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Featured speakers will include:

• Karyn Hanson, from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) who will give an update on DEC’s progress in developing a “Total Maximum Daily Load” (TMDL) for the Wallkill River and Sturgeon Pool.
• Kevin Sumner from Orange County Soil & Water Conservation District, who will discuss current Agricultural Conservation Programs and projects underway in Orange County, including flood management and riparian corridor restoration along the Wallkill River in the County’s Black Dirt agricultural region.
• Jillian Decker of the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance, who will share updates on the activities of the Alliance and ways to get involved in protecting and restoring your local river.

To help cover the costs of the Summit, we suggest a $10 suggested donation for community members, or a $25 suggested donation for municipal or business representatives.
The Wallkill River flows north approximately 90 miles from Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey until joining the Rondout Creek in Rifton, New York. Collectively the Wallkill and Rondout watersheds form the second largest tributary to the Hudson River Estuary, second only to the Mohawk River.
The Wallkill River Watershed Alliance was founded to restore the Wallkill River to its prime, to act as the voice of the River, and to advocate for the restoration of its entire watershed, using whatever means we find necessary.
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Can I start by giving everyone a heads up about the Albany county tree and shrub program, there's still time to order (due april 1) if anyone is in the market for reasonably priced shrubs and fruit trees! Got myself some blueberry bushes from them last year and they threw in a free bunch of liatris! You don't need to be an Albany county resident to participate.
https://www.albanycounty.com/departments/soil-and-water-conservation-district
Also, if anyone is need of a composter, the city of Albany will deliver a free one to your residence if you live within city limits:
https://www.albanynyrecycles.com/participate/
They provide free wood chips to help keep the smell down too, but last I heard they were having problems with an invasive jumping worm outbreak at the wood chip making place so Ive been using leaves instead.
Does anyone know of any local seed swaps?

Would anyone be interested in joining a new board game group in NNJ (Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex, Union, Morris counties)? I’ve (27f) been dying to hang out and meet new people since I have very few friends (thanks pandemic). We could play a bunch of board games, ttrpgs, drink and talk the night away. The group could eventually do other things like bowling, restaurants, movie marathons and eventually hiking and holiday parties.
This group would be lgbtqiaa+ friendly and would ideally of an age range of 20s-30s. If I get enough interest I’m thinking of starting a discord server and would start planning fun game board nights.
Edit: made a discord group, inquire within

1. New Jersey man attempted to board flight with AR-15, Taser and fake U.S. (emeatribune.com)
2. New Jersey man tried to board airplane with numerous firearms, DOJ says (theweek.com)
3. Bergen County Man Charged for Possession of Machine Gun, Rifle, Handgun, and Fraudulent United States Marshals Service Credentials in Newark Airport USAO-NJ Department of Justice
4. Device That Caused Lockdown At 2 Livingston Schools Revealed Livingston, NJ Patch
5. Brady group wants to join defense of New Jersey gun law - New Jersey Monitor
6. Garfield Man, 21, Convicted Of Armed Paterson Street Robbery Spree Faces At Least 10 Years South Passaic Daily Voice
7. Arrest made months after man is gunned down on N.J. sidewalk - nj.com
8. Gun-Control Groups Want to Stop Our Kids from Learning to Shoot An Official Journal Of The NRA (americas1stfreedom.org)
9. Rt. 3 Car Stop Reveals Crystal Meth, Illegal Gun: Secaucus Police Secaucus, NJ Patch
10. Atlantic County Man Convicted of Murder, Carjacking (rlsmedia.com)
11. Dem Reps Seek To Restrict Ammunition Sales To Americans The Daily Caller
12. Man Accused of Stealing $6,000 of Merchandise from Apple Store at the Mall at Short Hills Millburn/Short Hills, NJ News TAPinto
13. Suspect in Easton shooting that launched manhunt ID’d as N.J. man, handgun recovered from creek: police - lehighvalleylive.com
14. Hammonton Man Arrested for Drug Distribution (rlsmedia.com)
15. 28-year-old Camden County woman killed in shooting - CBS Philadelphia (cbsnews.com)
16. East Orange Man Sentenced to 28 Years in Jail Aggravated Manslaughter (rlsmedia.com)
17. Lafayette College on lockdown after report of shots fired near campus (mcall.com)
18. Woman Killed, Suspect Sought In South Jersey Shooting: Prosecutor Haddonfield, NJ Patch
19. ATF agent who shot suspected gun dealer in Trenton cleared (shorenewsnetwork.com)
20. Raid At New Teaneck Apartment Complex Yields Arrests Of Couple, NYC Murder Suspect From PA Teaneck Daily Voice
21. N.J. has investigated 75 police-involved death cases in four years. See them all here. - nj.com
22. Drugs, Guns and Fake IDs Seized In Teaneck: Police Officials Teaneck, NJ Patch
23. Armed Easton shooting suspect tried to flee in an Uber but driver refused to take him, cops say - lehighvalleylive.com
24. Prosecutor Says Police Use of Force was Justified in Hamilton Shooting Hamilton/Robbinsville, NJ News TAPinto
25. Atlantic County ‘Head Shot’ Gang Members Sentenced to Jail for Conspiring to Commit Murder (rlsmedia.com)
26. If Tasers are legal in New Jersey, why can’t I get one? Letters - nj.com
27. Three Hudson County Men Charged with Narcotics and Firearms Related Offenses Inside Jersey City Apartment Building USAO-NJ Department of Justice
28. Eastern District of North Carolina High-Ranking Blood Gang Member Sentenced to More Than 17 Years for Armed Drug Trafficking United States Department of Justice
29. N.J. promised to change how it probes police shootings. Critics say it isn’t working. - nj.com
30. Nonprofit dedicates gun range to local firearms instructor Local News wmicentral.com
31. NJ Teen Crashes Pickup Truck Into Westfield Park: Police Westfield, NJ Patch
32. Philadelphia mayor: If you don't 'back gun control,' you don't 'back the blue' National foxbangor.com

This is because, at the time, the Republican Party (now the Democratic Party) did not contest elections in Lee County. So, instead, the Socialist Party challenged the Democrats (now Republicans).
The rise of the Socialist Party in Fort Myers seems to have been, in part, fueled by Black residents of Fort Myers being fed up about increasing racism, segregation, and intimidation from whites, which would later culminate into mob violence and lynchings against local Black communities in the 1920s.
However, even before then, the Socialist Party of Florida was born out of the Southern populism of the 1880s and 1890s. Both Populists and Socialists were against the rise of "business (corporate) plutocracy" in Florida, and believed that only the federal government had the means to harness banks and giant corporations for the "public good".
In contrast to Populists, Socialists hoped to destroy competitive capitalism by redistributing land and the means of production, transportation, and distribution. The Socialist Party was also particularly popular with farmers; this is important, because several Black residents of Fort Myers were former slaves forced off of their homesteads by ex-Confederates, who had moved to the town after them.
In addition to this, Florida's coastal cities had grown by 42% from 1900 to 1910, with urban populations increasing by 74%. As such, the new metropolitan hubs of Tampa, Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Key West also provided to be staunch Socialist Party bastions. Many foreign nationals also moved to Florida, comprising more than 9% of the state's population by 1920.
Makeup of immigrants to Florida in this period:

• Cuba (26.3%)
• Italy (13.4%)
• Spain (12.4%)
• Germany (7.2%)

The majority of these immigrants settled in Monroe County (55.9% of residents); Hillsborough County (28% of residents); Escambia County (10.5% of residents); and Duval County (9.4% of residents). Most worked in Florida's expanding manufacturing center, which was comprised of four primary industries: Tobacco and cigars; lumber; naval stores (41.4%-47.2% of the USA's output); and phosphate (78.7% of the USA's output). Fort Myers also had a prospering lumber industry, worked by many Black laborers.
Problems in immigration, wage stagnation, poor labor relations, lack of or poor housing, growing wealth disparity between rich and poor, and lack of health care among Florida's poorer classes - which was largely made up of immigrants, Blacks, and Latinos - gave rise to the Florida Socialist Party.
Per Wikipedia:

