Vintage Everyday: Believe It or Not: Human Zoos Really Existed in the Past, And There Are Pictures to Prove It

 Have you ever heard of a human zoo? A human zoo was a place (and yes, they really existed in the past) where people were kept for display, just like animals are kept in zoos. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples or with other Europeans who practiced a lifestyle deemed more primitive. Some of them placed indigenous populations in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and Europeans.

Human zoos were quite popular, as many of them were found around Europe during the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. However, they weren’t the only continent that liked to expose humans in this way. North America, specifically the U.S, had their fair share of human zoos; however they stepped up their game from the Europeans.

Ethnological expositions are sometimes criticized and ascertained as highly degrading and racist, depending on the show and individuals involved. It was obviously one of the most horrendous things one can imagine, and these pictures of human zoos are bound to terrify you!

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Quartz: Scientists have developed a new plastic that can be recycled infinitely

But now chemists at Colorado State University have made a new kind of plastic that can be recycled over and over again without losing its quality. The plastic, reported in the journal Science, can be broken down into its building blocks using mild temperatures and chemicals, and then built back up again to be as good as new.

The world produces around 300 million tons a year, and this is expected to exceed 500 million tons by 2050. Most plastics are produced for a single use. Only 5–10% of plastics are recycled today. And the resulting plastic is of low quality so it isn’t recycled again and also ends up in landfills. Biodegradable plastics and novel ways to break down plastic help. [...]

Eugene Chen and his colleagues have found a way to do that. They have developed a plastic that can be produced from a ring-shaped molecule in just a few minutes at room temperature and without the need for harsh solvents. The plastic is as strong as commercial plastics.

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Quartz: Hawaii pledges to become carbon neutral by 2045—the most ambitious goal of any US state

One of the bills cites a study that found that Hawaii could suffer $19 billion worth of damage to private property because of a rise in sea levels. When public infrastructure is included, the damage will likely be a lot higher. That is why it isn’t surprising that the US state most vulnerable to climate change is the one most keen to mitigate its impact. [...]

To be sure, it’s not clear if the state has thought through how hard a net-zero emissions target is to meet. The bill mentions initiatives such as planting trees and improving soil health as means of sequestering carbon, but not technologies such as carbon capture and storage that are proven to reduce emissions on a larger scale. That’s where the greenhouse-gas sequestration task force will help. It has a 2023 deadline to craft a plan that Hawaii can use to reach carbon neutrality. One of the bills also opens the door for the state to participate in carbon-trading programs, such as the one in California, and to use other market-driven tools to cut emissions.

Before Hawaii’s latest moves, Rhode Island was the state with the most ambitious climate goal: cutting emissions by 85% of 1990 levels by 2050. More importantly, Hawaii can now count itself among the most climate-friendly territories in the world. The Maldives aims to become carbon neutral by 2020, Costa Rica by 2021, Norway by 2030, Iceland by 2040, Sweden by 2045, and New Zealand by 2050. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that more states and countries will need to join this list if the world as a whole is to avoid climate catastrophe.

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The Washington Post: 5 big consequences of Trump’s Iran blunder

Ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a written statement, “While I strongly opposed the JCPOA, it is a grave mistake to walk away from this deal without a plan for ensuring that Iran does not restart its nuclear weapon program, without a strategy for countering Iran’s dangerous non-nuclear activities, and without our allies and partners.” He added, “The governments of Iran, Russia, and China will seize this opportunity of self-imposed U.S. isolation to continue major weapons sales, deepen economic ties, and further challenge the United States and Europe not only in the Middle East but in other areas like North Korea.”  [...]

Second, whether our allies will now cooperate with this on nonnuclear matters including sanctions for Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism is an open question. The European Union has every reason to be wary of U.S. promises. In making it harder to deal with issues that were outside of the JCPOA, Trump makes our overall policy to Iran weaker and less coherent. 

Third, the administration’s total inability to plan ahead is on full display. Will we exempt allies from newly imposed sanctions? Do we have a military plan if Iran does make a race for the bomb — and if so, will allies join with us after we have backed out of the deal? How will we enforce sanctions? The plethora of questions belie anti-JCPOA hawks’ assurances that the administration had figured out all the post-deal angles. Hardly. The Treasury Department advises, “Sanctions will be reimposed subject to certain 90 day and 180 day wind-down periods. At the conclusion of the wind-down periods, the applicable sanctions will come back into full effect.” It’s unclear if Trump and his negotiators intend to use this time to extract more concessions from our allies. For now, we lack a clear path forward.

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CNN: Donald Trump just accidentally revealed something very important about his 'fake news' attacks

Trump either doesn't understand or ignores the difference between a story he doesn't like and one that is not true. He conflates the two for his own political purposes -- knowing his base hates the media and is more than ready to believe that journalists are willing to make up stories just to make Trump look bad. [...]

Here's the problem: Trump's attacks on the media -- as flawed and dishonest as they are -- are working. More than 4 in 10 people in a Gallup poll earlier this year could not name a single objective news source. Almost eight in 10 (77%) in a Monmouth University poll released last month said TV and print media report "fake news." That's a 14-point bump from the number of people who said the same last year. [...]

But, it's also important for people to understand what's behind Trump's aggressive anti-media campaign. Trump is about Trump. He calls media "fake news" because the coverage of him isn't as positive as he would like.

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