Read time: 7 minsThe recent deluge of pro-hydrogen stories in the media that tout hydrogen as a climate solution and clean form of energy can now be linked in part to FTI Consulting — one of the most notorious oil and gas industry public relations firm…

Read time: 5 minsDuring a virtual event on Wednesday, December 9 hosted by the Heritage Foundation — a conservative free market think tank backed by polluters like the petrochemical Koch empire — the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency…

Zain Chagla, Sumon Chakrabarti, Isaac Bogoch and Lynora Saxinger, in The National Post, on what we should be doing with vaccines on the horizon.Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how we might make best use of the vaccines once they arrive.Jennifer Yang, Kat…

For a delightful change of pace, here’s some of the best dog videos now on the web:

Crazy agility by Pink the border collie..

Come for the speed – stay for flying hug…pic.twitter.com/ReL9buvhyi

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 27, 2020

Gm tweeties, happy hump day! Enjoy your day everyone.
pic.twitter.com/QdlH6vwcNn

— ༺🦋༻ᗰᗩƳᖇᗩ༺🦋༻ (@LepapillonBlu) November 25, 2020

His favorite toy pic.twitter.com/gFO2N7Q5tp

— The Feel Good Page ❤️ (@akkitwts) November 23, 2020

ok it is time to remember when three dogs thought it was just another day and it turned out to be a great day they are so happy tbh pic.twitter.com/UlhK5MJZbu

— darth™ (@darth) November 11, 2016

These two are Branch Managers.. pic.twitter.com/m23hJhf5QL

— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) November 27, 2020

Don’t mind him. He’s just trying to fit in.. pic.twitter.com/k2MRNq7gDz

— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) November 27, 2020

Michael Mina, in TIME, on why he thinks cheap, rapid, testing could dig us out of our holes long before vaccines start going into arms. James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with the most important rule to follow to protect yourself from COVID thi…

Plainly, 2020 has been an awful year.And I know that I haven’t been blogging, but it just feels wrong to be writing about nutrition, medicine, or weight management in the face of our tragic new realities.I do hope this post finds you and yours healthy…

This is from September: Aliens: “Take us to your leader.”Me: “I would wait.”— Jesse Lifson (@DoYouEvenLif) September 12, 2020 Turned out to be pretty good advice.

Selinia Simmons-Duffin, in NPR Shots, on why Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be kept at temperatures lower than an Antarctic winter.James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on honouring the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday by cancelling it this year.Julia Belluz,…

You know how when you’re going through an intersection and someone runs the red but luckily they just click your bumper on the way past, and you are shaken but OK and you just drive on?
That’s how I feel about Trump’s defeat.
America has avoided fascism by the merest click.

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) November 8, 2020

Everyone needs to chill out please. They still have to count all of Hunter Biden’s laptops, Greenland, the lost city of Antifa and the hidden suburbs behind the revolving ObamaGate.

— Jesse Lifson (@DoYouEvenLif) November 13, 2020

Johnny Cash spent decades trying to warn us about this. https://t.co/EkqJhSUqdq

— Steve Reilly (@BySteveReilly) November 11, 2020

From the ‘Crap wildlife photography’ group on Facebook #womensart pic.twitter.com/pxMUG35LJT

— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) November 11, 2020

When you see your ex and try to play it cool.

📹: Imgur user anlyin pic.twitter.com/PSyXsmPZX3

— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) November 15, 2020

Ever since the owners got this trampoline, the dog spends more time on it than the kids
(viralhog) pic.twitter.com/ToBhFJM2ET

— ༺❆ᗙ Martin 🏳️‍🌈 ᗛ❆༻ Party time🍷 (@KlatuBaradaNiko) November 10, 2020

Obstacle course skills… pic.twitter.com/modMjqwTqK

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 9, 2020

This good boy thinks the guys throwing darts on the TV are playing fetch with him… pic.twitter.com/tcLNrKpn0Q

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 15, 2020

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, explains what could be done by countries like Canada and the US to control the virus if they actually wanted to do so as evidenced by the successes of Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Austra…

HEY, NEIGHBOUR
✌️❤️🇨🇦🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/9niMTfDPi8

— Brittlestar (@brittlestar) November 7, 2020

#BestEpisode_EVER pic.twitter.com/n7oJx9BrhE

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) November 7, 2020

You may want to mute this account for a while because I feel I may have to individually insult every member of the outgoing administration in crude and personal ways

— Hari Kunzru (@harikunzru) November 7, 2020

I drew this thinking of Georgia and Arizona. #Election2020 #TrumpIsLosing #TrumpMeltdown pic.twitter.com/5zBKjyDHwk

— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) November 7, 2020

People were ecstatic when Obama won too, but the energy was really different. That was like we were all on the cusp of a bright new future. This is more like we just beat the Nazis.

