The fact of higher protein content appears to be true (without going back to find and critique all the original studies). Explanations are much harder to ‘prove’ for questions like this.
We can’t do experiments on the evolution of tears, so all we can do is come up with plausible theories and look at how they fit with the body of evidence. With enough evidence, from enough different angles, we might one day be able to say which proposed explanations fit the facts (and which don’t). It’s how we (eventually) proved smoking was killing people (another question we cannot do experiments on human beings to prove one way or the other) but not all questions are as important as smoking was and there isn’t necessarily a neat, single factor explanation to find even if someone was willing to fund all the necessary research.
Not my area but, for example, I recently saw a study claim that sniffing women’s tears makes men less aggressive. That’s an angle that might help build some support for, or knock down, the theory that emotional tears are useful for social communication (ie help get women killed slightly less often). Did those studies use sad stories or onions? Did any study compare sad stories to onions? If we’re seeing hints of differences between sad stories and onions, that would tend to support the social communication element of the explanation. Unless we think there’s a difference between sad tears and frightened tears, which there probably is, so we should check that too. And the rest of the literature on tears, if it’s considered important enough to get the theory right. And we need to remember that sticky tears are not the same thing as smelly tears, so can we do experiments where non-emotional tears are made sticky, and non-sticky tears made to smell frightened?
Etc etc.
Explaining things we observe but cannot directly experiment on is a process, a process which typically takes many years and dozens of research groups. And a lot of funding. And decades of exhausting battles, if there is a lot riding on the answer (as it did with Big Tobacco vs Public Health).
Not just children. The Tories need a kind of generalised hate to keep them in power. “Look! Over there! The poor people have all your money!”. Not because a plurality of the electorate actually fall for it but because the billionaires who own the media keep the noise deafening to make sure no one pays any attention to their grift. Which means that the Labour party is too spineless to oppose it, keeping turnout nice and low while the Tories chase the fash to the right.
I was thinking of Miliband, really. Got the same treatment as Corbyn but it never reached a crescendo because he caved.
And Labour in general, of course. Since Thatcher, at least, they always end up defaulting to this please-Murdoch-at-any-cost nonsense. Not that they were great before Thatcher (1945-51 excepted) but the media was much less extreme back then.
Indeed. Fascism is power protecting itself. And, even if the specifics vary worldwide, power has needed a great deal of protection since it fucked up and crashed the global economy. Again.
No it doesn’t. The dean who made this decision, as with most people in stable positions of power, does not need telling what to do because he will do it anyway.
Rutledge clerked for Clarence Thomas, and is featured in a painting included in ProPublica’s reporting on Republican donor Harlan Crow’s gifts to the Supreme Court Justice.
When New Labour introduced the 48 hour target to see a GP, the vast majority of GPs ‘met’ the target by closing down their phonelines as soon as they ran out of appointments. In the process, they turned the 48 hour target into a 24 hour target because otherwise they’d only have been able to open the phoneline every other day.
It was very bad back then. It’s much worse now because the NHS was at least relatively well-funded under Blair.
Not that they’re announcing this because they think the policy will work, obv. Just doing their best to make sure the voters blame everyone but them.
[The link is to a video of an election Question Time audience haranguing Blair about the foolishness of this target.]
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state...
I agree with a lot of this but this bit is a non-sequitur:
One thing many people don’t realize is that the Zionist colonial project was in motion long before WWII, as far back as the late 1800s.
Political zionism did get started in the late 1800s, as a proposed solution to the centuries of pogroms, expulsions and discrimination against Jews in Europe. Prior to the horrors of WWII, most Jews considered it literal heresy. It was the Holocaust that convinced many that Zionism was their only option, not least because most of the free world closed its borders to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and its aftermath. There was nowhere else to go.
This is a very useful short piece by a Jewish anti-zionist, pleading with the pro-Palestinian movement to take more care with their understanding of history: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Left Today
The Palestinians are paying the price for Europe’s crimes. The problem cannot be solved by denying that those crimes ever happened.
It’s interesting that this study looked at the proportion of women on the surgical team (not the composition of the surgical team for any specific operation):
Overall, female surgeons performed 47,874 (6.7%) of the operations. Female anaesthesiologists treated patients in 192,144 (27%) of operations.
Hospitals with teams comprising more than 35% female surgeons and anaesthesiologists had better postoperative outcomes, the study found. Operations in such hospitals were associated with a 3% reduction in the odds of 90-day postoperative major morbidity in patients.
There’s some speculation in that first link about differences in aggression and risk-taking. But, given the relative rarity of female surgeons, it could just be a competency effect. If women are a small minority for reasons not related to competency, and 93.3% of surgeons are men, it suggests that almost half the men are in the job because a more competent women didn’t get it. Groups with more women do better simply because they didn’t discount half the talent pool quite so heavily.
Rebecca Joynes allegedly became pregnant after having sex with one of her victims, known as boy B, Manchester Crown Court heard - she denies the allegations against her....
Statutory rape does not exist as an offence in English law. The offence is sexual contact with a minor.
The age of consent is 16 but 18 if the older party is in a position of responsibility (like a teacher). So whether or not she had unlawful sexual contact with the second boy would depend on how that law was interpreted, as well as when the first contact took place.
Even if I could help you, I wouldn’t because stalkers post these sorts of threads.
You need to take this to the police. You’re not going to get fined. You’re entitled to ask for help tracking him down, not least because you would need to in order to divorce him.
Don’t call him a missing person though. It’s been years. No one waits years to report someone missing if they are actually missing.
None of what follows is new. I know this stuff happens all the time. And yet somehow this insignificant thing shocked me and it’s been gnawing at me for the past few days. And today was the icing on the shit cake....
