efficiency is also needed, as the amount of energy the vehicle uses to drive is less than what is required to charge it. 85% charging efficiency is a conservative estimate from Car and Driver . How much energy would be needed? Combining all the data, and calculating the total energy that would have been needed in 2019 to power these EVs: Item Light duty Heavy duty Other All vehicles Quantity 253,814,184 13,085,643 9,591,347 276,491,174 Miles per year 2,924,053,000,000 300,050,000,000 37,669,000,000 3,261,772,000,000 Battery (kWh) 59.3 220 220 na Charger efficiency 85% 85% 85% 85% Range (miles) 196 125 125 na Total GWh 1,040,794 621,280 77,997 1,740,071 The energy is calculated as follows: ( miles traveled [mi] / range [mi] ) x ( capacity [kWh] / efficiency [%] ) = energy [kWh] For light duty vehicles the efficiency works out to 0.36 kWh/mi (95 MPGe ), or slightly worse than the U.S. Alternative Fuel Data Center's 2015 estimate of 0.32 kWh/mi (105 MPGe) for the fleet of EVs on the road at that time. Assuming losses of 5% in transmission and distrubtion , the actual amount of generation required would have been 1,827,075 GWh. Total electric generation in the U.S. in 2019 was 4,266,488 GWh per the U.S. Energy Information Administration , meaning that a total of 6,093,563 GWh would have been needed to meet the EV demand in addition to the existing demand. Thus, if every vehicle in 2019 had been an EV, only 1.43 times (43%) more electric energy would have been needed, not six times (500%) more . Going a bit beyond the scope of the question... Was that much energy feasible ? The generation at any given time is matched to the load, so the real question is whether the higher load could have been met, which is a function of total generator capacity . Ignoring intermittent resources such as solar, wind, and pumped hydro, the total dispatchable capacity in 2019 was 917 GW, with a theoretical ability to generate a total of 8,033,064 GWh (assuming 24x7 operation). This is a conservative estimate using the net summer capacity, which is lower as thermal plants (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) are less efficient when ambient temperatures are higher. The intermittent energy sources generated 483,826 GWh in 2019, meaning the dispatchable sources would have needed to generate 6,093,563 - 483,826 = 5,609,737 GWh total. This equates to keeping them running 69.8% of the time, compared to 47.1% without the EV load, or an extra 5.5 hours every day. Is it feasible to run these power sources 70% of the time? In 2014, the EIA began publishing capacity factor data, and produced this chart: Nuclear, coal, and natural gas -- the key technologies used in the U.S. to generate power on demand -- do appear capable of operating 70% of the time at least based on the monthly data. However, this would likely be costly and challenging due to the reduced time for maintenance and upkeep. And of course, none of this considers fuel availability, but at the very least there'd be lots of extra gasoline and diesel available to run power plants, and many plants in the U.S. can actually switch from natural gas to petroleum . What about charging all of those batteries? There is some discussion in the comments about the challenge of electric demand for charging -- i.e., if everyone plugs in their EV to charge at the same time, could the grid handle it? Probably not, but as long as we're magically replacing all cars in 2019 with EVs, why not magically supply them with smart chargers as well? The average vehicle drove about 32 miles per day; with a (magically supplied) level 2 charger , that would require an hour or less to charge each day. Smart chargers which monitor price signals and utility commands could easily ensure all vehicles were fully charged when needed without overloading the grid. | {
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52,944 | A Wisconsin state representative staffer shared a scan on Twitter of a sponsorship memorandum for bill LRB-0396: The Help Not Harm Act - Prohibiting sex reassignment of minors. A pdf of the memo is available here . The following is a quote from the letter -- I've included the entire paragraph for context, but the specific claim I'm skeptical of is emphasized. Transitioning genders is also unproven to be effective in treating gender dysphoria. People who struggle with other kinds of dysphoria. People who struggle with other kinds of dysphorias, such as anorexia, are not enabled in altering their bodies as they desire. Instead, care is provided to help them find healthy ways to manage their tension. Of additional concern is that long term studies have reported that people who undergo gender transition have a suicide rate about 20 times higher than their peers , suggesting that altering the body doesn't address underlying mental challenges. Hormone treatments nor surgery won't heal a hurting heart. Instead, we need to give kids real, compassionate care. Is the emphasized statement true? The letter does not cite the "long term studies," or provide any information (aside from the claim) that could be used to identify them. | TL;DR : The "20 times higher" claim likely stems from Dhejne et al. (2011), who found this was true in the 1970s and 1980s, but not after 1989 (with the authors suggesting improved health care and societal acceptance may have led to their observations). Transgender (completed) suicide rates are poorly estimated for a slew of practical reasons, but are nevertheless generally accepted to be substantially higher than the general population , but probably not by a factor of 20. I selected 4 studies with reasonably large sample sizes which reported a factor of: (a) 3.6 [Amsterdam; completed suicide]; (b) 5.7 [USA veterans; completed suicide]; (c) 9 to 12 [USA survey; attempted suicide]; (d) 8 to 13.6 higher [Injustice at Every Turn (+deductions); attempted suicide]. We also should bear in mind that suicide rates fluctuate significantly based on a large number of factors (e.g., the USA suicide rate is around 14.4, and varies from 6.2 in the District of Columbia to 29.4 in Wyoming). It seems the quote's implication is that transitioning leads to suicidality, whereas in reality there is a large volume of evidence that transitioning improves quality of life: We identified 55 studies that consist of primary research on this topic, of which 51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm . What does the scholarly research say about the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being? , Cornell University. They website links to all 55 studies, along with 17 literature reviews and practitioner guidelines. To begin, we need to understand the difficulty here. America's Health Ranking defines suicide rate as deaths due to intentional self-harm per 100,000 population . So we calculate it by ([total suicides in given year] / [population of interest in that year]) * 100,000. In 2019, there was reportedly 47,511 suicides in the USA, so we calculate a USA 2019 suicide rate of 14.4 . This is the so-called "crude suicide rate"; other sources give age-adjusted suicide rates, such as the CDC gives 13.9 for the USA in 2019 (see also Age-Adjusted Death Rates for an explanation as to how it's calculated). Note there is significant fluctuation in suicide rates based on location from 29.4 in Wyoming to 6.2 in the District of Columbia (crude, USA, 2019; source ) [ aside : half of all successful suicides in the USA in 2019 were firearm suicides ( source ) which varies from state to state, and likely plays a significant role], and globally from 0.4 in Antigua and Barbuda and 72.4 in Lesotho (crude; global; 2019 source ), and based on sex from 26.1 male to 7.0 female (crude; USA; 2019 source ). Now, if we were to perform the same calculation for the USA's transgender population, we'd run into two problems: (a) We don't know the number of "people who undergo gender transition"; a survey states 1.4 million adults identify as transgender, but that doesn't imply they transition, and it excludes non-adults. (b) We don't have accurate statistics of how many "people who undergo gender transition" die by suicide (often people don't disclose their or others' transgender status). Thus, we necessarily need to work with subpopulations, ideally containing a large number of transgender samples. Beyond this, there's a whole bunch of caveats: However, rates of completed suicide are difficult to ascertain for the trans population. It would be highly unusual for a person’s trans status to be recorded on a death certificate; it is therefore not possible to ascertain trans suicide rates from coronial data. Conversely, because the trans population is ‘hard-to-reach’ published studies tend to comprise limited, and typically self-selecting, samples making it difficult to assess the extent of suicidality in the trans population as a whole . For example, the majority of studies adopt a gender binary approach to trans people, sampling only trans men and/or trans women; thus excluding non-binary trans people. In other cases, sample selection is restricted to highly specific subgroups of the trans population, such as ‘trans women with a history of sex work’ (e.g. Nemoto, Bodecker & Iwamoto, 2011) or solely those undergoing surgical intervention (e.g. Heylens et al., 2014). Together these factors contribute to partial information and potential underreporting of suicide rates in trans populations (Bauer, Scheim, Pyne, Travers, & Hammond, 2015; Haas et al., 2010). McNeil et al., Suicide in Trans Populations: A Systematic Review of prevalence and correlates ( pdf ), Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 2017. Other issues we encounter is that (a) medical definitions have changed over time , (b) medical treatments for transgenderism have improved significantly over time, (c) societal awareness and acceptance of transgenderism has changed over time. So we should also look to more recent studies. Dhejne et al. (2011) user141592's answer points to Dhejne et al. 2011 which utilizes Swedish Cause of Death Register data, and this seems to be the origin of the number "20": you can see this particular paper referenced by Mike Lee when discussing another bill Protecting Our Kids from Harmful Research Act . Indeed, Dhejne et al.'s Table 2 states that between 1973 and 2003 there were 10 suicides of their transsexual group (size 324), and 5 suicides of their control group (size 3240); hence the factor of 20 . However, the paper highlights: ...the survival curve (Figure 1) suggests increased mortality from ten years after sex reassignment and onwards. In accordance, the overall mortality rate was only significantly increased for the group operated before 1989 . However, the latter might also be explained by improved health care for transsexual persons during 1990s, along with altered societal attitudes towards persons with different gender expressions. Dhejne et al., Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden , PLOS One, 2011. See also the literature review Dhejne et al., 2016 . There is more about this in an interview with Dhejne at The Trans Advocate who points to this Huffington Post piece about the way my research is misrepresented . In other words, the "20 times higher" applies for the 1970s and 1980s, but no longer holds between 1989 and 2003. Amsterdam Cohort (2020): 3.6 times higher. A Dutch gender dysphoria clinic reports their long-term statistics with suicide rates. Their raw numbers are: Forty-nine people died by suicide: 41 trans women (0.8%) and 8 trans men (0.3%), which is 64 per 100 000 person years in trans women and 29 per 100 000 person years in trans men. Wiepjes, et al., Trends in suicide death risk in transgender people: results from the Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria study (1972–2017) , 2020. Sample size: 8,263. The study emphasizes that in the Netherlands, between 1972 and 2017 suicide rates showed a fluctuating course , so they restrict the timeframe, and give the following statistics: The mean number of suicides in the years 2013–2017 was higher in the trans population ( 40 per 100 000 person years ; 43 per 100 000 trans women and 34 per 100 000 trans men) compared with the Dutch population in this time frame ( 11 per 100 000 person years ; 15 per 100 00 registered men and 7 per 100 000 registered women) In this sample, the transgender suicide rate is about 3.6 times higher than the Dutch population. USA veterans (2014): 5.7 times higher. The crude suicide rate among veterans with transgender-related ICD-9-CM diagnoses across the 10-year period was approximately 82/100,000 person-years , which approximated the crude suicide death rates for other serious mental illness in VHA (e.g., depression, schizophrenia). Blosnich et al., Mortality Among Veterans with Transgender-Related Diagnoses in the Veterans Health Administration, FY2000-2009 , LGBT Health, 2014. (paywalled). Sample size: 5,117. For comparison In this context, from 2001 to 2019, the unadjusted suicide rate among non-Veteran U.S. adults rose 33.0%, from 12.6 per 100,000 in 2001 to 16.8 per 100,000 in 2019 . 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention , 2021 ( pdf ). So the transgender suicide rate is somewhere in the ballpark of 5.7 times higher. U.S. Transgender Survey (2015); suicide attempts: 9 to 12 times higher. Since we're dealing with ratios, "attempted suicide" may serve as a practicable proxy for "completed suicide", as has been done in some studies, e.g.: While completed suicide rates among trans people are unknown, a history of attempted suicide is the strongest predictor of completed suicide across multiple populations. Bauer, Intervenable factors associated with suicide risk in transgender persons: a respondent driven sampling study in Ontario, Canada , BMC Public Health, 2015. To my knowledge at the time of writing, the largest study along these lines is the following: Forty percent (40%) have attempted suicide in their lifetime, nearly nine times the rate in the U.S. population (4.6%) . Seven percent (7%) attempted suicide in the past year—nearly twelve times the rate in the U.S. population (0.6%) . 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey p.10 ( pdf ) which includes 27,715 respondents of which 16,580 (60%) "currently live full-time in a gender that is different from the one assigned to you at birth" (p.244). Injustice at Every Turn (2011): suicide attempts: 8 to 13.6 higher. When asked “have you ever attempted suicide?” 41% of respondents answered yes. According to government health estimates, five million, or 1.6% of currently living Americans have attempted suicide in the course of their lives. Our study asked if respondents had ever attempted suicide while most federal studies refer to suicide attempts within the last year; accordingly it is difficult to compare our numbers with other studies. Regardless, our findings show a shockingly high rate of suicidality. Grant et al., Injustice at Every Turn ( pdf ), 2011. Sample size: 6,450. It is indeed hard to get an accurate estimate of the lifetime suicide attempt rate: I wasn't able to track down the source for the "1.6%" in the above quote, the closest I found was SAMHSA 2015 which are self-reported (and are necessarily incomplete) numbers, and this edition doesn't cover general population lifetime suicide attempts. I found a meta study Nock et al., 2008 writing: it is 1.9–8.7 percent (IQR, 3.0–5.1) , so the factor is likely between 8 and 13.6. | {
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52,970 | The United Kingdom is introducing a new traffic rule. According to this BBC article , A method known as the "Dutch reach" is to be introduced to the Highway Code in the UK after years of campaigning. The practice is used widely across Europe and encourages people to open vehicle doors with their opposite hand to avoid injuries to passing cyclists. Further down there is some explanation why this method is called the "Dutch reach": The technique is named after a method for opening car doors that has been standard practice by the Dutch for many years Now this is one of the things you do quite often but not think about how you (or other people) do it; but I am Dutch, I always open the car door with the closest hand and as far as I know other people I drive with (not many since the pandemic, I'll admit) do it too. Is my experience representative, or is the "Dutch reach" really standard practice in the Netherlands? | The so-called Dutch reach is not required during lessons or exams according to Centraal Bureau Rijvaardigheidsbewijzen (the organisation responsible). And drivers won't be required to use the Dutch reach according to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat). It is unclear why the Dutch reach is called the Dutch reach. It was mentioned in a Dutch newspaper in 1961. Source Dutchreach.org has a detailed article called " Is the Dutch Reach really Dutch? " As a life-long cyclist in Amsterdam and surrounding areas I can confidently state that the Dutch reach is not standard practice in the Netherlands at this point in time. | {
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52,989 | I came across a study that makes the following claim (emphasis mine): Two doses (300 μg/kg/dose in a gap of 72 hours) of ivermectin chemoprophylaxis reduced COVID-19 infection by 83% among HCWs for one
month . Ivermectin is a safe and effective strategy to prevent
COVID-19, in the containment of pandemic alongside vaccine. Further
research is required to guide the frequency of chemoprevention,
acceptability, and cost-effectiveness in the community setting. Is this a robust study and are the conclusions supported by the data? | Summary: The conclusions are not generally applicable because the study did not isolate the role of ivermectin in the outcomes, and the process was not a randomized controlled trial . First, this August 2021 report of a September-to-November 2020 study the sort of study that suggests "this may be promising, more research is needed." As the authors note, "Further research is required to guide the frequency of chemoprevention, acceptability, and cost-effectiveness in the community setting." (Result so far have been dubious: see Meta-Analyses Do Not Establish Improved Mortality With Ivermectin Use in COVID-19 in the Jan.-Feb. 2022 issue of American Journal of Therapeutics ) This study of 3,532 doctors, nurses, students, administrators and other staff at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar has some shortcomings that undercut its conclusiveness, some as noted in the comments above: Administration of the ivermectin was not double-blind and was not randomized. Drug studies typically compare the results of two randomly-assigned populations, one taking the drug, the other taking a placebo or other control, with neither the researchers nor the participants knowing which they were getting. In this case, not only did the participants know they were taking the drug, they were also the people who chose to take the drug. For example, the authors note that "Ivermectin prophylaxis uptake was better with increasing age and among males." We don't know how the behavior of the subject group differed from the general population given that they were people who chose to take ivermectin, or how their behavior might have changed knowing they were taking ivermectin or by participating in the study. They may have taken more or fewer risks to avoid infection, or otherwise altered their activities, their diet, or their other medication. The authors suggest "we had a strong institutional policy in place related to COVID-19-appropriate behavior in the workplace, which may have avoided the possible bias," but we don't know if that policy was enforced; there have been many studies about doctors misestimating how often they wash their hands, for example. There were also reports of ivermectin side effects such as nausea and headache among 42 participants; while side effects are commonly over-reported, we don't know if those drug-takers were so sick they missed work and had reduced exposure, for example. We don't have conclusive evidence about how many health care workers (HCWs) in the overall study were infected. The authors note: "The major limitation is that we only tested HCWs who either developed symptoms or who were direct or high-risk contacts of positive patients. This was done in keeping with the Government strategy for COVID-19 testing in India. However, this precludes us from including the HCWs who may have been asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and chose not to get tested." Some unknown number of the hospital employees had already contracted covid in September 2020, which is what prompted the study. "We noticed an increasing number of HCWs getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 infection in early September 2020 at our hospital, which was negatively impacting the healthcare services we had to provide." We don't know how many of those employees were back at the hospital or how their participation in the study, other behavior, or chance of getting reinfected might have been affected by their personal experiences. | {
