Racial Promotion Gaps (at the US patent office). Really!

More junk science published by the American Economic Association (AEA) as I suspect!

Apparently, some economists can not resist to use race baiting!

The first author of this study, i.e. Deepak Hegde (Professor at New York University, Stern School of Business), has only a lifetime citation count of 3544. That is very low! Maybe this paper gets his citation count up a little bit.

"We study racial disparities in promotions in a setting in which promotions are formulaic: the US patent office. Using detailed administrative data that allow us to observe who is eligible for promotion when, we document that Black patent examiners experience delays in promotions they are entitled [???] to, slowing their climb to the top of the career ladder by a year and reducing career earnings by 2.5 percent. Institutional features rule out statistical discrimination with accurate priors. Slow promotions even under Black supervisors argue against taste-based animus. Instead, the patterns fit models of belief-based discrimination."

Racial Promotion Gaps - American Economic Association

How a decade of emissions intensified Europe’s heat waves. Really!

Most likely a piece of junk science (published by Stanford University)!

Just the fact that this research is entirely based on training a generative AI model is suspicious enough!

This claim of human emissions is also at odds with the fact that the atmosphere has become much cleaner in recent decades.

"In brief

• Researchers trained a generative AI model to predict how extreme heat waves in Europe could unfold under different global emissions levels.
• The team found more than 99-in-100 odds that human-caused emissions from the last decade made the deadly 2025 European heat wave more intense.
• The study is an advance in linking subsets of emissions to climate change damages, and emphasizes the need to prepare for intensifying extreme weather alongside global emissions reductions.

..."

From the abstract:

"Understanding the consequences of continued greenhouse-gas emissions requires determining whether recent emissions can be robustly linked to changes in extreme weather events. However, current approaches have a limited ability to quantify changes in extreme weather caused by small subsets of anthropogenic emissions, particularly for individual events.

To address these limitations, we train a generative machine-learning model to predict spatially-explicit changes in daily surface temperature at different levels of cumulative emissions, conditional on the event's observed meteorological conditions.

Using this approach, we find strong evidence (>95% probability) that the combined effects of anthropogenic emissions released since the 2015 UN Paris Agreement have increased the intensity of Europe's summer temperature extremes since 2021. Additionally, our results suggest >99% probability that regional-mean temperature during Europe's high-impact June 2025 heatwave would have been lower (median estimate of 0.34°C) if the same large-scale meteorological conditions had occurred under 2015 levels of cumulative emissions."

How a decade of emissions intensified Europe’s heat waves | Stanford Report "A new study finds emissions since 2015 made recent heat waves more intense, underscoring the need to prepare for even hotter conditions ahead."

Global Emissions Since the Paris Agreement Have Intensified Europe's Recent Heatwaves (open access)

About 30% of adults would conceal loved ones' cancer. Really!

I am not sure how realistic this scenario is. Why would the patient not learn of his/her condition directly from the doctor?

This study seems to be odd if not contrived. Junk science?

What is here is the effect of cultural or religious factors? E.g. Buddhism?

Notice the difference is less than 10 percentage points. What is e.g. the margin of error in this case?

"Around 30% of adults in Thailand reported that if they were informed that a loved one had been diagnosed with cancer, they wouldn’t tell that person. The main reason for withholding the diagnosis was that they believed that receiving such bad news could worsen symptoms and cause fear of pain or death. The study surveyed more than 600 people, of whom around 80% were female. Previous studies have revealed similar trends in China, India and Saudi Arabia."

From the abstract:

"This study aimed to examine intentions to know one’s own cancer diagnosis and prognosis and intentions to allow family members to know the information.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among adults without a history of cancer diagnosis. Data were collected using a questionnaire capturing participant characteristics, intentions to know cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and intentions to allow loved ones to know cancer diagnosis and prognosis. The proportion reporting each intention was estimated. Factors related to not allow loved ones to know cancer diagnosis and prognosis were examined using univariate and multivariate regression analyses.

Of 607, most participants were female (80.2%), with a mean age of 43.1 ± 14.7 years.

Intentions to know one’s own cancer-related information were consistently higher than intentions to allow loved ones to know the information: cancer diagnosis (79.9% vs. 70.5%), prognosis regarding cancer stage and chance of cure (80.7% vs. 72.0%), and end-of-life prognosis (77.1% vs. 67.1%).

Participants who did not wish to know their own cancer prognosis had significantly higher odds of intending to not allow their loved ones to know cancer diagnosis and prognostic information.

Future research should focus on developing and evaluating approaches to assess preferences for cancer-related information disclosure."

Nature Briefing: Cancer

Preferences regarding disclosure of cancer diagnosis and prognosis for self and family members: a cross-sectional study (open access)

National Academies of Sciences faces growing scrutiny as docs reveal deep climate-advocacy bias

No surprise! Too many scientists have subscribed to and are true believers of the climate change religion!

Better be a climate skeptic rather than a climate demagogue!

"A trove of thousands of documents include an email from Marcia McNutt, who was then-president of the National Academies of Sciences, asking to use funding to block the EPA from rescinding the endangerment finding, which she said was supported by “climate deniers.” ...

Now the organization is under pressure from the House Oversight Committee to provide documents it withheld as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of bias, and 22 state attorneys general are calling for an investigation and possible suspension of its federal funding over allegations it's producing materials to help plaintiffs win climate lawsuits. ...

