Arduous Trifles: religion in the United States

I recently discovered a very interesting databank on religion in the United States and decided to create some maps showing distribution of different religions and denominations throughout the country.

Some of them are not surprising at all, for instance you would expect Mormons to live mostly in Utah and Evangelicals to live in the South. But some are more interesting, like high percentage of Catholics in the Dakotas (I have always thought the plains are as protestants as they come) and low percentage of Catholics in souther Michigan/Northern Indiana and Ohio where a lot of Polish and German immigrants settled 150 years ago.

I also took the liberty to include Amishes in those maps, as I find this minority utterly fascinating. 

see the maps

The Conversation: Australia will finally ban cosmetic testing on animals

Last week, a bill was put before the House of Representatives that would ban animal testing of industrial chemicals intended solely for use in cosmetics. [...]

It’s difficult to know exactly how many animals will be affected by this ban, as companies do not advertise their use of animal testing and results are often unpublished. It’s likely to be relatively small, but this ban will both improve their lives and be an important international signal. [...]

Most prominent in this arena is the European Union. After animal testing was first banned in Germany in 1986, it was extended to the entire Union in 2004. In 2009 the ban was expanded to include ingredients, not just the finished product. Then imports came under scrutiny, as Japan and the United States are major exporters to the EU, and imports of cosmetic products tested on animals were banned in 2013.

Since that time Israel, India, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan and parts of Brazil have all banned testing of cosmetics on animals. However, the Humane Society International estimates that globally around 100,000-200,000 animals are still used annually for this purpose.

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Al Jazeera: Qatar-Gulf rift: The Iran factor

Deep in the Gulf waters between Qatar and Iran lies the world's largest gas field, a 9,700-sq-km expanse that holds at least 43 trillion cubic metres of gas reserves.

Qatar's southern portion is known as North Field, while Iran's slice to the north is called South Pars. The two countries share exploration rights in the area, and it is one of many ties that bind them.

But Doha's relationship with Tehran has been put to a new test on Monday, after Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia led four other countries in cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member of undermining security in the region by siding with Iran, among other actions.  [...]

Souzan Krdli, a Tehran-based Gulf analyst, said more than demanding Doha's allegiance, Saudi and the UAE want to "rein Qatar in" and make it "another Bahrain if you will" in terms of foreign policy. [...]

"However, it is clear that a rift in the GCC can be beneficial to Iran," he said. "Saudi Arabia is a lifeline for Qatar in terms of trade. We must wait and see whether Iran and Turkey can fill the void." 

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CityLab: The Dramatic Health Disparities Between Rich and Poor Americans

The U.S. has one of the largest income-based health disparities in the world, according to a new paper out in the journal Health Affairs. Among the poorest third of Americans studied, 38.2 percent report being in “fair or poor” health, compared with 12.3 percent of the richest third. Only Chile and Portugal have a larger income-based gap in the health status of their citizens.

Most of the 32 nations studied had income-based differences in how healthy their citizens are. Only in Japan and Switzerland were people about equally healthy regardless of their wealth. Poor people in the U.S. were also more likely than rich people to say they couldn’t get access to care because of the cost, and more likely to report being dissatisfied with their last visit to the doctor. “The United States exhibited large disparities in most measures, making it unique among high income countries,” the authors, Harvard health-policy researchers Joachim Hero, Alan Zaslavsky, and Robert Blendon, write. The other countries with big gaps between rich and poor on all three measures were Bulgaria, Russia, Chile, and Portugal. [...]

The U.S. respondents were interviewed in 2012, before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A major limitation of this study is that it didn’t take into account the ACA’s reforms to the insurance market—namely, the expansion of Medicaid to cover about 15 million low-income adults and children. However, the authors write that the U.S.’s health-status disparity ranking wasn’t affected by adjusting for insurance status.

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IFLScience: Reintroduced Beavers In England Help Protect Against Floods And Soil Erosion

Through the creation of a vast network of channels, pools, and dams, beavers have been found to drastically improve the quality of water, prevent floods, and mitigate soil erosion. As a result of these impressive and far-reaching benefits, experts are recommending that beavers should be reintroduced across England.

The researchers found that the water leaving a beaver wetland is around three times cleaner than the water entering it, that the pools they form store up to 16 tonnes (17.6 tons) of carbon and 1 tonne (1.1 ton) of nitrogen, and that they prevent the sedimentation in downriver catchments. The findings are the preliminary results of a study looking into the impact that a colony of beavers in Devon, in the southwest of England, have had on the surrounding environment.

The reintroduction of beavers in England is controversial, particularly following the unofficial release of beavers that has occurred in Scotland. Some claim that they cause flooding and damage, others that they maintain the environment. This has led researchers from Exeter University to study their impact on the ecosystem.

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