A new article summarizes research from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. Slashdot reader AleRunner writes: Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus," Natalie Grover writes.

Although "people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis" are 65% more likely to get COVID, so it may be that this is partly explained by doctors diagnosing illness that would otherwise be missed, the article suggests that the rate is double the rate for influenza and unexpectedly high so other explanations are needed.
From the article: Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said more research was needed to establish whether a diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder could be directly linked to getting coronavirus. General factors that influence physical health were not captured in the records analysed, such as socio-economic background, smoking, or use of drugs. There was also potential that the general stressful environment of the pandemic is playing a role, he noted. Research suggests that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to suffer mental ill-health. Poverty also increases exposure to coronavirus, owing to factors like crowded housing and unsafe working conditions.

"Equally, it's not at all implausible that Covid-19 might have some direct effect on your brain and your mental health. But I think that, again, remains to be positively demonstrated," said Mr. Harrison...

The calculations were made on the basis of roughly 70 million US health records, including more than 62,000 cases of Covid-19 that did not require a hospital stay or an emergency department visit.

Scientists are tracking small differences in DNA to explain why the disease has different effects. An anonymous reader shares a report from The Guardian: Key developments include research which indicates that interferon -- a molecular messenger that stimulates immune defenses against invading viruses -- may play a vital role in defending the body. Scientists have found that rare mutations in some people may leave them unable to make adequate supplies of the interferon they need to trigger effective immune responses to Covid. Trials using interferon as Covid treatments are now under way at several centers. Research is also focusing on a gene known as TYK2. Some variants of this gene are involved in triggering some auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and also seems to be involved in causing severe Covid. A drug developed to treat RA, baricitinib, has a genetic common denominator with Covid and this has led to it being used in clinical trails against the virus. Last month the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly announced that early results showed the drug helped Covid patients recover.

Other research -- pioneered by Kenneth Baillie, of Edinburgh University, and outlined in a recent issue of Science -- has uncovered several other genes that appear to be important. These include OAS genes that are triggered by interferon and which code for proteins that are involved in breaking down viral RNA, from which the Covid-19 virus is made. Baillie's research has yet to be peer reviewed and he has counseled caution in interpreting this work. Nevertheless, he told Science that he hoped his results would speed the development of treatments "because the epidemic is progressing at such an alarming rate, even a few months of time saved will save lots of lives".

In addition, other researchers point out that there are other ways of using genetics to combat Covid. Dr Dipender Gill of Imperial College London has, with colleagues, used genetic data to predict how different interventions could affect disease reactions. To do that, Gill -- working with a team of British, Norwegian and American scientists -- analyzed data from thousands of patients, using genetic variants that increase individuals' risk of acquiring these conditions. They were then able to carry out studies that would show if action taken to modify these traits would reduce susceptibility to severe Covid-19. The team made two key discoveries. "We found there is a causal link between obesity and the risk of having a severe Covid-19 [reaction]. We also found the same effect for smoking. This indicates that losing weight and giving up smoking will have a direct impact in improving your chances of surviving Covid-19. That is the power of genetic studies like these."

America is now under siege by climate change in ways that scientists have warned about for years. But there is a second part to their admonition: Decades of growing crisis are already locked into the global ecosystem and cannot be reversed. From a report: This means the kinds of cascading disasters occurring today -- drought in the West fueling historic wildfires that send smoke all the way to the East Coast, or parades of tropical storms lining up across the Atlantic to march destructively toward North America -- are no longer features of some dystopian future. They are the here and now, worsening for the next generation and perhaps longer, depending on humanity's willingness to take action. "I've been labeled an alarmist," said Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist in Los Angeles, where he and millions of others have inhaled dangerously high levels of smoke for weeks. "And I think it's a lot harder for people to say that I'm being alarmist now." Last month, before the skies over San Francisco turned a surreal orange, Death Valley reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever measured on the planet. Dozens of people have perished from the heat in Phoenix, which in July suffered its hottest month on record, only to surpass that milestone in August.

Conversations about climate change have broken into everyday life, to the top of the headlines and to center stage in the presidential campaign. The questions are profound and urgent. Can this be reversed? What can be done to minimize the looming dangers for the decades ahead? Will the destruction of recent weeks become a moment of reckoning, or just a blip in the news cycle? The Times spoke with two dozen climate experts, including scientists, economists, sociologists and policymakers, and their answers were by turns alarming, cynical and hopeful. "It's as if we've been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades" and the world is now feeling the effects, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. But, she said, "we're not dead yet." Their most sobering message was that the world still hasn't seen the worst of it. Gone is the climate of yesteryear, and there's no going back. The effects of climate change evident today are the results of choices that countries made decades ago to keep pumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates despite warnings from scientists about the price to be paid.

