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Submission + - 62% of Americans admit to being afraid to share their political views (cato.org)

Submitted by mi
mi writes: "Strong Liberals" — 77% of them — are the only ones, who feel, they can express themselves freely. Majorities of everybody else: moderates and Conservatives, White, Latino, men, women, all report having to censor themselves for fear of career-damage and other negative consequences. Even 49% of African Americans do.

The figures have worsened since 2017...

Submission + - Newsweek: Dr. Fauci's History Backing Controversial Wuhan Bat Virus Lab (newsweek.com)

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: Newsweek late Tuesday published a report detailing the financial backing by National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (the organization led by Dr. Fauci) supporting scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

"In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.... Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release."

The gist of the article is a long-running argument between scientists whether the gains from understanding "spillover" virus evolution (how viruses evolve to cross-species and resulting pandemic) are worth the risk of lab accidents, mistakes or mental lapses by lab employees, etc. The article does not focus very much on why those tests would have been outsourced to a lab in Wuhan, China — rather on whether the practice (which can involve actively "cultivating" crossover virus) should be done, period.

""We have serious doubts about whether these experiments should be conducted at all," wrote Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard. "[W]ith deliberations kept behind closed doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and integrity of that process."

Submission + - How to get to net zero carbon emissions: Cut short-lived superpollutants (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Dan Drollette
Dan Drollette writes: We absolutely, positively, must tackle climate change speedily. Or as the authors of this article put it: "By 'speed,' we mean measures—including regulatory ones—that can begin within two-to-three years, be substantially implemented in five-to-10 years, and produce a climate response within the next decade or two." (Quick aside: one of the authors, Mario Molina, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995, for his work on holes in the ozone layer.)

Comment Re:Interesting (Score 0) 112

by whipslash (#59074460) Attached to:
Yeah we removed it. Slashdotters are smart enough to notice without some song and dance. There was too much spam. Sorry you're not getting your way.

Submission + - Did climate change destroy the aliens? (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Dan Drollette
Dan Drollette writes: Researchers say that one reason why no intelligent alien life has contacted us may be because they, too, encountered self-inflicted climate change... and went extinct. So, no one has contacted us because there's no one out there.

A little creepy something to think about while roasting marshmallows around the campfire and looking up at the stars.

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