The first Socialist Party of America (SPA) local in Florida was founded in Orlando, Florida, on November 18, 1901, a few months after the national party was founded.
The original Socialist Party of Florida was founded as a part of the SPA, in July 1902. By 1904, it had more than fifty chapters, [including a Fort Myers chapter], [with its primary two hubs being Jacksonville and Tampa].
In July and August of that year, county chapters in Manatee, Hillsborough and Duval would nominate candidates for local office, who would all run without success.
The state party would hold its first convention in Orlando sometime during the first week of July 1904, nominating several candidates to run governor and cabinet positions.
During the early 1900s, the Socialist Party in Florida would be impacted by Jim Crow, as African-American members were required to be members of their own local chapter separate from white ones; or, in the case there was an insufficient amount, they would be members of the state party directly.
During the 1906 elections, Manatee County would unexpectedly elect Andrew Jackson Pettigrew, who was running under the Socialist Party as state representative, defeating John A. Graham. Pettigrew had previously ran in 1904 for the same position, but was unsuccessful. [Pettigrew served in public office from 1907 to 1909.]
[A different Pettigrew, "S.A. Pettigrew", a Lee County nurseryman, also ran for Florida Secretary of Agriculture as a Socialist Party candidate.]
After the 1906 elections, the Socialist Party would generally be optimistic for 1908. A second convention would be held in Tampa on July 4, 1908. Sixty delegates would attend, with at least one coming from each of Florida's counties, [including Lee County].
The party would select its nominees for every state level office, with the exception of the Attorney General. The convention would also select candidates to run its three congressional districts along with five electoral college members.
Mrs. S. F. J. Linn, who was the party's nominee for Superintendent of Schools that year, would be the first female candidate to appear on the ballot in a state level race. She would also receive the highest percentage the Socialist Party would ever manage to achieve, at 10.4% for a race at the state level.
[In 1912, the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. President, Eugene Debs, received more votes in Florida than Theodore Roosevelt of the Progressive Party, or William Howard Taft of the Republican (now Democratic) Party. Florida was the only state in the former Confederacy where this minor party showed up as second place in voting.]
During the summer of 1913, the Socialist Party would make rounds in St. Augustine's municipal elections, getting close to winning positions in the municipal government during a contentious campaign with the Democratic Party, but ended up losing by "only forty-eight votes".
Nominees would be: David L. Dunham for mayor; T.J. Speisseger; Candido Meitin for an unknown position; and Edgar Manucy for municipal judge. All of the party's nominees came from prominent families in the city, and the rest of the party's support came from members of the city's working class.
Socialists in St. Augustine showed less consideration for issues of race, ethnicity, and class, although the city overall was described as having an intense racial, ethnic, and religious hierarchy to it. They would find more success in Longwood and Hastings, which was located nearby, where the party would elected justices of the peace for both locations.

From 1900 to 1912, the Socialist Party flourished and grew in Florida, but began to decline from 1912 to 1920. In 1913, Florida's first Socialist Party-affiliated newspaper, the Florida Beacon, was founded in Tampa. However, the paper only lasted for less than a year before it went bankrupt.
The Socialist party overall would begin to decline in earnest starting in 1917, with the United States' entry into World War I, which ended up significantly hurting the party; many Americans saw anti-war Socialist Party members as being "traitors" for not supporting the war effort.
With the Russian Revolution occurring in November 1917, much of the American public would nationally turn against the Socialist Party due to the Bolsheviks being pro-socialism. Federal and state officials would increase monitoring of Socialist Party members in Florida as a result, with an emphasis being made on Tampa's Ybor City and West Tampa neighborhoods.
By 1920, the Socialist Party would become virtually irrelevant politically. However, Florida was notable for recording the highest % of left-wing votes for any ex-Confederate state in four Presidential elections: 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. (In 1916, the Arkansas Socialist Party beat out the Florida Socialist Party for that title.)
The Socialist Party would remain a minor political party in Florida for the next 100 years, until sometime after 2014, when the Party was finally dissolved.
Socialist Party officials in Florida included:

• Andrew Jackson Pettigrew, State Representative, Manatee County, 1907–1909
• C.C. Allen, State Representative, Pinellas County, 1909–1911
• John Dobler, Mayor, Gulfport, 1909–1911 (city council had 4 Socialists, and 1 Democrat)
• James Love, Mayor, Lake Worth, 1914–1916
• David Maynard, Hillsborough County Soil & Water Conservation Board, Seat 5 2010-2019

The town of Ruskin, Florida, was also noted to be a "cooperative Socialist college town", founded in 1908, during the height of the Socialist movement in Florida. It was developed by Dr. George McAnelly Miller, an attorney and professor at Ruskin College in Trenton, Missouri, and Addie Dickman Miller.
Ruskin is named after the essayist and social critic John Ruskin, whose teachings had a profound effect on the Christian socialist founders of the Working Men's College; and, later, by the Arts and Crafts pioneer and socialist William Morris. Dr. Miller established the short-lived Ruskin College, Florida.
Many former members of both the Florida Populist Party and the Florida Socialist Party would later defect to the Florida Democratic Party, which played an important role in helping the liberal faction gain control of the Party. Once the liberal faction gained control of the Democratic Party in Florida, conservatives defected to the Republican Party, becoming the dominant force in that organization.
Sources:
Griffin, R. Steven (2008). "Workers of the Sunshine State Unite!: The Florida Socialist Party during the Progressive Era, 1900-1920". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 86 (3): 346–379. (free to read on JSTOR)
Harrison, Jonathan. "The Rise of Jim Crow in Fort Myers, 1885-1930". The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 94, no. 1, 2015, pp. 40–67. (free to read on JSTOR)
"Reports of the State Secretaries" (PDF). The Appeal to Reason. Marxist Internet Archive. July 18, 1903. pp. 2–5.
Ross, Jack (15 April 2015). The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9781612344911.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/magazine/new-york-democrats.html

