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☆ Opinion | In America, if Everything Is a Public Health Crisis, Nothing Is
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-21 | by ( Jeneen Interlandi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The best and worst developments in public health have always come from moments of crisis. But many of the elixir victims were very young children, and agency officials wasted no time spinning the incident up into a national crisis. The public grew skeptical of the effort when the vaccines were linked to an extremely rare but serious side effect. “It was supposed to be this great triumph,” says Joshua Sharfstein, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of “The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide.” “But it ended up seeding a generation of vaccine hesitancy instead.” The takeaway from these and similar parables is clear, Dr. Sharfstein says: Crisis can be a powerful catalyst for shaping policy and improving society. The United States is in what can only be described as an epoch of crisis.

Persons: Sulfanilamide, ”, Joshua Sharfstein, Sharfstein, —, it’s Organizations: and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Fort, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Locations: Fort Dix, United States, Republic

☆ Sabre-toothed ‘kitten’ mummy unearthed in Siberia is first of its kind
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-18 | by ( Mindy Weisberger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —A mummified ice age cub from Siberia is the first known mummy of a sabre-toothed cat, and its discovery is generating ripples of excitement among paleontologists. A, B and C reveal views of the mummified Homotherium latidens specimen: A is a thumb claw; B a second digit claw; and С a plantar view. However, the mummy also showed that sabre-toothed cubs differed dramatically from modern lion cubs of a similar age, Lopatin said. Its coat was darker, and its ears were smaller than those of lion cubs; it had longer forelimbs, a larger mouth opening and a more massive neck. Its paw is also more circular than that of a lion cub; in fact, its shape more closely resembles the paw of a bear, Tseng added.

Persons: Alexey V, “, ” Lopatin, Lopatin, leo, Jack Tseng, ”, Tseng, it’s, ” Tseng, ” Mindy Weisberger, С . Organizations: CNN, Russian Academy of Sciences, University of California, Scientific Locations: Siberia, Moscow, Asia, Netherlands, Canadian Yukon, Yakutia, Russia, Yakutia’s, Berkeley

☆ Americans are investing in ‘hurricane-resistant’ homes
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-12 | by ( Oscar Holland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Although primarily interested in the homes' hurricane-resistant properties, Tener said he was also drawn to their panoramic views. A Deltec house on the hurricane-prone Tampa Bay in St Petersburg, Florida. But Linton believes only one of the approximately 3,000 Deltec homes built after the mid-1990s has ever suffered structural damage — during Hurricane Irma in 2017. Deltec says it also sells homes in areas not known for hurricanes, like this one on Lake Superior in Michigan. Courtesy Deltec“That 99.9% survival rate… looks at what we think of as the modern era, when we began focusing on designing these homes for hurricanes.

Persons: Gene Tener, Tener, Debby, Helene, “, ” Tener, Tammy, Gene Tener's, Jeff Hall, Michael, Steve Linton, ” Linton, Jeff Hall “, ”, Linton, ” Deltec’s, Deltec, —, Harvey, Hurricane Dorian, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Hugo, Andrew Organizations: CNN, Washington Post Locations: , Florida, Crystal River , Florida, Crystal, Asheville , North Carolina, Tampa, St Petersburg , Florida, East Coasts, Florida , Louisiana , Texas, Mississippi, Rockport , Texas, prefabs, Bahamas, Florida, Hurricane, Superior, Michigan

☆ OpenAI is reportedly struggling to improve its next big AI model. It's a warning for the entire AI industry.
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-11 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

It reignites a debate about the feasibility of developing increasingly advanced models and AI scaling laws — the theoretical rules about how the models improve. It remains to be seen how smart an AI model can get when it has that much capital thrown at it. There could also be strategies to make AI models smarter by enhancing the inference portion of development. The model OpenAI released in September — called OpenAI o1 — focused more on inference improvements. Still, it's clear that, like Altman, much of the industry remains firm in its conviction that scaling laws are the driver of AI performance.

