Rectus Abdominus

Absolutely not. NYC without AC on a humid 90-100 degree day and one would wish for death instead of that sticky hell.

RIVM: bijna iedereen in Nederland heeft te veel PFAS in bloed De effecten zijn afhankelijk van de hoeveelheid PFAS, de duur van de blootstelling en iemands persoonlijke gezondheidssituatie, zegt het instituut.

Turns out that everyone in the Netherlands has more PFAS 'forever chemicals' in their blood than the health limit - test on 2016-2017 blood samples. nos.nl/l/2573446

Ask me anything!

I'll be doing an AMA with EA forum today.

You can ask me about anything, whether it's about topics I write about (life expectancy, fertility, mortality, global health, data, etc.), recommendations, writing or podcasting, or anything else.

Feel free to reply with questions below.

Besties

It's not a good idea to shut down some of the best nuclear plants in the world when coal is still running. Turkey Point in the USA is licensed for 80 years, with maintenance and updates the German plants could have run for a decade more

OP mentioned Germany will build 20 gigawatts of new gas plants

The Fraunhofer PDF you linked above says

"German nuclear power plants generated 29.5 TWh of electricity and supplied 6.3 percent of net public electricity generation" not 3-4%.

That same paper does not explicitly support any of your assertions above, unfortunately.

The US warns of a Chinese global disinformation campaign that could undermine peace and stability The State Department in a first-of-its-kind report has laid out Beijing’s growing efforts to reshape the global narrative on China, while spending billions of dollars to do so.

State actors have been insidiously spending billions of $ to spread division with fake profiles and false stories.

Unchecked US corporate greed has allowed this to continue.

"On Ukraine, Beijing has cooperated with Moscow to amplify the Kremlin’s false claims, it said."

apnews.com/article/disi...

Interesting take, Bob.

What data do you have to support this, please?

"effectively „unclogged“ renewables flowing in (merit order principle, baseload priority) thereby *reducing* fossil (esp coal) proportion to unseen levels since decades."

News 19 May 2025, 17:13 Benjamin Wehrmann | Germany New German govt should use existing draft law for new gas power plants – energy industry Electricity Gas Policy Clean Energy Wire [UPDATE adds quotes by minister Reiche, Commissioner Ribera] The new German government should largely adopt the previous government's plans for building new gas power plants to ensure a rapid back-up for the growing share of renewables, the country's energy industry has said. According to the Federation of German Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), the country’s new economy and energy minister, Katherina Reiche from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), should use the 2022 draft for the Power Plant Security Act, which was prepared by her predecessor, the Green's Robert Habeck, as a blueprint to ensure no more time is lost in launching the necessary auctions. “We strongly support the minister in very quickly paving the way for the construction of new steerable capacity,” said BDEW head Kerstin Andreae. Given that more steerable generation capacity will drop out of the market on the path towards the country’s planned coal exit by 2038 at the latest, companies need a clear framework to initiate investments in the required gas plants. Using the previous government’s draft, which has already been agreed by the European Commission’s state aid watchdog, and adapting it where necessary could greatly accelerate the groundwork that companies can build on, Andreae argued. "Mainly gas-fired power plants" – minister After a meeting with EU Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition Teresa Ribera on Monday (19 May), minister Reiche said she aimed to find consensus with the European Commission “over the coming weeks or months” and added that the steerable generation capacity of 20 gigawatt is “expected to be mainly gas-fired power plants.” The Commission is waiting for the new government to decide on how to proceed. Commissioner Ribera said that German…

Germany has ended up in a situation where they're building new fossil fuel power stations (yes, gas is a fossil fuel, folks)

Slapping "hydrogen" and "CCS" onto the PDFs procuring 20 freaking gigawatts of new fossil fuel plants doesn't make it any less bad

www.cleanenergywire.org/news/new-ger...

I went to school in a place where we had tornado drills, the ditch is the safest place, I remember it well.

Perhaps people are conflating being safer from lightning while being in a car vs being out in the open with being safe from a tornado.

I thought it was :: and had been referencing " we eat 1 credit card/5 grams of plastic per year", not per week. If you take the lower bound of the average quoted by @hankgreen.bsky.social here (0.1g to 5g) per week that's roughly 5 grams per year.

Unintentional (or was it?) SciComm win on my part.

When this is operating, if the costs don't increase (the generally do for most big projects), the cost to stand it up will have been:

$3.47 million per megawatt

or

$3740 per kilowatt for firmed solar PV power

Not really, you have to pay to get good healthcare.

Show up to a hospital with doctors who got the job for their loyalty and not their skill, and you're gonna have a bad time.

If you're getting surgery you better pay your bribe money to the doctors (like it is in Serbia) if you don't, watch out!

I'm curious, to your mind: what tangible things fit your criteria of

"universal for all, That is 100% and have no negative impacts" ?

