Santa Claus and Father Christmas were once separate figures. Father Christmas was an anti-Puritan character who emerged during the English Civil War and Interregnum, when celebrating Christmas was banned. Appearing in pamphlets, he contrasted the fun and games of the traditional Christmas with the Puritans' dour fundamentalism. Santa Claus developed in New York in the 1800s, with input from the folklore of St Nicholas, brought over by European immigrants. His global popularity got a boost when Coca-Cola used him in an advertising campaign. Coke even patented the shade of red of Santa's clothes. My article: https://www.davidcastleton.net/old-father-christmas-coca-cola-history-santa-claus/ #Christmas #folklore #history #SantaClaus #Yule #weird #Christmas2024
Professor, Emory University Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. #MRSA, #genomics, #bioinformatics
"To all my writer friends that use MS Word - Microsoft has turned their Al bits and bots on to automatically go through anything done via Word. Here's how to turn it off. File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Connected Experiences"
On the Mac I found it under Word/Excel/Etc > Preferences > Privacy, and near the bottom was the checkbox for "Turn on optional connected experiences" which of course was on by default.
Now, scientists have shown how a bacterial toxin generated by Esherichia coli bacteria can damage DNA in intestinal cells, and promote colon cancer. The findings have been reported in Nature.
#ColonCancer #cancer #research #gut #microbiome #health #science
https://www.labroots.com/trending/microbiology/28046/bacteria-promote-colon-cancer
The strength of interspecies interaction in a microbial community determines its susceptibility to invasion https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002889
getting advice from Nature about affording author-processing-fees is like asking the Marlboro company for health advice...
Francis Scott Key Estate Sends Cease-And-Desist To Trump For Playing ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ At Rally [SATIRE] https://theonion.com/francis-scott-key-estate-sends-cease-and-desist-to-trump-for-playing-star-spangled-banner-at-rally/
12/08/2024: Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge
One of London's strangest statues - thought to depict Alfred the Great - can be seen in Trinity Church Square, Southwark. The top part - depicting a crowned, bearded man - could have been made in the late 18th century for the garden of Carlton House, Westminster. The bottom half, however, is likely from a Roman statue of the goddess Minerva & is dated to 80-130 AD. It is thought to have stood in a sanctuary on the site of nearby Tabard Square. The bottom part is of Bath stone, probably brought down the Thames from the Cotswolds. The upper part is of Coade stone, an artificial stone invented in the 1770s. The bottom part may have been used to give the statue a more 'medieval' appearance. #art #sculpture #history #psychogeography #folkore #mythology #weird #London
"There is an obvious alternative: universities, libraries, and academic funding agencies can cut out the intermediary and directly fund journals themselves, at a far lower cost. This would remove commercial pressures from the editorial process, preserve editorial integrity and make research accessible to all."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/16/academic-journal-publishers-universities-price-subscriptions
#Diamond #OpenAccess
Do Darth Vader fans believe the Rebel Alliance hype? Not a chance. Scoop from the NY Times.
Do people who live in Europe ever have to grapple with this insanity? I’ll move tomorrow if the answer is “no”.
In 2017, Trump was considering cuts to indirect costs to universities. If you don't know how research works, "indirects" support the basic infrastructure that makes science possible. What happens? Deep faculty cuts. Less research. Bad for science. Get organized. #science #medicine #publichealth
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/message-trump-administration-proposal-indirect-costs
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Brad Raffensperger’s #Voter Registrations Targeted in Georgia’s New Online Portal
==
Days after #Georgia #Democrats warned that the state’s new online portal for canceling voter registrations could be abused, officials have confirmed misuse attempts — including efforts to cancel the registrations of prominent #Republicans.
#News #Voting #election2024 #Election #Politics #Government
https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-voter-registration-cancellation-portal-mtg-raffensperger
'Many politicians, pundits, and the general public now favor the lab leak idea. Most scientists, particularly virologists, do not. This schism threatens their legitimate and ultimately socially important work, as outlined in a peer-reviewed publication published on August 1 in the Journal of Virology that was written by 41 virologists. I am one of them.'
https://www.statnews.com/2024/08/02/coronavirus-lab-leak-hypothesis-damages-science/
AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y #artificialintelligence
Yesterday broke donation records for the Democratic Party. The vibe shift is real.
went to the puffin colony in Borgarfjörður Eystri last week. Used his experimental camera apps (and TinType) to take some photos of bird trails.
I have to say the relentless MEDIA drumbeat calling for Biden to step aside, plus their relentless quibbling about his gaffes, together with their absolute SILENCE over Trump's gaffes, crimes, and general insanity is very, very tiring and depressing.
Some of the very best political journalism comes from Talking Points Memo. I urge you to become a backer of this essential news organization.
University IT advice to Windows users today is basically “turn it off and turn it on again”