CharonY

Not necessarily. The bit that is missing is the aspect of systemic racism, where differential outcomes are baked into the system. Unless these are all abolished and all (or at least most) disadvantages are removed (e.g. certain races are not mostly contained in underserviced areas), race-based adjustments are basically a crude band-aid to address the systemic issues. It is really not a symmetric issue. If it was, being racist would not even be a problem anymore (except for not being socially acceptable) and we would not look at differential outcomes. The issues are ingrained and generationally perpetuating. That being said, one could of course try to find a finer grained adjustment, but typically that requires too much effort for most folks, so we are then back to either crude band-aids or pretending that there are no issues to address. Two folks do the same thing, one is successful, the other is not. Fine, randomness is part of the system. A few million folks do the same thing. Some are thriving, others are failing badly. Now you look at skin color and you realize that despite all other things being equal, way more folks with darker skin color are ending up in the bad outcome bin. Is that good? The historic explanation of these outcomes was simply that black folks are dumber and make bad decisions. The more data was collected, the less likely this explanation is. So research has now focused on systems rather than just individual decisions that may affect outcomes and many elements have been rather robustly identified contributing to these issues. Many of them because many seemingly race-neutral laws, rules and practices, are in fact disadvantaging certain parts of the population, for example. I will also add that "racism" has been a bit of a problem in common usage as folks often think about what it means in very different ways. Without properly defining the context, it easily becomes a semantic battle.

If scientists wanted to make money, most would not be scientists in the first place.

That does not follow. Folks with imposter syndrome assume that everyone around them is more capable than themselves and therefore feel that they are imposters. If the baseline assumption was the abilities are the same, they would not feel that way. The rest does not make much more sense to me, either.

Sorry, no. We need to use babies to produce vaccines.

IQ tests were originally used to look for issues in cognitive functions. Accordingly, studies have shown stronger correlation between IQ scores and cognitive abilities in the lower IQ score regimen than in the higher. Pretty much no one believes that, at least not if you mean that everyone performs equally. If that was the case no test would ever make sense. The big questions really are what we measure with tests (the Flynn effect being one of the factors that are not trivial to explain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) , how we actually define intelligence (i.e. what do we mean if we use the term, and in which context) and how does it correlate with cognitive function and performance. The fact that there are a lot of discussions surrounding the issue among experts, indicates that the matter is far more complicated than one might assume from cursory reading on that matter and it is therefore questionable to build too many assumptions on these shaky foundations.

I don't get why they would mention Merkel? The relationship between her and Putin was notoriously tense. The only think I could think of is that her government opposed NATO membership for Ukraine to prevent escalation in 2008 (and considering the political instability in Ukraine at that time, one could argue either way, I guess). Fun Merkel quote on Putin: That was following an incidence where Putin allegedly let his dog in, as Merkel was known to be afraid of dogs. Trump and many GOP cronies, on the other hand...

There have been a boom for carbon capture technologies for a little while now. The issue I have is that they often ride the "magic bullet" mentality where tech somehow will solve all the problems we have neglected to address for decades or centuries and all without having to put effort in. While their implementation in plants fore example seems to have benefits, I suspect that the promise to effect ratio for implementation at scale is still a bit off. But the same line easy solutions thinking is what is popular with folks like Musk.

We have two threads with this idea, but there are a couple of issues and the math is rather meh on the net benefit. But one important bit is that the biomass needs to be long-term sequestered in order to be removed from the atmosphere. If there is more biomass turnover (e.g. fish or repeated cycle of biomass to active zones) then CO2 will be released again. While it might not be a net release per se, it can reduce the capacity of the ocean to sequester CO2 (which is dependent on the partial pressure of CO2 at the surface). But it does sound saner than using nukes.

At 300C a pizza would fully cook (and subsequent burn) within 3-4 minutes, usually. So baking them in that temp for 20 mins seems a bit off. I suspect that there is some mistranslation going on, as the recipe also calls for yeast despite being yeast-free (microwaving water to lukewarm is typically also for activating yeast, so double-weird). Water (or rather steam) is often used to create the characteristic crust on baguettes (or what you can find in buns in Europe) as well as help with the rise in the early phase of baking. Commercial bread ovens (in Germany at least) typically have a steam function for that purpose. Not sure if already mentioned, but for bread you would generally want "strong" flour (i.e. protein content of >10%). Also as John already noted, freeze-thaw cycles damages cells, but not quantitatively (i.e. only a proportion at any given time).

Kneading helps to form a matrix that gives the bread enough structure once yeast does its things. Without kneading, you can have a similar effect with a wetter dough and let the fermentation process to happen very slowly. So the assumption I had earlier is that if freeze no knead dough, you will collapse whatever happened in the first rise and structurally it might not recover as there is not enough activity left in the yeast. A kneaded bread might be more resilient and even with less yeast activity one might retain some fluffiness (I would assume).

There was a German satirical comedy about 10 years ago where Hitler was the protagonist. It was rather successful, IIRC. If anything, I am a bit worried that the new generation does not realize the horrors to the same degree, especially with political party (the AfD) repeatedly trying to downplay the horrors of Nazism. There was already an investigation for antisemitism because of the use of balloons shaped like pigs with the Star of David. One additional issue is that the concert was located at a place (the Festhalle) where in 38 Jews were rounded up and transported to concentration camps, where they were murdered. But the court allowed the concert to go ahead as they ruled that the performance did not glorify Nazism or identified with Nazi ideology. That being said, I assume that some critics, including the International Auschwitz committee may have continued to push different angles.