The stunning failure of the Democratic Party on election night was nowhere more apparent than at Il Bacco, an Italian restaurant on the boulevard where Queens bleeds into Nassau County. That was where a soon-to-be-infamous 34-year-old political neophyte walked out to a cheering throng of Republicans and declared victory in one of America’s most important House contests. “Only in this country can the kid who came from the basement in Jackson Heights … ,” George Santos began, before he was momentarily overwhelmed. “To everybody watching, I want you to know that the American dream is worth fighting for. It’s worth defending, and that’s why I jumped into this race.”
In another era — two or four years ago, perhaps — the Santos saga, with its absurd cascade of lies, would have been an amusing sideshow for many Democratic politicians, who would have been able to mock the chaos and move on, comfortably sure that Santos, who fabricated much of his personal and financial biography, would only further hobble a neutered Republican minority. But the new congressman, now under investigation by local and federal authorities, was instead a crucial cog in Kevin McCarthy’s House majority, having flipped the redrawn Third Congressional District in New York, an area that had been represented by Democrats for decades, by eight points.
These days, New York is known as the deep-blue state where Democrats lost four seats on the way to losing the House of Representatives and effectively halting President Biden’s domestic agenda for the next two years. Kathy Hochul, who served as Andrew Cuomo’s lieutenant governor before accusations of sexual harassment and assault forced him from office in 2021, won the narrowest race for governor in 28 years, beating Lee Zeldin, a Trump-supporting congressman from Long Island, by less than six points. While forecasts for a national red wave didn’t materialize — Democratic candidates for governor and the Senate were largely triumphant in tossup races across the country, and Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn remained the Senate majority leader — Democrats stumbled in territory on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley that Biden won handily just two years earlier.
These disappointments have cast into sharp relief both the divisions within the party and the peculiar void of the state’s Democratic organization itself. Few New Yorkers cared, until late 2022, that the statewide Democratic apparatus operated, for the most part, as a hollowed-out appendage of the governor, a second campaign account that did little, if any, work in terms of messaging and turnout. New Hampshire, a state with roughly half the population of Queens, has a Democratic Party with 16 full-time paid staff members. New York’s has four, according to the state chairman, Jay Jacobs. One helps maintain social media accounts that update only sparingly. Most state committee members have no idea where the party keeps its headquarters, or if it even has one. (It does, at 50 Broadway in Manhattan.)
National parties function as enormous umbrella organizations, determining the presidential primary calendar and the process for allocating delegates at the national conventions. The drudgery of running elections is left to the local and state parties, as well as individual campaigns and independent political action committees.
Elsewhere in the country, state Democratic parties are much more robust than they are in New York. In Wisconsin, under the leadership of 42-year-old Ben Wikler, the party offered crucial organizing muscle in Gov. Tony Evers’s re-election win, staving off a Republican statewide sweep. The Nevada Democratic Party, despite infighting among moderates and progressives, aided Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s re-election, investing strongly in rural voter engagement. And in California, the party chair position is publicly contested among multiple candidates, with delegates voting as Democrats traverse the state and make their case in the media.
As for New York, observers across the ideological spectrum agree that the state is entering an unprecedented era, with warring political factions and a glaring power vacuum. Hochul recently became the first governor in New York history to have the State Legislature, controlled by Democrats, vote down her nominee to the state’s highest court. Progressives spearheaded opposition to the judge, Hector LaSalle, arguing that he was too conservative.
In challenging Hochul from the right, Zeldin was savagely effective — “Vote like your life depends on it,” he exhorted, echoing Richard Nixon, in the final days of the campaign — in seizing on suburban anxieties around rising crime that Republicans in other states weren’t able to successfully exploit. While Manhattan and the combined might of upper-income white and middle-class Black voters thwarted Zeldin in the five boroughs, he made notable inroads with working-class Asian Americans, potentially heralding a political realignment for the city’s fastest growing demographic. Hochul’s campaign was assailed for its relative listlessness and failure to counter Republican attacks on crime. “That is an issue that had to be dealt with early on, not 10 days before the election,” Nancy Pelosi chided the governor. (Hochul’s staff did not make her available for an interview.)
Within the confines of New York, Democrats remain historically dominant, retaining veto-proof majorities in both the State Senate and State Assembly. All the statewide elected officials are Democrats, as is the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. But this is a recent shift: Republicans controlled the State Senate almost continuously from the mid-1960s until 2019. George Pataki, a moderate Republican, led the state for 12 years, and Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg ran New York City from 1994 through 2013.
Heading into 2022, Democrats were confident that after decades of Republican rule in the State Legislature, they could entirely control the state’s redistricting process, engineering favorable House maps for the fall. After a quasi-independent commission deadlocked — critics argued that it was designed to fail when Cuomo helped create it a decade ago — Democratic state legislators redrew lines that strongly favored their party. Republicans sued in court, claiming that the Democrats’ maps violated an anti-gerrymandering clause in the State Constitution. To the shock of many political insiders, the Republicans won their court battle, and an outside special master was appointed by an upstate Republican judge to quickly draw new lines. House primaries were shoved from June to August.
With the special master prioritizing competitiveness, not incumbency advantage, Democrats found themselves thrown together in some of the same districts. Representative Jerry Nadler was pitted in a nasty primary against his longtime colleague Carolyn Maloney in Manhattan. (Nadler would prevail.) North of the city, Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a pugilistic centrist, decided to run in a new district spanning Rockland and Westchester that included far more turf that had been represented by Mondaire Jones, a neighboring progressive.
“Sean Patrick Maloney did not even give me a heads up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement,” Jones fumed at the time. “And I think that tells you everything you need to know about Sean Patrick Maloney.” Ritchie Torres, a Bronx congressman, accused Maloney of “thinly veiled racism” against Jones, who is Black. Maloney held his ground, and Jones was forced to move to a new district in New York City, where he would lose in an August primary. Maloney fended off a primary challenge from Alessandra Biaggi, a state senator who ran far to his left. Then, despite a titanic war chest, he fell to Mike Lawler, a Republican state legislator, by less than a point. Jones tweeted one word: “Yikes.”
And now the Democratic civil war rages. Jacobs, who is also the chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Party and is on his second tour leading the statewide organization, has come in for a drubbing. A week after the election, more than 1,000 Democrats signed a letter calling for Jacobs’s ouster. They included state legislators, City Council members, county leaders and members of New York’s 400-odd Democratic State Committee. Most of them belonged to the state’s progressive wing, which has grown only further emboldened since the fall. On Jan. 3, a number of them gathered outside City Hall to reiterate their demands: Jacobs must go.
“The party has to change, and it can’t change until we change the leadership,” George Albro, a co-chair of the New York Progressive Action Network, a left-wing organization formed from the remnants of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign, said in an interview. “From top to bottom, the Democratic Party in New York is a disaster.”
Until Cuomo’s downfall, Jacobs was known as a close ally of the imperious governor. His first tenure as party chairman came under Cuomo’s predecessor, David Paterson, but his second began in 2019, a year after Cuomo won a commanding re-election. That election cycle was notable because Cuomo overcame a primary challenge from the actress Cynthia Nixon, who targeted him from the ascendant left. Though Nixon lost, six insurgent progressives defeated members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a breakaway group of centrist Democrats who had spent the last half decade in an unusual — and incredibly infuriating to progressives — power-sharing arrangement with State Senate Republicans. The I.D.C. had existed with Cuomo’s blessing, joining with Republicans to foil liberal priorities in the State Legislature, like tuition assistance for undocumented immigrants, tougher tenant protections and criminal-justice reforms. For Cuomo, a triangulating centrist determined to avoid having to sign or veto progressive bills while harboring dreams of the national stage, the arrangement worked just fine. (In 2018, I took a break from writing to run for State Senate myself, losing in a Brooklyn Democratic primary.)
Since the state party, historically, has been a creature of the governor or the most powerful Democrat in the state, Jacobs is safe as long as Hochul tolerates him. And Hochul, some Democrats say, owes Jacobs for the work he did behind closed doors to ensure that the new governor had a comfortable primary win after Cuomo resigned and immediately began to plot a comeback. Jacobs’s fear was that a divided field could pave the way for a Cuomo revival, and he worked to rapidly hustle up institutional and financial support for Hochul that helped to deter another challenger, Attorney General Letitia James, from running against her.
In 2021, after a democratic socialist, India Walton, defeated the longtime mayor of Buffalo and a former chairman of the state party, Byron Brown, in a contentious primary, Jacobs refused to endorse Walton. “Let’s take a scenario, very different, where David Duke — You remember him? The grand wizard of the KKK? He moves to New York, he becomes a Democrat and he runs for mayor in the city of Rochester, which has a low primary turnout, and he wins the Democratic line. I have to endorse David Duke? I don’t think so,” Jacobs said in a television interview, before clarifying that Walton “isn’t in the same category, but it just leads you to that question, Is it a must? It’s not a must. It’s something you choose to do.”
Outraged progressives called for Jacobs’s resignation. He refused to go, and Hochul, who is from the Buffalo area and remains close to Brown, did not force Jacobs out. Brown, with tacit approval from the governor and Jacobs, then won the mayoralty with a write-in campaign that November, drawing support from Republicans to crush Walton.
A year later, Jacobs explored ways of undercutting the established vehicle for left-wing organizing in the state, the Working Families Party, a hybrid of party activists and labor unions that had endorsed Jumaane Williams over Hochul in the primary. He cut a check to a more moderate Democrat trying to primary Jamaal Bowman, a Westchester County congressman and a member of the Squad, the prominent group of far-left members of Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. After Republicans swept Democrats out of power in the New York suburbs last fall, Jacobs quickly blamed the left. “New York did underperform, but so did California,” Jacobs told the politics publication City & State in November. “What do those two states have in common? Well, governmentally, we’re among the two most progressive states in the country.”
A 67-year-old political lifer, Jacobs has an unrelated day job overseeing a string of popular and lucrative summer camps in upstate New York, in Pennsylvania and on Long Island, where he lives. Democratic business is often run out of a TLC Family of Camps office in Glen Cove, a small town on Nassau County’s Gold Coast. Politicos and journalists who want to reach Jacobs know to email his Camp TLC address; Jacobs cc’d his chief of staff at that summer-camp address to help arrange a telephone interview that lasted an hour, despite Jacobs’s initial hesitancy about going on the record.
“People believe that the state party runs all the campaigns, determines the messaging, does the opposition research for every candidate and, you know, when a candidate anywhere loses, it’s the fault of the state party, and all of that is just not an accurate view of the function of the state party and what we actually do,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs described the party as a “housekeeping organization” and a “coordinating entity” that works among labor unions, campaigns and other interest groups. He cited the maintenance of a voter file that campaigns use to target the electorate as among its most important work, as well as establishing campaign offices at election time. Fund-raising, too, is a big part of the work, and it’s there where Jacobs has been especially useful. A multimillionaire and prolific donor, Jacobs has given more than $1 million to various Democratic candidates and causes over the last two decades. It can be argued that it’s this wealth, in part, that has allowed him to continuously lead the Nassau County party since 2001. Few staunch Democrats are both better wired and more willing to cut checks than Jacobs.
“How I run my businesses and my charitable donations and the rest would indicate, as well as my personal beliefs, would indicate that I’m really, personally, quite progressive, more so than most people would think,” Jacobs said. Rather, he argued, his message is direct: “Slow down. You’re going too fast. What you’re doing is going to lose us votes in the suburbs and rural areas.”
In an unusual move for a party leader, Jacobs last year backed the rivals of several incumbent Democrats. His motivation, he told me, was “the behavior of some of these folks that are speaking on behalf of what I’d refer to as the far left. They practice the politics of personal destruction. They won’t argue the merits of what I say, but they’ll condemn me — and others, by the way, not just me — in really vitriolic terms, personal and the rest. Some of the reasons why I personally gave to some of the primaries — it was just a handful of people — it’s because of what they said about me. Personally.”
Last August, Jacobs donated $2,900 — the maximum allowable amount — to a county legislator trying to unseat Bowman. The congressman won by 38 points anyway.
“I don’t know Jay Jacobs,” Bowman told me. “I’ve never talked to him on the phone. I’ve never met him in my life. Even though I was a newcomer in 2020, I was still duly elected, and I’m a member of the party now. One would’ve thought that the leader of the party would have reached out to have a cup of coffee or have a conversation.”
Should Jacobs resign? “The short answer is yes,” Bowman answered. “But the more, I think, comprehensive nuanced answer or question is, What the hell are we even doing? You know, the whole thing about the corporate agenda, which I think Jay Jacobs and maybe even Governor Hochul and maybe others are missing is, when you talk about younger voters, millennials or Gen Z, they are not aligned with corporate interests over labor and working-class people.”
But Jacobs has plenty of defenders, including county leaders across the state, who believe he’s an upgrade over his somnolent or domineering predecessors and has a realistic view of what it takes to win beyond the liberal confines of New York City. “It’s hard for me to understand this rancor from certain individuals, by the way, who never seem to be satisfied,” says Jeremy Zellner, the chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party. “Only in New York could Jay win every single statewide election and hold the supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate and be chastised.”
Gregory Meeks, the Queens congressman and chairman of the county organization there, echoes Jacobs’s critique: The progressive and socialist left has cost Democrats in general elections by forcing them to defend positions he believes are alienating. “Extremes cannot be the dominant part of a party, because it isolates everyone else,” Meeks says. “What’s not good for all of us is talking about defunding the police.”
Because Hochul inherited Jacobs, his critics have hoped she would ditch him for someone who might take a more active role in the sort of tasks that party chairs in other states care far more about: recruiting candidates, shaping the party’s message, funding voter-outreach campaigns that begin many months ahead of a general election and even hiring a full-time communications director and research staff. Among some Hochul allies, there has been quiet frustration directed at one of her top advisers, Adam Sullivan, who speaks frequently with Jacobs on Hochul’s behalf. Sullivan holds great sway in Hochul’s world because he managed her successful campaign for Congress more than a decade ago. Despite his low profile and the fact that his consulting firm, ACS Campaign Consulting, is based in Colorado, where he lives, Sullivan was one of a select few aides Hochul thanked in her victory speech. Sullivan himself disputes that there’s any behind-the-scenes friction. “The governor is completely committed to building a strong, robust party,” Sullivan says. “Everyone in her orbit is on the same page.” What isn’t clear is whether that page, and the vision for the future of the state party, includes Jacobs.
Even Jacobs’s detractors acknowledge that dumping him and hunting for a replacement is only the beginning of a political project that will take many years. (Floated successors include Adriano Espaillat, a congressman who has built a strong operation among Dominican Americans in Upper Manhattan; Grace Meng, a Queens congresswoman and Democratic National Committee vice chairwoman who is the first Asian American elected to the House from New York; and Jessica Ramos, a progressive Queens state senator.)
All the ongoing chaos hasn’t escaped the notice of national Democrats. “When I go to D.N.C. meetings,” says a high-ranking New York Democratic official, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing colleagues, “there is a sense that New York doesn’t have a state party at all.”
Through the first half of the 20th century, Tammany Hall, with origins as an Irish Catholic society in the late 1700s, was the embodiment of the local Democratic Party, using patronage to secure power and dominating state and city politics alike. Nothing equivalent rose to take its place. “I don’t think anybody in their right mind would compare the state party right now to the machine that existed 50, 60, 70 years ago,” says Paterson, the former governor who later served as state party chairman during Cuomo’s tenure.
New York never had a Harry Reid figure, a singularly powerful Democrat who took an obsessive interest in party building. The two Cuomos, Mario and his son Andrew, governed the state for a combined nearly 23 years, and each treated the party organization as little more than a tool for self-promotion. A liberal icon to the rest of America for his soaring speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Mario Cuomo was assailed at home for barely lifting a finger to aid Democrats desperately trying to retake the State Senate. In 1990, The Times reported that Cuomo was hoarding more than $5 million for his own campaign while spending none for the State Senate Democrats, who were outspent 4 to 1 by Republicans. In 1994, the state party spent almost $2 million to aid Cuomo’s failed re-election effort while offering less than $30,000 apiece for the candidates for attorney general and state comptroller. By the end of the year, the party was moribund and completely broke, running up a million-dollar debt.
The only Democratic governor in modern times to care about the future of the state party and down-ballot candidates was Eliot Spitzer, who won a landslide victory in 2006 and would resign, a little more than a year later, in a prostitution scandal. Spitzer was a proud liberal who wanted to break the Republican hold on the State Senate. The party, too, was trying to modernize in anticipation of Senator Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president. For a brief period, under the leadership of Denny Farrell, an influential state assemblyman from Manhattan, talented operatives were hired, and Spitzer’s aides tried to implement a strategy for boosting legislative candidates.
“The party itself had really dissipated,” recalls Spitzer, now a real estate developer. His team helped recruit and fund an upstate Democratic candidate who won a pivotal special election for a State Senate seat in early 2008. “It was partly fund-raising, partly finding the right candidates, partly putting the right energy into it.”
The rise of Andrew Cuomo, who had a near-dictatorial hold on political affairs for nearly the entirety of the 2010s, put an end to nascent party-building plans. Cuomo treated Democratic politics as an extension of Cuomo politics, hoovering up resources and kneecapping Democrats he viewed as a threat. He was content to let Republicans keep the State Senate and rarely campaigned for House candidates. Donald Trump’s election, coupled with Sanders’s 2016 bid, would radicalize a new generation of Democrats. Soon, a democratic socialist candidate was winning a State Senate seat, and Working Families Party-supported insurgents were driving out the conservative Democrats who had chosen to align themselves with the Republican Party.
By 2018, Ocasio-Cortez had felled one of the most powerful party bosses in New York, a sign that the left could win its battles against the establishment. “We need Democrats who are not running from their own shadow,” says Sochie Nnaemeka, the New York director of the Working Families Party.
The widening fissures are both ideological and geographical. Manhattan and Brooklyn Democrats saved Hochul in November, but so did Westchester County, which once upon a time was a Republican stronghold. Democrats there gave Hochul a 20-point margin over Zeldin after Biden flew in to campaign for her. Westchester has continued to mirror national trends, as affluent suburbs grow Democratic, but Republicans have remained remarkably resilient on Long Island. Home to lavish estates, as well as growing Orthodox Jewish communities and a rising Asian American electorate newly alienated by Democrats, along with a working- and middle-class vote forever skeptical of big-city liberalism, the eastern suburb backed Zeldin by double digits. In recent years, the Hudson Valley has grown bluer, with city residents scooping up comparatively cheaper real estate during the pandemic, yet Zeldin carried Rockland, Dutchess, Putnam and Orange Counties, where Trump-era enthusiasm for Democrats gave way to backlash over rising crime south of the former Tappan Zee Bridge (renamed for Mario Cuomo by his son).
Jacobs can credibly argue that the progressivism or outright socialism that wins in Brooklyn or Queens can’t be easily sold in Nassau County. But Bowman and his cohort can ask why he neglects the younger voters moving left — or, for that matter, why he fails to build out an organization that can be credibly called a political party, the kind that is more than one man and a few aides conducting political business from a summer-camp office. In a 10-page report issued in January, Jacobs pinned Democratic losses on historically high Republican turnout, a contention backed by data. But shouldn’t a state party’s task be, in part, to turn out its own voters? Had enough Democrats been motivated to vote, George Santos would never have been sworn in as a congressman.
“What we saw is a party that did not know what role they should play,” Nnaemeka says, “and therefore played no role.”
Ross Barkan writes frequently on New York and national politics. He is the author of two novels and a nonfiction account of Covid’s impact on New York City. This is his first article for the magazine.

