Musings

By Jonathan Portes Migrants don’t steal jobs or bring down wages. Rather, they’re more likely to bring dynamism and prosperity Victoria Razo/AFP/Getty Images Some of the 250 Central American migrants arrested by the Mexican authorities on 27 June 2019. Four years ago, Europeans were shocked by the photograph of the drowned three-year old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi. Now, Americans are similarly horrified by pictures of El Salvadorans Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Angie Valeria, dead on the banks of the Rio Grande. Meanwhile, in the UK we are struggling with what our immigration policy should look like after Brexit, with Boris Johnson trying to have his cake and eat it with the promise of an “Australian-style points system”. More at The Guardian

By Reuters Vladimir Putin says deal due to expire on Sunday will be extended by six to nine months Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images Russia and Saudi Arabia agree to extend Opec deal. Russia has agreed with Saudi Arabia to extend by six to nine months a deal with Opec on reducing oil output, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said, as oil prices come under renewed pressure from rising US supplies and a slowing global economy. More at The Guardian

By Michelle Cohen · for CBC News · There are social and financial costs to mandatory sick notes. Employers should have to pay them CBC Doctors send invoices to insurance companies or lawyers all the time for things not covered by provincial health care plans. This would be no different. The issue of employers requiring doctors' notes for minor illnesses has been hotly debated for years. Medical associations are strongly opposed to the practice, and according to a recent Ipsos poll, 70 per cent of Canadians agree. More at CBC News

By Éric Grenier · CBC News · Poll finds high levels of anxiety - and a low level of confidence in politicians - ahead of fall election Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press A new poll for CBC News finds that 72 per cent of Canadians say they are worried or somewhat worried about their future. Their top concerns are the cost of living and climate change. Canadians are feeling worried and conflicted as they head toward the fall federal election, according to a new poll commissioned by CBC News. More at CBC News

By Julia Levin Tireless lobbying by the oil and gas industry to gut protections ultimately failed With the passage of Bill C-69 last week, the federal government has fulfilled its commitment to update the broken environmental assessment regime that has been in place since 2012 and deliver a stronger, more rigorous and more democratic process for evaluating the impacts of major industrial projects. More at Environmental Defence

By Evan Lubofsky, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Justin Buchli Captains and first mates of whaling ships kept daily logs of weather information during each voyage, including wind speed and direction, sea conditions, air temperature, and other variables. Researchers can use these weather records to gain a better understanding of climate conditions we face today. In September 1871, a fleet of 33 American whaling ships navigating through Arctic waters came upon a disastrous impasse. Mountains of ice pack, some clumped nearly mast high, formed a natural blockade around the convoy. Crews anxiously waited for winds to bail their ships out from the pulverizing grip of the ice, but it never blew their way. Ice tore into hulls and as the shredded vessels surrendered to the sea, more than a thousand men, women, and children fled for nearby rescue boats. More at Phys.org

By CORDIS Greenovate! Europe Back in the 1990s, 60 percent of waste went to landfill in the Swedish city of Lund. Today it's less than 2 percent, and the region is a pioneer of the burgeoning circular economy. More at Phys.org

By Megan Geuss Seasonal shifts helped, but long-term changes underlie the record. nate2b / Flickr Wind turbines near Palm Springs, California. Enlarge / Wind turbines near Palm Springs, California. A remarkable thing happened in the US in April. For the first time ever, renewable electricity generation beat out coal-fired electricity generation on a national level, according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA). While renewable energy—including hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass—constituted 23 percent of the nation's power supply, coal-fired electricity only contributed 20 percent of our power supply. More at Ars Technica

By Cory Doctorow In 2002, Lexmark was one of the leading printer companies in the world. A division of IBM—the original tech giant—Lexmark was also a pioneer in the now-familiar practice of locking customers in to expensive "consumables," like the carbon powder that laser-printers fuse to paper to produce printouts. More at Electronic Frontier Foundation

Canada’s unions are calling on the federal government to ensure Canadian workers are protected from job and income loss following China’s recent ban on Canadian beef and pork exports. More at Canadian Labour Congress

By Michael Geist Stephen Poff https://flic.kr/p/5Earra (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) The Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel released its interim report – What We Heard – yesterday alongside the long-overdue release of the written submissions to the panel. The report doesn’t contain any surprises given that the various positions on key telecom and broadcast issues are well known. While the panel is set to deliver its final report in January 2020, there is increasing reason to suspect that the government (if re-elected) has already decided what it wants to do. More at Michael Geist

By Bob Granleese Chillies provide not only heat, but also sweetness, smokiness or sourness to your cooking – unsurprisingly, there are alternative sources RussieseO/Getty Images/iStockphoto If you can’t stand the heat: Chillies add more than pepperiness, but what if you can’t tolerate it? More at The Guardian

