Sweden's death rate is high compared with those of its neighbors, who took much more drastic and appropriate action against the pandemic.
An anti-war student in Ohio at the time of the Kent State massacre explains why the protests were led largely by well-off whites.
Why the argument that we should reopen the economy because we don't shut it down over the thousands of car deaths every year is wrong.
The president brooks no criticism and disregards inconvenient facts, much like the Chinese government he opposes.
In one article, wealthy private schools get government aid. In another, desperate citizens beg for funds online.
The language of the 2nd Amendment suggests that the Constitution's framers did not want to empower rifle-wielding protesters to invade statehouses.
Thelma Schoonmaker began working with Martin Scorsese in 1967. Over the years, she says, it has become more of a collaboration.
A Mediterranean Revival-style home once owned by noted makeup artist Percival "Perc" Westmore is for sale in the Hollywood Hills for $5.495 million.
Holiday companies are desperate to persuade travellers whose holidays have been cancelled to accept a 'Refund Credit Note'. Should you? These are the key questions and answers
Tesla's financial results released last week didn't mention that the automaker's revenue included $200 million collected from regulatory credits.
With concerts cancelled and album releases amiss, musicians with mental health issues are struggling with the stress and uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Iowa Statesman, I was happy to hear the joint statement on tax reform from the US Congress, The White House and others in Washington. It’s about time. Our current tax code is severely dated, complex and debunked. Our tax code has not been updated since Reagan was in office and […]
It's only two weeks into the legislative session and the Indiana General Assembly has already hit an ethical speed bump. Who's steering this bus?
Gov. Mike Pence's Scott County order allowing a needle-exchange program is a welcome step. But it's just a start.
More than 100 companies and nonprofits have pledged support for the Your Life Matters initiative, created to help the city's most vulnerable residents. That's a great start, but momentum is critical.
The payoffs for such turnarounds can be extraordinary for the residents who live nearby and for the city as a whole.
The BMV's pattern of poor performance hardly inspires confidence in its ability to adequately monitor itself.
At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even the old and the great must constantly be made new in today's world, and that's happening. The greatness of the Indianapolis 500, and of race weekend, remains.
The pandemic has impacted us in many ways, but despite these challenges, our commitment to our community and you is stronger than ever.
Trump might shut down the coronavirus task force. This won't do anything to boost our response to the pandemic.
The pandemic has impacted us in many ways, but despite these challenges, our commitment to our community and you is stronger than ever.
An organized kitchen doesn't have to be super minimal; it just has to function well. These editor-approved kitchen organizers help make the tools and ingredients in your kitchen more visible and accessible, so you can cook with more ease and joy!
Continue reading "Editors’ Picks: Kitchen Organizers" »
Hear about a western Mediterranean cruise to Spain, Gibraltar, France, Monaco and Italy on Holland America's Westerdam where I just attended a press trip.
Video: Merlin Mann - "Time & Attention Talk (improvised)"
Audio (mp3): "Merlin Mann - 'Rutgers Time & Attention Talk'"
This is a talk I did at Rutgers earlier this month. I kinda like it, but for a weird reason. Something something, perfect storm of technology Ragnarok, and yadda yadda, I had to start the talk 20 minutes late with no slides. Nothing.
So, I riffed.
And, I ended up talking about a lot of the new stuff you can expect to see in the Inbox Zero book—work culture, managing expectations, the 3 deadly qualities of email, and one surprising reason email's not as much fun as Project Runway.
Some people liked it. I think. I liked it. I hope you do, too.
Here's the slides I would have shown. ;-)
Many thanks, again, to my great pal, Dr. Donald Schaffner, for bringing me in for this visit. I had a great time and met some fantastic, passionate people. Much appreciated.
I’ll bet. Lucky you, you can hire me to deliver this or any of my other talks to the time- and attention-addled people you work with as well.
Current topics include email, meetings, social media, and future-proofing your passion.
Drop a note if you have an upcoming event where you think we two might be a good fit.
update 2010-04-27_13-50-00
Apologies—my friends at Rutgers (inexplicably) have placed this video under lock and key. Fortunately, I have a lock-picker called Firefox. Samizdat video available soon...
update 2010-04-27_14-42-24
Yay, fixed! Many thanks to my hero, Jesse Schibilia.
”Video: Merlin's Time & Attention Talk (Improvised Rutgers Edition)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 27, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
While infection rates remain steady across the region, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is reporting more than half of all 360 cases have now recovered.
The following article, Busted! Late-Night Hack Comedian, Jimmy Kimmel Is Forced To Apologize For Sharing Highly Edited Video Of VP Pence To Make Him Look Bad, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com.