BBC News reports: In 1991, the trade body that represents electrical companies in the U.S., the Edison Electric Institute, created a campaign called the Information Council for the Environment which aimed to "Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)". Some details of the campaign were leaked to the New York Times. "They ran advertising campaigns designed to undermine public support, cherry picking the data to say, 'Well if the world is warming up, why is Kentucky getting colder?' They asked rhetorical questions designed to create confusion, to create doubt," argued Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University and co-author of Merchants of Doubt. But back in the 1990 there were many campaigns like this...

Most of the organisations opposing or denying climate change science were right-wing think tanks, who tended to be passionately anti-regulation. These groups made convenient allies for the oil industry, as they would argue against action on climate change on ideological grounds. Jerry Taylor spent 23 years with the Cato Institute — one of those right wing think tanks — latterly as vice president. Before he left in 2014, he would regularly appear on TV and radio, insisting that the science of climate change was uncertain and there was no need to act.

Now, he realises his arguments were based on a misinterpretation of the science, and he regrets the impact he's had on the debate.
Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes discovered leading climate-change skeptics had also been prominent skeptics on the dangers of cigarette smoking. "That was a Eureka moment," Oreskes tells BBC News. "We realised this was not a scientific debate." Decades before the energy industry tried to undermine the case for climate change, tobacco companies had used the same techniques to challenge the emerging links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s... As a later document by tobacco company Brown and Williamson summarised the approach: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public." Naomi Oreskes says this understanding of the power of doubt is vital. "They realise they can't win this battle by making a false claim that sooner or later would be exposed. But if they can create doubt, that would be sufficient — because if people are confused about the issue, there's a good chance they'll just keep smoking...."

Academics like David Michaels, author of The Triumph of Doubt, fear the use of uncertainty in the past to confuse the public and undermine science has contributed to a dangerous erosion of trust in facts and experts across the globe today, far beyond climate science or the dangers of tobacco. He cites public attitudes to modern issues like the safety of 5G, vaccinations — and coronavirus.

"By cynically manipulating and distorting scientific evidence, the manufacturers of doubt have seeded in much of the public a cynicism about science, making it far more difficult to convince people that science provides useful — in some cases, vitally important — information.

"There is no question that this distrust of science and scientists is making it more difficult to stem the coronavirus pandemic."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Launched in 2009, AmazonBasics has grown to offer more than 5,000 products, according to the retailer. Its mission: identifying everyday items that Amazon can create at a similar or higher quality and lower price point when compared to existing name brands -- a strategy also employed by companies such as Costco and Target. A growing number of AmazonBasics products, which the company promotes heavily on its site, have become bestsellers since the line's inception, and many have ratings above four stars, according to Marketplace Pulse research. In recent months, the online retailer's sales have been soaring as millions of Americans have been staying at home -- and in many cases working remotely -- during the ongoing pandemic.

But consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews posted on Amazon's own website. Since 2016, at least 1,500 reviews, covering more than 70 items, have described products exploding, catching on fire, smoking, melting, causing electrical malfunctions or otherwise posing risks, according to an analysis of AmazonBasics electronics and appliances listed on its website. The reviews identified represent a small fraction of the overall purchases of the products, and fires caused by consumer electronics are not unique to Amazon branded items. User error can also be a factor, as can faulty or aging wiring within a home or a defective device being used in conjunction with the product. But when well-made and used properly by consumers, electronics like those sold under the AmazonBasics name should rarely pose dangers, said electrical engineers interviewed by CNN.

A reporter for Medium's tech site OneZero recently spotted an especially bizarre ad on Instagram: The ad features a GIF of a person wearing a Fitbit-style wristband, with the text "Eliminate Cravings." Across the frame from their hand sits a giant slice of cake. As the person reaches towards the cake, the wristband turns red and zaps them with electricity. You can tell it's zapping them because the whole frame vibrates, and little lightning bolts shoot out of the wristband, like in an old-school Batman movie. All that's missing is an animated "POW!"

At first, I thought it must be either a joke or a metaphor...

