Author archives

Light pollution is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of plants and trees

Ars Technica: “City lights that blaze all night are profoundly disrupting urban plants’ phenology—shifting when their buds open in the spring and when their leaves change colors and drop in the fall. New research I co-authored shows how nighttime lights are lengthening the growing season in cities, which can affect everything from allergies to local …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Health Care

Privacy of Health Information After Dobbs

The National Law Review: Privacy of Health Information After Dobbs: OCR Guidance On Disclosures of PHI and the Privacy of Personal Information On Devices – “On 28 June 2022, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research, Privacy

New Interactive Map and Timeline Added to Chronicling America

LC – Chronicling America “users can now browse the collection’s thousands of digitized historical newspapers using an interactive map and timeline recently launched by the Library of Congress. The new “Exploring Chronicling America Newspapers” application dynamically maps publication locations of over 3,000 digitized newspapers currently available in the Chronicling America online collection. Users can also …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

What’s Happening With The Vinton Public Library

Iowa Starting Line – “Residents of a small Iowa town criticized their library’s LGBTQ staff and their displaying of LGBTQ-related books until most of the staff quit. Now, the town’s library is closed for the foreseeable future. After having the same library director for 32 years, the Vinton Public Library can’t seem to keep the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

GLAAD’s 2022 Social Media Safety Index

“GLAAD’s 2022 Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) provides recommendations for the industry at large and reports on LGBTQ user safety across the five major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. As a follow up to the pioneering 2021 SMSI, the 2022 edition of the report introduces a Platform Scorecard developed by GLAAD …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Internet, Privacy, Social Media

This climate action tracker shows exactly where we are on the path to net zero

Fast Company: “Last year, global electric-car sales more than doubled compared to the year before. Solar and wind power are cheaper in most countries than fossil fuels. The world is now spending record amounts on clean energy. New technology is emerging to cut emissions in hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel and cement and aviation. At the …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Internet, Knowledge Management

The email ‘hack’ that will change your relationship with your inbox

Fast Company: “I just reset my email. Took my unread count down to zero. Archived or deleted everything that was sitting in my inbox. And everything feels different now. More than any other possible binary the world presents us, I believe there are precisely two types of people in this world: those whose unread email …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Mail, Internet, Knowledge Management

History under attack: Holocaust denial and distortion on social media

History under attack: Holocaust denial and distortion on social media [link to full text] – “Digitally mediated Holocaust denial and distortion remains a critical contemporary problem. The cheap connectivity offered by the internet has allowed those with extreme views to find each other easily, and to express hateful opinions which they might keep silent in …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media