Last night, Jimmy Kimmel, host of the low-rated, late-night Jimmy Kimmel Show, shared a deceptively edited video clip of Vice President Pence delivering PPE to a nursing home. Today, liberal activist Matt McDermott tweeted the videotaped segment on VP Pence that was edited to make the vice president look like he was faking a delivery […]
Continue reading: Busted! Late-Night Hack Comedian, Jimmy Kimmel Is Forced To Apologize For Sharing Highly Edited Video Of VP Pence To Make Him Look Bad ...
In our computational study, we use molecular simulations to substantiate a hypothetical mechanism for glycosidic bond cleavage in the presence of a single catalytic acid at the active site of the mutant D10N HiCel45A. In addition to discussing this plausible mechanism from the context of structurally related MltA lytic transglycosylase and subfamily C GH45s, we also suggest the implications of the plausible mechanism for our current understanding of the action of expansins and lytic transglycosylases. As correctly pointed out by Professor Cosgrove (1), there is large body of evidence, a significant portion of which was regrettably not discussed in our paper, that suggests that expansins are incapable of lytic action on polysaccharide substrates. Whereas these insights do not change the results or the conclusions of our article, we would like to thank Professor Cosgrove for these additional insights. In particular, our main point with respect to expansins is that our results suggest the possibility that expansins are capable of nonhydrolytic lytic activity. Our intention was not to suggest this was the mechanism of expansins, but that it should be considered based on our results and the similarity of the active sites.The molecular mechanisms of how expansins enable cell wall expansion remains to be fully understood. Whereas our proposed mechanism resulting in the formation of the 1,6-anhdro product might be found in expansins and might contribute to the mode of action of expansins, we would like to emphasize that the intent of this study was only to suggest this as a...
From their simulations of endoglucanase Cel45A, Bharadwaj et al. (1) propose that structurally related expansins and MltA may cut glycan backbones without generating reducing ends. This is tenable for MltA, a peptidoglycan lytic transglycosylase whose action produces nonreducing 1,6-anhydro products, but is untenable for expansins.Expansins loosen plant cell walls and induce wall expansion. Contrary to the assertion by Bharadwaj et al., the conclusion that expansins are not lytic is not merely based on lack of new reducing ends but is supported by multiple (negative) tests for polysaccharide cleavage that do not rely on detection of reducing ends. At least eight studies with three divergent groups of expansins document this point. For instance, α-expansin did not reduce the viscosity of various wall polysaccharide solutions, an endolytic assay that does not rely on measuring reducing ends (e.g. see Ref. 2 and other studies).Walls treated with α-expansin did not release saccharide fragments, measured by pulsed amperometric detection, which can detect nonreducing saccharides (3).In the case of β-expansins, protein treatments did not cleave the backbones of a wide range of dye-coupled cross-linked wall polysaccharides; nor did they cleave backbones of polysaccharides extracted from plant cell walls, measured by gel permeation chromatography (4).For five microbial expansins, tests with a range of dye-coupled cross-linked polysaccharides likewise did not detect lytic activity (e.g. see Ref. 5). Thus, extensive published evidence argues against lytic action by expansins, as proposed by Bharadwaj (1), and attempts to identify 1,6-anhydro products seem unlikely to succeed.
17 February 2020
Turkey is repeating the mistakes that led to the 2018 lira crisis and another freefall for the currency may not be far off.Since the 2018 economic crisis, when the value of the lira plummeted and borrowing costs soared, Turkey’s economy has achieved a miraculous ‘V-shaped’ economic recovery from a recession lasting three quarters to a return back to quarterly growth above 1 per cent in the first three months of 2019.
But this quick turnaround has been built on vast amounts of cheap credit used to re-stimulate a consumption and construction boom. This so-called ‘triple C’ economy generated a rapid growth spurt akin to a modestly able professional sprinter injected with steroids.
This has made the currency vulnerable. The lira has steadily depreciated by 11 per cent against the US dollar since the beginning of 2019 and crossed the rate of 6 lira versus the US dollar on 7 February. And there are further warning signs on the horizon.
Statistics reveal that Turkish domestic credit grew by around 13 per cent on average throughout 2019. The credit bonanza is still ongoing. Mortgage-backed home sales jumped by a record high of 600 per cent last December alone and the 2019 budget deficit catapulted by 70 per cent due to higher government spending.
Turkey’s central bank fuelled this credit expansion by cutting interest rates aggressively to below inflation and, since the start of this year, purchasing lira-denominated bonds equivalent to around one-third of total acquisitions last year to push yields lower.
