True Left

work should start immediately on developing a vaccine.

The bugs are now resistant to antibiotics as a result of overuse of medicine,” he says.

Greger argues that there have been three eras of human disease: first, when we started to domesticate animals about 10,000 years ago and were infected with their diseases, such as measles and chickenpox; then in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Industrial Revolution led to epidemics of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer; and now, because of the agricultural herding intensification that is leading to zoonotic, or animal-borne, diseases such as bird flu, salmonella, Mers, Nipah and Covid-19.

Thomas Johann Seebeck was the first to notice an effect due to semiconductors, in 1821.[28] In 1833, Michael Faraday reported that the resistance of specimens of silver sulfide decreases, when they are heated. This is contrary to the behavior of metallic substances such as copper. In 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel reported observation of a voltage between a solid and a liquid electrolyte, when struck by light, the photovoltaic effect. In 1873, Willoughby Smith observed that selenium resistors exhibit decreasing resistance, when light falls on them. In 1874, Karl Ferdinand Braun observed conduction and rectification in metallic sulfides, although this effect had been discovered much earlier by Peter Munck af Rosenschold (sv) writing for the Annalen der Physik und Chemie in 1835,[29] and Arthur Schuster found that a copper oxide layer on wires has rectification properties that ceases, when the wires are cleaned. William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans Day observed the photovoltaic effect in selenium in 1876.[30]

A unified explanation of these phenomena required a theory of solid-state physics, which developed greatly in the first half of the 20th century. In 1878 Edwin Herbert Hall demonstrated the deflection of flowing charge carriers by an applied magnetic field, the Hall effect. The discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897 prompted theories of electron-based conduction in solids. Karl Baedeker, by observing a Hall effect with the reverse sign to that in metals, theorized that copper iodide had positive charge carriers. Johan Koenigsberger classified solid materials like metals, insulators, and "variable conductors" in 1914 although his student Josef Weiss already introduced the term Halbleiter (a semiconductor in modern meaning) in his Ph.D. thesis in 1910.[31][32] Felix Bloch published a theory of the movement of electrons through atomic lattices in 1928. In 1930, B. Gudden stated that conductivity in semiconductors was due to minor concentrations of impurities. By 1931, the band theory of conduction had been established by Alan Herries Wilson and the concept of band gaps had been developed. Walter H. Schottky and Nevill Francis Mott developed models of the potential barrier and of the characteristics of a metal–semiconductor junction. By 1938, Boris Davydov had developed a theory of the copper-oxide rectifier, identifying the effect of the p–n junction and the importance of minority carriers and surface states.[29]

My hometown is a typical sprawling suburban city that is dealing with the the results of decades of car-centric development. The city was prepared to spend over $200 million to widen a short 8 kilometer stretch of stroad; their largest infrastructure project of all time.

But this project was recently cancelled, due to concerns about climate change. Will this be a turning point in car-dependency, or just a speed bump on the way to transforming "Forest City" into "Asphalt City"?

It was supposed to improve Cleveland’s image and show the world a city on the rise. But 35 years ago Monday, a monumental event quickly turned disastrous, causing multiple accidents and hampering the search for two missing fishermen in Lake Erie.
[...]
It took months of planning and thousands of volunteers to inflate the 1.5 million balloons that were to be released. They were held in place by a specially constructed netting structure.

At that time, the thinking about environmental impact was different, and people thought the balloons would reach an altitude where they popped and disintegrated. The year before, in 1985, Disneyland had launched 1 million balloons to honor Walt Disney on what would’ve been his 84th birthday.
[...]
“They wanted to put Cleveland into the Guinness Book of World Records, they wanted to do something bigger and better than anybody else,” said John Grabowski, chief historian at the Western Reserve Historical Society and Case Western Reserve University history professor.
[...]
The 1.5 million colorful balloons began plummeting back down to the ground.

“We drove down the Shoreway, and it was like a multi-colored river down the road. Motorists were running into each other, running into fences,” Zurcher said. “Then Burke Lakefront Airport was even more of a mess. The runway was covered with balloons.”

The airport and Shoreway both had to be temporarily shut down, and he said a bulldozer was brought in to help clear the balloons.
[...]
Severe storms the night before had caused significant damage across Northeast Ohio and capsized a boat. It washed ashore the morning of the launch, but the two fishermen were still missing.

The U.S. Coast Guard was searching for the men by helicopter and by boat when the balloons began raining down on them. That forced the pilot to land and made it virtually impossible to recover the men.

“I caught the guy flying the Coast Guard helicopter, and he said it was like flying through an asteroid belt. You just couldn’t see,” Zurcher said. “And the balloons on the water looked like heads, and the men weren’t found until several days after the balloons.”

Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies

Health impact is unknown but scientists say particles may cause long-term damage to foetuses
[...]
Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.

The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus’s developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers.
[...]
The microplastics were mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they are small enough to be carried in the bloodstream. The particles may have entered the babies’ bodies, but the researchers were unable to assess this.
[...]
Microplastics pollution has reached every part of the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, and to breathe them in.
[...]
Elizabeth Salter Green, at the chemicals charity Chem Trust, said: “Babies are being born pre-polluted. The study was very small but nevertheless flags a very worrying concern.”

A separate recent study showed that nanoparticles of plastic inhaled by pregnant laboratory rats were detected in the liver, lungs, heart, kidney, and brain of their foetuses.

Our fruits and veggies are sucking up microplastics through their roots