A new study finds a chemical formed when we digest a widely used sweetener is “genotoxic,” meaning it breaks up DNA. The finding raises questions about how the sweetener may contribute to health problems. Let's talk about it. 🧵 At issue is sucralose, a widely used artificial sweetener sold under the trade name Splenda®. When you digest sucralose, a bunch of byproducts are produced in your gut, including a chemical called sucralose-6-acetate. Let's call it "s6a."

There's a lot of discussion recently about implementing wealth taxes at the state or federal level. Many European countries have wealth taxes already. So what can we learn from them?

A recent study took a look. And...it's interesting. #TaxTwitter #WealthTax 🧵 Note for folks who just want to read the journal article -- it's titled "Individual Wealth Taxes and Corporate Payouts" and you can find it in The Accounting Review here: publications.aaahq.org/accounting-rev…

Or download a (free) pre-pub version here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Rickey Henderson's first stolen base: Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" was the #1 song in the U.S. and Supertramp had just released Breakfast in America.

Last stolen base: Beyoncé and Jay-Z's "Crazy in Love" at #1, and T.I. had just released "Trap Muzik."

https://twitter.com/ShipLives/status/1618227848426442753

Hank Aaron's first MLB hit: Perry Como's "Wanted" was the best-selling single, and the soundtrack to "The Glenn Miller Story" was the best-selling LP.

Last hit: Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" topped the charts and Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life was the #1 LP.

Many people love Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAAO).

Many people hate it.

I don't fall into either camp, but I'm pleased to see it garner attention and critical support. (short 🧵) While I can’t say I loved EEAAO, I *can* say I appreciated the fact that I had never seen a movie quite like it. I think they were trying some interesting approaches to storytelling -- which I find laudable, even when parts of it didn’t land for me.

Alright, gang. Time to talk about a cute little predator found across northern North America, and how studying its poop hints at a valuable new tool for assessing the health of wild ecosystems.

Buckle up! 🧵 The carnivorous critter at issue is called the American marten (Martes americana). It's adorable. It looks an awful lot like a ferret or weasel. (They're cousins.)

Like many of its cousins, martens are omnivorous. But, given their druthers, they like to eat other critters.

Person A: We want you to speak on this panel.

Me: I charge a fee, depending on the time commitment. What is the nature of the panel?

PA: <broad description>

Me: Sounds great. That would be $[x]. Does that work for you?
[short thread] PA: This is the date and time of the event.

Me: I need confirmation on the $.

PA: It's a virtual event.

Me: $.

PA: Here's the date and time of the event.

Me: But about the $.

Earlier today, @Lollardfish hoped someone would compare the amount of money GOP politicians spent on guns got as much as attention as the amount of money Dems spent on cookware.

I thought that was a good idea, so I decided to price out a recent, high-profile example. 🧵 I decided to use the recent photo shared by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) as the illustrative example.

(If you're not familiar with his family photo -taken for a holiday greeting card/political stunt- you can read about it here.)
npr.org/2021/12/06/106…

I think one reason so many folks freak out about tax rates is because they just don't understand how the tax system works.

For example, they think that a 75% tax rate means that someone pays 75% of their income in taxes.

That is not what it means. 🧵 This explanation will be oversimplified, but it will get across the fundamental idea of a progressive tax system.

Also, this will not address the myriad loopholes that exist that allow rich people to avoid paying taxes.

Okay? Now let's dive in.

Two things I fear about the coming months:
1). A big jump in deaths. Some from COVID, some from treatable maladies overwhelmed ICUs can't handle.

2). Financial ruin for many families due to COVID treatment. Between the financial burden of COVID-related medical bills being imposed on our profit-driven healthcare system *AND* a loss of healthcare workers due to death and burnout, I can easily envision the US healthcare system crashing.

"On Saturday, nearly 24K new COVID-19 cases were reported in Florida, the CDC said, marking an all-time one-day high for the state....For comparison, the state reported just 1,250 new infections on June 1."
businessinsider.com/florida-hospit… Worth remembering, too, that the state has come under fire for how it is reporting COVID numbers. (see next tweet)

Over the past five years or so, one of the things that has really snapped into focus for me is the realization that if there is one attribute defines the U.S. it is this: we are children.

