Jessie Slater PhD

The NYT style guide

The next time someone says, "Oh, I'm just going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, what's the big deal?" you should show them this

Measles outbreaks are costing the U.S. millions of dollars. The true losses can't be counted. As vaccination rates decline, the economic consequences will increase, research suggests.

The first concern with measles is, of course, the devastating health impact.

But this article does a great job of explaining the economic costs.

Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death The capital city is Finnish’ed with car-related fatalities.

“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021.”

He just can’t rack up enough of a body count with the suicides alone.

Nearing a decade @science.org, this is a point I should stress more. It's only $25/year to support one of the largest science-focused newsrooms in the world. Independent and nonprofit.

Camel Beauty Contest Botox Cheating Scandal Oman’s recent pageant scandal isn’t the first time that camels have come into the crosshairs of cheating by use of aesthetic enhancements designed for humans.

Is nothing safe from cheating scandals??? 🐪 🐫 👄
😂😂😂
www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaa...

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

I understand why chatbot cheating happens but every time I read about it I want to gently remind everyone that the point of schoolwork is not for the submission to exist. Teachers are not just greedy for more essays or solved equations. The point is to do the work WITH YOUR OWN BRAIN, FOR LEARNING.

Ancient artifacts hint at earliest protowriting Geometric shapes on 40,000-year-old bone and ivory suggest early European Homo sapiens long possessed cognitive tools for language

'“When modern humans left Africa to populate the whole planet, they likely had the same cognitive abilities we have today,” Bentz says. “In the grand scheme of things, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised after all” that we’ve been experimenting with written communication for so long.' 🧪🏺

There is a lot of punditry that rests on imagined hypocrisies. "Oh, so you don't want to live under an authoritarian regime? And yet you don't want massive gun violence? Interesting."

Yes, I would like to live in a non-violent functioning democracy.

We Have Learned Nothing About Amplifying Morons “Looksmaxxers” are losers and freaks, but we let them steer the culture when we adopt their terminology.

'The bad news is that the entire point of amplification is that it can give a tiny group of people incredible power by shaping culture....“No matter the specific framing, stories should avoid deferring to manipulators’ chosen language, explanations, or justifications."'

postd without comment

Librarian here. We grant library cards to ALL residents, no matter their age or legal status. Our ID requirements pertain to establishing residency only. Do not invoke libraries, which embrace *everyone* in its civic fold, as a precedent for measures designed to *suppress* civic participation.

I’ve been watching and reading American legal commentators warn people about John Roberts for many, many years, to no avail. It’s been like witnessing a train crash in slow motion. And I have always wondered, why didn’t enough people listen?

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Olympic highlight in this house.

Book Review: How Sickness Has Transformed Civilization "The Great Shadow," by Susan Wise Bauer, is a sweeping survey of humanity’s relationship to illness over the centuries.

'Bauer aims to show just how much of modern society has been shaped by our forbears’ fears and beliefs. Her central argument is that “it is the constant presence of sickness, not injury, that has shaped the way we think about ourselves and our world.”' 🧪💉📖

gorgeous!

Injured by a fishing hook, this seabird knocked on the ER door for help The cormorant, a shiny black waterbird, had a triple fishing hook stuck in its beak when it made its presence known at the glass door of the Klinikum Links der Weser hospital in the German city of Bremen on Sunday.

An injured seabird sought help by pecking at the door of an emergency room at a hospital in Germany until medical staff noticed it and called firefighters to help with its rescue. https://to.pbs.org/4qBvjAn

Flowchart illustrating the difference between "venomous" and "poisonous" with the help of multiple choice paths "you bite it" / "it bites you".

English can sometimes be a bit confusing, but this finally set *that* straight for me. 😉

If it bites you and you'll die, it's #venomous.

If you bite it and you'll die, it's #poisonous.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

Stop everything.
New sheep thread dropped.

Guest post: The CDC hepatitis B study is unethical and must never be published Manjurul/iStock The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an international organization that establishes best practices for scholarly journals, has endorsed specific ethical standards for studies…

'This is not a matter of censorship or “cancellation” of results that do not square with biases. It is a question of ensuring that there are no incentives for unethical research.' 🧪💉

Why I Don’t Regret Majoring in the Humanities Literature, it turns out, is a great teacher of humility.

"we do a disservice to young people when we discourage them from pursuing the liberal arts and treat education as the mere acquisition of skills and knowledge. To withstand the challenges posed by scientism and politics... the #humanities need positive accounts of their value." bit.ly/45XTTUO

a round pottery piece with pig eyes and a snout

i think we all need to step back and realize that peak art was made when neolithic pot in the shape of a pig was fired

just idly remembering when i was assembling my dissertation for final submission in 2017 i was chided by one lovely professor at a conference, who felt my use of the phrase "the return of fascism" to describe the present moment was "alarmist"

Learning is complex, messy, emotional: AI can’t replicate that ChatGPT and other AI tools may seem irresistible. But educators should beware, as they could end up trading away the thing that gives them value — the rich experience of slow learning

Chatbots offer a magnificent bribe - a fast, frictionless route to information that bypasses the discomfort of learning. In this op-ed, we describe this as a Faustian bargain, in which we trade away what it means to be human & universities trade away their value
www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...