Taking your clothes to the dry cleaner is one of the top chores on everyone’s to-do list, but rarely are we thinking about how our most precious garments actually get cleaned.
Unlike traditional laundry, which uses water and detergent, dry cleaning is the process of cleaning clothing without the use of water. And as strange as that may sound, dry cleaning does actually clean your clothes.
Instead of cleaning with water and detergents, garments are cleaned with organic solvents that work to lift stains without damaging delicate fabrics as well as putting them through the dry cleaning process prevents shrinking and fading that can happen when wet cleaning. Clothing is washed in a machine similar (though bigger, more expensive, and much more adjustable) to the washing machines we use at home. But don’t be fooled, dry cleaning is not a process you can do without the proper training and equipment. Most dry cleaners have years of hands-on experience, and organizations like the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute offer training and resources for dry cleaners around the world.
How the Process of Dry Cleaning Works
Step 1: Garment tagging.
When you first drop off your clothing at the dry cleaner, it is tagged with a unique number to identify each item. This helps busy dry cleaners keep track of their customer’s clothing and avoids the headache of giving the wrong items to a customer when the process is finished.
Step 2: Inspection and stain pre-treatment.
All of the garments are visually inspected, and any stains are marked and pre-treated, if necessary. Pretreatment is done with special chemicals made for specific kinds of stains and fabrics. At this point, any embellishments or buttons are also covered with a soft cloth to protect them from damage during the dry cleaning process. Some dry cleaners may even choose to remove embellishments and buttons as an extra precaution.
Step 3: Into the dry cleaning machine.
The soiled clothing is placed in a dry cleaning machine. The organic solvent of choice (or water if your dry cleaner uses the wet cleaning method) is pumped into the machine while the clothing is agitated at a gentle pace. These machines are much larger than the washing machines we have at home but work with the same basic spinning function. Dry cleaning machines can be set to spin much slower and have greater temperature control, too.
Step 4: A second inspection.
When the dry cleaning cycle is finished, the garments are inspected again to make sure all stains have been removed from the garment. Additionally, all buttons, embellishments, and seams are inspected to make sure they are still intact. If any embellishments and buttons were removed during the initial inspection step, they are now reattached.
Step 5: The finishing touches.
Depending on the type of fabric, the dry cleaner will now press, iron, or steam each garment to get rid of wrinkles. Many dry cleaners use a form finisher for this step. Form finishers are machines that iron a garment using air or steam in the position that it is worn. It allows for a smoother, more pristine finish on dry cleaned clothing. All garments are given a final inspection before being covered in plastic and placed on racks for the customers to pick up or we can deliver them direct to your door.
Other Types of Dry Cleaning
From the need to produce a solvent that can replace the use of perc, came four other methods of dry cleaning (a.k.a "green" dry cleaning): synthetic petroleum (DF-2000), siloxane (Green Earth), liquid carbon dioxide, and wet cleaning.

