Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
How Trump is rewriting American history
History has been disappearing from government websites. First, it was Stonewall. The word “transgender” was removed from the National Park Service page commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, at which trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera played a central role. The acronym LGBTQ was also changed to just “LGB.” Then, Harriet Tubman was erased […]
The real quest for fake blood
In his free time, while working as a clerk at a local Australian railway, James Harrison saved millions of lives — with his blood. Harrison had particularly special plasma: It had a rare antibody that doctors used to make a medication for pregnant mothers with different blood types from their newborns. When this happens, it […]
Let’s not panic about AI’s energy use just yet
Consider the transistor, the basic unit of computer processors. Transistors can be tiny, down to single-digit nanometers in size. Billions can fit on a computer chip. Though they have no moving parts, they devour electricity as they store and modify bits of information. “Ones and zeros are encoded as these high and low voltages,” said […]
The false climate solution that just won’t die
On Tuesday, a pair of documentaries landed on Amazon Prime that put forth a rather bold claim: By simply making a few tweaks to how we farm, humanity can reverse climate change and all but eliminate a host of other problems stemming from our modern food system. The two films — Kiss the Ground, which […]
Trump’s tariffs are driving a gold rush
If anything is safe from the economic chaos caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, it’s probably gold — or at least that’s what investors seem to think. The price of gold has increased rapidly in the months since Trump took office, surging particularly since his March 2 announcement of a baseline 10 percent tariff on […]