Persons: OpenAI's, It's, —, Sam Altman, Fabrice Beaulieu, Altman, OpenAI, Andrew Caballero, Reynolds, Ion Stoica, Gary Marcus, Anthropic, Marcus, Claude, Ilya Sutskever, Dario Amodei, Kevin Scott, we're, Scott, they've Organizations: Service, OpenAI's, Orion, Business, Getty, Companies, New York University, Reuters, Sequoia, o1 Locations: GPT, Silicon Valley, AFP

The Summary A patch of snow in Scotland known for lingering year-round has melted for the fourth consecutive year. Such snow patches can act as harbingers of the broader consequences of climate change. A patch of snow in the Scottish Highlands dubbed the Sphinx typically lingers year-round, staying frozen through the summer. “It’s always been about trying to get that the right balance, to make sure that nature and people can thrive in the national park,” Moir said. We are now looking at an epoch where patches of snow are possibly going to be only occasional survivors.”

Persons: It's, ”, Grant Moir, Moir, ” Moir, “ We’ve, we’ve, “ It’s, Iain Cameron, Scottish Snow Hunter, Cameron, “ Organizations: Scottish Highlands, Park Authority, ” Records, Climate, Scottish, Royal Meteorological Locations: Scotland, Scottish, Braeriach, Great Britain, Scotland’s

☆ Google is taking the nuclear option to power soaring demand for AI. Here's why it's such a big deal.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-15 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The search giant has struck a deal to bring new nuclear plants online to power its AI data centers. Google became the first tech giant to broker a deal for entirely new nuclear power plants after it unveiled a partnership with industry firm Kairos Power on Monday. AdvertisementGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai had previously hinted that his company was evaluating investment opportunities in nuclear power. That 86-page report didn't mention nuclear power, bar a single endnote. AdvertisementBy one estimate, a search request on OpenAI's buzzy chatbot demands around 10 times as much electricity as a general Google search.

Persons: —, Power, Sundar Pichai, Justin Sullivan, Getty, Michael Terrell, Ethan Mollick, FQtUsE0L9d, lChspwoZjC, OpenAI, Yann LeCun, Sam Altman, Altman Organizations: Google, Service, Big Tech, Wharton, Microsoft, Constellation, Amazon, Talen Energy, Susquehanna, Electric, Helion Energy Locations: East Tennessee, Baltimore, Pennsylvania, Davos, Big

☆ 3 market experts share the 8 companies that will profit the most from AI's insatiable energy appetite
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-26 | by ( Christine Ji | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Moody's estimates that between 2023 and 2028, the electricity usage in data centers will grow 43% yearly. That's not including the energy-intensive process of constructing even more data centers, which Big Tech is scrambling to do. Business Insider spoke with three market experts to get their thoughts on what companies are best positioned to succeed as AI's appetite for energy strains existing infrastructure. Baker is betting on the utilities and cooling solutions providers that service the energy needs of data centers. New infrastructure needs to be built out, and the existing infrastructure needs to be bolstered, according to Wilhelmus.

Persons: —, Mark Zuckerberg, Jennifer Foster, Foster, Graeme Baker, Baker, Schneider, Jakob Wilhelmus, Wilhelmus, Eaton Organizations: Service, Business, Big Tech, Chilton Investment Company, Broadcom, Marvell Technology, IBM, Schneider, Trane Technologies Locations: Virginia, Freeport, McMoRan

☆ Did you know violent crime is down? Not if you’re watching right-wing media
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-24 | by ( Jon Passantino | Liam Reilly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The FBI on Monday reported that violent crime dropped across the US last year, registering the steepest annual decline in murders in decades. But the report was almost entirely ignored by right-wing media outlets, which have pushed a false narrative that crime is surging under President Joe Biden. Overall crime fell by 3% and property crime fell by 2.4%. The routine release of FBI data comes just weeks before a high-stakes presidential election in which perceptions of crime and safety have become a key political flashpoint. The decision by right-wing media outlets to bury the report underscores the disconnect between public perception on the issue of crime and the reality of falling crime rates.

