Links for you. Science:
Antifungals are going the way of antibiotics—overused, hitting resistance
An Explanation for Reports of Increased Prevalence of Olfactory Dysfunction With Omicron: Asymptomatic Infections
Scientists Film Plant ‘Talking’ to Its Neighbor, And The Footage Is Incredible
Primary Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 via Infection or Vaccination Determines Mucosal Antibody-Dependent ACE2 Binding Inhibition
Why should early-career scientists publish in society journals
Post–COVID-19 Condition After SARS-CoV-2 Infections During the Omicron Surge vs the Delta, Alpha, and Wild Type Periods in Stockholm, Sweden
Other:
Hospitals Need To Resume Universal Masking. Here’s What They Are Doing Now.
Why the World Is Betting Against American Democracy (important)
The Internet Is Being Ruined by Bloated Junk: Sites such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter used to be defined by short content. Not anymore. (very good; gift link)
How Trump became Iowa evangelicals’ chosen one
How drug traffickers made the Galápagos Islands their gas station
The Left Behind: The cultural rifts between urban and rural America are a constant of our history. When they also become economic, they become dangerous.
Republicans Choose Chaos, Violence, And Election Lies: Before Iowa in 2016, official GOP unease with Trump was palpable; now they love him more than ever
Sympathy for the spammer
And Lo, Did the Evangelicals Deliver Iowa Unto Trump
Oakland schools allow COVID-positive students to attend class (this wouldn’t happen if adults had paid time off…)
The Fearful Secret at the Heart of Ancient Sparta. The militarism that looks so badass came at a very high cost.
Democrats Can’t Keep Ignoring Covid in 2024
Enforcing the Law to Disqualify a Violent Insurrectionist Is Good, Actually
Pro-Palestinian protesters target Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center, accusing it of ‘genocide’ (BuT wE’Re NoT aNtIsEmItIc, JuSt AnTiZiOnIsT; these assholes are definitely Jew haters)
(West Virginia) Chicago is happening to you. The fight for the modern university.
Doing your own research is a good way to end up being wrong
Wisconsin GOP’s large majorities expected to shrink under new legislative maps
Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find
Let’s Face It: Trump’s Iowa Result Was Pretty Weak
An Idealistic Cop, a Forbidden Ticket and a Police Career on the Brink
All the garbage I found on Substack in 1 hour: Substack has a huge role in the active promotion of disinformation (“Substack might be primarily a disinformation ecosystem — with a bunch of credible writers bolted on, to be the acceptable public face of a company that exists mainly to monetize the internet’s limitless supply of garbage.”)
New Hampshire official quits after receiving homophobic comments about his dead gay son
Led by billionaire Elon Musk, anti-immigrant, racist and antisemitic propaganda explodes on Twitter/X
‘Student Should Have a Healthy-Looking BMI’: How Universities Bend Over Backwards to Accommodate Food Delivery Robots
Trump Pocketed Millions in Foreign Payments. Why Won’t Senate Democrats Investigate? Jamie Raskin and House Democrats unearthed dynamite. But they can’t subpoena. Senate Democrats can. So—will they?
Whooping cough: my suitably Dickensian Christmas present (stay up to date with your DTaP shot)
mikethemadbiologist
Re: Oakland schools, my workplace also does symptom-based covid protocols and I was also allowed to return to work masked with a positive test result. It was fortunate (imho) that most of the staff were out that day and my situation has apparently gotten the health & safety group to reassess if this was handled properly.
I spent the rest of my symptom-free positive testing at home, mainly because I felt really weird being at the office knowing I was still positive. But also because it *is* really weird to be returning to an office while covid-positive.