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America is one of 6 countries that make up more than half of gun deaths worldwide (Part II)

A new study puts the US’s gun problem in a global perspective. It’s really bad.

America was also the odd country out among wealthier nations when it comes to gun deaths. For comparison, the US’s rate of 10.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people was much higher than Switzerland’s rate of 2.8, Canada’s 2.1, Germany’s 0.9, the United Kingdom’s 0.3, and Japan’s 0.2.

It is expected that as countries become wealthier and build stronger government institutions, they will see fewer gun deaths (since systemic poverty and weak criminal justice systems, for example, can contribute to more violence). While the rate of US gun deaths is lower than that of many less developed countries, America is still an outlier when compared to nations in similar socioeconomic circumstances.

The study’s estimates are not perfect, as some countries do a poor job tracking gun deaths and proxy measures that are used to gauge gun deaths. But the study gives us the best look yet into gun deaths worldwide — and it’s not good for America.

A major reason is the US’s tremendous number of guns and weak gun laws. Time and time again, researchers have linked these factors to America’s high rates of gun violence, making it the most violent developed country in the world when it comes to guns.

TEXTO:

Coconut oil has earned and lost its reputation as
a so-called superfood in recent years. That’s rightly so,
according to a Harvard professor who has labeled it
“pure poison.”Karin Michels, professor of the
department of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public
Health, explained recently that, regardless of the advice
peddled by unqualified and self-appointed online health
gurus, consuming coconut oil carries a raft of health
risks.Michels said that the substance poses a greater
risk to heart health than lard as it is almost entirely made
up of saturated fatty acids. These are believed to block
our arteries.
Generally, fats packed with fatty acids are those
that are solid at room temperature. According to the
American Heart Association, the average person should
only consume around 11 to 13 grams of saturated fat
per day, or 5 to 6 percent of their total daily
calories.Unsaturated fats such as those found in olive
oil, on the other hand, should also be eaten in
moderation, but they could improve blood cholesterol.
Michels is the latest to question the health benefits
of coconut oil. Last year, the American Heart Association
updated its science advisory, urging the public to avoid
consuming coconut oil if possible. Following an analysis
of over 100 studies dating back to the 1950s,
researchers concluded saturated fats raise so-called
bad cholesterol, or LDL. Coconut oil was found to spike
LDL levels in seven controlled trials.

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Brazil National Museum: as much as 90% of collection destroyed in fire

Building was not insured, the museum’s deputy director said, but some pieces survived including the Bendegó meteorite.

As much as 90% of the collection at Brazil’s National Museum was destroyed in a devastating fire on Sunday and – compounding the disaster – the building was not insured, according to the museum’s deputy director.

Some pieces survived, including the famous Bendegó meteorite and a library of 500,000 books – including works dating back to the days of the Portuguese empire – which was kept in a separate annex, Cristiana Serejo told reporters in front of the building’s blackened shell.

But it was still not possible to say how much of the collection had escaped the flames, Serejo said. “It could be 10%, it could be 15, it could be 20,” she said. “We had a very big loss.”

The museum’s Egyptology collection was completely destroyed, Serejo said.

Researchers who were able to enter one area of the building in Rio de Janeiro are starting to catalogue what little is left, said Serejo, who appealed to members of the public to return any items they found. Asked if the museum was insured, she screwed up her face in mock anguish, and shook her head. “I hope we learn from this,” she said. “Other public buildings are in the same situation.”

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New Parents Don’t Get Enough Sleep for Six Years After a Child Is Born

Those first three months with a newborn can be rough, but researchers say sleep deprivation is an issue with parents for years. New parents are sometimes shocked to discover how little sleep they get in the first six months after a baby is born. They might also be discouraged to learn that their sleep patterns might not return to normal until that newborn is ready for kindergarten.

A new study published in the journal Sleep found that bothparental sleep satisfaction and sleep duration sharply declined after childbirth, hitting their lowest point when a baby is 3 months old.

Women’s sleep duration and quality were far more affected than men, whether or not they breastfed their child. Women lost an average of one hour of sleep nightly compared to what they got prior to pregnancy, while men lost about 15 minutes of sleep per night.

Even four to six years after childbirth, mothers were getting 20 minutes less sleep per night than before they became pregnant, while fathers were still getting 15 minutes less sleep.

“The short-term effects of childbirth on parental sleep is well known. Our study just confirmed these effects,” Lemola told Healthline. “However, it was largely unexpected to find decreased sleep duration and sleep satisfaction six years after birth.”

Sleep was more affected among first-time parents than among parents with more than one child.