As [Rep. James Comer, R-Ky] was demanding the withheld documents last week, 22 state attorneys general sent a letter to Trump administration officials, also on Friday, calling for an investigation into NAS and possible suspension and debarment of federal funding stemming from the publication of an update to an influential science manual for judges, which included a chapter on climate science. ..."

National Academies of Sciences faces growing scrutiny as docs reveal deep climate-advocacy bias | Just The News

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky (official photo, Source)

Nearly half of the world’s farmers suffer unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning every year. Really!

Serious stuff, if confirmed! I have some serious doubts about this claim! My hunch is we are dealing here with junk journalism and junk science.

The study was reportedly commissioned by the NGO Pesticide Action Network?

Notice these poisoning numbers are based on estimates (extrapolation?) not hard data! From about 370,000 actually reported cases, they come up with over 400 million cases estimate!  This is a serious jump!

Notice they refer to farmers, but the hard data appears to be all people not just farmers! The abstract of the research article does not mention how many farmers were actually poisoned!

Notice also the use of "non fetal" in this context! How serious were these poisonings?

Notice the research article is primarily a meta study of research articles.

"... with southern Asia, southeast Asia, and East Africa most affected, finds a study published yesterday in Frontiers in Public Health, which also estimated 11,000 annual deaths from pesticide poisoning; the authors say immediate action is required to reduce pesticide use, which doubled from 1990 to 2023. ..."

"... The overall highest national incidence of poisoning was in Burkina Faso in west Africa, where nearly 84% of farmers and farm workers were reported to have experienced poisoning. ..."

From the abstract:

"Background: 

Human poisoning by pesticides has long been seen as a severe public health problem. 

As early as 1990, a task force of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticide poisonings occur annually, leading to approximately 20,000 deaths.

In 2020, a systematic review found that about 385 million cases of unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP) were occurring every year.

Our aim is to update the annual global estimate of UAPP, based on a systematic review of available data.

Methods:

We updated the existing systematic review of the scientific literature to include the period from 2006 to 2023 supplemented by mortality data from WHO.

We extracted data from publications and the WHO Mortality Database, then performed country-wise synopses, and arrived at annual numbers of national UAPP. World-wide UAPP was estimated based on national figures and population data for worldwide regions. We conducted a sensitivity analysis to illustrate the effects of different study designs on the global estimate.

Results:

In total 139 countries were covered, including 62 countries covered by 214 articles from 2006 to 2023, and an additional 77 countries covered by data from the WHO Mortality Database. 

Approximately 369,632 annual cases of UAPP were reported by the extracted publications, resulting from 9,182 fatalities and 360,450 non-fatal cases.

On this basis, we estimate that about 402 to 433 million cases of UAPP occur annually worldwide, including around 11,000 fatalities.

Based on a worldwide farming population of approximately 934 million, this means that an estimated 46% of farmers are being poisoned by pesticides every year.

The greatest estimated number of non-fatal UAPP cases is in southern Asia, followed by south-eastern Asia and east Africa.

Conclusion:

Along with other estimates, robust evidence is presented that acute pesticide poisoning is an ongoing major global public health challenge.

There is an urgent need to recognize the high burden of non-fatal UAPP, particularly on farmers and farmworkers. The implementation of the recommendation by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to phase out highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) could significantly reduce the burden of UAPP."

Global Health NOW: A Radically Reshaped Global Health Funding Paradigm; and West Nile Surges Across Southern Europe

Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find "Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities"

Worldwide unintentional acute pesticide poisonings: reassessing the occupational and non-occupational burden (open access)

Notice that French language articles were not included and medical/clinical outcomes of these poisonings.

Fig. 2 Number (x 1,000) of non-fatal untentional pesticide poisonings in UN Regions (total = 433 million).

Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year | Yale School of Public Health. Really!

When an elite university has delusions of grandeur! Or is it simply old fashioned socialism or a preference for government run healthcare? What about junk science?

These wannabe socialists have never heard of or seen the e.g. long waiting lines or chronic shortages in historic, socialist countries!

Why not introduce more free market competition into the US and other countries' healthcare systems! Why not shorten intellectual property protections? Why not let nurses do more doctor work? Why not reduce burdensome regulations and much more! However, e.g. import of re-import of government price controlled drugs from other countries is not one of them! 

"A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. ...

The model identified five major sources of savings: lower pharmaceutical prices, Medicare-level payments to providers, reduced administrative overhead, less fraudulent billing, and fewer avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

Even under more conservative assumptions about drug prices and fraud reduction, the researchers projected that the savings would reach at least $663 billion a year. Both figures account for an estimated $304 billion in additional spending to meet unmet medical needs, reimburse care that now goes unpaid, and provide universal dental coverage. ..."

From the abstract:

"The US spends more on health care than any other nation, yet tens of millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and coverage retractions enacted in 2025 are widening these gaps.

The misalignment between the for-profit insurance architecture and optimal patient care, together with the inefficiencies of a fragmented system, contributes to both unnecessary costs and preventable mortality.

We update our previous analyses with the most recent data to project the economic benefits and the number of lives saved that would be achieved by single-payer universal coverage, as proposed in the Medicare for All Act.