I would posit there is nothing that exists that can fit this criteria

Fire? The wheel? Antibiotics? Sterilization? I could make a list filling several posts.

If solar photovoltaic + battery storage is so cheap of an energy source, then why isn't it being used here?

Isn't making money the whole idea? And if solar PV or wind (slightly higher price but higher CF) is at least comparable in price it would be a win/win. Cheap power and a massive PR victory!

What is the data supporting your conjecture that: "on the whole humanity will be the lose as a result of AI" ?

Did you mean to use the "is not equal to" symbol?

If so, it is casually written as " != " for not equals

The official CIA manual of trickery and deception : Melton, H. Keith (Harold Keith), 1944- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-248)

It's dangerous to go alone, here, take this: archive.org/details/offi...

Full 179-page PDF: t.co/eYNTPqUG21

How could it be the darkest _before_ it goes pitch black?

I just cannot envision that.

Thank you for this 😁

apolloarchive.com/apollo_galle...

Color photo of the lunar surface. It is a gray-tan color. This square patch has a perfectly round little crater near the bottom of the photo, along with what appears to be rocky, mountainous terrain near the top. The inside of the crater is in shadow; the hills near the top cast long shadows on the terrain behind them.

The lunar module detaching from the Command and Service Module, to begin its orbit around the moon. It is reflective and angular, with a small dish jutting prominently off one side and bright reflections on its surface.

The Command and Service Module, as seen from the Lunar Module. It is cylindrical, with a conical top that is highly reflective and shows an image of the surface below.

The blue Earth hanging in space, with about a third of its disk covered in shadow. Land masses and clouds are visible, but the blue of ocean is most prominent.

Apollo 10 launched from Complex 39-B at Kennedy Space Center #OTD in 1969.

The Lunar Module separated from the Command and Service Module, and approached within 16 km of the surface before the crew returned to Earth. The next mission would deliver astronauts to the surface. 🧪 🔭

Images: NASA

Does Europe Unfairly Tax US Imports? A look at the varying rates of import duties imposed by the US and EU across a number of sectors.

I live in Europe now.

There are lots of Fords (Fiesta, etc), and quite a few RAM trucks, some Corvettes, Cadillac

Europe has imposed a 10% import duty on top of the price of a US car for decades now. The US in turn has had a 2.5% import duty on European cars.

www.industryweek.com/the-economy/...

Unfortunately, Teslas are still be best EVs for under $100,000 USD.

Yes, there are much better BEVs than Teslas; but you can buy a top range Tesla Plaid 100D or whatever, plus a Model 3, and Model Y and still have a few thousand leftover instead of buying a well specc'd Porsche Taycan for example.

[image of real-life beekeeper costume and a detail from a painting by Peter Brueghel the Elder]

one thing I respect about medieval beekeepers is their total commitment to looking like Doctor Who villains

Image of a bar graph (where bars extend from the top of the graph downwards. A a full bar signifies 100% conventional power generation and an empty bar signifies 100% renewable generation). The bar graph image is directly attached above of a line graph (where the line graph shows percent of renewable curtailments), the day of the "Major Blackout" is highlighted across the bar and line graphs show it is the point where the grid has started with more renewable curtailments, and more conventional generation that provides spinning inertia. Before the blackout, conventional generation (e.g. nuclear, hydro, CCGT) was allowed to fall as low as 7% at noon on April 23. Renewables were dominant, and curtailments were minimal (~3%). After the blackout, a clear pattern emerges: higher conventional generation (noon levels at 26–44%) and increased curtailment of renewables (averaging 12% vs. <5% before). This suggests a shift in strategy. The blackout exposed the limits of operating a grid with minimal inertia. The other piece of the puzzle? Protection systems. Many were likely configured for a high-inertia grid. Without adaptation, they triggered rapid disconnections, worsening the cascade.

Straw-man article: "the simple failure of wind or solar power to show up has never yet been found to be the primary cause."

"After the blackout, a clear pattern emerges: higher conventional generation (noon levels at 26–44%) and increased curtailment of renewables (averaging 12% vs. <5% before)"

Color photo of the Danube river before sunset, a wind turbine stands tall on the left of the frame as a paved path extends from the bottom left corner towards the center-left of the frame.

There are a couple of wind turbines along the bike paths here in Vienna along the Danube, this one is the largest. There's also a 172MW run-of-river hydroelectric plant a bit farther down in the opposite direction that this photo is taken.

A color photo of a book standing vertically, the spine is facing the camera. The book's spine is in English, with the author's last name at the top followed by the title of the book below. "Medvedev" "The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko"

"5. The Fall of Lysenkoism.

📉 By the 1960s, Lysenko’s influence faded, but the damage had already been done.

🚨 The Soviet Union lost decades of progress in biology and agriculture.

All because it prioritized ideology over evidence."