How sleep helps teens deal with social stress

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/msu-hsh022420.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
Michigan State University

A new Michigan State University study found that a good night's sleep does adolescents good - beyond helping them stay awake in class. Adequate sleep can help teens navigate challenging social situations.

The study, which focused on ninth grade students, found that adequate sleep allowed students to cope with discrimination and challenges associated with ethnic or racial bias. It also helps them problem-solve more effectively and seek peer support when faced with hardships.

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Cook County's short-lived 'soda' tax worked, says new study

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/uoia-ccs022420.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
University of Illinois at Chicago

A study of beverage sales in Cook County, Illinois, shows that for four months in 2017 -- when the county implemented a penny-per-ounce tax on both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks -- purchases of the taxed beverages decreased by 21%, even after an adjustment for cross-border shopping.

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Electrolyte supplements don't prevent illness in athletes, study finds

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/sm-esd021920.php

News Release 25-Feb-2020
Stanford Medicine

Electrolyte supplements popular with endurance runners can't be relied on to keep essential sodium levels in balance, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their collaborators.

Rather, longer training distances, lower body mass and avoidance of overhydration were shown to be more important factors in preventing illness caused by electrolyte imbalances, the researchers found. Their study also showed that hot weather increased the rates of these types of illnesses.

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Stress may drive people to give as well as receive emotional support

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/ps-smd022420.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
Penn State

Stress has a justifiably bad reputation for making people feel crummy. But new research suggests that despite its negative side effects, it may also lead to a surprising social benefit.

In a study, a team of scientists including Penn State researchers found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional support from another person. This was true on the day they experienced the stressor as well as the following day.
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"Our findings suggest that just because we have a bad day, that doesn't mean it has to be completely unhealthy," Almeida said. "If stress can actually connect us with other people, which I think is absolutely vital to the human experience, I think that's a benefit. Stress could potentially help people deal with negative situations by driving them to be with other people."

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Just as tobacco advertising causes teen smoking, exposure to alcohol ads causes teens to drink

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/nyu-jat021920.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
New York University

Exposure to alcohol advertising changes teens' attitudes about alcohol and can cause them to start drinking, finds a new analysis led by NYU School of Global Public Health and NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

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Advertising has long influenced how people purchase and consume goods. Youth are particularly vulnerable to the influence of advertising due to their potential for forming brand loyalties at an early age, limited skepticism, and high use of social media--where alcohol marketing is increasingly found.

Teen alcohol use is a major public health problem, with negative consequences ranging from injuries, including those from car crashes, to risky sexual behavior, to damage to the developing brain.

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tags: drug use, drug abuse

Weight gain associated with accelerated lung function decline in adulthood

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/bifg-wga022020.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

Lung function declines naturally over the course of the human lifespan. However, this decline is steeper in individuals who experience moderate or high weight gain. This was the conclusion of a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by "la Caixa", which analysed the effect of weight changes on respiratory health over a 20-year period.

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Two mechanisms could explain the association between weight gain and pulmonary health. First, weight gain can affect lung function through mechanical effects. "Abdominal and thoracic fat mass is likely to limit the room for lung expansion during inspiration," commented ISGlobal researcher Gabriela Prado Peralta, lead author of the study. Second, weight gain can impair lung function through inflammatory processes, since adipose tissue--the area where fat accumulates--is a source of inflammatory substances that can damage lung tissue and reduce airway diameter.

Maintaining good lung function during adulthood is crucial to prevent chronic respiratory diseases, which nowadays represent a serious public health problem around the world. "Given the epidemic levels of overweight and obesity that we are currently seeing, it is fundamental to understand the effects of weight changes on lung function, which is a powerful predictor of morbidity and mortality in the general population," commented Garcia Aymerich. "The good news is that the negative pulmonary health effects of excess weight and obesity can be reversed through weight loss. Therefore, public health policies that promote healthy lifestyles can be the key to achieving good pulmonary health."

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New study shows vision rehab treatment effective for stroke and injury related blindness

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/uomm-nss021820.php

News Release 24-Feb-2020
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

-Jose Romano, Chief of the Stroke Division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, co-authored a recently published international study that shows that visual rehabilitation is effective for patients who have suffered vision loss related to stroke or traumatic brain injury.

