Lots to digest in this week's edition. There are some great advances in technology to look at, as well as progress and setbacks in the battles against covid, climate change, and wildfires in the West.
I will likely skip next week's edition given the holiday, but will resume the following week.
Privacy and Security Matter:
- A big win for college athletes: the NCAA has suspended its rules prohibiting students from profiting off of their names, images, and likenesses.
- The U.S. Olympic Trials continued in different sports (e.g., Gymnastics, Track and Field). In the Women's 400 hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin set a blazing new WR. And, seventeen years after his father competed in Athens, Randolph Ross joined the U.S. track team.
- The Western States Endurance Run had a great race on Saturday. Here's the write-up from Trail Runner Mag. As a follow-on, Outside Online dives into what it takes (physically and mentally) to run a mountain ultra trail event, and IRunFar has a couple of pieces (1, 2) on what it specifically takes to run the WSER (and why it's so hard).
- Lachlan Morton is riding the Tour de France his own way: old-school, and self-sufficient. It's pretty awesome and I hope he can finish it. Speaking of the Tour, a fan made a very, very big mistake on live television and caused an enormous pile-up as a result. She went into hiding (but was later found) and has been sued by the Tour for causing the crash.
- Nike had a great quarter but the brand is walking a fine line on China. Speaking of Nike, their poor practices with Allyson Felix led to Felix launching her new brand "Saysh" (its first product looks awesome).
- A great story: Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman, is going to receive the Jimmy V Award.
- If you want to catch a home run ball, go to a Nats game. As of Tuesday, Kyle Schwarber had hit 15 HR in 17 games.
- In retrospect, the covid outbreak on Everest was pretty bad.
- I didn't know camel wrestling is a thing but (1) apparently camels wrestle in the wild and (2) there is a camel wrestling festival in Turkey this time of year.
- When people think of sports and Canada, they often think of hockey. Which is why it's wild that it's been so long since a Canadian team was in the Stanley Cup finals (until the Canadiens secured their spot).
Covid is a battle we can win:
- Amazing turn around in 2021: the U.S. is now the highest rated country on Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Chart. That's not a good thing, necessarily, since we're almost certain to miss our July 4th vaccination goals (no free beers for everyone, sorry), indicating that, while we're "#1", we're behind where we want to be and so is the rest of the world.
- Due to the Delta variant, both the WHO and the LA County public health authorities have urged continued mask-wearing (because masking works).
- Vaccine mix-and-matching will become bigger and bigger. And, for organ transplant recipients, it seems as though a third dose will be a big help.
- Despite the urgent need to vaccinate the rest of the world, the Covax program is running low on vaccines.
- Indonesia is the latest large country to face a resurgent covid pandemic (likely courtesy of lower vaccination rates and the Delta variant).
Climate Change is a challenge we must meet:
- A heat dome baked the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and Western Canada, with temperatures shattering all-time highs in Portland, Seattle, and other cities. Oh, and the overall Canadian record (which is hotter than the record for, say, Las Vegas now, and was followed quickly by wildfires that created their own lightning storms, which in turn created more fires). And the mountains were hot, too, leading to increased snowmelt. This may be a harbinger of the future up there. Here's a deeper dive on the heat in the West this June (and, for good measure, here's one on the drought).
- And if the temperatures in the PNW weren't high enough, the ground temperature in Siberia--Siberia!--hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit recently.
- Really, really fascinating. There is a network of bots clicking on ads in articles on climate change to drive traffic and revenue relating to those stories in an effort to ensure that sufficient money and media are devoted to the issue. Of course, it points out one of the greatest problems in our news media's ability to convey important facts: audience engagement, rather that actual importance, determines news coverage.
- Continuing the "money talks" trend, a new climate-focused index fund will be pushing Wall Street to take climate change more seriously.
- The Biden administration has limited time to make progress on climate change in advance of the 2022 elections. The world needs rapid action; perhaps the next IPCC report, due out on August 9, will help spur movement (particularly since there is finally a majority consensus in the U.S. that climate change is real and a threat).
- Scientists may have developed a way to create ammonia-driven fertilizer without the heavy carbon footprint historically associated with its production.
- Axios put together some cool graphics showing how climate change is exacerbating extreme weather effects around the world.
- Inga trees might help combat the effects of deforestation in the tropics.