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53,012 | For a while, I've been a bit bothered by claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci , Chief Medical Advisor to the US President, explicitly claimed that face masks don't work to stop the spread of COVID-19. For example, political commentator Kyle Kulinksi said on his show : These are deep purveyors in misinformation. [...] Even on the issue of COVID, early on, Dr Fauci said "Hey, masks don't work at all. Don't wear a mask." I know Fauci did say that there is no need to use masks in the very early days of the pandemic. However, I haven't seen any statement by Dr. Fauci saying that masks do not work against COVID-19. Did Dr. Fauci explicitly say face masks do not work to stop the spread of COVID-19? | I have seen the 60 Minutes interview ( March 2020: Dr. Anthony Fauci talks with Dr Jon LaPook about Covid-19 ) used as proof positive for this. The dialogue goes (transcribed by me. I is the interviewer and F is for Fauci): F: The masks are important for someone who's infected to prevent them from infecting someone else. Now, when you see people and films from China, South Korea, ... everybody is wearing a mask. Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks. I: You're sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this. F: Right now there is no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people "feel" a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face. I: And can you get some schmutz sort of staying inside there? F: Of course. But when you think "masks", you should think of healthcare providers needing them and people who are ill. When you look at films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks, that's fine, I'm not against it. I: But it can lead to a shortage ... of masks. F: Exactly, that's the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it. Emphasized for clarity. A layman's reading of this certainly supports this interpretation. Specifically he says it's 'not providing the perfect protection people think it is'. Given that 60 Minutes is a popular show for a general audience, it is hard to justify that one should expect more than a layman's interpretation of this. Edit 10.2.2022: Please note that question is not whether masks are effective or not, but what was claimed at the time. For effectiveness see another open skeptics question . Nod to LShaver. For context, The Hill has an article expanding why these statements were made at the time. | {
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53,040 | Recently, the Washington Post published an article 1 discussing Mark Jacobson's research 2 positing that a strategy of 100% wind, water, and solar power can provide all the energy needs of the U.S. with no pollution or emissions. Many on Twitter have been pushing back on this, including a thread from Brian Gitt with over 600 retweets and 1300 likes. I am skeptical of the first falsifiable claim in the thread (emphasis added): Solar panels are manufactured using minerals, toxic chemicals, and fossil fuels. In fact, solar panels require 10 times the minerals to deliver the same quantity of energy as a natural gas plant. Quartz, copper, silver, zinc, aluminum, and other rare earth minerals are mined. Is the bolded statement true? Patel, Kasha. "A year after Texas cold spell, study shows renewable energy could help prevent blackouts" . The Washington Post. 20 February 2022. Mark Z. Jacobson, Anna-Katharina von Krauland, Stephen J. Coughlin, Frances C. Palmer, Miles M. Smith. Zero air pollution and zero carbon from all energy at low cost and without blackouts in variable weather throughout the U.S. with 100% wind-water-solar and storage . Renewable Energy , Volume 184. January 2022. | Basically correct; however... If by "solar panels" he means the classic photovoltaics which turn sunlight into electricity, the number is about 5 to 20 times more material depending on what type of panel and installation. If you count concentrated solar power, that number is more like 1 to 2 times more. However, no context is given whether this is relevant to Mark Jacobson's conclusion about 100% renewable power. The claim is a small part of a broad argument shotgunning cherry-picked information at the readers to convince them that natural gas (or sometimes nuclear power) is better for humanity than solar power. That is not true. Skipping natural gas extraction LShaver found the author's original article with references: Solar’s dirty secrets: How solar power hurts people and the planet . Here's the expanded quote. Solar panels are manufactured using minerals, toxic chemicals, and fossil fuels. In fact, solar panels require 10 times the minerals to deliver the same quantity of energy as a natural gas plant. Taken in context, Mr. Gitt is arguing that solar panels are worse for people and the planet than natural gas... or is it nuclear power? He keeps switching. He references Table 10.4 of the US Department of Energy's Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 . On first glance it seems like "10 times the minerals" is more like hundreds to thousands! However, as an argument comparing natural gas vs solar power it is meaningless because it's not an apples-to-apples comparison . "Upstream energy collection" means all the extraction and mining associated with power production. Hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal don't have upstream costs; it comes to them, so it's easy to calculate the total cost. Natural gas does have upstream costs. By leaving out the material costs of natural gas extraction, processing, and transportation the argument has no meaning . Using the complete energy production lifecycle Cribbing from jkej's answer we can use the UNECE's Life Cycle Assessment of
Electricity Generation Options from 2021 to get our answer. Natural gas without carbon capture Natural gas with carbon capture We're interested in the first bars, expressed in equivalent resource depletion. Note that the majority of the mineral cost of a natural gas plant is in natural gas production which Mr. Gitt's source ignores. Since Mr. Gitt is very concerned about climate change, we'll assume his dream natural gas generator is using carbon capture, so 0.314 mg Sb-Eq. What is a "solar panel"? Solar power comes in two major flavors: photovoltaics (PV), which turn sunlight into electricity, and concentrated solar power (CSP) which use sunlight to heat a fluid. Both use something which could be a "solar panel". Within those two major flavors are variations: panels mounted on the ground vs on a roof, what they're made out of, and for concentrators how they're concentrated. This affects their mineral cost and where that cost is derived. PV, ground-mounted, poly-crystalline silicon PV, roof-mounted, poly-crystalline silicon PV, ground-mounted, copper-indium-gallium-selenide PV, roof-mounted, copper-indium-gallium-selenide CSP, parabolic trough CSP, central tower There's quite a spread from roof-mounted poly-crystalline silicon at 7.21 mg Sb-Eq to just 0.336 mg Sb-Eq for central tower concentrated solar. This tells us that "solar power" can use anywhere from 1 to 23 times more materials than natural gas. Or 1.4 to 30 times if Mr. Gitt doesn't care about how much carbon the natural gas plants are dumping into the atmosphere. However, "compared to photovoltaics (PV), solar thermal, or concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies are a rather niche market" concentrated solar is a very small percentage of the market. It may be a larger part of the market in the future, but for now it's mostly PVs. So it would be most fair to compare only the PVs with a spread of 1.66 to 7.21 giving us 5 to 21 times more materials compared to natural gas with carbon capture. Solar panels can be recycled, their bases reused The 5 to 21 times more number is a bit misleading once reuse and recycling are taken into account. A natural gas plant could potentially be recycled; however, 70% of the material cost is in the extraction. Solar panels can be recycled, and the EU even mandates it and other countries could do the same. The modules present on today’s market belong to two different categories, silicon and non-silicon based, which determine the recycling process to be used. For silicon-based modules, aluminium frames and junction boxes are dismantled manually at the beginning of the process. The module is subsequently crushed and its several components are separated, allowing recovering up to 80% of the panel. Since a large quantity of these modules is composed of glass, it is not unusual for glass recyclers to be able to intervene in the recycling process. Non-silicon based panels require the use of diverse recycling technologies. Cadmium telluride (CdTe) panels e.g. – a particularly common type – are first crushed into different fractions, much like non-silicon modules. But they also use chemical baths to separate the various semiconductor materials, allowing for the recovery of 95% such components. Recycling technologies for this type of panels have been widely increasing in recent years. For copper indium selenide (CIS) and Copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) photovoltaic modules similar chemical bath treatments apply. Mr Gitt seems to disagree with the EU . 13/ Solar panels last only about 20 to 25 years. And they are difficult to recycle because they’re made with toxic chemicals. In addition, much of the material cost of a solar panel is in building the platforms upon which they are installed. Once built, these platforms can be reused for new, upgraded solar panels while the old panels are recycled. But is it better for climate change? Mr. Gitt is arguing that "solar power hurts people and the planet" and that natural gas (or nuclear power, whichever fits his argument best at the moment) is a better alternative. If we’re serious about tackling climate change, protecting the environment, and helping impoverished people around the world, we need to stop chasing fantasies about solar and wind energy. He attempts to do so by shotgunning every criticism he can find about solar power at the reader, but never does a total analysis. If one were to do an honest evaluation of the material cost of natural gas vs solar power, one would also have to take into account the material of climate change; both its damage and our mitigation efforts. Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options does provide a "Climate Change Total" in Table 14. Natural gas without carbon capture: 434g CO 2 /kWh Natural gas with carbon capture: 128g CO 2 /kWh Solar, Poly-Si, ground-mounted: 36.7g CO 2 /kWh Solar, CdTe, ground-mounted: 11.9g CO 2 /kWh Solar, CIGS, ground-mounted: 11.4g CO 2 /kWh For all of them, this is almost entirely due to fossil fuels. For natural gas this is inherent to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. But for solar this is due to the current energy mix used in the production and installation of solar panels and inverters. ...about half of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to silicon manufacturing (from primary production to solar-grade refining), while the reminder of emissions is split between the rest of the module, site preparation, and electrical equipment (inverters). If we stick with natural gas, its impact on climate change gets worse as carbon continues to build up. If we switch to solar and decarbonize our energy production, the carbon necessary to produce solar panels will decrease and their impact on climate change will decrease, lowering their true cost to humanity in the long run. If Mr. Gitt were serious about helping people, he would put this in his article. Instead he advises we invest in Liberty Oilfield Services , an oil and natural gas fracking company. Solar panel material cost does need to be improved The Quadrennial Technology Review has this to say about the "RDD&D opportunities in clean electric power technologies..." Solar (photovoltaic and concentrating solar power): Reduce solar [photovoltaic] and [concentrated solar power] manufacturing and capital costs, reduce PV soft costs, improve grid integration—including with storage solutions, and identify and develop new PV materials and devices, particularly with abundant and environmentally-benign materials So there are plenty of improvements to be made. Natural gas is a mature technology, and, while it will improve, we don't expect radical changes - it's about as good as it's going to get. Solar power is an emerging technology still undergoing radical improvements in materials, cost, and efficiencies; the industry is still growing, and the power grid is still in the early stages of adapting. One must be careful when doing a flat comparison between mature and emerging technologies, especially using information which is seven years out of date. Rare earth minerals are not rare One of the rhetorical slights of hand used by people to argue against renewables is their use of "rare earth elements" with the tacit assumption that these are, well, rare and we're going to use them all up! They aren't particularly rare , some are more abundant than copper. They can, however, be diffuse, making economically viable deposits "rare". If demand increases due to increased use in renewables, the price will go up and more deposits will become economically viable. Natural gas plants also need rare earth minerals for their construction, particularly for their steel turbine blades. | {
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53,091 | For many months now I have heard claims on the internet and radio that some large fraction of USD "in existence" were printed since 2020. The percentage ranges between 40 and 80%. Is it a big deal that 40% of USD was printed in the last 12 months? NO, it’s not. 80% of all dollars in existence were created in the last two years. If 35-80% of US dollars were printed in 2020, why is inflation ‘only’ at 6.8%? Since January 2020 the US has printed nearly 80% of all US dollars in existence. $4.0192 Trillion at the start of 2020, October 2021 $20.0831 Trillion These were found with a quick Google search. Other claims are not linkable as they were in my news feed or radio waves. Some claims cite the US Federal Reserve "M1" Statistic , which indeed shows a roughly 5-fold increase in value between early 2020 and now. There is a footnote below the graph that explains a change in the definition of M1: Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, and automatic transfer service, or ATS, accounts at depository institutions, share draft accounts at credit unions, and demand deposits at thrift institutions. Beginning May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other liquid deposits, consisting of OCDs and savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts). Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, demand deposits, and OCDs (before May 2020) or other liquid deposits (beginning May 2020), each seasonally adjusted separately. Additionally there is a blog post from the FRED about the change. Being a person who is not knowledgeable about economics, I doubt my readings of these terminology-heavy documents. Are these "40-80% printed recently" statements truthful? If the claims are false or misleading, in what way? Assuming they are referring to M1, are they defining it
incorrectly? Is M1 not the amount of USD "in existence"? Are they using "existence" or "dollars" in an obscure/imprecise
way? Are these changes normal and not cause for concern? "Printed" is being interpreted in a few ways. Let me explain my motivation behind asking this question, so we can reach consensus on the best definition of "printed": I want to begin to understand the effect of such a change being claimed, if one occurred/is occurring. Knowing the effect, whether or not it occurred, would give insight into the motivations of those making the linked claims. Answering those questions is outside the scope of this question. If one shared such motivations, what is the best definition of "printed"? To me, I suggest making no distinction between digital and physical USD. M1 and M0 appear to include physical and digital money, for example. | The sensationalist claims you are seeing are from people who are either ignorant of economics (even at a fairly basic level) or are deliberately trying to mislead you. Let's consider some of the wide variety of vague claims being made. Were 40%-80% of actual physical US currency bills printed in 2020? No they were not. The first article in the question links to the Federal Reserve site which tells us that the printing of banknotes in 2020 amounted to 5,168M notes with a value of $146,374M. Approximately $1.8T currency was in circulation in January 2020 (a value which didn't change much during the year) so it printed about 8% of the currency. An approximately equal amount of currency was destroyed. Did the money supply increase by 40-80% in 2020? The money supply is a measure of the amount of US$ circulating and available - not just physical cash but amounts held in bank accounts, investments, etc. The most usual measure of money supply is something called M1, which you can look up. That is the chart you are looking at, which shows a steep upward rise in 2020. A deliberate increase in the money supply is sometimes called "printing money", although no physical money is usually involved. The reason for the sharp upturn in M1 in 2020 is that the measure was redefined in May 2020 . Several kinds of deposit that weren't included before are included now. That explains the sharp increase. It's as though your local government required you to list your house square footage excluding basement, and then decided to change to including the basement. Because your house's measured square footage goes from 2000ft 2 to 3000ft 2 doesn't mean your house got bigger - it just means your 1000ft 2 basement wasn't included before and now it is. It's the same with M1 - some money wasn't included before and now it is. The Medium article is very good about the non-effects of this non-change, and explains how even if there were some changes the effects would be small. | {
