tingilinde

ann telnaes a few days ago

 

 

 

ann telnaes 20 years ago

Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post looks back 20 years.

 

 

crazy and armed

Mixing in gun-worshipping Moonie sect with MAGA types.

snip

...

"Pastor Moon has the message," Scavo told the assembly. "He has the answers, and the answers are from above. Pastor Moon is the vessel that delivers the message, but it's up to us to deliver on what the word of God is."

Since 2017, Rod of Iron Ministries, an offshoot sect led by the youngest son of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon that worships with AR-15s, has increasingly aligned itself with Donald Trump, while aggressively evangelizing to the pro-Second Amendment and anti-government flanks of the far right. Consistent with the teachings of the Unification Church from which it sprang, Rod of Iron Ministries considers Sun Myung Moon "as a returning Jesus," or "True Father." Believers call Sean Moon the "2nd King," although Rod of Iron is bitterly divided against other factions led by Hak Ja Han, the widow of Sun Myung Moon and Sean's mother, and his older brother Hyun Jin "Preston" Moon, which are also vying for recognition as heirs to the legacy of the cult's founder.

...

 

 

 

mutual trust

what went right in Denmark

(also a few other places - New Zealand has it too)

 

tabby cats and a reaction diffusion process

Turing appears to have been on the right track

snip

...

The question of how cat stripes and splotches are made touches on some of the deepest theoretical puzzles of biology. How does a blob of cells organize itself into a fruit fly, or a panda? What tells the bones in a limb to become a hand, or paw, or the ribbing of a leathery wing? What tells some skin cells to grow dark hair and others lighter hair?

A team of geneticists reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications that it had identified a gene in domestic cats that plays a key role in creating the traditional tabby stripe pattern, and that the pattern is evident in embryonic tissue even before hair follicles start to grow.

The inheritance of cat coats — how to breed for this or that pattern — is well known. But how patterns emerge in a growing embryo “really has been an unsolved mystery,” said Dr. Gregory S. Barsh, an author of the new report.

...

Here's the paper.  Turing considered his reaction-diffusion patterning mechanism to be his most important work.

 

Developmental genetics of color pattern establishment in cats

 

Christopher B. Kaelin, Kelly A. McGowan & Gregory S. Barsh
Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 5127 (2021)

Abstract
Intricate color patterns are a defining aspect of morphological diversity in the Felidae. We applied morphological and single-cell gene expression analysis to fetal skin of domestic cats to identify when, where, and how, during fetal development, felid color patterns are established. Early in development, we identify stripe-like alterations in epidermal thickness preceded by a gene expression pre-pattern. The secreted Wnt inhibitor encoded by Dickkopf 4 plays a central role in this process, and is mutated in cats with the Ticked pattern type. Our results bring molecular understanding to how the leopard got its spots, suggest that similar mechanisms underlie periodic color pattern and periodic hair follicle spacing, and identify targets for diverse pattern variation in other mammals.

 

 

 

long covid and college

It can dramatically impact learning.

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

an early account of an earthquake in the americas

In a pre-Hispanic codex.

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

 

 

what if trying to do something works

Heather Cox Richardson on Biden's vaccination moves.

snip

...

Biden’s new approach to the pandemic is, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out, good politics as well as good for public health. About 65% of the voting age population is already vaccinated, and older people are both more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to vote. With most Americans vaccinated and increasingly frustrated with those who refuse, there is little political risk to requiring vaccines, while Republicans standing in the way of public health measures are increasingly unpopular. Florida, where deaths from coronavirus soared to more than 300 a day in late August, has begun to limit the information about deaths it releases.

If Biden’s new vaccine requirements slow or halt the spread of the coronavirus, the economic recovery that had been taking off before the Delta variant hit will resume its speed, strengthening his popularity. Those Republican lawmakers furious at the new vaccine requirements are possibly less worried that they won’t work than that they will.

...

 

facebook is mostly misinformation

At least when it comes to elections.

snip

...

The forthcoming peer-reviewed study by researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France has found that from August 2020 to January 2021, news publishers known for putting out misinformation got six times the amount of likes, shares, and interactions on the platform as did trustworthy news sources, such as CNN or the World Health Organization.

Ever since “fake news” on Facebook became a public concern following the 2016 presidential election, publishers who traffic in misinformation have been repeatedly shown to be able to gain major audiences on the platform. But the NYU study is one of the few comprehensive attempts to measure and isolate the misinformation effect across a wide group of publishers on Facebook, experts said, and its conclusions support the criticism that Facebook’s platform rewards publishers that put out misleading accounts.

...

 

And then there's covid misinformation - which is endangering all of us and killing many.

 

recovering production costs from a long time ago

Vehicles from the film Mad Max are being auctioned off.

Texans will go nuts over the offering.