Interesting Links for 19-08-2021

[andrewducker]

Inside the Anglo-Saxon Classroom

(tags:history uk school )

Why People Who Brush Still Get Cavities

(tags:microbiome teeth dental )

Rewilding death: The plan to restore the necrobiome

(tags:death nature )

Culture in Scottish armed policing horrifically sexist

(tags:scotland police weaponry sexism OhForFucksSake )

There are some things you can't take both sides on

(tags:discussion journalism bigotry )

The 50 Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade

(tags:books scifi )

China Aims Its Propaganda Firehose at the BBC

(tags:China propaganda bbc )

We have our first look at images from Amazon's new Wheel of Time series

(tags:fantasy books tv )

Dyson sphere around a black hole (how would you power one?)

(tags:space physics power )

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

Most of the article about cavity-causing bacteria seems entirely reasonable. Isn't it the well-known reasoning behind disinfectant mouthwashes? (Which don't work all that well, because the bad bacteria just grow back.) It feels faintly creepy that they think they could:
Hire attractive women with few cavities to kiss cavity-prone participants.
It's not just that it's sexist and unethical. It doesn't work very well. Kisses transfer enough microorganisms to be risky, when we're talking about infections we don't want to share, but they aren't actually a reliable way to transfer something we WANT to transfer. My mom had lots of cavities and my dad had hardly any, despite the fact that they kissed a lot.

If you really want to transfer bacteria from one mouth to another, you culture the bacteria from one person's spit and make a concentrated solution the other person can use like mouthwash (or those slow-dissolve lozenges.) And while you're waiting, you can screen for a few things like covid and strep and hiv.

[andrewducker]

Yes, absolutely.

Xi Jinping vs. BBC News

[dewline]

Somehow, this news did not surprise me. Given the situation with the Two Michaels and other hostages taken in recent years, I assume that similar strategies are in play against Canadian news services including CBC.

[anna_wing]

Declaring that those who disagree withyou on a topic are as a matter of principle beyond the pale is only viable as a policy if you have the power to make that position stick permanently; otherwise you remain permanently vulnerable to the shifting currents of societal fashion and substantive power.

I also do not accept or agree with the proposition that disagreement=violence. The whole point of politics is to manage disagreement without violence. No-one is in the majority on every issue.

[andrewducker]

If you are arguing for the unpersoning of people then you are defacto arguing for violence against them.

[anna_wing]

What is the unpersoning of people? Being made stateless is the major thing that I can think of, or the arguments about the status of UK and EU citizens under the Brexit legal changes would be another, I suppose.

I notice that the article cavities didn't say anything at all about fluoridation of water, which is a major contributor to dental health.

[andrewducker]

Racism, homophobia, and transphobia and are all arguing that people are less than a "real" person.

[andrewducker]

Fluoride in the water is awesome, but doesn't explain differences between two people in the same household (unless one never drinks water).