Links for you. Science:
Around 2,000 Artifacts Have Been Saved From the Ruins of Brazil’s National Museum Fire
In space, NASA heard astronaut’s immune system scream
What’s Pink and Pinstriped and Digests Wood? This New Shipworm
Predictable Molecular Adaptation of Coevolving Enterococcus faecium and Lytic Phage EfV12-phi1
‘Bring back our #ChildHoodDiseases,’ White House official’s wife says as she criticizes vaccines
Other:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call for a ‘living wage’ starts in her office
Notes on Elizabeth Warren’s Child Care Proposal
Trump Is Driving Out Precious Republican Voters
Time to Panic: The planet is getting warmer in catastrophic ways. And fear may be the only thing that saves us.
Testing Chaos Continues in New Jersey
Believe It or Not, Trump Put a Huge Tax on Parking Lots, Maybe by Mistake
A top D.C. charter school faces federal review over discipline practices
Chinese company leaves Muslim-tracking facial recognition database exposed online
With fitness trackers in the workplace, bosses can monitor your every step — and possibly more
How to Design a Green New Deal That Isn’t Over the Top
2 Liberal Democrats Are Promoting A Twist On ‘Medicare For All’
The magical thinking of guys who love logic
The glib elite-media notion that Sanders has an existential problem with black voters is not a notion shared by actual black voters
How Extra Arts Education at School Boosts Students’ Writing Scores — And Their Compassion
Record store owner, early DC punk producer Skip Groff dies at 70
Bridges Public Charter School Dismisses Well-Loved Teacher Who Spoke Out (but teachers unions are evil something something)
The Joy of Standards
A bully in the White House?
The cutest salamander you’ll see all day: the Sonora tiger salamander, Ambystoma mavortium
mikethemadbiologist
From The Joy of Standards
the plugs for electrical devices fit into any socket
And where did this idea come from? I suppose if you live in the USA and never travel this seems true. Ah, to never encounter a Europlug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europlug or the fascinating three-pin British Standard plug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets:_British_and_related_types#BS_1363_three-pin_(rectangular)_plugs_and_sockets.
Come to think of it, it can be hard to plug a three-pronged North American plug into a two-prong North American receptacle.
There actually are a lot of different plugs see https://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/typeF.htm. Standards are great but don’t expect them to be the same all over the world.
Engineers love standards, which is why there are so many of them.
Hey, I knew an engineer who served on the British Standards Insitute committee for the “standard paperclip”.