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53,096 | There's a viral conspiracy theory that Russia attacked Ukraine to neutralize Ukraine's biological weapons. Among many other sources, this tweet from Glenn Greenwald cites a video where Senator Marco Rubio asks Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland whether Ukraine has biological or chemical weapons. Her response states that Ukraine has biological research facilities but doesn't directly answer the question. The tweet and its responses read into her statement the claim that Ukraine has biological weapons facilities. The website for the US Embassy in Ukraine has a page for a "Biological Threat Reduction Program", which explains that this program is to counter bio weapon threats. I have yet to see evidence of bio-labs containing biological weapons or having the purpose of creating biological weapons. Additionally , Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian Armed Forces' radiation, chemical, and biological defence, told reporters that the laboratories were reportedly involved in biological weapons production. "The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly drawn attention to the military biological programs that are being implemented by the Pentagon in post-Soviet countries, including on the territory of Ukraine, where a network of more than 30 biological laboratories has been formed, which can be divided into research and sanitary-epidemiological ones," Kirillov said. And On Monday, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov claimed that the documents seen by the Russian military suggest that some of these laboratories worked with anthrax and the plague among other infections. Kirillov also alleged that “the only reason” why Kiev had reportedly moved to destroy the materials was out of concern that Russian experts “will highly likely prove Ukraine and the US have been in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention” once they study the samples. So does Ukraine have biological weapons facilities? | I think it's worth looking at some of the specific evidence put forward by Russian state-sponsored media. Here's one such example, from a twitter account that's publishing some of the specific documents: https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1500499205663645700 This is a document that is purported to be from the Ukrainian government, instructing a biological lab to destroy potentially harmful biological agents due to the current crisis (there is a partial translation in that twitter thread). I have no reason to think this is not authentic, so I'm going to assume it's a real document that's approximately correctly translated (I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian). The end of this document lists the biohazards in question in latin script, which I'm going to reproduce here: Candida albicans N300
Escherichia coli ATCC N25922
Serratia marcescens N259
Shigella sonnei N151
Shigella flexneri N170
Salmonella rp B Typhimurium N91
Proteus vulgaris N14
Enterobacter aerogenes N190
Staphylococcus aureus ATCC N25923
Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC N27853
Escherichia coli O 55 N43-4
Escherichia coli B N15
Proteus mirabilis N25
Klebsiella pneumonia N38
Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum N17
Corynebacterium xerosis NC 12078
Corynebacterium diphtheriae var gravis tox +
Corynebacterium diphtheriae var mitis tox -
Bacillus licheniformis BKM 1711
Bacillus stearothermophilus BKM 718 Absolutely none of these are biological warfare agents. They are, for the most part, routinely used in general microbiology labs. Most are available without restriction from the American Type Culture Collection , which holds baseline microoganisms for researchers. Anthrax and the Plague are not on this list. | {
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53,142 | Bill McKibben writes for The New Yorker in a March 18, 2022 article titled "In a World on Fire, Stop Burning Things" (emphasis added): Our species depends on combustion; it made us human, and then it made us modern. But, having spent millennia learning to harness fire, and three centuries using it to fashion the world we know, we must spend the next years systematically eradicating it. Because, taken together, those blazes—the fires beneath the hoods of 1.4 billion vehicles and in the homes of billions more people, in giant power plants, and in the boilers of factories and the engines of airplanes [and] ships—are more destructive than the most powerful volcanoes, dwarfing Krakatoa and Tambora. The smoke and smog from those engines and appliances directly kill nine million people a year, more deaths than those caused by war and terrorism, not to mention malaria and tuberculosis, together. (In 2020, fossil-fuel pollution killed three times as many people as COVID-19 did.) In 2020, did three times as many people die from fossil-fuel pollution as from COVID-19? | The smoke and smog from those engines and appliances directly kill nine million people a year I’ll address the “nine million people a year” estimate. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 7 million people a year “die prematurely” from air pollution. They break this down into household pollution , which according to their estimates causes 3.8 million premature deaths, and ambient (outdoor) air pollution , which causes 4.2 million premature deaths. * You can find detailed explanations of the nature of these sources of pollution and references to further resources on the above-linked web pages. * Since 3.8+4.2=8 and yet the WHO cites 7 million as the estimate for the total air pollution deaths, presumably that means that 1 million of the premature deaths are classified as being brought about by both indoor and outdoor air pollution. Now, 7 million is not that far from 9 million, so in that sense McKibben’s estimate appears plausible. However, I see a couple of issues with his way of presenting things: “directly kills” seems stronger than “causes premature deaths”, which is a vague and not precisely quantified statement. (E.g., if someone died six months sooner than they would have otherwise because pollution exacerbated some medical condition they had, it’s probably misleading to say they were “directly killed”, but “died prematurely” sounds more correct.) McKibben’s article focuses on humanity’s need to stop burning fossil fuels (e.g., the article’s subheadline reads “The truth is new and counterintuitive: we have the technology necessary to rapidly ditch fossil fuels”). However, the 3.8 million premature deaths from household pollution are, according to WHO’s explanation, “attributable to inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene.” The WHO also writes: “Around 2.6 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fuelled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal.” Now, biomass is not a fossil fuel, so if you’re only interested in deaths related to fossil fuels, the 3.8 million figure is surely an overcount. But McKibben’s writing seems to conflate multiple sources of pollution in a single paragraph by talking less precisely about “fires”, (and its synonyms “combustion” and “blazes” — well, this is a New Yorker article after all…), while making the overall target of the article appear to be fossil fuels specifically. In any case, from the WHO’s explanation it’s clear that these household pollution premature deaths are caused largely due to the terrible methods of burning fuel (whether fossil-based or not), which result in huge amounts of harmful particulate matter being released, rather than to the mere fact of the burning itself. So if you count these deaths in the seven million statistic, the marshaling of these deaths in support of McKibben’s “stop burning things” argument seems a bit dishonest to me. And if you don’t count them, then we are down to only 4.2 million deaths from outdoor pollution, which is quite far from McKibben’s 9 million. Summary: the WHO is not necessarily the only or most authoritative source of data on this topic, so McKibben might be relying on another source that’s equally credible. However, at least when cross checking his claims against the WHO’s data, they seem a tad hyperbolic to me. | {
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53,174 | According to Zhao Lijian of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY) [...] Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov said, in a contrasting move to pressure its pressuring of European countries not to buy Russian oil, the US increased crude oil supplies from Russia by 43 percent, or 100,000 barrels per day over the past week and allowed companies to import mineral fertilizers from Russia I looked for this source of the claim but I could only find the claim mirrored on Telesur . I'm less concerned by how much , but is it true that USA is increasing it's crude oil imports from Russia year-over-year and also importing mineral fertilizers from Russia? | [...]is it true that USA is increasing it's crude oil imports from Russia year-over-year No. Before we get to the technical answer, first let's point out the lies by omission. The US imports very little oil from Russia. The amount has been steadily dropping since the summer. Because the volume is so low, by cherry picking one can find two weeks where the volume increased by 43%, but then it will have fallen by as much the next week. The 4-week moving average is less than 100,000 barrels a day and fell to 52,000 in the first week of April. They fail to mention that the US has banned Russian oil imports, current imports are just allowing existing deliveries to complete. The full US ban has not yet taken effect According to NPR , on March 8th, 2022 US President Biden banned imports of Russian oil, LNG, and coal. "The United States is targeting the main artery of Russia's economy," Biden said. "That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports, and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin's war machine." However, existing contracts continue deliveries for 45 days, or until about April 22nd, 2022. So we expect deliveries to continue. The ban also applies to U.S. imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), products made from oil, and coal. New purchases are to be ceased immediately, but U.S. buyers with existing contracts for Russian energy have 45 days to wind down deliveries. The US imports very little oil from Russia The US imports about 5.5 million barrels a day , mostly from Canada, and only about 100,000 from Russia or less than 2% of US oil imports. Russia exports about 4.6 million barrels a day. Europe and China overwhelmingly consume most of Russian exported oil making pressure for them to cut their imports very important. The US currently accounts for less than 1% of Russian exports making US imports... a drop in the barrel. Cherry Picking Week-to-Week Numbers Official data from April 2022 is not available as of this writing , but since a peak of about 300,000 barrels a day last summer, imports have fallen to less than 100,000 barrels a day in March 2022 on average. Because the week-to-week numbers are volatile and the volume so low, one can easily cherry pick a week and claim the US increased imports. For example, between the week of March 11th and March 18th imports almost doubled from 38,000 to 70,000, but March 11th was just 25% of the previous week. The 4-week moving average remained fairly steady during March at about 70,000 to 80,000 barrels a day. The first week of April the 4-week average dropped to 52,000 barrels a day. And, again, these are deliveries on existing contracts and should hit zero by the end of April. | {
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53,186 | I found a quote online in the form of a photo from what looks like some newspaper: The photo contains an alleged quote from Henry Kissinger's speech to the WHO Council on Eugenics on February 25, 2009, and it reads: Once the herd accepts mandatory vaccinations, it's game over. They will accept anything - forcible blood or organ donation - "for the greater good". We can genetically modify children and sterilize them --- "for the greater good". Control sheep minds and you control the herd. Vaccine makers stand to make billions. It's a big win-win. We thin out the herd and the herd pays us for extermination services. I highly doubt the authenticity of this quote not only based on its contents but also the phrasing of it. But just to be sure: Is there any authenticity to this quote? Not necessarily in this exact wording but is any of it authentic, or did Kissinger say at least anything similar that was simply misconstrued / exaggerated? | No, there is no evidence this is an actual quote Reuters has investigated this issue and came to conclusion: Henry Kissinger’s speeches are archived on his website and only two are listed for 2009 ( here ). The first was given to the Trilateral Commission Tokyo Plenary Meeting on April 26, 2009 ( here ). The second was a speech on October 14, 2009, for the 35th Anniversary of the International Energy Agency in Paris, France ( here ). Neither presentation included the quote in this claim. In 2009, Kissinger did not speak at a World Health Organization (WHO) event. False. There is no evidence that shows Kissinger ever said this quote about mandatory vaccinations. Aap has also looked into same or very similar claim: AAP FactCheck found the forum where Dr Kissinger was alleged to have made the statement – the World Health Organization Council on Eugenics – did not exist. Snopes agrees with prior ones: False Links to full transcripts are well presented in sources above. Edit: 14.4.2022:
User Nzall has done further digging and comments: I took it a step further: I checked every single speech on Henry Kissinger's website , as well as an archived document of the Ford Library containing many of Kissinger's older speeches . He has never even used the word "vaccine" or any derivative thereof, or even any word that starts with "vac" other than "vacuum" in the context of nature abhorring a vacuum. | {
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53,217 | My coworker told me women pay less car insurance than men. So I did some research and found some sites proving that. For example:
According to How Age And Gender Affect Car Insurance Rates , women tend to pay less for car insurance than men. How can a person pay less based solely on their gender? How can this be legal? Is this only in the US? | It appears to be rational behavior for auto insurers to take a driver's gender into account when assessing the risk the driver presents to them and consequently how much they should charge that driver for insurance. In fact, it is rational for insurers to take into account any information about you that might affect the statistical risk to them from selling you insurance. However, you are correct that this practice is seen as problematic by many, and goes against society's general desire for people to be treated equally and not discriminated against based on their sex or other attributes. This has led 7 US states so far to pass laws either fully or partially banning insurance companies from taking gender into account in setting auto insurance rates. Those US states are: California, Hawaii, Massachussetts, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The law in California went into effect on January 1, 2019 , and appears to be the latest state law of this type. See also this press release from the Consumer Federation of America (where the seven states I named above are listed), and this Washington Post article . The implication from the sources I've cited above is that charging women less than men for auto insurance is still legal in most US states. Presumably it is also legal in many other countries, and, as it is rational for insurers to engage in this practice (in an amoral sense that ignores any ethical implications and just looks at the pure economics of the question), presumably is practiced in at least some of those legal jurisdictions in which it is not prohibited. | {
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53,234 | I found this map from this substack, World in motion : Rohan Chabukswar and Kushal Mukherjee, a pair of researchers at the
United Technologies Research Center in Cork, plotted the route in 2018
in response to a question posed by Live Science. They worked out that,
if you set off from the coast of Pakistan, it would be possible to
sail for nearly 20,000 miles – between Africa and Madagascar, narrowly
missing the coast of South America – before hitting land again in the
far north east of Russia. And although it looks like a curve on a two-dimensional map, your
theoretical boat would actually be sailing in a completely straight
line. It claims you can sail from north east Russia to Pakistan in a straight line. How is this true? | An issue of Projection of a 3D globe on a 2D surface. It becomes immediately obvious once you look at an actual 3D globe that the line is , indeed, straight. The other side is just lots of Pacific Ocean. If you want the 3D view animated, this YT video shows that. | {
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53,256 | Then in the 1950s a chemical company, to advance a weed killer, used a public relations campaign to declare white clover a weed. http://americangardening.net/public-relations-campaign-attacks-clover ... Did Monsanto use a public relations campaign to declare white clover a weed? [Clover] was actually how lawns were done in most of the US for a long time, until Roundup was developed. That shit kills everything except lawn grass, including helpful clover, so the makers went on an enormous smear campaign to convince everyone that clover is a weed. It's not. reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/lhjfst/wibta_for_clovering_my_lawn Prior to European colonization, the grasses on the East Coast of North America were mostly broom straw, wild rye, and marsh grass. As Europeans moved into the region, it was noted by colonists in New England, more than others, that the grasses of the New World were inferior to those of England and that their livestock seemed to receive less nutrition from it. In fact, once livestock brought overseas from Europe spread throughout the colonies, much of the native grasses of New England disappeared, and an inventory list from the 17th century noted supplies of clover and grass seed from England. New colonists were even urged by their country and companies to bring grass seed with them to North America. By the late 17th century, a new market in imported grass seed had begun in New England. Jenkins, Virginia S. The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession. Smithsonian Institution, 1994. ISBN 1588345165 Up until WWII, clover was commonplace in American yards. In fact, many grass seed mixes included clover, as it works as an excellent ground cover in areas with poor soils (since it produces its own nitrogen) and won’t hurt your grass. roundup.com/en-us/library/specific-weeds/what-clover-and-how-do-i-control-it That is good enough to believe clover was common/commonplace before grass. I mean, the other side (Roundup) said it themselves. I'm still skeptical of the supposed smear campaign by Roundup though. Are there any documents about what changed the American public to adopt grass instead? | Clover was undesirable in US lawns prior to the invention of Roundup. Roundup (glyphosate aka N-phosphonomethylglycine) was invented in 1971. However, in Suggested Guide for Weed Control 1967 published by the US Department of Agriculture, clover is considered a weed. See especially page 48 (Table 13: Weed control in lawns and other turf areas). A 1954 reference, Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society , discusses clover being a weed and relatively primitive methods of control it: Manuring forms an integral part of the control programme because Clovers tend to flourish in soils deficient in nitrogen. For this reason manuring of the turf in which Clover is a weed should be based on repeated applications of sulphate of ammonia or weathered soot... The 1937 book The Lawn: How to Make and Maintain It says: There is one weed that neither ordinary lawn sand nor hand - weeding will have any effect upon - clover Also, glyphosate (the original Roundup) kills grass ! So the first OP reference is way off when it says "kills everything except lawn grass". | {