Persons: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, ”, Bret Baier, Baier, Elon Musk, wasn’t, Fox’s, Breitbart, Newsmax, Gallup, “, Jeff Asher Organizations: CNN, FBI, Associated Press, NBC, The New York Times, Trump, Fox News, Fox, America, Daily, Washington Examiner, Epoch Times, Reuters, Social Locations: ”

☆ Mate XT: China’s Huawei set to launch new tri-fold smartphone, its answer to Apple’s iPhone 16
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-09 | by ( Juliana Liu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Successful sales of the Mate XT tri-fold smartphone, which began pre-orders on Saturday, would be another indication of the company’s sustained resurgence. It also comes after Chinese smartphone makers dominated the top five spots domestically on a quarterly basis for the first time ever, she said, pushing Apple to sixth place. “The close timing of Huawei and Apple’s product launches signals the start of a new competitive wave in the Chinese premium market,” Liu told CNN. Apple said that generative AI, like ChatGPT, on its iPhone 16 would allow users to create text and images with natural-language prompts. Last year, it launched an electric sedan to take on Tesla’s Model S. And it has big ambitions in AI.

Persons: Hong Kong CNN —, Richard Yu, ”, Amber Liu, ” Liu, Apple, Liu, Yu, It’s Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Huawei, Apple, CNN, Counterpoint Research, Google, Nvidia Locations: China, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Washington, Beijing, Weibo

☆ The AI world's most valuable resource is running out, and it's scrambling to find an alternative: 'fake' data
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that AI models should eventually produce synthetic data good enough to train themselves effectively. As the well of usable human-generated data dries up, more companies look into using synthetic data. Rather than being pulled from the real world, synthetic data is generated by AI systems that have been trained on real-world data. Synthetic data may help offer some effective "countertuning" to the biases produced by real-world data, too. 'Habsburg AI'While the AI industry found some advantages in synthetic data, it faces serious issues it can't afford to ignore, such as fears synthetic data can wreck AI models.

Persons: —, that's, Sam Altman, Gary Marcus, It's, Nathan Lambert, Gretel, SynthLabs, Meta, Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, LLMs, Sadowski, Alexandr Wang, AlphaGeometry, Marcus Organizations: Service, Google, Business, Oxford, Gartner, New York University, Allen Institute, AI, Nvidia, Meta's, Anadolu, Getty, Rush, Microsoft, Monash University Locations: Cambridge, Habsburg

☆ Roland Dumas Dies at 101; French Foreign Minister Tainted by Scandal
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-26 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Roland Dumas, a former French foreign minister, agile political fixer and star defense lawyer whose taste for living large proved his undoing, died on July 3 in Paris. The office of President Emmanuel Macron of France announced his death in a statement, which did not specify a cause. A longtime confidant of François Mitterrand, the Socialist former president, Mr. Dumas was one of the highest-profile officials in France for two decades. Mr. Dumas avoided jail, but his conviction, which was eventually overturned, ended his career. He had already been forced to resign from the presidency of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest appeals body.

Persons: Roland Dumas, Emmanuel Macron, François Mitterrand, Dumas, Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Saint Louis, Christine Deviers Organizations: Socialist, Constitutional Council, Republic Locations: Paris, France, Saint

☆ Ancient Shipwreck Preserves a Deep Bronze Age Time Capsule
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-20 | by ( Franz Lidz | Kobi Wolf | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Remains of the oldest shipwreck ever discovered in deep water, and perhaps the oldest complete wreck in any water, have been located in the Mediterranean Sea about 56 miles off the coast of northern Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which announced the find on Thursday, said that preliminary examination of two clay jars known as Canaanite amphorae indicated that the merchant vessel, an estimated 39 to 46 feet long, sank sometime between 1400 B.C. and 1300 B.C., an epoch when the Egyptian empire stretched from what is now northern Syria to Sudan, and the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun briefly sat on the throne. Whether the galley was the victim of a sudden storm, a wayward wind or attempted piracy is unclear. No spectacular new finds have surfaced since then.

