Aug 24, 2024 | Salon.com
There’s a good reason roaches elicit a feeling of disgust when we see one scuttle past. Cockroaches carry a wide range of diseases and pathogens including bubonic plague, dysentery, hepatitis, hookworms, leprosy, salmonella and polio. It’s understandable why, when someone sees a cockroach, they reach for the bug spray.
Yet new research suggests these consumer-grade pesticides don’t really do much — and can even be harmful....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 23, 2024 | Salon.com
On Wednesday night, millions of neurodivergent and disabled Americans saw themselves in the moment 17-year-old Gus Walz, son of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, emotionally exclaimed “That’s my Dad!” at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). The Walz family is open that Gus Walz has been diagnosed with both Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a nonverbal learning disability (NVLD)....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 22, 2024 | Salon.com
Earlier this week, a World Health Organization (WHO) official stressed that the mpox virus is not the new COVID-19, because we know how to handle its spread, but the current outbreak is steadily growing, alarming health experts. It involves two different versions of the mpox virus: one that caused a global outbreak in 2022-2023 and a new, mutated and potentially more deadly strain....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 22, 2024 | Salon.com
This summer’s COVID-19 wave has gotten so bad — even worse than winter peaks in some regions — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced they are approving two vaccines early, but leaving one out for now. On Thursday, the agency used its emergency use authorization (EUA) to rubber stamp a group of updated mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 21, 2024 | Salon.com
Six doctors protested at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, drawing attention to the escalating public health crisis in Gaza caused by Israel’s ongoing military onslaught, which has killed at least 40,000 people, including 16,000 children. The war began after a Hamas-led attack on Israel October 7, 2023, that killed around 1,200 people, including many civilians and children....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 20, 2024 | Salon.com
Despite being essential to sustaining agriculture and the health of ecosystems, bee populations are rapidly collapsing because of human activity. First, a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids was definitively linked to this dangerous decline. Now, as revealed in a recent study in the journal Ecology Letters, climate change is another human-caused environmental factor hurting bees....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 20, 2024 | Salon.com
When almost 200 nations signed the Paris climate agreement in 2015, they pledged to keep Earth’s average temperature to no greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Now a recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change reveals that the 1.5 degree threshold is effectively out of reach at this point, and 1.6 degrees is the best humanity can likely hope to achieve....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 20, 2024 | Salon.com
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, soon to be coronated as the Democratic Party’s official nominee for Vice President of the United States, has stirred enthusiasm amongst the climate movement. Since taking office in 2019, Walz signed into law a bill requiring utilities to provide 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2040 and aligned the state’s climate change policies closely with those of another environmentally progressive state, California....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 19, 2024 | Salon.com
Jennifer Sebold is a 48-year-old single mother of three in Montpelier, Vermont, and climate change is a very personal issue for her. She lost two businesses — a flower shop and a separate store selling various types of goods — in the Great Vermont Flood of 2023. Like much of the rest of the world, Vermont is experiencing more extreme weather because of climate change, in particular devastating floods that cover entire communities in debris....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 18, 2024 | Salon.com
Cat intelligence is an ongoing area of research, with new discoveries being made all the time. Such as when cats make certain facial expressions, they do so to communicate complicated emotions. Scientists believe cats can feel shame, love and other sophisticated sentiments. There are even some cats can be trained to “talk” to humans using buttons that produce specific English words....
Originally posted on salon.com