’“Nobody cared or nobody understood that without this next vial of insulin, I wouldn’t live to see another week,” said 28-year-old Kristen Whitney Daniels.
She started rationing her insulin after she was kicked off her parents’ insurance plan two years ago.
“I can’t really explain how isolating and how terrifying it is,” she said.
She’s now a patient at the Yale Diabetes Center, where a recent Journal of American Medical Association study found one in four patients reported “cost-related underuse.” Dr. Kasia Lipska treats patients at the clinic, and was the study’s lead author. She testified on Capitol Hill last week.
“This vial of insulin cost just $21 when it first came on the market in 1996. It now costs $275,” she said.…’
Via Boing Boing
’In a recent interview, Noam Chomsky gave a short summary of how the modern Republican Party coalition between the rich and the religious, white working class was built, decade by decade.
Not one driver’s fault, but everybody’s:
George Conway appears to have come up with a brand-new scathing nickname for President Donald Trump.
Navy drafts reporting guidelines:
The fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 30 years on:
’Climate change may be contributing to the penguin population crash at Halley Bay which is “unprecedented in the historical record.”…’
’In Italy, a team of scientists is using a highly sophisticated detector to hunt for dark matter. The team observed an ultra-rare particle interaction that reveals the half-life of a xenon–124 atom to be 18 sextillion years.…’
’Psychopaths are manipulative, violent, impulsive, and lack empathy — but research suggests that psychopathy may be an evolutionary strategy rather than a disorder.…’
’After selling himself to American voters as the great negotiator and dealmaker, maybe Donald Trump was simply too embarrassed by the truth: He’d been taken advantage of, deeply and systemically, by everyone around him, including by Russia and Vladimir Putin and by his own staff. During the campaign, they grifted him without his knowledge. In the White House, they simply ignored him.
In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.
“How are we to account for such glaring defects in the performances of someone who is indisputably one of the most important musicians in the history of jazz?…’
’Legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis recorded the second and final session of his seminal album Kind of Blue on April 22nd, 1959. It remains the best-selling jazz album of all time. Its unforgettable solos by Davis, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and pianist Bill Evans create an ethereal atmosphere; the album continues to be one of the most beloved records in jazz.
’The Extinction Symbol was created in January 2011 by ESP, an artist from London whose identity is kept secret.[1] It represents the Holocene or Sixth Mass Extinction.
Ezra Klein:
Recreated using an ancient skull:
’Warren is the first 2020 presidential candidate to call for Donald Trump’s impeachment as a result of the findings in the redacted Mueller Report released yesterday.
Heather Gudenkauf writes:
’The contacts with Russians documented in the report amount to a devastating indictment of Trump’s approach to politics.…’
’“If this is what a complete and total exoneration looks like, I’d hate to see a damning report.”…’
’In short, Mueller did not find evidence that Trump directly colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election — so he probably wasn’t obstructing justice to cover up a secret plot with the Russians.
’Upon hearing he would be investigated, Trump’s first reaction was, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.” This is according to the notes kept by Jody Hunt, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff.
’Consciousness has long been difficult to define, whether you’re a biologist, neuroscientist, or philosopher. So Frans de Waal looks at what actions humans take that require conscious thought. Comparing them to actions in certain animals suggests consciousness is not a human trait alone.…’
’Luke O’Neil put a call out for his readers’ stories of their loved ones’ capture by Fox News, being overtake by its paranoid, racist conspiracy mindset: he got back a heartbreaking collection of tales of “funny, compassionate” older relatives turning into someone who was “increasingly angry, bigoted, and paranoid” – some people even found their older relatives dead in front of a TV playing Fox.
’If two men in a world of more than 7 billion people can provide €300million to restore Notre Dame, within six hours, then there is enough money in the world to feed every mouth, shelter every family and educate every child. The failure to do so is a matter of will, and a matter of system.
In fact, it might reinforce tribalism:
Pseudoscience and Psychobabble:
’If you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, have children, or have ever been to a kid’s birthday party, then you’ve probably heard the Canadian crooner’s timeless bangers “Baby Beluga” and “Banana Phone.”
After 50 years, Angels vacate notorious Greenwich Village headquarters brownstone for new digs in former Baptist church on Long Island.
Pankaj Joshi:
’Peter Temin says 80 per cent of the population is burdened with debt and anxious about job security
New version of friendly fire:
Here’s why…
The battle to make science more uncertain:
Matthew Miller, former Director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Justice Department, writes:
‘It’s probably fair to say that we’ve spent the last thirty years acting as if we don’t live in a post-Chernobyl world.…’
’“Congress has to act,” Trump said. “They have to get rid of catch and release, chain migration, visa lottery, they have to get rid of the whole asylum system because it doesn’t work, and frankly, we should get rid of judges. You can’t have a court case every time somebody steps foot on our ground.”
57 images:
’The world’s law enforcement agencies have a terrible blind spot when it comes to far-right, white supremacist terror groups, treating them as unimportant lone wolves despite their prolific and bloody acts of violence.
First image of black hole to be unveiled next week:
Stephen Johnson writes:
’Since 2012, paleontologist Robert DePalma has been excavating a site in North Dakota that he thinks is “an incredible and unprecedented discovery”. What’s potentially so special about this site? Fossils from dinosaurs and other animals from thousands of years before the asteroid impact are very hard to come by, leading some to believe that dinosaurs died out before the impact, not because of it. DePalma believes the site preserves, as if in amber, the day, the precise and exact day (and perhaps even the exact hour), that the massive asteroid believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs hit the Earth 65 million years ago.…’
’The tragic deaths of Sydney Aiello and Calvin Desir, teen survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, remind us that for too many survivors, the pain and suffering endure and do not diminish. Instead, they are left reeling in the aftermath with no sense of closure. This is especially true of teens.…’
’…In a world of endless distraction, Mueller kept his focus. It is hard not to see the inquiry as an epic cultural and moral clash between the honorable American and the irredeemably ugly one; between the war-hero public servant and a draft-dodging liar and thug; between elegant, understated class and fathomless, bullhorn vulgarity….
Only solution appears to be cessation of use:
’This is a map of ARPANET circa May 1973 via David Newbury, who found it among his father’s papers. The first part of ARPANET was built nearly 50 years ago and became the basis of the modern internet. The network was so small in the early days that those circles and squares on the 1973 map represent individual computers and routers, not universities or cities.…’
’Previous studies have shown that dogs can smell low blood sugar levels in their diabetic owners, along with certain cancers. They can even sniff out malaria in worn socks. Their keen sense of smell allows them to detect the associated changes to a person’s body odor resulting from an illness or health condition, a specific scent scientists refer to as an “olfactory profile.”
“Infections” found on brand new PCs:
’California state lawmakers this week introduced a bill that would grant the state’s health department the power to approve all medical exemptions for childhood vaccinations, revoke fraudulent exemptions, and maintain a database of exemptions and the physicians who issue them.
’During one Scottish woman’s lifetime, she has broken bones, burned her skin, and undergone surgery without feeling any pain—and she didn’t realize she’d been experiencing anything unusual until she was well into her 60s, according to a new case study.
A number theorist with programming prowess has found a solution to 33 = x³ + y³ + z³, a much-studied equation that went unsolved for 64 years:
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Whiting Awards Celebrate 10 Emerging Writers:
Andrew Sullivan:
’The Sun is getting grumpy again after years of relative peace.…’
But the real story may be more disturbing:
’After more than two years of criminal indictments and steady revelations about contacts between associates of Donald J. Trump and Russia, we already know a lot about the work done by 
Ruling: Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing…[F]irst time the Trump administration has been held to account for the climate impact of its energy dominance agenda, and it could have sweeping implications for the president’s plan
’…[K]ey supporters are expressing misgivings as they sour on displays of his abrasive, abusive personality. In recent days, Trump has attacked the late Republican war hero John McCain, his own aide’s staunchly conservative, influential husband George Conway, and an autoworker union boss in Ohio.
’Saving the world from the apocalyptic impact of climate change should be a dream for many Silicon Valley titans concerned about legacy, says David Wallace-Wells, and yet few are dedicating themselves to addressing the catastrophe. Negative emissions technology funded by Bill Gates exists. It would cost $3 trillion per year to operate and would mean human industry could continue at current levels without global warming. That figure sounds astronomical, however global subsidies to fossil fuel industries cost $5 trillion per year.…’
’Real wasabi, Wasabia japonica, is apparently one of the most expensive vegetables to grow. That green stuff you’re eating? Ground horseradish, Chinese mustard, and, you guessed it, green food coloring. Yum.
’Some animals, when faced with predators, play dead instead of trying to escape. But for death-feigning to work, a lot of things have to go well.…’
’President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the late Sen. John McCain in the past weeks, for reasons known largely to himself. On Wednesday, Trump escalated his feud with a dead man, launching into an unprompted rant about McCain’s funeral (among other things) during a speech at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio.…’
A vet toxicologist explains:
’Welcome to an equinox on planet Earth. Today is the first day of spring in our fair planet’s northern hemisphere, fall in the southern hemisphere, with day and night nearly equal around the globe. At an equinox Earth’s terminator, the dividing line between day and night, connects the planet’s north and south poles as seen at the start of this remarkable time-lapse video compressing an entire year into twelve seconds. To make it, the Meteosat satellite recorded these infrared images every day at the same local time from a geosynchronous orbit. The video actually starts at the September 2010 equinox with the terminator aligned vertically. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, the terminator tilts to provide less daily sunlight to the northern hemisphere, reaching the solstice and northern hemisphere winter at the maximum tilt. As the year continues, the terminator tilts back again and March 2011 equinox arrives halfway through the video. Then the terminator swings past vertical the other way, reaching the the June 2011 solstice and the beginning of northern summer. The video ends as the September equinox returns.…’
’Every now and then an image appears online which people claim shows a time traveller somewhere they shouldn’t be. But are they just cases of people letting their imaginations run wild?
Elizabeth Warren hits it at town hall, but is it realistic?
’As an experienced airline pilot, aircraft accident investigator and professor of aviation, I know that such major crash investigations are an enormous effort often involving many countries’ governments and input from dozens of industry partners. The inquiries can take months of painstaking work. They often yield important insights that improve flight safety for everyone long into the future. Here’s how an investigation generally goes.…’
Once-fringe phenomenon taking root among the powerful:
’A huge fireball exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere in December, according to Nasa. The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago. But it went largely unnoticed until now because it blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The space rock exploded with 10 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.…’
’While this capability, called magnetoreception, is well known in birds and fish, there is now evidence that our brains are also sensitive to magnetic fields. The researchers from Caltech and the University of Tokyo measured the brainwaves of 26 participants who were exposed to magnetic fields that could be manipulated. Interestingly, the brainwaves were not affected by upward-pointing fields.…’
’A Pennsylvania couple spotted one of the world’s most unusual birds in their backyard feeder. The northern cardinal looked like it was painted down the middle: one half was the brown of a female cardinal, and one half had the bright red plumage of a male. This unusual specimen is called a gynandromorph; half the animal is male and half the animal is female. Gynandromorphy is an extremely rare condition observed in a variety of insects, snakes, crustaceans, and birds.…’
Love to drop F-bombs? Thank the shift to agriculture:
’This is the first study to explore not only what percentage of people in the general population choose to watch videos of graphic real-life violence, but also why.…’
Poet of Life’s Evanescence Dies at 91:
’A team of scientists just demonstrated something that might shock you: Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth on average.
Steve Calandrillo, Professor of Law, University of Washington:
Doctor couldn’t be bothered to tell him face-to-face:
A story of Biblical proportion:
’From wild dogs to horned frogs, all manner of animals are still capable of keeping out of our sight, some for over 100 years…’
New Approach To Flu Treatment Mimics Antibodies:
’Starting in 2021, Americans, as well as others from visa-free countries, will have to do a little more work before they’ll be able to visit a number of European countries. Now, getting into places like Germany, France, and Spain just requires your U.S. passport, but in a little under two years you’ll also need to apply for entry into those countries and several others before you go. Curious what that means? Here’s a rundown of what you need to know…’
