Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Dana Milbank: Finally, a president with the guts to stand up to Canada (Washington Post)
Trudeau earned his place in the underworld for some truly appalling rhetoric, saying "we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around." Offensive! He also found it "kind of insulting" that the Trump administration said it was imposing tariffs on Canadian goods "for a national security reason" given that Canadians "stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers in far off lands in conflicts from the First World War onward."
Garrison Keillor: A summer night in the Big Apple Blossom
My game these days is the memoir and, at 75, I am one of the oldest memoirists around. Most of them are in their 40s. I waited for some sort heartbreak that would make my memoir interesting, but nothing happened, and then I realized that I had married so well that life was likely to go on pleasantly into dementia and beyond, so I'm now almost finished with the first draft. It's all about luck. People are going to resent it.
Jonathan Jones: "Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up review - forget the paintings, here's her false leg" (The Guardian)
By focusing on Kahlo's life and her suffering rather than her art, this memorabilia-stuffed exhibition stifles her blazing visionary brilliance
Douglas E. Cowan: "STEPHEN KING: MASTER OF ALMOST ALL THE GENRES EXCEPT 'LITERARY'" (LitHub.com)
FROM HORROR TO FANTASY TO FEEL-GOOD, HE'S EVERYWHERE
Emily Temple: THE BEST WRITING IN MEMORIAM OF ANTHONY BOURDAIN (LitHub.com)
WHAT TO READ TO CELEBRATE THE GREAT WRITER, EXPLORER AND EATER.
Arwa Mahdawi: Donald Trump Jr is hawking a book. The Art of the Plea Deal, anyone? (The Guardian)
The president's son wants to make literature great again. But considering his legal troubles, I would not be surprised to find that his tome throws his dad under the bus.
Scott Tobias: The Incredibles 2 review - superhero family return in fun and zippy sequel (The Guardian)
Elastigirl is thrust into the limelight while her husband plays daddy daycare, as Pixar slickly revisits the beloved superhero family after 14 years.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"LET HER SPEAK!"
"WE'RE MELTING! WE'RE MELTING!"
"THEY SHOULD BE NON FICTION."
REPUBLICANS ARE THE MEANEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
More sun. More heat.
'Public Health Crisis'
American Medical Association
As lawmakers continue to offer thoughts and prayers with little legislative action to combat mass shooting in the U.S., the nation's leading organization of medical professionals called for a ban on the sale and ownership of assault-type weapons.
The recommendation is one of several approved by the American Medical Association (AMA) on Tuesday to deal with what it termed the nation's "public health crisis" of gun violence.
"People are dying of gun violence in our homes, churches, schools, on street corners and at public gatherings, and it's important that lawmakers, policy leaders and advocates on all sides seek common ground to address this public health crisis," Dr. David O. Barbe, AMA's immediate past president, said in a statement. "In emergency rooms across the country, the carnage of gun violence has become a too routine experience... It doesn't have to be this way, and we urge lawmakers to act."
The policies include taking guns away from those considered at risk of committing violence, expanding domestic violence restraining orders to include dating partners, recognizing the role of firearms in suicides, and opposing President Donald Trump's recent suggestion that schoolteachers should be armed.
But perhaps their most ambitious new policy is supporting the ban of "all assault-style weapons, bump stocks and related devices, high-capacity magazines, and armor piercing bullets."
American Medical Association
National Security Council Created It
That Video
The National Security Council has claimed credit for the film President Trump showed North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un right before their much-anticipated meeting, following a confusing series of events with a California production company.
"The video was created by the National Security Council to help the president demonstrate the benefits of complete denuclearization, and a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Korean peninsula," NSC spokesman Garrett Marquis said in a statement.
The dramatic four-minute film, which was also shown to the media right before Trump's press conference after his meeting with Kim, touted opportunities that could be available to North Korea in the future should he "shake the hand of peace," and was credited to Destiny Pictures. "Destiny Pictures presents a story of opportunity. A new story. A new beginning. Out of peace. Two men, two leaders, one destiny," the voice-over in the film said.
Destiny Pictures is a real production company in California. But Mark Castaldo, the founder of the company, said he had nothing to do with the film. "We had no involvement in the video," he wrote in an email to TIME on Tuesday, a statement that was also posted on the company's website. He wrote on Twitter Tuesdaythat he woke up to hundreds of emails and calls across the globe.
