Day: July 17, 2019💾

📽️ Videos

I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout. – Vox

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I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout. – Vox

So to test your new antidepressant, you need an efficient method of making a lot of rats exhibit anhedonia — that is, making them lose interest in things they used to enjoy, like sugar. How do you think you’d do that? It turns out you don’t need to traumatize them. The most reliable protocol is “chronic mild stress.”

There are many methods of making the lives of experimental animals mildly but chronically miserable — a cage floor that administers random electric shocks; a deep swimming pool with no way to rest or climb out; a stronger “intruder” introduced into the same cage. One neuroscientist actually nicknamed his apparatus the Pit of Despair. But they’re all variations on the same theme: remove all predictability and control from the animal’s life. Then take notes as they gradually lose interest in being alive.

Plant Expert Explains How it Spreads, Burns, and Blinds | Inverse

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Giant Hogweed: Plant Expert Explains How it Spreads, Burns, and Blinds | Inverse

About a century ago, New England garden enthusiasts adopted the British trend of cultivating a towering, white-blossomed plant called giant hogweed in their yards. Considered ‘ornamental’, the plant can grow up to 14 feet tall and cradles bunches of tiny flowers in its stems. It’s already taken root in ten states and was recently found in Virginia, but nobody thinks it’s beautiful anymore. It’s hard to look kindly on a plant that can sear human flesh with a third-degree burn

This Article Won’t Change Your Mind – The Atlantic – Pocket

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This Article Won’t Change Your Mind – The Atlantic – Pocket

In a New York Times article called “The Real Story About Fake News Is Partisanship,” Amanda Taub writes that sharing fake news stories on social media that denigrate the candidate you oppose “is a way to show public support for one’s partisan team—roughly the equivalent of painting your face with team colors on game day.” This sort of information tribalism isn’t a consequence of people lacking intelligence or of an inability to comprehend evidence. Kahan has previously written that whether people “believe” in evolution or not has nothing to do with whether they understand the theory of it—saying you don’t believe in evolution is just another way of saying you’re religious. Similarly, a recent Pew study found that a high level of science knowledge didn’t make Republicans any more likely to say they believed in climate change, though it did for Democrats.

Moose River Plains is really big when you walk

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This past weekend I decided to leave Big Red parked and walk to most of my destinations at Moose River Plains. Walking along Otter Brook Road remind me how truly large Moose River Plains truly is. That’s a blessing but it also means to get to many if not most destinations, motoring is required although I guess the roads also would be a lot of fun to bike, especially in the relatively flat plains.

Thunderstorm Coming to the Plains

Map: Dunkin's Reserve State Forest