Music lovers today know that many live shows are a luxury expense or even out of reach — an average concert ticket costs well over $100. But in 1980, $20 could snag you two tickets to see some of the top acts of the day, including Peter Gabriel, Bob Seger, or the Grateful Dead. Today, meanwhile, it might be able to get you a drink at big arena shows.
For kids (or collectors), brand-new Transformers toys at the peak of their popularity in the ’80s were typically priced at about $10; for a more deluxe figure, $20 was the norm. And while $20 doesn’t go very far in the fast-food realm today, in the 1980s, it bought a lot: A McDonald’s value meal deal cost a mere $2.59, meaning $20 could feed a family of seven — or a family of five with money left over for ice cream afterward.
Goosebumps, known in medical parlance as piloerection, are caused by contractions in small muscles that are connected to hair follicles. This creates a depression on the skin’s surface, resulting in the hairs standing upright. Its name comes from the resemblance of skin to that of a plucked bird.
It is believed that this is an inherited trait from our prehistoric ancestors. They had thicker coats of body hair, which created insulation and kept the body warm when stimulated. While our layer of body hair is too thin to make this insulation process effective, the muscle contraction and increased electrical activity does help to stimulate the body, which is why goosebumps that are caused by the cold go away when you warm up.
Goosebumps are also associated with a wide range of emotional situations. People talk about getting goosebumps when scared, or while listening to rousing songs or watching a high-stakes sporting event. Goosebumps can be triggered by the subconscious release of the testosterone hormone. When high levels of stress occur, whether positive or negative, testosterone is released to help in the fight-or-flight decision-making process. This cues goosebumps, and we start to feel our hair prick up.
Goosebumps may be a little mysterious, but generally speaking, when you feel them cropping up, all you need to do is take a deep breath, relax a little, and maybe put on a sweater.
The MAGA morons are sadly going to get what they are asking for and it will hurt everyone. They want to turn the economy around even though our inflation is at 2.5%, unemployment is at record low, the current administration has had positive job growth every month but we need to turn this car around . Every economist has said that DJTs tariff plan will cause inflation and possibly a recession and that is the direction that the red hat militia wants us to go in. Yes grocery prices are up but so are profits for those retailers and there is no plan for curtailing corporate profits.
So thank you those who didn’t vote because … (black woman) and those who thought a 34 count felon was a good idea.
Louisiana has reported the first U.S. fatality from avian influenza. Most of the country’s human cases have been mild.
The Louisiana Department of Health recently reported the first U.S. death from H5N1 avian influenza: this individual was a patient who became severely ill and was hospitalized after having contact with both backyard poultry and wild birds. The department didn’t identify the deceased but said the person was older than age 65 and had underlying health conditions.
A total of 66 confirmed human cases of bird flu have been reported in the U.S. since the beginning of 2024. Most have been very mild and have occurred in people who work with dairy cattle or poultry. The scant handful of severe cases that have occurred throughout North America during that time have included one person in Missouri who was hospitalized and tested positive for the H5N1 virus and a 13-year-old in British Columbia who also had obesity and asthma and had been listed as in critical condition, according to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In previous international outbreaks in humans, the virus has had a reported mortality rate of more than 50 percent, though that is likely an overestimate because not all cases are caught.
The death in Louisiana and hospitalizations in Missouri and British Columbia are concerning, but they have not changed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s assessment that the risk to the general public from H5N1 remains low.
“We have to put H5N1 deaths in perspective. This has been a horrible disease for well over 27 years in humans,” says Michael Osterholm, chair of public health and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Yet “the virus activity we’re seeing now, in terms of cases, has been largely a very mild illness,” Osterholm adds. “And while there have been two severe cases, both of these individuals also had underlying health conditions that would predispose them to severe disease.”
In comparison, he notes that there have been more than 2,700 deaths from seasonal flu in the U.S. so far this fall and winter alone. When it comes to bird flu, “we seem to live in two separate universes: one where we have a state like California, which has just declared a state of emergency over bird flu, and then you have the CDC saying it’s low-risk—and they’re both right,” he says. Osterholm likens the current situation to walking safely along a long, flat field and then suddenly coming upon the edge of a cliff with a mile-high drop. Once one gets past that edge, “that’s what a pandemic is,” he says. So it’s accurate to say the risk is low right now, he adds—but that could change “in a heartbeat.”
