How serious is climate change? A study by Masselot’s work with a Danish professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
According to results, heat-related deaths will be more severe than those caused by cold weather in the most optimistic scenario, and temperature-related deaths could increase by 50%. Mediterranean regions, particularly eastern Spain, southern France, Italy and Malta, are on track to be the worst affected (see ‘Deadly heat’).
Pierre Masselot is an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and co-author of the study. It is difficult to see how the level of adaptation could be reached.
Extreme heat will kill millions of people in Europe without rapid action on climate change. Plus, the polymath who was constantly dreaming up ways to make the world better.
Climate change in the Swiss countryside: a case study on the Toca do Tatu cave and agricultural climate change demands the government act immediately on climate change
At least 68 people in North America have become ill from the H5N1 avian influenza virus and one person has died. Most of these illnesses were mild, but emerging data indicate that variants of the virus can cause severe disease and death, especially when passed directly to people from birds. There’s not enough human infections to decide whether one is more dangerous than the other, so researchers are watching two main versions that are carried mainly by birds and cows. Daniel Goldhill says the Viruses is better adapted to go into human cells if it has adapted to cows. This is a first step for the virus, and it has increased the chances of a human jumping to it.
The Toca do Tatu is a cave that may have been carved by generations of giant ground sloths. The megafauna went extinct around 10,000 years ago. Large scratches on the walls and ceiling suggest, to some scientists, that the cave is the largest known example of an ‘ichnofossil’: a track, tunnel or other mark left by ancient organisms.
Last year, a group of farmers took to the courts in an attempt to force the Swiss government to act on climate change before their farms become unviable. The case is yet to be settled, but lawsuits from farmers might have stronger sway with governments than previous climate cases from social activist groups, say three climate law experts, because agriculture holds a central role in Swiss politics. “A win would change the legal landscape for other cases in Europe, and potentially beyond,” the trio write. “The world cannot afford to leave farmers in climate limbo, just as farmers cannot afford to turn their backs to the changing climate.”
Optimising an Italian recipe for cacio e pepe (a comment on Gottfried Leibniz in the New York Times)
Gottfried Leibniz was a tireless polymath who covered ground in everything from philosophy to geology — as well as inventing versions of calculus and binary arithmetic. He also got the mickey ruthlessly taken out of his ‘best of all possible worlds’ religious philosophy in “the best of all possible parodies” — Voltaire’s Candide. Anthony Gottlieb says that the bewigged boffin had a penchant for dreaming up ways to make the world better.
Statistical physicist Ivan Di Terlizzi and an all-Italian team set out to ‘scientifically optimize’ the recipe for cacio e pepe. Adding only one ingredient to the traditional combination of pasta, black pepper and pecorino cheese would be their solution. (The New York Times | 3 min read)