— Jan in the Pan (@mswhatsit) November 8, 2020

No joke: I’m in rural Mexico and cheers just erupted throughout the town

— Justin C. Cohen (@juscohen) November 7, 2020

From church bells in Paris to fireworks in London, Europe & beyond, America’s allies across the world are celebrating Donald Trump’s defeat and the election of President Biden and VP Harris! ❤️🎉🍾 pic.twitter.com/SYtIEgLTQ8

— Minh Ngo (@minhtngo) November 7, 2020

And finally, this:

Reminder: Hillary Clinton gets to cast one of the electoral votes that throws him out of office. 🙃https://t.co/yPlwzCgaJU

— Dennis Mersereau (@wxdam) November 7, 2020

Andre Picard, in The Globe and Mail, on the price we’re paying for complacency with COVID.Helen Branswell, in STAT, with some reassurance on Danish COVID minks. Yes minks.
       Related StoriesSaturday Stories: The E…

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, predicts what the future of COVID in America will look like following a Biden or a Trump election win.Jeff Passan, in ESPN, discusses how this year’s World Series was a metaphor for 2020 America.Helen Branswell, in STAT, on h…

George Davey Smith, Michael Blastland, and Marcus Munafò, in the BMJ, on how when it comes to COVID, certainty is a red flag.Amy McDermott, in PNAS, on how it’ll likely be rapid home COVID testing that brings back some sense of normalcy – it can’t com…

Since 2004, Constant Health’s expert team has been at the forefront behavioural weight management, and now, by leveraging the best that technology has to offer, the goal is to share that expertise while eliminating geographic boundaries. Our headquart…

Promoting the conceit that setting up a “corruption committee” to harass the Trudeau government isn’t really an issue of confidence in the government is just silly. Of course it is. The Tories had initially billed the committee as one focused on “…

 
Tony Scott, in SFGate, on how he used to call it the ‘scamedemic’. He doesn’t anymore. Marc Lipsitch, Gregg Gonsalves, Carlos del Rio, and Rochelle P. Walensky, in The Washington Post, on the why the so-called Great Barrington Declaration i…

This is the best public health messaging I’ve seen all year. #Covid19 pic.twitter.com/Oc5iMMJVx8— Gerald Butts 🇨🇦 😷🖐🧼🤚 (@gmbutts) October 9, 2020 Well, as a matter of fact I DO know what to do with a pencil and a cassette tape. But we survived our…

Gid M-K, in Medium, tells us what we do and don’t know about Vitamin D and COVIDThe Editors of and in The New England Journal of Medicine, on with paragraphs of fire regarding the coming American election.Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how toxic masculi…

You have to be creative to stay in business during a pandemic. pic.twitter.com/cKmA1xXxrT— You Had One Job! (@_youhadonejob1) October 5, 2020 Lincolnshire Wildlife Park has recently been forced to remove five African grey parrots from the main p…

Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on why vaccine chaos may be loomingDavid Frum, also in The Atlantic, asks, what did you expect?
       Related StoriesSaturday Stories: Vaccine Collaboration, Racism and COVID Coverage, a…

Julia Belluz, in Vox, on the 156 countries teaming up on a COVID vaccine (without the US and China).Indi Samarajiva, in Medium, on the overwhelming racism of COVID media coverage.Karim Abdul-Jabbar, in the Los Angeles Times, on athletes, COVID, and no…

Trudeau addressed the United Nations today and his speech was simply outstanding: Other people have posted, but ICYMI10 minutes worth watching. Headline Politics: PM Trudeau Addresses UN General Assembly – September 25, 2020 | CPAChttps://t.co/M4CO0c9q…

Its difficult to realize that a governmental system that seemed to be so strong and healthy is actually so weak and brittle that the election of one man and the death of one woman could destroy it.  But that’s the way I feel right now about t…

Aaron E. Carroll, in The New York Times, with a useful read on how most of us have been considering and responding to risk backwards.

Tomás Pueyo, also in The New York Times, on the need for great fences.

Photo: Ongayo / CC BY-SA (https://creativeco…

Irfan Dhalla, in The Globe and Mail, on COVID and the rapidly approaching Canadian winter.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the recurrent errors being made that hamper progress on COVID.

