Friday Finds, XXI
Electric cooker an easy, efficient way to sanitize N95 masks, study finds (Illinois News Bureau)
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign study found that 50 minutes of dry heat in an electric cooker, such as a rice cooker or Instant Pot, decontaminated N95 respirators inside and out while maintaining their filtration and fit.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture supported this work.
Instructions in the link.
Oatly: The New Coke (Divinations)
Putting 12oz of Oatly into your latte and adjusting for the higher GI of maltose means adding almost a tablespoon of table sugar to your drink. Put a tablespoon of sugar next to your coffee next time you have a chance and seriously consider if that’s a decision that’s “made for humans.”
When you drink oat milk, you’re mostly drinking oats, water, sugar, and canola oil. Sugar isn’t healthy for anyone. But what about the canola?
The evidence for the harms of canola oil is still in its early days, but continues to grow. Research has linked it to: Memory impairment, Alzheimer’s risk, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Increased all-cause mortality, Metabolic syndrome, Decreased brain function, and Oxidative stress.
For a period of about 2 months, Amy and I went on an obsessive Oatly binge. It's delicious. But this write-up is depressing.
If you love Oatly, and you don't want to complicate that love, ignore this article haha. Knowledge is the utter absolute of bliss.
‘Christianity Will Have Power’ (NY Times)
“I guess the biggest concern for me is trying to keep our country the way it was. Conservative. The values. For us, I mean, this is as good as it gets. We can do whatever we want,” said Mr. Driesen, 56, sitting at his kitchen table this spring with his wife, Cheryl, 52. Next to them, a family motto was painted on the wall in gold and black lettering: “Home, Where Your Story Begins.”
So what I gather about people who identify with the more rural Christians at the center of this article is that their faith is just an identity and protective barrier for their own way of life—not a directive for how they should engage with the world by “learning to do right, seeking justice, defending the oppressed, taking up the cause of the fatherless, and pleading the widow's case.”
Got it.
Rethinking the Science of Skin (The New Yorker)
With all our soaps and sanitizers and antibiotics, in addition to so much time spent inside, away from dirt and animals and fresh air, we’ve created new problems for our immune systems, which miss out on the chance to encounter benign triggers and instead learn to overreact to perceived threats. Excess hygiene can also be a problem for the skin’s microbiome, which has an ecology that we’re just beginning to understand.
When I was a child, you could very easily find me playing on the dirt, running through overgrowths and rainwater run-offs, and lying down on streets.
Do kids do that today?