Nope. It turns out the Pavlok is exactly what the ad suggests: a Bluetooth-connected, wearable wristband that uses accelerometers, a connected app, and a "snap circuit" to shock its users with 450 volts of electricity when they do something undesirable. The device costs $149.99 and is available on Amazon. The company says it has over 100,000 customers who use the device to help kill food cravings, quit smoking, and to stop touching their face... I immediately saw two fundamental truths at the exact same time. Firstly, the mere existence of an automated self-flagellation wristband is proof that we've reached Peak Wearables. And second, this is the perfect device for Our Times...

Pavlok's founder says he came up with the idea for the company after paying an assistant to slap him every time he went on Facebook.... Through a Chrome extension, it can also (Doom scrollers rejoice) automatically punish actions like spending too much time on Facebook, Twitter, and other potentially time-wasting websites. It can zap you when you open too many Chrome tabs — a use case I'd love to recommend to several programmer friends... But perhaps the most relevant feature for today's world is the ability to program the device to shock you every time you touch your face. This is something which humans do alarmingly often — up to 16 times per hour. The practice has been implicated in spreading coronavirus, or at least contaminating face masks and leading to wasted PPE...

Pavlok may sound bizarre, but it's just the logical extension of an overall trend toward using tech to tweak and prod our brains into new ways of thinking... Pavlok acts as the metaphorical stick to these apps' carrots, giving you the option to beat your brain into submission instead of just tweaking it.
In 2016 Mark Cuban called Pavlok "everything but a legitimate product" in what was probably one of the least-success Shark Tank appearances ever. But Medium's reporter seems convinced it's the appropriate response to this moment in time. "I only need to look at Twitter to feel that I'm being jolted awake with a powerful electrical shock...

"The real thing feels kind of appropriate."

The dwarf planet Ceres -- long believed to be a barren space rock -- is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday. The Guardian reports: Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface. Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analyzed images relayed from the orbiter, captured about 35km (22 miles) from the asteroid. They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and determined that there is an "extensive reservoir" of brine beneath its surface.

Using infrared imaging, one team discovered the presence of the compound hydrohalite -- a material common in sea ice but which until now had never been observed off of Earth. Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica said hydrohalite was a clear sign Ceres used to have sea water. "We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons," she told AFP. The team said the salt deposits looked like they had built up within the last 2 million years -- the blink of an eye in space time. This suggests that the brine may still be ascending from the planet's interior, something De Sanctis said could have profound implications in future studies.

Writing in an accompanying comment article, Julie Castillo-Rogez, from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the discovery of hydrohalite was a "smoking gun" for ongoing water activity. "That material is unstable on Ceres' surface, and hence must have been emplaced very recently," she said. In a separate paper, US-based researchers analyzed images of the Occator crater and found that its mounds and hills may have formed when water ejected by the impact of a meteor froze on the surface.

Excessive drinking, exposure to air pollution and head injuries all increase dementia risk, experts say in a report revealing that up to 40% of dementia cases worldwide could be delayed or prevented by addressing 12 such lifestyle factors. The Guardian reports: The report from the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care builds on previous work revealing that about a third of dementia cases could be prevented by addressing nine lifestyle factors, including midlife hearing loss, depression, less childhood education and smoking. The research weighs up the latest evidence, largely from high-income countries, supporting the addition of a further three risk factors to the list. It suggests that 1% of dementia cases worldwide are attributable to excessive mid-life alcohol intake, 3% to mid-life head injuries and 2% a result of exposure to air pollution in older age -- although they caution that the latter could be an underestimate.

While some actions can be taken on a personal level to tackle such issues, many require government-led change. The report includes a list of nine recommendations, including improving air quality, and urges policymakers to "be ambitious about prevention." Research has suggested that the incidence of dementia in Europe and North America has fallen by around 15% per decade for the past 30 years -- likely because of lifestyle changes such as a reduction in smoking -- even though the numbers of people with dementia are rising as people live longer. The impact of lifestyle interventions, the team add, is likely to be greatest among the most deprived individuals and in low- and middle-income countries. The impact of lifestyle interventions, the team add, is likely to be greatest among the most deprived individuals and in low- and middle-income countries.

schwit1 quotes Space.com: A new explanation for a massive blast over a remote Siberian forest in 1908 is even stranger than the mysterious incident itself.

