• Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results)



• Mac Studio with M2 Ultra (24-core CPU): 21,351 (average of more than 600 results)

• Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results)



• 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro (12-core CPU): 15,282 (average of more than 4,000 results)

We’re less than a week out from the 2024 Presidential Election on November 5, and its results will likely have a major impact on the direction that federal policies and agencies will take in the next several years. The two major party candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, offer very different visions for the future.

While both agree on the urgency of the housing crisis and the need to address aging infrastructure, their views on renewable energy, climate change, and environmental policies are in stark opposition. Their plans to fund (or defund) transportation, infrastructure, and climate initiatives and choices in how the federal government runs in the coming years will shape the work planners do and have long-lasting effects on the communities they serve.

This is by no means a comprehensive analysis of the candidates’ positions. However, we have outlined some of the planning-related policies that the federal government can have the biggest effects on.

While housing supply and zoning regulations are usually considered local issues, the breadth and depth of the nationwide housing crisis has brought the issue to national attention like never before. State governments and federal officials are now looking for ways to support increased housing production and reduce the rapidly rising cost of housing squeezing the majority of American families.

While both candidates have addressed the housing crisis, each proposing some ways to assist renters and homeowners and create more housing where it’s needed, the Harris campaign has issued specific proposals, while the Trump campaign omits housing but links to the Republican Party’s platform, which suggests the party wants to lower mortgage rates for homebuyers. Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, has sent mixed messages about housing policy. He once called zoning “a killer” but has also vowed to protect American suburbs by standing up for single-family zoning laws. Rhetorically, at least, Trump seems to side with more protectionist, regulatory policies, according to Michael Lens, a professor of urban planning and public policy.

On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump has blamed the housing crisis on immigrants, a theory debunked by most economists. In fact, home builders say Trump’s proposed mass deportation would deplete their workforce and drive up housing costs. According to the New York Times, rents began surging well before the current rise in immigration. “Across many booming housing markets, particularly in the South, the recent flow of migrants has helped residential builders meet demand for both skilled trades and relatively unskilled laborers, industry groups say and job market data suggest.” Trump and the Republicans are focusing their promises on reducing mortgage rates for homebuyers.

Vice President Harris has vowed to help build three million new affordable housing units in the next four years supported by tax incentives for builders and other federal policies, but this goal could be stymied by local zoning and building regulations that limit how much can be built and raise the costs of construction for developers. The federal government has little say over these laws, but could create incentives to motivate cities and states to reform their zoning codes and make room for more housing production. Harris says she plans to “penalize firms that hoard available homes,” acknowledging the impact of institutional investors on the housing market but not elaborating on the mechanism she would create to limit speculative purchases. Harris has promised to create programs that support first-time homebuyers with down payment assistance, as well as a $40 billion tax credit to make affordable projects feasible for builders.

To make room for new housing and limit the cost of land, some lawmakers are proposing opening up federally owned public lands for housing development. However, housing advocates point out that building housing in previously undeveloped areas means building new infrastructure and potentially placing housing far from job centers and central cities, further increasing sprawl and perpetuating car dependency.

Trump has vowed to open up swaths of federal land for large-scale housing construction, and is even proposing to build 10 high-tech “freedom cities,” brand-new communities on the newly opened acreage. While Trump’s plan is light on details, it seems to include a focus on flying vehicles. An article in Forbes points out that this plan ignores how cities actually form and prosper. According to Christian Britschgi, “cities tend to emerge naturally where they make sense. They require some matchmaking between geographic advantage, available resources, pre-existing industry or infrastructure, and more to really get going.” Meanwhile, building new cities from scratch would directly contradict the Republican principle of small government.

In the meantime, Harris has signaled her willingness to consider using federal land for affordable housing. Earlier in October, the Biden-Harris administration announced the sale of 20 acres of public lands for just $100 per acre for the construction of critically needed affordable housing projects in Southern Nevada.

As the largest oil producer and the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, the U.S.’s energy and climate policy is hugely important not just within the country but for the world, particularly as scientists sound the alarm that global temperatures could rise at least 4.5 degrees F and ocean currents in the Atlantic could collapse within the next few decades, which would have catastrophic impacts.