Persons: Tutankhamun, “ Organizations: Israel Antiquities Authority, M University Locations: Israel, Syria, Sudan, Texas

☆ Opinion | The Governor’s Race You Cannot Ignore
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-18 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That’s how Mark Robinson’s aides characterize any attention to his diatribes against Jewish people, gay people, women. They want voters in North Carolina, where he is the Republican nominee for governor, to see him as just another conservative whose straight talk and religiousness come under predictable fire from the ambassadors of wokeness. And Robinson’s fate will be an especially revealing referendum on just how much, in the America of 2024, tribalism trumps common sense and common decency and voters tune out the truth. The governor’s race pits Robinson, who’d be North Carolina’s first Black governor, against Josh Stein, the Democrat, who’d be its first Jewish one. And they’re the very foundation of his improbable political career: He was elected lieutenant governor of North Carolina in 2020 almost solely on the basis of a single speech in opposition to sensible restrictions on firearms.

Persons: Mark Robinson’s, MAGA, Robinson, who’d, Josh Stein, it’s, Stein, ”, Paul Pelosi, Michelle Obama Organizations: Republican, wokeness, Democrat Locations: North Carolina, America

☆ In a Divided Nation, an Infrastructure Develops to Build Bridges
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-16 | by ( Jonathan Weisman | Jon Cherry For The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But over a structured brainstorming session in 2022, amid a weekend retreat with the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, something clicked. Mr. Clay, 47, had a side project chronicling Kentucky’s Black Civil War veterans. Ms. Bishop, 34, during quiet hours alone studying the ecology of the Clay Hill Memorial Forest in Taylor County, Ky., had pondered the old stones that almost certainly marked the burial grounds of the once-enslaved, a forgotten memorial to a hidden past. An effort was born — the Enslaved People of Clay Hill, or EPOCH, Legacy Project — to officially recognize the burial ground. And a connection was made across the gulfs of race, age and geography.

Persons: Bernard Clay, Shaelyn Bishop, Clay, Bishop, — Organizations: Kentucky, Urban, Civil Locations: Louisville, Ky, Green County, Clay Hill, Taylor County

☆ How a pro-Trump media outlet allegedly funneled tens of millions in an illicit money laundering scheme
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-05 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The sophisticated scheme boosted revenue flowing into the coffers of The Epoch Times, the Justice Department said. In one year, revenue at the Trump-boosting outlet ballooned 410%, jumping from $15 million to about $62 million, the Justice Department added. But, when CNN asked for further comment on Tuesday, The Epoch Times brass chose to stay mum. The indictment said there was an entire group at The Epoch Times that took part in the alleged money laundering scheme. Notably, Tang and Fakkert declined to answer questions about whether they were aware of the alleged scheme.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Weidong Guan, Guan, MAGA, Gong, Mark Zuckerberg, Trump, ”, “, Department’s, Guan —, John Tang, Jasper Fakkert, Tang, Fakkert, It’s Organizations: New York CNN, Department of Justice, Times, Epoch Times, Justice Department, Trump, Department, Fox News, New York Times, Facebook, NBC News, Epoch, CNN, Outfront, PayPal, Justice Locations: New York, ”, China

☆ Conspiracy theory-fueled newspaper Epoch Times grew revenue 4x thanks to CFO's crypto crime proceeds, feds say
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-03 | by ( Jack Newsham | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Epoch Times wasn't named in court records, and the Justice Department said the case had nothing to do with its editorial slant. They used the prepaid cards and financial accounts that were opened with stolen personal information to plow millions of dollars into the Epoch Times' bank accounts, prosecutors say. The Epoch Times said in a statement that it had suspended Guan, though it said that he was innocent until proven guilty. Advertisement"The Epoch Times has a guiding principle that elevates integrity in its dealings above everything else," the statement said. ET: This story has been updated to include a comment from Epoch Times received after publication.

Persons: —, Donald Trump, Bill, Guan, Damian Williams, it's, Biden Organizations: Service, Times, The Justice Department, Epoch Times, Business, Justice Department, Southern, of, NBC, Gong Locations: New York, Manhattan

☆ Trading Art for Politics, Former Uffizi Chief Runs for Mayor of Florence
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Elisabetta Povoledo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was only midmorning, and Eike Schmidt was already way off schedule. As he strolled to an appointment at a market in Florence, Italy, well-wishers repeatedly stopped him to shake his hand, take a selfie or share a gripe, further upsetting his timetable. “That’s quite different from all the professional politicians that we’ve had in the past decades in Florence,” Schmidt added. His campaign slogan — “Firenze Magnifica,” or “Magnificent Florence” — suggests a Florence returned to its Renaissance glory, when the city was a renowned artistic and intellectual hub. As mayor, Schmidt said, he would aim to bring back “the splendor” of the epoch when the Medici family and its successors ruled the city.

