The data comes primarily from the CDC’s injury and mortality reports from 1990 to 2021. Here are some highlights.

Men will often be boys. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the design of public urinals, where through a moment of frivolity or inattention, the stream goes in a pathway resulting in splashes on the wall and clothing. Physicists attempt to help.

Peer review is a failure
Methane rising
The Trolley Problem has multicultural answers
Heating with Nukes

Ho, Ho, Ho, etc., etc., etc. Kris Kringle, here, reporting on the State of SCE (Santa Claus Enterprises), including its subsidiaries, KKW (Kris Kringle’s Workshop), the Rudolf’s Bar and Gym Group, and Super Stocking Stuffers, sold exclusively on-circle to our subscribers. 

Sweden has been the poster child of the live-free-or-die, no-lockdown crowd. The Great Barrington Declaration has its roots in the Swedish response. But beyond those snippets, what actually took place there? It is time for many of us, including myself, to find out.

Dreary, despondent headlines about pollution and climate change are the norm. But they are not painting an accurate picture. Many countries are making serious efforts to protect the environment. Human ingenuity is the ultimate resource. My latest over at BigThink.

Discrimination in the workplace is terrible. Some forms involving gender, or race, are more readily identified than others. This preprint, under peer review, suggests that attractiveness can be discriminative too. Ugly need not apply.

Last year around Christmas, I wrote an article about mistletoe, a not-very-poisonous plant associated with the holiday. I am fascinated that so many plants related to the holiday have toxic elements. I’ve included a couple of highly poisonous plants, belladonna, and hemlock, that appear in some of the greatest literary works and my favorite mysteries.  

How physicians communicate with their peers and their patients has come under more scrutiny of late. Patient access to “open” notes has raised concern about physicians using hurtful terms. A new paper considers the problem of physicians communicating with their patients unconsciously using jargon that obstructs rather than facilitates understanding.

Homogeneous urban counties tend to yield more precise relationships than entire states in geographic analysis. Here we updated the urban data through November 2022, comprising a total population of about 131 million. Our analysis focused on recent trends in daily death and infection (case) rates based on monthly averages.