The cost of bitcoin mining is directly proportional to the cost of electricity in a given area. This map compares the electricity costs involved in mining one bitcoin. Cheapest countries: Kuwait ($1,415) and Venezuela ($1,630). Most expensive: Solomon Islands ($80,189) and Belarus ($71,698). (Today's bitcoin price: $6,564.) Bitcoin mining alone now consumes more electricity, globally, than 173 countries. powercompare.co.uk/bitcoin-electricity-cost/
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For students (or adults) looking to enhance their vocabularies, The Economist (UK) has a free word-of-the-day app that features a word used in context from an article in the magazine. (Recent examples: "mendacity," "astute," "mollify," "obviate"). You can download the app (iOS or Android) or follow on Instagram: gre.economist.com/gre-vocabulary
One of the open questions in the Brexit negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union has been the flow of people and goods between the Republic of Ireland (which is part of the EU) and Northern Ireland (which is part of the UK). The undulating 310-mile border between Ireland and Northern Ireland includes the 195 public road border crossings shown in red on this map, more than exist between the U.S. and Canada. brilliantmaps.com/border-crossings-ireland/#more-3794
As a national leader, you sense shifts in geopolitical power dynamics. How do you respond? Do you resist the rising power? Or do you move to ally yourself with it? This map from The New York Times shows how American foreign policy experts assess various Asian countries' response to China. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/09/world/asia/china-us-asia-rivalry.html
A new European atmosphere-monitoring satellite has found that the air over much of India contains unusually high levels of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is produced naturally by vegetation as well as by processes that burn "vegetation," including wildfires, coal burning, and agricultural fires. Among other factors, India still uses a large amount of wood for cooking fires and heating. www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44550091
As U.S. midterm electioneering heats up, this map becomes particularly interesting to political geographers. The counties in purple voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2016. www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8hpcde/counties_where_the_majority_of_the_voters_chose/
Is prescribing a placebo ethical? This article from a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics looks at the recent decision by Britain's National Health Service to ban the prescribing of homeopathic preparations by NHS practitioners.
"[L]et me be clear: I do not 'believe in homeopathy' – the theory behind homeopathy is as pseudoscientific as can be; and, so far as whether or not it works is concerned, there is no evidence that homeopathy outperforms placebo. However, homeopathic treatments, of course, do no worse than (acknowledged) placebo; and there is evidence for a real placebo effect for conditions like mild-to-moderate depression, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the common cold and (especially) pain (though also Parkinson’s Disease and some other neurological conditions). So, while you certainly do not want to be taking homeopathic preparations if you are unlucky enough to have lung cancer, or congestive heart failure or any other major, non-neurological disease, there is evidence that those preparations can be effective if you suffer from one of the limited range of conditions I just cited (depression, IBS, pain …); and so, contrary to a widely held view, prescribing placebos, in particular homeopathic placebos, is not (always) the equivalent of doing nothing. But, even if homeopathic treatments can be effective, why should it be NHS practitioners who prescribe them? Why shouldn’t patients be required to access those treatments via a private homeopath instead? Well, for one thing, a properly qualified NHS practitioner is much more likely than a homeopath to spot conditions that will not respond to a placebo and so more likely to ensure proper treatment of such conditions. But the central part of my earlier argument depends on an interesting, and again evidence-based, fact about placebos: that the effect of taking a placebo is, in general, greater if you don’t know that what you are taking is a placebo. This is because a major part of the placebo effect is caused by expectations of recovery – expectations that activate the body’s internal pharmacopeia (principally via discharge of endogenous opiates into the bloodstream). Patients who already have some degree of belief that homeopathic treatments are not simply placebos may have those expectations raised, and hence may experience a better result, if the treatment is prescribed, under the NHS, by an authoritative fully-qualified doctor." www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2018/06/19/the-ethical-homeopathic-placebo/ |
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