More specifically, a huge chunk of adults in the U.S. behave like selfish, petulant kids. It's far from everyone -- the U.S. is not a monolith. But the number of folks who act like toddlers is astonishing.

Refusal to take responsibility for their own actions? ✔️

Tantrums when asked to inconvenience themselves in any way? ✔️

Lying and blaming others for mistakes? ✔️

A recent study finds that the older an adult thinks a Black child is, the more likely the adult is to incorrectly view the child as being angry. This doesn't happen with white kids. (thread) news.ncsu.edu/2021/08/anger-… "Gosh, that's messed up!" You're right. It is.
But it also has practical implications.

People respond to anger differently than they do to other emotions.

It can affect how teachers treat Black students.

How law enforcement treats Black children.

I can’t stop thinking about an experience a few weeks ago when I got flustered with a host at a restaurant. They could not understand that I would only eat there if we could sit outside. Was there outdoor seating available?
(Short thread.) This had to be explained twice. They then tried to seat us indoors. When I said (for the umpteenth time) that we would not eat indoors, they acted as if I was being unreasonable.

I worked in restaurants.
I know guests can be a-holes.

Here’s the thing…

So, there's a book coming out that is equal parts humor, hope and climate change. I suspect it may include cuss words. It is entirely likely that you will laugh while reading it. And it is trying to help save the world, which is nice.

I'll tell you about it, shall I? (thread) You might be thinking: "If Ship thinks this book is so swell, he probably wrote it."

This is both an ungenerous and accurate assessment of my character, but -surprise- I did *NOT* write this book.

There's a phenomenon that I observe fairly often, and which I thought I'd share here, since it highlights a type of sexism and racism that I think many people may be unaware of -- even as they do it. (short thread) I write about research for a university, and the news releases I write clearly state all of the researchers involved in a given research project.

A team of chemical and biomolecular engineering researchers have turned yeast cells into extremely efficient little biochemistry labs that create enzymes and histone proteins.

So, what the heck are histones? And why would anyone want to do this? Good questions! Let's zoom way out and take this from the top.

Chromosomes are threadlike structures packed into the nucleus of your cells. In complex organisms (like humans), chromosomes are largely made up of DNA and a group of proteins called histones.

Life in these United States, a thread. For the weekend of May 22...
cnn.com/2021/05/24/us/…

One of the things that can make writing about research challenging is that many times a study's findings are not simple. Effects can be complicated. In fact, they're *usually* complicated.

So, how do we deal with that? I recently had the opportunity to work with @HopesPsychology to highlight a study she led. The findings are complex. We chose to deal with that complexity by leaning into it. The complexity is part of the lede.

So, I've got a thread here about some new modeling related to COVID-19 and North Carolina. This is going to be a longish one, but its interesting. You can, of course, also just read what I wrote here: news.ncsu.edu/2021/05/covid-… A team of researchers has developed a computational model that offers insights into how COVID-19 will affect NC between now and the end of the year. It looks at things like vaccination rate, introduction of new variants, non-pharma interventions (masks), etc.

A while back I wrote about a researcher whose work focuses on robocalls. He and his team used a host of "donated" phone numbers that nobody was using to collect hundreds of thousands of robocalls. There was one finding that really stuck in my mind. (short thread) The researchers found that the vast majority of robocalls were...nothing. There was either no audio, or the only audio was unintelligible noise.

Weird, right?

A friend of mine got one of those "blank" calls today and was wondering about it. (That's why I'm writing this thread.)

My understanding of this is that the @AssociatedPress has gone from barring reporters from expressing their opinions (a move I disagree with but understand) to barring reporters from ever having expressed their opinions, even before working for the AP. This is foolish. (thread)

https://twitter.com/suhaunah/status/1395479074450022401

People, particularly young people, change over time. The things we like as teens may be wildly different from our interests or passions as adults. Similarly, those passions may change over the course of our adulthoods.