The study titled "Efficacy and predictors of Recovery of Function After Eye Movement Training in 296 Hemianopic Patients," was recently published in the journal Cortex. It is the largest neuro-visual study of its kind.

The research team found that the NeuroEyeCoach visual rehabilitation therapy applied after stroke or other traumatic brain injury (TBI) improved vision in over 80 percent of patients, helping them with everyday tasks and improving their quality of life. The results showed that the treatment improved vision even in an 90-year-old patients.

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Michael Cohen confirms he paid tech firm to rig polls and says Trump directed him to do it

Marketwatch is rated slightly to moderately conservative in bias.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-cohen-confirms-he-paid-tech-firm-to-rig-polls-and-says-trump-directed-him-to-do-it-2019-01-17?mod=mw_share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR1R9boxzl2Is80QYBArJ8tZ7zyq016DH6IE-BXJdFUTJmf9VQhrCmr1dh4

Jan 17, 2019 9:58 a.m. ET

Michael Cohen, whose longtime role in the Trump Organization is alternately described as lawyer and fixer but whose main function since leaving the president’s orbit is arguably an antithesis of both, has responded to a Thursday scoop in which the Wall Street Journal reported Cohen engaged a technology firm to fix online polling in Trump’s favor with a sort of confession to Twitter.

His tweet, indeed, went further, not only admitting to the act, but pointing unequivocally at his then-boss as having directed it:

https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/status/1085900900835778560

Michael Cohen
✔
@MichaelCohen212

As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.
74.8K
9:05 AM - Jan 17, 2019 · Manhattan, NY

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Trump spent the past 2 years slashing the government agencies responsible for handling the coronavirus outbreak

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2

Sonam Sheth and Gina Heeb
Feb. 25, 2020

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Fears of a pandemic come after the Trump administration spent the past several years gutting the very government programs that are tasked with combatting such a crisis.

In 2018, for instance, the CDC cut 80% of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks because it was running out of money. Ultimately, the department went from working in 49 countries to just 10.

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Tom Steyer qualifies for South Carolina Democratic debate ahead of primary

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/23/tom-steyer-democratic-debate-south-carolina

Martin Pengelly
Sun 23 Feb 2020 15.25 EST

Tom Steyer has qualified for Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, ahead of the state’s primary next weekend.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-debate-south-carolina-time-channel-stream-online/


How to watch the Democratic debate in South Carolina

Founder of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods transfers business to employees

https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html?fbclid=IwAR0jCq-JnMRFKTkBZk8eA-YOhz1rTLR8b4uDPU60zROiVbWJQRJCUIfaQJQ

By Dana Tims
Updated Feb 24, 2020; Posted Feb 17, 2010

Scores of employees gathered to help Bob Moore celebrate his 81st birthday this week at the company that bears his name, Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods.

Moore, whose mutual loves of healthy eating and old-world technologies spawned an internationally distributed line of products, responded with a gift of his own -- the whole company. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan Moore unveiled means that his 209 employees now own the place and its 400 offerings of stone-ground flours, cereals and bread mixes.

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"This is Bob taking care of us," said Lori Sobelson, who helps run the business' retail operation. "He expects a lot out of us, but really gives us the world in return."

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Report warns climate change could become 'catastrophic' global, national security threat

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/484313-report-warns-climate-change-could-become-catastrophic-global

By Rebecca Klar - 02/24/20 09:16 AM EST

National security and intelligence experts warn that climate change could become a “catastrophic” threat to security and recommended quick action to be taken to mitigate risks, according to a new report released Monday.

“Even at scenarios of low warming, each region of the world will face severe risks to national and global security in the next three decades,” experts wrote in the report released by the National Security, Military and Intelligence Panel of the Center of Climate and Security, a nonpartisan security policy institute.

“Higher levels of warming will pose catastrophic, and likely irreversible, global security risks over the course of the 21st century.”

The security threat assessment of global climate change warns that all levels of warming of climate change will pose “significant and evolving threats” to global security environments, infrastructure and institutions.