In Germany it has become more acceptable to use Nazi imagery for artistic purposes, but glorification is still a hard line.

So they should be more politically correct ;)? But yes there has always been a risk if one wades into public discussions especially if one is not trained to navigate public opinion. That being said, I think we are still struggling how to navigate the whole social media landscape, which expands these types of issues from celebrities to regular folks (who definitely don't have PR folks working for them).

Once allegations have been made, the police has to investigate. My guess is he made enemies due to his anti-Israeli stance. Most likely it won't result in anything.

I don't think that this is true, if it is applied evenly. The issue many have is that they a) there are exclusionary criteria (not allowed to compete) that don't apply to cis peers or b) are excluded entirely. Rather than saying your are transgender, and you are only allowed in this space, you are basing it off certain performance criteria. Results could in theory be similar, but the process is also important.

Note that paralympics and similar divisions are not as straightforward as wheelchair or not. Rather they do have measures to scale impairment and either form divisions or alter scoring systems based on them. Wheelchair basketball teams need to fulfill certain handicap requirements. Members are scored based on their mobility and the team must stay within a certain level. I.e. it is not binary and allows participation of folks with limited upper body movements. Arguably something like that would be a way forward rather than outright exclusion. As per the other discussion it would be beneficial to quantify advantages (rather than using assumptions and extrapolations) assess ways to categorize these advantages and figure out a way to incorporate those findings (e.g. scoring or otherwise). And, as also previously discussed, if we find decent measures, one can form divisions based on them without even needing to figure out if or when someone transitioned. The worst way to deal with it is probably getting lawmakers involved.

Empiricism to the rescue!

No knead bread is usually uses higher hydration dough with slower fermentation (often by using less yeast), though. I am not sure whether that makes an issue if you want to freeze them. I can imagine that the product might become rather compact.

Yes, pollution famously does not spread in any shape or form.

You know what? Pre-Trump I would have thought it funny, too. Now, not so sure.

I had frozen bread dough only once, but fundamentally I would think that it does not require any specific treatment. Generally speaking, I would start with a regular bread recipe, go through the first rise (high yeast activity), punch it down, shape and freeze. It might make sense to add more yeast than normal so that after thawing there is enough activity.

I will also say that it is hard to find a middle ground if one starts from a muddle foundation. Look at this thread. The paper that started it off, argued, perhaps poorly that systemic issues including (but not exclusively) racism manifests itself in ways that are invisible if part of a system. That is not even controversial and what critical race theory posits: normalization of thing that can lead to unequal race (or other trait)-based outcomes are perpetuating racial injustice, but they may not be perceived as such, as whatever it is considered the norm. The case study (or all case studies, for the most part) are weak in conclusion and are more a collection of observations that are more or less useful. The two main aspects one might have discussed is how useful that line of thinking is or isn't for educational purposes (as opposed to a social science study that wants to actually elucidate and/or quantify such effects) as well as whether the editorial board handled things well (which is more a procedural discussion). Instead, it is interpreted as that the authors are randomly calling things, including whiteboards racist (they don't they spend a lot of time in the intro outlining what systemic racism is) and then we spend rest of the time talking about overreach. I don't think these things are necessarily productive as we really just lament how we perceive the world to be but do not anchor them to actually facts or data. It is not that perceptions are not valid, but the issue is that we tend to treat them the same. Everyone sees themselves as centred and reasonable, but there is often not a real way to calibrate that.

I think we should move the discussion off from the main thread, but I don't think of Grana Padano as a better or faster Parmigiano Reggiano, it is just a slightly different product. Like aged wine or whiskey, (somewhat) different notes for different tastes and occasions. An important bit is also the quality control of the process for these protected products. Some, such as dietary requirements for the animals, or cumbersome, long winded processes can have more or less subtle effects on quality. Many optimized methods can get close (e.g. by adding the major components affecting flavour), but there is often something missing in depth. Also I feel that because industrial production is so much more efficient, they scavenge off a lot of (unprotected) mid-class products. Regional products can still be great, but it is often hard to find them in grocery stores (and then they tend to be similarly expensive as European imports). What I found especially in the USA is that folks are so used to these products (e.g. American "cheese") and oversweetening of products that often many standard (and usually cheap) products such as sausages contain ungodly amount of sugars and fillers, whereas the actual meat remains on the bland side. I know it sounds snobbish (though someone with Italian heritage should be used to that) but the mass produced foods seem to twist the taste of folks toward sweet, overflavoured products. There are in fact studies about this phenomenon (mostly in the US) and while origin production might not be the best solution, it is a way to incentivize the maintenance of more convoluted, but ultimately less overproduced food.

A bit of sidetracking here, but I would like to add that addiction rates are typically not estimated by a singular method (such as wastewater surveillance), but typically incorporates other measures from multiple sources (e.g. injection site uses, surveys in homeless shelters, general interviews and so on). Wastewater analyses are generally robust to look for trends and relative changes. Using population estimates such as caffeine (but increasingly other biomarkers are getting more popular) some level of prevalence can be estimated but there are indeed challenges, depending on the type and size of the sewer system (some areas might have way longer residence times than others), biological activity. temperature, variability in flow and so on. That being said, any measure of drug use has its issues and ultimately the idea is to combine various independent approaches to provide the most accurate picture. An advantage of wastewater analyses is that it tends to be a good indicator of overall trend in a population and can be a good estimator for modeling purposes.

I have concerns. Most high quality products follow a similar process. But cheaper ones do take shortcuts in time. Bacterial activities, us where the flavor comes from, and many inferior products simply are not aged as much.