While neither candidate has released a detailed outline of their plans for U.S. climate, energy, or other environmental policies, they have addressed various points during speeches, interviews, and press conferences. On some topics, like fracking and opening up public lands for mining, there is commonality. The differences everywhere else are rather stark, particularly on climate change, renewable energy, and air and water quality regulations.

Harris is on record as saying climate change is “very real” and has called it an existential threat that the United States urgently needs to address. As a senator from California, she was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal. As vice president, she helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, has been called the most ambitious climate legislation in U.S. history and has said she intends to continue the climate policies implemented under the Biden administration. 

Trump, on the other hand, is a climate change skeptic. While he has backed away from calling it a hoax, as he did for many years, he has repeatedly downplayed risks associated with it and questioned whether the warming is driven by human activity. He has officially stated that, if elected, he will once again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. He has also vowed to slash a lot of federal spending aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump has repeatedly spoken out against renewable energy, calling it a scam, and has a particular beef with wind turbines. He has said renewable energy is too expensive for the output and has announced that he plans to fully repeal the IRA tax incentives aimed at driving the deployment of renewables.

Harris supports the continuation of renewable energy policies implemented under the Biden administration, which have promoted the acceleration of solar and wind projects, and the continued implementation of the IRA. According to the Harris-Walz website, her administration will seek to improve IRA spending by cutting regulations “so that clean energy projects are completed quickly and efficiently in a manner that protects our environment and public health.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly expressed his belief that drilling for more fossil fuels will bring financial benefits for Americans and drastically cut their energy bills. In a September 5 speech, he said his administration would issue a National Emergency Declaration to “blast through every bureaucratic hurdle to issue rapid approvals for new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, and new power plants and reactors.

During the September 10 presidential debate, Vice President Harris said, in addition to renewables, she would continue to support domestic drilling and that she would not ban fracking — a reversal of her policy position during the 2019 presidential election. “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy, so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil,” she said.

Neither candidate have released official statements around environmental policies, but based on their records, it appears to be the classic cage match of regulation vs. deregulation.

For example, Harris has stated she believes "every person in America has a right to clean water," which suggests she will likely continue to pursue the strides the Biden Administration has made toward safeguarding drinking water, including $5.8 billion in federal funds for water infrastructure projects across U.S., announced in February,  and the country’s first national drinking water standard passed by the EPA in April to limit PFAS in drinking water, which would allow polluters to be sued for cleanup.

On the other hand, during his first term, the Trump administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations, including repealing a critical part of the Clean Water Act and loosening limits on emissions from power plants and vehicles. His three Supreme Court justice appointees also overturned Chevron doctrine, which essentially gutted the federal government’s ability to enforce environmental protections.

High County News’s Anna V. Smith and Erin X. Wong give an excellent overview of what a Harris administration might mean for public lands: “Harris’ term as VP hasn’t produced many significant policy outcomes of her own, but her experience as a California senator and attorney general, as well as her 2020 presidential campaign, point to a consistent record of pro-climate, pro-environmental policies and an evolved understanding of tribal land issues. Should she eventually assume the Oval Office, her career to date signals a likely continuation of the West’s Biden-era gains in the protection of public lands, water and wildlife as well as support for tribal sovereignty.” The Biden administration has put more than 42 million acres of land into conservation and appointed the nation’s first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior.

In 2020, Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law to boost funding for the country’s historically underfunded national parks and public lands. However, later in his presidency, he enacted the largest slash of federal land protections in history when he shrank two national monuments in Utah to open the land up for oil and gas development — something Trump says he will support in his second term. The Trump-Vance campaign’s official Platform 47 says, “President Trump will free up the vast stores of liquid gold on America’s public land for energy development” and “remove all red tape that is leaving oil and natural gas projects stranded.”​​

In her bid for president in the 2024 election, Harris has also expressed support for continuing oil and gas production on public lands and increased mining of precious metals like copper and lithium to help with the green transition.

