Favorites February 14th 2022

Ethan Mollick @emollick

🫖➡️🇬🇧➡️🏭 British tea drinking really did power the Industrial Revolution, by vastly increasing the health of the nation. This study shows that the practice of boiling water for tea lowered mortality rates by an amazing 25% in lower water-quality areas! direct.mit.edu/rest/article-a…

From the comments, this fun summary of Hill's Criteria, with XKCD comics used to illustrate each item.

Rosyna Keller @rosyna

A measles infection turns out to “reset” the immune system, destroying the body’s ability to fight any and every pathogen you’ve ever been exposed to (via vaccine or otherwise), leading to causative deaths years after the initial measles infection.

bbc.comThe race to understand ‘immune amnesia’Scientists have known for years that measles can alter the immune system – but the latest evidence suggests it’s less of a mild tweaking, and more of a total reset.

This makes increasing across-the-board vaccine hesitancy all the more concerning.

Jerusalem @JerusalemDemsas

New >> Last year I wrote about the so-called “gentrification building” TikTok was hating on that was actually affordable housing. Now, the talented @ranjchak has turned my article into an amazing 10 minute YouTube video!

The full video is absolutely terriffic, highly recommended.

depths of wikipedia @depthsofwiki

Almost 14 years after these iconic high five photos were taken, the couple recreated the shots with their kids ❤️

There's an entire article about the couple that is very cute if you're interested.

Brendan Nyhan @BrendanNyhan

Why we need to invest in the science necessary to protect against the next pandemic - the vaccines have saved 1M+ lives already; the ROI on past funding was incredible

Helen Branswell @HelenBranswell

My Valentine to the Covid vaccines. We may not appreciate it yet, but we have witnessed a miracle. https://t.co/dZAk8FYo8e

It's imperative that we're ready faster next time, and the extra manufacturing capabilites probably could have other uses in the mean time.

Paul E Williams @PEWilliams_

Migrations vs rents, now with real time changes in rents reflected in the points. Same story—exodus from the expensive places and into the less expensive places is pushing up the rents in those less expensive places. This is, how you say, a classic demand surge. Report out soon.

Wow, that's a huge shift in where people live! No wonder rents have bounced around like crazy.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

The end of Covid relief spending means that federal debt is no longer rising even in nominal terms, and in fact fell from Q2 to Q3 of last year. We entered austerity, and it didn't noticeably slow the recovery.

I got so caught up in the concept that national debt was going down in real terms, I had never considered the posibility it could be going down in nominal terms as well. Wild.

Robert ‘Mousekewitz’ Falconer @RRFalconer

Canada has announced record-level immigration targets for 2022-2024, equal to 1.3 million people over three years. Here is the breakdown by category. This is the highest level of immigration since Wheat Boom levels in the early 1910s.

Why aren't we doing this too? Gah!

SF Botanical Garden, 2017

Happy Valentine’s Day