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Step up to Stop TB

Grania Brigden PLOS One
Tuberculosis (TB) is winning a deadly race – this year it overtook HIV as the world’s deadliest infectious disease, killing 1.5 million people annually. The findings of the Out of Step report into national TB policies. The report will be launched on December 2 at the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health, Cape Town, South Africa.

Climate: States at Risk

Which states are most at risk of baking or drowning due to climate change, and how well are they responding (or failing to respond) to the challenge?

Scans Prove There’s No Such Thing As a ‘Male’ or ‘Female’ Brain

Jessica Hamzelou New Scientist
The idea that people have either a “female” or “male” brain is an old one. To test the theory, scientists looked for differences in brain scans of 1400 people. They found that very few people had all of the brain features they might be expected to have, based on their sex. Averaged across many people, sex differences in brain structure do exist, but an individual brain is likely to be just that: individual, with a mix of features.

How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains

Ferris Jabr Quanta Magazine
Fossils established the Brain Boom as fact. But they tell us next to nothing about how and why the human brain grew so large so quickly. In the last eight years, however, scientists have started to answer the “how” of human brain expansion — that is, the question of how the supersizing happened on a cellular level and how human physiology reconfigured itself to accommodate a dramatically enlarged and energy-guzzling brain.

Healthy Coffee and Cigarettes

Tabitha M. Powledge PLOS One
Coffee and cigarettes. Well, it turns out that one of them is good for you. As for e-cigarettes ... hold the conclusions.

Friday Nite Videos -- November 13, 2015

Portside
John Oliver: Prisoner Re-entry. What the Actual Fact? - Truth and Fiction in the GOP Debate. How To Go To Space (with XKCD!) Demand a 2016 Election Day Holiday! 'Why use a Taser?' The death of Calvon 'Andre' Reid.

Once Stable Greenland Glacier Facing Rapid Melt

Andrea Thompson Climate Central
A new study shows that two glaciers in Greenland are showing worrying changes, and that one has been retreating at an accelerating rate in recent years as it faces a dual attack by warm air from above and warm water from below. The glacier Zachariae has shrunk by 95 percent since 2002. The mass of miles-thick ice that covers most of Greenland could raise global sea levels by some 20 feet if it all melted.
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