Thursday, December 23, 2021

And another day of a 2nd Covid pill, holiday travel, an endemic, guilty of manslaughter, Trump turns to SCOTUS, Amazon settles, urging parents and kids to have straight talk about sex, lectures at 2X speed, tasty TV, and dogs know the laws of physics comes to a close:

“Time after time these hucksters have been exposed as frauds, including by republican officials. And yet the The Big Lie continues to metastasize. Pretty clear that a decent-sized chunk of Americans prefer political tribalism to a functioning democracy.” — Chris Krebs 

“It's almost time to sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of socks.” — Hold My PomPoms Bitches

“You need to hang out with people who fit your future, not your history.” -- Sophia A. Nelson

Deaths

US: 834,455 (+1426)

World: 5,400,609 (+7376)

Cases

US: 52,788,451 (+277,473)

World: 278,524,357 (+1,003,824)

US adds Merck pill as 2nd easy-to-use drug against COVID-19. U.S. health regulators on Thursday authorized the second pill against COVID-19, providing another easy-to-use medication to battle the rising tide of omicron infections.

US holiday air travel on Wednesday exceeded 2019 levels.

Kuwait makes Covid-19 booster mandatory for travel abroad.

New Year’s Eve in Times Square still on, with smaller crowd. Revelers will still ring in the new year in New York’s Times Square next week, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio. But because of a spike in COVID-19 cases, fewer people will be there, and they all must show proof of vaccination and wear a mask.

United Airlines announced Thursday that it has canceled more than 100 Christmas Eve flights due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Covid is here for good, scientists say. The rest remains unpredictable. Most scientists now expect the virus to circulate indefinitely with lower and more predictable case numbers — a status known as endemicity. That would make the coronavirus like many other viruses that humanity has learned to deal with, such as influenza. It remains unclear, however, whether the coronavirus will remain a greater health risk than other endemic respiratory viruses.

Kim Potter guilty of manslaughter in Daunte Wright’s death. Jurors on Thursday convicted a suburban Minneapolis police officer of two manslaughter charges in the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black motorist she shot during a traffic stop after she said she confused her gun for her Taser.

Trump asks Supreme Court to block release of Jan. 6 records. Former President Donald Trump turned to the Supreme Court on Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol led by his supporters.

Two Georgia election workers are suing the right-wing cable news channel One America News Network and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani over false claims the workers engaged in ballot fraud during the 2020 election.

Amazon settles with NLRB, helping pave path for union organization. As part of the settlement, Amazon pledges not to retaliate against employees who discuss unionization outside of work facilities and on their own time.

After Billie Eilish talks about porn, experts urge parents and kids to have straight talk about sex. Adolescents who viewed violent, graphic pornography were six times more likely to be sexually aggressive than those who were not exposed, according to a 2011 study cited by a 2012 review of research. Kids aren't only seeing porn at younger ages these days, but they are seeing more porn and more graphic porn than their parents did. Pornography, however, is no substitute for open and honest sex education…Emily Rothman, chair of the department of occupational therapy at Boston University who is also a professor of pediatrics and medicine, said Eilish's comments serve as a wake-up call for parents and other trusted grown-ups to play a more active role in children's lives…Of course, as Rothman suggested, the real issue underlying most conversations about porn is education. Tweens and teens watch the material like Eilish did and think it's real life, laying the groundwork for distorted reality and associated problems down the road, according to David Ley, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ley added that the real disconnect comes with what porn doesn't show. "Healthy sexual interactions require negotiation and consent and honesty and self-control and respect," he said. "Most porn skips over all of this, and without the proper context, kids who are curious and watch it aren't going to understand how important all of these issues are to healthy sexual relationships." Part of the challenge here is educating kids about healthy sexual interactions, Ley noted. While most formal sex education in the United States doesn't start until middle school, many other nations start teaching kids about it at a younger age. Ley said the effects of this early exposure are indisputable: In the Netherlands, where the basics of sex education begin between ages 4 and 6, there are lower rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual assault. "We have this idea and belief that we have if you don't talk about something it won't happen," he said. "The reality is that not talking about it sets up kids for unfortunate lessons."

Good News: Watching Lectures at 2X Speed Might Not Be So Bad After All. Researchers found no major difference in performance between students who watched a lecture at normal speed versus those who watched at 1.5X or 2X speed.

Tasty TV: Japanese professor creates flavourful screen. A Japanese professor has developed a prototype lickable TV screen that can imitate food flavors, another step towards creating a multi-sensory viewing experience. The device, called Taste the TV (TTTV), uses a carousel of 10 flavour canisters that spray in combination to create the taste of a particular food. The flavour sample then rolls on hygienic film over a flat TV screen for the viewer to try.

Dogs notice when computer animations violate Newton’s laws of physics. Dogs seem to understand the basic way objects should behave, and stare for longer if animated balls violate expectations by rolling away for no obvious reason.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.