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🔴3 ways to end a virus
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🔴3 ways to end a virus
It’s spring 2021. The Alpha variant of the coronavirus has spread rapidly, becoming the dominant variant worldwide. But another, more transmissible variant is about to appear— Delta. What happens when two variants clash?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose that the variants reach a hypothetical isolated city of 1 million people who are completely susceptible to both viruses on the same day. When a person here is infected with Alpha, they transmit it to, on average, 5 close contacts, then begin to feel sick and immediately isolate themselves for the rest of the simulation. The same thing happens with Delta, except that an infected person transmits it to, on average, 7.5 close contacts.
What would you guess happens next?
After six days, Alpha will have infected 15,625 people. Delta will have infected more than 10 times as many. Just 20 hours later, Delta will have infected the rest of the population— all before Alpha could infect 6% of it. With no one left to infect, Alpha dies out.
This model is drastically simplified, but it accurately reflects one thing that did happen in real life: when both variants competed, Delta drove Alpha towards extinction in a matter of weeks.
Viruses are wildly successful organisms. There are about 100 million times as many virus particles on Earth as there are stars in the observable universe. Even so, viruses can and do go extinct.
There are three main ways that can happen.
First, a virus could run out of hosts.
This might have happened in early 2020 to a flu lineage known as B/Yamagata. When much of the world shut down, social distanced, and wore masks to slow the spread of COVID 19, that dramatically reduced the number of hosts available for B/Yamagata to infect. It’ll take a few more flu seasons to know for sure if it’s truly extinct or just hiding out in an animal reservoir.
Many viruses, as part of their life cycle, cause diseases severe enough to kill their hosts. This can be a problem because if a virus kills all its hosts, it could— in theory— run out of hosts to infect and go extinct.
This almost happened back in 1950s Australia.
At the time, Australia was overrun by the European rabbit— an invasive species— so, in an attempt to control the population, scientists released a virus called myxoma, which had been previously shown to be almost 100% lethal to European rabbits. During the initial outbreak, as planned, tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of European rabbits died. But as the virus spread, it evolved a series of mutations that happened to make it less deadly, killing rabbits more slowly and killing fewer rabbits overall. With more infected hosts hopping around, this strain of the virus was more likely to spread than its deadlier cousin. And of course, rabbits evolved too, to mount better immune responses.
Overall, instead of killing every single rabbit, the virus evolved, the rabbit population bounced back, and both survived.
The second way a virus could go extinct is if humans fight back with an effective vaccine— and win.
Vaccination campaigns have driven two viruses essentially to extinction since vaccines were invented in the 1800s: smallpox and rinderpest, which kills cattle. More on vaccination later.
The third way a virus can go extinct is if it’s outcompeted by another virus or strain, like we saw earlier with Delta and Alpha.
By the way, viruses don't always compete with each other. A viral species can carve out its own distinct niche— for example, influenza infects your respiratory tract, and norovirus infects cells in your intestine, so both of these viruses can co-exist.
A virus’ ecological niche can be tiny: hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses can infect the same cell— hep B occupies the nucleus, and hep C occupies the cytoplasm. In fact, epidemiologists estimate that 2 to 10% of people with hep C are also infected with hep B.
So, will SARS-CoV-2— the species of virus that causes COVID 19— ever go extinct?
It’s spring 2021. The Alpha variant of the coronavirus has spread rapidly, becoming the dominant variant worldwide. But another, more transmissible variant is about to appear— Delta. What happens when two variants clash?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose that the variants reach a hypothetical isolated city of 1 million people who are completely susceptible to both viruses on the same day. When a person here is infected with Alpha, they transmit it to, on average, 5 close contacts, then begin to feel sick and immediately isolate themselves for the rest of the simulation. The same thing happens with Delta, except that an infected person transmits it to, on average, 7.5 close contacts.
What would you guess happens next?
After six days, Alpha will have infected 15,625 people. Delta will have infected more than 10 times as many. Just 20 hours later, Delta will have infected the rest of the population— all before Alpha could infect 6% of it. With no one left to infect, Alpha dies out.
This model is drastically simplified, but it accurately reflects one thing that did happen in real life: when both variants competed, Delta drove Alpha towards extinction in a matter of weeks.
Viruses are wildly successful organisms. There are about 100 million times as many virus particles on Earth as there are stars in the observable universe. Even so, viruses can and do go extinct.