With many segments of the country’s infrastructure receiving a near-failing grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers, infrastructure should be top of mind for both candidates. And while both promise massive improvements in infrastructure and transportation, their public statements offer two different approaches.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been a strong supporter of the Biden administration’s infrastructure bills, which are pumping billions into infrastructure and transportation projects around the country including modernizing passenger rail, replacing lead pipes, and repairing dangerously aging roads and bridges. Harris has signaled support for continued federal investment in improving and modernizing infrastructure, as well as domestic renewable energy production.

On the Republican side, former President Trump has indicated he would rely on public-private partnerships to secure funding for infrastructure and focus on domestic energy production including oil and gas. While there are few details on how Trump plans to “make cities and towns more livable,” it seems that Trump wants to slash federal infrastructure spending and make local and state governments more responsible, putting many projects at risk.

When it comes to transportation, the Republican platform includes a brief promise to “revive the U.S. Auto Industry by reversing harmful Regulations, canceling Biden’s Electric Vehicle and other Mandates, and preventing the importation of Chinese vehicles.” Trump strongly supports revoking electric vehicle regulations, calling current targets unrealistic. Ending federal support for the electric vehicle industry could have harmful impacts on some Republican-leaning regions where new factories are being built.

The Biden/Harris administration supported expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure and credits for EV buyers as well as the adoption of electric buses and trains and greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandates. The Harris campaign calls for continued support for the Low or No Emission Grant Program, including training for mechanics to prepare the transportation workforce for new technology. 

The Biden/Harris administration awarded billions in federal funding to upgrades for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and other lines around the country, as well as private high-speed rail projects in California, Nevada, and Texas.

In the past, Trump attempted to revoke funding allocated to high-speed rail projects — so the money that the Biden administration has injected into Amtrak and other passenger rail projects could be in jeopardy under a second Trump administration. Project 2025 emphasizes private transportation such as self-driving vehicles and air taxis over public transit. 

While the vast majority of planning happens at a local level, a presidential administration has significant control over who runs those agencies and how, which can have a huge domino effect down the line, affecting decisions on federal funding to states, the types of state and local projects that receive funding, and the stipulations on that funding. 

Trump has pledged to reform the federal bureaucracy, which he often villainizes and refers to as “the deep state.” In his first term, the former president issued an Schedule F, an executive order stripping civil service protections, making them easier to let go. According to Project 2025, a 900-page set of proposals from the Heritage Foundation intended to “pave the way for an effective conservative Administration,” the goal is to replace high-level federal employees with loyal, conservative appointees, which could have drastic implications for not only federal policies in agencies like HUD and EPA but also programs important to planning. Trump has repeatedly disavowed project 2025, but he has repeatedly praised its authors, leaving questions about what roles they might play in a future administration.

Harris and her running mate have campaigned extensively against Project 2025. But, as reported by Whyy, under the Biden administration, she is also already taking steps to make mass firings of civil servants more difficult. In April, the Office of Personnel Management issued a new rule that would ban federal workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other at-will employees — a reversal of Trump’s Schedule F, which Trump has vowed to reinstate in his second term.

In the weeks after Hurricane Helene, which devastated communities in multiple states as far north as North Carolina, Trump repeatedly made debunked claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency spent disaster relief funds on sheltering migrants that they brought into the country to vote illegally in the 2024 election. And in September 2020, then-President Trump withheld $37 million in federal disaster aid from the state of Washington for the final four months of his term because of a beef he had with Gov. Jay Inslee, despite the fact that the wildfires easily met the federal damage threshold for disaster aid, according to FEMA investigations. Biden ultimately approved the request.

Vice President Harris called Trump’s false claims about the distribution of FEMA funds after Helene “irresponsible.”  She did a White House briefing on federal response to the storm and on a visit to August, Georgia, announced that the Biden Administration had approved Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s request for 100 percent reimbursement of local response costs, including services like food, water, and shelter provided by local governments, debris removal, and emergency services.

• Election 2024
• Presidential Election
• Presidential Politics

Phobos is no slowpoke. Given its size, angle, and orbital pattern, the moon makes a full-circle around Mars roughly once every 7.6 hours. This frequency also makes it far more likely to pass in front of the Sun compared to Earth’s solar eclipses. If you were hypothetically at the right location at the right time on Mars, you could glimpse the small, potato-shaped satellite briefly turning the Sun into a giant googly eye. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover captured just such an event back in February—and it managed to photograph another eclipse barely seven months later.

