Low-Risk Drinking Can Be Risky, Too

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

If you think that you’re safe from health complications that could be caused by alcohol consumption because you don’t drink that much compared to heavy drinkers (or you drink moderately), think again, as this recent study suggests that “even consuming alcohol within weekly low-risk drinking guidelines” could have health risks, too. The recent study is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.


Moderate drinkers "are not insulated from harm," write researchers led by Adam Sherk, Ph.D., of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

The Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines state that women should consume no more than about 10 drinks per week and men no more than 15. (A "drink" is 12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine, or 1.5 oz. of liquor.) These limits are slightly higher than those in the United States and exceed those of most other high-income countries.

In their research, Sherk and colleagues found that, in British Columbia, a significant portion of alcohol-caused death and disability was experienced by those drinking within these guidelines. For example, more than 50 percent of cancer deaths resulting from alcohol use occurred in people drinking moderately. Further, 38 percent of all alcohol-attributable deaths were experienced by people drinking below the weekly limits or among former drinkers.

[...]

Sherk suggests that guideline limits should be lowered to match those in the Netherlands: "Don't drink or, if you do, drink no more than one drink per day."


If there’s a drink that you should drink many glasses or bottles of, that would be good old water.

Via EurekAlert

(Image Credit: University of Victoria/ EurekAlert)

By Franzified

Twitter Doesn’t Have An Accessibility Team

(Image Credit: raphaelsilva/ Pixabay)

A Twitter developer named Andrew Hayward has brought a Twitter issue towards wider attention: the social media platform doesn’t have an accessibility team. For a social network company that has 4,000 employees (which means that it is big enough to create teams), it is a bit disappointing that Twitter doesn’t have a team dedicated to accessibility.


This is not to say that Twitter is a wasteland for accessibility features, though like any major platform it has a lot of room for improvement. But features that make a site easier for everyone to navigate — not just people who use screen readers or captions — require more than part-time input from concerned employees.

When people criticized Twitter’s new audio tweet feature for not having any kind of captioning, the official Twitter Support account said that it was an “early version of this feature” and that the company would be “exploring” ways to make it accessible, which didn’t help.

Hayward chimed in to say that he and the other “volunteers behind accessibility at Twitter” were “frustrated and disappointed” at the lack of consideration for people with disabilities, prompting astonishment that there is no dedicated team. He clarified that they are paid employees (not outright volunteers) but that “the work we do is notionally on top of our regular roles.” So the work he and everyone else has done has essentially been in their spare time.


It looks like it would be a long time before we see a Twitter that’s user-friendly towards people with disabilities.

We're sorry about testing voice Tweets without support for people who are visually impaired, deaf, or hard of hearing. It was a miss to introduce this experiment without this support.

Accessibility should not be an afterthought. (1/3) https://t.co/9GRWaHU6fR

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) June 19, 2020

By Franzified

This Fungal Pathogen Can Disable A Plant’s Defense System

(Image Credit:  Anna Schroll/ PHYS.org)

A pathogen invading your body is already bad enough on its own. A pathogen invading your body, while you remain helpless and without options, is much worse. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Pretoria a fungal pathogen that can disable the defense mechanism of cabbage plants, which allow them to spread unhindered. The said pathogen is a very dangerous one, capable of infecting hundreds of plant species.

(Image Credit: Jymm/ Wikimedia Commons)

Cabbage plants defend themselves against herbivores and pathogens by deploying a defensive mechanism called the mustard oil bomb: when the plant tissue is damaged, toxic isothiocyanates are formed and can effectively fend off attackers. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Pretoria have now been able to show in a new study that this defense is also effective to some extent against the widespread and detrimental fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. However, the pathogen uses at least two different detoxification mechanisms that enable the fungus to successfully spread on plants defended in this way. The metabolic products thus formed are non-toxic to the fungus, allowing it to grow on these plants.

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a devastating fungal pathogen that can infect more than 400 different plant species. The main symptom of the disease called Sclerotinia wilt or white mold is wilting. Visible are also the white, cotton-like fungal spores that overgrow plant leaves and stalks. In agriculture, rapeseed cultivation is particularly at risk. The plant disease can affect other members of the cabbage family, and also potatoes, legumes and strawberries.



Learn more about this deadly pathogen over at PHYS.org.

By Franzified

When Brands Make Blunders Overseas

People love to expand their businesses into uncharted territory when their businesses get really big in their own country. Expanding into foreign lands, however, would mean that the business has to study a culture and a language very different from theirs.

Without the guidance of an expert, or a native, who thoroughly understands the culture and language of the foreign country, a business would most likely make blunders that would surely damage their reputation, and this is perhaps what happened in these businesses.

Cracked.com lists 15 brands which made fatal mistakes overseas. See them all over at the site.


All images via Cracked.com

By Franzified