But, FWIW, offloading cheap tat onto charity shops is not going to work well. It costs them money to put it on a shelf and it probably takes up more space than it is worth. Plus, they very likely can’t sell electrical equipment that has had its cord chopped up and repaired, or at least not without spending more on having it tested than they could sell it for anyway.
Next time, find a friend with small feet who would like to take it off your hands.
My wife is getting a new job, and a company car is part of the package. The main issue is that the car must be either BEV or PHEV. She will have access to a range of options via their fleet rental system, but details are still TBC, but at an estimate, it’ll be somewhere around £40,000 final price. There’s a number of...
I don’t think it actually is that important? She wouldn’t need to charge up during any of those commutes so the only problem to solve is finding a charger near the 210 office (while pressing them to put in chargers there, of course).
I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying “woke”, “critical race theory”, ““grooming””, and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open....
@pjwestin has given you a good description of fascist methods. They’re not available to the opponents of fascism because they are not fascists.
Fascism appeals to the worst parts of our nature. It gives permission to those feeling fear, humiliation or shame to lash out in anger and destroy the people that make them feel that way.
You can’t deploy the same tactics to make those people want to be on your side instead. If you try to shame them, they will just hate harder.
You should, of course, expose and ridicule the grifters who lead fascist movements and punching fascists is encouraged. But you need to distinguish between authoritarian leaders and the people they seek to lead.
You should not pander to the billionaire-funded leaderships (take note NYT), but you must not sneer at the people they are trying to lead (take note centrist Dems).
You can learn to swim in water that is shallow enough to stand in. And if being safe in the event of a pychopathic ‘prank’ is the primary concern, focus on learning how to tread water. Everything will seem easier once you know for sure that you can keep your head above water. Most people who are enjoying a pool or the sea are not actually swimming anywhere anyway.
The fact Starmer won’t even think about joining the single market is stupid too.
Joining the single market would simplify border issues but it wouldn’t solve them… We’d have to join the Customs Union and the common VAT area as well to do that. SM-only is not completely pointless but there is a massive political risk attached because it doesn’t solve all the problems its advocates pretend it does.
There are only two ways to make Brexit work. One is to be an EU member in all but name (following all the rules but having a very limited role in making the rules). The other is a united Ireland (with a lot more expenditure on customs and warehousing in Britain).
The first is politically impossible, and also pointless. The second is up to the people of the island of Ireland and requires a British govt which is willing to invest in the real economy, rather than keeping most of us around to create the illusion of a real country instead of a tax haven based on a massive casino.
Community (mander.xyz)
Schools in England send police to homes of absent pupils with threats to jail their parents (www.theguardian.com)
‘Heavy-handed’ crackdown ignores underlying reasons for failure to attend classes, say critics...
Parents overestimate sons’ maths skills more than daughters’, study finds (www.theguardian.com)
Gender stereotypes at home may hamper female students’ ability to progress in the classroom, research suggests...
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs seen physically assaulting Cassie Ventura in 2016 surveillance video obtained by CNN (www.cnn.com)
University of Georgia pulls out of ‘Cop City’ lawsuit requesting public records (www.theguardian.com)
Dean of law school orders first amendment clinic to curtail core work, including on Atlanta Police Foundation case...
Patients in England want right to see GPs with 24 hours enshrined in NHS (www.theguardian.com)
Royal College of GPs says constitution guarantee would just pile on pressure given loss of 1,000 practices in past 10 years...
The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel (www.nytimes.com)
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state...
Hospital surgical teams with more women improve patient recovery, study finds (www.theguardian.com)
Researchers say that a critical mass of female anaesthesiologists and surgeons in operative teams can reduce postoperative complications...
Teacher accused of having sex with two students says she ruined her 'dream job' with stupid 'mistakes', jury hears (news.sky.com)
Rebecca Joynes allegedly became pregnant after having sex with one of her victims, known as boy B, Manchester Crown Court heard - she denies the allegations against her....
Barcelona is parched — and angry at quenched tourists (www.politico.eu)
The yawning gap between locals’ and visitors’ consumption is stoking long-standing resentments ahead of an election....
Malawians who abandoned Israeli farms deported (www.bbc.com)
Twelve Malawians have been deported from Israel after leaving the farms where they were working, to get higher salaries elsewhere....
deleted_by_author
Astounding absurdity
None of what follows is new. I know this stuff happens all the time. And yet somehow this insignificant thing shocked me and it’s been gnawing at me for the past few days. And today was the icing on the shit cake....
Hardcore (mander.xyz)
Looking for advice: BEV vs PHEV for Company Car in UK
My wife is getting a new job, and a company car is part of the package. The main issue is that the car must be either BEV or PHEV. She will have access to a range of options via their fleet rental system, but details are still TBC, but at an estimate, it’ll be somewhere around £40,000 final price. There’s a number of...
How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals
I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying “woke”, “critical race theory”, ““grooming””, and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open....
For the jury in Trump's hush money trial, evidence of a criminal conspiracy comes in bits and pieces (abcnews.go.com)
After two weeks of testimony, jurors have seen over 120 exhibits....
US man has brain damage, mother says, after allegedly being pushed into lake (www.theguardian.com)
Yolanda George, mother of Christopher Gilbert, calls on police to make arrest after incident in Louisiana in April...
Rishi Sunak admits Tories may not win general election | ITV News (www.itv.com)
Two newborn twins need a one-dose treatment that would save their lives: Zolgensma, a $2.1M drug. Insurance (also the mother's employer) cut coverage of the drug the day after they were born. (www.wbtv.com)
america is so fucking based man...