By Morgan Modjeski · CBC News · Tomas Terfloth said the quest to buy canoe with loyalty money started as a joke on social media 3 years ago Morgan Modjeski/CBC Tomas Telforth poses with a wad of Canadian Tire money at the Preston Crossing Canadian Tire in Saskatoon on Thursday. He had more than $900 in Canadian Tire money and he used a large chunk of it to buy a canoe. Just ahead of the Canada Day long weekend, a Saskatoon man may have committed the most Canadian act ever: buying a full-sized canoe with a briefcase full of Canadian Tire money. More at CBC News

By CBC News · Ruling follows 4 days of arguments after Court of Appeal made rare move to televise proceedings Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press The Court of Appeal heard arguments about the carbon tax over a period of four days in April, with the Ontario government saying it is unconstitutional and can't be legally enforced. Ontario's top court is set to release a decision Friday on whether the federal government can impose a carbon tax on provinces it believes aren't doing enough to fight climate change. More at CBC News

By University of California - Riverside Jim Gathany/CDC Female Anopheles stephensi mosquito obtaining a blood meal from a human host. This mosquito is a known transmitter of malaria, with a distribution that ranges from Egypt all the way to China. Scientists have finally found malaria's Achilles' heel, a neurotoxin that isn't harmful to any living thing except Anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria. More at Phys.org

By Olaf Alders Tig is more than just a text-mode interface for Git. Here's how it can enhance your daily workflow. Opensource.com If you work with Git as your version control system, you've likely already resigned yourself to the fact that Git is a complicated beast. It is a fantastic tool, but it can be cumbersome to navigate Git repositories. That's where a tool like Tig comes in. More at Opensource.com

By Shaun Nichols in San Francisco They managed to scrape by with the lowest possible passing grade: D- The bi-annual grading of federal organizations [PDF] was released this week, and, by and large, they show America's government bureaucrats have a lot of work to do when it comes to securing, updating, and managing their networks and data. More at The Register

By Ed Cara Getty Images Protesters in New York City objecting to the Trump administration’s expansion of the gag rule to domestic organizations receiving Title X funding earlier this February. The U.S. government’s capricious stance on foreign aid has likely worsened the reproductive care and health of women living in poorer affected countries, according to a new report out Thursday. More at Gizmodo

By Armina Ligaya · The Canadian Press · Cannabis-infused foods, beverages set to become legal as of December Shutterstock / Pong Pong Undisclosed pot usage that shows up in a doctor's notes or medical history of a client could void the insurance, lawyer David Share warns. Canadians looking to enjoy soon-to-be-legalized pot-infused edibles could get hit with higher insurance premiums — depending on the size of their appetites. More at CBC News

By Thomson Reuters · HPV infections were reduced by 66 to 83 per cent after five to eight years of vaccination. The Associated Press A new international study has found that HPV vaccinations are having a major impact on stopping infections and should significantly reduce cases of the disease over the next 10 years. Vaccination against the virus that causes almost all cervical cancer is having a major impact on stopping infections and should significantly reduce cases of the disease within a decade, researchers said on Wednesday. More at CBC News

By The Canadian Press · "The higher the consumption of ultra-processed foods, the lower the consumption of real, whole foods" Paule Joseph, Shavonne Pocock/NIH/Associated Press A photo from the National Institutes of Health in June 2019 shows an ultra-processed meal of brand name macaroni and cheese, chicken tenders, canned green beans and diet lemonade. A new study commissioned by the Heart and Stroke Foundation found that a diet high in ultra-processed foods are linked to obesity, diabetes and high-blood pressure. New research from the University of Montreal links diets high in ultra-processed foods including carbonated drinks, mass-produced cookies and ice cream, and sweetened yogurts to chronic disease. More at Health - CBC

CC0 Public Domain Google said Thursday it supports a global agreement on taxation that could allocate more taxes from multinationals to jurisdictions outside their home countries. More at Phys.org

By Beth Mole With a 30-60% fatality rate, researchers are trying to stem its mysterious spread. Getty | Nicolas Armer The director of the German National Reference Centre for Invasive Fungus Infections holding a petri dish of the yeast Candida auris in January 2018. Enlarge / The director of the German National Reference Centre for Invasive Fungus Infections holding a petri dish of the yeast Candida auris in January 2018. Patients infected with a deadly, drug-resistant fungus are dripping with the dangerous germ, which pours into their surroundings where it lies in wait for weeks to find a new victim. That’s according to fresh data reported from the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology recently in San Francisco. More at Ars Technica

