All posts tagged: coronavirus pandemic

Why is the US economy so resilient? | Business and Economy

Why is the US economy so resilient? | Business and Economy

Published by Sam

The US economy is on a tear, and it has pulled far ahead of the rest of the world. Geopolitical tensions, the pandemic’s lingering aftershocks, high inflation and steep borrowing costs. Countries across the globe have faced multiple crises for months. And just last year, the world’s biggest economy, the United States, was at risk of recession. Today, its gross domestic product is growing faster than expected. Stocks are soaring. And the job market is hot. The US economy is not just strong. It has also powered ahead of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and other advanced economies. Why are farmers across Europe protesting? Plus, North Korea looks to false eyelashes to shore up its economy. Source link

Let Them Cook – The Atlantic

Let Them Cook – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

The Joy of Cooking, one of the most popular cookbooks in American history, entered kitchens in 1931 with a simple premise: Anyone can learn to make a meal. The Depression had disrupted the food supply, leaving a generation of new homemakers doubting their ability to furnish healthy, varied dishes from sparse pantries. The book’s popularity lay in author Irma Rombauer’s approachable, if I can do this, you can too tone, an attitude that would help change how everyday Americans made dinner. Nearly a century later, another generation of young cooks has faced another global catastrophe, and emerged with their own relationship to cooking. While the coronavirus pandemic sent millions of Americans away from restaurants and into their kitchens, its culinary impact was formative for Gen Z, many of whom were in their teens or early 20s when it began. Whether stuck in their parents’ homes or on their own, these young people embraced cooking as an act of independence and, as one researcher told me, coping. On TikTok, cooking tutorials have hundreds of millions of …

Where Are All the Missing Students?

Where Are All the Missing Students?

Published by skeptic

In 2006, the School District of Philadelphia, in partnership with Microsoft, opened the School of the Future. The idea was simple enough: Establish a learning environment centered on technology—no textbooks, just laptops and Wi-Fi—that would provide students in relatively poor districts the same benefits that those in wealthier areas enjoyed. The district built a handsome, well-lit building and filled it with state-of-the-art trappings including electronic lockers and Italian-marble bathrooms. It was heralded as a path-defining achievement for public-private partnerships in education. Two years later, Michael Gottfried, now an economist at the University of Pennsylvania but then a graduate student there, was part of a team examining whether such a technological revolution actually made a difference in student achievement. But he soon realized that the technology was somewhat beside the point: “We were talking to a teacher [at the School of the Future] and she said, ‘Here’s the thing, we can talk all you want about smart boards and laptops per student and curriculum moving online, but I have a bigger problem: Half of my class …

America’s Eyes Are on Unions

America’s Eyes Are on Unions

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. The president was on the picket line, and the American public is paying attention to unions. This moment of renewed interest in organizing could energize labor activity in the U.S., but it also turns up the pressure on union leaders. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: “A Genuinely Historic Moment” “Unions built the middle class,” the president of the United States bellowed this week through a bullhorn emblazoned with an American flag. “You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now.” On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting president to join striking workers on a picket line. In standing with the United Auto Workers, who have been on strike against the Big Three car companies for almost two weeks, he has picked a side. As …

Feeling Burned Out? Here’s What to Do.

Feeling Burned Out? Here’s What to Do.

Published by skeptic

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha, the novel’s central protagonist, asks his father for permission to join a monastery, where he seeks to purify his soul and sanctify his work. Cynical and half-drunk, Alyosha’s father makes a prediction about what monastic life will do to the saintly youngster: “You will burn and you will burn out.” Not until nearly a century after the novel’s 1880 appearance did social science come up with a definition of what that phrase, burn out, meant. In 1974, the German American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger supplied a definition of the noun burn-out as the state of being “exhausted by making extreme demands on energy, strength, or resources” from one’s job, which would cause one “to become ineffective in achieving the intents and purposes.” If you are feeling burned out in your work, you are far from alone. In 2015, 51 percent of American corporate workers surveyed said that they had …

What the Matchmaking Revival Says About Modern Dating

What the Matchmaking Revival Says About Modern Dating

Published by skeptic

Growing up in Maryland, Radha Patel didn’t see anyone in her area using a matchmaker. But she was aware that in India, where her parents had emigrated from, plenty of couples were fixed up—by relatives, respected elders, women in the community trusted to intuit good pairs. For some reason, the idea of it stuck in the back of her mind. It was still lingering there in 2018, when friends, frustrated with dating apps, started asking for help finding love. “I’m not a tech person,” she thought. “What can I do?” Then she realized that she could play matchmaker. She started setting people up, and that turned into a hobby, which later that year became a business, Single to Shaadi. She and many of the matchmakers she knows saw a wave of new clients in 2020, when the popular Netflix show Indian Matchmaking, which follows a professional cupid from Mumbai, came out. The coronavirus pandemic might have contributed to the surge; especially early on, plenty of people didn’t want to go on more in-person dates than …

A new approach to a Covid-19 nasal vaccine shows early promise

A new approach to a Covid-19 nasal vaccine shows early promise

Published by skeptic

CNN  —  Scientists in Germany say they’ve been able to make a nasal vaccine that can shut down a Covid-19 infection in the nose and throat, where the virus gets its first foothold in the body. In experiments in hamsters, two doses of the vaccine – which is made with a live but weakened form of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 – blocked the virus from copying itself in the animals’ upper airways, achieving “sterilizing immunity” and preventing illness, a long-sought goal of the pandemic. Although this vaccine has several more hurdles to clear before it gets to a doctor’s office or drug store, other nasal vaccines are in use or are nearing the finish line in clinical trials. China and India both rolled out vaccines given through the nasal tissues last fall, though it’s not clear how well they may be working. Studies on the effectiveness of these vaccines have yet to be published, leaving much of the world to wonder whether this approach to protection really works in people. The US has reached …