Known as the Tunguska event, the blast flattened more than 80 million trees in seconds, over an area spanning nearly 800 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) — but left no crater. A meteor that exploded before hitting the ground was thought by many to be the culprit. However, a comet or asteroid would likely have left behind rocky fragments after blowing up, and no "smoking gun" remnants of a cosmic visitor have ever been found.

Now, a team of researchers has proposed a solution to this long-standing puzzle: A large iron meteor hurtled toward Earth and came just close enough to generate a tremendous shock wave. But the meteor then curved away from our planet without breaking up, its mass and momentum carrying it onward in its journey through space.

turp182 writes: What's your story? How are you doing? What do you predict? Below is a summary of the stats I've been following, some assumptions, and an overview of my personal situation. Anyway, how you all doing?

You can breathe in harmful chemicals from tobacco use even in non-smoking venues because they are carried on smokers' bodies and clothes. From a report: Third-hand smoke -- the residue from cigarette fumes that sticks to surfaces and then wafts back into the air -- has previously been found indoors in places where smoking is allowed. To find out if third-hand smoke also pollutes non-smoking venues, Drew Gentner at Yale University and his colleagues monitored the air quality in a non-smoking cinema in Germany for four days, after first flushing it with clean air. Smoking is banned inside cinemas and other public places in Germany. They observed spikes of tobacco chemicals in the air just after audiences arrived, which decreased over time but didn't go away completely.

The polluting substances were probably brought in on the bodies and clothes of people who had recently smoked cigarettes or been near smokers, says Gentner. They observed larger spikes during movies rated for those aged 16 and above, most likely because the audiences were older and had greater tobacco exposure than those attending movies suitable for younger people, says Gentner. The amount of tobacco chemicals that people watching the films aimed at older teens and adults were exposed to per hour was equivalent to that inhaled while sitting directly next to someone as they smoke up to 10 cigarettes.

Breakthrough treatments for lung cancer and melanoma have driven down cancer mortality overall -- and from 2016 to 2017 spurred the largest-ever decline. schwit1 shares a report: The cancer death rate in the United States fell 2.2 percent from 2016 to 2017 -- the largest single-year decline in cancer mortality ever reported, the American Cancer Society reported on Wednesday. Since 1991 the rate has dropped 29 percent, which translates to approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than would have occurred if the mortality rate had remained constant. "Every year that we see a decline in cancer mortality rate, it's very good news," said Rebecca Siegel, director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the organization's report, which was published online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Experts attributed the decline to the reduced smoking rates and to advances in lung cancer treatment. New therapies for melanoma of the skin have also helped extend life for many people with metastatic disease, or cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Progress has slowed for colorectal, breast and prostate cancers, however. The rising rate of obesity among Americans, as well as significant racial and geographic disparities, likely explain why the decline in breast and colorectal cancer death rates has begun to taper off, and why the decrease in rates of prostate cancer has halted entirely.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People living with air pollution have higher rates of depression and suicide, a systematic review of global data has found. Cutting air pollution around the world to the EU's legal limit could prevent millions of people becoming depressed, the research suggests. This assumes that exposure to toxic air is causing these cases of depression. Scientists believe this is likely but is difficult to prove beyond doubt. The particle pollution analyzed in the study is produced by burning fossil fuels in vehicles, homes and industry. The researchers said the new evidence further strengthened calls to tackle what the World Health Organization calls the "silent public health emergency" of dirty air.

The research, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, used strict quality criteria to select and pool research data from 16 countries published up to 2017. This revealed a strong statistical link between toxic air and depression and suicide. [...] The data analyzed in the new research linked depression with air pollution particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (equivalent to 0.0025 millimeters and known as PM2.5). People exposed to an increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m^3) in the level of PM2.5 for a year or more had a 10% higher risk of getting depression. Levels of PM2.5 in cities range from as high as 114ug/m^3 in Delhi, India, to just 6ug/m^3 in Ottawa, Canada. In UK cities in 2017, the average PM2.5 level was 13ug/m^3. The researchers estimated that lowering this to the WHO recommended limit of 10ug/m^3 could reduce depression in city dwellers by about 2.5%. The available data on suicide risk was for particles ranging up to 10 micrometers (PM10). The researchers found a short-term effect, with a 10ug/m^3 increase over three days raising the risk of suicide by 2%. "The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm," the report notes.

