‘This is advice I hope you never need but should know anyway. A nuclear attack is everybody’s worst nightmare, and the immediate aftermath is just as bad, if not worse, than the explosion itself.

 

You’ll know a nuclear bomb went off near you if there’s a sudden flash of bright, white light, which may or may not give you flash blindness if you’re within 50 miles or so of ground zero. If that bright, white blindness eventually clears up, and you don’t suddenly feel at peace, you’re alive. Other signs of a nuclear blast include near instant first-degree to third-degree burns if you’re within 10 miles or so, and of course, the trademark mushroom cloud looming over the skyline.

Here’s what you should do if you survive the initial blast…’

Source: Lifehacker

‘Did President Donald Trump just threaten members of his own party?

In a meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning, Trump attempted to convince the remaining critics of the GOP health care bill to support the legislation when it goes to the House floor for a full vote on Thursday. Over the past two weeks, multiple health industry groups and Republicans had come out against the bill. Monday night, Republicans released a revised draft, which included specific provisions aimed at winning the support of moderates in the GOP’s New York delegation such as Reps. Chris Collins and Claudia Tenney.

According to two reporters covering the Tuesday meeting, Trump insinuated that those Republicans who voted against the bill could lose their seats in the next election…’

Source: Vox

This is such potentially hopeful news in the face of my environmental despair, but will it be undone by 4 years of braindead Trump policy?

‘…[O]ver the past three years, something genuinely shocking has happened. Global CO2 emissions from energy have stayed flat, even as the world economy has kept chugging along, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. It’s the first time that’s happened without a sharp economic slowdown (as in the early 1980s).

This pause in CO2 emissions growth, the IEA says, was driven by “growing renewable power generation, switches from coal to natural gas, improvements in energy efficiency, as well as structural changes in the global economy.” Notably, US energy-related emissions fell 1.6 percent in 2016, thanks to the ongoing shift from coal to cleaner natural gas, wind, and solar. Chinese coal consumption appears to be declining (though stats can be unreliable there), led by a shift away from heavy industry. And Europe’s emissions stayed flat last year.

This is a big deal! But we’re still a long, long way from getting a handle on global warming. So here are five ways to think about this chart…’

Source: Vox

‘A newly released study shows that by eating a vegetarian diet, Buddhists in China annually prevent roughly 40 million tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of 9.2% of all the greenhouse gases produced each year by France.

…[T]he study, by Ampere A. Tzeng from Arizona State, was published in the Journal of Contemporary Buddhism. Called “Vegetarian Diets: A Quantitative Assessment,” it may provide further impetus for a trend that’s already underway: More and more Buddhists are going vegetarian. In Tibetan Buddhism, a number of voices have spoken out in favor of eliminating animals from one’s diet, including the head of the Kagyu school, and “the world’s happiest man,” Buddhist monk Matthieu Richard…’

Source: Big Think

‘Paris Syndrome sounds like a condition a college freshman that has read too many Jane Austen books might develop. While the name implies something young and idealized, it can be a very serious disorder that, in the tourist season of 2011, affected twenty tourists visiting the city of lights, according to The Atlantic.

The idea of Paris is a perfect one: used in the backdrop of romantic movies, or to show how heavenly a perfume might smell in commercials. Paris is an alleged heaven on earth. Bridges are pictured over shimmery rivers in front of romantic sunsets, and when a person goes they expect to have a lovely honeymoon experience. Paris Syndrome exists specifically because there is a distance between reality and those expectations.

Paris Syndrome, which on average affects about a dozen tourists per year, hurts Japanese travelers more than anyone else. It has become such a problem that the Japanese Embassy in the city itself created a hotline for the very purpose of helping out its citizens. The line is available 24 hours a day, and aims to help those flustered by their unmet expectations. The hotline helps tourist get past their culture shock, or even seek hospitalization for those that need it…’

Source: Big Think

‘U.S. and Canadian authorities are rightfully spooked following a plane crash in Ontario, Canada on Wednesday night. What’s got them shook? There’s absolutely no trace than anybody actually went down with the plane, sparking one of the weirdest mysteries of the year so far.

The alleged “ghost plane” was a rented Cessna 172 based out of Michigan, which went down into the snow near the north shore of Lake Superior around 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday night near Marathon, Ontario, according to AVweb.com.

The spooky part is that local police reported no sign of a pilot at the crash site. There were no footprints or tracks of any kind in the snow and the crashed plane was empty. Evidently it had crashed after running out of fuel while on autopilot, which was still engaged in the wreckage…’

Source: Jalopnik

‘In a giant exhibit hall crowded with his colleagues, [Kirby Runyon, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University,] is attempting to reignite the debate about Pluto’s status with an audacious new definition for planet — one that includes not just Pluto, but several of its neighbors, objects in the asteroid belt, and a number of moons. By his count, 102 new planets could be added to our solar system under the new criteria.’

Source: The Washington Post

Nathan Nobis, a philosophy professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, recently published Animals and Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights. A well-reviewed introduction to animal ethics, the textbook (created to accompany an online course on the same subject) evaluates the arguments for and against various uses of animals, including:

• Is it morally wrong to experiment on animals? Why or why not?
• Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Why or why not?
• Are we morally obligated to provide pets with veterinary care (and, if so, how much)? Why or why not?

You can buy the paperback on Amazon for $5.99 or Kindle for $2.99. But Nobis has also made the text available free online, under a Creative Commons license. You can download it in multiple formats here.

Source: Open Culture

‘As Spring reaches its midpoint, night and day stand in perfect balance, with light on the increase. The young Sun God now celebrates a hierogamy (sacred marriage) with the young Maiden Goddess, who conceives. In nine months, she will again become the Great Mother. It is a time of great fertility, new growth, and newborn animals.

The next full moon (a time of increased births) is called the Ostara and is sacred to Eostre the Saxon Lunar Goddess of fertility (from whence we get the word estrogen, whose two symbols were the egg and the rabbit. The Christian religion adopted these emblems for Easter which is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The theme of the conception of the Goddess was adapted as the Feast of the Annunciation, occurring on the alternative fixed calendar date of March 25 Old Lady Day, the earlier date of the equinox. Lady Day may also refer to other goddesses (such as Venus and Aphrodite), many of whom have festivals celebrated at this time.

The Christian religion adopted these emblems for Easter which is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The theme of the conception of the Goddess was adapted as the Feast of the Annunciation, occurring on the alternative fixed calendar date of March 25 Old Lady Day, the earlier date of the equinox. Lady Day may also refer to other goddesses (such as Venus and Aphrodite), many of whom have festivals celebrated at this time.’

Source: Wicca.com