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The report said mitigating risks requires “quickly reducing and phasing out global greenhouse gas emissions” and calls for the world to reach net-zero global emissions “as soon as possible.”

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How Private Equity Ruined a Beloved Grocery Chain

These people are parasites, who profited from the tax decreases on the very rich passed by Trump and the republican Congress.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-private-equity-ruined-fairway/606625/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

February 16, 2020
Eileen Appelbaum, Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Andrew W. Park, Financial researcher

The news of Fairway Market’s second foray into bankruptcy, this time with the threat that stores could be liquidated to pay off the unsustainable debt hanging over the grocery chain, dismayed its legions of loyal Manhattan customers.

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But, fatefully, it is also emblematic of the way private-equity investors—including Fairway’s former owner Sterling Investment Partners—have hastened the fall of brick-and-mortar stores caught in the so-called retail apocalypse.

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Most companies mean to stay in business for the long term, and those in the industries most exposed to the business cycle know that low debt and no rent are the keys to surviving hard times and then prospering when the good times return. The motivation is very different for private-equity owners, who operate under a shorter time frame, often just three to five years, before moving on. For them, low levels of debt and high levels of real-estate ownership present a get-rich-quick opportunity.

The low debt means that private-equity firms can acquire retail chains by putting up very little of their own money and can take on high levels of debt that the company, not the investors who own it, must ultimately repay. The real estate gives investors an opportunity to sell off some of it and pocket the proceeds, leaving the stores to pay rent on properties they once owned. Especially attractive to private-equity owners is the high cash flow in retail operations. Private-equity owners have not been shy about putting their hands in the till to pay themselves exorbitant dividends.

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While all traditional retail faces these challenges, chains owned by private equity make up a disproportionate share of businesses that have failed. This record is not just a product of markets; it’s a matter of morality as well. Private-equity firms profit as the companies they own tumble into bankruptcy.

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Fairway, like Gymboree, Toys “R” Us, and so many other retailers before it, failed because it was saddled with debt and could not adapt to meet new competitive pressures. And, as in the case of Fairway, the private-equity firms that owned these other failing companies still managed to recoup their investments and make a profit. They extracted value by collecting advisory fees, paying themselves dividends, or stripping away a company’s assets. While the private-equity firms profited, the bankrupt company’s workers paid the price. When Toys “R” Us closed in 2018, 31,000 workers lost their job. When A&P went out of business in 2016, 21,000 workers lost their job and pension benefits.

A lack of transparency disguises private equity’s role in the retail apocalypse. When General Motors in November 2018 decided to halt production at five North American plants and cut up to 15,000 jobs, Congress summoned the company’s CEO, Mary Barra, to answer for its decision. In contrast, few people outside finance know what Sterling or KKR or Blackstone is. Even after companies owned by private-equity firms go bankrupt, the investors suffer no public approbation or damage to their professional reputation. They can still raise money from pension funds and other institutional investors to buy out other companies under the guise of saving them.
[It would help if articles such as this would name the people who own the private equity companies.]

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Climate change is drying up the Colorado River, putting millions at risk of 'severe water shortages'

A lot of people affected have been voting for politicians who block action on climate disruption.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/weather/colorado-river-flow-dwindling-warming-temperatures-climate-change/index.html

By Drew Kann, CNN
Updated 9:58 AM ET, Sat February 22, 2020

The Colorado River -- which provides water to more than 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles -- has seen its flow dwindle by 20 percent compared to the last century, and scientists have found that climate change is mainly to blame.

The researchers found that more than half of the decline in the river's flow is connected to increasing temperatures, and as warming continues, they say the risk of "severe water shortages" for the millions that rely on it is expected to grow.
For each 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming averaged across the river's basin, the study found that its flow has decreased by nearly 10%. Over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the region has already warmed by an average of roughly 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The study also examined the impact that action to curb pollution of heat-trapping gases could have on the river's water supply.
Some decrease in the flow is likely no matter what actions are taken, but without any cuts to emissions, the report says the river's discharge could shrink by between 19% and 31% by the middle of this century.

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water is diverted to supply major cities like Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego, as well as farms in the US and Mexico that grow the vegetables that feed millions around the world.

