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Monthly Archives: December 2021

‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All

Rolling Stone: “New data suggests a massive collapse of the ice shelf in as little as five years. “We are dealing with an event that no human has ever witnessed,” says one scientist. “We have no analog for this”…Given the ongoing war for American democracy and the deadly toll of the Covid pandemic, the loss… Continue Reading

What Lois Lowry Remembers

The New Yorker: “Lowry, who has lost a sister and a son, has spent decades writing about the pains of memory. Literature, she says, is “a way that we rehearse life…The title character of Lois Lowry’s most famous novel, “The Giver,” is an old man who guards all of human history and memory. The book’s… Continue Reading

The human cost of construction

Building Safety Journal: “An inside look at the world’s most notable and deadliest construction projects. Construction can be a risky business. Over the past 200 years, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives while working on construction projects, whether from accidents, equipment failure or unsafe working conditions. In recent years, deaths on major… Continue Reading

Scientists build new atlas of ocean’s oxygen-starved waters

MIT News: “Life is teeming nearly everywhere in the oceans, except in certain pockets where oxygen naturally plummets and waters become unlivable for most aerobic organisms. These desolate pools are “oxygen-deficient zones,” or ODZs. And though they make up less than 1 percent of the ocean’s total volume, they are a significant source of nitrous… Continue Reading

Winter storms are breaking snow and temperature records and there’s more to come

NPR: “Winter storms sweeping parts of the Western U.S. and the Pacific Northwest have brought heavy snow and record low temperatures in some areas — and there’s more to come. A winter storm warning continues into Wednesday for parts of the border area of Northern California and Nevada. “We’ve had quite a series of storms… Continue Reading

13 battery gigafactories coming to the US by 2025

electrek: “There are 13 new battery cell gigafactories coming online in the US by 2025, according to the Department of Energy. These factories are ushering in a new era of battery production in the US. Aside from Tesla and Panasonic’s Gigafactory Nevada, which supplies battery cells for the production of Tesla Model 3 and Model… Continue Reading

How Your Returns Are Used Against You at Best Buy, Other Retailers

WSJ [paywall – alternative free source] – “At Best Buy, returning too many items within a short time can hurt a person’s score, as can returning high-theft items such as digital cameras. Every time shoppers returns purchases to Best Buy, they are tracked by a company which has the power to override the store’s touted… Continue Reading