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Science and Technology links (August 24th 2019)
- The net contribution of the Amazon ecosystem to the world’s oxygen is effectively zero. Furthermore, there is a lot of oxygen in the air and it would be excessively difficult to lower or increase the ratio. In effect, we are not going to run out of oxygen on Earth any time soon, even if we tried to.1. According to Nature, the Earth is getting greener. The main driver is climate change and CO2 which acts as a fertilizer. A large fraction of this greening is happening in China and India. These countries have increased their food production by 35% since 2000.
- Vitamin D supplements appear to reduce cancer risks. Vitamin D supplements are typically available as either vitamin D2 or D3. We know that D2 supplements do not lower mortality risks. We do not have enough data to assess vitamin D3. (Zhang et al., 2019)
- There is no evidence that plastic particules in water are harmful to human beings.
- CNBC reports that Mackey, a vegan who runs the successful Whole Foods chain, is critical of the fashionable Beyond Meat “plant-based meat”:
I don’t think eating highly processed foods is healthy. I think people thrive on eating whole foods. As for health, I will not endorse that, and that is about as big of criticism that I will do in public.
Meanwhile the stock price of Beyond Meat went up 800% in a few months.