By Timothy B. Lee "We've allowed certain tweets that violated our rules," Twitter acknowledges. Donald Trump Twitter's rules state that "you may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people." So when US President Donald Trump tweeted in January 2018 that he had a "nuclear button" that was "much bigger & more powerful" than the nuclear button of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and (a few months earlier) that North Korea "won't be around much longer" if it continued its bellicose rhetoric, critics asked Twitter to take the tweets down for violating Twitter's rules. More at Ars Technica

By Grant Vandenberg Shutterstock It is vital to find alternative and sustainable sources of protein to meet the considerable challenge of ensuring food security for the future. Well, think about this: the United Nations predicts that by 2050, if current trends continue, the world’s population will reach 9.8 billion. As a result, global demand for food and feed is expected to increase by 70 per cent, putting additional pressure on already overexploited agricultural resources. More at The Conversation

By Graham Smith, The Conversation Holli/Shutterstock A new form of politics is gaining steam as a solution to the climate crisis. Six parliamentary committees in the UK are to commission a citizens' assembly, in which randomly selected citizens will consider how to combat climate breakdown and achieve the pathway to net zero emissions. More at Phys.org

By University of Oxford CC0 Public Domain Research led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) tracked the levels of emissions of a variety of air pollutants between 1970 and 2010—a period in which there was a raft of national and European legislation to tackle pollution. Oxford's Environmental Change Institute (ECI) joined the CEH and the Universities of Birmingham, Edinburgh and Exeter to carry out this interdisciplinary study. More at Phys.org

By Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres CC0 Public Domain The oceans are losing oxygen. Numerous studies based on direct measurements in recent years have shown this. Since water can dissolve less gas as temperatures rise, these results were not surprising. In addition to global warming, factors such as eutrophication of the coastal seas also contribute to the ongoing deoxygenation. Will the oceans become completely oxygen-depleted at some point in the future if global warming continues? Such anoxic phases have actually occurred several times in the Earth's history, combined with major mass extinction events. They were also accompanied by high carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and high global temperatures. More at Phys.org

By University of Texas at Austin NOAA Gas hydrates, shown here on the Gulf of Mexico floor, are an ice-like material that form naturally under extreme pressure in low temperature environments where water is abundant. A new study from The University of Texas at Austin has shown that hydrates under the Gulf floor can be tapped for energy while providing safe storage for greenhouse gas emissions. New research at The University of Texas at Austin shows that injecting air and carbon dioxide into methane ice deposits buried beneath the Gulf of Mexico could unlock vast natural gas energy resources while helping fight climate change by trapping the carbon dioxide underground. More at Phys.org

By Mr Alan Williams, University of Plymouth CC0 Public Domain Bottles of beer, wine and spirits contain potentially harmful levels of toxic elements, such as lead and cadmium, in their enamelled decorations, a new study shows. More at Phys.org

By Erin Biba AP Activists call for a moratorium on fracking outside a climate summit in San Francisco. A sweeping report that evolved from work that helped ban fracking in New York State has been released to help the public fight the practice as it pops up elsewhere across the country. Published last week by the Physicians for Social Responsibility (the group that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its work educating the public on the dangers of nuclear war) and the Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY), the updated report is an easy-to-read compendium of how fracking impacts our health, from the direct impact of wells and pipelines, to its role in exacerbating climate change. More at Earther - Gizmodo

By Maddie Stone James Loesch (Flickr) The climate impact of flying isn’t just about carbon emissions. The contrails that airplanes create also influence the temperature of our atmosphere—and a new study finds that impact is set to grow in a big way. More at Earther - Gizmodo

By Samantha McAleese THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg As cannabis business takes off in Canada, many are frustrated by the new amnesty law which leaves thousands with the stigma of criminal records. Here people look at products inside Spiritleaf, the first cannabis store in Kingston, Ont., on April 1, 2019. Parliament moved quickly last week to pass cannabis amnesty legislation before the federal government adjourned for the summer. More at The Conversation

By Lucy El-Sherif THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito One Reconciliation Pole and two Welcome Figures were unveiled during a ceremony in honour of truth and reconciliation on National Indigenous Peoples Day in Vancouver on June 21, 2019. This Canada Day might be a good time for Canadians to think about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action. At least three of those (No. 46, 47 and 49) call on Canadians, including newcomers to Canada, to reject concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples. More at The Conversation

There’s been quite a bit of media hype about the improvements 5G is set to supposedly bring to users, many of which are no more than telecom talking points. One aspect of the conversation that’s especially important to get right is whether or not 5G will bring much-needed security fixes to cell networks. Unfortunately, we will still need to be concerned about these issues—and more—in 5G. More at Electronic Frontier Foundation Opinion: There is no secuirty in any telecommunications equipment. The NSA will insist that all encryption algorithms will have to be decipherable. Don't stop where the ink does.