There are three main ways that can happen.
First, a virus could run out of hosts.
This might have happened in early 2020 to a flu lineage known as B/Yamagata. When much of the world shut down, social distanced, and wore masks to slow the spread of COVID 19, that dramatically reduced the number of hosts available for B/Yamagata to infect. It’ll take a few more flu seasons to know for sure if it’s truly extinct or just hiding out in an animal reservoir.
Many viruses, as part of their life cycle, cause diseases severe enough to kill their hosts. This can be a problem because if a virus kills all its hosts, it could— in theory— run out of hosts to infect and go extinct.
This almost happened back in 1950s Australia.
At the time, Australia was overrun by the European rabbit— an invasive species— so, in an attempt to control the population, scientists released a virus called myxoma, which had been previously shown to be almost 100% lethal to European rabbits. During the initial outbreak, as planned, tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of European rabbits died. But as the virus spread, it evolved a series of mutations that happened to make it less deadly, killing rabbits more slowly and killing fewer rabbits overall. With more infected hosts hopping around, this strain of the virus was more likely to spread than its deadlier cousin. And of course, rabbits evolved too, to mount better immune responses.
Overall, instead of killing every single rabbit, the virus evolved, the rabbit population bounced back, and both survived.
The second way a virus could go extinct is if humans fight back with an effective vaccine— and win.
Vaccination campaigns have driven two viruses essentially to extinction since vaccines were invented in the 1800s: smallpox and rinderpest, which kills cattle. More on vaccination later.
The third way a virus can go extinct is if it’s outcompeted by another virus or strain, like we saw earlier with Delta and Alpha.
By the way, viruses don't always compete with each other. A viral species can carve out its own distinct niche— for example, influenza infects your respiratory tract, and norovirus infects cells in your intestine, so both of these viruses can co-exist.
A virus’ ecological niche can be tiny: hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses can infect the same cell— hep B occupies the nucleus, and hep C occupies the cytoplasm. In fact, epidemiologists estimate that 2 to 10% of people with hep C are also infected with hep B.
So, will SARS-CoV-2— the species of virus that causes COVID 19— ever go extinct?
Variants within the species will continue to arise. Those variants might drive prior ones to extinction, or not. Regardless of how the variants compete (or don’t), the species itself— to which all the variants belong— is pretty firmly established among humans.
If we managed to vaccinate enough people, could we drive SARS-CoV-2 to extinction? Our vaccination campaign against smallpox worked because the vaccine was highly protective against infection and smallpox had no close animal reservoir in which it could hide. But SARS-CoV-2 can hide out in animals, and our current vaccines— while they provide excellent protection against severe illness and death— don't prevent all infections.
So, conceivably there are two ways that SARS-CoV-2— the entire species— could go extinct:
a cataclysmic disaster could kill us all.
We could invent a universal vaccine that prevents all SARS-CoV-2 infections— those caused by all the variants that currently exist and those that don’t.
Let's work toward that second option.
#Science #Education #Disease #Medicine #Vaccines #Virus #Medical_Research #Pandemic #TED_Ed #Animation
#Coronavirus
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If we managed to vaccinate enough people, could we drive SARS-CoV-2 to extinction? Our vaccination campaign against smallpox worked because the vaccine was highly protective against infection and smallpox had no close animal reservoir in which it could hide. But SARS-CoV-2 can hide out in animals, and our current vaccines— while they provide excellent protection against severe illness and death— don't prevent all infections.
So, conceivably there are two ways that SARS-CoV-2— the entire species— could go extinct:
a cataclysmic disaster could kill us all.
We could invent a universal vaccine that prevents all SARS-CoV-2 infections— those caused by all the variants that currently exist and those that don’t.
Let's work toward that second option.
#Science #Education #Disease #Medicine #Vaccines #Virus #Medical_Research #Pandemic #TED_Ed #Animation
#Coronavirus
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Forwarded from منابع آموزشی زبان و آیلتس
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🔴The kingdom hidden in Brazil
#Education #History #Brazil #Slavery #TED_Ed #Animation
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🔴The kingdom hidden in Brazil
During the 1600s, an expansive autonomous settlement called Palmares reached its height in northeastern Brazil. It was founded and led by people escaping from slavery, also called maroons. In fact, it was one of the world’s largest maroon communities, its population reaching beyond 10,000. And its citizens were at constant war with colonial forces. The records we have about Palmares mainly come from biased Dutch and Portuguese sources, but historians have managed to piece much of its story together.