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53,273 | Recently protesters against the overturning of U.S.abortion law have often shown the “coat hanger” as the symbolic image of illegal abortion. An extract from Wikipedia reads: In a letter to The New York Times, gynecologist Waldo L. Fielding wrote: The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous "coat hanger" — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in – perhaps the patient herself – found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it... Was this practice, I mean the use of a hanger (as dangerous and desperate as it may be) really common in illegal abortion cases or was it more a one-off episode that became emblematic of the risks and dangers of not having a legal support for abortion? | Here are some examples of the use of coat hangers for self-induced abortion in the literature that shows that this is not a myth: Okonofua, F. E., Onwudiegwu, U., & Odunsi, O. A. (1992). Illegal Induced Abortion: A Study of 74 Cases in Ile-Ife, Nigeria . Tropical Doctor, 22(2), 75–78. doi:10.1177/004947559202200209
10.1177/004947559202200209 This study looked at 74 women who were interviewed about the complications that occurred after their induced abortions. Fourteen of the women had self-induced abortions: The methods
of self induction of abortion in the 14 women were:
self instrumentation with pins, needles and coat
hangers (4), insertion of native vaginal pessaries (2),
ingestion of 'tablets' (2), 'injections' (2), ingestion
of strong alcoholic drinks (2), vaginal instillation of
potash (1) and vaginal instillation of gunpowder (1) Woman Accused of Coat-Hanger Abortion Pleads Guilty to Felon , New York Times, 2017 A Tennessee woman jailed for more than a year after trying to use a coat hanger to abort her 24-week-old fetus pleaded guilty on Monday to one felony count in exchange for her immediate release from jail. Saultes TA, Devita D, Heiner JD. The back alley revisited: sepsis after attempted self-induced abortion. West J Emerg Med. 2009;10(4):278-280. A transabdominal ultrasound revealed a twin pregnancy at 21 weeks gestation, no obvious evidence of abruption, and a significant amount of abdominal free fluid. She then confessed to attempting to end her pregnancy earlier that day by passing a coat hanger deep into her vagina until she felt a “pop,” [...] | {
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53,294 | Quote by Putin in today's Victory Day speech : “In December last year, we proposed the conclusion of an agreement on security guarantees. Russia called on the West to enter an honest dialogue, in search of reasonable compromise solutions, to take each other’s interests into account. It was all in vain.” “NATO countries did not want to listen to us, meaning that they in fact had entirely different plans, and we saw this. Openly, preparations were under way for another punitive operation in Donbas, the invasion of our historical lands, including Crimea. “In Kyiv, they announced the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons, the NATO bloc began actively taking military control of territories adjacent to ours. As such, an absolutely unacceptable threat to us was systematically created, and moreover directly on our borders. Are the two bolded sentences true? Edit : I'm asking about "preparations were under way for another punitive operation in Donbas" (possibly Crimea too, the sentence is ambiguous) and "In Kyiv, they announced the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons". | It's difficult to prove a negative of this kind. Zelensky said the plan to attack Crimea didn't exist. If the Kremlin has compelling evidence, it's up to them to present it. Actually, it seems they did produce some such, but it was ridiculed in western venues, e.g. in The Atlantic Council , based on their apparent inconsistencies On March 24, the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Оперативные сводки (“Operative news”) published photos of medals and certificates that it alleged were going to be used to reward Ukrainian troops “for the capture of Crimea.” The post said the medals and documents were found in Ukrainian conscription offices. Another Telegram channel, Kremlin Z, claimed that these items were discovered in the city of Kherson, currently occupied by Russia. Russian media amplified this message, claiming that the medals were evidence that Ukraine, with the help of NATO, was planning to attack Crimea. This appears to be the latest in a string of Russian false-flag allegations, due to the alleged evidence’s incorrect use of official Ukrainian terminology. Ukraine considers Crimea to be temporarily occupied or annexed by Russia, so if such materials were to exist, they would likely reference the “liberation” of Crimea rather than its “capture.” Further, official Ukrainian documents refer to Crimea as “the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” or “AR Crimea,” while materials allegedly found by Russia did not. The certificates also mention that the medal would be awarded under a Ukrainian presidential “order,” even though Ukrainian military personnel only receive awards via presidential “decree.” Notably, Russia itself uses the word “order” to describe ministerial awards and decrees for presidential awards, as documented in an investigation by Bellingcat. And that "evidence" apparently also got Zelensky's initials wrong (in Ukrainian). As for "another punitive operation in Donbas": it is too vague to be meaningfully confirmed or refuted. One drone strike on an a separatist artillery position (artillery which had been firing, according to Ukrainians) back in the fall of 2021 drew stern condemnation from Russia, and a gathering of troops at the border. As the NYT recounted that incident: Deployed for the first time in combat by Ukraine and provided by a country that is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the drone hit a howitzer operated by the separatists. Things quickly escalated. Across the border, Russia scrambled jets. The next day, Russian tanks mounted on rail cars rumbled toward the Ukrainian border. [...] The troubles began about a month ago when separatists closed a checkpoint on their side — where local residents also traveled for shopping — for unclear reasons, possibly as a coronavirus precaution. In response, on Oct. 25, Volodymyr Vesyolkin, the administrator of Hranitne, a position akin to mayor, led a contingent of about a dozen soldiers across the footbridge. The same day, the military laid concrete blocks for a new bridge about 700 yards away that would be accessible for vehicles. His motive, Mr. Vesyolkin said, was humanitarian: to assure locals of access for shopping and deliveries of coal for winter heating. “How can it violate anything?” Mr. Vesyolkin said in an interview. “This is our village. These are our people. They walk several kilometers to buy groceries.” The separatists interpreted it otherwise — as a land grab — and soon their artillery shells filled the air. Even Ukrainian military officers concede a misperception was possible. “They maybe thought we would send heavy weapons” across the new bridge, Major Sak said. Through the night and into the next morning, a separatist unit with 122-millimeter artillery guns fired toward Ukrainian forces in what is known as a shoot-and-scoot maneuver intended to skirt counterattacks by the enemy. In total, the separatists fired about 120 rounds at the unfinished new bridge, but every shot missed. They hit nearby houses instead, destroying one with such force that it appeared turned inside out, with a pile of cinder blocks covering the street. Major Sak said he requested the drone strike because it was the only weapon that could hit the maneuvering enemy artillery and because civilians were in danger, though none were hit. “Only modern weapons allow us to halt Russia’s aggression,” he said in an interview. So it's hard to say what Putin meant exactly, but we know how the Russian forces reacted in the past to some events. In the week leading to the Russian invasion proper, Ukraine reported some 70 (or 80 ) shelling incidents from the Russian [separatist] side in some 40 different locations. Some of these were confirmed by Western eyewitness/video accounts or otherwise documented on the ground. In the Kremlin's view, any Ukrainian [preparation for an] armed response to [any of] these probably would have satisfied Putin's claim that Ukraine was doing something "punitive". | {
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53,305 | The story of transgender brothers Mark and David Ferrow has become popular on Tumblr and Twitter in recent weeks. It claims In 1934-1936, trans brothers Mark and David Ferrow of Yarmouth, UK both transitioned at age 13 with full parental support. and goes on to describe these men's lives. The poster, Eli Erlick, is a PhD student, so she may very well have access to archives that I don't. However, I haven't been able to find any other accounts of Mark and David Ferrow being transgender youths. I have found some references to David Ferrow as a well-known local bookseller in Yarmouth (which corresponds with the story), although I can't seem to find clear references to Mark Ferrow. Are there sources available online that support this story? Erlick does describe the story as "underreported", so it could simply be that the existing sources aren't freely available. | The thesis POPULAR AND MEDICAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF SEX CHANGE
IN 1930S BRITAIN discusses Mark and David Ferrow for a couple pages starting at page 124, citing four references, all from August 1939, all from popular press rather than medical journals: ... The medical aspect of the brothers’ change of sex was emphasised in each
article. These medical procedures were treated as very matter of fact, as if they
were standard procedures. The Daily Herald stated simply: ‘they had undergone a
sex change’, elaborating: ‘Mark was operated on at a London hospital to complete
his transformation. David has yet to undergo an operation.’
146 The News Chronicle
and the News of the World were no more specific than saying the brothers entered
hospital for ‘treatment’, a quotidian description for such a life-changing occurrence.
The Daily Mirror was slightly more specific, alluding to Mark entering the London
Hospital for ‘injections’. The references to an operation and to injections point
towards some of the earlier stories of sex change that detailed hormone research
and adrenal surgery, but were not any more explicit in communicating what had
taken place at the hospital.147 The brothers, including David, who had not yet undergone any ‘treatment’,
were both described as unequivocally male: deep-voiced and ‘masculine’. Their
ease with gendered accoutrement was highlighted: ‘5ft. 10in., Smokes a Pipe’ and
‘he wears boy’s clothes as naturally as if he had never known skirts’.
148 Being a man
lay partly in their physical embodiment and their comfort in male clothing, but also stemmed from the brothers’ conviction that they were men: ‘I’ve always been a
man at heart’, ‘I suppose, I have always been a man’.
149 ... The four August 1939 references are: ‘Vanished Sisters Return as Boys’, Daily Herald, 26 August 1939, p. 9 ‘2 Sisters Become Brothers’, Daily Mirror, 26 August 1939, p. 5 ‘Sisters Are Now Brothers’, News Chronicle, 26 August 1939, p.11 ‘Two Sisters Are Brothers Now’, News of the World, 27 August 1939, p. 6 There are about a dozen August 1939 articles about these siblings available from the British Newspaper Archive , as well as 2 articles from 1942. A 12 February 1942 Daily Herald article makes the interesting statement: The following year 24 men and women in this country changed their sex. Two Great Yarmouth schoolgirls, Marjorie and Daisy Ferrow, changed their sex. An 18-year-old Enfield girl changed her sex. Her brother changed his at 14. | {
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53,329 | A recent opinion piece in the English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique makes passing reference to the idea that the United States "has ratified only five of the 18 international human rights treaties." That seems a little low, and possibly outdated. Does anyone know of a more official source that can confirm this? | The claim is true. The UN Treaty Body Database has a drop-down selection for United States of America. This shows that USA has signed 9 treaties, but ratified only 5 of them. Treaty Signature Date Ratification Date CAT - Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 18 Apr 1988 21 Oct 1994 CAT-OP - Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture CCPR - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 05 Oct 1977 08 Jun 1992 CCPR-OP2-DP - Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming to the abolition of the death penalty CED - Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance CED, Art.32 - Interstate communication procedure under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance CEDAW - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 17 Jul 1980 CERD - International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 28 Sep 1966 21 Oct 1994 CESCR - International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 05 Oct 1977 CMW - International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families CRC - Convention on the Rights of the Child 16 Feb 1995 CRC-OP-AC - Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict 05 Jul 2000 23 Dec 2002 CRC-OP-SC - Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children child prostitution and child pornography 05 Jul 2000 23 Dec 2002 CRPD - Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 30 Jul 2009 The website is published by The UN Human Rights Office. | {
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53,351 | According to a number of conspiracy sites (see Natural News and Newspunch ), Buffalo shooting victim Aaron Salter Jr had just invented and patented a gas-free car that runs on water (implying that is why he was shot). Ignoring the conspiratorial part of the claim (that is why he was shot), is it true that he had just invented a gas-free car? That would be pretty cool. | In short: Is inventor Aaron W. Salter the same man as 2022 Buffalo shooting victim Aaron Salter Jr? Yes. Did Aaron Salter have a patent related to efficiency of hydrogen-power engines? Yes. Did Aaron Salter invent a car that runs on water? Absolutely not. Was he the same man? Aaron Salter had a Linked In profile that shows he was both a police officer in Buffalo New York and linked to his company AWS Hydrogen Technologies. I have been a police officer for the last 27 years the last two I have been in the traffic division, I do the events at the First Niagara Center along with riding the motorcycle doing parades and races around the city of Buffalo. I'm a jack of all trades a master of none I'm always working on my vechicles and or my project of running engines on water for the last four years or so, I would like to realize my dream of getting cars to run off of water using my newly discovered energy source some day. Images provided by the victim's family, e.g. in People Magazine match this YouTube interview of the inventor :
in which he explains he is a Buffalo police officer. Did he have a patent? Aaron Salter had a patent, filed in 2015 and granted in 2018: Method and system for using the by-product of electrolysis . An engine system for generating hydrogen and oxygen, and a method using a by-product of electrolysis, for use in an internal combustion engine to improve efficiency and reduce emissions. The engine system has an electrolysis cell for generating hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis of an aqueous solution, a battery as a source of power for providing electrical power to the electrolysis cell, and cooling system for maintaining the temperature of the electrolysis cell to reduce problems associated with overheating of the cell during electrolysis. [...] The patent has expired because fees were not paid. Does this engine run on water? In summary, this invention takes some water and a full battery, and ends up with hydrogen, oxygen, some sludge (from water impurities), and a flat battery. The claim is that the sludge can be used to make a hydrogen engine more efficient than other hydrogen engines. This is not running an engine on water. It is essentially running on a battery. There is a cycle of turning water into hydrogen and oxygen and then back to water again. In the above interview, he describes building a prototype of an "HHO" fuel system, where the hydrogen is mixed into the fuel intake of a gasoline engine. We have addressed HHO engines on Skeptics.SE before . They do not run on water. He also describes a system where he ran an electrolysis cell (off a gasoline engine) until he built up enough hydrogen pressure to be able to run the car off hydrogen for several minutes. Again, this is not running off water. The fuel of the overall system is gasoline. | {
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53,357 | The Onion, a satirical newspaper, re-uses a headline each time a mass shooting occurs in the US: “No Way To Prevent This,” Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens Most recently for the shooting in Uvalde, TX . This tradition has its own Wikipedia article , and has been covered by numerous other media outlets. Similar claims have been made widely; for a prominent example, Sky News reporter Mark Stone questioned Sen. Ted Cruz about it in a widely-reported incident. The Sky News report includes a statement that Between 2009 and 2018 there were 288 school shootings in the US, the next highest number was in Mexico where there were eight. But no sources are cited, and in any event “school shootings” are a subset of the “mass shootings” that the Onion headline refers to, and that Mark Stone seemed to be asking after. The Washington Post report on the interview notes that Cruz spokesman Steve Guest told The Washington Post that Stone’s line of questioning surrounding mass shootings in the United States was incorrect. Guest pointed to research from the Crime Research Prevention Center , a pro-firearms nonprofit founded by former Trump appointee John R. Lott Jr. , that claims “the U.S. is well below the world average in terms of the number of mass public shootings.” Infuriatingly, the Post doesn’t analyze either claim: they only report that Sky News says one thing, Ted Cruz’s office says another, and that’s it. The response is fairly buried, and the labeling of that response as coming from “a pro-firearms nonprofit founded by [a] former Trump appointee” certainly suggests that the Post sides with Sky News on this, but it’s not backed up. And while the conflict of interest gives a strong reason to be skeptical of the claim, it isn’t in itself a reason to assume that it is false—it’s a reason to dig deeper. So I’m asking this site to help do that: Is America exceptional in how frequently it experiences mass shootings? Or is it “well below the world average in terms of mass public shootings”? If the difference comes down to definitions—as I suspect it does—I’d like to see analysis of those definitions: does one include incidents that don’t match what the public thinks of when they hear “mass shooting”? Or does the other exclude things that the public would include? | Ted Cruz's spokesman cited a non-peer-reviewed analysis by John R. Lott. Lott says he is trying to debunk a study by the criminologist Adam Lankford, which the Washington Post 's fact checker describes as follows: Lankford conducted a statistical analysis of the total number of public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012 in 171 countries and controlled for the national population size. He said his data showed the United States had significantly more mass shooters, with 90 between 1966 and 2012, compared with 202 in the rest of the world . Lankford did not include terrorist attacks in his definition of mass shootings, while Lott did. When The Fact Checker spotted the Mumbai attack on Lott’s list, we
asked Lott to remove terrorism cases from the totals for the four
countries listed by Lankford — the Philippines, Russia, Yemen and
France. Our hope was to provide as much an apples-to-apples comparison
as possible. Without terrorism cases, Lott’s count of shooters fell dramatically.
