between

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

A Food Chemist Explains Sweet Science – The Difference Between Sugar, Other Natural Sweeteners And Artificial Sweeteners

A quick walk down the drink aisle of any corner store reveals the incredible ingenuity of food scientists in search of sweet flavors. In some drinks you’ll find sugar. A diet soda might have an artificial or natural low-calorie sweetener. And found in nearly everything else is high fructose corn syrup, the king of U.S. sweetness. I am a chemist who studies compounds found in nature, and I am also a lover of food. With confusing food labels claiming foods and beverages to be diet, zero-sugar or with “no artificial sweeteners,” it can be confusing to know exactly what you are consuming. So what are these sweet molecules? How can cane sugar and artificial sweeteners produce such similar flavors? First, it is helpful to understand how taste buds work. Taste buds and chemistry The “taste map”...

The Rights Of Transgender Athletes Striking A Balance Between Fairness In Competition

18May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LGBTQ

The Rights Of Transgender Athletes Striking A Balance Between Fairness In Competition

In a majority of U.S. states, bills aiming to restrict who can compete in women’s sports at public institutions have either been signed into law or are working their way through state legislatures. Caught up in this political point-scoring are real people – both trans athletes who want to participate in competitive sports and those competing against them. As a professor of ethics and public policy, I spend much of my time thinking about the role of the law in protecting the rights of individuals, especially when the rights of some people appear to conflict with the rights of others. How to accommodate transgender athletes in competitive sports – or whether they should be accommodated at all – has become one of these conflicts. On one side are transgender athletes who want to compete in...

Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence

5Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence

The deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January exposed the power of social media to influence real-world behavior and incite violence. But many adolescents, who spend more time on social media than all other age groups, have known this for years. “On social media, when you argue, something so small can turn into something so big so fast,” said Justin, a 17-year-old living in Hartford, Connecticut, during one of my research focus groups. (The participants’ names have been changed in this article to protect their identities.) For the last three years, I have studied how and why social media triggers and accelerates offline violence. In my research, conducted in partnership with Hartford-based peace initiative COMPASS Youth Collaborative, we interviewed dozens of young people aged 1...

Highlighting The Debate Between Hardliners On Abortion And Others In The Church: Catholic Opinions On Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Highlighting The Debate Between Hardliners On Abortion And Others In The Church: Catholic Opinions On Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

Questions about whether the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is morally acceptable to observant Catholics due to concerns over use of fetal stem cells in its development have brought the deep divisions within the Catholic Church into public view. On Feb. 26, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans released a statement saying that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is “morally compromised as it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as the testing.” Four days later, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the national body of Catholic bishops, stated, “if one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnson’s.” A few days later, Kevin Rhoades, one of the bish...

50 Years Ago A Shootout Happen Between Black Panthers And Law Enforcement And Why It Matters Today

5Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

50 Years Ago A Shootout Happen Between Black Panthers And Law Enforcement And Why It Matters Today

In the early hours of Feb. 10, 1971, police surrounded a property in High Point, North Carolina, where members of the Black Panther Party lived and worked. In the ensuing shootout, a Panther and a police officer were both wounded. Members of the Black Panther Party outside the High Point property raided by police. Sonny Hedgecock/High Point Enterprise, CC BY-SA The incident did not receive much national attention at the time – armed conflict of this type was relatively common during the late 1960s and early 1970s. But 50 years on, as the U.S. reckons with a year that saw militarized police confront Black Lives Matter protesters and fail to prevent an attack on the U.S. Capitol, I believe the circumstances of this shootout are relevant today. As a historian who has interviewed participan...

A Conspiracy Theory Or A True Conspiracy – An AI Tool That Can Distinguish Between The Two

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

AI, TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

A Conspiracy Theory Or A True Conspiracy – An AI Tool That Can Distinguish Between The Two

The audio on the otherwise shaky body camera footage is unusually clear. As police officers search a handcuffed man who moments before had fired a shot inside a pizza parlor, an officer asks him why he was there. The man says to investigate a pedophile ring. Incredulous, the officer asks again. Another officer chimes in, “Pizzagate. He’s talking about Pizzagate.” In that brief, chilling interaction in 2016, it becomes clear that conspiracy theories, long relegated to the fringes of society, had moved into the real world in a very dangerous way. Conspiracy theories, which have the potential to cause significant harm, have found a welcome home on social media, where forums free from moderation allow like-minded individuals to converse. There they can develop their theories and propose acti...

The Connection Between White Nationalism And The Military

9Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Connection Between White Nationalism And The Military

White nationalist groups, who make up some of the most serious terror threats in the country, find new members and support in the U.S. military. These groups believe that white people are under attack in America. In their effort to create an all-white country where nonwhites do not have civil rights protections, these groups often instigate violent confrontations that target racial and religious minorities. Since 2018, white supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the United States than any other domestic extremist movement. The Proud Boys group, for example, whom President Donald Trump addressed in the first presidential debate of 2020, includes veterans and active duty service members. The group’s members, who are required to engage in physical violence before joining, celeb...

How a new way of parsing COVID-19 data began to show the breadth of health gaps between Blacks and whites

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

How a new way of parsing COVID-19 data began to show the breadth of health gaps between Blacks and whites

Physicians and public health experts know that older adults are more susceptible to the flu than those in other age groups. We also know the health of Black Americans is worse than that of almost all other groups for not only flu, but for chronic conditions and cancer. These are two examples of health disparities, or health gaps – when demographic groups show differences in disease severity. As we analyze the latest data from the COVID-19 pandemic, a more complete picture on infections, hospitalizations and death rates has emerged, along with new conversations about health disparities. The COVID data underscore what social scientists, epidemiologists and other public health researchers have long said: It is not enough to look at a lump sum of data about any health issue, including COVID-1...

Brain scientists haven’t been able to find major differences between women’s and men’s brains, despite over a century of searching

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TECHNOLOGY

Brain scientists haven’t been able to find major differences between women’s and men’s brains, despite over a century of searching

People have searched for sex differences in human brains since at least the 19th century, when scientist Samuel George Morton poured seeds and lead shot into human skulls to measure their volumes. Gustave Le Bon found men’s brains are usually larger than women’s, which prompted Alexander Bains and George Romanes to argue this size difference makes men smarter. But John Stuart Mill pointed out, by this criterion, elephants and whales should be smarter than people. So focus shifted to the relative sizes of brain regions. Phrenologists suggested the part of the cerebrum above the eyes, called the frontal lobe, is most important for intelligence and is proportionally larger in men, while the parietal lobe, just behind the frontal lobe, is proportionally larger in women. Later, neuroanatomists...

As states reopen, tensions flare between the rule followers and rule breakers

27May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, IN OTHER NEWS

As states reopen, tensions flare between the rule followers and rule breakers

Since Republicans, on average, are five times more likely than Democrats to believe it’s safe now to resume normal business activity, reopening the economy has often been framed as a partisan issue. But within households, many families are having their own arguments about how lax or strict they should be about the threat of the virus. Is it OK to have friends over? Can we invite Aunt Sally to our birthday party? Can dad slip away to the golf course? Can mom get a haircut? These conflicts reflect two very different mindsets: Some are uneasy about opening up and going against official guidance like wearing masks. Better be safe than sorry, the thinking goes. Others balk at being told what to do, and feel anxious or even angry about the constrictions being put in place. These differences a...