Linkage

• Viking DNA helps reveal when HIV-fighting gene mutation emerged: 9,000 years ago near the Black Sea (Live Science) This raises the obvious question:  What was its advantage?  HIV is only about 100 years old.
• “Roman Engineering Lives On”: 1,700-Year-Old Wooden Water Pipe Unearthed in Belgium Stuns Archaeologists With Pristine Detail (Sustainability Times) Man, those Romans could build stuff to last.
• Scientists May Have Found a Massive Ocean of Water Deep Beneath Mars’ Surface (Sci Tech Daily) Send Elon to Mars to check it out.  Leave him there.
• How Mark Zuckerberg Endangered U.S. Security in Pursuit of Profit (The American Prospect) Of course he did.  His modus operandi has been criminal since day 1. 
• War and International Politics | International Security | MIT Press (John Mersheimer) "My bottom line is that great power wars tend to escalate, sometimes in ways that are at odds with policymakers' preferences. Given the destructiveness of modern war, especially regarding nuclear weapons, it is imperative that political leaders understand escalation dynamics and be able to control them."
• The reckoning that wasn’t - by Anand Giridharadas (The.Ink) The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has done nothing to fix their problems because them and theirs would necessarily be held accountable for their incompetence.
• Long COVID Brain Fog “Very Well Explained” By Altered Levels Of 2 Key Biomarkers (IFLScience) Hopefully we will see treatments
• The decline of key Atlantic currents is underway, and it's been flooding parts of the US for 20 years (Live Science) This would be the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation).  If it stops we are f%$#ed.
• Decades-long mystery of ginger cats revealed (BBC) Just the genetics behind the color, not why so many ginger cats are dumb as a post.

This is a very bad day at the office: