US Athletes Discover Joys Of Universal Healthcare In Olympic Village by Rebecca Schoenkopf

This is one of those feel-good stories that is actually very depressing when you think about it! Read on Substack

Snippets:

There’s a lot of money to be made on the Olympics — though not necessarily by the people participating in them (or most people who live in the host cities). Those athletes who participate don’t get paid (unless they get sponsorship deals) and, as a result, many of them go into poverty while trying to go for the gold. Training costs are huge and so, often, are the medical bills.

But not when they’re at the Olympic Village!

Ariana Ramsey, who won a bronze medal as part of the US female rugby team has been going viral on TikTok, talking about how amazing it’s been getting free healthcare at the Olympic Village — and in the days following her victory, she was able to celebrate by going to the gynecologist, dentist and an ophthalmologist, where she was able to get free glasses as well.

Via Sports Illustrated:

Ramsey came to Paris as a rugby player. She is leaving as a healthcare influencer. More than 135,000 people have watched her initial TikTok, and another of the half-dozen follow-up videos she has made has pulled in more than 570 views. That is fine with her. The more she thinks about it, the more frustrated she is that she’s so astonished by the concept.

“That’s just America and their privatized healthcare system,” she laments in an interview, adding, “I’ll fight for universal healthcare.”

The idea has gone viral in France: American discovers healthcare. “A lot of people are kind of making a joke about it,” she says. “Like, welcome to France.” (snip)

Every other country has figured out that it makes far, far more sense (and is far, far more economically sane) for health care to be seen as a public good, but we’re still out here making insurance company CEOs obscenely rich for who knows what reason.

Many American athletes do have access to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s health insurance policy. But their eligibility for the program is up to their sport’s governing body, and an independent commission appointed by Congress found that “some of the most talented competitors under our flag go to sleep at night under the roof of a car or without sufficient food or adequate health insurance.” More than a quarter of U.S. athletes report earning less than $15,000 per year, and more than 40% said they paid out of pocket for healthcare, with an average cost of $9,200 per person. Only 16% said they’d been reimbursed.

Meanwhile, in 2022, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee had a net revenue of 61 million dollars and paid their CEO a salary of $1.1 million.

Also meanwhile, NBCUniversal sold $1.2 billion in advertising ahead of the last Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo and say that they have surpassed that number this year (though an exact figure has not been given). (snip)

On the bright-ish side, because of Ramsey’s videos, hundreds of other Olympic athletes have taken advantage of the free healthcare at Olympic Village that they might not otherwise get at home. So that’s nice for them!

The Bird Conservancy

I subscribe to their newsletter because I love birds, but I don’t know a lot about them as to ID’ing them, their calls, etc. I love how birds simply keep on keeping on, not seeming to worry about much. Enjoy, if you like; there is lots of info, photos, and you can listen to calls. And more!

Bonin Petrel (Nunulu)

Sea lion camera crews map the ocean floor

August 7, 2024 Ariel Marcy

Australian researchers have equipped sea lions with underwater cameras to map previously unexplored areas of the ocean floor.

In Australia – and the world – ocean seabeds and the surrounding benthic habitats remain shrouded in mystery. Remotely operated robots can gather ocean floor data, but they are expensive, require certain weather conditions and are difficult to operate in remote, offshore areas.

To overcome these challenges, the research team glued GPS units and lightweight cameras on Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea). These fast-swimming predators forage in several different benthic habitats, allowing the researchers to model over 5,000 square kilometres of ocean floor.

The results are published in Frontiers of Marine Science.

The eight enlisted sea lions came from the Olive Island and Seal Bay colonies on the coast of South Australia.

“We deployed the instruments on adult females so we could recover the equipment a few days later when they returned to land to nurse their pups,” explains first author Nathan Angelakis, a PhD student with The University of Adelaide and the South Australian Research and Development Institute.

The sea lions collected 89 hours of recordings in total, from which the researchers identified six distinct benthic habitats: macroalgae reef, macroalgae meadow, bare sand, sponge/sand, invertebrate reefs and invertebrate boulder.

The researchers then used machine learning models to predict the habitat type in nearby areas of continental shelf.

“The sea lions from both locations covered quite broad areas around the colonies. In our calculations, we kept the area in which we predicted habitats small to maximize the precision of our predictions,” said Angelakis. “This allowed us to model benthic habitats across more than 5,000 square km of the continental shelf.”

The findings have conservation implications for the endangered sea lion and for other benthic species that rely on these habitats.

“These data are useful both for mapping critical habitats for an endangered species such as the Australian sea lion, and more broadly, for mapping unexplored areas of the seabed,” said Angelakis.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans/australian-sea-lions-camera-crew-map-ocean-floor/

This is so good-

That Was Fast

Thanks to Zorba

I love Jim Hightower!

Jim Hightower: The Real Purpose of Project 2025

A couple of bits from Cosmos

for science!

Lithium-ion batteries made from wastewater phosphorus

Good news for some sustainability. Here’s a snippet:

“Engineers have found a way to turn phosphorus from city wastewater into parts for lithium-ion batteries.

“The Chinese researchers say that their method could be used to supply 35% of the phosphorus demand for their national lithium-ion battery industry.

“They’ve published their findings in Engineering.

“Phosphorus is a common component in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries – specifically, lithium iron phosphate batteries, which represent about 60% of the lithium-ion market according to the researchers.

“As an important ingredient in fertilisers and industrial chemicals, mineral phosphorus is in high demand. Mining stocks of phosphorus are expected to be depleted in the next 50-100 years.