Edward Holmes, in The New York Times, covers the mutating SARS-CoV2…

Anyone else make this mistake recently? 😳#climatechange #wildfires #apocalypse2020 #motordumb #yycbike pic.twitter.com/Gn1TljmSgu

— REWORKS (@ReWorksYYC) September 12, 2020

Apparently AP style now says you can use “less” even when “fewer” is correct and so 2020 continues to plumb new depths.

— Jonathan Gitlin (@drgitlin) September 11, 2020

Yes, I know in the overall scheme of things, the sinking of some of the boats in Trump’s boating parade this weekend is pretty trivial. 

Mark Earnest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, on becoming a plague doctor.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on why herd immunity isn’t a strategy.

Jesmyn Ward, in Vanity Fair, on losing her husband to COVID. 

Jon Cohen, in Science, interviews Moncef Slaoui, the head of operation Warp Speed who says he’ll quit if politics trump science on vaccine safety and distribution.

       

Related Stories

• Saturday Stories: Racist Pulse Oximeters, Convalescent Plasma Politics,
• Saturday Stories: 7 Months In, Magical Thinking, Long Haulers, And Weighing Kids In School
• Saturday Stories: Kids And School, The Immune System, Russian Vaccines, And Sharpies

 

What a strange week! 

But then I watch this:

Some things you need to stand back and just watch. Bald eagle 🦅 being released back into the wild. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/HgziUJ2Dbo

— Jim Osman (@EdgeCGroup) August 8, 2020

and this

I’m melting seeing them. pic.twitter.com/JlJ5IeccLX

— Life on Earth (@planetpng) August 22, 2020

Now I feel better.

Amy Moran-Thomas, in Boston Review, on how pulse oximeters, integral to the care of a COVID19 patient, encode systemic racism.

Craig Spencer, in The Atlantic, discusses convalescent plasma politics from his very unique vantage point as both a New York ER physician, and as someone who received convalescent plasma (to treat Ebola) as an experimental treatment.

Katherine Harmon Courage, in Vox, with the lowdown on how inexpensive rapid testing might bring back a semblance of normal sooner than vaccines.

Helen Branswell, in Stat, with 4 different types of immunity and their ramifications.

       

Related Stories

• Saturday Stories: 7 Months In, Magical Thinking, Long Haulers, And Weighing Kids In School
• Saturday Stories: Kids And School, The Immune System, Russian Vaccines, And Sharpies
• Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet

 

I have often felt sad over the state of The Youths.  What with robots coming for their jobs and Climate Change, their future seems lacking.  But by the time its obvious that their lives will be a dystopian dead-end I will myself be retired an…

Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell, and Elizabeth Cooney, in STAT, review all that we currently know about COVID-19 and the pressing questions that remain

Gregg Gonsalves, in The Nation, on the mortal need to resist magical thinking.

Ed Yong (god he’s fantastic), in The Atlantic (who can’t be paying him enough), on the need to understand the COVID long haulers to truly understand the pandemic.

Me, in Medscape, on why I think it’s an incredibly awful idea to weigh kids in schools (as is the plan in the UK) to track their COVID gains.

       

Related Stories

• Saturday Stories: Kids And School, The Immune System, Russian Vaccines, And Sharpies
• Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet
• Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation

 

Zoë Hyde, in a pre-print in The Medical Journal of Australia, with a review article covering what we do and don’t know about the risks of kids, COVID, and school.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with what we do and don’t know about our immune systems and COVID.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in The Guardian, with what we do and don’t know about the new Russian COVID vaccine.

Jen Coleman, in McSweeney’s, writes about Sharpies (don’t miss this one)

       

Related Stories

• Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet
• Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
• Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects

 

One of the things I love about Twitter is the funny people on it:

I ate a box of Thin Mints, didn’t get thinner. I don’t think they work 😡

— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) August 12, 2020

Tucker Carlson thinks it’s cool to mispronounce Kamala Harris’s name.

Hmmm. What sounds like “Tucker”?

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) August 12, 2020

Check me out guest hosting @JimmyKimmelLive tonight 🤯 pic.twitter.com/4vVsbT579x

— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) August 12, 2020

A priest, a minster, and a rabbit walk into a bar. The rabbit says, “I think I’m a typo.”

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 6, 2020

If you voted for trump because “he’s not a politician”, then I hope your next colonoscopy is done by a plumber.

— Mo Bella🌊 🌊 🌊 🌊#VoteBlueToSaveAmerica (@Mocraig13) August 6, 2020

Feeding 10 dogs at once is like going through Game of Thones every single day with the plots and betrayals and double-crosses and backbiting and frontbiting and dominance and submission and a finale that feels rushed and leaves everyone dissatisfied.

