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Notre-Dame came far closer to collapsing than people knew

    The security employee monitoring the smoke alarm panel at Notre-Dame cathedral was just three days on the job when the red warning light flashed on the evening of April 15: “Feu.” Fire. It was 6:18 on a Monday, the week before Easter. The Rev. Jean-Pierre Caveau was celebrating Mass before hundreds of worshipers and visitors, and the employee radioed a church guard who was standing just a few feet from the altar, and told him to go check for fire. He did and found nothing.

    It took nearly 30 minutes before they realized their mistake: The guard had gone to the wrong building. The fire was in the attic of the cathedral, the famed latticework of ancient timbers known as “the forest.” The guard went to the attic of a small adjacent building, the sacristy.

    Instead of calling the fire department, the security employee called his boss but didn’t reach him. The manager called back and eventually deciphered the mistake. He called the guard and told him to leave the sacristy and run to the main attic. But by the time the guard climbed 300 narrow steps to the attic, the fire was burning out of control, putting firefighters in a near impossible position. Ultimately, Notre-Dame still stands only because the firefighters decided to risk everything.

    The miscommunication, uncovered in interviews with church officials and managers of the fire security company, has set off a bitter round of finger-pointing over who was responsible for allowing the fire to rage unchecked for so long. Who is to blame and how the fire started have not yet been determined and are at the heart of an investigation by the French authorities that will continue for months.

    But the damage is done. What happened that night changed Paris. The cathedral — a soaring medieval structure that has captured the hearts of believer and nonbeliever alike for 850 years — was ravaged.

(Elian Peltier et al. www.nytimes.com, 18.07.2019. Adaptado.)

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How to help your hangover

By Jen Christensen, CNN

    Here's the secret to avoiding a hangover: Don't drink. Or at least drink in moderation, doctors say.

    Thankfully, hangovers aren't all that serious.

    Scientifically speaking, what cures a hangover is hard to know. That's because what we know about hangovers is still a little murky, says Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist, a doctor at Emory Healthcare and an assistant professor of medicine.

    What scientists do know about hangovers is that alcohol, when consumed in excess, can do a real number on your system.

    It makes you want to run to the bathroom more and that can lead to dehydration. That process is what causes the thirst, dizziness and the light-headedness you feel.

    It can also trigger an inflammatory response from your immune system. That can hurt your ability to concentrate. It can hurt your memory. It can make you feel lethargic.

    Drinking alcohol in excess can cause your blood sugar to fall. If it dips too low it can cause a shakiness and weakness, even seizures.

    Alcohol can cause your blood vessels to expand, which can cause headaches.
    It can irritate the lining of your stomach, making you nauseous.
    You can't stop a hangover, says Bergquist, but there are a few ways you can improve your symptoms.
    Drinking water as you consume alcohol can help with the dehydration issue.
    "That does not improve your concentration or loss of spatial relation skills that come with a hangover, though," she says.

    Eating a little something can help your stomach. But eating greasy food to soak up the alcohol better, as some people will tell you, is a myth. In fact, that greasy stuff may irritate your stomach more. Instead, Bergquist suggests eating some healthy protein and carbohydrates

    But other than avoiding alcohol altogether, the only other way to ease your symptoms is simple.
    "Rest is the one way you can really help yourself," Bergquist said.
    So try to sleep it off. You will feel better, eventually

(Adapted from: https://edition.cnn.com)

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How to help your hangover

By Jen Christensen, CNN

    Here's the secret to avoiding a hangover: Don't drink. Or at least drink in moderation, doctors say.

    Thankfully, hangovers aren't all that serious.

    Scientifically speaking, what cures a hangover is hard to know. That's because what we know about hangovers is still a little murky, says Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist, a doctor at Emory Healthcare and an assistant professor of medicine.

    What scientists do know about hangovers is that alcohol, when consumed in excess, can do a real number on your system.

    It makes you want to run to the bathroom more and that can lead to dehydration. That process is what causes the thirst, dizziness and the light-headedness you feel.

    It can also trigger an inflammatory response from your immune system. That can hurt your ability to concentrate. It can hurt your memory. It can make you feel lethargic.