"The studies analyzed took account of many factors that might affect mental health, including home location, income, education, smoking, employment and obesity. But they were not able to separate the potential impact of noise, which often occurs alongside air pollution and is known to have psychological effects."

"If you're systematically stealing money from a bank vault, it may not be a good idea to post the evidence on your social media pages," reports CNN: A bank employee in Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly stole $88,000 from the bank's vault, according to a release from the United States Attorney's Office Western District of North Carolina. And he wasn't bashful about advertising to his social media followers the life of luxury he was funding.... Henderson's numerous Facebook and Instagram photos depict him posing with stacks of cash, and the U.S. Attorney's Office says he used the money to make a $20,000 down payment on a new Mercedes-Benz....

According to details from the indictment contained in the release, Henderson allegedly took bank customers' cash deposits out of the bank vault for months. Many of those times, he deposited money into an ATM near the bank where he worked, according to the release. "I make it look easy but this shyt really a PROCESS," he wrote in one Facebook post, part of a string in which he talked about building his "brand." That post, showed him him holding a stack of money and smoking a cigarette.
Henderson is now facing up to 30 years in prison.

Which bank? According to the Charlotte Observer, it was Wells Fargo.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: New research shows that psilocybin might be an effective treatment for diseases such as depression and addiction. While the work is still in its early stages, there are signs that psilocybin might help addicts shake the habit by causing the brain to talk with itself in different ways. "These brain changes lead to, oftentimes, a sense of unity," says Matthew Johnson, an experimental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. It all may sound a little "woo-woo," he admits, but it seems to be working. Early results suggest that psilocybin, coupled with therapy, may be far more effective than other treatments for smoking, such as the nicotine patch.

Psilocybin seems to work because it temporarily rewires the brain, according to Johnson. Sections that don't normally talk to each other appear to communicate more, and parts of the brain that normally do talk to each other talk less. Johnson's small initial psilocybin study was extremely promising. So now he is doing a larger, more rigorous trial comparing the nicotine patch to psilocybin. Results are still coming in, but right now, half of the people who took psilocybin are smoke-free after a year. That's about twice as effective as the patch. Nutt, who's now conducting his own follow-up trials on depression treatments, is impressed with Johnson's work. Nutt believes psilocybin potentially also could be used to treat other addictions, such as alcohol and opioids. But there are some reasons to be cautious. First of all, the amount of psilocybin Johnson administers in his trials is considered a high dose, and it's paired with months of counseling. Bad trips can be common for those using the drug for treatment of diseases, and memories and experiences brought up by the drug can be challenging and disturbing.

Second, the treatment is really expensive and the whole process takes months. Finally, not everybody should use psilocybin. People with predispositions for schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses may be harmed by taking the drug.

In 2014 consumer expert and Silicon Valley startup founder Nir Eyal wrote Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. But five years later, the New York Times reports he's offering consumers a new book about how to resist those habits -- even while arguing that "addiction" is the wrong way to describe technology's hold on people: There was a problem, yes, but the thinking was all wrong, he decided. Using the language of addiction gave tech users a pass. It was too easy. The issue was not screens but people's own minds, and to solve the problem they had to look within. "If I call technology something that people get addicted to, there needs to be a pusher, a dealer doing it to you," Mr. Eyal said. "But if I say technology is something that people overuse, then it's, 'Oh, crap, now I need to do something about it myself....'" The solution he proposes in Indistractable is slow. It involves self-reflection. He argues that many times we look at phones because we are anxious and bad at being alone -- and that's not the phone's fault...

Mr. Eyal has written a guide to free people from an addiction he argues they never had in the first place. It was all just sloughing off personal responsibility, he figures. So the solution is to reclaim responsibility in myriad small ways. For instance: Have your phone on silent so there will be fewer external triggers. Email less and faster. Don't hang out on Slack. Have only one laptop out during meetings. Introduce social pressure like sitting next to someone who can see your screen. Set "price pacts" with people so you pay them if you get distracted -- though be sure to "learn self-compassion before making a price pact....."

"I got myself a feature phone that had no apps. I got on eBay a word processor, and all it does is let you type. I made my phone grayscale, which only ruined my pictures," he said. "I tried a digital detox, but I missed audiobooks and GPS...."
He also argues that getting hooked on social media isn't necessarily a bad thing. "For many people, social media is a very good thing and gaming is a very good thing. It's how you use it...." But he's also predicting a "post-digital" movement will emerge in 2020.