We estimate that such a system would reduce national health expenditure by $1,041 billion annually. Sources of savings include reductions in administrative overhead, pharmaceutical prices, fraudulent billing, and avoidable emergency care.

Combined with the reversal of recent retractions, universal coverage would save over 114,000 lives annually."

Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects | Yale School of Public Health

Projected economic gains and lives saved under universal healthcare in the United States (preprint, open access)

Credits: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Global Health NOW

56 million years ago fossil forest during the PETM offers chilling window into climate change future. Really!

This demagoguery and alarmism and hysteria was again spread quickly by many of the usual climate change religion suspects (like e.g. the AAAS)!

When medieval superstition trumps science!

Some of this research seems to be speculative, e.g. "possible tree mortality" and other vague terms.

The climate demagogues try hard to link a 56 million years ago event to today's warming by stressing the "anthropogenic" cause of higher CO2 in the atmosphere. Let's not forget CO2 is only a minute trace gas in our time!

Notice also this study appears to be based on computer modeling not on hard facts. Has any third party validated these computer model scenarios? Computer models and their 100 year forecasts also play a major role in the propaganda of the global warming hoax/climate change religion. 

Very strange, notice these climate demagogues don't tell what the approximate CO2 and methane concentration in the atmosphere was 56 million years ago. Either they don't know or it was so much higher than today that they better not disclose it or otherwise their demagoguery would be exposed immediately! What if it was not higher CO2 that caused the warming period 56 million years ago?

"Palaeontologists have reconstructed a 56-million-year-old forest, offering a sobering view of what happens in a period of rapid warming due to rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) came at the end of the Palaeocene epoch. Over this period, global average temperatures rose by 5–8°C over just a few thousand years.

This warming was triggered by a massive, rapid release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere and oceans primarily through volcanic activity which would have been intensified through feedback loops, including melting permafrost and large-scale wildfires.

Research published in the journal Science shows how the PETM impacted on an ancient forest fossilised in rocks in US state Wyoming and vegetation globally.

The team found reduced canopy cover and plant species migrating toward the poles. ..."

"“We are putting CO₂ into the atmosphere faster than any known natural process,” [???] says paleobotanist Dr. Regan Dunn, Assistant Deputy Director and Associate Curator of the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research at La Brea Tar Pits and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “The Earth has never experienced a carbon release at the pace we're creating today." ..."

"... This sudden warming event, called the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), was one of the most notable climatic upheavals in Earth’s history. The volume of CO2 released [??? so how much was released?] during that period is thought [???] to be roughly equivalent to the total human emissions that would [???] be released by the end of the twenty-first century under a pessimistic scenario. The ancient surge of CO2 raised global average temperatures by between 5 and 9 °C, changing the climate for more than 150,000 years. ..."

"... Understanding how forest structure changed during the PETM is really important, because it tells us about how plant growth, biomass and productivity are affected by adding a lot of carbon dioxide [??? how much?] to the atmosphere,” Currano [Ellen Currano, senior author of the study] says. “It turns out that too much carbon dioxide is a bad thing for forests, because the accompanying warming and drying stresses the trees and kills many of them.” ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract (Notice, the abstract does not mention the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere):

"Editor’s summary

Predicting the effects of climate change depends on complex feedbacks between climate and vegetation. Although elevated carbon dioxide from anthropogenic emissions could make photosynthesis more efficient, leading to greater vegetation productivity and carbon storage, coincident warming and drought can reduce primary productivity. Dunn et al. examined how these factors interacted to influence forest productivity in another period with elevated carbon dioxide and 5° to 9°C of global warming, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which occurred about 56 million years ago. Based on an analysis of leaf cuticles from fossils, the researchers found that there was elevated canopy opening early in this period, possibly due to tree mortality, which occurred along with major vegetation and hydrological changes. ...

Abstract

Uncertainty remains regarding the impact of rapid anthropogenic [???] warming on forest ecosystem structure, biodiversity, and function.

As an analog [???], we reconstruct forest canopy density and compositional change in Wyoming, USA, through the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an interval of abrupt carbon increase and warming ~56 million years ago. We develop a proxy to quantify leaf area index and assess shifts in floral composition using palynomorphs.

Forest canopies opened abruptly at onset of PETM warming, landscape erosion increased, and vegetation shifted from broad-leaved angiosperm to fern- and palm-dominated ecosystems.

When combined with regional data, these patterns suggest that continental-scale changes in plant communities cause landscape destabilization. These shifts also have implications for multimillennial-scale hydrologic and carbon cycle feedbacks in the climate system."

Fossil forest offers chilling window into climate change future | News | ConnectSci

Ancient global warming drove forest canopy decline and ecosystem restructuring "A widespread dieback of forests due to climate change 56 million years ago has parallels with today [???]."

Ancient rise in CO2 was catastrophic for forests: what that means for today’s plants

Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum Carbon Release Study "A Tar Pits researcher reconstructed forests of 56 million years ago—with chilling parallels for our warming planet: climate change led to a widespread browning of Earth's landscapes—against a backdrop of elevated atmospheric CO₂, global warming, and reduced rainfall triggered by volcanically driven carbon release—and trees are at the root of these drastic changes."