In the Philippines, the number of shooters fell from 120 to 11, in
Russia from 65 to 21 and in Yemen from 65 to 3. Only France did not
have a significant decline, going from 5 to 4. Furthermore, the Washington Post determined that most of the remaining incidents can also be described as militia or terrorist group activity, not lone gunmen. Lankford himself also made this point in his response to Lott. However, a 2019 academic study found that various definitions of "mass shooting" can lead to vastly different outcomes, even simply using US data. There is great potential for media reporting bias in mass shootings. People who claim that a mass shooting occurs almost every day of the year are correct only by the standards of Gun Violence Archive. Individuals against the movement toward more comprehensive gun legislation would be more inclined to use the Mother Jones mass shooting data to endorse the rarity of such events, and therefore the lack of urgency needed in mass shooting prevention. Neither of the groups would have to manipulate data to fit their message – they simply need to choose the database with the definition that best fits their agenda. In this way, the absence of a standard mass shooting definition undermines high-quality research and reporting in a field that has been highly politicized. My conclusion from skimming these articles is as follows: If the definition of "mass shooting" is broadened to include activity by criminal gangs, terrorist groups, and militias, then the United States is not unusual, even if we are talking about deaths of uninvolved civilians. If the definition of "mass shooting" is narrowed somewhat to individuals shooting multiple uninvolved civilians on their own agency, it is very hard to quantify the data and there is a lot of disagreement. This includes gangland shootings, for instance. As Lott points out in his article, such incidents are not always reported in foreign news media, especially in countries like China. If the definition of "mass shooting" is narrowed further to individuals planning events with maximum murder capacity such as school shootings or the Las Vegas shooting, it does seem like the United States stands out; this is closer to Lankford's definition. I'm not a criminologist and I welcome suggestions to modify this answer. | {
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53,380 | Joshua Hawkins of BGR.com has stated that 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer. To quote the article: Scientists may have discovered why lifelong smokers never get lung cancer. That sentence probably seems silly, especially given that cigarettes are the number one risk factor for lung cancer. Despite tobacco products being the cause of 90 percent of deaths, lifelong smokers somehow tend to avoid getting lung cancer. […] However, based on the findings of this study, it could play a large part in why 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer. There doesn't seem to be any source for the claim, although a study in Nature Genetics was linked in the article and that is behind a paywall. As pointed out in the accepted answer to Skeptics.SE question, Does smoking cigarettes cause lung cancer? , smoking definitely causes cancer, but do 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers actually never develop lung cancer? | This study from 2018 has a table (Fig.3) for lifetime risk of lung cancer, with that being ~12-14% for current smoker, and less than 2% for never-smoker. So, it is true that 80-90 percent of smokers never develop lung cancer. At the same time, smoking massively increases the risk of lung cancer. Citation in case the link to the study goes bad: Christina Bruder, Jean-Luc Bulliard, Simon Germann, Isabelle
Konzelmann, Murielle Bochud, Magali Leyvraz, Arnaud Chiolero,
Estimating lifetime and 10-year risk of lung cancer, Preventive
Medicine Reports, Volume 11, 2018, Pages 125-130, ISSN 2211-3355, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.06.010 .
( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335518301062 ) | {
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53,389 | Multiple websites and media say: Facebook claims its 'fact-check' are just protected opinions, according to Facebook's legal team. However, I have not found any official Facebook sources for this claim. Has Facebook's legal team said something similar? | In Stossel v Facebook et al (US District Court, Northern California), Meta/Facebook filed a document on 29 November 2021 stating: ...Stossel’s claims focus on the fact-check articles
written by Climate Feedback, not the labels affixed through the Facebook platform. The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion. The document was signed by Sonal N. Mehta signing as "Attorney for Defendant Meta Platforms, Inc." So in the court filing Ms. Mehta is expressing that the labels “Altered”, “Missing Context”, “False”, and “Partly False” are opinion. She is not stating that the explanations of why the labels are given is purely opinion. (alternative source for the court filing document ) | {
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53,399 | Joe Biden, in his speech on June 2, said that guns are the number one killer of children, even more than car accidents. Is this claim true? According to new data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the No. 1 killer of children in the United States of America. The No. 1 killer. More than car accidents, more than cancer. Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined. Think about that. More kids than on-duty cops killed by guns. More kids than soldiers killed by guns. Transcript Link of the speech. | According to NBC News : Child vehicle deaths, while falling, still topped firearm deaths in 2020 Nearly 2,400 children ages 1-17 died of vehicle-related injuries in 2020, compared with 2,270 firearm deaths (Note that this excludes children under age 1, who have a high death rate from birth defects, low birth weight and SIDS and few gun deaths. 19,582 children under 1 died in 2020. Including children under 1 would add 11 firearm deaths and 75 motor vehicle deaths CDC source .) However, if young adults (18 and 19 year olds) are included, and again children under age 1 are excluded, then Biden's claim becomes accurate. Considering all children, ages 0-17 , the correct information from the CDC source above is as follows: Deaths in 2020 due to: Congenital abnormalities: 4,860 Short Gestation: 3,141 Motor Vehicles: 2,462 Firearms: 2,281 | {
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53,435 | The environmentalist website Ocean Sentry makes the claim (citing Calgary Herald) that: The massive clockwise North Pacific Gyre is carrying plastic that is over 50 years old. Last year, plastic found in the stomach of an albatross had a serial number traced to a Second World War seaplane shot down just south of Japan in 1944 and identified over 60 years later off the West Coast of the U. S. A similar claim is made by LA Times: A piece of plastic found in an albatross stomach last year bore a serial number that was traced to a World War II seaplane shot down in 1944. Computer models re-creating the object’s odyssey showed it spent a decade in a gyre known as the Western Garbage Patch, just south of Japan, and then drifted 6,000 miles to the Eastern Garbage Patch off the West Coast of the U.S., where it spun in circles for the next 50 years. However, while the first article was written in 2009 and the latter article was written in 2006, both articles claim the plastic was found "last year". I was also unable to find any sources describing the seaplane with a number of different searches, although this unsourced claim kept showing up. Was plastic from a seaplane shot down in 1944 recently (in the 2000s) found in an albatross stomach, and if so, is there any additional information regarding this plane? | There are earlier sources and more information about this story. The 23 April 2006 Pacific Northwest Sunday Magazine published by the Seattle Times says: Take a piece of plastic marked "VP-101" found in the stomach of a dead Laysan albatross chick along with cigarette lighters, bottle caps and hundreds of other pieces of plastic (all pictured in National Geographic, October 2005). Ebbesmeyer helped confirm that "VP-101" was likely a Bakelite tag for a U.S. Navy patrol squadron during World War II, and could, indeed, have floated in the ocean for 60 years before the albatross swallowed it. Earlier, 9 October 2005, someone on a US Navy related forum wrote: Did anyone from VP-101 notice the item on page 87 of the October 2005 National Geographic? The contents of a albatross' stomach. Bottom right. Little piece of white plastic with "VP-101". Does it look familiar to anyone? Interesting along with this marked-up photo: The later articles, starting with the LA Times article shouldn't have said "shot down", "serial number" or 1944 specifically. Instead, they should have said a piece of plastic believed to be from US Navy Patrol 101 ( VP-101 ), which was only designated VP-101 from 1940-1944, was found. The piece of plastic was found in a dead 6-month old chick on Kure Atoll according to the original National Geographic article “Hawaii’s Outer Kingdom” by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton. According to Plastic: An Autobiography the dead chick containing the plastic was found in 2003 and the piece of plastic was lost in 2006. The identification of the piece being Bakelite and from US Navy Patrol 101 is only based upon the photograph. | {
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53,475 | According to this NPR article and this podcast episode (published June 2022): The French labor code prohibits workers from eating lunch in the workplace. Is this a real French law, and does violating it have actual legal consequences, or is it only a matter of being shunned by peers? | Yes, it is illegal for an employer to let an employee eat at their desk. Article R4228-19 It is forbidden to allow workers to take their meals in the premises assigned to work. It is the employer's responsibility: an employee who would be caught by the labor inspection eating at their desk could not be punished, but the employer could be. The motivation of this law is to prevent an employer from pressuring an employee to work during their lunch break. | {
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53,485 | In 2021 there were reports of mass graves in Canada. For instance, CNN analysis quotes Indigenous peoples that tens of thousands of their children were forcibly removed from their families for decades and sent to what some described as more like "concentration camps" than boarding schools. More than 750 unmarked graves were discovered at one such school. and writes: School to honour the 215 children whose remains were discovered buried near the facility, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, on June 4, 2021. Today (2022) The New York Post is disputing the previous claims. ‘Biggest fake news story in Canada’: Kamloops mass grave debunked by academics “Not one body has been found,” Is there evidence of mass graves near boarding schools or in Canada? If so, is there evidence of that buried are children (of indigenous origin)? If so, is there evidence that victims are due to murder or other deliberate action? (Apart from natural causes, such as disease outbreaks.) | Although this is ongoing, the current state is easy to describe. There have been many investigations by indigenous groups on the sites of former Residential Schools using ground penetrating radar and similar technologies. These investigations have turned up several sites that give the appearance of containing many graves . The Kamloops site has not been excavated at this time, nor has it been positively identified that there are human remains there. This is true of many of the other sites. In general there has been little opposition to the identification of those sites as graves, for a few reasons: Other unmarked graves have been discovered accidentally at schools and remains have been confirmed as human. In several cases these sites correspond to sites identified as graveyards by survivors of the schools; There is little doubt that such graves exist somewhere. While records of Residential Schools have not all been released, there are many oral accounts of students who disappeared or died in residential schools and whose remains have not been identified. Thousands of children are known to have died in Residential Schools, and many have no record of burial. The death rate at the schools was significantly higher than elsewhere, and other maltreatment was widespread. Even if the sites identified do not turn out to be graves, this does not affect number of deaths or the nature or quantity of the abuse that occurred at Residential Schools. GPR has proven a reliable indicator of the presence of graves in similar circumstances, though not 100%. For these reasons there has been little disagreement with the graves investigation from those who ran the residential schools. The accusations of abuse and/or genocide do not depend on the existence of the graves. The unexplained deaths and the neglect, abuse and other mistreatment at Residential Schools, along with the compulsory and enforced attendance against the wishes of the parents, stands on its own without the identification of grave sites. It is unlikely that the graves identified are "mass graves" in the sense of a large number of people all buried in the same place at the same time (and carrying implications of bodies "dumped in a hole"). What has likely been found is sites that contain the graves of many people. The media does refer to these as "mass graves", although they are not in the sense meant above. There is no accusation that every grave found is of a native child immediately and deliberately killed. It is very likely that some graves would be from neglect, cumulative abuse, disease and natural causes. However to have a child taken away, and have that child die and never be told where they are buried is horrific enough. | {
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53,659 | Some numerologists claim that the mathematical constants e and π are encoded in the Bible via gematria . For example, blogger Joe Vasta argues that Genesis 1:1 encodes 3.141554508×10 17 . The value of π is approximately 3.14159. He argues that John 1:1 encodes 2.718312812×10 40 . The value of e is approximately 2.71828. He suggests: perhaps the Bible is the inspired word of God, and this is just a “fingerprint” found in the verses. There are similar claims about the Quran encoding the Golden Ratio. I have seen this come up in forums before, commenting on it being ridiculous and it's just within our nature to pattern match whenever we can which is plausible, but I don't really get why it is so, which is where I need help understanding. Are the constants encoded in the Bible? Is this more than just a coincidence? | Are the mathematical constants e and pi encoded into the Bible? Based on the provided evidence, NO. Disclaimer of bias: I consider myself a Christian who believes that the Bible is divinely inspired. I admit that if these numerical values were encoded into the Bible before they were known to the mathematical community, this would be an impressive piece of evidence for divine inspiration. So I might hope that a claim like this is correct. But it isn't. The issue here is that the method of encoding presented is entirely and completely arbitrary. At no point does the author justify how he selected various methods of calculation. Consequently, as Dan Romik points out in his answer elsewhere on this page , this method suffers from the research degree of freedom problem. Consider his method of equating numbers with letters. This method, as pointed out by David K and LangLangC (thanks y'all) is native to the Greek alphabet; however, it was not adopted into the Hebrew alphabet until long after the book of Genesis was written, and would not make sense to apply to the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1. One could argue that God would know the future, and consequently place the verse in such a way as to be decoded in the future. However, Joe Vasta goes on to make clearly arbitrary decisions in his line of reasoning. Consider the expression that he uses to create the values similar to pi and e: (number of letters)(product of letters)/(number of words)(product of words) Why did he select this combination of multiplication, division, and summing? No explanation is provided. Now consider that the resulting numbers only match pi and e if you divide by 10^17 and 10^40, respectively. Why are these values different? On what basis are they the "right" numbers to divide by to get the "right" mathematical constants? No explanation is provided. Now consider that in the original Greek and Hebrew Bibles, there were no chapters and verses! No Christian that I know of claims that the modern divisions of chapters and verses is divinely inspired. They are simply arbitrary markers for ease of navigation. See Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament and Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament. With so many arbitrary choices, it is possible to claim to find encoded messages anywhere. For proof of this, take a look at my tongue-in-cheek response to a puzzle on Puzzling.SE. I managed to find a "secret message" within the first few digits of pi itself, with the exact same arbitrary way of thinking. To conclude, due to the apparently arbitrary operations performed, there is no evidence that finding pi and e in this manner is a remarkable or miraculous occurrence. I suspect (but cannot prove) that this is simply a man with too much time to devote to trial and error mathematical calculations. | {
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53,681 | A public statement from former U.S. president Donald Trump claims that former president Barack Obama kept 33 million documents from his presidency, most of them classified and many of which contained details of nuclear weapons. Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America 08/12/22 President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots! Source ( archived ) 33 million pages seems an extremely large amount to keep. Furthermore, a former politician retaining classified documents pertaining to nuclear weapons seems to be extraordinarily dangerous. Did Barack Obama keep 33 million pages of documents from his presidency? Were most of them classified? Did many of them pertain to nuclear weapons? | No that is not accurate according to politifact and it is the national archives that have control Trump’s suggestion that Obama had personally kept millions of
documents including classified materials is wrong. The National
Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, said in response to
Trump’s statement that "former President Obama has no control over
where and how NARA stores the presidential records of his
administration." The National Archives said it "assumed exclusive legal and physical
custody of Obama presidential records when President Barack Obama left
office in 2017." The agency said about 30 million pages of unclassified records went to
a National Archives facility in the Chicago area. Classified Obama
presidential records are in a facility in the Washington, D.C., area. The Obama administration turned over the documents to the national archive which was in charge of determining what to do with them. The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago won’t be in the library
network operated by the National Archives, unlike other presidential
libraries. The center will be privately operated and built by the
Obama Foundation, which will raise money for the center. It remains
under construction with an expected opening date of 2025. But the National Archives continue to own and control the documents.