California is a fascinating state:
- If you're in California (or anywhere in the West, really), please skip the fireworks this 4th of July.
- Not good news for this fire season: hotshot firefighters--who are exhausted from years of fighting massive blazes and horribly underpaid--are quitting in droves (note: while the Biden administration is raising federal firefighter pay, it's still too low). Meanwhile, large blazes are already breaking out across the state (some of which are threatening farming communities), and our reliance on fire breaks to help control massive blazes may be misplaced. If you want to track fires across the state, you can use the SF Chron's Fire Map or, for fires on federal land, use good ol' Inciweb.
- Members of the Coast Miwok Tribe are (rightly) opposed to the recently promulgated National Park Service plan for Point Reyes National Seashore.
- Marin County went full-on NIMBY regarding affordable housing.
- One way Californians are fighting climate change is by adopting regenerative farming. That may not be enough, though for places like the San Joaquin Valley or the Russian River Valley as they run perilously low on water. And, unfortunately, the snowpack won't be much help this year in many places.
- Unfortunately, as tourism returns to SF, so have the car break-ins. SFPD needs to find a fix for this and fast.
- There was a shark attack in San Mateo County last weekend but thankfully it turned out okay for the snorkeler involved. (He made out better than the recently discovered first-known victim of a shark attack.)
- Sad: the California AG's office released data to show just how much AAPI hate crimes skyrocketed over the past year.
- Finally: the Flintstones house in Hillsborough is saved.
- Congress is still taking its time to debate infrastructure bills. I'm seeing some worrying parallels re: the deferred maintenance in the horrific Surfside condo collapse and our collective inability in the U.S. to step up and take care of critical infrastructure before it's too late. We often ask if we're spending too much (but rarely whether we're spending too little), and we're nearing the moment of 'go big or go home' for economic recovery, infrastructure, the climate, and more). Speaking of, Vox dug into "why we can't have nice things" in America and the answer is complicated.
- China's national security structure has largely assimilated Hong Kong in the past year. It's remarkable--and frightening--to see how fast that occurred.
- The Supreme Court rejected a school board's efforts to discriminate against a trans student.
- Grey hair--like we've all developed over the pandemic--can be reversed, it appears.
- Exciting and thought-provoking: In the past 5000 years, 29 potentially habitable planets have been close enough to the Earth to detect radio waves coming from our planet.
- The wellness and spirituality community may have a big Q-Anon problem, according to the LA Times.
- If companies want to remain competitive in hiring top talent, they need to start offering remote work possibilities.
- Good news to come out of the pandemic: Black entrepreneurship soared in 2020.
- Wow: a twelve year old in New Jersey is the youngest grandmaster in chess history.
- If you're a potential home-buyer, the low interest rates as of late may be small comfort as the U.S. home price growth surged 14.6% in April (an all-time high for price growth). At least lumber prices are plummeting.
- Wild advances in space: scientists have detected a black hole eating a neutron star and have figured out why methane readings on Mars have been conflicting in the past.
- Two finds, one in China and the other in Israel, are forcing anthropologists to reconsider our understanding of the human family tree.
- The Biden administration is targeting 'dynastic' fortunes for tax increases.
- Very good: the Department of the Interior recently returned more than 18,000 acres of land in the National Bison Range to Native American tribes.
- What if an office reopens and basically no one shows up? Ask VMWare.
- Hawaiians are encouraging visitors to the islands to become more active participants in the preservation of Hawaiian traditions and ecosystems.
- Incredibly fascinating: the German military recently hired academics to analyze literature to help predict crises before they arose. They did a pretty good job, too!
- Apparently, eating better quality foods leads to reduced DNA methylation and epigenetic age acceleration.
Independent Wealth Manager
3 年Found this a book I’m reading, and it made me think of your newsletter. “The great thing about reading diverse news from the fields of business, health, science, technology, politics, and more is that you automatically see patterns in the world and develop mental hooks upon which you can hang future knowledge. The formula for knowledge looks something like this: The More You Know, the More You Can Know”
Independent Wealth Manager
3 年Another smorgasbord of interesting and informative stories. The cancer blood test is truly something to be hopeful of. The fire and heat out west are concerning. NIMBY in Marin county - not surprised. As always, thanks for posting.