UW’s [University of Wyoming] Currano Helps Reconstruct Ancient Wyoming Forest Canopy (original news release)

Forest canopy decline under elevated CO2 during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (no public access)

(Left) Fisheye view of a forest canopy above a corresponding estimate of forest structure. (Top Right) Leaf cuticle collected from modern forest soil. (Bottom Right), Fossilised leaf cuticle from the Hanna Basin.

Satellite data shows a browning trend across the planet since around the turn of the century. [Demagogues like to use shocking photos like this]

Older People Face Higher Risks From a Warming World. Really!

How serious is this issue? How much is alarmism and hysteria? How easy is it to protect older individuals from heat exposure (e.g. staying more indoors etc.)?

A strong hint that this is more alarmism and hysteria than science is the use of junk climate model projections in this study to come up with "intolerable heat".

Notice here the switch again from "climate change" to global warming. Whenever it is convenient for propaganda?

Notice here also they provide only a relative temperature range and not an absolute temperature range when older individuals may suffer more! This may indicate e.g. that perhaps many older individuals are not that much affected by warmer outdoor temperatures.

The methodology may also be seriously flawed as they compare Little Ice Age temperatures with current warming period temperatures instead of e.g. Medieval Warming period temperatures! Plus they seem to have used junk climate model projections.

"Older people may face serious health risks from heat at much lower temperatures than previously understood, per new research from Stanford University.

Most previous studies applied heat limits for healthy young adults to all age groups—overlooking the vulnerability of older people.

The new research ... found that people ages 60 and up could “no longer maintain a stable core temperature”—the point at which the body’s biological cooling mechanisms become overwhelmed––at temps roughly 4.7–7.5 degrees Celsius and (40.46–45.5 degrees Fahrenheit) lower than young adults.

After accounting for ways that aging reduces heat tolerance, the number of people facing repeated, “uncompensable” heat exposure—a combination of heat and physical factors—as climates warm is two-to-eight-times higher than earlier studies estimated using young-adult thresholds for all ages.

Suggested solutions: Researchers say there is a need for targeted, age-specific action plans and warning systems to protect older people, ..."

"In short:

A new global study suggests older people may face serious health risks from heat at much lower temperatures than previously understood.

The study found the temperature at which people age 60 and older could "no longer maintain a stable core temperature" was roughly 4.7–7.5 degrees Celsius lower than for young adults. ..."

From the abstract:

"Background

In a warming world, understanding where, when, and to what extent human heat tolerance limits will be breached has become increasingly important.

Previous projections applied heat limits for healthy young adults to all age groups, overlooking greater vulnerability in older ages.

With global ageing, this oversight could seriously underestimate future heat risks. In this study, we aimed to examine the extent to which accounting for age-specific heat tolerance alters global projections of heat limit exceedances.

Methods

We integrated experimentally derived heat limits for young (18–39 years), middle-aged (40–59 years), and older adults (≥60 years) with climate projections [???] and age-stratified population projections to assess where and to what extent these limits could be breached across age groups under 1–4°C of global warming above preindustrial levels.

The climate projections [???] include bias-corrected projections of dry-bulb temperature and wet-bulb temperature from 14 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 climate models under the shared socioeconomic pathway 5-8·5 scenario. We also highlighted countries with high exposure risk and low adaptive capacity.

Findings

More widespread and imminent breaches of heat limits were estimated among older adult populations than among other populations.

Older adults faced more frequent and spatially extensive exceedances under the 1·5°C global warming scenario [???] relative to the preindustrial period than young adults did under 4°C. Using age-specific thresholds more than doubled the global population having 180 h or more of exceedance annually as compared with previous estimates.

Older adults in south Asia and the Persian Gulf could face sustained, day-and-night exposure for three consecutive months at 3°C or more warming.

We also identified 13 countries under 3°C global warming above the preindustrial period where poverty rates exceed 50% and either at least 10 million older adults or at least 80% of the older adult population experiences 180 h or more of heat limit exceedance annually.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Niger exceed both the absolute (10 million older adults) and proportional (80% of older adults) exposure thresholds.

Interpretation

Our results suggest accounting for age stratified vulnerability, intolerable heat [???] will be experienced at much larger scales and for longer durations, affecting far more people than previously estimated.

By identifying who and where people are exposed, our findings can inform targeted heat action plans and guide resource allocation and response planning. ..."

Global Health NOW: Older People Face Higher Risk From Warming World; and California’s Deadly Silicosis Surge

People over 60 face heat exposure danger at lower temperatures, study suggests

When Heat Outpaces the Human Body: A Warming, Aging World at Risk "As the climate warms, understanding where, when, and to what extent human heat tolerance limits will be breached has become increasingly important—particularly for the elderly."

Exceeding human heat tolerance in a warming, ageing world: a global projection modelling study (open access)

Figure 1 Spatial distribution of UHS [uncompensable heat stress] frequency across age groups and warming levels

Slavery linked to mortality gap between Black and white Americans today. Really!

Update of 8/17/2026: Of course, the lefty Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health would pick up this junk science in a news article! "Historical U.S. slavery has been linked to contemporary health disparities and the mortality gap between Black and white Americans today"

This article reeks of junk journalism and junk science! More horrible demagoguery spread by the AAAS and this time also by the National Academy of Sciences! Shame on them!

