Of course, there's other stuff in the news too

[conuly]

and I have 130 tabs open and I haven't even checked my mail yet, so let's clear some out.

Soviet bus stop appreciation thread

The Black Woman’s Forgotten Fight against the Laws that Banned her Hair

This Age is the New Age

Kansas dog makes 50-mile trek to her old home in Missouri

1904: Lady Gray, The Mother Cat Who Adopted 5 Pedigree Orphan Puppies in Brooklyn

Three Surgeons Dissect the Board Game ‘Operation’

Workers protest racial inequality on day of national strike

Here are seven things you probably didn't know were connected to slavery

Pentagon bans Confederate flag in way to avoid Trump’s wrath

Letters of love: 'Our father wrote every day as he waited to be sent to Auschwitz'

During Coronavirus Lockdowns, Some Doctors Wondered: Where Are the Preemies?

Virus antibodies fade fast but not necessarily protection

Autopsies reveal surprising cardiac changes in COVID-19 patients

Trump’s new immigration fight: how to redraw House districts

China expands amphibious forces in challenge to U.S. beyond Asia

The Terrible Consequences of Australia’s Uber-Bushfires

‘Knowing it could kill you isn’t a deterrent’: the deadly trade in diet pills

Deepfake used to attack activist couple shows new disinformation frontier

Comments

[alexseanchai]

the preemie article sounds like potentially really good news

(unless what is actually happening is miscarriages and/or the deaths of pregnant people, but I think if those numbers were rising, the article would say)

[elf]

Yeah, I went in thinking "uh oh, is this going to be about a horrific rise in miscarriages?" But no, it looks like "families go into lockdown and hey guess what, women who aren't working until 2 weeks before their estimated birth date, are more likely to reach that date."

Tentative numbers look like about a 75% reduction in very low birth weight births - down from 8 in a thousand to 2 in a thousand. And an even bigger reduction in the ultra-low weights.

I noticed they're very carefully not crediting the lockdown for this; they're just noticing that, since March, the number of premature and underweight births has dropped dramatically.

Next set of numbers to run is how many pregnant women were working full-time jobs and managing taking kids to & from work. I would not be shocked at all to find that "just SIT DOWN a lot" reduces premature births, and that before COVID, many pregnant women were expected to keep their activity levels up until literally days before giving birth.

[alexseanchai]

to be fair, saying "the lockdown and the decrease in extra-underweight births are happening at about the same time" does not assume a causal relationship between the two things. which is better science than saying "the lockdown caused the decrease in extra-underweight births" when the question hasn't even been properly studied yet, never mind replicably studied, and there might not be a causal relationship at all.

I mean that is one hella plausible mechanism you propose. but scientists assuming things to be true that aren't is part of why STEM has so much baked-in bigotry, as well as being bad science, so if at this point they were saying the lockdown caused etc, I'd worry.

[elf]

Yep yep yep; I would not want scientists announcing "lockdown = healthier births" without tons more data and better analyses than they've had the ability to do so far.

Especially since a whole lot of people would take that as, "see, we're all better off when women aren't allowed to have jobs."

But it is very nice to hear that, for whatever reasons, the hospitals are not being bombarded with increased numbers of extra-tiny extra-vulnerable babies when they're stretched so thin.

[alexseanchai]

ugh yeah, misogynists ruin everything

and the babies that got to cook longer are both healthier now and at much lower lifelong risk of a bunch of crap, too!

[bibliofile]

> Especially since a whole lot of people would take that as, "see, we're all better off when women aren't allowed to have jobs."

ALSO BAD SCIENCE. Maybe we just need to have better prenatal care and attitudes for pregnant women? Like, let's ask the pregnant women what they'd like to do besides go full steam ahead until the baby drops?

Or, y'know, study the options. WITH SCIENCE.

[kengr]

Pentagon bans Confederate flag in way to avoid Trump’s wrath

For *some* reason this policy will also forbid Pride flags.

Unintended consequence or deliberate intent?

[conuly]

I did not catch that.

[alexseanchai]

I'm betting it's deliberate.

does it also ban the NASCAR checkered flag, I wonder?

[affreca]

Not only did the dog make it 50 miles across state lines, that was 50 miles across the majority of Kansas City metro area, not 50 country miles. So many more chances to get smooshed.

[conuly]

Only to find that home was inexplicably occupied by strangers.

[affreca]

A good reason to ensure dogs are microchipped.

[conuly]

And, reminded to everybody, microchips don't work as GPS trackers or anything like that. You have to register your pet in a database (there are several free ones and more that aren't) and keep the information updated if you move.

[greghousesgf]

I always sucked at Operation because my hands shake.

[conuly]

Don't become a surgeon.

[greghousesgf]

I'd make a rotten doctor, I can't stand looking at blood and guts and stuff. I can handle it in movies and TV only because I know there it's not real.