Mar 1, 2023 | Salon.com
There are many aspects of autism spectrum disorders that remain, for lack of a better word, mysterious. As someone who is on the autism spectrum himself, I can personally attest to such enigmatic realities as the double empathy problem, which describes how autistic and non-autistic people fundamentally differ in how they communicate....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 25, 2023 | Salon.com
It’s a tale of corporate malfeasance as old as time: corporation discovers herbicide. Corporation markets herbicide. Corporation discovers herbicide does far more than kill weeds, but attacks critics and whistleblowers ad nauseum to sweep it under the rug.
This, according to Dr. Chadi Nabhan, is the story of glyphosate, an herbicide often marketed under the name Roundup and sold by the quart in hardware and lawn stores across the United States....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 24, 2023 | Salon.com
The universe is full of mysteries, but its age isn’t one of them. That’s because the universe left behind a huge number of clues as to its age — including the observed age of the oldest stars; the rate of expansion of the universe; and the background heat of the universe, which hints at how long it’s been since it cooled off from the Big Bang....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 23, 2023 | Salon.com
Ever since German sociologist Max Weber penned his classic 1905 book “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” the Western World has accepted that Calvinist-influenced societies tend to associate hard work with both virtue and material success. According to this pervasive mode of thinking, there is no such thing as “too much work.”...
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 22, 2023 | Salon.com
Growing up with dogs, I often found myself wondering what was going on in the minds of my canine companions. I am hardly alone in this sentiment: There is a reason why the world is transfixed by Bunny, a labradoodle who can “talk” using buttons — and similarly, why humans are overjoyed when dogs seem to sing along with them or cry tears of joy when they return home....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 20, 2023 | Salon.com
When 24-year-old John F. Kennedy tried to enlist during World War II, he was initially turned away. Although he was the son of one of America’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Kennedy was not rejected because of connections. The doctors had a legitimate medical concern: Kennedy had a slipped disc around his lumbar spine, because the adjacent bone had inexplicably softened....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 19, 2023 | Salon.com
Sixty years ago in March 1963, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror movie “The Birds” introduced viewers to a small seaside town in California that is suddenly and inexplicably attacked by ferocious feathered fiends. Ostensibly based on a 1952 short story by Daphne du Maurier, “The Birds” features seagulls, crows and a range of other bird species as they ruthlessly slash at terrified humans with razor-sharp beaks and talons....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 16, 2023 | Salon.com
Anyone who has sit near a window may have experienced the startling moment when a bird smacks into it. Like the famous scene when a pelican’s crash startles a dentist into an inadvertent tooth-pull in “Finding Nemo,” it can seem cartoonishly silly when a gracefully soaring red-tailed hawk or empty-eyed dumpy pigeon abruptly stops and plops into a pane of glass....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 14, 2023 | Salon.com
Comedians Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx voice adorable canines in the upcoming summer comedy “Strays.” As the title suggests, “Strays” is the story of a pack of dogs who decide to get revenge against one of their former owners (Will Forte) for abandoning them. While I won’t dare spoil the method that those dogs select as an appropriate punishment, it should not be a spoiler to reveal that the underlying subject matter behind “Strays” is far from comical....
Originally posted on salon.com
Feb 13, 2023 | Salon.com
When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during a live game earlier this year, many spectators commented that it seemed bizarre for a 24-year-old to experience a near-fatal heart attack. Yet even before that infamous game against the Cincinnati Bengals, experts had been raising alarms about the COVID-19 pandemic, which is demonstrably linked to heart disease....
Originally posted on salon.com