The term "racial disparities" is ideological and racist! A sign of junk science! This article published in the PNAS seems to be pure ideological junk science! It should be retracted!

What about individual lifestyle of black Americans v. white Americans with similar lifestyles or black Americans who moved away from formerly slave holding counties and so on! What about the age structure between white and black Americans in those counties?

Caveat: I did not read the article.

"... researchers studying racial health disparities in the United States today. A new study finds slavery still casts a long shadow on the country’s well-being, worsening the health outcomes for Black people in certain locations more than 150 years after abolition. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Black–White mortality disparities remain a persistent form of inequality in the United States. This study provides evidence that the proportion of enslaved people across U.S. counties in 1860 [???] predicts contemporary Black–White mortality disparities.

Counties with greater reliance on slavery in 1860 [???] have higher contemporary mortality rates for Black Americans but lower rates for White Americans. The association persists in analyses designed to address confounding from unobserved historical factors and in tests of alternative explanations. Structural inequalities [???] in segregation, economic conditions, and educational access emerge as key pathways linking historical slavery to contemporary mortality disparities [???]. This work underscores the need for interventions [???] that address not only proximal determinants but also the historical and structural foundations, of racial health disparities.

Abstract

We tested whether contemporary Black–White mortality disparities in the United States may be rooted in the historical legacy of slavery and perpetuated through structural inequalities.

Linking county-level data on the proportion of enslaved people in 1860 with structural inequality indicators from 1990 to 2000 and mortality outcomes from 2010 to 2020, we find that historical slavery is robustly associated with contemporary racial mortality gaps.

Our model estimates ~22 additional deaths per 100,000 among Black Americans relative to White Americans for every 10% increase in the 1860 enslaved population.

Path analysis models showed that segregation, economic inequality, and racial disparities in poverty and education statistically mediated this effect.

We test the plausibility of a causal pathway using an instrumental variable analysis and explore the robustness of our theoretical model in multiple supplemental analyses.

Our analyses held even after controlling for a comprehensive suite of historical and contemporary covariates.

These findings are consistent with a model wherein slavery’s legacy continues to shape present-day Black–White racial health disparities via enduring structural inequities."

Slavery linked to mortality gap between Black and white Americans today | Science | AAAS

Historical slavery predicts contemporary disparities in mortality between Black and White Americans (open access)

What a garbage Chart (reminds of the infamous Hockey Stick chart)!

Fig 1 Figure displays the estimated relationship between the proportion of enslaved population in 1860 and Black and White mortality rates (2010–2020). 

No bosses, no problem! Pre-Hispanic farmers built giant water system bottom-up in Colombia. Really!

Amazing stuff! However, the claims about no top-down government etc. are most likely exaggerations or speculative!

When wishful thinking enters the minds of researchers! Dreams/bias of a cooperative collective!

It would be great if it can be confirmed that these fields and water management system were achieved through voluntarily cooperation, but this research is too speculative!

"The pre-Hispanic field systems of La Mojana in the Colombian Caribbean are so vast you can see them from a plane at high altitude. Their canals and raised fields – in use from the first centuries BC until the 11th century AD – cover an astonishing 500,000 hectares, roughly the same size as the Grand Canyon National Park, or three times the size of London. ...

archaeological team argues that the work was most likely locally-led, cooperative, and much faster than previously assumed. ...

Our study is the first to show that these sustainable solutions can be organised locally and collectively. Local people may need resources from the state but not necessarily state intervention.” ..."

From the abstract (emphasis added):

"Pre-Hispanic societies of the Colombian Caribbean lowlands built raised field systems spanning over 500,000 hectares. Their re-adoption may offer a potential solution to modern-day water control in the region. Traditionally interpreted as evidence of large-scale projects requiring centralised planning and coordination, the labour organisation behind their construction is nevertheless not fully understood.

To leverage archaeological knowledge in assessing potential for their re-adoption, we examine the function and labour input requirements of pre-Hispanic canal-ridge systems within a 500-hectare study area.

Conservative estimates indicate the entire system could have been built by local inhabitants in a single dry season.

Maintenance requirements were also modest, with full restoration once a generation requiring a few days annual labour.

We conclude that the sheer scale [???] of these systems cannot be taken as evidence of top-down control, and highlight the potential of low-cost, cooperative, sustainable approaches to water and land management in the Colombian Caribbean."

No bosses, no problem! Pre-Hispanic farmers built giant water system bottom-up, archaeologists reveal | University of Cambridge "Communities living in Colombia thousands of years ago achieved an engineering wonder of the world based on cooperation among family groups without top-down government, a new study shows. Archaeologists argue that policymakers in Colombia should now adopt a similar strategy to solve the country’s current water management crisis."

Collective labour and sustainability of pre-Hispanic field systems in La Mojana (open access)

Fig. 1: Areas of human occupation in La Mojana Region in Colombia.

Fig. 2: Aerial photograph of hydraulic systems in La Mojana, composed of canals and ridges (also known as camellones).

When should you switch to an EV? Right now! Really!

More horrible climate demagoguery coming from the AAAS! This is written by a senior editor of Science!

Reminder: So called greenhouse gases (a propaganda term) gases are trace gases!

What is perhaps the most significant cause of climate change/global warming: Varying solar activity and cycles!