Equally, it has linked bank lending to reserve requirements – the money that banks have to keep at the central bank – to boost borrowings via state and private banks. Banks with a ‘real’ loan growth (including inflation) of between 5 and 15 per cent enjoy a 2 per cent reserve ratio on most lira deposits, which authorities adjusted from an earlier band of 10-20 per cent that did not consider double-digit inflation.
Cumulatively, bond purchases (effectively quantitative easing) and reserve management policies have also contributed to eased credit conditions.
Commercial banks have also reduced deposit rates on lira accounts to less than inflation to encourage consumption over saving. Together with low lending rates, the boost to the economy has flowed via mortgages, credit card loans, vehicle leasing transactions and general business borrowings.
Accordingly, stimulus is at the forefront of the government’s economic approach, as it was in 2017 and 2018. It does not seem to be implementing structural change to re-orient growth away from consumption towards productivity.
In addition, governance is, again, a central issue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s near total monopolization of policymaking means he guides all domestic and external policies. He forced out the previous central bank governor, Murat Cetinkaya, in July 2019 because he did not share the president’s desire for an accelerated pace of interest rate reductions.
Despite the similarities, the expected future financial turbulence will be materially different from its 2018 predecessor in four crucial respects.
Firstly, foreign investors will only be marginally involved. Turkey has shut out foreign investors since 2018 from lira-denominated assets by restricting lira swap arrangements. Unsurprisingly, the non-resident holdings of lira bonds has plummeted from 20 per cent in 2018 to less than 10 per cent today.
Secondly, the Turkish government has recently introduced indirect domestic capital controls by constraining most commercial transactions to the lira rather than to the US dollar or euro to reduce foreign currency demand in light of short-term external debt obligations of $191 billion.
Thirdly, the Turkish state banks are intervening quite regularly to soften Lira volatility, thereby transitioning from a ‘free float’ to a ‘managed float’. So far, they have spent over $37 billion over the last two years in a futile effort to buttress the lira. This level of involvement in currency markets cannot be maintained.
Fourthly, the Turkish state is being far more interventionist in the Turkish stock exchange and bond markets to keep asset prices elevated. Government-controlled local funds have participated in the Borsa Istanbul and state banks in sovereign debt to sustain rallies or reverse a bear market.
All these measures have one running idea: exclude foreign investors and no crisis will recur. Yet, when the credit boom heads to a downturn sooner or later, Turks will probably escalate lira conversions to US dollars; 51 per cent of all Turkish bank deposits are already dollar-denominated and the figure is still rising.
If Turkey’s limited foreign reserves cannot satisfy the domestic dollar demand, the government may have to impose comprehensive capital controls and allow for a double digit depreciation in the value of the lira to from its current level, with significant repercussions on Turkey’s political stability and economic climate.
To avoid this scenario, it needs to restore fiscal and monetary prudence, deal the with the foreign debt overhang in the private sector and focus on productivity-improving economic and institutional reforms to gain the confidence of global financial markets and Turks alike.
We've all been saying it: These are unprecedented times. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are incredibly wide-ranging and affect all facets of life. One that is hitting the scientific community very hard is the cancellation of meetings, large and small. While we are well-versed in connecting with colleagues and collaborators across a variety of online platforms, these do not replace the immensely gratifying aspects of attending meetings in person: the pleasure of catching up with old friends and making new ones, the insights gained from having real-time conversations with others working on the same topic but with different expertise and perspectives, and the stimulating new scientific ideas we carry home. We have all been feeling the disappointment as we learn that one meeting after another is forced to cancel, from the vibrant ASBMB annual meeting to summer conferences of all types.Another loss from the appropriate but painful decision to cancel the ASBMB annual meeting was the chance to hear from our Herbert Tabor Early Career Investigator Awardees, who represent the best science published in JBC in the preceding year. This year, the competition was particularly fierce. We hope and anticipate that we will be able to hear from the winners at next year's ASBMB annual meeting. But in the meantime, we want to raise a toast to Wenchao Zhao, Yue Yang, Manisha Dagar, Febin Varghese, and Ayumi Nagashima-Kasahara as our 2020 winners. We've captured their award-winning 2019 papers (1–5) on the JBC website (6), and extended profiles of the...
Members Event
Chatham House | 10 St James's Square | London | SW1Y 4LE
HE George Vella, President, Republic of Malta
Chair: Dr Alex Vines OBE, Managing Director, Ethics, Risk & Resilience; Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House
The president of Malta discusses the current security challenges in the Mediterranean region, reflecting on the role of international cooperation in addressing climate change, migration and refugee flows.