    Drinking alcohol in excess can cause your blood sugar to fall. If it dips too low it can cause a shakiness and weakness, even seizures.

    Alcohol can cause your blood vessels to expand, which can cause headaches.
    It can irritate the lining of your stomach, making you nauseous.
    You can't stop a hangover, says Bergquist, but there are a few ways you can improve your symptoms.
    Drinking water as you consume alcohol can help with the dehydration issue.
    "That does not improve your concentration or loss of spatial relation skills that come with a hangover, though," she says.

    Eating a little something can help your stomach. But eating greasy food to soak up the alcohol better, as some people will tell you, is a myth. In fact, that greasy stuff may irritate your stomach more. Instead, Bergquist suggests eating some healthy protein and carbohydrates

    But other than avoiding alcohol altogether, the only other way to ease your symptoms is simple.
    "Rest is the one way you can really help yourself," Bergquist said.
    So try to sleep it off. You will feel better, eventually

(Adapted from: https://edition.cnn.com)

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Testing for Caffeine Could Help Foil Fake Urine Scam

By Andy Extance on January 9, 2019

    In a disturbing trend, scam artists are using commercially sold fake urine to fool doctors into prescribing pain medications such as hydrocodone − which can then be consumed or illegally sold. The synthetic pee lets patients pass tests intended to ensure they are not already taking opioid medications or drugs of abuse.

    Hoping to address the situation, Patrick Kyle, director of clinical chemistry and toxicology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and his pathologist colleague Jaswinder Kaur have now shown how legal indulgences − including chocolate, coffee and cigarettes − can help distinguish real pee from fake.

    Past approaches to spotting fake specimens have included testing urine’s acidity and density and assessing concentration of a metabolic waste substance called creatinine. But some synthetic products now pass these evaluations, Kyle says.

    The new method looks for four substances common in urine: caffeine and theobromine, both found in chocolate, tea and coffee; cotinine, produced as nicotine breaks down; and urobilin − degraded hemoglobin that gives urine its yellow color.

    The scientists studied the various substances in four different groups. One group of 100 urine samples came from people who had been observed providing them. A second set of 100 came from individuals seeking pain medication, who were not observed. A third came from 200 unobserved job applicants. And the final group consisted of 10 samples of commercially available synthetic urine. All samples provided by observed individuals were positive for at least one of the four test substances; three from the pain medication group and two from the job applicants lacked them. No synthetic urine samples contained any of the four substances. Negative results do not prove criminal activity − but they can indicate attempted deception, Kyle says. In such cases, he adds, “the clinic or the business should simply collect another specimen from the individual.”

(Adapted from: www.scientificamerican.com)

T E X T

The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno

    This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

    The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know flock there because it is home to exceptionally high concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.

    The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the climate.

    For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control. “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances.” His analysis showed that at least 22 percent of the Pantanal in Brazil has burned since January, with the worst fires, in August and September, blazing for two months straight.

    Naturally occurring fire plays a role in the Pantanal, in addition to the burning by ranchers. The flames are usually contained by the landscape’s mosaic of water. But this year’s drought sucked these natural barriers dry. The fires are far worse than any since satellite records began.

    The Brazilian federal police are investigating the fires, some of which appear to have been illegally targeting forests.

    Because ecosystems are interconnected, the well-being of the wetland is at the mercy of the booming agriculture in the surrounding highlands. The huge fields of soy, other grains and cattle — commodities traded around the world — cause soil erosion that flows into the Pantanal, clogging its rivers so severely that some have become accidental dams, robbing the area downstream of water.

    But perhaps the most ominous danger comes from even further afield: climate change. The effects that models have predicted, a much hotter Pantanal alternating between severe drought and extreme rainfall, are already being felt, scientists say. A study published this year found that climate change poses “a critical threat” to the ecosystem, damaging biodiversity and impairing its ability to help regulate water for the continent and carbon for the world. In less than 20 years, it found that the northern Pantanal may turn into a savanna or even an arid zone. “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Wetlands and one of the study’s authors. T

    To save the Pantanal, scientists offer solutions: Reduce climate change immediately. Practice sustainable agriculture in and around the wetland. Pay ranchers to preserve forests and other natural areas on their land. Increase ecotourism. Do not divert the Pantanal’s waters, because its flood pulse is its life.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13.