During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 1500s, nearly half of all enslaved African people were sent to Portugal’s American colony: Brazil. Some escaped and sought shelter in Brazil’s interior regions, where they formed settlements called mocambos or quilombos. Fugitives from slavery probably arrived in the northeast in the late 1500s. By the 1660s, their camps had consolidated into a powerful confederation known today as the Quilombo of Palmares.
It consisted of a central capital linking dozens of villages, which specialized in particular agricultural goods or served as military training grounds. Citizens of Palmares, or Palmaristas, were governed by a king and defended by an organized military. African people and Brazilian-born Black and Indigenous people all came seeking refuge. They collectively fished, hunted, raised livestock, planted orchards, and grew crops like cassava, corn, and sugarcane. They also made use of the abundant palm trees for which Palmares was named, turning palm products into butter, wine, and light. Palmaristas crafted palm husks into pipes and leaves into mats and baskets. They traded some of these goods with Portuguese settlers for products like gunpowder and salt. In turn, settlers avoided Palmares’ raids during which they’d seize weapons and take captives.
The Portuguese were concerned with other invading imperialists, but regarded Indigenous uprisings and Palmares as their internal threats. Palmares endangered the very institution of slavery— the foundation of Brazil's economy. During the 1670s, the Portuguese escalated their attacks.
By this time, Ganga-Zumba was Palmares’ leader. He ruled from the Macaco, which functioned as the capital. His allies and family members governed the other villages— with women playing crucial roles in operation and defense. As they fought the Portuguese, Palmaristas used the landscape to their advantage. Camouflaged and built in high places, their mocambos offered superior lookouts. They constructed hidden ditches lined with sharp stakes that swallowed unsuspecting soldiers and false roads that led to ambushes. They launched counterattacks under the cover of night and were constantly abandoning and building settlements to elude the Portuguese.
In 1678, after years of failed attacks, the Portuguese offered to negotiate a peace treaty with Ganga-Zumba. The terms they agreed upon recognized Palmares’ independence and the freedom of anyone born there. However, the treaty demanded that Palmares pledge loyalty to the crown and return all past and future fugitives from slavery. Many Palmaristas dissented, among them Zumbi— Ganga-Zumba’s nephew— a rising leader himself.
Before long, Ganga-Zumba was killed, likely by a group affiliated with his nephew. As Palmares’ new leader, Zumbi rejected the treaty and resumed resistance for another 15 years. But in February of 1694, the Portuguese captured the capital after a devastating siege. Zumbi escaped, but they eventually found and ambushed him. And on November 20th, 1695, Portuguese forces killed Zumbi.
His death was not the end of Palmares, but it was a crushing blow. After years of warfare, there were far fewer rebels in the area. Those who remained rallied around new leaders and maintained a presence, however small, through the 1760s.
During the 1600s, an expansive autonomous settlement called Palmares reached its height in northeastern Brazil. It was founded and led by people escaping from slavery, also called maroons. In fact, it was one of the world’s largest maroon communities, its population reaching beyond 10,000. And its citizens were at constant war with colonial forces. The records we have about Palmares mainly come from biased Dutch and Portuguese sources, but historians have managed to piece much of its story together.
During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 1500s, nearly half of all enslaved African people were sent to Portugal’s American colony: Brazil. Some escaped and sought shelter in Brazil’s interior regions, where they formed settlements called mocambos or quilombos. Fugitives from slavery probably arrived in the northeast in the late 1500s. By the 1660s, their camps had consolidated into a powerful confederation known today as the Quilombo of Palmares.
It consisted of a central capital linking dozens of villages, which specialized in particular agricultural goods or served as military training grounds. Citizens of Palmares, or Palmaristas, were governed by a king and defended by an organized military. African people and Brazilian-born Black and Indigenous people all came seeking refuge. They collectively fished, hunted, raised livestock, planted orchards, and grew crops like cassava, corn, and sugarcane. They also made use of the abundant palm trees for which Palmares was named, turning palm products into butter, wine, and light. Palmaristas crafted palm husks into pipes and leaves into mats and baskets. They traded some of these goods with Portuguese settlers for products like gunpowder and salt. In turn, settlers avoided Palmares’ raids during which they’d seize weapons and take captives.