"Over the last 3,000 years, Earth experienced two major notable ... warm periods—the Roman Warm Period (roughly 1st to 3rd centuries AD) and the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 950 to 1250 AD)" (Google Search)

This research is most likely ideologically driven junk science! It was written to give some politicians pseudo science arguments for government subsidies and government paternalism!

This pamphlet of a journal article was written by only two authors!

"When should you switch to an EV? Right now!

H. Jesse Smith, Senior Editor, Science

Campbell, J. E. & Geyer, R. The climate benefits of retiring a fully operational internal combustion engine vehicle. Science 393, 591–595 (2026). 10.1126.science.adv5441

 

Internal combustion engine vehicles are a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and therefore there has been a strong push to increase the proportion of electric vehicles (EV) in the transportation sector.

Operating an EV [???] typically produces much less CO2 per-mile than driving a “gas-guzzler,” but knowing when to replace a combustion vehicle with an EV in order to minimize lifetime CO2 production is complicated by the fact that considerable emissions are produced in the manufacturing of a vehicle, before it ever hits the road.

An accurate assessment also must consider emissions from the activities that support manufacturing, such as mining for component materials, and end-of-life management requirements like disposal or recycling.

In order to answer the “When is the best time to switch?” question, at least from the greenhouse gas perspective [???], Campbell and Geyer employed a wide range of scenarios. Ultimately, they found that retiring even a brand-new combustion-driven car for an EV can result in lower total CO2 emissions. [???] ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Electric vehicles (EVs) produce much lower emissions of greenhouse gases than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), but when in the life cycle of an ICEV does it make sense to replace it with an EV? Campbell and Geyer conducted life-cycle analyses of different vehicle types and concluded that the energy impact benefits from swapping an EV for an ICEV begin to accrue as early as the first day of the life of the ICEV [???], and that replacement early in the life cycle consistently provides reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Financial considerations will also affect when people choose to make the replacement, of course, but from the perspective of emissions, it is almost never too soon to switch. ...

Abstract

Internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles represent the single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions for most US households. Although battery electric vehicles (BEVs) considerably reduce use-phase emissions, the transition poses a fundamental life cycle optimization challenge:

Is there a net climate benefit to retiring a functional ICE vehicle before its end of life? Retiring a functioning ICE vehicle incurs a fundamental trade-off between BEV manufacturing emissions and decreased vehicle operation emissions.

In this study, we evaluated this trade-off across a comprehensive range of retirement scenarios and found that scrappage-and-replacement yields consistent emissions reductions across most contexts, including the retirement of new ICE vehicles. Although scrapping a functional asset remains economically prohibitive under current market conditions, these results demonstrate a major mitigation potential for policy interventions [???], such as enhanced scrappage subsidies, to address the emissions of an increasingly durable ICE fleet."

ScienceAdviser

Replacing gas-powered cars, even if they’re new, can cut future emissions

The climate benefits of retiring a fully operational internal combustion engine vehicle (open access)

The permafrost link between methane emissions and climate change. Really!

More of the horrible climate demagoguery and indoctrination by the AAAS! Again junk science and junk journalism?

Remember CO2 and methane are trace gases in the atmosphere measured in few hundred (CO2) or even few (methane) parts per million!

I bet there also arsonists in Siberia! Or is Putin the Terrible doing some deforestation in Siberia so the megalomaniac can finally conquer the rest of the world? 😊

"Northern hemispheric permafrost stores twice as much carbon as is found in the atmosphere. As permafrost thaws due to climate warming, it becomes a potential source of methane emissions caused by microbial decomposition of soil organic carbon in wetlands, which could cause further warming. Zhu et al. report that methane emissions in Siberia have increased at a rate of around 5% per year since 2010 due to a combination of fires and permafrost melting. This source of methane is projected to become more important as climate continues to warm."

From abstract:

"The northern permafrost region, which stores double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, is vulnerable to accelerated warming.

Methane emissions from thawing permafrost may eventually result in a climate-carbon feedback.

Our analysis of atmospheric methane data shows that Siberian growing-season methane emissions have increased by 12.0 ± 1.9 teragrams of methane (TgCH4) (5% per year) over the period 2010–2023.

We reveal contrasting Siberian hydrological trends linked to high-pressure systems and distinct air-sea-land interactions.

Warmer, drier conditions over eastern Siberia enhance fire-related emissions (0.7 ± 0.1 TgCH4 year−2), and wetter conditions over western Siberia promote wetland-related emissions (0.4 ± 0.1 TgCH4 year−2).

Weakly nonlinear relationships between temperature maxima and emissions suggest that by 2050 [???], higher Siberian emissions could offset about 20% of the global methane reduction required for climate targets [???], with eastern Siberia dominating the projected increase."

In Science Journals | Science

Decadal doubling of Siberian methane emissions due to warming-induced fires and methanogenesis (no public access)

Global warming is coming for the countryside. Really!

New climate disinformation und demagoguery by the AAAS! E.g. the headline of this news article contradicts the mentioned research! 

The article heavily relies on climate model forecasts up to 2050! Laughable! Junk journalism!

Does this article/research confuse urban sprawl with rural areas? Quite possibly!

What is please "urban climate change"? Microclimate? How relevant is that compared to global warming/climate change? Or is this an admission that greenhouse gases are a red herring (junk science)? You bet!