So far there have not been any reports of human-to-human spread of H5N1 in the U.S. That’s not a reason to be complacent, however. The more people are exposed to or infected with H5N1, the higher the chances are that the virus will mutate and mix with seasonal flu viruses, possibly making it easier to spread between people.
The individuals in the Louisiana and British Columbia cases were both infected with viruses related to the D1.1 bird flu genotype that is currently circulating in wild birds and poultry—not the B3.13 strain that is circulating in cattle. It’s too soon to draw conclusions about whether the avian strain is more virulent, however, Osterholm says.
Public health experts say one thing is clear: people who work with or have contact with wild birds, poultry or cattle should take precautions. More than two thirds of California’s dairy herds have been infected with H5N1 in the past year, and human cases may be going uncounted (especially if they are mild). Dairy workers are at risk from the milking process, during which milk with high levels of virus could splash into their eyes. Poultry workers have been infected while culling sick birds. Several domestic cats have been infected after drinking raw milk or consuming raw meat. Fortunately, pasteurization or cooking to the appropriate temperature kills the virus.
It’s too soon to tell whether H5N1 will develop into a pandemic. “I’ve been worried about a flu pandemic dating back to the last [flu pandemic], and that includes time during COVID,” Osterholm says. Worldwide, vaccine makers have capacity to make enough bird flu vaccine to inoculate fewer than two billion people (about 25 percent of the world’s population) in the first year after an outbreak. “We’re extremely vulnerable right now, on a global basis, to a flu pandemic,” Osterholm says. “So, yeah, I worry about that every day, whether it’s H5N1 or H2N2 or some other virus that emerges out of the flu world.”
The end of the dinosaurs is often pictured as an apocalyptic event complete with a giant asteroid, a cataclysmic collision, and general fire and brimstone-type stuff, but the ends of biological epochs are rarely so cut-and-dried. In fact, the story of the dinosaurs didn’t even end on that unfortunate spring day 65 million years ago, because dinosaurs still live among us — we just call them birds.
Today, scientists consider all birds a type of dinosaur, descendants of creatures who survived the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. And yes, that even includes the chicken. In 2008, scientists performed a molecular analysis of a shred of 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein, and compared it to a variety of proteins belonging to many different animals. Although proteins from alligators were relatively close, the best match by far belonged to ostriches — the largest flightless birds on Earth — and the humble chicken.
Today’s chicken is a descendant of a still-extant tropical bird known as the red junglefowl, and a member of an order of birds known as Galliformes (gallus means “rooster” in Latin). Following the initial 2008 study, further research has proved that a chicken’s genetic lineage closely resembles that of its avian dinosaur ancestors. Scientists have even concluded that a reconstruction of T. rex’s chromosomes would likely produce something similar to a chicken, duck, or ostrich. So the next time you eat a chicken for dinner, you might pause to consider its connection to some of the most fearsome beasts to ever stalk the planet.
Ulysses S. Grant, America’s 18th president, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, to Jesse and Hannah Grant. Though Hannah initially wanted to name her son after American diplomat Albert Gallatin, her father suggested the name Hiram and her mother proposed Ulysses. After much discussion, Jesse announced the boy would be named Hiram Ulysses Grant in an effort to please both grandparents. The future president lived the first 17 years of his life with the first name Hiram — until there was a clerical mistake at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Grant was nominated to West Point in 1839 by Ohio Congressman Thomas Hamer, who accidentally wrote Grant’s name in the application as “Ulysses S. Grant.” The confusion stemmed from the fact that Grant often went by Ulysses, rather than Hiram. To further complicate things, the application called for a middle initial, so Hamer added an “S” for Grant’s mother’s surname, Simpson. Grant made several efforts to correct the mistake, but the name stuck. Fellow cadets even referred to Grant as “Uncle Sam” because of his unintentionally patriotic initials. In an 1844 letter to his future wife Julia Dent, Grant wrote, “You know I have an ‘S’ in my name and don’t know what it stand for.”