During the digitization project, a memorandum of understanding between
the National Archives and the foundation said, "NARA will not be
transferring control, custody, or ownership over any of the Records to
the Foundation, the Vendor, or any other third party." The ruling they give is that the statement is "pants on fire": Trump said, "President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of
documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to
nuclear? Word is, lots!" Trump is wrong. News reports starting in 2016 showed that the National
Archives and Records Administration would oversee transfer of Obama’s
presidential records. The agency announced it would digitize the
records and that classified records were sent to a facility in College
Park, Maryland. Obama does not have them. We rate this statement Pants on Fire! NARA Press Release August 12th 2022 The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed
exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records
when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with
the Presidential Records Act (PRA). NARA moved approximately 30
million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the
Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA.
Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records
in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the
PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA
stores the Presidential records of his Administration. | {
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53,686 | A few days ago, President Biden said Today, we received news that our economy had 0% inflation in the month of July — 0% This was contested in conservative media, with Fox News running the headline "White House blasted for claiming ‘zero’ inflation after latest CPI report: ‘Lying to everyone’" . They claimed it's not inflation that's 0%, but change in inflation that's 0% That means inflation "slowed in July for the first time in months," as the outlet reported, though it’s only .2% less than the highest CPI (8.7%) in 40 years. Essentially inflation remains almost as bad as it’s been all summer. And it’s not "zero." Perhaps Biden meant "zero" as in "zero increase" in inflation. However various other news sites claim that the month-over-month inflation really was 0%. So which is it? | After a bit more research, I'd rate this true but misleading . Here is the Consumer Price Index for July 2022 As highlighted in the screenshot, the month-over-month inflation for July 2022 was indeed 0%. This means that the weighted-average of prices measured by the CPI was exactly the same in June 2022 and July 2022. However, "inflation" is usually given as a 12-month change of price-averages, not a 1-month change. Since the 1-month inflation was positive for 11 out of the past 12 months, it should be no surprise that the 12-month inflation is also positive, at 8.5%. In other words, while month-over-month inflation was indeed 0% for July, what would normally be called "the inflation as of July" was not . The claim by Fox news that 0% refers to the change in inflation is straight up false . Both the month-over-month and year-over-year inflation values went down , meaning the change in inflation is negative in both cases. Presumably Fox is confused because the above chart says "adjusted changes from preceding month" . However this refers to the change in the CPI , which is what defines inflation, not to the change in inflation itself. As an aside, they've now made this claim in two articles , neither of which mentions the month-over-month vs. year-over-year distinction, despite the second being a critique of a NYT article which explains the distinction. That makes it hard to pass this off as an innocent mistake. | {
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53,702 | In some recent publications , plasma physicist and alternative cosmology advocate Eric Lerner has made the claim that recent JWST images disprove the conventional ΛCDM model of cosmological inflation, and hence that "The Big Bang didn't happen". I would attempt to summarise his main arguments as: The conventional model predicts early galaxies should be larger and dimmer while the JWST images show them as much smaller and denser. Later galaxies should be more irregularly shaped under the conventional model, but instead they are smoother. The conventional model predicts much less helium and lithium than appears to be present in the early universe. Lerner makes the claims that the only reason the Big Bang theory exists today is due to institutional inertia and suppression of dissenting views. He instead advocates for a different underlying cosmology, in which the structure of galaxies and the abundance of elements is caused predominantly by electromagnetic forces, mediated by plasma interactions , and that there was no early "hot dense phase" of the universe's existence. To my (untrained) view this looks like fringe science, very close to the widely debunked "Electric Universe" area of pseudoscience/nonsense. Are these claims that JWST data cause a fundamental crisis for Big Bang cosmology accurate, or are they incorrect/overstated? | After a bit more research, I'd rate this true but misleading . Here is the Consumer Price Index for July 2022 As highlighted in the screenshot, the month-over-month inflation for July 2022 was indeed 0%. This means that the weighted-average of prices measured by the CPI was exactly the same in June 2022 and July 2022. However, "inflation" is usually given as a 12-month change of price-averages, not a 1-month change. Since the 1-month inflation was positive for 11 out of the past 12 months, it should be no surprise that the 12-month inflation is also positive, at 8.5%. In other words, while month-over-month inflation was indeed 0% for July, what would normally be called "the inflation as of July" was not . The claim by Fox news that 0% refers to the change in inflation is straight up false . Both the month-over-month and year-over-year inflation values went down , meaning the change in inflation is negative in both cases. Presumably Fox is confused because the above chart says "adjusted changes from preceding month" . However this refers to the change in the CPI , which is what defines inflation, not to the change in inflation itself. As an aside, they've now made this claim in two articles , neither of which mentions the month-over-month vs. year-over-year distinction, despite the second being a critique of a NYT article which explains the distinction. That makes it hard to pass this off as an innocent mistake. | {
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53,756 | An Aug. 30, 2022 NBC article says: A third of Pakistan is underwater as deadly floods leave desperate residents facing 'doomsday' The article later attributes the one third claim to a tweet from Pakistan's Climate Minister Sherry Rehman : One-third of Pakistan is under water. Frankly, no one has seen this kind of downpour & flooding before,and no one country can cope alone with the multiple, cascading effects of extreme weather, climate events. The NBC article continues: Pakistan’s government has said that more than 33 million people, around 15 % of the population, have been affected by the extreme weather. which makes it clear that the claim is about Pakistan's land area, not population. Is the claim true? | The Washington Post seems to disagree; they don't repeat the 1/3 claim and post this map instead, where blue area is clearly less than 1/3 of Pakistan. Note the 100 miles scale. OTOH Nature in its new section repeats the 1/3 claim sans attribution (i.e. as fact) on Sep 2, but offers no analysis to back it up in terms of area. (There's data in there about homes or bridges destroyed etc., but that's not the same thing.) ESA repeats the claim but with attribution to the Pakistani minister. They don't endorse it themselves, and the blue area in their map is clearly more "zoomed in", note the 10-50 km scale and cities names, i.e. roughly centered around Larkana and the "triangle" flooded area. Although it seems a lot of the claim repeats include NASA imagery, NASA themselves don't repeat the 1/3 claim. Also note compared to the other answer that what you see there (on "Live Science") is the zoomed in area boxed below... Slightly newer UN data than in the other answer, as of Sep 2 (using UN estimate up to Aug 29) satellite detected water extents mapped by the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) indicate preliminarily that of 793,000 km2 of lands in Pakistan analysed between 1 and 29 August, around 75,000 km2 appear to be affected by floodwaters , including some 48,530 km2 that appear to be croplands. I.e. ignoring any error for the measurements (since the source doesn't provide those), flooded area is <10% of total land area. Based on the WaPo map, someone suggested in a comment below that the 1/3 ratio might apply to the highly populated areas (i.e. who cares if the deserts aren't flooded) but I've not found a good numerical source for this kind of calculation, and I don't want to determine myself the population-density threshold that would make the claim true, i.e. do some "reverse mathematics" (of sorts) here. OTOH, there are many , many Western sources that give the claim unqualified (esp. in headlines), so it's definitely worth evaluating just that, regardless what the minister might have intended. FWTW, from the same UN estimate , only 10% of Pakistan's population has been affected up to Aug 29 (although 26% of the pop. in the Sindh province), so the UN is also more conservative than the Pakistani gov't 15% population-level estimate (given in the OP's quote via NBC). A later UN update published on Sep 1 (which adds two more days to the survey, i.e. up to Aug 31) has put the maximum extent flooded area to 86,603 sq km . And the population potentially exposed was bumped to 33% of Sindh province and 15% overall, matching the Pakistani's government estimate in that (latter) regard. (Area wise, 31.7% of Sindh was flooded, from the raw data [44,738 sq km out of 141,102 sq km] provided by the UN on Sep 1.) | {
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53,765 | According to the blogger Peter Sweden : If we take a look at the excess deaths among children aged 0-14 across Europe, there has been a HORRIFYING 1101% increase in excess deaths so far this year compared with the same time period in 2021. Why? Is the (unsourced) 1101% figure true? | "Caveat percentor" You can DL the dataset from EuroMOMO and do the simple arithmetic yourself. (Sorry no direct link to the dataset seems possible; they use some AJAX or stuff like that.) It's not 100% clear what formula the blog claims uses, or the exact period involved, but one thing it states is "compared with the same time period in 2021". So let's look at a few periods; for 2021, the cumulative excess ("observed count" minus "baseline", summed from first week of the year) is actually negative for the first half of the year (i.e. below long-term baseline) and only crosses zero in the 2nd half of that year, so for 2021 you get excess numbers (in the 0-14 age group) like First 34 weeks: 80.98 First 30 weeks: 23.82 First 29 weeks: -13.12 The corresponding excess numbers for 2022, all well above the baseline First 34 weeks: 855.67 First 30 weeks: 787.32 First 29 weeks: 742.06 So, using the ( b - a )/ a x 100 percentage increase formula one can make various claims about the excess like: 957% increase for the first 34 weeks 3,205% increase for the first 30 weeks -5,756% increase for the first 29 weeks ???? It shows more that when talking about percent increase for an excess-above-baseline figure (which can be even negative) one can get even more "whatever you like" results near zero (for the first/reference item) than just truncated graphs . I can't read the full blog because it's paywalled, but if the author is somehow speculating about causes... Covid vaccines in children probably aren't one because (to quote a bit more form the "RMIT ABC Fact Check" article linked by Mad Scientist) European countries only began vaccinating their 5-11 year-olds from December 2021, and the European drugs regulator is yet to approve COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5. But the excess numbers for the 2nd half of 2021 are rather high well before December. E.g for weeks 27-52 of 2021 the excess I get is 903.45. Even if you drop the last 4 weeks (December), it's 746.43. This point was raised in the RMIT piece linked as Viewed this way, the EuroMOMO data shows there were 910 excess deaths in the last half of 2021, and 611 in the first half of 2022 — meaning excess deaths among under-15s fell by 33 per cent. (For some reason, I don't get the exact numbers claimed there; I get 903.45 vs 910 and 618.21 vs 611, but they are close enough to what the RMIT article claims to roughly check its claims/calculations. The small diff might be because the baseline has changed in the more recent dataset, or something like that. As noted on the methods page or EuroMOMO, the baseline they calculate [and which is pre-calculated by them in the downloaded data set] for the 0-14 age group is described as "linear trend, no seasonality". I'm guessing that baseline is derived from the 5-year data set they provide, which actually seems to drop a week from 2017 for every week of 2022 that is added as time passes [the DL set only goes back to week 36 of 2017 right now], although the methods description isn't too clear on the latter aspect.) As I scrolled to the bottom of the EuroMOMO page, I see there is a cumulated graph they provide themselves, in case you doubt my high level description of what the data looked like, relative to the baseline they calculate. I've added 2019 to the default view/selection (which only includes the pandemic years by default) to see how the 2022 might relate to one year before the pandemic. | {
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53,774 | We have had a number of roundabouts installed near us in South Western PA in the past decade, and a quick internet search shows other states doing so as well. This seems to be an almost universally frustrating trend with those I've spoken to. A quick online search leads to a number of pages such as this one from PennDoT: Road Design > Roundabouts . These pages extoll the safety of roundabouts and quote statistics about how much safer they are than intersections. This sounds great and, if true, I'm on board. However, my personal experience with roundabouts, even ten years after installation of the first one in our area, involve regular instances of: drivers switch lanes inside the roundabout at the last minute without looking because they are unclear which lane to be in, or how to properly get to the inner lane drivers fail to yield when entering the roundabout since they're used to most cars flowing straight drivers slow nearly to a stop in confusion while they try to understand how to use the roundabout (hopefully this will disappear eventually) I experience at least one of the above almost every visit to a roundabout. There have also been at least 2 accidents that I've heard of in our local roundabout, despite it being a medium-low traffic road. This makes me question whether the statistics being presented are cherry picked or presented out of context to appear to support an untrue premise. Are roundabouts actually safer than traditional intersections, and I'm just seeing issues caused by the adoption of the new and unfamiliar? Or are these statistics false or misleading? EDIT Thank you, all, for the wonderful answers. Since the question has been asked a number of times, I wanted to post a link to the particular roundabout that prompted my question: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2038168,-80.1263559,151m/data=!3m1!1e3 Ironically, the day after accepting the answer about them being safer, I had to slam my brakes to avoid being hit by an entering car that ignored the yield and just continued through at 30+ mph. The universe is messing with me again... | Here is a study of traffic safety at roundabouts in Minnesota. In this study they looked at all roundabouts in Minnesota, and look at the recorded crash data at these sites, comparing the data before the construction of the roundabouts to that after the construction. The findings of this technical report both confirm the increased safety of roundabouts and your anecdotal report of increased incidents at round abouts. In particular they found a significant decrease in the number of serious accidents that were fatal (-86%) or lead to serious injury (-83%) an increase in the number of "property damage only" crashes, which were up 50%. a slight increase (+15%) in the overall number of crashes. The explanation for this comes from the fact that the nature of crashes at roundabouts is very different from that at traditional crossings. Roundabouts experience a decrease (-35%) in the number of right angle collisions (typically the most dangerous crashes), while experiencing in increase of the number of sideswipe (+681%), and "ran-off road" incidents (+272% or +373% depending on the side of the road). EDIT: In the comments @Oddthinking makes the fair point that this data mainly shows that placing a roundabout can make a dangerous intersection safer, but it does not necessarily tell us whether a roundabout is a safer option than other improvements one could make to an intersection. The report does actually contain data comparing different intersection types (this time using data from the 2015 Minnesota Intersection Toolkit, based on 5 years of
