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Conservatives Say They Hate Moral Relativism. Why Do They Use It To Defend Statues?

Statues are once again in the news — which means, for those of us who work in philosophical ethics, fresh examples of conservative inconsistency on what morality is and how it’s supposed to work.

Here’s the inconsistency: The same conservatives who decry moral relativismas a depraved form of ethical thinking are often the first to embrace relativism in defending historical figures and…

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Postmodernists Against Free Speech

Those who complain about the current social and intellectual atmosphere in the academy are generally pretty sure of just one thing they’re for and just one thing they’re against: They’re for free speech, and they’re against postmodernism and critical theory.

Now, it’s not always clear what is meant by those things, or why they should be natural opponents. But sometimes the inspiration, if not the…

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Expanding the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge in Computer Science

Imagine someone came along and told you that they had an oracle, and that this oracle could reveal the deep secrets of the universe. While you might be intrigued, you’d have a hard time trusting it. You’d want some way to verify that what the oracle told you was true.

This is the crux of one of the central problems in computer science. Some problems are too hard to solve in any reasonable amount…

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Explaing - 2020: What is the deadly India-China border dispute about?

Explaing – 2020: What is the deadly India-China border dispute about?

What has happened?

At least 20 people have died in clashes between Indian and Chinese troops along the disputed Himalayan border running along the Ladakh area of Kashmir. It is the first fatal clash since 1975 and the most serious since 1967.

Fighting broke out on Monday evening when an Indian patrol came across Chinese forces on a narrow ridge. During the confrontation an Indian commanding…

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Galwan Valley confrontation between China and India could spiral out of control as India and China face-off

The forces of two nuclear weapons states have set about each other with clubs and rocks at one of the most forbidding flashpoints in the world, in a bloody incident that highlights the constant dangers posed by expansionist nationalism.

India has confirmed that it lost at least 20 of its men in a clash with Chinese soldiersnear the disputed mountain border running along the Ladakh area of…

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Soldiers fell to their deaths as India and China's troops fought with rocks in Galwan Valley

Soldiers fell to their deaths as India and China’s troops fought with rocks in Galwan Valley

The hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, on steep, jagged terrain, with iron bars, rocks and fists. Neither side carried guns. Most of the soldiers killed in the worst fighting between India and China in 60 years lost their footing or were knocked from the narrow Himalayan ridge, plunging to their deaths.

India has reacted with shock and caution to the loss of at least 20 soldierson its disputed…

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India accuses China of preparing attack on border troops

India has accused Chinese troops of meticulously preparing an attack on its soldiers on the treacherous Himalayan border, claiming they erected a tent on the Indian side, dammed a river, brought in machinery and then lay in wait with stones and batons wrapped in barbed wire.

The incident on Monday night, in which 20 Indian soldiers died and 76 were injured, was the worst violence between India…

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India cautions China against 'exaggerated and flawed claims' in border standoff - June 2020

India cautions China against ‘exaggerated and flawed claims’ in border standoff – June 2020

India on Thursday cautioned China against making “exaggerated and untenable claims” to the Galvan valley area even as both nations tried to end a standoff in the high Himalayan region after their armies engaged in a deadly clash.

Twenty Indian troops were killed in the clash on Monday night that was the deadliest conflict between the sides in 45 years. China has not disclosed whether its forces…

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Building a Resilient Tomorrow

This book examines ways that communities can reduce, absorb, and recover from climate change impacts. It offers behind-the-scenes stories from the authors’ experiences working at the highest levels of the U.S. government. It also presents real-world analysis of what is and isn’t likely to work in the policymaking realm as well as concrete, actionable policy recommendations. Drawing on…

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Sleep Deprivation Kills

Inside a series of tubes in a bright, warm room at Harvard Medical School, hundreds of fruit flies are staying up late. It has been days since any of them have slept: The constant vibrations that shake their homes preclude rest, cling as they might to the caps of the tubes for respite. Not too far away in their own tubes live other sleepless flies, animated with the calm persistence of those…

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Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas

Labour councils have borne the brunt of local government cuts over a decade of austerity, according to a new analysis by the Guardian.

It highlights for the first time the extent to which poorer, largely Labour-held areas of the country had their funding slashed on average by more than a third, while more affluent, largely Conservative areas were more protected.

The analysis, published on Monday…

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Fiber V2.0 Science of Health Enhancing Benefits

Fiber is so much more than “roughage!” From your heart, to your bones, to your microbiome, the list of health benefits linked to fiber keeps getting longer as nutrition science learns more about what it does for us.

THE QUICK NOTES

“Soluble versus insoluble” is not the only (or even the most useful) way to sort and categorize fiber.

Benefits attributed to fiber include reduced inflammation,…

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How Insulin Helped Create Ant Societies

Ants, wasps, bees and other social insects live in highly organized “eusocial” colonies where throngs of females forgo reproduction — usually viewed as the cornerstone of evolutionary fitness — to serve the needs of a few egg-laying queens and their offspring. How they got that way has been hard to explaindespite more than 150 years of biologists’ efforts. Many researchers have thought the answer…

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How to save Endangered species through mathematics?

It’s now possible to predict how likely an endangered species is to go extinct, with mathematical models acting as windows into the future. These models help scientists foresee how a population is likely to react to changes in the environment and therefore how likely it is to die out.

As the sixth mass extinction event rumbles on, this represents a powerful tool in the arsenal of…

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What kind of diet make you lives the longest? Meat or Vegetarian?

Our ability to live a long life is influenced by a combination of our genes and our environment. In studies that involve identical twins, scientists have estimated that no more than 30% of this influence comes from our genes, meaning that the largest group of factors that control how long a person lives is their environment.

Of the many possible environmental factors, few have been as thoroughly…

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Does endurance exercise suppresses the immune system?

It is commonly believed that some forms of exercise, such as endurance events, suppress your immune system and leave you at risk of infections, like the common cold. However, our latest review of the evidence suggests that this is probably not true. In fact, exercise seems to boost the immune system.

The idea that endurance exercise suppresses the immune system stems from research in the 1980s…

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