• Synthetic petroleum is a byproduct produced during the manufacture of gasoline that is often marketed as a more environmentally friendly alternative to perc. The EPA has gone on to classify it as a neurotoxin and it is as heavily regulated as perc is.
• Siloxane (through its commercial name of Green Earth), is a colorless, odorless liquid silicone used in the dry cleaning industry. This solvent safely degrades into sand, water, and carbon dioxide, but has also been found to be carcinogenic in rats and may also be toxic to the liver.
• Liquid carbon dioxide is a nonflammable, nontoxic solvent that can be reused for multiple cleaning cycles. No new carbon dioxide is produced with this method, and it is a cheap, abundant solvent. However, the initial cost of purchasing the dry cleaning machine necessary for this method is very high, and therefore not an affordable option for many cleaners.
• Wet cleaning is exactly what it sounds like. This method uses water as the cleaning solvent, but the washing machine used can be set to very specific temperatures and spinning modes. While it is often just as effective as traditional dry cleaning for most items, it may not be safe for all garments and fabrics, and Good Housekeeping Cleaning and Textile Labs tests have found it a struggle to remove some stains, especially oily ones, without pretreating.

How to Get the Best Results from Your Dry Cleaner

• Check your garment label to make sure dry cleaning is the recommended method of cleaning. The care label symbol for dry cleaning is a circle and some labels indicate what type of dry cleaning solvent is recommended by a letter inside the circle.
• Before you drop off your garments, make sure to tell your dry cleaner about any stains. Many stains need to be pretreated before they are placed in the dry cleaning machine. Knowing what created the stains (coffee, oil, wine, etc.) on your clothes can help your dry cleaner choose the best pretreatment solution.
• Don't try to clean your dry-clean-only garments with your at-home detergents. Garments are labeled as dry clean only for a reason. There are at-home cleaning products that claim to dry clean right in your dryer, but these are better suited to deodorize and remove wrinkles and light stains. They don't remove stains as well as the professional solvents and methods a dry cleaner uses.

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Democrat Ken Plum, who has represented Reston in the Virginia House of Delegates since 1982, will not be standing for re-election in November. Plum is the longest-serving member of the House of Delegates, serving a total of 44 sessions...
Early voting for the June 20 Democratic Party primary begins on May 6. Voters must register by May 29 to be eligible to vote in the June 20 primary. The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot for the Democratic primary is June 9.
Voters will head to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 7, to choose candidates running for the Virginia House of Delegates, the Virginia Senate, the Commonwealth's Attorney, Clerk of the Fairfax Circuit Court, Fairfax County Sheriff, Chairman of Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, District Members of the Board of Supervisors, At-Large Members of the Fairfax County School Board, District Members of the School board, and Directors (vote for 3) of the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District.
https://patch.com/virginia/reston/democrat-ken-plum-decides-not-seek-re-election-november

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Michael Calhoun of Oregon.
Michael Calhoun is a lifelong resident of Vernonia, a small town in rural Oregon. Since graduating from Western Oregon University, Michael has been involved in conservation efforts with both the Upper Nehalem Watershed Council and the Columbia Soil & Water Conservation District.
After the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide protests, Michael wanted to join in to protest the injustices against people of color. He met other people who also saw the need for highlighting the marginalized people in the Vernonia community who felt unwelcome or unsafe due to their skin color or sexual orientation. This led Michael to found VERJ, or Vernonians for Equality and Racial Justice. This volunteer group is focused on bias education and social justice work. Last June, the group held the first-ever Pride event in Columbia County, Oregon.
Profile of Michael Calhoun as a volunteer.

I have three things to pass along to my interested Michigan neighbors:
First, two things from the Grand Rapids-area Trees and Teas Permaculture (I guess they have two different websites). They just opened orders for their spring plant sale, and are selling Aronia, Nanking Cherry, Elderberry, Saskatoon (/Juneberry/Serviceberry), Little Leaf Linden, Pawpaw, Yellow Raspberry, Northern Pecan, Jersey Knight Asparagus, and biodegradable protective tubes for trees. I placed an order via this page through Facebook, but their websites offer other contact options. They do not offer shipping.
They're also offering a Permaculture Design Course this summer from June 12th-23rd (Monday-Friday, 8 AM - 4 PM).
Finally, the "2023 Agroforestry BBQ & Expert Demo Series is a monthly peer-to-peer learning party for all things Agroforestry in West Michigan." These events take place on the third Thursday of each month, starting in April, from 4:30 to 7:30pm at the Newaygo Conservation District's Kropscott Farm Environmental Center (6523 West Baseline Road Fremont, MI 49412), and running through September 21st. The events:

• 4/20 - Chainsaws with Jon Matych
• 5/18 - Biochar with Peter Bane
• 6/15 - Chestnuts with Corey Allen
• 7/20 - Soil Food Web with Symon Cronk
• 8/17 - Everything Pasture with Bill Bobier
• 9/21 - Agroforestry Design with Nathan Ayers

It sounds like space is limited (according to Facebook, limited to 30 people), so if you're interested in any of these, sign up here soon: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/agroforestry-bbq-expert-demo-tickets-520002711107. They suggest a $10 donation, and I'm assuming that's $10 for each event. I'm signed up for all of them, and it'd be awesome to meet any of you there!
Edit: One more upcoming Michigan event that I forgot to mention: the Central Michigan Seed Swap on Saturday, February 25th from 11 am – 4 pm. It's located at the Chippewa Nature Center (400 S Badour Rd) in Midland, MI. Check out the details here: https://www.smallhousefarm.com/seedswap/

The Monroe County Soil & Water Conservation District’s annual Conservation Tree and Shrub Sale is well underway and many residents have already gotten their orders in. This program allows landowners and communities like yourself to order native/naturalized trees, shrubs, plants, and more to increase property aestethic, create windbreaks and screens, control streambank erosion, increase water quality, and be climate resilient.

