Thursday Things: Gone to the Dogs Edition
12 November 2020. Vol 2 No 46 By Dan McGirt. #66
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What’s wrong with having a horse mayor for once? Photo by Federico Di Dio on Unsplash
We don’t cover politics here at Thursday Things — with one exception — dog mayors! And the town of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky has just elected their new dog mayor, a French bulldog named Wilbur. ‘He rolled over with excitement’: Kentucky town elects dog as mayor
Wilbur Beast, mayor of Rabbit Hash, KY, photographed. (Amy Noland)
It was apparently quite an exciting race:
There were 17 other candidates with their sights set on the title, including Jack Rabbit, a therapy dog, and a donkey named Higgins.
Jack Rabbit the Beagle, and Poppy the golden retriever came in second and third, according to the town’s historical society.
No word if there will be a recount.
Your one stop shop for Stalin facts! The Stalin Digital Archive
The Stalin Digital Archive contains a selection of documents from Fond 558, which covers Stalin's personal biography, his work in government, and his conduct of foreign affairs.
Opis 1: documents written by Stalin from 1889-1952.
Opis 2: documents written by Stalin from 1911-1944.
Opis 3: over 300 books from Stalin's personal library with his marginal notes.
Opis 4: Stalin's biographical materials.
Opis 11: Stalin's correspondence and documents. This Opis covers a period from 1917 to 1952.
AOC Volumes: the 30 volumes from YUP's Annals of Communism series.We’ll all be cyborgs in the future. And the future is now. Researchers 3-D print biomedical parts with supersonic speed
Forget glue, screws, heat or other traditional bonding methods. A Cornell University-led collaboration has developed a 3-D printing technique that creates cellular metallic materials by smashing together powder particles at supersonic speed.
This form of technology, known as "cold spray," results in mechanically robust, porous structures that are 40% stronger than similar materials made with conventional manufacturing processes. The structures' small size and porosity make them particularly well-suited for building biomedical components, like replacement joints.
Get all the details in the team's paper, "Solid-State Additive Manufacturing of Porous Ti-6Al-4V by Supersonic Impact," published Nov. 9 in Applied Materials Today.
I’m sure the 3-D printed body parts from the last item will save and improve many lives in the future, just as past biomedical innovations have already saved many lives: New cancer drugs saved over 1.2 million people in the US over 16 years, new study shows.
More than 1.2 million people in the US prevented facing death following a cancer diagnosis, between the year 2000 and 2016, thanks to ever improving treatment options—a large new national study shows.
Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Economics, the new findings highlight how new drugs commissioned during this period to target the 15 most common cancer types helped to reduce mortality by 24% per 100,000 people in the States.
The study, carried out by experts at PRECISIONheor and Pfizer, also shows that 106 new treatments were approved across these 15 most common tumours—including colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, melanoma, gastric cancer, and renal cancer.
These new cancer drug approvals were associated with significant decreases in deaths—as measured by treatment stocks. In 2016 alone, the team estimate that new treatments were associated with 156,749 fewer cancer deaths for the 15 most common tumor types.
When I was a speechwriter for the head of a biotechnology trade group, my boss was always asking me to add a slide on how many lives biomedicines have saved. Guesstimates were all I could ever find. I’m glad someone finally did a study on this! Though about ten years too late to help me with those slides.
An argument for physical over digital media. If there are television shows, films, music, books, or other recorded media you love, you should definitely get a hard copy, be that CD, DVD, vinyl record, or print. Because it is real and it is yours. Digital streaming media living in the cloud has many advantages, to be sure. But what happens when Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, or whomever decides for some reason — economic or otherwise — that you shouldn’t have access to that anymore? You lose, that’s what.
A recent recurring problem is the refrain by digital companies that your digital purchases do not belong to you. Amazon recently said that you are actually paying for a “limited streaming license.” Other problems have occurred when a person moves to another country or the company that hosts the media goes out of business.
If you own a physical copy, there is no question that you own it. This copy can also be resold, loaned to friends or regifted. This opens up opportunities for buying used copies at cheaper prices, and while it may shock some, DVD rental places still exist
The old ways are best.
You’ve heard of Florida Man. Meet Idaho Man! Idaho man in hot water after group found cooking chickens in Yellowstone hot spring
An Idaho Falls man and two others were in hot water after being found with cooking pots and two chickens in a thermal area of Yellowstone National Park.
A ranger received reports on Aug. 7 that a group was hiking toward Shoshone Geyser Basin with cooking pots, a park spokeswoman told EastIdahoNews.com Friday. The ranger responded and discovered two whole chickens in a burlap sack sitting in a hot spring with a cooking pot nearby.
The ranger spoke with the group of 10, including a child. The Idaho Falls man and two others were cited for foot travel in a thermal area. He was also ordered to appear in a Mammoth Hot Springs court.
So, please, no cooking dinner in the hot springs.
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park. Not for cooking chicken! Photo by Emily Campbell on Unsplash
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