NWCorona
NWCorona's JournalAfter More Than 100 Years, California's Iconic Tunnel Tree Is No More
Source: Gizmodo
The Pioneer Cabin Tree, a giant sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park that was tunneled through in the 1880s, has fallen due to severe winter weather. It was believed to be hundreds of years old.
Since it was first hollowed out in imitation of Yosemites Wawona Tunnel Tree, thousands of tourists and vehicles have passed through the sequoia. The Wawona tree was killed by the process and later fell during a storm in the 1960s, but the Pioneer Cabin Tree clung on, showing signs of life well into the 21st century.
The pioneer cabin tree was chosen because of its extremely wide base and large fire scar, wrote park interpretive specialist Wendy Harrison in 1990. A few branches bearing green foliage tell us that this tree is still managing to survive.
On Facebook, where the trees death was first announced, park visitors shared generations of memories involving the giant sequoia. The Calaveras Big Trees Association, however, offered a simple message about the trees return to the earth it sprouted from so many years ago.
Read more: http://gizmodo.com/after-more-than-100-years-californias-iconic-tunnel-tr-1790964594
Sad stuff
Our First Stand Rallies Set from Coast to Coast
The nationwide day of action Our First Stand: Save Health Care is being organized by Senate and House Democratic Leaders Charles E. Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the leader of outreach efforts for Senate Democrats.
Schumer and Sanders will speak at a major event at a United Auto Workers hall in Warren, Michigan. Pelosi will speak at a rally in San Francisco. Other events are set for Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities nationwide. More rallies will be announced in the coming week. (To see the list, click here.) http://berniesanders.com/ourfirststand
Democrats are united in fighting back against Republicans who want to make America sick again by cutting Medicare, Medicaid and repealing the Affordable Care Act. We are going to link arm in arm and stand together as we fight to protect health care for millions of Americans, Schumer said.
After years of the GOPs fevered, fact-free crusade against the Affordable Care Act, Republicans repeal plan will have cold, hard consequences for millions of Americans, Pelosi said. The Republican Congress is declaring all-out war on affordable health care in our country, and we must not allow them to Make America Sick Again. Democrats will not stand by and allow Republicans to dismantle the health and economic security of hard-working Americans.
Health care activists, trade unions, senior citizen groups and others are working to coordinate the rallies on Jan. 15.
https://berniesanders.com/press-release/first-stand-rallies-set-coast-coast/
This is for those interested in the rallies set for the 15th.
Gunshot wounds are contagious; bullets spread like the flu, study finds
Source: Arstechnica
Gun violence can ripple through social networks and communities just like an infectious germ, Harvard and Yale researchers reported Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. This may not seem surprising, because earlier work has found that gun violence often clusters in certain areas and groups, particularly those steeped in gangs and drugs. But this study is the first to show that gun violence spreads directly from person to person after shootingsits not just about growing up in the same rough neighborhood or having the same risk factors.
The finding is good news, because, after decades of research, scientists are pretty good at predicting how infections cascade through populations. Applying disease-based theories and simulations to gun violence could help health workers get ahead of bullets and intervene before violence spreads. A more informed strategy could also cut down on intervention tactics that rest largely on geographic or group-based policing efforts that tend to disproportionately affect disadvantaged minority communities, the authors argue.
For the study, the researchers, led by sociologist Andrew Papachristos at Yale, dug into gunshot and arrest data from Chicago, covering the years between 2006 and 2014. The Windy City, which made headlines over the recent holidays for having more than 100 gunshot victims, is much like other big US cities in that its gun violence is intensely concentrated in specific neighborhoods.
Peering into arrest records, the researchers focused on 138,163 people that they considered part of a large social network, which the researchers based on people arrested together (the network represented 29.9 percent of those arrested in Chicago during the study period). Of those, 9,773 people were involved in 11,123 gun violence incidents, both fatal and nonfatal.
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/gunshot-wounds-are-contagious-bullets-spread-like-the-flu-study-finds/
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