July 23, 2023
How the union dies
Maybe this quiet fading, engineered by a company with time and money to burn, is how the union dies. A billionaire who doesn’t want to be called a billionaire, who blusters when his company’s service workers get likened to the blue-collar worker who raised him — this is the chasm between our putative national values and our daily reality. We want to believe in a middle-class America where hard work weaves its own safety net. But millions of workers don’t earn enough money to cover basic expenses.
Larger species of pterosaur had nurturing parental style
“So powerful! So vulgar! So sublime! So incredible!”
That Old Seaside Club is a short story by Japanese SF writer Izumi Suzuki, who died in 1986 at the age of 36. As Amanda Demarco explains, her much mythologized life has threatened to overshadow her work, which has only just started appearing in English translation. Genie Harrison writes about the discovery of Suzuki by English-language readers, and so far two short story collections have been published, Terminal Boredom, reviewed by Lee Mandelo for Tor.com, and Hit Parade of Tears, reviewed by Stephanie LaCava for the Daily Telegraph [archive link]. Both books are available from the publisher, Verso Books.
New mRNA vaccine for Malaria
It stops it in the liver after the infection sets in there. That new mRNA vaccines they developed in the COVID days has now been tweaked to do Malaria.
It's still early.
Australian scientists developed an mRNA-based vaccine that effectively stimulates protective immune cell responses against the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium in preclinical models. It relies on T-cells that halts malaria infection in the liver to completely stop the spread of infection. (nature.com)
Twitter rebrand to X imminent
Hard to swallow
Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts [more inside]
Rick Rubin interviews Trent Reznor
Music Master Rick Rubin interviewed NIN creator Trent Reznor for his podcast Tetragrammaton. [2h10m, audio only] Nine Inch Nails is Rubin's favorite band. Reznor shares a lot, reflecting on his life and career from where he is now. It's a bit like Marc Maron only more about music and much more gentle.
Disabled Creatives in Comics: Interview with Tee Franklin
Funny, smart and far-ranging interview with the creator of Sun-Spider and #BlackComicsMonth and much more on disability (plus!) visibility in comics. "I’ve always loved comics. Like my villain origin story is me basically blackmailing my older cousin who had his little girlfriend come over, and he was supposed to have been watching me, but since he chose to pay more attention to her, I was like “Give me comics and I won’t snitch.” [laughs], and that’s my introduction into comics." (Podcast available as well, interview by Carolyn Hinds)
“You can’t go through the official channels and make it work.”
As rewilding and the prospect of nature restoring itself has caught the public imagination in recent years, projects have sprung up all over Europe, often led by philanthropists and enthusiastically backed by politicians. But many of these projects have also become entangled in bureaucracy and an intense debate over the scientific practicality of rewilding. Many in the rewilding movement say that political leaders are not doing enough to restore biodiversity — leaving the mavericks with little choice but to act unilaterally and reintroduce species themselves. from The secret movement bringing Europe’s wildlife back from the brink [Coda]
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