Castaldo told TIME he thinks it was an innocent mistake. "I think that whoever made the video just used/ inserted "destiny" metaphorically and used it," he wrote in an email. "To convey what they wanted to see or what's in store for the future."
That Video
Police Investigate Elder Abuse
Stan Lee
Los Angeles police are investigating reports of elder abuse against Marvel Comics' Stan Lee.
The investigation was revealed in a restraining order granted Wednesday against a man who has been acting as Lee's business manager and personal adviser.
The restraining order says the former adviser, Keya Morgan, has inserted himself into the life of the 95-year-old Lee. It accuses Morgan of taking advantage of Lee's impaired hearing, vision and judgment, moving Lee from his longtime family home and preventing family and associates from contacting him.
Morgan was arrested on Monday for allegedly filing a false police report by calling 911 saying burglars were in his house when in fact authorities were conducting a welfare check on Lee.
Stan Lee
Flood Damage
Coral Reefs
Loss of coral reefs around the world would double the damage from coastal flooding, and triple the destruction caused by storm surges, researchers said Tuesday.
Coupled with projected sea level rise driven by global warming, reef decline could see flooding increase four-fold by century's end, they reported in the journal Nature Communications.
Without coral to help absorb the shock, a once-in-a-century cyclone would wreak twice the havoc, with the damage measured in the tens of billions of dollars, the team calculated.
"Coral reefs serve as natural, submerged breakwaters that reduce flooding by breaking waves and reducing wave energy," said Michael Beck, lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy research and environmental group, and a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz.
"Unfortunately, we are already losing the height and complexity of shallow reefs around the world, so we are likely already seeing increases in flood damages along many tropical coasts," he told AFP.
Coral Reefs
Holding Up Conservation Grants
Department of Interior
Democratic senators are demanding to know why the Department of Interior has been delaying the disbursement of grants and cooperative-agreement funding for conservation projects. According to a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, written by Democrats Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii and signed by 10 colleagues, a political appointee has been put in charge of vetting payments of more than $50,000. The senators charge that the resulting delays have created "the appearance of improper political interference in program decisions that should always be merit-based."
"DOI appears to be politicizing the federal grant process and improperly withholding federal funding from organizations that advance the public interest - and it's causing real life consequences," Sen. Duckworth told Yahoo News. "Taxpayer-funded federal grants should be awarded on merit, not politics. Secretary Zinke's decision to hire a childhood friend with no relevant experience to oversee the grant review process raises serious ethical questions that DOI needs to address."
Reports of grant screening by political appointees was first reported by the Washington Post in January. The policy was instituted by the deputy assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget, Scott J. Cameron, and is being overseen by Steven Howke, a senior adviser in that office. Both are political appointees. Howke attended kindergarten with Zinke in Whitefish, Mont., and the two later played high school football together. Before joining the Department of Interior, he ran a credit union in Montana. He does not have any apparent familiarity with the workings of the federal apparatus, nor any known experience that would qualify him for the complex processes of tending to the nation's lands and natural resources, both of which are within Interior's purview.
The Post obtained a memorandum that outlined the priorities which Cameron and Howke would consider in evaluating grants. These included a focus on border security and mineral extraction, as well as a call for "regulatory balance," a conservative euphemism for rolling back federal regulations. Any "non-profit organization that can legally engage in advocacy" would also come in for increased scrutiny under the new guidelines. That could cover virtually any cause-based organization, no matter how seemingly benign its cause may be (river restoration, for example). Grants to colleges would also be more closely reviewed. A spokeswoman for Interior told the Post at the time that the added review was necessary for "the responsible stewardship of tax dollars." But a former Interior official, David J. Hayes, who served under Presidents Clinton and Obama, described the new process as "arrogant, impractical and, in some cases, likely illegal."
Department of Interior
Ice Loss
Antarctica
It can be easy to overlook the monstrous scale of the Antarctic ice sheet. Ice, thick enough in many places to bury mountains, covers a continent roughly the size of the US and Mexico combined. If it were all to melt, as it has in the past, global sea levels would rise by 58 metres. While this scenario is unlikely, Antarctica is so massive that just a small fraction of this ice melting would be enough to displace hundreds of millions of people who live by the coast.