“But, point out the researchers, more than 250,000 tonnes of phosphorus pollutes Chinese wastewater every year, coming from food consumption and chemical waste. This is more phosphorus than the amount consumed each year to make batteries.” (snip)

“The researchers used their wastewater-derived mixture to build small lithium-ion batteries in the lab. These batteries could charge and discharge at the rates needed for electric vehicles and large-scale storage systems, and they kept 99.2% of their capacity after being charged and discharged 100 times.

“Batteries made with higher doses of the wastewater material performed better than batteries made with lower doses. The researchers believe that impurities from the sludge helped to stabilise the batteries, allowing them to perform better.

“’The amount of phosphorus recovered from municipal wastewater is projected to be sufficient to meet up to 35% of the phosphorus demand by the lithium-ion battery industry in China, enhancing the cost-effectiveness of phosphorus recovery and alleviating the global shortage of phosphorus resources to achieve both clean energy and sustainable development,’ conclude the researchers in their paper.”

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When it rains, it pours! This old idea looks set to be Australia’s future

“In the last few years, Australia has faced both flooding rains and some of the lowest rainfall on record. Now, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have the data that explains why rain in Australia has seemed so unpredictable.

“The researchers have shown that human-induced climate warming is driving increases in rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land, and they say the effects are especially prominent in Australia.

“The study looked at increases in rainfall variability, which can mean wetter wet periods and drier dry periods. They found that daily variability has increased by 1.2% per decade globally, and that humans are largely to blame.

“’The increase in rainfall variability is mainly due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which have led to a warmer and more humid atmosphere,’ said Dr Zhang Wenxia, lead author of the study.

“’This means that even if the atmospheric circulation remains the same, the additional moisture in the air leads to more intense rain events and more drastic fluctuations between them.’

“Professor Steven Sherwood at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, who was not involved in the study, told the AusSMC that this means rainier rainy periods and drier dry periods.

“’This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods.’

“The paper identified Australia as being a particular hotspot for rainfall variability. Dr Milton Speer from the University of Technology Sydney said the paper’s findings are significant, and that other recent studies have had similar conclusions.” (snip-More)

It was the new moon at 6:13AM CDT today, 5:13 Eastern

Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 04, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2024/08/04

Staying Cool: Helpful Hints From History

Take a look back at how others have survived—and thought about—the high heat of summer.

By: Matthew Wills July 28, 2024

Staying Cool: Helpful Hints From History

In an episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Midnight Sun,” first broadcast in November 1961, the apocalyptic temperature of an Earth getting ever closer to the Sun is represented by a thermometer bursting at…130°F. On July 5, 2024, Palm Springs, California, reached 124°F, while the next day, Death Valley hit 128°F, amidst a shattering of triple-digit temperature records across the American West.

Benchmarks have shifted. In 1961, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere was 318 parts per million by volume (ppmv). CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, acting as atmospheric insulation, preventing heat radiation from dissipating into space. Last year, 2023, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere was 421 ppmv. It continues to increase, not least as we battle the resulting heat by burning fossil fuels to stay cool. We’re in a global greenhouse, and the doors seem to be locked as we paradoxically produce more CO₂ to stay cool in the face of heating caused by the production of more CO₂.

Humans have long worked to beat the heat, especially in the tropics and in deserts. Their perfectly rational strategies—stay out of the midday sun, live underground, cover up completely—may once have been criticized by those from temperate zones, sometimes in racist terms, but more and more parts of the world are having to learn the lesson of those strategies.

A sign outside an air conditioned American restaurant points to the 'White Rest Rooms', in a clear indication of racial segregation, circa 1960. — A sign outside an air-conditioned American restaurant points to the “White Rest Rooms,” in a clear indication of racial segregation, circa 1960. Getty

What, after all, would it be like without air conditioning? Take a look at this Before Air-Conditioning piece in Scientific American’s “Hints for Keeping Cool.” Published in July 1858, the piece begins with a dietary suggestion: eat “fruits, vegetables, and farinaceous food, and the lighter kinds of meat.” In 1858, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere was 286 ppmv. Seven years earlier, Dr. John Gorrie, striving to cool down his malaria and yellow fever patients in Florida, patented the first ice-making machine (1851, 285 ppmv).

The first modern, electrical air condition system dates to 1902 (297 ppmv), when inventor Willis Carrier cooled and dehumidified the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic & Publishing Company in Brooklyn, New York. The publishing company was most concerned about humidity warping their paper supplies. Carrier is still a going concern.

A little over a century after Scientific American’s helpful hints, The Science News-Letter’s “Keeping Cool in Summer Heat” (1961: 318 ppmv) wasn’t so very different.

“If you suffer from heat frustration when the mercury hits the 90’s, a little scientific knowledge of summer heat can help your body temperature and state of mind remain well within the comfort zone,” the editors claim.

These hints were essential for those without air conditioning, that wonder of the twentieth century. Try to imagine cars, theaters, restaurants, the suburbs, office towers, apartment blocks, malls, et cetera, without A/C. The post-World War II population growth across the Sun Belt, stretching from Southern California to North Carolina, would most likely not have been possible without it.

In his exploration of how A/C transformed the South, Raymond Arsenault quotes a Floridian circa 1982 (341 ppmv).

“I hate air conditioning,” the woman confirmed. “It’s a damnfool invention of the Yankees. If they don’t like it hot, they can move back up North where they belong.”

But most people—in the South and elsewhere—welcomed A/C with a passion. Arsenault notes that historians tended to shy away from writing about the transformative power of air-conditioning on the South because they were leery of falling into an old climate-is-destiny paradigm. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the South’s climate was held responsible for everything from the Southern drawl to plantation slavery. Climate determinism faded by mid-century (1950: 311 ppmv), as the “long hot summers” of the Civil Rights years transitioned into the “New South,” supposedly post-racial but definitely all indoor-cooled.