Today seems like one of those days … the world is on fire; at least southern n California is on fire, but it just seems to be a flair up of a deeper problem. Sadly, there are too many that don’t see fires and predictable mud slides that will happen as soon as there is a heavy rain are all symptoms of the climate crisis that the upcoming administration will whitewash and completely ignore.
I realize that my generation and the one before me are very much to blame for the climatic future that we set in motion and have ignored. The passing of President Jimmy Carter has for some of us brought that into focus, I know I was only 13 when he left office but there were so many things in his legacy that will only reside in the history books. The tragedy of his passing, even at 100 years old, is even more heightened by the knowledge of the person that is going to take the office in 10 days. Carter was probably the most honest person to hold the office in my lifetime and did more post Presidency than anyone else in history so far. Now the person taking the office is without question the anthesis of Carters legacy, a 34-count convicted felon, who from all count has never thought about anyone but himself and I don’t foresee a Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge Christmas Story turn around in his future. Cruelty and self-aggrandizing are not BUGs in Trumps personality they are features that those features are something that I sincerely hope our Democracy can survive.
So we have reached another milestone… DJT is officially convinced felon and in 10 day will be inaugurated as 47th President. With that blaring fact being now a thing… every person applying for job that has a non-violent felony on their record should either not have that held against them or they should not have to even disclose it.
Not only is the worst possible human on the planet going to get the nuclear codes again he is spreading lies about the fires in California. President Biden has promised 100% federal assistance for the next 180 days but I have no doubt that once Donald is in the oval office he will try and curtail that help because California is a blue state. The transactional presidency is about to start again… “ I’ll help you out but what are you going to do for me….”
I honestly have lost all confidence in a good percentage of my fellow Americans. I hope that we haven’t sacrificed the soul of our nation on the altar of TRUMP…😢
Earth’s climate in 2024 is “in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual,” a team of 14 climate scientists warned in “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth.” The report did not sugarcoat their view of the dangers humanity is facing.
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” the report begins. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”
The report is the latest such annual peer-reviewed paper published in the journal BioScience by an international team of scientists led by Oregon State ecologist William Ripple.
The authors found that 25 of 35 “planetary vital signs” reached record levels last year, including global temperatures, human climate pollution, fossil fuel subsidies, heat-related mortality rates, meat production, and loss of forest cover.
After decades of warnings from climate scientists and efforts by some policymakers and activists, “the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel-based system,” it says. “We are currently going in the wrong direction and our increasing fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe. We fear the danger of climate breakdown.”
They did note a few positive indicators like clean energy production.
“Of course, the situation is not hopeless,” wrote Harvard science historian and study co-author Naomi Oreskes via email. “What we want people to understand is that, while there has been progress – particularly in the price and deployment of renewables – it’s not nearly enough. And the atmosphere does not respond to our intentions. It responds to chemistry.”
The report calls for “rapidly phasing down fossil fuel use” by ratcheting up the carbon price in wealthy countries and using some of the proceeds to fund policies to stop climate change and adaptation programs to reduce damage from climate disasters. It also urges sharp reductions in emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, to “slow the near-term rate of global warming, helping to avoid tipping points and extreme climate impacts.”
Without a course correction, the report warned, “climate change could cause many millions of additional deaths by 2050.”
While human activity is responsible for long-term global warming, 2023 and 2024 were also influenced by an El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, which drew warm water up to the sea surface and contributed to short-term surface warming and associated climate impacts like droughts and wildfires in some regions.
Nevertheless, the report warned that human influence on Earth’s climate kept growing. Global fossil fuel consumption and associated climate-warming pollution reached record levels in 2023. So did the number of meat and dairy cattle and other ruminant livestock whose digestive processes generate planet-warming methane pollution, along with global per-person meat consumption.
The report also referenced a recent survey of climate scientists conducted by the Guardian in which more than three-quarters of the 380 respondents believed humanity will miss the target set in the Paris climate agreement of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.
There is some encouraging evidence of such decisive action, albeit at insufficient levels so far. Expert organizations like the International Energy Agency project that based on current climate policies, the world is headed toward around 2.5°C global warming by 2100. That’s not enough to meet the Paris climate targets, and yet implementing additional climate policies and solutions in the coming years could improve that outcome even further to levels below the worried expectations of three-quarters of climate scientists.
Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void 
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