crash data from 2011-2015. Traffic Control Device Crash Rate Fatal and Serious Injury Crash Rate Urban Thru-Stop 0.18 0.33 Rural Thru-Stop 0.25 1.05 Signal - Low Volume/Low Speed 0.52 0.42 All-Way Stop 0.35 0.57 Single Lane Roundabout 0.32 0.31 Signal - High Volume/Low Speed 0.70 0.76 Signal - High Volume/High Speed 0.45 0.48 Unbalanced Roundabout 0.76 0.15 Dual Lane Roundabout 2.18 0.00 All Roundabouts 0.51 0.24 And here's a color-coded version: While roundabouts (particularly dual lane roundabouts) show higher overall crash rates than other intersection types, they show lower rates of fatal and serious injury crashes. This is consistent with the other findings. Of course, there could still be some sort of selection bias due to the fact that certain solutions are built in certain situations based on where they would best fit. Source: Leuer, Derek, and Safety and Technology Minnesota. Dept. of Transportation. Office of Traffic. “A Study of the Traffic Safety at Roundabouts in Minnesota,” October 30, 2017. | {
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53,799 | The mainstream media in China have reported several times that the most popular college books in the US include "The Communist Manifesto" & "The Republic". I have always thought that is "fake news" until someone published the quoted source here (it is in Chinese). It seems that the data is collected from https://opensyllabus.org/ . But who are they OpenSyllabus? Is their data credible? This is from the Washington Post article " What Ivy League students are reading that you aren’t ", which used the word "most popular" instead of "most assigned". I then checked https://opensyllabus.org/ . As of today (2022.9.14), "The Communist Manifesto" ranks 4th and ""The Republic" ranks 5th. I googled these terms and find the top 2 results are: WHAT ARE THE MOST POPULAR COLLEGE BOOKS IN THE US? THE MOST-POPULAR COLLEGE BOOKS They all said their data was from https://opensyllabus.org so the result is similar. But is is really the case that "The Communist Manifesto" and "The Republic" are among the most frequently assigned college books? I explain why I have doubts about the claim: For "The Communist Manifesto" it is obvious. And I have heard from many sources (although I can't verify that either) that nobody in the "west" takes this book seriously, only our Chinese or the Communist Party to be exact take it seriously. Actually we don't take this book seriously too. For Plato's Republic, I would feel more real if professors in US assign the books from Adam Smith or Friedrich Hayek or any modern political books. I know they are the assigned books and it does NOT imply anyone agrees with the content (of course!). But my question is why would professors assign these books? I got my entire education in China and I know little about the college education in US or the English world, so if the answer is obvious to you maybe not be obvious to me. That's one of reasons I asked the question. But I really don't see the obvious reason here. Surely Communist Manifesto was an extremely influential document but isn't there more influential document, especially in the west world the college students need to learn ? The bottom line is is OpenSyllabus's data credible ? If yes, how do we interpret its data? The very first comment I got from xyldke
show that OpenSyllabus has explained Communist Manifesto’s High Rank . I have got many replies for Communist Manifesto, but can someone talk about Republic? If it is indeed the case and if I were to guess the reason I would say it is because Martin Luther King said The Republic is the one book he would have taken to a deserted island, alongside the Bible. | Source of Statistics The methodology behind the numbers is discussed on Open Syllabus' about page . A few key points: The data doesn't cover all courses in the US. They estimate their coverage at around 5 to 6 percent. The data is not manually entered in a consistent format. It is scraped from documents using automated tools trained with machine learning. The data only covers a pre-defined list of known titles. Some titles may be missed because they are not in the list; others may be merged or split incorrectly. They claim that despite these limitations,, their data set is large and accurate enough to provide useful insight. Is the claim true? Firstly, the word "popular" is somewhat misleading; as the subtitle on the quoted graphic shows, these are frequently assigned texts. They are "popular" in a technical sense, but not in the colloquial sense of "people choose and enjoy them". However, rewording to a less leading question: Do the most commonly assigned college books in the US include "The Communist Manifesto" & "The Republic"? The answer appears to be "yes": they appear at positions 4 and 5 in the overall list, according to the data sampled. Even allowing for errors in the data set, it is likely to be more assigned than many other works. Is it surprising? The sense of surprise comes from misinterpreting the ranking as implying some kind of "importance" or "merit", rather than looking at what "frequency" actually means in this context. The Open Syllabus blog has an article discussing the ranking of the Communist Manifesto . It points out several reasons it ranks highly, which probably apply to several of the top ranked titles: It is assigned in multiple different subjects. Texts that rank higher in individual subjects will probably be more specific to that particular topic, so rank lower across the full data set. It is assigned to study its influence , as well as its ideas. Notably, it is not one of the most frequently assigned texts in Economics, but it is in History and Sociology. It is also ranked fairly high in English, presumably as an example of a particular type of writing, and to understand its influence on other texts. It is a short text which can be taught in its entirety, rather than excerpted from. It is a single work with clear authorship, so unambiguously appears on the lists the data is based on. It is also worth pointing out that the absolute frequency of these books is very low: there are 11234 occurrences of The Communist Manifesto and 9883 of The Republic, out of 4.3 million analysed syllabi in the US alone. That means 99 percent of courses do not list either of these books as required reading They also represent 2 out of nearly 5 million titles which appear at least once in the data set. Individual teachers may rank any of those 5 million as "important", but they don't agree enough for them to rank highly when aggregated across all courses. | {
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53,817 | This widely watched video claims it did, but I can't find any news. | It's true that an eruption of the Home Reef volcano in Tonga is occurring as of 17 September. Calling it an "explosion" seems to be an overstatement . The claim that it caused a tsunami affecting the Tongan capital on 17 September appears to be false . Most or all of the footage in the video is from earlier unrelated events. Using the Youtube Metadata tool , the video was posted at Sat, 17 Sep 2022 19:00:13 GMT. It claims that a "horrible tsunami" has hit Tonga's capital city, which is Nukuʻalofa on the island of Tongatapu. The Tonga Geological Services government agency, on their Facebook page , has announced in several posts around this time that the Home Reef volcano is currently erupting. They do not use the word "explode". At 23:08 GMT on 17 Sep, four hours after the posting of the YouTube video in question, Tonga Geological Services posted Public Notice 7 . It describes "fumarolic activities" and a release of steam, but no ash, and nothing that sounds like an explosion. It advises mariners to stay 4 km away from the volcano, but that there is "no hazard alert" and a "low risk" to the islands groups of Vava'u and Ha'apai, which are within about 100 km of the volcano. There is no mention of any damage whatsoever having occurred, let alone a "horrible" tsunami affecting the island of Tongatapu which is more than twice as far away (over 250 km from the volcano). The Home Reef volcano is not to be confused with the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai volcano , about 200 km to the south, which did cause a destructive tsunami on Tongatapu when it erupted in January 2022. That eruption was far more powerful than this one. The narration in the video seems to be just reading some combination of TGS's Public Notices more or less verbatim, probably with either text-to-speech, or else a particularly dull human narrator who doesn't know that "m" stands for "meters". (It's not clear exactly which version; some of the text seems to match Public Notice 7, which was posted later than the video upload, so maybe Public Notice 7 was posted somewhere other than Facebook at an earlier time.) Anyway, none of the narration describes any actual damage or tsunami, which you would think they would if it were an actual report by a bona fide news agency of an actual event. The only mention of a tsunami is in the video's title. Moreover, much or all of the video footage is actually from the January 2022 eruption and tsunami, or possibly other events. For example, at 3:37 in this video, there is footage of a person in a yellow jersey filming the ocean. The exact same footage appears at 0:14 in a collection of clips from the January eruption , posted by the (reputable) New Zealand Herald newspaper on 16 January 2022. Several other clips match between those two videos. Conclusion: this video is a plagiarized hack job that misrepresents its own content. Don't bother watching anything from so-called "Update News". | {
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53,849 | The Bottomless Basket It is often said in Bangladeshi newspapers that ex-US Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger once called Bangladesh a " Bottomless Basket ". If so, why and when did he say this? I.e., what was the context? Also, did he ever revoke his statement? | The original phrase was "basket case," not "bottomless basket." The expression was first used in reference to Bangladesh by U. Alexis Johnson in a meeting held on December 6, 1971. Mr. Kissinger repeated the phrase in the further discussion, but it originated with Mr. Johnson. Transcript of the meeting. From the transcript: Dr. Kissinger: (to Mr. Williams) Will there be a massive famine in East Pakistan? Mr. Williams: They have a huge crop just coming in. Dr. Kissinger: How about next spring? Mr. Williams: Yes, there will be famine by next spring unless they can pull themselves together by the end of March. Dr. Kissinger: And we will be asked to bail out the Bangla Desh from famine next spring? Mr. Williams: Yes. Dr. Kissinger: Then we had better start thinking about what our policy will be. Mr. Williams: By March the Bangla Desh will need all kinds of help. Mr. Johnson: Theyʼll be an international basket case. Dr. Kissinger: But not necessarily our basket case. In searching for information, I found that the phrase "bottomless basket" seems to appear mostly in written media from Bangladesh or India, while the original "basket case" tends to appear in western media. The phrase "basket case" is a known expression in American English, referring to someone who is helpless and must be assisted. Originally, it referred to soldiers from World War I who had lost all their limbs in battle and had to be cared for since they could no longer care for themselves. In common usage in the USA, "basket case" also refers to someone who has had a traumatic experience and is incapable of dealing with it. Someone whose spouse has died may be described as a "basket case." Such a person is currently incapable of dealing with the trauma, and will have to be supported and cared for in the immediate future until the person recovers enough to take charge of things again. In the Bangladesh and Indian media, "bottomless basket" appears to be interpreted as more of what an American would call a "bottomless pit" or a "rat hole" into which money and resources disappear without having any effect. "Bottomless basket" is not a typical American expression. The phrase is sometimes rendered as "bottomless basket case" in Bangladeshi and Indian media. Given the background of the expression "basket case" in American English, "bottomless basket case" doesn't make sense. As used by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Kissinger, "basket case" was rather short term. It referred to the expected conditions in Bangladesh in the spring of 1972, shortly after the war of independence that Bangladesh was then fighting against Pakistan. Due to the war, Bangladesh was going to have to deal with a lot of problems and most likely not be able to handle them on their own. The Bangladesh military was going to be in bad shape. The civilian government was going to be disorganized. The civilian population was going to have trouble getting enough food - despite there having been a good crop in taken in before December. Millions of people left Bangladesh to seek refuge in India. Those were the conditions that led Mr. Johnson to say that Bangladesh would be a "basket case" in the spring of 1972. The phrase "basket case" is not a polite or politic way to describe it, but it does reflect the harsh reality of a war-torn country. You can fault the people in the meeting for being cyincal and harsh in their discussions, but they were looking for solutions to problems they knew were coming. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS It was agreed that: (1) we should bring public attention in the General Assembly, though speeches and resolutions, to the plight of the Urdu speaking minority in East Pakistan, calling on all parties to take steps to prevent a massacre; (2) we should make known what political moves we made to foster discussions between the Bangla Desh and Islamabad, and how they were thwarted; (3) we should show a certain coolness to the Indians; (4) State will prepare a legal memorandum on the Indian blockade and a draft of a formal protest over the interference with American ships; (5) State will check the legislative prohibition against third country transfer of military equipment obtained from the U.S. to Pakistan; (6) Defense will do a paper by Tuesday, December 7, on what emergency equipment the Paks are apt to request and our ability to supply it and get it delivered; (7) the aid cutoff to India will be announced by State today; (8) to commence a study of our policy in the event of expected appeals for famine relief and other assistance from Bangla Desh next spring; (9) AID will prepare a paper by Tuesday, December 7, on ways to ensure that humanitarian aid provided India for refugee relief is in fact going for that purpose. The background seems to be that the US was supporting Pakistan (as an ally) at the time the war broke out and had tried to prevent the war by encouraging talks between the Pakistan government in Islamabad and the folks in Bangladesh. The war broke out, and India supported Bangladesh. The US supported India in assisting Bangladesh, but there was a (good bit) of uncertainty over how much of the financial aid given to India to support the Bangladesh refugees was actually being used on the Bangladesh refugees. The discussion linked above was walking a line between supporting the US ally Pakistan while still trying to assist the folks in Bangladesh. I suggest reading the about the Indo Pakistan war of 1971 and the Bangladesh Liberation War for more details about the conditions in Bangladesh during and after the war(s.) That'll give you a much better impression of things than my summary. | {
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53,857 | Starship Technologies is a robotics company with a program of developing robots that will deliver takeaway meals etc. using small robots such is this: One particular press release on their website makes this claim: Starship’s robots are powered by zero carbon electricity, with an average delivery for a Starship robot consuming as little energy as boiling a kettle to make just one cup of tea . Orders are made through the Starship food delivery app, which is available for download on iOS and Android, with groceries picked fresh in local Co-op stores and delivered quickly and conveniently in as little as one hour or less. I can't find any justification for this claim, which is being repeated around the media. Is the claim about energy usage true? One assumes that the 'average' delivery isn't a test run of a few metres. | tl;dr: The claim is nearly true. Based on publicly available data, the robot uses the energy required to heat water for one cup of tea every 27 minutes. This is probably a bit less than the time needed for an "average delivery", but it's feasible. Starship robot metrics Back in 2018, Starship partnered with Swiss Post to conduct pilot testing of the Starship robot in Dübendorf . During this test, Swiss Post published a fact sheet about the robot including the following metrics: Vehicle weight: 23 kg Max payload: 10 kg Average service speed: 3 km/h Battery: 8,000 mAh, 18.5 V Range: 6 km / 2 hours Charging time: 45 min (0.75 hours) Charge power consumption: up to 250 W Hourly energy consumption Based on the battery capacity and voltage we can calculate that the energy consumption is 148 Wh over it's entire 2 hour range: 8 Ah * 18.5 V = 148 Wh But this ignores charging efficiency. Per the latest US and EU charger efficiency requirements , an 18.5 V charger up to 250 W must have an efficiency of at least 88%, giving a total consumption of about 168 Wh: 148 Wh / 0.88 = 168.18 Wh How many cups of tea is that? Thanks to Schwern's answer , we know that it takes 37.5 Wh to boil water for one cup of tea. If that's the unit of measure for an "average delivery", that means the robot should be able to complete about 4.5 deliveries on a single battery charge: 168.18 Wh / 37.5 Wh = 4.48 deliveries Since a charge lasts for two hours, that gives an approximate time of 27 minutes per delivery, covering 1.3 km: 120 minutes / 4.48 deliveries = 26.76 min/delivery