By Matt Shipman, North Carolina State University Andreas Klinke Johannsen. Shared under a Creative Commons license Recent research finds the internet is giving both employers and job seekers access to more information, but has not made the hiring process more meritocratic. Instead, lower-wage jobs have become "black holes," with intense competition for positions, while many higher-wage jobs are going to targeted candidates and are open to only limited competition. More at Phys.org

By Santa Fe Institute Mesa Shumacher/Santa Fe Institute Illustration of marine fossils that have existed since the Cambrian. Represented taxa include brachiopods, trilobites, ammonites, bivalves, and decapods. Throughout life's history on earth, biological diversity has gone through ebbs and flows—periods of rapid evolution and of dramatic extinctions. We know this, at least in part, through the fossil record of marine invertebrates left behind since the Cambrian period. Remarkably, extreme events of diversification and extinction happen more frequently than a typical, Gaussian, distribution would predict. Instead of the typical bell-shaped curve, the fossil record shows a fat-tailed distribution, with extreme, outlier, events occurring with higher-than-expected probability. More at Phys.org

By Pennsylvania State University Pixabay In a study, Penn State researchers found that older adults often serve in roles as community innovation leaders, helping in efforts as diverse as revitalizing homes to galvanizing environmental initiatives. Encouraging hobbies and activities is more than an important part of healthy aging. According to a team of Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology researchers, these passions of older adults can be sources of innovation that benefit the entire community. More at Phys.org

By Cory Wright-Maley THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson More testing won’t improve math achievement. Here, Alberta premier Jason Kenney with Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Education, after being sworn into office in Edmonton on April 30, 2019. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney wants to “bring common sense to education.” He has insinuated teachers are not already accountable to their students and suggested that “failed teaching fads” including “inquiry learning” are responsible for the decline in student scores measured by the Program for International Student Assessment, better known as PISA. More at The Conversation Opinion: Politicians once again assuming they are more correct than the professions. Don't stop where the ink does.

By Thomas Claburn in San Francisco More than 1 in 2 products have serious flaws, some potentially backdoors, we're told Huawei, the Chinese manufacturing giant targeted by the Trump administration as a national security threat, has some of the least secure networking products in the industry, according to Finite State. More at The Register

By Jeremy Snyder, Glenn Cohen, Peter Chow White, Valorie A. Crooks Shutterstock Crowdfunding platforms could create opportunities to partner individual campaigns with philanthropic organizations that address background causes of health-care gaps. Medical crowdfunding is a fast-growing practice in which online platforms are used to raise money for health-related needs. GoFundMe.com, the largest platform for medical crowdfunding, has raised $5 billion since 2010 and is currently raising over $750 million annually for medical expenses. More at The Conversation

By Ed Cara Getty Images Some kinds of sitting around are worse for your heart than others, at least according to a new study out today. The findings suggest that watching more hours of TV a day can raise your risk of eventual heart disease and early death. At the same time, more sitting at work might not have any apparent negative effect on your heart health. More at Gizmodo

By Ed Cara Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration is still pressing down hard on kratom—the plant treatment that adherents say has helped them manage their opioid addiction or chronic pain. This week, the agency announced it was sending warning letters to two online marketers and distributors, accusing them of illegally selling kratom products with false or unproven claims about their health benefits. More at Gizmodo

By Kristin Annable · CBC News · Access Health Imaging has been offering echocardiograms in Steinbach, Morden, Brandon Travis Golby/CBC A mobile clinic operated by the North Dakota-based Access Health Imaging was set up in a small conference room inside the Roadhouse 52 Inn and Suites in Steinbach, Man. A North Dakota company has quietly been crossing into Manitoba to offer diagnostic services for a fee, catching health officials off guard and sparking the province's health minister to order a review into the mobile clinic. More at CBC News

By James Whitbrook Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag. Click here to view original GIF Wes Ball A glimpse of what could’ve been. Remember when there were reports that Disney had scrapped Fox’s planned adaptation of Mouse Guard, but there was still hope it could find a home somewhere else? Those hopes are now gone. But with the project’s death, we also have a chance to see what could’ve been. More at io9 - Gizmodo Opinion: Le sigh. Don't stop where the ink does.

By Germain Lussier HBO “Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection” If you’re going to release a complete box set for the entire series of Game of Thrones, that shit better be epic. And “epic” is exactly the word to describe “Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection,” a massive 33-disc set coming this December. More at io9 - Gizmodo

An Indian man takes a selfie with his family on a scooter on the newly-built Signature Bridge in New Delhi on November 15, 2018—selfie-mad India has recorded the most deaths of people taking the self-portraits Selfies, which have become a global sensation in the last decade or so, have remarkably killed five times more people than shark attacks. More at Phys.org Opinion: Well, at least he stopped his scooter to take the selfie. Don't stop where the ink does.