The Portuguese were concerned with other invading imperialists, but regarded Indigenous uprisings and Palmares as their internal threats. Palmares endangered the very institution of slavery— the foundation of Brazil's economy. During the 1670s, the Portuguese escalated their attacks.
By this time, Ganga-Zumba was Palmares’ leader. He ruled from the Macaco, which functioned as the capital. His allies and family members governed the other villages— with women playing crucial roles in operation and defense. As they fought the Portuguese, Palmaristas used the landscape to their advantage. Camouflaged and built in high places, their mocambos offered superior lookouts. They constructed hidden ditches lined with sharp stakes that swallowed unsuspecting soldiers and false roads that led to ambushes. They launched counterattacks under the cover of night and were constantly abandoning and building settlements to elude the Portuguese.
In 1678, after years of failed attacks, the Portuguese offered to negotiate a peace treaty with Ganga-Zumba. The terms they agreed upon recognized Palmares’ independence and the freedom of anyone born there. However, the treaty demanded that Palmares pledge loyalty to the crown and return all past and future fugitives from slavery. Many Palmaristas dissented, among them Zumbi— Ganga-Zumba’s nephew— a rising leader himself.
Before long, Ganga-Zumba was killed, likely by a group affiliated with his nephew. As Palmares’ new leader, Zumbi rejected the treaty and resumed resistance for another 15 years. But in February of 1694, the Portuguese captured the capital after a devastating siege. Zumbi escaped, but they eventually found and ambushed him. And on November 20th, 1695, Portuguese forces killed Zumbi.
His death was not the end of Palmares, but it was a crushing blow. After years of warfare, there were far fewer rebels in the area. Those who remained rallied around new leaders and maintained a presence, however small, through the 1760s.
#Education #History #Brazil #Slavery #TED_Ed #Animation
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🔴Why you should shop at your local farmers market?
#Farming #Agriculture #Food #Future #Environment #Business #Sustainability
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🔴Why you should shop at your local farmers market?
It's been about a decade since the last financial crisis, yet this industry has never been bigger. Legislation that was meant to better regulate its largest players has hurt its smaller ones, resulting in most of the industry's assets to be controlled by the top one percent. They've become too big to fail. I'm not referring to big banks, but the world of Big Agriculture.
As a public health practitioner who has worked with small-scale farmers in Rwanda and now as a small food business owner who sits at the intersection between our consumers and producers, I've been exposed to one of the most ecologically and economically intensive industries in the world, and throughout my work, I've witnessed a chilling irony. Our farmers, who feed our communities, cannot afford the very foods they grow. Today, a handful of corporations continue to consolidate the entire food supply chain, from the intellectual property of seeds to produce and livestock all the way to the financial institutions who lend to these farmers. And the recent results have been rising bankruptcies for family farms and little control for those who are just trying to survive in the industry. Left unchecked, we will head into another economic collapse, one very similar to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when commodity market prices crashed, interest rates doubled, and many farmers lost everything.
Fortunately, there's a very simple, three-part solution you can be part of right now to help us transform our food industry from the bottom up.
Step one: shop at your local farmers markets.
Buying from your local market and subscribing to a community-supported agricultural produce box, better known as a CSA, may be the single greatest purchasing decision you can make as a consumer today. Last year, American farmers made the least they have in almost three decades, because they now own fewer parts of the supply chain than ever before. Under exclusive contracts with Big Ag and big box stores, farmers are not offered a fair price for their goods. In fact, the average farmer in America makes less than 15 cents of every dollar on a product that you purchase at a store. On the other hand, farmers who sell their goods at a farmers market take home closer to 90 cents of every dollar. But beyond taking home a larger share, farmers use markets as an opportunity to cultivate the next generation of agriculturalists who shepherd our farmlands and our pastures. In our fight against climate change, we need them now more than ever to promote and preserve diverse land use.
When multigenerational farms are lost to Big Ag consolidation, our communities suffer in countless ways. Rural America has now jumped above the national average in violent crime. Three out four farmworkers surveyed have been directly impacted by our opioid epidemic. Now oftentimes disguised as accidents, farmer suicide is now on the rise.
Step two: shop at your local farmers markets.
