New South Wales (abbreviated as NSW) is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state. New South Wales’ state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia’s most populous city. In June 2020, the population of New South Wales was over 8.1 million, making it Australia’s most populous state. Just under two-thirds of the state’s population, 5.3 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. The demonym for inhabitants of New South Wales is New South Welshmen.
The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825. The colony then also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemen’s Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the colony’s area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand and the various states and territories of Australia. However, the Swan River Colony was never administered as part of New South Wales. Wikipedia
Since the novel coronavirus began its global spread, influenza cases reported to the World Health Organization have dropped to minuscule levels. The reason, epidemiologists think, is that the public health measures taken to keep the coronavirus from spreading also stop the flu. Influenza viruses are transmitted in much the same way as SARS-CoV-2, but they are less effective at jumping from host to host.
As Scientific American reported last fall, the drop-off in flu numbers was both swift and universal. Since then, cases have stayed remarkably low. “There’s just no flu circulating,” says Greg Poland, who has studied the disease at the Mayo Clinic for decades. The U.S. saw about 600 deaths from influenza during the 2020–2021 flu season. In comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were roughly 22,000 deaths in the prior season and 34,000 two seasons ago.
Because each year’s flu vaccine is based on strains that have been circulating during the past year, it is unclear how next year’s vaccine will fare, should the typical patterns of the disease return. The WHO made its flu strain recommendations for vaccines in late February as usual, but they were based on far fewer cases than in a common year. At the same time, with fewer virus particles circulating in the world, there is less chance of an upcoming mutation, so it is possible the 2021–2022 vaccine will prove extra effective.
“Is he in his own room yet?” is a question new parents often field once they emerge from the haze of life with a newborn. But sleeping apart from our babies is a relatively recent development – and not one that extends around the globe. In other cultures sharing a room, and sometimes a bed, with your baby is the norm.
This isn’t the only aspect of new parenthood that Westerners do differently. From napping on a schedule and sleep training to pushing our children around in strollers, what we might think of as standard parenting practices are often anything but.
Parents in the US and UK are advised to have their babies sleep in the same room as them for at least the first six months, but many view this as a brief stopover on their way to a dedicated nursery.
In most other societies around the world, babies stick with their parents longer. A 2016 review that looked at research on children sharing not just a room but a bed with one or more of their parents found a high prevalence in many Asian countries: over 70% in India and Indonesia, for example, and over 80% in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Research on bedsharing rates in countries across Africa is patchy, but where it does exist suggests the practice is near-universal.
Phoenix is the capital and most populous city in Arizona, with 1,680,992 people (as of 2019). It is also the fifth-most populous city in the United States, the largest state capital by population, and the only state capital with a population of more than one million residents.
Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, informally known as the Valley of the Sun and formally centered in the Salt River Valley. The metropolitan area, which includes part of neighboring Pinal County, is the 11th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.73 million people as of 2017. Phoenix is the seat of Maricopa County and the largest city in the state at 517.9 square miles (1,341 km2), more than twice the size of Tucson and one of the largest cities in the United States. Wikipedia
Want to raise successful kids? Make them do chores. The science backs you up, and it’s the kind of technique I cover in my free e-book How to Raise Successful Kids, which you can download here.
Now, it turns out there’s a fairly simple way to get them to cooperate. This new technique (well, new to a lot of us, anyway) makes so much sense, you’ll wonder why we all haven’t been doing it already.
Here’s the specific, two-part strategy, according to Michaeleen Doucleff, author of Hunt, Gather, Parent, along with why it’s so beneficial both for you and for their later success in life.
On February 18, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover, the most complex scientific robot to ever journey to Mars, finally landed. A suite of experiments onboard are fine-tuned to discover new secrets, confirm theories, and set up a future mission to return precious Martian soil to Earth.
But one of these experiments, buried in the cornucopia of science taking place on the SUV-sized rover, stems from a decades-long effort to record the sonic landscape on another planet. NASA is sending two microphones, the Entry Descent and Landing Microphone and the SuperCam microphone, to Mars. For the first time, we will be able to listen to the sounds of Percy’s Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence—the most gut-wrenching seven minutes of any Mars mission—and if all goes according to plan, the whistling winds of the Martian landscape itself.
