A New Frontier?
According to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, astronomers have located two planets that may be able to sustain life. The two planets, which both orbit Teegarden’s star, are the same mass as Earth, are billions of years old, and have an orbiting distance from their star that may facilitate water flow and regulated temperatures.
Further research has indicated that “Teegarden’s star seems to be stable, without large solar flares or other violent activity that could threaten the potential for life on the two promising candidates.”
Will we ever be able to travel to these planets? It would certainly be an interesting option to escape the bigots, racists and homophobes who inhabit our current planet.
Source: CNN.com
What Would Gordon Ramsay Say?!
Anyone who has ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s cooking shows (Hell’s Kitchen, Master Chef, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) knows the F-bomb dropping chef despises microwaves.
Now we all might have a good reason. The web site NaturalCuresBook.net has published some head-scratching information about the harmful effects of microwave ovens. These include reduced resistance to viral and bacterial infections, a weakened immune system and cancer. The web site reports radiation from these ovens “deforms and destroys the food molecules, leading to the creation of harmful radioactive compounds.”
Source: NaturalCuresBook.net
The End of an Era?
We’ve all seen bloodmobiles on our way into the movie theater and rolled our eyes as we surreptitiously walked by. On days when I was feeling a little friskier, I tried to come up with witty responses as to why I couldn’t donate blood—but those days might be coming to an end.
After the HIV and AIDS crisis shook the world back in the early 80s, the FDA banned blood donations from any man who had “previously had sexual relations with other men.” That unfortunate—and borderline homophobic—policy has remained active until now; however, in 2015 the FDA narrowed its ban. The ban now only applies to men who’ve had sex with another man in the past year.
As reported by The Independent, at least seven 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns have called for an end to the FDA’s guidelines. Thanks to modern disease-screening techniques, most gay-rights advocacy groups say the ban is no longer necessary.
“The one-year deferral period for male blood donors who identify as gay and bisexual has nothing to do with science or medicine and everything to do with outdated stigmas against the LGBTQ community,” a spokesperson for Beto O’Rourke’s campaign told The Independent, which received similar responses from the campaigns of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Delaney, and Marianne Williamson.
This would be the first year the FDA ban would be a key issue of presidential candidates. It’s just one more reason to vote blue when you take to the ballot box in 2020.
Source: Bigthink.com
