Maybe, just maybe, if editors did a hint of work with all the money they steal from public science funding, we could stabilise the system towards more integrity and less quantity of publication. Or also just get rid of editors to obtain the same result, but this is sadly utopic today. Peer reviewing is not the problem, and probably still is the best way to assess research quality. However, tendency towards quantity over quality, and applied research over fundamental are what skews the process and its results

As others have stated, water in trees gets up thanks to two processes. The first is indeed capillary action. The tubes carrying the water are rather thin, and it clings to the sides of it. But this is a rather small part of the total energy carrying the water. The main mechanism is a negative pressure inside the vascular system of the tree. Basically, tree leaves sweat water all the time (more or less depending on temperature). The water leaving the tree kind of sucks up the water following inside the vessels (this is a simplification to not go into the physics behind). In some larger trees, the negative pressure inside the vascular system can be exceptionally strong, requiring exceptional strength of the tree’s components.

I am European and heavily against punitive justice. But I think one year of prison for a crime almost universally considered among the worst is not enough for rehabilitation, and I find this opinion validated by the lack of understanding or even remorse shown by the guy in public statements

He did barely a year of prison… I personally don’t quite think it’s enough for raping a kid, but hey that’s just my opinion

Continuing a deep rock galactic addiction, and used the sales to start sea of thieves with some mates, having a blast for the moment!

The diapsid part is very likely indeed, as fossil skulls of early stem turtles do show some temporal openings ( https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110218-024746 ) The point is more where do they nest within Diapsida, more closely to the Lepidosauromorpha, or to the Archosauromorpha, and where precisely if within one of those clades. The point is that can’t quite be proven using only extant species, whether by DNA or morphological evidence. And concerning ML, the methodology is often criticised, not because it’s bad, but because it’s opaque and thus it is difficult to justify and understand as a process

In phylogeny, genomic is just another tool. The point is that turtles are os course animals, but they do branch off of different reptile groups if you look at morphological evidence (which includes fossil data) or at molecular (genetic) evidence (which only includes extant species). This is not something frequent, as usually molecular evidence tends to strengthen previous morphologically established evolutionary relationships. And even though molecularists are more numerous today, their methods are neither better or worse than anatomy.

Phylogeny is not as straightforward as some people make it seem, and especially molecular phylogeny tends to rely on abstract concepts that can’t always be backed up by biological evidence (I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s very often very good, juste that a lot of people doing it do not understand the way it works, and thus can’t examine the process critically).

And so turtles’ origin are still very much an active debate!

I feel inappropriate near all the very universal questions here, but as a paleontologist specialised in some reptilian groups, the question would probably be “where the fuck do turtles come from?!” The thing is that fossil evidence points to different answers when compared to genetic evidence, and thez separated long enough from other extant groups that we keep on having new “definitive” answers every year

Not sure if it qualifies as nihilistic, but Upgrade (2018) definetely has a very unhappy ending

He was Education minister before this, despite never setting foot in a public school, and heavily criticised protesters during the very unpopular pension reform while he was already a millionaire at 25 even though he never worked a day in his life. But hey, nice for us that he’s young and openly gay !

Only in the souls like niche, but Iron Pineapple covers a lot of often unknown indie games in his series of steam dumpster diving (don’t be fooled by the name, a lot of the games are good)

Actually, a LOT of studies do show that no, in most countries, taxes are far from enough to cover the cost of tobacco induced diseases.

If you do that, then you should also forfeit your right to use publicly funded hospitals that already struggle enough with people suffering of conditions they did not ask for voluntarily. Smoking is not just a cost for your body, but for society as a whole, hence the justification in a ban

Yes of course, and I’m all for it, I just hope it’s a first step and not the end

Very good start, but as a French I fear that it may not be complete until it starts to include the high speed lines (TGV) that are the most expensive but also the most competitive when trying to divert traffic from cars or planes

Ah yes, science with a very much peer reviewed study, right ?

Not too much techy, paleontologist here