By David Rutter

VIRUS TESTING: Here’s a note to the Prez about how testing works. You’d think someone who went to Wharton – and aren’t they just so proud? – would grasp this. If you flunk the SAT or ACT, it was not the test that made you stupid. You brought your own stupid to the party. You were stupid before the test, and the test just showed it. There are not fewer people infected with COVID-19 because you failed to test them. Ignorance predates the untaken test, and remains in effect even after the untaken test. Even at Wharton.

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Posted on May 15, 2020

By The Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation released its annual Clean Water Report to protect public health and clean water Wednesday, as beaches across the nation start to reopen during the current phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report features case studies and the collective results from Surfrider’s Blue Water Task Force, the largest volunteer-run beach water testing program in the country. It also highlights outcomes from Surfrider’s Ocean Friendly Gardens program, which provides landscaping solutions to protect clean water and support resilient coasts.
“In areas like Chicago, Illinois, where industrial discharges are polluting important recreational areas in Lake Michigan, and Florida, where toxic algae blooms are devastating the coasts, Surfrider’s work to protect clean water is more critical than ever,” said Surfrider’s Water Quality Manager, Mara Dias. “Our chapters tackle regional water quality issues by testing for pollution, building ocean-friendly solutions, and informing the public of where it’s safe to surf, swim and play in the ocean. We look forward to continuing our water testing programs as soon as health officials deem it safe to resume these efforts.”

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Posted on May 14, 2020

By The U.S. Postal Service

The natural beauty of American gardens is being celebrated by the U.S. Postal Service by issuing stamps that feature gardens ranging from botanical to country estate and municipal gardens. All the gardens featured on the 10 stamps are open to the public. The American Gardens Forever stamps are available for purchase nationwide May 13.
The first-day-of-issue ceremony has been canceled due to social distancing guidance. However, on May 14 the American Public Gardens Association will be celebrating the issuance of the stamps as part of National Public Gardens Week with a webinar that includes a virtual reveal of the stamps along with pre-recorded remarks from Pat Mendonca, Postal Service Senior Director, Office of the Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer. There will also be short video vignettes of the gardens featured on the stamps.

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Posted on May 13, 2020

By Alex Moss/The Electronic Frontier Foundation

In 2014, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Alice v. CLS Bank case. The Court held generic computers, performing generic computer functions, can’t make something eligible for patent protection. That shouldn’t be controversial, but it took Alice to make this important limitation on patent-eligibility crystal clear.
Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided to work around that decision, so that the door to bogus software patents could swing open once again. The office issued new guidance telling its examiners how to avoid applying Alice. In response to that proposal, more than 1,500 of you told the Patent Office to re-consider its guidance to make sure that granted patents are limited to those that are eligible for protection under Alice. Unfortunately, the Patent Office wouldn’t do it. The office and its director, Andrei Iancu, refused to adapt its guidance to match the law, even when so many members of the public demanded it.

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Posted on May 12, 2020

By Andy Soth/PBS Wisconsin

A highly contagious disease put the population in a panic. The government’s response became politicized. Less affluent neighborhoods bore the brunt of the outbreak. The best medical science of the day was doubted. An aggressive protest against public health enforcement broke out. There was even an impeachment.
It was 1894 in Milwaukee, a city divided on ethnic lines. In the north, a well-established German community. In the south, a growing settlement of Polish immigrants.

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Posted on May 11, 2020

By David Rutter

Don’t panic. Don’t you dare panic. We’re cool and chill. Both of them. We need normalcy in this glorious spring.
“Here in the nation’s capital, there is anxiety and concern, but no outward sign of panic. As a matter of fact, there are signs of normalcy . . . “
Well, actually there’s a little sign of panic and very few signs of normlacy.
In fact, lots of panic. Being scared bleepless is biologically appropriate.

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Posted on May 8, 2020

By Point of Inquiry

“Leighann Lord speaks with Mandisa Thomas, president of Black Nonbelievers. Black Nonbelievers connect with other Black folks and allies who have chosen to live without religion. They serve as a community for those who have been otherwise shunned by family and friends. From the Black Nonbelievers’ website: ‘Instead of accepting dogma, we seek to determine truth and morality through reason and evidence.'”

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Posted on May 5, 2020

By The Electronic Freedom Foundation

In an important victory for thousands of public interest groups around the world, a proposal to sell the .ORG domain registry to private equity firm Ethos Capital and convert it to a for-profit entity was rejected late Thursday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which worked hand in hand with Access Now, NTEN, National Council of Nonprofits, Americans for Financial Reform, and many other organizations to oppose the sale, applauds ICANN’s well-reasoned decision to stop the $1.1 billion transaction from moving forward. In a statement, ICANN said rejecting the deal was the right thing to do because it lacked a meaningful plan to protect the interests of nonprofits and NGOs that rely on the .ORG registry to exist on the Internet and connect with the people they serve.

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Posted on May 3, 2020

By Gabriel Filippelli and Joseph D. Ortiz/The Conversation

This story is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.
“Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil” is not what anyone wants to hear about their city’s tap water. But the combined effects of climate change and degraded water quality could make such warnings more frequent across the Great Lakes region.

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Posted on April 30, 2020

By Samantha Nash/PBS Wisconsin

When initial reports about what would come to be called COVID-19 made their way around the world in January 2020, the emergence of the novel coronavirus that causes the illness was a mystery. Within weeks, its earliest identified cases were believed to be connected with a live-animal market in Wuhan, China, but the precise path the virus took to infect people in a densely populated city remains unclear.
Charting the animal origins of human diseases like COVID-19 can be difficult and often leads to unexpected discoveries, says Dr. Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. During a January 29, 2020 presentation at the Wednesday Nite @ the Lab lecture series on the UW-Madison campus, Goldberg recounted the growing body of research into pathogen transmission between animals and humans over the past three decades.

“This can be attributed to the remarkable story of the origins of AIDS,” Goldberg said in his lecture, recorded for PBS Wisconsin’s University Place. “In the early 1990s, we discovered that AIDS was a virus that originated from chimpanzees in Central Africa . . . to me, the HIV pandemic is the mother of all pandemics, and the mother of all diseases of zoonotic origin.”

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Posted on April 28, 2020