The findings were based on interviews of 4,659 parents who had a child between 2008 and 2015.

“While having children is a major source of joy for most parents, it is possible that increased demands and responsibilities associated with the role as a parent lead to shorter sleep and decreased sleep quality even up to six years after birth of the first child,” said Lemola.

Lemola said that future research would be required to determine how parents can cope with sleep loss and regain their sleep patterns sooner.

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Fake news can distort people’s beliefs even after being debunked. A study recently published in the journal Intelligence suggests that some people may have an especially difficult time rejecting misinformation. Asked to rate a fictitious person on a range of character traits, people who scored low on a test of cognitive ability continued to be influenced by damaging information about the person even after they were explicitly told the information was false. The study is significant because it identifies what may be a major risk factor for vulnerability to fake news.

One possible explanation for this finding is based on the theory that a person’s cognitive ability reflects how well they can regulate the contents of working memory – their “mental workspace” for processing information. First proposed by the cognitive psychologists Lynn Hasher and Rose Zacks, this theory holds that some people are more prone to “mental clutter” than other people. In other words, some people are less able to discard (or “inhibit”) information from their working memory that is no longer relevant to the task at hand, or information that has been discredited. Research on cognitive aging indicates that, in adulthood, this ability declines considerably with advancing age, suggesting that older adults may also be especially vulnerable to fake news. Another reason why cognitive ability may predict vulnerability to fake news is that it correlates highly with education. Through education, people may develop meta-cognitive skills – strategies for monitoring and regulating one’s own thinking – that can be used to combat the effects of misinformation.

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THE FIRST CHILD OF BOMI AND JER Bulsara, the boy named Farrokh was born on September 5, 1946, in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, an island off the east coast of Africa. The Bulsaras were Paris’s, Zoroastrian descendents of Persians who fled to India to escape Muslim persecution. While Bomi worked as a high-court cashier for the British government, Jer looked after Farrokh, a lively child who took an early interest in music: “Folk, opera, classical, he loved them all,” she later said. “I think he always wanted to be a showman.”
When Farrokh was six, Jer gave birth to his sister, Kashmira, but the boy’s happy home life would be short-lived. As Kashmira later said, “I only had a year of him,” referrring to the fact that her older brother was sent to St. Peter’s, a boarding school in India, not far from Bombay. “I was a precocious child,” Farrokh would say many years later, when he was known as Fred Mercury, “and my parents thought boarding school would do me good. It was an upheaval of an upbringing, which seems to have worked, I guess.”

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BRAZIL: JUDGE SHUTS BORDER TO VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS FLEEING HUNGER AND HARDSHIP

Judge says entry of immigrants suspended until conditions for ‘humanitarian reception’ are created – activists called it ‘absurd’

A judge in Brazil has blocked Venezuelans from entering the border state of Roraima as local authorities harden their stance against the flood of migrants fleeing hunger and hardship in their home country.

Judge Helder Barreto said he had suspended the entry of Venezuelan immigrants until the conditions for a “humanitarian reception” are created but activists working with migrants attacked it as “absurd”.

Sister Telma Lage from the non-profit Migration and Human Rights Institute, which helps vulnerable migrants in Roraima’s capital Boa Vista, said the judge had overstepped his authority.

“[Venezuelans] are entering Brazil and seeking refuge because of the vulnerable situation they find themselves in,” she said. “What we fear is the lack of options for those near to the border.”

Since 2015, more than 56,000 Venezuelans have sought refuge or residency in Brazil amid continuing political turmoil and economic collapse in their home country. […]

But the flood of migrants has severely stretched health and education services in the poor state of Roraima.

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Lego wants to replace plastic blocks with sustainable materials

The Lego Group wants to replace the plastic in their products with a “sustainable material” by 2030, the company announced.

The world’s largest toy company will invest $1 billion in their new LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre in Denmark, which ________________(1) devoted to finding and implementing new sustainable alternatives for their current building materials. Lego plans on hiring 100 specialists for the center. There is no official definition of a sustainable material.

Legos ________________(2) made with a strong plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene since 1963. The company uses more than 6,000 tons of plastic annually to manufacture its products, according to NBC News.

Changing the raw material could have a large effect on Lego’s carbon footprint, especially considering that only 10% of the carbon emissions from Lego products come from its factories. The other 90% is produced from the extraction and refinement of raw materials, as well as distribution from factories to toy stores.

The company ________________(3) already taken steps to lower its carbon footprint, including a reduction of packaging size and an investment in an offshore wind farm.