NASA recently showcased the latest Phobos eclipse seen on September 30th from the rover’s vantage point on Mars’ Jezero Crater. Once again, the googly eye’s lifespan lasted barely 30 seconds, making Earth’s minutes-long eclipse events seem lengthy in comparison. Like its last documentation, the Phobos footage was captured using Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z, an instrument co-designed and overseen by Arizona State University.

Astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the two Martian moons in 1877, naming them Phobos and Deimos after the twin Greek gods of fear and dread. While their origins are still unclear, experts theorize the pair originated either as asteroids that got caught by Mars’ gravitational pull, or as debris leftover from the Solar System’s formation.

[Related: A Martian solar eclipse turns the sun into a giant googly eye.]

At just 17-miles-wide, Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s moon—although both are slowly traveling in opposite directions. Whereas the moon is currently moving further away from Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches per year, both Phobos and Deimos are being drawn closer to Mars by an estimated six feet every century. At that pace, the moons are predicted to either smash into their host planet in about 50 million years, or fragment into countless smaller pieces to form a Saturn-like ring.

Until then, however, there will be plenty more googly eye opportunities for Perseverance—and perhaps, one day, human visitors—to document.

The post Googly-eyed potato eclipse filmed by NASA’s Perseverance rover appeared first on Popular Science.

During and in the aftermath of World War II, between January 1940 and September 1953, the United Kingdom rationed most food items. For some chunk of those fourteen years, everything except fish and fresh fruit and vegetables (which were still often in short supply) could only be legally acquired under strict limits and with government-issued coupons.

Sugar was among the restricted pantry staples. Sweets and candies were rationed too, as people kept calm and carried on. Individual adults were allotted about 40g of sugar per day and children over two were limited to less than 15g. 

Despite the less-than-ideal economic conditions that spurred the policy, new research on tens of thousands of people shows cutting sugar conferred lifelong health benefits to those conceived amid rationing. The study, published October 31 in the journal Science, indicates that limiting sugar exposure in the 1,000 days post-conception (including the in-utero period and first two years of life), lowers the risk of chronic disease later on. 

The group of people born before or just after the end of sugar rationing were 35 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, 30 percent less likely to become obese, and 20 percent less likely to develop hypertension during their lifetimes than their un-rationed peers, per the study. If those in the rationed group did develop diabetes or hypertension, they tended to do so years later in life.

Further, the effects of in-utero rationing, alone, accounted for about one third of the lifetime risk reduction. For instance, even among the cohort born into a world without rationing, people who spent at least part of their gestation period under restrictions had a 15% lower lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes. 

“Not only do you have to watch your baby’s sugar consumption, you have to watch your sugar consumption while pregnant,” says Robert Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist and member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at University of California, San Francisco. Lustig was not involved in the new work, but notes the authors “did a very, very important service and a very good job.”

“What we found is, in one sense, not that surprising, because we already had a lot of knowledge about the association between sugar and poor health outcomes,” says Claire Boone, a study co-author and health economist at McGill University in Canada. “But the magnitude of our findings were kind of surprising,” she adds. 

Heaps of past research has established links between high sugar intake and chronic illness. Yet the risk reductions in metabolic diseases associated with sugar rationing in early life are massive, on par with the effects of lifelong vegetarianism or quitting cigarettes. It goes to show that diet during a brief moment in one’s overall development can carry major consequences down the line. 

“The most important takeaway is for parents,” says Paul Gertler, a study co-author and health economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The new findings are some of the only clear, causal human evidence of the value of following international and national guidance on sugar, he notes.  

Guidelines from U.S. federal agencies say that infants and toddlers under two should not be given foods with added sugar, and that adults should limit their added sugar consumption to less than 10% of their overall calories. Recommendations from the American Heart Association are even more stringent. The AHA suggests that added sugar should make up less than 6% of total calories in a healthy diet, translating to an average of about 25g per day for women and 36g for men. 