Persons: Eike Schmidt, strolled, ”, Schmidt, “, we’ve, ” Schmidt, —, Florence ” —, Florence, Medici Organizations: Firenze Locations: Florence, Italy, Germany, Italian

☆ How Berlin's techno scene came to define the post-wall city and earn UNESCO cultural heritage status — with a little help from Detroit
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Nathan Rennolds | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Berlin's techno scene was recently added to the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list in Germany. The impact on Berlin's identity has been so significant that it has now received official recognition, with the city's techno scene recently added to UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list in Germany. Dimitri HegemannWhen Dimitri Hegemann first entered the space that was to become the original site of Tresor, now one of Berlin's most iconic techno clubs, he was silent. A DJ performing during the Rave The Planet techno parade in Berlin, 2023. Lutz Leichsenring, a board member at the Clubcommission, told BI that the recognition was a "milestone for Berlin techno producers, artists, club operators and event organizers."

Persons: —, Dimitri Hegemann, Hegemann, Jeff Mills, Juan Atkins, Christian Ender, Nathan Rennolds Polish, Jennifer Kucza, Sean Gallup, Berliners, Lutz Leichsenring Organizations: UNESCO, Service, Business, BBC, Reuters, Berlin Locations: Germany, Berlin, Tresor, Detroit, New, —

☆ Foxes were once humans’ best friends, study says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Mindy Weisberger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Archaeologists originally uncovered the near-complete D. avus skeleton buried alongside a human at Cañada Seca, a site in northern Patagonia, in 1991. Parts of the D. avus specimen were buried alongside a human at Cañada Seca, a site in northern Patagonia. D. avus lived from the Pleistocene Epoch (around 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) into the Holocene, becoming extinct about 500 years ago. With a similar diet to D. avus, dogs may have helped speed the foxes’ extinction by outcompeting them. Dogs could also have carried and transmitted diseases that sickened the foxes, Lebrasseur added.

Persons: wasn’t, Ophélie, avus, Francisco Prevosti “, Dusicyon avus, ”, Lebrasseur, Cinthia, ” Lebrasseur, Dr, Aurora, d’Anglade, ‘, Francisco Prevosti, it’s, ” Mindy Weisberger Organizations: CNN, Wellcome Trust, Archaeology Research, University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology, Royal Society Open Science, Argentina’s, Technical Research, Universidade, Oxford, Scientific Locations: what’s, Argentina, South America, Cañada Seca, Patagonia, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Spain, Patagonia . Hunter

☆ ‘Marriage Predicts Happiness Better than Education, Work and Money’ - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Nicholas Kristof | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

With little notice, the United States may be crossing a historic milestone in family structure, one that may shape our health, wealth and happiness. Historically, most American adults were married — more than two-thirds as recently as 1970. But the married share has crept downward, and today only about half of adults are married. And to be clear, it’s more of the former than the latter.”Wilcox believes that perhaps a third of today’s young Americans will never marry. Survey data indicates that married couples on average report more happiness, build more wealth, live longer and raise more successful children than single parents or cohabiting couples, though there are plenty of exceptions.

Persons: —, ” Brad Wilcox, “, ”, ” Wilcox, it’s Organizations: University of Virginia Locations: United States

☆ Let’s Call Our Present Moment on Earth What It Is: Obscene - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Dominique Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In my case, love of this world, love of nature, love of our life in and as part of it. New York City’s winter leaf cover has been blown away and stuffed into large, shiny, pristine black plastic bags. That’s just what I spotted in the first mile of a recent walk along Riverside Drive heading south from the 150s. It was an unseasonably warm winter, a concept that could be rendered meaningless within a decade, as memories of snowfall fade. Of course, by the time we have done so, we will be way past the point of drawing such lines in the rock.