Produce from a large retail store is harvested before it's ripe to travel more than a thousand miles before it ultimately sits on your shelf roughly two weeks later. Alternatively, because most farmers markets have proximity and production requirements, farmers travel less than 50 miles to offer you local produce with minimal packaging waste. With the advent of online grocers and trending meal kits, consumers are increasingly disconnected with their farmers and the economics of food production. Since the rise of the smartphone revolution, direct-to-consumer goods have stagnated.
It's been about a decade since the last financial crisis, yet this industry has never been bigger. Legislation that was meant to better regulate its largest players has hurt its smaller ones, resulting in most of the industry's assets to be controlled by the top one percent. They've become too big to fail. I'm not referring to big banks, but the world of Big Agriculture.
As a public health practitioner who has worked with small-scale farmers in Rwanda and now as a small food business owner who sits at the intersection between our consumers and producers, I've been exposed to one of the most ecologically and economically intensive industries in the world, and throughout my work, I've witnessed a chilling irony. Our farmers, who feed our communities, cannot afford the very foods they grow. Today, a handful of corporations continue to consolidate the entire food supply chain, from the intellectual property of seeds to produce and livestock all the way to the financial institutions who lend to these farmers. And the recent results have been rising bankruptcies for family farms and little control for those who are just trying to survive in the industry. Left unchecked, we will head into another economic collapse, one very similar to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when commodity market prices crashed, interest rates doubled, and many farmers lost everything.
Fortunately, there's a very simple, three-part solution you can be part of right now to help us transform our food industry from the bottom up.
Step one: shop at your local farmers markets.
Buying from your local market and subscribing to a community-supported agricultural produce box, better known as a CSA, may be the single greatest purchasing decision you can make as a consumer today. Last year, American farmers made the least they have in almost three decades, because they now own fewer parts of the supply chain than ever before. Under exclusive contracts with Big Ag and big box stores, farmers are not offered a fair price for their goods. In fact, the average farmer in America makes less than 15 cents of every dollar on a product that you purchase at a store. On the other hand, farmers who sell their goods at a farmers market take home closer to 90 cents of every dollar. But beyond taking home a larger share, farmers use markets as an opportunity to cultivate the next generation of agriculturalists who shepherd our farmlands and our pastures. In our fight against climate change, we need them now more than ever to promote and preserve diverse land use.
When multigenerational farms are lost to Big Ag consolidation, our communities suffer in countless ways. Rural America has now jumped above the national average in violent crime. Three out four farmworkers surveyed have been directly impacted by our opioid epidemic. Now oftentimes disguised as accidents, farmer suicide is now on the rise.
Step two: shop at your local farmers markets.
Produce from a large retail store is harvested before it's ripe to travel more than a thousand miles before it ultimately sits on your shelf roughly two weeks later. Alternatively, because most farmers markets have proximity and production requirements, farmers travel less than 50 miles to offer you local produce with minimal packaging waste. With the advent of online grocers and trending meal kits, consumers are increasingly disconnected with their farmers and the economics of food production. Since the rise of the smartphone revolution, direct-to-consumer goods have stagnated.
While local and sustainable foods have been trending for almost a decade, terms like "healthy" and "natural" have no legal framework in the United States. Your best bet for fresh, nutrient-rich foods without the marketing jargon? Go to your farmers market. Buying local is not a new idea, but turning it into a habit in today's world still is. If we want to avoid the high costs of cheap food, protect our environment, rebuild our communities and save our farmers -- literally -- we're going to need to vote with our food purchases. The success of our food systems is directly attached to us. If we want to break up Big Ag's hold on our food supply chain, then we're going to need to connect with our farmers. We're going to need to rebuild relationships with the hands that feed us three times a day. Plus, two more for snacks. Come on.
With a government online database of more than 8,600 farmers markets across the country, you can easily find the nearest one to you. Just think of yourself as an investor in food, where your purchasing power helps create a more equitable society for everyone. Oh!
Almost forgot step three, which may surprise you: shop at your local farmers markets.
Thank you.
#Farming #Agriculture #Food #Future #Environment #Business #Sustainability
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With a government online database of more than 8,600 farmers markets across the country, you can easily find the nearest one to you. Just think of yourself as an investor in food, where your purchasing power helps create a more equitable society for everyone. Oh!
Almost forgot step three, which may surprise you: shop at your local farmers markets.
