Favorites November 26th 2021

Meg Tirrell @megtirrell

It’s Omicron

I mentioned this last week, but the new scary variant has a name now. Coincidental name guess from Silver. Also, there was a lab that had experimentally generated something that looks like this when investigating what immune escape would look like.

Gavan Reilly @gavreilly

NEW: Pfizer says that if B.1.1.529 is found to be a “vaccine-escape variant”, a tailor-made vaccine to address it could be issued within 100 days. @VirginMediaNews

This is great, but how long till it's approved and we're getting shots in arms? Again, hopefully the FDA moves to approving these quickly like we do for flu vaccines.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Here are bullet points of the key things I learned.

I'm only partway through the interview, but I'm interested in the supervaccine concept mentioned, but you can see the whole interview here.

Evan @evan7257

Someone wished on a monkey paw for cheaper gas

Bloomberg Markets @markets

Oil plunges below $70 a barrel as new Covid variant roils markets https://t.co/NFCmC36CYl https://t.co/I6KcxrsX9w

Remember that gas is how Americans judge inflation, so that'll be interesting.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Economic growth doesn't just mean "line on a graph goes up". Nor does world peace simply mean "line on a graph goes down".

Joseph Kahn @JosephKahn

My mother was born in 1946 in Korea, in the aftermath of WW2. She was raised in a room with 7 people, lived through the Korean War in which her dad died. Anyway, this is what I thought as she ate at a $100 a person Thanksgiving buffet.

Important that Economics is the study of improving human lives.

garrytan.eth 陈嘉兴 🌐🦇🔊🍌🔺 @garrytan

Dairy can now be 100% plant-based. That's @eclipse_foods — being able to create a micelle means you can make totally plant based ice cream, yogurt, cheese, and milk. 65% of the world's population can't easily digest milk, but we all love ice cream so this is big🍦

This looks cool! I didn't realize that it's already available for purchase in California, I hope to try it soon.

Louis Mirante @louismirante

Cities interested in affordable housing policy could buy development rights to a home in a single family zone, upzone it, and then sell the development rights, keeping profit, if any. They could use that money for affordable housing, infrastructure, whatever!

This is such an interesting idea! Allows the city to capture the value of the upzoning, hopefully motivates them to do it more.

Jason Crawford @jasoncrawford

A striking chart: Famines by political regime @OurWorldInData ourworldindata.org/famines

Democracy is good folks.

Vaughan, Canada, March 2019