Quickies

Quickies: the War on Christmas, Spacewalking, and Precision Medicine

  • #MerryChristmas Starbucks! Watch the absurd “war on Christmas” call-to-arms over red coffee cups – This professional Evangelical came up with the perfect way to prank Starbucks: tell the barista that your name is “Merry Christmas” so they’re tricked into writing it on their cups! Haha, great prank, bro! 
  • Why Childcare Workers Are So Poor, Even Though Childcare Costs So Much – “Elise Gould, a senior economist at EPI and the author of the study, says that often people think of childcare workers as somewhat similar to elementary-school teachers, since they are providing care and enrichment for children all day (albeit with fewer required credentials). But the compensation for childcare workers more closely mirrors that of a cashier or a food-service worker than a teacher, she says.”
  • What It’s Really Like To ‘Walk’ In Space – Also mentioned, what happens when something goes wrong while you’re on a spacewalk. It’s both breathtaking and terrifying!
  • Precision medicine, linked to DNA, still too often misses – “The researchers are still following the patients to determine whether the precision-medicine group lives longer, a more meaningful measure than progression-free survival. But setbacks like Moore’s show that genetic profiling of tumors is, at this point, no more a cure for every cancer than angiogenesis inhibitors, which cut off a tumor’s blood supply, or other much-hyped treatments have been.”
  • The Kidz Are All Right – It’s no secret that Kidz Bop sanitizes pop music for children, but recently they chose to censor references to red lipstick. They’re on the 30th album right now so you can actually see the censorship getting more conservative over time. 
  • As competition wanes, prices for generics skyrockets – We only notice when pharma companies get greedy, but what we miss is when they increase the price of a drug from 6 cents per pill to $4.60, for a generic. 
  • READ: Two Personal Statements That Help Explain The Situation At Mizzou – “We’ve written about the news that some members of the University of Missouri football team have said they will not play another game until the university system president steps down. The players were backing a student movement that has for months called on the university to address what they say is systemic racism on campus.”

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Mary

Mary Brock works as an Immunology scientist by day and takes care of a pink-loving princess child by night. She likes cloudy days, crafting, cooking, and Fall weather in New England.

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4 Comments

  1. Even the Christians on my feed think the cup thing is stupid, although often in very privilege blind ways. I’m wondering if we’re going to finally see the tide turn on this one. It’s kind of sad. I never really thought much about Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, but now every time someone wishes me Merry Christmas I’m wondering if they’re doing it in a pointed way because they’re an asshole.

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