The fact of higher protein content appears to be true (without going back to find and critique all the original studies). Explanations are much harder to ‘prove’ for questions like this.

We can’t do experiments on the evolution of tears, so all we can do is come up with plausible theories and look at how they fit with the body of evidence. With enough evidence, from enough different angles, we might one day be able to say which proposed explanations fit the facts (and which don’t). It’s how we (eventually) proved smoking was killing people (another question we cannot do experiments on human beings to prove one way or the other) but not all questions are as important as smoking was and there isn’t necessarily a neat, single factor explanation to find even if someone was willing to fund all the necessary research.

Not my area but, for example, I recently saw a study claim that sniffing women’s tears makes men less aggressive. That’s an angle that might help build some support for, or knock down, the theory that emotional tears are useful for social communication (ie help get women killed slightly less often). Did those studies use sad stories or onions? Did any study compare sad stories to onions? If we’re seeing hints of differences between sad stories and onions, that would tend to support the social communication element of the explanation. Unless we think there’s a difference between sad tears and frightened tears, which there probably is, so we should check that too. And the rest of the literature on tears, if it’s considered important enough to get the theory right. And we need to remember that sticky tears are not the same thing as smelly tears, so can we do experiments where non-emotional tears are made sticky, and non-sticky tears made to smell frightened?

Etc etc.

Explaining things we observe but cannot directly experiment on is a process, a process which typically takes many years and dozens of research groups. And a lot of funding. And decades of exhausting battles, if there is a lot riding on the answer (as it did with Big Tobacco vs Public Health).

They get away with it if the people they attack are less powerful than they are, yeah. Power is a thing.

No it doesn’t. The dean who made this decision, as with most people in stable positions of power, does not need telling what to do because he will do it anyway.

Rutledge clerked for Clarence Thomas, and is featured in a painting included in ProPublica’s reporting on Republican donor Harlan Crow’s gifts to the Supreme Court Justice.

I didn’t say you denied the Holocaust. I said you implied that it is the first example of European antisemitism.

I agree with a lot of this but this bit is a non-sequitur:

One thing many people don’t realize is that the Zionist colonial project was in motion long before WWII, as far back as the late 1800s.

Political zionism did get started in the late 1800s, as a proposed solution to the centuries of pogroms, expulsions and discrimination against Jews in Europe. Prior to the horrors of WWII, most Jews considered it literal heresy. It was the Holocaust that convinced many that Zionism was their only option, not least because most of the free world closed its borders to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and its aftermath. There was nowhere else to go.

This is a very useful short piece by a Jewish anti-zionist, pleading with the pro-Palestinian movement to take more care with their understanding of history: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Left Today

The Palestinians are paying the price for Europe’s crimes. The problem cannot be solved by denying that those crimes ever happened.

Statutory rape does not exist as an offence in English law. The offence is sexual contact with a minor.

The age of consent is 16 but 18 if the older party is in a position of responsibility (like a teacher). So whether or not she had unlawful sexual contact with the second boy would depend on how that law was interpreted, as well as when the first contact took place.

I’m used to that having full articles

Quite a lot of communities ban posting of full articles, including this one:

Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post.

Helluva headline given the story is about tied labour.

I mean, yeah. All of this. Absurd.

But, FWIW, offloading cheap tat onto charity shops is not going to work well. It costs them money to put it on a shelf and it probably takes up more space than it is worth. Plus, they very likely can’t sell electrical equipment that has had its cord chopped up and repaired, or at least not without spending more on having it tested than they could sell it for anyway.

Next time, find a friend with small feet who would like to take it off your hands.

DOIs are forever. It’s why they exist.

The article is not arguing that it should have been any different. The sub-editor had a bad day and that’s OK.

You can learn to swim in water that is shallow enough to stand in. And if being safe in the event of a pychopathic ‘prank’ is the primary concern, focus on learning how to tread water. Everything will seem easier once you know for sure that you can keep your head above water. Most people who are enjoying a pool or the sea are not actually swimming anywhere anyway.

lol

Good grief. You don’t need to wave your hands so wildly, this is really fucking simple maths. Expenditure which is 21% of the total cannot possibly be the reason why USians pay 2-3 times more than everywhere else for drugs.

That’s a mind-numbingly obvious point which completely ignores the context, which is Pharma justifying their high prices based on the amount they spend on R&D.

The rest of the world gets drugs 2-3x cheaper than the US. Do you imagine they’re selling at a loss to everywhere else?

I don’t know which jurisdiction you’re in but, while it isn’t illegal in the UK, you’re absolutely right about it being a bad idea and you are correct about the reason. In the event of a crash, it could count against you (in the UK, at least).

It doesn’t cost that much because the company are making a hefty profit, of course. And much more profit off it in the US as per usual, the NHS pays considerably less

The deal struck [in 2021] with Novartis Gene Therapies, secures the drug for NHS patients in England at a substantial confidential discount and paves the way for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to publish draft guidance recommending treatment with Zolgensma.

The terms of the deal mean that some young children that currently fall outside the NICE recommendation criteria will also be eligible to be considered for treatment by a national multidisciplinary clinical team (MDT) made up of the country’s leading experts in the treatment of SMA.

This means as many as 80 babies and young children could potentially benefit from the life-changing gene therapy a year.

But profiteering aside, the number in the final paragraph is your answer. Up to 80 kids in the UK per year, so up to ~400 in the US, ~500 for the EU. It’s not a big market but the cost of drug development doesn’t get cheaper just because the number of cases is small, it gets more difficult and more costly. And there’s more than one drug company chasing the market.

None of that is a defence of Pharma. But it is inevitable under capitalism. Eat the rich etc etc.

What percentage would be right?

Given that they’re using the cost of R&D to justify their prices? A lot more than 21%.

The rest of the world gets much lower prices. That’s not out of the goodness of their hearts or the generosity of their wallets, yaknow?

I don’t disagree with your overall argument but, if they’re fined 100% of revenue, that’s way less than zero profit (because they’ve still paid to make, distribute, and recall the things).

Fines should, of course, always be more than the profit made. 3x is a good number.

The event is called the Madrid Open.