1. I don't think anyone is under the delusion that electric vehicles consume no fossil fuel generated electricity. "Zero emissions" has never meant "free energy"

2. That electricity is typically produced more efficiently, and is always consumed more efficiently in terms of emissions/distance vs ICE cars leading to a net lower emissions of EVs over lifetime (including raw material & production). This only improves as more of the grid is decarbonized

3. There is a material value to de-localizing emissions from roads. See: asthma rates in children living near freeways

"Controlled reentry" isn't necessarily synonymous with "booster recovery". Most rockets have a way to deorbit the upper stage once its job is done, either by firing the main engine retrograde, or using a small dedicated deorbit motor. By firing the motor about half an orbit before the projected reentry point, you can control exactly when and where the stage will reenter the atmosphere, hence controlled reentry.

Second, the Long March 5B is somewhat unique among rockets in that its large main stage stays with the payload all the way until orbital insertion. Most other rockets drop a large majority of their bulk long before it has enough energy to stay in orbit for any appreciable amount of time. Probably the closest comparison in this category is the space shuttle's big orange external tank, as it provides fuel for the main engines until just a hair below orbital velocity, but it's subsequently jettisoned and the orbit is completed using the shuttle's onboard thrusters.

So you have a combination of (no deorbit capability) and (big tank floating in orbit) that results in (big tank crashing down at an arbitrary location whenever it feels like coming down to earth).

I don't think that's true anymore. There's a Danish radio program[1] that talked about this and apparently China is the only country/operator that still have uncontrolled reentry rocket stages. Everyone else have committed to controlled reentry.

Looking that the possible places where the rocket can hit populated areas. It looks like they went out of their way to ensure maximum coverage of Africa. Reentry a little earlier and they would have been almost ensured that it would hit the Atlantic Ocean.

[1]: https://www.radio4.dk/program/den-nye-rumalder/?gid=43389&ti...

>In 2020, over 60% of launches to low Earth orbit resulted in a rocket body being abandoned in orbit

>In the USA, the Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices (ODMSPs) apply to all launches and require that the risk of a casualty from a reentering rocket body is below a 1-in-10,000 threshold4. However, the US Air Force waived the ODMSP requirements for 37 of the 66 launches conducted for it between 2011 and 2018, on the basis that it would be too expensive to replace non-compliant rockets with compliant ones

I do think China's space program is more irresponsible than USA/EU launches based on some of the debris fall, but blaming uncontrolled re-entry seems like the wrong thing here

Reddit is a platform for communities. Some communities, across all spectrums of topics, find reasons to create a somewhat exclusive environment. They are not required to make space for all views, and that lack of forced-openness is not the same as censorship.

    /r/conservative does the exact same thing, why the handwringing about that sub in particular?

The FDA instructed Pfizer and moderna to reformulate based on the changing variant landscape as ba.4/5 overtook ba.1

The ba.4/5 bivalent vaccine was an extremely incremental change from the ba.1 booster

Kinda like how we get a new flu vaccine every year that doesn't go through a years long clinical study

(Edit to fix a typo)

You are anti this vaccine, and your posture is largely fear based rather than scientifically consistent given your not-an-anti-vaxxer self probably gets every year

2018 flu season spent about a month at 5000 excess on this chart. We've spent the last two and half years with a typical floor of 5000 excess, except for April of 2021 and 2022. So over the past two and half years, we've had about two months of time that there are fewer excess deaths than the bad 2018 flu season. I agree we are re-approaching nominal as this surge cools down, but the 2021 data shows that even post vaccine and infection granted immunity surges are liable to happen quickly

I'm not sure where the 5000 number you cite comes from. The chart I attempted to show was for the US.

For this study in particular, people are raising methodological concerns about the quality of this study and whether the results can in any way be attributed to ivermectin use, given that there was little control on who used ivermectin after it was distributed to them and who may have already been using ivermectin.

To go with the argument that people on the anti-vaxx/pro ivermectin side of things like to use, let's question where the money came from:

Wada and Meyerowitz-Katz, who were not involved with the study, each pointed out potential conflicts of interest with the study’s authors. They noted that although the preprint version of the study mentions that two of its authors received money from a pharmaceutical company that manufactures ivermectin, the published version leaves that detail out.

The published version of the study simply stated that "all authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work."

Above note is via politifact (which I am not taking as gospel to discredit this study, but just to raise skepticism)

“Some of my friends and professors in science were saying, ‘Oh the people in sociology are trying to study us and judge us and tell us how to do better and be better people,’ and we were laughing at that seeing how silly that was because we’re the rational ones,”

The self righteous "rationality" of scientists and engineers can actually be a huge hinderance to them being kind and good and thoughtful people.

This whole argument of "well we better hope the guy who is gonna cure cancer isn't a republican" is so daft and status quo focused - the reason we're having this reckoning is because of the system exclusion of racial minorities and anyone but men in STEM fields.

What about all of the people who have been historically disadvantaged and systemically excluded who could have cured cancer? We don't need to pander to the racists in hopes of their contribution, we need to do better for all the people who never had a chance to contribute in the first place

Just don't be an asshole, it's not that hard

"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

The fact is our institutions of science and education have not been and are not pure meritocracies (and if they were, they are meritocracies in a society that gives more tools to achieve merit to specific groups of people)

The status quo is not truly based on merit, and is not the most efficient cause because it systemically excludes massive amounts of people.

This op ed implies that someone who doesn't believe in racial injustice is more meritous and worth considering and making space for rather than the Black woman who wasn't hired because of her [hair/vernacular/skin color/gender/couldn't get an internship or lab placement because of those same factors]

Literally could not find a way to tell Amazon, so I left a review on their seller page.

Amazon deleted that review because "product was fulfilled by Amazon"

Amazon is a dumpster fire these days.