NPR

Overwork Killed More Than 745,000 People In A Year, WHO Finds : NPR

Working long hours poses an occupational health risk that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, the World Health Organization says.

People working 55 or more hours each week face an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared to people following the widely accepted standard of working 35 to 40 hours in a week, the WHO says in a study that was published Monday in the journal Environment International.

 

Moose Island

Looking across Indian Lake towards Moose Island from Watch Hill at the lake.

Taken on Sunday May 16, 2021 at Indian Lake.

Lewey Lake

Sitting down by one of the campsites watching the storm roll by.

Taken on Sunday May 16, 2021 at Lewey Lake.

NPR

As Lumber Prices Climb, Some Mill Their Own : NPR

The price of lumber has more than doubled over the past year, and economists warn that things might stay this way for a while. That's why people like Hans Dow are getting crafty.

"I was like, well, I want a sawmill. I can make a lot of stuff with it. I also need to learn how to weld ...," Dow says as he hefts a 9-foot log onto the deck of his hand-built sawmill. It sits in the corner of his South Anchorage, Alaska, backyard.

Dow spent the winter in his garage building this sawmill from scratch. He collected the scrap metal and the machinery parts from all over the city. He says his brother urged him to take on the project.

It seems like low-cost sawmills are proliferating all around lately. I think some of it's cheaper equipment imported from China and just the growing cost of lumber from mills, especially on farms and off-grid homesteads where they often have a lot of trees to chop down.

Vaccinated people can largely stop wearing masks – syracuse.com

NY adopting CDC guidance: Vaccinated people can largely stop wearing masks – syracuse.com

New York — New York is adopting new guidance from the federal government that will allow people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to largely stop wearing masks in nearly all settings.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the new mask guidelines last week. It allows fully vaccinated people to stop wearing masks outdoors and indoors, even in large crowds. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today New York will adopt the CDC guidance starting Wednesday.

Greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere

Greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere

The models showed that as the troposphere has been expanding, it has been pushing upward on the stratosphere. They also found that as carbon dioxide made its way into the stratosphere, it has had a cooling effect, resulting in a contracting force. The researchers found the net result was a thinning stratosphere. Their calculations showed that the stratosphere has thinned by approximately 400 meters since the 1980s, which translates to approximately 1% of its thickness. Running the models forward showed that the stratosphere will continue thinning as long as greenhouse gasses are emitted into the atmosphere. They suggest it could thin by as much as a kilometer in just 60 years. They note that their model also showed that changes to the ozone layer had little impact on thinning of the stratosphere.

The researchers note that it is still not clear what impact a shrinking stratosphere may have on the planet, but note that it could affect the trajectories of satellites and how radio waves propagate, which could eventually have an impact on the Global Positioning System.