I chatted with the two engineers who’ve made it their mission to record the sounds of the Red Planet. You can listen to an edited version of our conversations and the story behind Percy’s microphones in the audio player below, or read the following transcript.
NASA’s Perseverance rover is ready to make its debut on the Red Planet. The intrepid spacecraft is designed to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars, collect geologic samples for return to Earth and send the first helicopter into the skies of another world. That’s just the beginning.
For the first time ever, two microphones aboard the spacecraft—the Entry Descent and Landing Cam microphone and the SuperCam Microphone—will sample Mars’ sonic landscape. It could reshape our understanding of the Red Planet. It’s a project that has been decades in the making. One that traces its origins back to the mid-90s and the Mars Polar Lander Mission.
Jordan Pond is an oligotrophic tarn in Acadia National Park near the town of Bar Harbor, Maine. The pond covers 187 acres (76 ha) to a maximum depth of 150 feet (46 m) with a shoreline of 3.6 miles (5.8 km).
The pond was formed by the Wisconsin Ice Sheet during the last glacial period. Penobscot Mountain (1194 ft) rises to the west, while Pemetic Mountain (1247 ft) rises to the east. Two Roche moutonnées known as The Bubbles (North and South) rise above the northeastern shoreline. The southern end is constrained by glacial debris and an artificial dam.
The pond has clear water, with visibility normally 44 feet (13.4 m) and occasionally recorded up to 61 feet (18.6 m), the deepest recordings in Maine. The pond exhibits high levels of dissolved oxygen, and low levels of plant nutrients and plant life.
Some types of boating are permitted, but people and pets are prohibited from entering the water as it is the water supply for the village of Seal Harbor. Wikipedia
It all started years ago when I first learned my wife and I were going to be parents: I began collecting science-based parenting advice, both here on Inc.com and in my continuously updated (free) e-book, How to Raise Successful Kids, now in its 7th edition.
Shown are seven of the most interesting and useful studies.
My ex-wife and I divorced three years ago because of irreconcilable differences. We are fairly amicable, but we don’t talk unless it’s related to the kids. Before COVID I had weekends and holidays, and she had weekdays. My mom has cancer and lives with me, so once the pandemic started we agreed that the kids would stay at their mom’s house for the immediate future and my mom and I would have Zoom calls with them every day.
Now, for some context, my ex has been overweight for pretty much her entire life, even as a young child. Her parents were overweight, and they passed down their habits to her, as it so often goes. By the time we met, she was 250 pounds. Throughout our relationship, I encouraged her to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle, but she never wanted to. Our kids (7 and 10 years old) were on the heavy side of an average weight while my ex and I were still married. When we were together, I did most of the cooking and did my best to make sure that my kids ate nutrient-dense, healthy food, and that junk food was kept as an occasional treat. As we have been separated, though, my kids have slowly gotten more and more overweight.
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Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.
In recent weeks, Dr. Kali Cyrus has struggled with periods of exhaustion.
“I am taking a nap in between patients,” says Cyrus, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. “I’m going to bed earlier. It’s hard to even just get out of bed. I don’t feel like being active again.”
Exhaustion is also one of the top complaints she hears from her patients these days. They say things like, “It’s just so hard to get out of bed” or “I’ve been misplacing things more often,” she says.
Some patients tell Cyrus they’ve been making mistakes at work. Some tell her they can “barely turn on the TV. ‘All I want to do is stare at the ceiling.’ ” Others say they are more irritable.
While some people who have had COVID-19 report brain fog and fatigue as lingering symptoms of their infection — what’s known as long COVID — mental health care providers around the U.S. are hearing similar complaints from people who weren’t infected by the virus. And many providers, like Cyrus, are feeling it themselves.
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Feelings of exhaustion, irritability, and mental fogginess are our bodies’ normal response to an abnormal year of pandemic life.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
An image from New South Wales, Australia
Credit: Katie Peek
James' World 2 