Low-lying cities face the threat of flooding when extreme weather coincides with high tides. Although typically rare, these events are already increasing in frequency, and will become commonplace as global sea levels increase. Over the coming decades, rising sea levels from melting ice and the expansion of warming oceans will strain societies and economies worldwide. Improving our understanding of how much Antarctica has contributed to sea level rise in the past, and how much it will contribute in the future, is vital to informing our response to climate change.
Achieving this is impossible without satellites. Antarctica is too vast, too remote - satellites are our only means of monitoring its behaviour on a continental scale. Satellites launched by the European Space Agency and NASA allow scientists to monitor changes in ice height, ice velocity and ice mass through changes in Earth's gravity field. Each of these satellites provide an independent way to measure Antarctica's past contribution to sea level rise.
The ice sheet mass balance inter-comparison exercise (IMBIE) is an international effort: a team of 84 polar scientists from 44 organisations, including both of us, working together to provide a single, global record of ice loss from Earth's polar ice sheets. In our latest assessment, published in Nature, we used 11 different satellite missions to track Antarctica's sea level contribution since the early 1990s.
We have found that since 1992 Antarctica has lost 2,720 billion tonnes of ice, raising global sea levels by 7.6mm. What is most concerning, is that almost half of this ice loss has occurred in the past five years. Antarctica is now causing sea levels to rise at a rate of 0.6mm a year - faster now than at any time in the past 25 years.
Antarctica
Private Diaries
Albert Einstein
The publication of Albert Einstein's personal diaries has revealed his racist attitudes towards foreigners he encountered on his travels.
In the private writings, the renowned physicist describes the Chinese as an "industrious, filthy, obtuse people".
Einstein was not just known as a scientist, but as a champion of civil rights who used his platform to denounce the discrimination against African-Americans. Famously, he once referred to racism as "a disease of white people".
He kept a diary as he toured China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Palestine and Spain between October 1922 and March 1923.
By contrast to his prejudice against the Chinese, Einstein speaks positively of the Japanese, who he praises as "unostentatious, decent, altogether very appealing".
Albert Einstein
Hiding All Over Our Galaxy
Tiny, Shimmering Diamonds
Huge clouds of tiny, glowing diamonds are floating through empty regions of the Milky Way, and astronomers had no idea the little shimmering particles were there. The discovery could help researchers figure out what happened in the first moments after the Big Bang.
That's because these diamonds have turned out to be the culprit behind a mysterious phenomenon scientists have termed "anomalous microwave emissions" (AMEs). The galaxy is full of strange, gentle microwave beams, but until recently, scientists had no idea where they came from.
The most common theory was a group of organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). But in a new paper published today (June 11) in the journal Nature Astronomy, a team of scientists from England, the United States and Germany proved the PAH theory wrong. The AMEs, they showed, come from spinning nanodiamonds.
Recent research also cast doubt on the PAH hypothesis. Most notably, a 2016 paper in The Astrophysical Journal showed that AMEs don't pulse and fluctuate in the same way as the infrared beams from PAHs do, suggesting they might not be linked after all.
Using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the new study's researchers found three clouds of dirt and dust around newborn stars (the sorts of clouds that eventually coalesce into planets and asteroids) that were emitting AMEs. But those clouds didn't contain the faint infrared signature of PAHs. However, they did contain the signatures of spinning nanodiamonds.
Tiny, Shimmering Diamonds
Brain Cells
"Next Generation"
Psychedelic drugs like LSD and ecstasy ingredient MDMA have been shown to stimulate the growth of new branches and connections between brain cells which could help address conditions like depression and addiction.
Researchers in California have demonstrated these substances, banned as illicit drugs in many countries, are capable of rewiring parts of the brain in a way that lasts well beyond the drugs' effects.
This means psychedelics could be the "next generation" of treatments for mental health disorders which could be more effective and safer than existing options, the study's authors from the University of California.
In previous studies by the same team, a single dose of DMT, the key ingredient in ayahuasca medicinal brews of Amazonian tribes, has been shown to help rats overcome a fear of electric shock meant to emulate post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Now they have shown this dose increases the number of branch-like dendrites sprouting from nerve cells in the rat's brain.
"Next Generation"
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