T E X T

I Used to Fear Being a Nobody. Then I Left Social Media.

By Bianca Brooks

    What’s happening?”

    I stare blankly at the little box as I try to think of something clever for my first tweet. I settle on what’s at the top of my mind: “My only #fear is being a nobody.” How could I know this exchange would begin a dialogue that would continue nearly every day for the next nine years of my life?

    I began using Twitter in 2010 as a newly minted high school freshman. Though it began as a hub for my quirky adolescent thoughts, over the years it became an archive of my emotional and intellectual voice — a kind of virtual display for the evolution of my politics and artistic identity. But after nine years, it was time to close the archive. My wanting to share my every waking thought became eclipsed by a desire for an increasingly rare commodity — a private life.

    Though I thought disappearing from social media would be as simple as logging off, my refusal to post anything caused a bit of a stir among my small but loyal following. I began to receive emails from strangers asking me where I had gone and when I would return. One message read: “Not to be over familiar, but you have to come back eventually. You’re a writer after all. How will we read your writing?” Another follower inquired, “Where will you go?”

    The truth is I have not gone anywhere. I am, in fact, more present than ever.

    Over time, I have begun to sense these messages reveal more than a lack of respect for privacy. I realize that to many millennials, a life without a social media presence is not simply a private life; it is no life at all: We possess a widespread, genuine fear of obscurity.

    When I consider the near-decade I have spent on social media, this worry makes sense. As with many in my generation, Twitter was my entry into conversations happening on a global scale; long before my byline graced any publication, tweeting was how I felt a part of the world. Twitter functions much like an echo chamber dependent on likes and retweets, and gaining notoriety is as easy as finding someone to agree with you. For years I poured my opinions, musings and outrage onto my timeline, believing I held an indispensable place in a vital sociopolitical experiment.

    But these passionate, public observations were born of more than just a desire to speak my mind — I was measuring my individual worth in constant visibility. Implicit in my follower’s question “Where will you go?” is the resounding question “How will we know where you’ve gone?” Privacy is considered a small exchange for the security of being well known and well liked.

    After all, a private life boasts no location markers or story updates. The idea that the happenings of our lives would be constrained to our immediate families, friends and real-life communities is akin to social death in a world measured by followers, views, likes and shares.

    I grow weary when I think of this as the new normal for what is considered to be a fruitful personal life. Social media is no longer a mere public extension of our private socialization; it has become a replacement for it. What happens to our humanity when we relegate our real lives to props for the performance of our virtual ones?

    For one, a predominantly online existence can lull us into a dubious sense of having enacted concrete change, simply because of a tweet or Instagram post. As “hashtag activism” has obscured longstanding traditions of assembly and protest, there’s concern that a failure to transition from the keyboard to in-person organization will effectively stall or kill the momentum of political movements. (See: Occupy Wall Street.) 

    The sanctity of our most intimate experiences is also diminished. My grandfather Charles Shaw — a notable musician whose wisdoms and jazz scene tales I often shared on Twitter — passed away last year. Rather than take adequate time to privately mourn the loss of his giant influence in my life alongside those who loved him most, I quickly posted a lengthy tribute to him to my followers. At the time I thought, “How will they remember him if I don’t acknowledge his passing?”

    Perhaps at the root of this anxiety over being forgotten is an urgent question of how one ought to form a legacy; with the rise of automation, a widening wealth gap and an unstable political climate, it is easy to feel unimportant. It is almost as if the world is too big and we are much too small to excel in it in any meaningful way. We feel we need as many people as possible to witness our lives, so as not to be left out of a story that is being written too fast by people much more significant than ourselves.

    “The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow,” the writer Anais Nin said. “This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us.”

    I think of those words and at once any fear of obscurity is eclipsed by much deeper ones — the fear of forgoing the sacred moments of life, of never learning to be completely alone, of not bearing witness to the incredible lives of those who surround me.

    I observe the world around me. It is big and moving fast. “What’s happening?” I think to myself.

    I’m just beginning to find out.

From:www.nytimes.com/Oct. 1, 2019