This research also relies on junk climate models and forecasts of up to 100 years. Climate is a much too complex a phenomenon that is still poorly understood. Weather forecasts are still barely accurate for more than 48 hours or so and so on.

Does not the urban heat island effect already mess up the temperature measurement record for over 100 years or so given expanding urban areas and population growth? You bet! The urban heat island effect is perhaps the strongest reason why Global Warming is a hoax! Many of the systematic temperature measurements have been taken at meteorological stations in urban areas for the past 100 or more years..

Resolution of climate models is not a convincing metric!

"... But now a pioneering study [???] suggests that as global warming continues in much of the world, the countryside’s appeal as a climate buffer may dwindle. ...

But such regional models inherit the biases of the coarse global models and don’t capture feedback effects of cities on the broader climate. They have offered varying forecasts for the urban heat island effect: Some suggested it will stay the same, others saw it growing stronger, and still others forecast it would weaken. For the past few years, 20 modeling centers worldwide have been collaborating, hoping to converge on a verdict.

Taking advantage of increasing computing power, other researchers are pursuing global climate models that can simulate the whole planet at resolutions high enough to capture cities. As part of the European Union’s Destination Earth project to forecast the planet’s future, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has developed a high-resolution climate model. Researchers there used it to simulate a greenhouse-warmed world from 2020 to ’50 at a 9-kilometer resolution, fine enough to track urban climate.

The ECMWF team zoomed in on 200 cities in four climatic regions: cold, arid, temperate, and tropical. The results, published in June in Geophysical Research Letters, led to a surprising conclusion: 

By 2050, whereas cities on average remained hotter than the countryside nearby, “the rural surroundings of cities warmed up faster,” says Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, the study’s lead author. Except in cold regions, the urban heat island effect was weakening. ...

Fifteen years ago, a modeling study in the Journal of Climate had suggested a plausible mechanism for a weakened heat island effect [???]. ..."

From the abstract:

"Coupled multi-decadal global km-scale simulations completed in recent years open new perspectives in the investigation and understanding of urban climate change [???].

This study introduces a generic method for extracting urban areas and their rural references worldwide and validates it on hourly timescales with remote-sensing observations of land-surface temperature for over 400 cities, while identifying the key role of spatial resolution.

We showcase the immense amount of hourly data available for each city for 60 years of past and future climate [???] in the Next Generation Earth Modelling Systems simulations, and how these simulations represent surface-atmosphere interactions driven by urban areas.

We finally propose city clustering as a method to exploit these simulations and move beyond city-specific results. Results suggest a mean potential decrease in future urban heat island intensity driven by stronger rural warming for all clusters except for cold climates."

Global warming is coming for the countryside | Science | AAAS

Unlocking Urban Climate Change Analysis in Global Kilometer-Scale Climate Simulations (open access)

Emigration from Israel continues at peak levels at 270,000 from 2023-2025

Bad news! How serious is this trend?

However, the criterion of leaving for at least three months or more might be flawed:

• What about the intention for leaving? 
• What about the prospect of returning after three or more months? (see also 2nd chart below)

"... In previous years [before 2023], the number of Israelis who left the country according to this criterion (three months or more) was 30% lower, and averaged just 60,000 annually in 2010-2019. In 2024-2025, Israel had a negative migration balance for the first time in decades, that is to say, more people left than arrived. ...

The new study from Tel Aviv University and the Central Bureau of Statistics does not cover net migration as there are not yet enough data to examine this statistic for 2025. Data on the number of Israelis who left for twelve months or more, as measured by the group in previous studies ..."

"Not only has the number of Israelis emigrating from Israel increased in recent years, but their economic profile has also changed.

More high-income earners, tech employees, healthcare professionals, and people in the prime of their careers are moving abroad. This is according to a new study by the Israel Tax Authority’s Planning and Economics Division, which examined the income and tax payments of Israelis who emigrated from the country between 2015 and 2024. ..."

Emigration from Israel continues at peak levels - study - Globes "Analysis of Central Bureau of Statistics data by Tel Aviv University researchers finds that 90,922 people left Israel in 2025, similar to the numbers for 2024 and 2023."

Emigration from Israel Remains at Record Levels, New TAU Study Finds "Nearly 270,000 Israelis left the country over the past three years, as researchers warn the trend could have long-term economic and security implications."

Tax Authority warns higher income Israelis are leaving "A Tax Authority study indicates that not only did more Israelis leave the country in 2023 and 2024 but that they had a higher income than those emigrating in previous years."

Number of Israelis leaving Israel for three consecutive months each year between 2009 and 2025

Number of Israelis leaving Israel for at least three consecutive months and for a period of 12 months

Common blood storage bags may leach microplastics into stored blood. Really!

If microplastics (or nanoplastics) were so dangerous, many more humans would be dead by now!

This obsession with microplastics is a distraction! It is mostly alarmism and hysteria!

Alert: Plastophobia is a serious disorder. Please seek immediate medical help! (Caution: satire)

This kind of research is probably also a waste of taxpayers money too!

At least the solution seems simple, i.e. ultrafiltration!

It appears, this research does not even mention the concentration of microplastics in blood storage bags. Strange, very odd! I suspect it is so low as to worry about it. An indication of junk science!