In reality, very few Americans manage to abide by these official suggestions, with U.S. adults eating 2-3 times the recommendation each day, on average. As a result, many people are born having been exposed to lots of sugar in the womb. Then, they continue to be exposed to foods with added sugar early on through formula and processed foods marketed to parents of infants and toddlers. 

“We all want to improve our health and give our children the best start in life. Reducing added sugar early seems to be a powerful step in that direction,” says Tadeja Gračner, lead study author and an economist researching public health at the University of Southern California. Yet doing so can be really difficult in an environment where most processed and packaged foods contain added sugar, she acknowledges. “We don’t want to add yet another stressful item on the list for pregnant people,” Gračner says. “But it’s definitely information that we need to put out there–that this matters.”

To come to their findings, the study authors analyzed data from the UK Biobank, a database containing genetic, demographic, health, and lifestyle information on about 500,000 participants. They restricted their assessment to a short window encompassing those conceived on either side of the end of rationing, born between October 1951 and March 1956, to minimize broader societal and dietary changes over time (and to minimize any health effects of WWII itself). The rationed and unrationed cohorts used in the study were made up of about 38,000 and 22,000 people respectively.

“It doesn’t answer everything, but it is an econometric analysis, and it does infer causation,” says Lustig–which is hard to come by in long-term, human health studies. In other words, “it’s proof” of early sugar exposure’s impact on later-in-life illness, he says, where other research has only been able to offer correlations or links. 

There are some limitations of the work. For one, the UK Biobank is not a perfectly representative group, and likely the participants represent a relatively wealthier, whiter slice of the population, says Boone. Overall calorie consumption did rise after food restrictions were lifted, so it’s impossible to entirely separate the effects of that change from the effects of sugar. “Calories were not kept constant,” says Gračner, but she and her colleagues did find that at least 77% of that increase in calories was from sugar, alone. And the research doesn’t firmly establish the mechanism by which early life sugar exposure increases disease risk.

However, the authors do have a hypothesis: It seems likely that sugar exposure early on predisposes someone to a lifetime of higher sugar consumption, says Gračner. Already, she and her colleagues have found evidence for this in some supporting, not-yet-peer-reviewed, analyses. Early follow-up research using data from the UK nutritional survey does indicate that people in the rationed cohort went on to eat less sugar (though approximately equal total calories) throughout their lives compared with their un-rationed peers. Therefore, the mechanism at play here doesn’t seem to be that 1,000 days of sugar exposure, alone, causes the observed health effects. Instead, “it’s something that kind of kicks you off on a different trajectory, with different behaviors,” she explains. 

These findings will hopefully help inform personal decision-making, says Gertler, but also spur society-wide changes and regulations. “I think we need a public policy response to sugar the same way we had a public policy response to tobacco,” he says, including things like labeling laws, taxes, and advertising restrictions. He points to soda taxes as examples of legislation that have proven effective for lowering sugar consumption. 

“We should also think about holding companies accountable,” adds Gračner. Perhaps, baby formula needs to be reformulated, she says. 

Amid all the not-so-sweet news, though, there is a small silver lining (or candy-coating). “We don’t want to take away the joy of Halloween or other upcoming holidays. Birthday cake, candy, or whatnot in moderation won’t ruin our lives,” Gračner says. “It’s not about a piece of cake here or there. It’s about excessive intake of added sugar on a daily basis.”

The post Studying WWII-era rationing shows that sugar is dangerous even in utero appeared first on Popular Science.

• When Is Apple Intelligence Launching in the European Union?

Roughly a third of all US adults regularly turn to YouTube for their news. Since the 2020 presidential race, the platform has loosened its guidelines, allowing increased spread of political misinformation. A new report is highlighting YouTube’s election lie problem, as well as who is profiting the most from them.

The report released on October 31st from watchdog Media Matters for America shows the extent to which election-related lies spread across YouTube in the months leading up to the November 5th election. The organization counted at least 286 videos from May through August containing false information related to the 2020, 2022, and 2024 US elections from 30 prominent right-wing channels. This livestreamed and prerecorded content collectively garnered at least 44 million views.