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Global warming is taking a severe toll on the snowpack that feeds the river, the scientists found. As temperatures increase, snow cover in the region is declining, meaning less energy from the sun is reflected back into space and more warms the ground as heat.
This triggers a vicious cycle that leads to even more evaporation and therefore, less water supply.

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Accuracy in reporting, update 1

Feb. 23, 2020 5:53 pm EST

With 60% of precincts reporting, Sanders got 33.2% of the first vote, 39.3% of the final vote, 46.0% of C.C.D.s (county convention delegates). I notice NPR didn't give actual voter percentages, just C.C.D. numbers

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/22/us/elections/results-nevada-caucus.html

Feb. 22, 2020 10:48pm EST

The Guardian is announcing the percentage of precincts reporting and the percent of votes by leading candidates in their headline.

Currently at 23.32% reporting, Bernie at 47%.

While other "news" sources were claiming Bernie had a majority when 4% of precincts had reported.

They would be less open to attacks on their credibility if they were more concerned with accuracy than click bait headlines

Egypt to try doctor, parents for female genital mutilation

https://news.yahoo.com/egypt-try-doctor-parents-female-194854393.html

BY SAMY MAGDY
,Associated Press•February 22, 2020

Egypt’s chief prosecutor Saturday referred a physician to criminal trial for allegedly mutilating the genitals of a 12-year-old girl, leading to her death, his office said.

The girl bled to death last month in the southern province of Assiut following a 30-minute surgery. Her death sparked a nationwide outcry.

Despite battling the practice for decades, Egypt has one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, in the world. Many families fear that an uncircumcised daughter will be unable to marry.

Public prosecutor Hamada el-Sawy also referred the girl’s parents to trial, according to a statement from his office. No date has been set for their trials.

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Man wrongfully convicted of murder sues New York for $100 million

https://news.yahoo.com/man-wrongfully-convicted-murder-sues-022140696.html

CBS News•February 20, 2020

A man who was wrongfully convicted of murder nearly 25 years ago was released from prison last week and is now suing the state of New York for $100 million. Despite the confession from another man 16 years ago, it took more than a decade for Christian Pacheco, 42, to be freed.

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Criminal defense attorney Ken Belkin said wrongful convictions are very difficult to overturn.

"That's a flaw of the system," he said. "If you're the DA, do you really want to go questioning the people that you rely on to prosecute cases … They sort of have this wall of silence where they say, 'Hey, we're all on the same team. Whatever happened, happened.'" Pacheco's conviction was vacated and his indictment was dismissed last week, when he walked out of prison a free man for the first time in nearly 25 years.

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Those headlines again

Feb. 22, 2020

I see headlines reporting that Bernie has won Nevada caucuses. So I look at the article, and see that only 4% of precincts had reported.

If it turns out that he did not win when all the precincts are in, his followers will be claiming some kind of "cheating".

I checked other sources, same thing, they are declaring Sanders won, with only 4% of precincts reporting.

The coronavirus just killed a 29-year-old doctor who postponed his wedding to fight the disease

A hero.

https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-just-killed-29-old-172955123.html

Paulina Cachero
,Business Insider•February 21, 2020

A young Chinese doctor who postponed his wedding to help battle the coronavirus died from the disease on Thursday, China's official Xinhua news agency said.

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Peng planned to marry his partner, who has not been named in reports, during the Lunar New Year holiday, but they agreed to delay the ceremony so that Peng could help treat people with the coronavirus, Chinese state media said. Peng never even had the chance to send his wedding invitations, which remain in his office drawer, Xinhua said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Chinese citizens have mourned his death on the social-media platform Weibo, lauding the doctor as a hero.

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Frozen bird discovered in Siberia is 46,000 years old, scientists discover

https://www.foxnews.com/science/frozen-bird-discovered-siberia-46000-years-old

By James Rogers
Feb. 21, 2020

A frozen bird found in the Siberian permafrost is a 46,000-year-old lark, scientists have revealed.

The bird was found in the ground in the Belaya Gora area of north-eastern Siberia in 2018. Scientists from Stockholm University’s Centre for Palaeogenetics and the Swedish Museum of Natural History have studied the bird, revealing that it died 46,000 years ago.

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