Thank you.
#Farming #Agriculture #Food #Future #Environment #Business #Sustainability
🎙Join ➣ @TEDTalksLearning ☜
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عضویت رایگان👇👇
http://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAENPs6PsrL7BHtQBEQ
http://www.bestielts.ir
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#TED_Ed #Writing #Love #Poetry #Animation #Relationships
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First Kiss Her mouth fell into my mouth like a summer snow, like a 5th season, like a fresh Eden, like Eden when Eve made God whimper with the liquid tilt of her hips— her kiss hurt like that— I mean, it was as if she’d mixed the sweat of an angel with the taste of a tangerine, I swear. My mouth had been a helmet forever greased with secrets, my mouth a dead-end street a little bit lit by teeth—my heart, a clam slammed shut at the bottom of a dark, but her mouth pulled up like a baby-blue Cadillac packed with canaries driven by a toucan—I swear those lips said bright wings when we kissed, wild and precise—as if she were teaching a seahorse to speak— her mouth so careful, chumming the first vowel from my throat until my brain was a piano banged loud, hammered like that— it was like, I swear her tongue was Saturn’s 7th moon— hot like that, hot and cold and circling, circling, turning me into a glad planet— sun on one side, night pouring her slow hand over the other: one fire flying the kite of another. Her kiss, I swear—if the Great Mother rushed open the moon like a gift and you were there to feel your shadow finally unhooked from your wrist. That’d be it, but even sweeter— like a riot of peg-legged priests on pogo-sticks, up and up, this way and this, not falling but on and on like that, badly behaved but holy—I swear! That kiss: both lips utterly committed to the world like a Peace Corps, like a free store, forever and always a new city—no locks, no walls, just doors—like that, I swear, like that.
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#TED_Ed #Sustainability #Technology #Resources #Natural_Resources
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As of 2018, there are around 2.5 billion smartphone users in the world. If we broke open all their newest phones, which are just a fraction of the total that’ve been built, and split them into their component parts, that would produce around 85,000 kilograms of gold, 875,000 of silver, and 40 million kilograms of copper. How did this precious cache get into our phones, and can we reclaim it?
Gold, silver, and copper are actually just a few of the 70 or so chemical elements that make up the average smartphone. These can be divided into different groups, two of the most critical being rare earth elements and precious metals.
Rare earths are a selection of 17 elements that are actually common in Earth’s crust and are found in many areas across the world in low concentrations. These elements have a huge range of magnetic, phosphorescent, and conductive properties that make them crucial to modern technologies. In fact, of the 17 types of rare earth metals, phones and other electronics may contain up to 16. In smartphones, these create the screen and color display, aid conductivity, and produce the signature vibrations, amongst other things.
And yet, crucial as they are, extracting these elements from the earth is linked to some disturbing environmental impacts. Rare earth elements can often be found, but in many areas, it’s not economically feasible to extract them due to low concentrations. Much of the time, extracting them requires a method called open pit mining that exposes vast areas of land. This form of mining destroys huge swaths of natural habitats, and causes air and water pollution, threatening the health of nearby communities.
Another group of ingredients in smartphones comes with similar environmental risks: these are metals such as copper, silver, palladium, aluminum, platinum, tungsten, tin, lead, and gold. We also mine magnesium, lithium, silica, and potassium to make phones, and all of it is associated with vast habitat destruction, as well as air and water pollution. Mining comes with worrying social problems, too, like large-scale human and animal displacement to make way for industrial operations, and frequently, poor working conditions for laborers.
Lastly, phone production also requires petroleum, one of the main drivers of climate change. That entwines our smartphones inextricably with this growing planetary conundrum.
And, what’s more, the ingredients we mine to make our phones aren’t infinite. One day, they’ll simply run out, and we haven’t yet discovered effective replacements for some. Despite this, the number of smartphones is on a steady increase; by 2019 it’s predicted that there’ll be close to 3 billion in use.
This means that reclaiming the bounty within our phones is swiftly becoming a necessity. So, if you have an old phone, you might want to consider your options before throwing it away. To minimize waste, you could donate it to a charity for reuse, take it to an e-waste recycling facility, or look for a company that refurbishes old models.