////G//// Reddit is red flagging a website in this comment just so you know... .
Government has been getting out of the hospital business in the United States, which begs a question: Are patients better off when private owners take over?
If they are poor and should be admitted to a hospital, the answer is likely to be "no."
That's according to a newly released Stanford study that delves into the rise of U.S. hospital privatization and its effects on patients. The researchers find that access to hospital beds significantly declines under private ownership—affecting all patients. But patients covered by Medicaid, the nation's public insurance program for low-income residents, are hit the hardest by the cutbacks in available beds and other levels of care. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-hospitals-private-low-income-patients.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-hospitals-private-low-income-patients.html
In the current study, the researchers observed that the number of ceramides and other sphingolipid molecules in muscle tissue increases when humans grow older. Because sphingolipids serve as cells' internal messengers, this makes a difference.
The link between sphingolipids and aging and its related diseases is a broad and fascinating subject, as they mediate a range of tasks in cells, including cell division and differentiation as well as insulin signaling." https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230110/Ceramides-start-to-accumulate-in-muscle-during-aging-finds-study.aspx
has a warning for those zoning out in front of the boob tube: Excessive TV viewing might shrink your brain. Literally.
Drawing on data spanning 20 years, he led a study published in Brain Imaging and Behavior suggesting that greater amounts of TV viewing can lead to reduced amounts of cranial gray matter—home to the neurons that perform the bulk of our mental processing. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-tv-brain.html
Reformulating packaged foods in Australia to contain less sodium might save about 1,700 lives per year and prevent nearly 7,000 annual diagnoses of heart disease, kidney disease and stomach cancer, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.
High sodium intake increases blood pressure, risk of heart disease and stroke, chronic kidney disease and stomach cancer. https://www.newswise.com/articles/what-if-sodium-in-packaged-foods-was-reduced-for-an-entire-continent
To know how long your patent is going to last, you need to understand two things: what kind of patent it is and when its earliest filing date was. There are three main types of patents that are available to you when applying for a patent for your software: https://arapackelaw.com/patents/softwaremobile-apps/how-long-do-software-patents-last/
Maintenance fees
Patents protect innovative ideas and software. However, they only last for so long, so the question becomes, how long do software patents last? To keep a patent active, a software developer must pay regular maintenance fees. The fees vary according to entity classification, and you must pay them three, seven, and eleven years after issuance. If you miss a payment, your patent will expire and become public domain.
How Long Then Will A Software Patent Last?
Patents generally last twenty years or less. The length of time the patent is enforceable depends on the type of patent.
A utility patent, for example, lasts twenty years after the date of filing, while a plant patent lasts fifteen years. Before June 8, 1995, design patents lasted seventeen years. Those filed before May 12, 2015 are still valid for fourteen years. During the term of the patent, the owner must pay maintenance fees.
In addition, patents can expire if the inventor fails to pay the necessary maintenance fees. https://www.patentpc.com/blog/how-long-do-software-patents-last
Around us now, there are millions grasping for tomorrow in Iran, in Ukraine, in Hong Kong, in Brazil. They do the work of seeking something better, despite the forces that would overrun democratic institutions, disrupt the work of representative government, and trash the place—like the Brazilian reenactment of the January 6th insurrection this past weekend. Even under the most repressive regimes and against the worst odds, people are organizing, challenging, aspiring.
Here in the United States, despite efforts to the contrary, we are lucky enough to retain our right to assemble, the words to speak freely, the government formed in our name and by our consent. To return that government to its purpose, to remind it and ourselves that the rule of the people, by the people, for the people cannot perish, we need to say that this farce and folly is simply not enough. It is time to stop being satisfied. https://www.damemagazine.com/2023/01/10/mccarthy-speaker-vote/
For decades, studies have pointed to insulin and the biochemical signaling system that it activates as key regulators of aging. Insulin affects how body cells take up and use the sugar glucose, so it has a fundamental influence on the amount of energy available to cells for growth, reproduction and repair. In the process, it also regulates the generation of potentially harmful free radicals and other oxidizing molecules that are byproducts of metabolism. Many researchers suspect that this is why caloric restriction diets, which keep insulin levels low, seem to extend life span in many species. https://www.quantamagazine.org/ants-live-10-times-longer-by-altering-their-insulin-responses-20230110/
Inflammatory bowel disease
Original research
Antibiotic use as a risk factor for inflammatory bowel disease across the ages: a population-based cohort study https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2023/01/03/gutjnl-2022-327845
doctor looks at your nails and what exactly it is they are looking for. Nails are a good indicator of overall health, and certain features on them can be signs of disease and organ function.
There are a number of illnesses that can interrupt your nail growth, from kidney failure to pneumonia. Most come with other noticeable symptoms, which will likely be noticed before their effect on nails, but checking the nails is a good first visible indicator of conditions for medical professionals. https://www.iflscience.com/why-do-doctors-look-at-your-nails-and-what-do-they-say-about-your-health-67007
Some fungi that can cause serious lung infections have spread to many parts of the United States. A Science News story on the expanded range of Histoplasma, Coccidioides and Blastomyces fungi hit a nerve with a lot of readers (SN: 1/4/22).
They asked about the symptoms, treatments and testing for these fungal diseases. Some, like Judy Knudsen, whose husband Jack died from a Histoplasma infection in 2020, also wrote to share their own experiences with fungal infections. Others wanted to learn more about the fungi themselves. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fungi-lung-infections-questions-symptoms-treatment
found that Texas Sprouts – a gardening, nutrition, and cooking intervention implemented in elementary schools in Austin – improved glucose control and reduced bad cholesterol in high-risk minority youth. The results were published today in JAMA Network Open. https://www.newswise.com/articles/embargoed-school-garden-based-interventions-can-improve-blood-sugar-reduce-bad-cholesterol-in-children
Early retirement can accelerate cognitive decline among the elderly, according to research conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. https://www.newswise.com/articles/research-shows-that-early-retirement-can-accelerate-cognitive-decline2
Trump’s business empire is comprised of LLCs and subchapter S pass-through businesses. He has more than 500! And the tax rules for pass-through businesses, especially partnerships, are really, really hard. And then, these partnerships and pass-throughs, one owns another so it’s often hard for anyone to get to the bottom of the tax claims. Because Trump’s affairs are arranged in such a complicated fashion, the IRS really struggles to figure out what’s going on—even relying on Trump’s lawyer and accountants the IRS, I don’t think, got very far. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/01/donald-trump-tax-returns-cheating-audit-irs-fraud-losses/
Most rodents are, in fact, more elusive and inhabit quiet corners of rainforests, mountains, deserts and rivers. These small mammals have filled a niche in nature for at least the last 56 million years, and from shrew-rats to true rats and hamsters to beavers, rodents play an important role in ecosystems worldwide. https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/natural-world/in-defence-of-rodents-why-healthy-ecosystems-need-them/
NASA unveils initial plan for multibillion-dollar telescope to find life on alien worlds Habitable Worlds Observatory would be designed for robotic servicing https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-unveils-initial-plan-multibillion-dollar-telescope-find-life-alien-worlds
What research has shown, though, is that high temperatures can boost your circulation, alleviate chronic pain, reduce joint stiffness, and even strengthen your immune system. And while there are various types of saunas, you can expect them to deliver similar health benefits, says Dr. Bailey. https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a26446700/sauna-vs-steam-room-benefits/
As an academic who has studied workplace laws for decades and ran the federal agency that enforces workplace protections during the Obama administration, I know the way we define, measure and treat gig workers under the law has significant consequences for workers. That's particularly true for those lacking leverage in the labor market.
While there are benefits for workers for this emerging model of employment, there are pitfalls as well. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-gig-job-legally-affects-workers.html
Such charcoal captures carbon and could potentially be added to soil to improve soil water retention and aeration of farmlands. It could also fertilize the soil as it naturally breaks down. Abdul-Aziz, however, cautioned that more work needs to be done to substantiate the utility of such char in agriculture.
The plastic-to-char process was developed at UC Riverside’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering. It involved mixing one of two common types of plastic with corn waste https://scienceblog.com/535880/turning-plastic-waste-into-a-valuable-soil-additive/
For those who exercise regularly, eating almonds each day might be the ideal new year’s resolution.
A randomized controlled trial in Frontiers in Nutrition showed that female and male participants who ate 57g almonds daily for one month had more of the beneficial fat 12,13-dihydroxy-9Z-octadecenoic acid (12,13-DiHOME) in their blood immediately after a session of intense exercise than control participants. This molecule, a so-called oxylipin (oxidized fat) is synthetized from linoleic acid by brown fat tissue, and has a beneficial effect on metabolic health and energy regulation. https://scienceblog.com/535884/eating-almonds-daily-boosts-exercise-recovery-molecule-by-69-among-weekend-warriors/
The Ozone Layer Will Fully Recover By 2066, If Current Progress ContinuesAn optimistic new report backed by the UN also claims up to 0.5°C (0.9°F) of warming could be avoided. https://www.iflscience.com/the-ozone-layer-will-fully-recover-by-2066-if-current-progress-continues-66982
We wanted to see if there was a relationship between increased tax rates and executives effectively increasing their compensation by engaging in more insider trading – which can pose risks for their companies and may or may not be legal.” Goldman is an associate professor of accounting in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.
Most people think all insider trading is illegal. But most transactions by business insiders are legal. Insider trading simply refers to instances when employees of a company buy or sell shares in the company for which they work. This only becomes illegal if executives fail to disclose their transactions, or if they are making transactions based on information that is not publicly available.
“For example, if an executive knows that their company is about to lose a major contract – but that information is not yet public – the executive is not allowed to sell shares in the company until that information becomes public,” Goldman says. “Insider trading is not illegal; trading on insider information is illegal.” https://www.newswise.com/articles/when-taxes-go-up-execs-increase-profits-from-insider-trading
A deficit of vitamin D has been linked with worsened memory, problems with executive functioning, and overall cognitive impairments. https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/study-links-vitamin-d-deficit-to-accelerated-brain-aging-64686
Alongside road traffic, large airports are a major source of these ultrafine particles, which are less than 100 millionths of a millimeter (100 nanometers) in size. Because they are so small, they can penetrate deep into the lower respiratory tract, overcome the air-blood barrier and, depending on their composition, cause inflammatory reactions in the tissue, for example. What's more, ultrafine particles are suspected of being capable of triggering cardiovascular diseases. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-jet-lubrication-oils-major-source.html