"... In the 1970s, PVC bags revolutionized the storage of blood and blood products for transfusion. Disposable plastic (PVC) bags replaced reusable glass bottles ..."

From the abstract:

"Growing evidence supports the widespread pollution of microplastics (MPs) in medical scenarios.

Infusion-related interventions, especially blood transfusion, could provide an important translocation pathway for exogenous MPs to enter human bodies. However, the presence of MPs in blood storage systems and their potential contributions to storage lesions have not been documented.

Herein, we observed that MPs released into the preservation solutions attached to and interacted with red blood cells (RBCs).

The improper storage- and transportation-related variables promoted MP shedding from blood storage bags by intensifying both physical and chemical degradation of the polymer surface.

In a 30-day storage period, the concentration of MPs progressively increased in two classical preservation solutions, with that in mannitol-adenine-phosphate solution consistently higher than that in citrate-phosphate-dextrose-adenine solution under both room temperature and mechanical shaking conditions. Therefore, the MP-associated hazards increased during long-term blood storage but remained relatively lower under short-term storage conditions. The ultrafiltration of blood preservation solutions effectively removed 78%–85% MPs and further ameliorated the integrity and functionality of RBCs. Collectively, our findings are significant because they provide direct proof of the pollution and adverse effects of MPs in blood storage systems and also propose practical mitigation strategies to safeguard the safety of blood storage."

Common blood storage bags may leach microplastics into stored blood

Microplastics Released from Blood Storage Bags: A Hidden Contribution to Red Blood Cell Storage Lesions (open access)

Graphical abstract

Figure 1.Identification of MPs in preservation solutions and stored blood.

Your personality changes more across your life than you think, according to new study. Really!

Junk science or junk science journalism or both? It has been well known for ages that personality traits change over lifetime of an adult (not every adult) e.g. due to life experiences.

Are people so ignorant as claimed by this study (based on only 887 individuals)? I seriously doubt it. I bet the use of the "nationally representative US-sample" is seriously flawed when it comes to lifetime changes in Big Five personality traits.

"... the Big Five personality traits—extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness—as some of the most stable characteristics of a person's life. ... 

A follow-up analysis of data from eight large-scale longitudinal data sets involving 166,971 individuals across the United States, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands told a different story. It revealed that the Big Five traits changed just as much as other life factors, both year to year and over a lifetime. For instance, conscientiousness, which is the tendency to be careful, diligent and responsible, doesn't remain the same when someone is a teenager compared with when they are 90 [???]. ..."

From the abstract:

"Historically, personality traits have been viewed as highly stable and “set like plaster” once people reach adulthood. Although decades of research have refuted this claim, it remains unclear how much personality traits actually change compared to other aspects of life and whether these relative change patterns align with public beliefs.

Across two studies, we investigated these questions using a multimethod, comparative approach with the Big Five traits and more than 20 variables from several life domains.

First, using a nationally representative US-sample (n = 887), we found that lay people [???] rated the Big Five traits as having less change across the lifespan than nearly all other characteristics.

Second, analyses using eight large-scale longitudinal datasets from the US, Germany, Australia, and Netherlands (n = 166,971) revealed that standardized yearly and lifespan mean-level changes in the Big Five were comparable to, and often greater than, changes in variables like life satisfaction, subjective health, income, and self-esteem.

Together, these results uncover widespread misconceptions of stability that diverge from empirical evidence [???] and are seemingly unique to personality traits. We discuss potential implications of these findings for how people view human potential for change, improvement, and adaptation."

Your personality changes more across your life than you think, according to new study

Personality traits are less stable than people think (open access, but in press)

Kids Who Joined Social Media Earlier Had Lower Test Scores, Study Finds. Really!

Not so fast! As usual, this is a biased study as it does not ask what do young users of social media learn more compared to other students.

The study is limited to Northern Italy and focuses only on early childhood!

"Children who start using social media at a younger age may be putting their future academic performance at risk, according to a new study that tracked more than 5,000 students in Italy.

Researchers found that adolescents who opened their first personal social media account at ages 11 to 12 went on to score significantly lower in standardized tests than peers who waited until age 14 or 15. ..."

From the abstract:

"This study uses difference-in-differences models to evaluate the impact of early social media use on academic performance among children aged 7–16 years. A dataset comprising 5,227 students from northern Italy was constructed by merging data from a questionnaire on lifetime digital media habits with longitudinal standardized test scores in Italian, English and mathematics. Participants who created a personal social media account in 6th, 7th or 8th grade were separately matched with late adopters who initiated their first social media account in the 9th grade or later. The findings provide compelling evidence that early engagement with social media adversely affects learning outcomes. Additional findings on the effects of early social media use on other academic outcomes for which we do not have longitudinal data are in line with our main findings. We also find supporting evidence that a substantial part of this negative effect is mediated by students’ smartphone pervasiveness in key moments of the day."

Kids Who Joined Social Media Earlier Had Lower Test Scores, Study Finds - Newsweek (behind paywall)

Longitudinal effect of early social media use on standardized learning outcomes during school career (open access)

Fig. 1: Exposure to technology during primary, lower- and upper-secondary school, box plot.

Fig. 2: Effect of early use of social media on competences in grades 8 (Italian, mathematics and English) and 10 (Italian and mathematics).