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) August 5, 2020

They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.

— mitch hedberg (@mitchhedbot) July 31, 2020

pic.twitter.com/mukntBVeDa

— Scrappy McBuckyball (@ScrotieMcB) August 14, 2020

From Reddit: pic.twitter.com/QNLRl937V8

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 6, 2020

Oh dear, I think we’re in trouble now.
The Sask school plan is based on wishful thinking – it imagines that COVID is symptomatic, that students with symptoms can just stay home or go home, and that nobody else (teachers, parents, staff) will get sick.https://t.co/lh4Je7b64F

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 5, 2020

I don’t have any children or grandchildren in school these days, and thank heavens for small mercies.

One thing that really impresses me about Saskatchewan is how consistently we’ve been able to come up with the worst plan in Canada on a broad range of policies, from suicide prevention to school reopening. Truly inspirational.

— glengarry glen busey (@birlios) August 5, 2020

I think this mom has it right:

After a lot of conversations & thinking, we have decided the safest thing we can do for our son is keep him home in Sept. He will be learning via the CBE online hub. I will have to give up my job as they require me back in person as of Sept, but I know this is the right choice.

— Lucy 🇨🇦 (@TheBlueGem3) August 7, 2020

The School Safe “plan” in Saskatchewan is based on wishful thinking:

What I don’t understand is why employers in the business sector are not demanding a better plan for schools. If their employees cannot be at work because they have to stay home with their kids, won’t that cause the economy to shut down again? #skpoli #sasked #covid19sk https://t.co/VOy9q6bhEc

— Maren Beaton (@maren_beaton) August 7, 2020

Parents aren’t happy:

What I am curious on (if it’s been mentioned anywhere, let me know) is what happens if one staff or kid tests positive? Is every single person in school that has come into contact with that one positive case going to be sent for testing and isolation till test results come back?

— Bort (@Kfb28) August 7, 2020

Neither are doctors:

Saskatchewan’s doctors press for safer return-to-school plan – Premier Moe says he’s open to changes: https://t.co/dHuAVThnNO @SMA_docs @keepskkidssafe @GordWyant Dr. Shahab @SaskHealth @CBCSask

— Dennis Kendel (@DennisKendel) August 8, 2020

I am concerned that the Sask Party seems to be reducing the whole School debate to a discussion of whether or not to make masks mandatory, while the Sask Medical Association is asking for a much broader look at school problems:  

OK, its been one of those weeks, so here’s some funny stuff:

My son is wearing a MAGMA cap and a Vote Trump 2020 button. He’s been spat on, punched and verbally abused. I hate to think what will happen when he leaves the house.

— Humanist. (@kennuck) August 1, 2020

I sunburn easily. https://t.co/k9APKRxFn9

— Brent Butt (@BrentButt) August 2, 2020

Republican politician Louie Gohmert, who claims to have caught COVID-19 from wearing a mask, is now claiming he got pregnant after several people told him to go fuck himself.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) July 30, 2020

If you are not wearing a mask because you are afraid your brain won’t get enough oxygen, I’m sorry to tell you, that ship has sailed.

— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) July 29, 2020

“Jesus Christ, what’s Trump done NOW?” https://t.co/5ZhOGjnKWr

— Harry Turtledove (@HNTurtledove) July 24, 2020

#MeanwhileInCanada pic.twitter.com/tY1gFbE1f6

— Meanwhile in Canada (@MeanwhileinCana) July 30, 2020

Well, this is a little strange. 

CBC News has obtained a series of internal public health agency documents and slide-presentation decks — including one given by a senior epidemiologist from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) last November on the eve of a pandemic that has since killed tens of thousands and crippled the world economy. 

The documents bring into sharper focus the kind of information key decision-makers had at their fingertips as the outbreak started in China and raise questions about how seriously global pandemic preparedness was being taken within the federal government. 

The records show GPHIN was in the middle of a long-overdue technology upgrade as the virus was spreading. 

Despite almost four years of work with the National Research Council of Canada, the early warning system was — as of last fall — still in need of “improvement in the geographical and time tagging algorithm,” according to a Nov 12, 2019 presentation to a WHO conference in Seoul, South Korea by senior epidemiologist Florence Tanguay. 

That algorithm is crucial to the system’s ability to sort through as many as 7,000 online articles per day to spot disease outbreaks around the globe. 

The network also was awaiting an “expansion to new data sources,” such as social media feeds. 

From its inception in the late 1990s, GPHIN had relied on news wire services and later local media articles posted online.