The videos cover a wide range of spurious allegations, including Democrats “rigging” the upcoming election against Trump, Kamala Harris stealing the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden through a “coup,” and rampant illegal voting from undocumented Americans. Roughly 30 percent of the videos flagged by Media Matters were also monetized through a combination of pre-roll ads and paid promotional content.

Video monetization can provide income to individuals largely shunned from mainstream outlets. Rudy Giuliani, for example, is noted as the study’s “most prolific election misinformer” responsible for 77 of the 286 reviewed videos. Trump’s disbarred former attorney appears to have particularly relied on YouTube’s lax guidelines to further claims of voter fraud and Democratic “cheating” over the past summer following the cancellation of his radio shows.

YouTube first announced a crackdown on election conspiracy theories in December 2020, but reversed course in June 2023. At the time, the company justified its decision by arguing that “while removing this content does curb some misinformation,” the company was more concerned about the “unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm.”

[Related: YouTube restricts kids’ ability to see some gun content.]

According to YouTube’s election misinformation policy page, the platform still prohibits misleading viewers about voting times, locations, and eligibility, as well as candidate requirements and incitement to interfere with election integrity. But while false US election-related allegations still get a free pass, YouTube for some reason still maintains bans on misinformation related to the 2021 German federal election, as well as the 2014, 2018, and 2022 Brazilian Presidential elections.

“Certain types of misleading or deceptive content with serious risk of egregious harm are not allowed on YouTube,” the company claims on its guidelines page, before later cautioning viewers to “Keep in mind that this isn’t a complete list.”

“YouTube and other social media platforms have repeatedly capitulated to right-wing pressure in the US—including rolling back policies and reinstating bad actors on the platforms—as right-wing media and politicians falsely accuse the platforms of being biased against them,” Kayla Gogarty, a research director at MMFA who oversaw the new study, said in a statement to Popular Science.

“Users should remember that bipartisan experts say US elections are secure, and they should rely on information from local and state officials and double verify any online news using reputable sources,” said Gogarty.

The post YouTube is full of election lies, and no one is stopping it appeared first on Popular Science.

In an article for CNN, Samantha Delouya attempts to understand the nuanced impacts of the short-term rentals (STR) industry on housing markets around the country.

“Some critics say short-term rentals, which have exploded in popularity over the past decade as an alternative to hotels, should bear part of the blame for rent increases,” while others point out that the number of STRs is relatively small compared to the total unmet demand for housing in most U.S. regions.

When it comes to rent costs, “a 2019 paper in the Harvard Business Review found that a 1% increase in Airbnb listings is associated with only a minimal increase in rental rates at just 0.018%.” However, an analysis of Irvine, California, which banned STRs in 2018, shows a 3 percent drop in long-term rental costs.

While in some cases restrictions on Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms have helped lower housing costs, regulations have also backfired, ultimately harming the local economy. In Telluride, Colorado, an STR ban led to a drop in tourism, prompting complaints from local businesses and lodging owners. The city let the ban expire, opting instead to charge STR operators a fee whose proceeds will be invested in affordable housing, according to city officials.

• Short-Term Rentals
• Airbnb
• VRBO
• Lodging Tax
• Housing Crisis
• Housing Supply
• Housing Costs
• Affordable Housing
• housing affordability

Delta Air Lines will soon feature wheelchair adaptive seats on its airliners, making air travel a little easier for people with mobility impairments.

As Sarah Bregel explains in an article for Fast Company, passengers who use wheelchairs cannot be denied a seat, but are often treated disrespectfully and fail to get the assistance they need. “The latest news that passengers will be able to remain seated in their own equipment is a relief for disabled travelers, as well as those who have been fighting for their rights.”

The airline will have to test and install new seats before deploying them on all their aircraft, but the U.S. Department of Transportation is considering making the change mandatory for all airlines.

• Delta
• Air Travel
• Accessibility
• Mobility
• Wheelchair Access
• Airplanes
• Airlines

An analysis of over 500 illegal parking complaints submitted to New York City’s 311 service reveals “inconsistent, and in some cases non-existent” enforcement for safety-related violations.