Unwittingly, we may be consuming tiny fragments of plastic with almost every bite we take.
In 2022, analysis by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental non-profit, found that sewage sludge has contaminated almost 20 million acres (80,937sq km) of US cropland with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals”, which are commonly found in plastic products and do not break down under normal environmental conditions.
Sewage sludge is the byproduct left behind after municipal wastewater is cleaned. As it is expensive to dispose of and rich in nutrients, sludge is commonly used as organic fertiliser in the US and Europe. In the latter, this is in part due to EU directives promoting a circular waste economy. An estimated 8-10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is produced in Europe each year, and roughly 40% of this is spread on farmland.Due to this practice, European farmland could be the biggest global reservoir of microplastics, according to a study by researchers at Cardiff University. https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2023/01/09/plastic-pollution-epidemic-microplastics-have-found-their-way-into-our-fruits-and-veggies/
As a result, glyphosate residues are frequently detected in the air, soil, water, and plants (Maqueda et al., 2017; Soares et al., 2021; Pelosi et al., 2022). Additionally, glyphosate and its major metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) have also been detected in many food products, such as breakfast cereal, soy protein isolate, coffee, wine, and honey (Ehling and Reddy, 2015; Zoller et al., 2018; de Souza et al., 2021). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653523000176
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The sheer number of hybrid and electric vehicle options can make the idea of switching to a hybrid or electric vehicle daunting for many. Here’s a guide to understanding hybrid and electric vehicles and deciding which is most suitable for your lifestyle. https://theconversation.com/what-you-need-to-know-for-your-next-hybrid-or-electric-vehicle-purchase-196336
Monterey Bay divers restoring vital kelp forests — the ‘redwoods of the sea’ Volunteer divers wielding hammers kill sea urchins feasting on the kelp https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/08/monterey-bay-divers-restoring-vital-kelp-forests-the-redwoods-of-the-sea/
Gas cooking linked to 12.7% of childhood asthma'
Asthma is most common chronic disease among children, affecting estimated 262m people globally https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1028521-gas-cooking-linked-to-127-of-childhood-asthma
There's been a push in recent years encouraging doctors to prescribe exercise as medicine, telling their patients how often, how long, and how hard to work out to improve health.
A new Brigham Young University study suggests doctors could take that initiative to the next level, prescribing exercise plans that result in a specific health outcome; say, lowering your blood pressure or losing weight.
“The findings of this study, and others, suggest that we should be able to more consistently and accurately prescribe exercise like medicine,” says senior study author Jayson Gifford, PhD, an exercise sciences professor at BYU. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20230106/little-used-fitness-measure-key-exercise-results?src=RSS_PUBLIC
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—Science News reports that the ancient patches of fertile land known as Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) found near archaeological sites in the Amazon River basin may have been created intentionally, based upon a new study of the practices of the Kuikuro people, who live in southeastern Brazil. Some have argued that ADEs were formed through geologic processes, but the Kuikuro create enriched soil, known as eegepe, around their villages today with ash, food scraps, and controlled burns. Morgan J. Schmidt and Taylor Perron of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and their colleagues compared samples of ADEs collected from areas around Kuikuro villages and archaeological sites in Brazil’s Xingu River basin and found that they are both far less acidic than the surrounding soils, perhaps as a result of the addition of ash. The ADEs also contained higher levels of nutrients needed for growing crops. Finally, the researchers found that the samples held about twice the amount of carbon than the surrounding soils https://www.archaeology.org/news/11110-230106-amazon-dark-earth
Those standards aren’t as tough as recommendations laid out by the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), a group tasked with giving independent advice on air quality standards to the EPA. Last year, a majority of the committee members recommended setting the annual limit between 8-10 micrograms. It also recommended a 24-hour limit of 25-30 micrograms.
“Right now, EPA’s outdated 24-hour standard means that people may be told that the air outside is safe to breathe on a day when it is not,” Wimmer said. The standard informs the EPA’s air quality index, a scale often used to help people understand the pollution risks they might face on any given day. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/6/23542368/environmental-protection-agency-rule-soot-particulate-matter-pollution
Ask the new artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to write an essay about the cause of the American Civil War and you can watch it churn out a persuasive term paper in a matter of seconds.
That’s one reason why New York City school officials this week started blocking the impressive but controversial writing tool that can generate paragraphs of human-like text.
The decision by the largest U.S. school district to restrict the ChatGPT website on school devices and networks could have ripple effects on other schools, and teachers scrambling to figure out how to prevent cheating. The creators of ChatGPT say they’re also looking for ways to detect misuse.
The free tool has been around for just five weeks but is already raising tough questions about the future of AI in education, the tech industry and a host of professions. https://apnews.com/article/what-is-chat-gpt-ac4967a4fb41fda31c4d27f015e32660
Incidents of cyber attacks are far too common.
In 2022, 105 local governments, 44 colleges or universities, 45 school districts and 25 healthcare providers operating 290 hospitals reported being victims of cyber attacks in the United States, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. https://www.govtech.com/security/l-a-housing-authority-may-have-fallen-victim-to-ransomware
How to convince someone using these 20 principles of persuasion, all based on established psychological research.
Perfection is hard to achieve in any walk of life and convincing someone to do anything is no different.
Convincing or persuading someone relies on many things going just right at the crucial moment; the perfect synchronisation of source, message and audience. ::OP:: better use the turn off mobile internet tip in this one... the marketing team went a tad overboard... a la new and improved corporate style...sad. https://www.spring.org.uk/2023/01/how-to-convince-someone.php
have discovered that indigenous Mesoamericans developed their unique 260-day calendar more than 3,000 years ago, pushing the timeline of this sophisticated timekeeping system back by several centuries and revealing that ancient settlements were built in alignment with cosmic events, reports a new study.
The oldest known written record of this influential calendar dates to around 250 BCE, but researchers have long suspected that it must have originated much earlier. Its 260-day cycle, which is broken down into 13 periods that last 20 days, was central to the Maya and Olmec civilizations that flourished in central America for centuries before the arrival of Europeans, and is still practiced by some of their descendents to this day. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgp37x/scientists-discovered-these-ancient-cities-have-a-secret-link-to-the-cosmos
Heads up....Reddit is red flagging Medpagetoday's website.. just so you know. .
In doing so, it joins the other meningeal membranes in creating a barrier between the brain and the rest of the body. The SLYM , specifically, appears to separate freshly made, “clean” CSF from “dirty” CSF that contains cells’ waste products. It is, therefore, likely involved in the glymphatic system – a network responsible for waste removal in the brain. https://www.iflscience.com/new-anatomical-structure-discovered-in-the-brain-66970
During the hearing, Pelton said he regretted the way he handled the situation, including lying to federal agents. He said he installed keyloggers— which record all keystrokes, including usernames and passwords to sensitive information— on a computer that controls the city’s power grid to get customers their power back quicker and safer. https://www.govtech.com/security/ex-cleveland-utility-worker-sentenced-for-trying-to-obtain-data
We were naive.
I collected the data, and as far as I know the transplant team shared the results with the HMO's executives. They asked that the HMO change its protocols to make sure they could refer their patients for liver transplantation sooner than they had been doing.
Yet, nothing changed. We never published the study. I was told to forget about it. That was when I learned a cruel lesson about the private insurance-based, for-profit, market-driven healthcare system that we continue to operate in the U.S.: It's cheaper to let people die. It's more efficient, better for the bottom line. Healthy people pay their premiums, pay into the system. They are a company asset. Sick people drain it. They're a liability. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/102515
The case for dark matter has strengthened
Though a single measurement is not enough to definitively decide the debate, this is a major win for dark matter proponents. https://bigthink.com/hard-science/dark-matter-evidence/
“Such bursts both fundamentally limit the precision with which organelle size is controlled but also maintain noise in organelle size within a narrow window,” Mukherji said. “Burstlike growth provides a general biophysical mechanism by which cells can maintain, on average, reliable yet plastic organelle sizes.”
Organelles must be flexible enough to allow cells to grow or shrink them as environments demand. Still, the size of organelles must be maintained within certain limits. Biologists have previously identified certain molecular factors that regulate organelle sizes, but this study provides new insights into the quantitative principles underlying organelle size control.
While this study used budding yeast as a model organism https://source.wustl.edu/2023/01/organelles-grow-in-random-bursts/
California is looking drenched at the moment, but for the past two decades, it’s been suffering through a megadrought of the kind that hasn’t been seen in more than 1,000 years. The drought threatens the region’s agricultural industry and ordinary citizens alike, putting livelihoods at risk and raising concerns about what the future of life in the West might look like.
Which might, understandably, raise a simple question: Can all this rain, despite the suffering it brings, help alleviate the drought?
The simple answer: Unfortunately not. A flood during a time of drought is a double disaster. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2023/1/6/23542194/california-atmospheric-river-flood-drought
One way to test this claim is to ask: what would happen if citizens of allied countries came to perceive US democracy as severely flawed or diminished? In the context of now well-documented Russian interference in recent US elections, we examine whether Russia’s election interference and its perceived impact on American democracy damage foreign public opinion about the United States. The results of our survey experiment fielded in Japan suggest that information about successful Russian election interference—that is, interference that had an impact on the election outcome—reduces foreign citizens’ faith in the United States as an ally. This pattern most clearly manifests in reduced belief in the US capacity to defend Japan. Our study sheds light on the connections between the image of the United States, both as a trustworthy and effective state, and the foreign public’s attitudes toward US alliances, with theoretical and practical implications. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13540661221143214
Existing gas detectors are bulky and slow, and require a trained operator. In contrast, the new device can quickly and easily measure less than 1 part per billion, and the TMOS prototype used a USB interface to connect to a computer.
Nitrogen dioxide is one of the NOx category of pollutants. As well as contributing to acid rain, it is dangerous to humans even in small concentrations. It is a common pollutant from cars, and also is created indoors by gas stoves.