6 km / 4.48 deliveries = 1.34 km/delivery Is 27 minutes reasonable for an "average delivery" by a Starship robot? The press release doesn't define "average delivery" -- it just says that packages are delivered "in minutes". But there are some clues elsewhere: According to tech website Pocketnow , deliveries occur "within 30 to 45 minutes". A screenshot from Starship shows an estimated wait time of "21 to 39 minutes". Reviews on the Apple app store mention wait times of "25 minutes" and "less than 45 minutes". So, let's say the range is 20 to 45 minutes. But that includes the transaction and packing time, during which the robot isn't using any energy -- so the actual driving time is probably closer to 10 to 35 minutes. And that doesn't include the return trip -- so in order to complete a delivery, the robot needs 20 to 70 minutes . Conclusion: The claim is almost true For the claim to be true, the robot would have to complete an "average delivery" in 27 minutes. Based on published wait times for delivery, this is close to the low end of travel time. Unless most trips are very short (bringing the average down), it's likely that each trip is using a bit more than the energy to heat water for one cup of tea. At the high end, the robot uses enough to make almost three cups of tea: (70 min / 120 min) * 168.18 Wh = 98.11 Wh
98.11 Wh / 37.5 Wh = 2.62 cups of tea For anyone curious, I found my way to this answer by way of a research paper on efficiency of delivery robots: Vepsäläinen, Jari. 2022. Energy Demand Analysis and Powertrain Design of a High-Speed Delivery Robot Using Synthetic Driving Cycles . Energies 15, no. 6: 2198. Their calculation uses a lower value for power consumption (63.3 Wh/h) because they ignore anything that isn't directly related to locomotion: lights, sounds, charging efficiency, electronics, etc. | {
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53,899 | As an electronics engineer I always knew that smoke test originated from the moment you connect a new circuit to power for the first time and see the smoke doesn't come out. Wikipedia agrees with that In Lessons Learned in Software Testing, Cem Kaner, James Bach, and Brett Pettichord provided the origin of the term: "The phrase smoke test comes from electronic hardware testing. You plug in a new board and turn on the power. If you see smoke coming from the board, turn off the power. You don't have to do any more testing." Here's a link to the page in the book on Google books , and here is another related answer Lately I have found another theory attributing the phrase to smoke testing of plumbing and sewage pipes smoke testing where Plumbers usually would use smoke to test for leaks and cracks in pipe systems Both makes sense and actually have a little bit different meaning and usage. On top of that there are a lot of anecdotal answers and other, older, usage of "smoke test" for various purposes. I couldn't find the first time the phrase was used, or a reference to that. So which one is correct? Is it really the source of the phrase? | The Oxford English Dictionary (subscription requried) has this definition: smoke test n. a method of testing the state of drains and pipes by means of smoke. Their example is from the Encyclopaedia Britannica , 1886. The ‘smoke test’..consists of filling the house-drain, soil-pipes, and waste-pipes with a dense and pungent smoke. Of course this pre-dates electronics or software. | {
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53,917 | According to this article there are more boys born in the USA than girls. between 1940 and 2005, an average of almost 92,000 more males than females were born annually in the United States. According to city comparison, though, there are more women than men. What is happening here? The only explanation could be that the men are dying earlier then women. Is this deviance across all ages or just in older age? | This happens everywhere, not only in the USA, though the degree of disparity varies from country to country. Gender Ratio - Our World in Data provides a lot of information on this topic. The two most relevant details are: Women, on average, live longer than men. This means that all else being equal, we would expect females to account for slightly more than half of the total population. sex ratios at birth are not equal. In all countries, there are more male than female births. For most countries, there are around 105 males per 100 female births. the sex ratio at conception is equal: there is no difference in the number of males and females conceived. For births to be consistently male-biased, there must be gender differences in the probability of miscarriage through pregnancy. That is, females are less likely than males to survive until birth, while after birth, males have a lower life expectancy than females. While dangerous situations (e.g. employment, risky behaviour, and war) contribute to the male death rate, the difference becomes most significance at higher ages where these factors don't apply: Deliberate sex-selection may slightly contribute to the antenatal rates (as can be seen during certain periods in some countries), but is not the general cause: | {
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53,938 | In this article of the Financial Times about a "sexual health crisis" in the US, the following claim is made: The study showed doxycycline was less effective for preventing gonorrhoea, which is on the brink of becoming untreatable and can increase a patient’s risk of contracting HIV. Is this statement true, partially true or false? | "Untreatable" in this context is used to mean "resistant to all available antibiotics". Quotes from some recent reviews, editorials, and research papers: Unemo, M., & Nicholas, R. A. (2012). Emergence of multidrug-resistant, extensively drug-resistant and untreatable gonorrhea. Future microbiology, 7(12), 1401-1422. The new superbug Neisseria gonorrhoeae has retained resistance to antimicrobials previously recommended for first-line treatment and has now demonstrated its capacity to develop resistance to the extended-spectrum cephalosporin, ceftriaxone, the last remaining option for first-line empiric treatment of gonorrhea. An era of untreatable gonorrhea may be approaching, which represents an exceedingly serious public health problem. This is saying that gonorrhea strains now exist that are resistant to every one of the proven first-line treatments for gonorrhea. That doesn't mean that it's already untreatable, but when first-line treatment fails it's necessary to go to other backup drugs, including those that typically come with worse side effects or require injections. Once there is resistance to the backups, there's nothing left. Just a couple years before was a paper recommending the switch to drugs like ceftriaxone: Deguchi, T., Nakane, K., Yasuda, M., & Maeda, S. I. (2010). Emergence and spread of drug resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The Journal of urology, 184(3), 851-858. Due to the spread of fluoroquinolone resistant N. gonorrhoeae fluoroquinolones are no longer recommended for the treatment of gonorrhea. The emergence of N. gonorrhoeae with a mosaic penicillin-binding protein 2 associated with oral cephalosporin resistance has threatened cefixime treatment for gonorrhea. Emergence of N. gonorrhoeae with high level resistance to azithromycin has also been documented. However, injectable antibiotics (sepctinomycin and ceftriaxone) retain their activity against N. gonorrhoeae Low, N., Unemo, M., Skov Jensen, J., Breuer, J., & Stephenson, J. M. (2014). Molecular diagnostics for gonorrhoea: implications for antimicrobial resistance and the threat of untreatable gonorrhoea. PLoS medicine, 11(2), e1001598. Neisseria gonorrhoeae susceptibility to extended spectrum cephalosporins is decreasing and treatment failures are spreading, but no new drug class is licensed to replace them for immediate treatment. No new drugs are available to treat gonorrhea and the existing drugs are becoming less effective. Barbee, L. A. (2014). Preparing for an era of untreatable gonorrhea. Current opinion in infectious diseases, 27(3), 282. The proportion of Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates with reduced susceptibility to extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESC) has increased rapidly since 2006. Clinicians, researchers and public health officials need to be prepared for the possibility of an era of untreatable gonorrhea. Ndowa, F., Lusti-Narasimhan, M., & Unemo, M. (2012). The serious threat of multidrug-resistant and untreatable gonorrhoea: the pressing need for global action to control the spread of antimicrobial resistance, and mitigate the impact on sexual and reproductive health. Sexually transmitted infections, 88(5), 317-318. Worryingly, resistance and treatment failures to cefixime have been verified in Japan6 and recently in Europe.7–9 The recent report of a strain of N gonorrhoeae in Japan that was highly resistant to the parenteral ceftriaxone, and associated with a probable treatment failure with ceftriaxone,10 the last remaining option for empiric treatment, sounded alarm bells of significant future challenges to the treatment and control of gonococcal infections and their complications. This was also followed by the identification of a highly ceftriaxone-resistant strain in France11 and in Spain.12 Furthermore, many regions, worldwide, describe a decreasing susceptibility to ceftriaxone, and reports of ceftriaxone treatment failure of gonococcal pharyngeal infections have been published.3 ,13 w2 w3 Given the ability of N gonorrhoeae to develop AMR within a relatively short time span compounded with its ability to retain the resistance to previous antibiotics, even after their use has been discontinued, the threat of a widespread ceftriaxone resistance and untreatable gonorrhoea in certain circumstances is real.3 ,10 ,11 w2 w3 The statement itself is not really measurable; "on the brink of becoming untreatable" doesn't have any clear definition (how far away do you have to be to be "on the brink"? how many cases need to be untreatable - one? 5%? 50%?). However, it's certainly a sentiment expressed seriously in scientific and public health venues. Multidrug-resistant strains exist already, there are no replacements in the pipeline, and even if replacements arrive, these particular bacteria have shown high potential for resistance, so it's unlikely that new drugs will remain effective indefinitely. | {
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53,984 | According to this November 10, 2022 article titled “KFC apologises for Kristallnacht chicken and cheese promotion” in The Guardian (U.K.) newspaper: “KFC has apologised for a push notification sent out via its app inviting German customers to celebrate the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews by ordering fried chicken and cheese.” The message reportedly said: “Commemorate Kristallnacht – treat yourself to more soft cheese and crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!” The article itself seems to not cite any sources other than, “The tabloid Bild…” which seems to reference this article in said tabloid which then links to this post on Twitter that makes reference to the supposed original message and apology; pictured below. But there are no other sources it seems. And a Google search seems to only return results from other publications citing The Guardian article. Did KFC actually send out a message to customers promoting fast food discounts on Kristallnacht in Germany? Are there any other sources that can confirm this? Screenshot below for reference. | Snopes has confirmed the story including directly contacting KFC Global, and getting the response: On November 9, an automated push notification was accidently issued to KFC app users in Germany that contained an obviously unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message and for this we sincerely apologise. We use a semi-automated content creation process linked to calendars that include national observances. In this instance, our internal review process was not properly followed, resulting in a non-approved notification being shared. We have suspended app communications while we examine our current process to ensure such an issue does not occur again. We understand and respect the gravity and history of this day, and remain committed to equity, inclusion and belonging for all. | {
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54,011 | Revelation 21:19-20 (NIV) lists twelve kinds of precious stones that make up the city walls of the New Jerusalem: Jasper, Sapphire, Agate, Emerald, Onyx, Carnelian, Chrysolite, Beryl, Topaz, Chrysoprase, Jacinth, and Amethyst. According to some Christian articles like The 12 Foundation Stones in New Jerusalem , these are all anisotropic gems. I'm no expert in precious stones and a definitive list seems hard to find, but according to the article, 16 of 28 common gemstones are anisotropic, but that these weren't known until the last Century, around 1900 years after Revelation was written. I think the naive odds that they would all be anisotropic are (16 choose 12) / (28 choose 12) which is about 1/16715. (The article suggests that the omission of common isotropic gems such as diamonds, makes it less likely than this.) So, as best I can tell, if the facts are all correct, this either suggests: The person who conceived of the city knew more about properties of precious stones than should have been possible in the 1st Century AD. The author of Revelation "got lucky" (perhaps partly due to confirmation bias or other statistical fallacies). There are perhaps more obvious properties that these gems have in common, that were known about at the time. How good a case is there that the list of gemstones was revealed without information that was possible to know at the time? | It doesn't require advanced scientific knowledge to preferentially select optically anisotropic gems True, a modern definition of optical anisotropy (more specifically known as "birefringence") relies on polarized light to make for a clear distinction, but most of these gems produce visually noticeable effects that require no real scientific knowledge of polarized light. For the more transparent/translucent birefringent materials like calcite, if you lay a large polished piece of them over text, you'll see two copies of the text through the crystal . All birefringent gems behave this way; light entering them takes more than one path, and one of those paths is insensitive to the angle at which light enters, while the other path is sensitive to the angle; as the gem rotates relative to the light source, the paths collapse and split apart again, an effect visible to the naked eye in most cases, and obvious to anyone who works with gems. You don't need modern science to say "these gems share certain behaviors as the angle changes"; you might not know why , and you can't measure the change in polarization precisely without modern science, but the difference is visible, and would tend to produce non-random selections if you're intentionally selecting for gems that would produce the most impressive effects (in terms of changing colors) as you move around them. As an additional note, there's multiple types of optical anisotropy (uniaxial negative, uniaxial positive, and biaxial), and the gems in question do not fall into any single one of these categories (e.g. topaz is biaxial, jasper [a type of quartz] is uniaxial positive). Beyond that, you don't even need to be aware of the optical properties to do a decent job of separating optically isotropic gems from the others; optically isotropic gems are generally either : Amorphous gems (e.g. amber, opal) Cubic gems (e.g. diamond, garnet) Basically, if you selected for "Naturally forms regular crystals, but not ones which naturally form cubic crystals", you'd also end up with a set of optically anisotropic crystals. Why they'd prefer non-cubic crystals I can't begin to speculate on, but it's another way in which a non-random selection for optical anisotropy could occur without understanding polarized light. | {
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