Everyone knows droughts are bad. They increase risk of wildfires and damage life in the affected region. They are not always predictable, when I lived in Pennsylvania in the early 1990s there was a drought with no known mechanism involved, but they are often cyclical, which makes them at least broadly predictable.

The Dry 2 Dry program at Ghent University believes droughts are not only predictable and cyclical, they can propagate in a kind of feedback loop; instead of being local, evaporated water is moved to other areas, so less of it is taking drought with them.

The last time the Russians went to war in Europe, it was the Cold War.  After World War II ended, the USSR wanted Germany to remain relatively weak. The US instead believed that part of the reason behind World War II was a Germany that had been too heavily penalized by other European countries after World War I. 

After defeat, Germany had been divided into four sectors, controlled by America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union and three of those sectors 'united' so that there could be a common currency, a new German mark, and goods supplied by the US under the Marshall Plan would bring stability. But the former capital, Berlin, was in the USSR sector, and the USSR wanted its section of Germany to be Soviet, and communism. 

A new report says that the alternative meat industry, plant-based products designed to look and taste like meat, raised $8 billion even during the pandemic. That's a big success.

They want more but oddly lament that most of their money comes from the private sector. They want the trillions of dollars in subsidies that solar and wind have gotten, claiming it will fight climate change. That's a big problem.

A new study says that drying a load of laundry in a machine releases "microfibers" into the air but chemicals made by a $76 billion company will save us.

Microfibers? Is that a thing? Sure, we have defined healthy down to such an extent that no one is without a disease of some kind. With endocrine disrupting chemicals, small micron particulate matter, and supermarket food it is amazing any of us live more than a day. 

But is it really meaningful? As with Micronauts, it sounds like something that might be the science equivalent of an MCU show but on closer examination is really more like Hasbro latching onto a fad.

Japan has a high suicide rate, so it was news when there were reports from the National Police Agency that October 2020 had more suicide deaths in just that month than they had deaths due to COVID-19 for the year.(1) 

Though nearly everyone recognizes that smoking cigarettes is a known carcinogen, many marijuana users think marijuana smoke is safe. They may not realize it is inhaling the smoke, not that the smoke is from one plant or another, that is the worry. Nicotine or THC is as harmless as caffeine, but when combusted in a leaf with paper and inhaled, everything becomes harmful. Including marijuana plants.