The key to the device is a PN junction—the engine of a solar cell—in the shape of a nanowire (a small hexagonal pillar with diameter about 100 nanometers, height 3 to 4 microns) sitting on a base. An ordered array of thousands of nanowire solar cells, spaced about 600 nanometers apart formed the sensor. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-nanowire-sensors-internet.html
Georgia Legislature Expects Solar, EV Bills This Session
With new electric vehicle plants set to bring thousands of jobs to the state and a landmark federal climate law supercharging investment in renewable technologies, a clean energy transition is underway in Georgia. https://www.govtech.com/policy/georgia-legislature-expects-solar-ev-bills-this-session
For one, as oxygen levels go down, vital economic species like tuna and crabs won’t be able to feed, swim or reproduce unless they relocate to ocean regions with more oxygen. This has major implications for ecosystems near the ocean’s coasts and the industries that depend on them, from fishing to tourism. Second, OMZs are a significant source of nitrous oxide, a major greenhouse gas.
Her team’s successful projections are not just due to new and better models, though they are using the latest suite, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6). The key insight, Resplandy said, was understanding that the OMZ isn’t uniform but has layers “like an onion” that respond differently to rising greenhouse gases. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/01/06/pacific-oceans-oxygen-starved-omz-growing-new-princeton-research-finds
Twitter CEO Elon Musk promised last month that the site's revamped $8/month verification system would no longer allow troublemakers to impersonate famous people and companies.
Turns out he was wrong yet again. The Washington Post columnist Geoffrey Fowler was easily able to impersonate US senator Edward Markey with a verified Twitter account with the username @SenatorEdMarkey — a stunt he also pulled during the first disastrous launch of the feature.
In other words, Twitter is doing very little to despite Musk's promises of manually authenticating "all" blue checkmark accounts back in November. https://futurism.com/the-byte/impersonate-senator-twitter-verification
One of the most important things you can do is to understand how to most effectively counter disinformation. UCS offers a range of resources to help you do so, from an essential training video on communication strategies, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid to a wealth of web resources on what you can do about disinformation to materials and resources that can help you train others.
There’s a pathway out of the danger
There’s more work to do to protect democracy—and you can help. https://blog.ucsusa.org/johanna-chao-kreilick/two-years-after-the-insurrection-democracy-and-disinformation-continue-to-collide/
Scientists develop a cancer vaccine to simultaneously kill and prevent brain cancer https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230104154302.htm
It's no secret that invasive rats can cause widespread and long-lasting damage to tropical island ecosystems, but now, a new finding reveals that the invasive rodents' impacts may extend even further than the land on which they scamper; these ravenous critters can also disrupt the surrounding marine ecosystem. https://www.livescience.com/invasive-rats-alter-reef-fish-behavior
A new EPA proposal is reigniting a debate about what counts as ‘renewable’ The agency wants more ethanol, biogas, and wood pellet power in the nation's fuel mix. Is that really a good thing? https://www.salon.com/2023/01/05/a-new-epa-proposal-is-reigniting-a-debate-about-what-counts-as-renewable_partne
Some modern-day Scandinavians lack the ancestral diversity of Vikings
Certain genetics from the Viking era went missing in parts of modern-day Scandinavia. https://www.popsci.com/science/viking-genetic-diversity/
The richest country in the world, the U.S., is among the most drastic examples of this trend. Today, American CEOs earn 940 percent more than their counterparts did in 1978. A typical worker, on the other hand, only goes home with 12 percent more money than workers from 1978 did.
As a report by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates, rising CEO pay does not reflect a change in the value of skills—it represents a shift in power. Over decades, American politics has undermined the bargaining power of workers by discouraging and obstructing self-organizing efforts, such as unionization.
The growing wealth of a minority at the expense of the majority means power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, mostly men. It's not surprising that figures such as Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have a disproportional impact on our communities—sometimes with devastating consequences that threaten our democratic institutions. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-philosophy-economy-future.html
Perhaps the most striking results was that babies started to downshift to sleep during happy music, but not to sad music or when there was no music. Also, they showed a decrease in their heart rates during happy music but not during sad music or silent periods, suggesting they were getting calmer.
In response to both happy and sad music, babies also moved their eyes less frequently and and there were longer pauses between their movements compared with the silence period. This might mean that both types of music had some calming effect on the babies compared with no music, but happy music was the best. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-happy-sad-music-newbornsnew.html
“The majority of our sales are [equipment for] Morse code,” says Scott Robbins, owner of ham radio equipment maker Vibroplex, founded in 1905, which touts itself as the oldest continuously operating business in amateur radio. “In 2021, we had the best year we’ve ever had … and I can’t see how the interest in Morse code tails off.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/morse-code-back-looking-ditch-twitter-180981309/
An example might be former US President Donald Trump. Having survived scandal after scandal, Trump once famously declared that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes.
The more deplorable the media has made him out to be—the greater the stigma attached to the Trump name—the less his misdeeds seem to have hurt him. Our research offers new clues as to why.
As consumers and voters, we need to recognise that our "boys will be boys" attitude enables bad behaviour. Unless we do, and until we regulate with this psychological bias in mind, we will continue to be part of the problem. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-boys-consumers-dont-big-polluters.html
The researchers identify a variety of design properties that can influence perceptions of structure in visual elements, including symmetry, balance, geometry, regularity, proximity, and similarity.
It is well known that customers are subliminally influenced by visual marketing tools such as logos, packages, and retail displays; they use them as a basis to make judgments about brands delivering on their promise. We find that for brands that promise utilitarian (functional, instrumental, and useful) benefits, consumers are encouraged by visual designs perceived as more orderly and structured. This suggests marketers can capitalize on the power of perception to influence beliefs about brand performance, which ultimately influences product interest and choice.
Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Brands
At the other end of the spectrum are brands, such as Pepsi, which promise benefits related to enjoyment, pleasure, and experiences—collectively referred to as hedonic benefits. In this case, marketers can benefit from using visual design properties that convey lack of structure. https://www.newswise.com/articles/think-before-you-design-your-brand-s-logo-how-marketers-can-capitalize-on-the-power-of-perception-to-influence-beliefs-about-brand-performance
Results:
In the HFCS group, there was a significant difference between the time to find the platform in the MWM test and time spent in the quadrant between days 1 and 5 (P=0.037 and P=0.001, respectively). In addition, a decreased level of MT1A receptor, TNF-α, iNOS, osteopontin (OPN), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) expressions were significantly increased in the HFCS group. Melatonin treatment reversed MT1A receptor levels and TNF-α, iNOS, OPN, and IL-6 expressions. During the histopathological examination, increased neuronal degenerations were observed in the HFCS group. Melatonin ameliorated these changes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9790051/
To most people trying to make a living, pay bills, or fight an illness, spending time considering that our reality is not the “real thing” but actually a highly sophisticated simulation sounds ridiculous. “I wish smart people would focus on real-world problems instead of this nonsense,” someone close to me recently told me. Despite being a scientist that uses computer simulations on my research, I sympathize with this. It’s way too convenient to blame our current mess on powers beyond our control. In fact, this sort of “not my fault” sounds a lot like the religious “it’s God’s will.” Not our fault, not our responsibility, “they” are doing this to us. https://iai.tv/articles/reality-is-not-a-simulation-and-why-it-matters-auid-2343
The number of fish species recorded in Madidi National Park and Natural Integrated Management Area (PNANMI), Bolivia has doubled to a staggering 333 species – with as many as 35 species new to science – according of a study conducted as part of the Identidad Madidi expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. https://www.newswise.com/articles/study-over-330-fish-species-up-to-35-new-to-science-found-in-bolivian-national-park
Are black holes time machines? Yes, but there’s a catch https://theconversation.com/are-black-holes-time-machines-yes-but-theres-a-catch-195418
Fungi that cause serious lung infections are now found throughout the U.S Doctors should be on the lookout for the organisms, researchers say https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fungi-cause-serious-lung-infections-found
For example, greater alertness was associated with doing more physical activity the day before. “It may be that exercise-induced better sleep is part of the reason exercise the day before, by helping sleep that night, leads to superior alertness throughout the next day,” Vallat said.
Nights when participants slept longer than usual and those when they woke up later than usual resulted in higher degrees of alertness in the following morning. The researchers explained this through bodily circadian rhythms and longer sleep providing a better chance for REM phases as both of these are known to reduce sleep inertia. https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/new-research-has-uncovered-several-key-factors-that-predict-your-daily-alertness-level-64631
Linoleic acid is a fatty acid found in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, and is one of the predominant fatty acids found in the Western diet. Metabolites from linoleic acid -- the products formed when the body breaks it down through digestion -- play a role in skin barrier function.
"We noticed high levels of two types of lipids derived from linoleic acid in psoriatic lesions," says Santosh Mishra, associate professor of neuroscience at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of the research. "That led us to wonder whether the lipids might affect how sensory neurons in these lesions communicate. We decided to investigate whether their presence could be related to the temperature or pain hypersensitivity that many psoriasis patients report." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230104085301.htm
An unmanned semi-submersible vehicle may prove that the best way to travel in water undetected and efficiently is not on top, or below, but in-between. The roughly 1.5-foot-long semi-sub prototype, built with off-the-shelf and 3D-printed parts, showed its seaworthiness in water tests, moving quickly with low drag and a low profile. This vessel-type isn't new. Authorities have discovered crudely made semi-subs being used for illicit purposes in recent years, but the project aims to demonstrate how engineer-developed half-submerged vessels can efficiently serve military, commercial and research purposes. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230104085318.htm
We May Be Able to Find Life on Enceladus Without Even Landing https://www.sciencealert.com/we-may-be-able-to-find-life-on-enceladus-without-even-landing
While prior research has shown that a dog’s breed isn’t as predictive of its personality and behavior as many think, the present study suggests that there are noteworthy differences in certain cognitive abilities. The researchers are likely to publish data on additional breeds as more smartDOG tests are conducted. https://bigthink.com/life/dog-intelligence-test/