However, even recycling companies need our scrutiny. Just as the production of smartphones comes with social and environmental problems, dismantling them does too. E-waste is sometimes intentionally exported to countries where labor is cheap but working conditions are poor. Vast workforces, often made up of women and children, may be underpaid, lack the training to safely disassemble phones, and be exposed to elements like lead and mercury, which can permanently damage their nervous systems. Phone waste can also end up in huge dump sites, leaching toxic chemicals into the soil and water, mirroring the problems of the mines where the elements originated.
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A phone is much more than it appears to be on the surface. It’s an assemblage of elements from multiple countries, linked to impacts that are unfolding on a global scale. So, until someone invents a completely sustainable smartphone, we’ll need to come to terms with how this technology affects widespread places and people.
#TED_Ed #Sustainability #Technology #Resources #Natural_Resources
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#TED_Ed #Art #History #Culture #Arts #Painting #World_Cultures
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Imagine you and a friend are strolling through an art exhibit and a striking painting catches your eye. The vibrant red appears to you as a symbol of love, but your friend is convinced it's a symbol of war. And where you see stars in a romantic sky, your friend interprets global warming-inducing pollutants. To settle the debate, you turn to the internet, where you read that the painting is a replica of the artist's first-grade art project: Red was her favorite color and the silver dots are fairies.
You now know the exact intentions that led to the creation of this work. Are you wrong to have enjoyed it as something the artist didn’t intend? Do you enjoy it less now that you know the truth? Just how much should the artist's intention affect your interpretation of the painting? It's a question that's been tossed around by philosophers and art critics for decades, with no consensus in sight.
In the mid-20th century, literary critic W.K. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe Beardsley argued that artistic intention was irrelevant. They called this the Intentional Fallacy: the belief that valuing an artist's intentions was misguided. Their argument was twofold: First, the artists we study are no longer living, never recorded their intentions, or are simply unavailable to answer questions about their work. Second, even if there were a bounty of relevant information, Wimsatt and Beardsley believed it would distract us from the qualities of the work itself. They compared art to a dessert: When you taste a pudding, the chef's intentions don't affect whether you enjoy its flavor or texture. All that matters, they said, is that the pudding "works."
Of course, what "works" for one person might not "work" for another. And since different interpretations appeal to different people, the silver dots in our painting could be reasonably interpreted as fairies, stars, or pollutants. By Wimsatt and Beardsley's logic, the artist's interpretation of her own work would just be one among many equally acceptable possibilities.
If you find this problematic, you might be more in line with Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels, two literary theorists who rejected the Intentional Fallacy. They argued that an artist's intended meaning was not just one possible interpretation, but the only possible interpretation. For example, suppose you're walking along a beach and come across a series of marks in the sand that spell out a verse of poetry. Knapp and Michaels believed the poem would lose all meaning if you discovered these marks were not the work of a human being, but an odd coincidence produced by the waves. They believed an intentional creator is what makes the poem subject to understanding at all.
Other thinkers advocate for a middle ground, suggesting that intention is just one piece in a larger puzzle. Contemporary philosopher Noel Carroll took this stance, arguing that an artist's intentions are relevant to their audience the same way a speaker's intentions are relevant to the person they’re engaging in conversation. To understand how intentions function in conversation, Carroll said to imagine someone holding a cigarette and asking for a match. You respond by handing them a lighter, gathering that their motivation is to light their cigarette. The words they used to ask the question are important, but the intentions behind the question dictate your understanding and ultimately, your response.
So which end of this spectrum do you lean towards? Do you, like Wimsatt and Beardsley, believe that when it comes to art, the proof should be in the pudding? Or do you think that an artist's plans and motivations for their work affect its meaning? Artistic interpretation is a complex web that will probably never offer a definitive answer.
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I'm Clint Smith and this is "Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class." You, it seems, are the manifestation of several lifetimes of toil. Brown v. Board in flesh. Most days the classroom feels like an antechamber. You are deemed expert on all things Morrison, King, Malcolm, Rosa. Hell, weren’t you sitting on that bus, too? You are every- body’s best friend until you are not. Hip-hop lyricologist. Presumed athlete. Free & Reduced sideshow. Exception and caricature. Too black and too white all at once. If you are successful it is because of affirmative action. If you fail it is because you were destined to. You are invisible until they turn on the Friday night lights. Here you are star before they render you asteroid. Before they watch you turn to dust.
#TED_Ed #Animation #Poetry #Race #Inequality #Spoken_Word
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