As David Meyer explains in Streetsblog NYC, these include blocked bike lanes and fire hydrants. NYPD issued just 16 tickets after investigating 558 complaints, a rate almost four times smaller than the overall ticket issuance rate for 311. “Despite the slew of complaints, many locations saw hours of rampant illegal parking, often by delivery trucks turning travel lanes and no parking zones into ‘mobile logistics hubs’ and ‘de facto parking lots.’”

According to the researchers who conducted the study, “The high rate of complaints closed while illegal parking was still occurring, combined with the low rate of ticket issuance, suggests a systemic failure in addressing this issue.”

The findings indicate a lack of concern for the safety issues posed by illegal parking. “In some cases, police have actually harassed and threatened members of the public for submitting complaints about illegal parking to 311.”

• New York City
• Illegal Parking
• blocked bike lane
• Traffic Enforcement

Bleeding tooth fungus looks like a ghoulish forest crime scene. This type of mushroom called Hydnellum peckii also goes by “devil’s tooth fungus” or the much more pleasant sounding “strawberries and cream.” Its signature gooey red liquid is a sap-like substance that oozes out during a process called guttation when the fungi releases excess moisture from its fruiting body. However, it is not always this bright blood-colored hue. 

To learn more about these grisly looking fungi (that was also an inspiration for the drug on The Penguin), Popular Science reached out to West Virginia University mycologist Matt Kasson. 

[Related: Is this the creepiest fungus in the forest? Yes, definitely.]

Laura Baisas: Tell me a bit about Hydnellum peckii.

Matt Kasson: Hydnellum peckii is a prized mushroom species not for its edibility, but its strange tooth-like projections on the underside and red blood-like droplets that form atop a flattened velvet-like cap. Though inedible, it’s a highly sought-after fungus by photographers and mycophiles alike who want to see and touch its spiny projections and jelly-like droplets which contain pigments coveted by dyers. 

LB: Where is it found?

MK: Bleeding tooth can be found widely distributed across North America and Europe with fewer contemporary observations in Asia and South America. Other Hydnellum species with common names like zoned tooth, velvet tooth, orange rough-cap tooth, blue tooth, and sweetgrass tooth also occur in North America and depending on their developmental stage and condition might be mistaken for bleeding tooth.

LB: What causes this gooey, red liquid?

MK: The appearance of brightly-colored droplets atop the fungal cap is not unique to bleeding tooth, though their size and bright red color are clearly eye-catching. This phenomenon of active exudation of watery droplets is commonly known as guttation and is seen in both plants and fungi. These often pigmented droplets seen on fungal fruiting bodies and in culture contain various dissolved substances and bioactive molecules. A fungus called the weeping polypore (Pseudoinonotus dryadeus), which forms underneath oak trees here in the eastern U.S., produces yellow to brown droplets atop the cap. 

[Related: Chefs are using fungus to transform food garbage into fancy, fully edible dishes.]

LB: I’ve read that Hydnellum peckii is high in thelephoric acid that could one day be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Is there any truth to this?

MK: The blood-colored droplets of the devil’s tooth contain among other things an anticoagulant called atromentin, which has been described as having similar bioactivity to Heparin. Thelephoric acid, which is derived from atromentin, is of interest due to its ability to inhibit prolyl endopeptidase, an enzyme that “has a role in processing amyloid precursor protein” in Alzheimer’s disease. 

Whether this can be used for treatment is unclear or outside my expertise to say anything resembling coherent. However, it’s not surprising that we are still discovering bioactive molecules in fungi that may provide the building blocks for breakthrough drugs and pharmaceuticals. 

LB: How does its appearance change?

MK: Not every bleeding tooth you find in the forest will be “actively bleeding.” Though guttation is a common occurrence on these fruiting bodies, the bright red droplets eventually dry up and turn more brown colored. The white color of the fruiting body itself darkens upon bruising and with age. 

Like any other fungus, encountering a bleeding tooth increases with time spent looking for it. It’s true I haven’t found one yet in all my years of searching. To this day, my kids will ask upon arriving at a new hiking location, “What if we find a bleeding tooth, dad?” And I responded like any dad would, “Then I’ll buy everyone dessert, just not strawberries and cream!”

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

The post That’s not blood, it’s a fungus oozing excess juice appeared first on Popular Science.