"We will start to realize that being chained to your mobile phone is a low-status behavior, similar to smoking."

CNBC reports that a popular Twitch poker star has been accused of cheating: Stones Gambling Hall in Sacramento, California says it will not livestream poker games pending an investigation into cheating allegations made against one of the game's players, Mike Postle... The original accusations were made by Veronica Brill, another poker player who has played with Postle on "Stones Live." Since then, others have come forward with similar complaints. Brill has no specific accusation of what Postle is doing and even admits that she can't be sure he is cheating. So why does she think he is cheating? His results are too good, according to Brill. She said (and several professional pokers players who talked to CNBC, agreed) no one could do as well as he has, for as long as he has, on these livestreamed games...

It's not just that Postle is winning, it's how he's winning, that is drawing suspicion. Poker commentator Joey Ingram, poker pro Matt Berkey, and others have spent hours reviewing hands Postle played and found several times where Postle made a fold or a call that wouldn't seem "right" but happened to work out in his favor. Berkey said Postle made plays no pro would ever make, and he did them often, and they worked. Poker is a game of incomplete information. Berkey said Postle played "as if he had perfect information."

Stones Gambling Hall said it has hired an independent investigator to look into the accusations. In a statement Stones Gambling Hall said: "We temporarily halted all broadcasts from Stones. We have also, as a result, halted the use of RFID playing cards." The RFID cards contain chips, that combined with readers in the poker table, transmit information about each player's hole cards, so that viewers can see the cards on the broadcast (which is on a 30-minute delay to protect game integrity). At this point, there is no specific allegation, no "smoking gun" as Berkey said. But many pros are pointing to those RFID cards and the hole card information, saying it's just not possible for Postle to play the way he does and win the way he does.

Dave Knott writes: A Montreal legal firm has requested authorization to launch a class-action lawsuit against Epic Games, makers of the widely-popular video game Fortnite. The legal notice, filed on behalf of two minors, likens the effect of the game to cocaine, saying it releases the chemical dopamine to the brain of vulnerable young people who can become dependent on playing. Much of the suit is based on a 2015 Quebec Superior Court ruling that determined tobacco companies didn't warn their customers about the dangers of smoking. Jean-Philippe Caron, a lawyer at Calex, said the firm was contacted by several parents whose kids had become addicted to the game.

Last year, the World Health Organization classified addiction to video games as a disease. It defined the disorder as "a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increased priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences." According to Caron, Fortnite was designed by psychologists to make it more addictive. "They knew that their game was very attractive, yet they did not divulge the risks to the population. It's a little like tobacco."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Air pollution particles have been found on the fetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are directly exposed to the black carbon produced by motor traffic and fuel burning. The research is the first study to show the placental barrier can be penetrated by particles breathed in by the mother. It found thousands of the tiny particles per cubic millimeter of tissue in every placenta analyzed. The link between exposure to dirty air and increased miscarriages, premature births and low birth weights is well established. The research suggests the particles themselves may be the cause, not solely the inflammatory response the pollution produces in mothers.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, examined 25 placentas from non-smoking women in the town of Hasselt. It has particle pollution levels well below the EU limit, although above the WHO limit. Researchers used a laser technique to detect the black carbon particles, which have a unique light fingerprint. In each case, they found nanoparticles on the fetal side of the placenta and the number correlated with air pollution levels experienced by the mothers. There was an average of 20,000 nanoparticles per cubic millimeter in the placentas of mothers who lived near main roads. For those further away, the average was 10,000 per cubic millimeter. They also examined placentas from miscarriages and found the particles were present even in 12-week-old fetuses.

India has announced a ban on electronic cigarettes, as a backlash gathers pace worldwide about a technology promoted as less harmful than smoking tobacco. From a report: The announcement by India on Wednesday came a day after New York became the second US state to ban flavored e-cigarettes following a string of vaping-linked deaths. "The decision was made keeping in mind the impact that e-cigarettes have on the youth of today," India's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, told reporters in the capital, New Delhi. E-cigarettes heat up a liquid -- tasting of anything from bourbon to bubble gum or just tobacco, and which usually contains nicotine -- into vapor, which is inhaled. The vapor does not contain the estimated 7,000 chemicals present in tobacco smoke but does contain a number of substances that could potentially be harmful. They have been pushed by producers, and also by some governments, including in Europe, as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking -- and as a way to kick the habit.