That magical time again when we at IST find and post the best stories of the past week.

Time for the “Dump”!

The debate is still top news….people are still dying…..and leaders are still thumping their chest like demented primates.

Local news….as I put together this post,Summer in the Deep South as of this writing, 5am, the temp is 91 down from the high of 111….oh the joys of Summer in the South.

Let’s get to the grits and gravy….

The climate is on most people’s mind these days….Denmark has decided to do something about it….

In a world first, Denmark will tax livestock farmers for the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep, and pigs beginning in 2030. The country is targeting the major source of methane emissions as part of an effort to reduce Danish greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels by 2030, said Taxation Minister Jeppe Bruus. Details from the AP:

• The tax: As of 2030 (and factoring in an income tax deduction), Danish livestock farmers will be taxed about $17 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. The tax will increase to $43 by 2035. CNN reports that, based on the roughly 6 tons released per cow each year, at the lower tax rate that works out to about $100 a year per cow.

• Methane’s role: Although carbon dioxide typically gets more attention for its role in climate change, methane traps about 87 times more heat on a 20-year timescale, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

• Its source: Livestock account for about 32% of human-caused methane emissions, says the UN Environment Program. Of what livestock contribute, some 90% comes from the way they digest, through fermentation, with the resulting methane released as burps through their mouths. Cows—Denmark has about 1.5 million of them—make up most of this belched methane. Most of the remaining 10% of livestock methane comes off manure ponds on both pig and cattle operations.
• A failed attempt elsewhere: New Zealand had passed a similar law due to take effect in 2025. However, the legislation was removed from the statute book on Wednesday after hefty criticism from farmers and a change of government at the 2023 election from a center-left ruling bloc to a center-right one. New Zealand said it would exclude agriculture from its emissions trading scheme in favor of exploring other ways to reduce methane.

I think this is a cop-out…..if they want to do something then maybe focus on the major causes….humans.

How many of you like your seafood?

Do you know where yours come from?

In the world of marine life, some big news. The United Nations, via its Food and Agriculture Organization, is out with its 2024 report on the state of the world’s fisheries and aquaculture—the practice of breeding, raising, and harvesting aquatic organisms on farms—and for the first time, the global volume of fish, clams, shrimp, and other aquatic creatures culled via the farms has surpassed those harvested from the wild, reports the AP.

• Stats: In 2022, there were 91 million tons of aquatic animals caught in the wild (down from 91.6 million the previous year), but 94.4 million tons created via aquaculture, or 51% of the total aquatic animal production, per a release. The total haul worldwide was 185 million tons.
• Fish in farms vs. the wild: The AP details the types of fish you’d more commonly find in a fishery (Alaska pollock, skipjack tuna, and Peruvian anchovies), versus those on a fish farm (carp, tilapia, shrimp and prawns, and clams). The vast majority (90%) of all of this marine life is consumed by humans, while the rest is used in fish oils or to feed other fish.
• Aquaculture’s dominance: Experts tell the AP that the limitations of Mother Nature have led to a stagnation in fishery hauls over the past 30 years or so. Ten countries now dominate aquaculture, mostly in Asia, producing nearly 90% of the aquaculture total, per the release: China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Philippines, South Korea, Norway, Egypt, and Chile.
• Environmental impact: The Grist takes a closer look at how both harvesting fish from the wild and aquaculture affect the environment. Both have their cons: Aquaculture, for instance, can lead to nitrogen and phosphorus being released, damaging aquatic habitats. Farm-bred fish can also spread disease among their wild counterparts and breed with them, leading to what the Grist calls “genetic pollution.” However, catching fish in the wild can leave the collateral damage of inadvertently killing off other species, thanks to certain “destructive” fishing practices, while some fisheries may harvest fish more quickly than they’re breeding.

I do not eat it so it matters little to me where it may originate…..but you might to check it out before your fall for any marketing scams.

Now for refrigerators…..an appliance that we all take for granted.

When we lived in Spain we had an ice box the original refrig….but think about what the refrig has done for you lately…..

The cheeseburger emerged a century ago, not too long after the dawn of refrigeration, and it’s no mere coincidence, writes Nicola Twilley in the New Yorker. If you tried to make one from scratch—harvest grain for the buns, slaughter a cow for the meat, grow some lettuce and tomatoes, age cheese, you’ll find that the timing is all but impossible without refrigeration. It’s just one example of the countless ways the invention has fundamentally changed the way we eat, though it’s not the primary focus of Twilley’s piece. Instead, she examines how refrigeration changed the very flavor of our food itself. Sometimes, in direct fashion—Twilley explains how the components of certain foods evolve in the fridge overnight and why leftover chili or soups might taste better to some as a result.

But perhaps more surprisingly is this: Our food and drinks have grown sweeter as an indirect result of refrigeration. “At least three of our basic taste receptors—sweet, bitter, and umami, or savory—are extremely temperature sensitive,” she explains. “When food or drinks cool the tongue to below fifty-nine degrees, the channels through which these receptors message the brain seem to close up, and the resulting flavor signal is extremely weak.” A warm Coke or a bowl of ice cream doesn’t just taste weird because it’s warm: Because “they’re intended to be consumed cold, they need to contain too much sugar in order to boost the signal, and to register in our brains as sweet at all.” This helps explain why food manufacturers have been putting so much extra sugar into products—if we drink a cold beverage with our meal, the accompanying food needs that sugar to pop.