Locations: New York, Riverside, Earth’s

☆ Titanosaur skeleton discovered in France is 70 million years old
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-07 | by ( Taylor Nicioli | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A chance discovery made in southern France has revealed a rare specimen — an almost complete dinosaur skeleton found connected from its hind skull to its tail. The Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association at the Cruzy Museum, in collaboration with the French National Center for Scientific Research, identified the nearly 10-meter-long (32.8-foot-long) fossil as a Titanosaur skeleton upon excavation. The recently revealed 70% complete Titanosaur skeleton was retrieved during the excavation along with several fossils of various dinosaurs and other vertebrates, including some in anatomical connection and near complete. The Titanosaur skeleton currently resides in the Cruzy Museum’s laboratory, where it will be further studied, Veyssières said. Remains of Titanosaur fossils are widely unearthed in Europe, but few are discovered in anatomical connection, Boschetto said.

Persons: CNN —, Damien Boschetto, Boschetto, ” Boschetto, Jean, Marc Veyssières, ”, Veyssières, Damien Boschetto Titanosaur, Matthew Carrano, ” Carrano Organizations: CNN, Cruzy, French National Center for Scientific Research, Cruzy Museum, Smithsonian Institution National, of Locations: France, Montouliers, Cruzy, Europe

☆ Are we in the Anthropocene Epoch? Not so fast, geologists say
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Scientists have voted against a proposal to declare a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene to reflect how profoundly human activity has altered the planet. The vote followed a 15-year process to select a geological site that best captures humanity’s impact on the planet. Some experts argued that the start of the Anthropocene could be better defined in other ways, such as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. “This is the commission’s expert group for this interval of geological time and we are bound by its decision. Regardless of whether the term is officially classified as a geological epoch, Anthropocene is already widely in use, Cohen noted.

Persons: Kim Cohen, ”, Cohen, Phil Gibbard, eon, Colin Waters, Waters, …, David Harper, ” Harper, hadn’t, “ Organizations: CNN —, International Union of Geological Sciences, CNN Tuesday, geosciences, Utrecht University, Scott Polar Research, University of Cambridge, Geologists, University of Leicester, Durham University, International, of Locations: Ontario, Netherlands, United Kingdom

☆ Are We in the ‘Anthropocene,’ the Human Age? Nope, Scientists Say.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Raymond Zhong | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Triassic was the dawn of the dinosaurs. Is it time to mark humankind’s transformation of the planet with its own chapter in Earth history, the “Anthropocene,” or the human age? Not yet, scientists have decided, after a debate that has spanned nearly 15 years. Or the blink of an eye, depending on how you look at it. A committee of roughly two dozen scholars has, by a large majority, voted down a proposal to declare the start of the Anthropocene, a newly created epoch of geologic time, according to an internal announcement of the voting results seen by The New York Times.

Organizations: The New York Times

☆ Mummified animals Napoleon's scientists brought back from Egypt sparked a pre-Darwinian debate about evolution
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-19 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte brought a slew of savants — geologists, engineers, and other scientists — on his unsuccessful attempt to take over Egypt. A collection of mummified animals that the scholars brought back from Egypt seemed to hold the key to the question of species transformation. Naturalists Cuvier and Lamarck had first sparred three decades earlier when a mummified ibis arrived at the museum. The skeleton of a mummified ibis (middle) that Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire brought back from Egypt, along with a cat and a hawk. "I have shown that it is at the present time precisely as it was in the time of the Pharaohs ," he later wrote of the mummified ibis.

Persons: Darwin, —, Napoleon Bonaparte, Naturalists Georges Cuvier, Jean, Baptiste Lamarck, Cuvier, Lamarck, transformism, Naturalists Cuvier, Lamarck’s, Charles Darwin, Marie Jules Cesar Savigny, ” Cuvier, Geoffroy, savants, Etienne Geoffroy Saint, Hilaire, lungfish, Geoffroy Saint, Jenny McGrath, “, Charles Darwin’s “ Organizations: Service, Naturalists, French Museum of, French Academy of Sciences, Getty Locations: transformism, Egypt

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