Links

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/arctics-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record
Aug. 21, 2018
The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.
This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere.
One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”. Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand warming the longest.
The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as “the last ice area” because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet.
But abnormal temperature spikes in February and earlier this month have left it vulnerable to winds, which have pushed the ice further away from the coast than at any time since satellite records began in the 1970s.


[What happens when religion is allowed to rule society.]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indonesian-woman-jailed-complaining-mosque-noise-003818961.html
Aug. 21, 2018
A woman in Muslim-majority Indonesia was sentenced to 18 months in jail Tuesday for complaining about the volume of a mosque's call to prayer -- the latest conviction under a controversial blasphemy law.
Meiliana, 44, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist, was found guilty of insulting Islam for asking her neighbourhood mosque to lower its sound system because it was too loud and "hurt" her ears.
There are some 800,000 mosques across the archipelago, with the five-times-a-day call to prayer heard everywhere in the biggest cities and smallest towns.
Tuesday's verdict will likely fuel fears that Indonesia's moderate brand of Islam is coming under threat from increasingly influential radicals.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/taiwan-loses-third-diplomatic-ally-050356934.html
Aug. 21, 2018
Taiwan lost another ally to Beijing on Tuesday when diplomatic ties with El Salvador were severed, in another political victory for China as it attempts to isolate the self-ruled island on the global stage.
The break with the Central American nation leaves Taiwan now with formal relations with just 17 countries worldwide, many of them poor nations in Central America and the Pacific like Belize and Nauru. 
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Tuesday said his government was refusing to compete with China in buying diplomatic support, condemning what he called Beijing’s campaign of luring away Taiwan’s allies with promises of vast financial aid and investment.


[I've always driven manual transmission cars. I currently have a 2007 5-speed Toyota Yaris that gets more than 36 mpg.]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/audi-stops-production-manual-transmissions-115813790.html
Aug. 20, 2018
With the arrival of the new 2019 Audi A4 saloon and A5 coupe models in the US, Audi's entire US lineup will be automatic, with not a single stick-shift option left.
It's mainly high-end vehicles that are going automatic-only for now, but it's not hard to imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when manual gearboxes will be almost unheard of. Land Rover, for example, dropped the manual versions of the Discovery and Range Rover some years ago, and there has never been a manual version of the Range Rover Sport.
Audi has been offering a six-speed manual transmission as a no-cost option for the current 2018 versions of the A4 and A5 in the US, but the replacement 2019 models will be exclusively automatic.
Car and Driver recently reported that only 5 percent of A4 customers in the US chose a manual over an automatic transmission, so the move to drop manual gear boxes appears to be based on economics. Although there's no suggestion at the moment that Audi will do the same in markets like Europe, where the American market goes today, the rest of the world follows.
There are still some luxury brands offering manual gearboxes in the US, such as BMW, Genesis, Cadillac and Porsche, though Porsche limits the availability of manual gearboxes to its sports cars only.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-high-cholesterol-age-50-190134809.html
Aug. 20, 2018
Cholesterol levels that are above the ideal—but below the usual threshold for medication therapy—may put healthy adults at a higher lifetime risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study published in Circulation.
The research, which tracked more than 36,000 people over an average of 27 years, found that those with low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol) that was borderline high were somewhat more likely to die from heart attacks and strokes than those with the lowest LDL levels. And those with high or very high LDL levels were much more likely to die.