As long as we are talking health stuff…..are you a coffee drinker?  Good news for some.

Researchers have long warned that sitting for most of the day is bad for your health. But if you’re drinking coffee while you’re sitting, the picture is better, according to new research. In a study published in the journal BMC Public Health, Chinese researchers who analyzed data on more than 10,000 Americans said that the higher mortality rate associated with sitting for long periods was only found in non-coffee drinkers, Medical Daily reports.

• According to the study, people who sat for more than eight hours a day had a 46% higher risk of death from all causes, and a 79% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
• Lead researcher Huimin Zhou at the Medical College of Soochow University’s School of Public Health in China tells the Washington Post that sedentary coffee drinkers had a 24% reduced risk of mortality compared with those who sat for more than six hours and didn’t drink coffee.
• Researchers also found that among those who drank at least two cups of coffee a day, the risk of deaths from all causes was reduced by 33% and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was reduced by 54%.
• The study used data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey participants over a 13-year period.
• “The association of sedentary with increased mortality was only observed among adults with no coffee consumption but not among those who had coffee intake,” researchers wrote. “Given that coffee is a complex compound, further research is needed to explore this miracle compound.”
• The study doesn’t mean that “drinking a lot of coffee permits you to sit around all day,” says Mallika Marshall at CBS Boston. “There may be other factors at play, but it does offer more evidence that drinking coffee may provide some health benefits.”

Think about that if you sit at a computer all day…..

Do you take your morning vitamins?

Think those multivitamins you pop daily will stave off disease and extend your life span? Scientists now say not only does that not seem to be the case, but that taking multivitamins on the regular could actually up the risk of a premature demise. Per Medical Daily, 1 in 3 US adults take daily multivitamins to supplement their diet, hoping that doing so will send them into a ripe old age. In a new study published Thursday in JAMA Network, researchers from Maryland’s National Cancer Institute decided to test that theory, tracking nearly 400,000 more or less healthy US adults who took part in three major studies over 20 years, looking specifically at their multivitamin use and how it affected longevity, per the Guardian.

The researchers found that those who consumed daily multivitamins didn’t exhibit a lower risk of death overall than those who remained vitamin-less, and they also didn’t show decreased mortality risk from cancer, heart disease, or cerebrovascular disease, per a release. In fact, those who took multivitamins each day showed a slight (4%) uptick in mortality risk overall in the first years of the follow-up period compared with those who didn’t take the multivitamins, per Medical Daily. It’s not completely clear why that risk might jump for vitamin takers, though one suggestion researchers offer is that people who are older or already not in the best of health might be more prone to start taking multivitamins in the first place, skewing the results.

A commentary published alongside the study talks up some of the benefits of certain supplements, such as vitamin C’s ability to ease scurvy, while zinc and vitamins C and E seem to slow down age-related macular degeneration. But researchers also note the harm that some multivitamins have the potential to cause, such as iron overload, which can raise the risk of dementia, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In short, the researchers don’t see a big benefit to being a daily multivitamin consumer. “Micronutrients come most healthfully from food sources,” they note, per Medical Daily. “When supplementation is required, it can often be limited to the micronutrients in question.”

Sorry to be a bummer….but you may not be doing yourself any favors by taking those vitamins…..just producing expensive pee.

Lastly a controversial topic that always gets juices flowing….gun violence.

The US surgeon general on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health crisis, driven by the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country. The advisory issued by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the nation’s top doctor, came as the US grappled with another summer weekend marked by mass shootings that left dozens of people dead or wounded. “People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told the AP in a phone interview. “America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that’s going to put our life at risk.”

To drive down gun deaths, Murthy calls on the US to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces, and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons. None of those suggestions can be implemented nationwide without legislation passed by Congress, which typically recoils at gun control measures. Some state legislatures, however, have enacted or may consider some of the surgeon general’s proposals. Murthy said there’s “broad agreement” that gun violence is a problem, citing a poll last year that found most Americans worry at least sometimes that a loved one might be injured by a firearm. More than 48,000 Americans died from gun injuries in 2022.

Murthy’s advisory promises to be controversial and will certainly incense Republican lawmakers, most of whom opposed Murthy’s confirmation—twice—to the job over his statements on gun violence. But he has faced mounting pressure from some doctors and Democratic advocacy groups to speak out more. A group of four former surgeon generals asked the Biden administration to produce a report on the problem in 2022. “It is now time for us to take this issue out of the realm of politics and put it in the realm of public health, the way we did with smoking more than a half-century ago,” Murthy said. A 1964 report from the surgeon general that raised awareness about the dangers of smoking is largely credited with snubbing out tobacco use and precipitating regulations on the industry.

There you have it….my ‘Dump’ for this Saturday.

Have a wonderful day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”