Category: Travel

EVERY YEAR FOR DECADES, SCIENTISTS at the Hiroshima Prefectural Agriculture Gene Bank have planted a small patch of hattanso rice. Its stalks are spring-green and spindly, its grains stubby, with a white core of endosperm visible in light. Hiroshima’s rice fields are fecund with Hattanso’s descendants, which farmers sell to sake brewers in dozens of prefectures across Japan. Hattan no. 35, which crop scientists bred in 1962, has hard grains that can withstand the polishing required for high-quality sakes. Hattan-nishiki no. 1 and 2, bred in 1984 from a cross between Hattanso and Nishiki rices, has medium-sized grains yield light sakes with an earthy tang.

Source: The Sake Master Reviving a Long-Forgotten Local Rice – Gastro Obscura

Aggressive marketing of prescription opioids by pharmaceutical companies provided doctors with scant information about potential harmful effects.

Source: Opioid marketing to Canadian doctors hyped benefits, downplayed harms

Prepare for total chaos. This summer, the Supreme Court will decide whether to completely reshape how the American public elects the president of the United States, and the 2020 election—one of enormous consequence—will be the test run for the new rules.The general rules for electing the president have been established for centuries: The candidate who receives the most votes in each state wins that state’s electoral votes, and the candidate who wins the most electoral votes becomes president.

Source: The Problem of Faithless Electors – The Atlantic

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed a travel ban on some European countries after the World Health Organization named the coronavirus a global pandemic.

Source: Trump bans travel from Europe: Here’s what you need to know

There are a million reasons we could freak ourselves out and never travel anywhere. The coronavirus is just the most recent example.

Source: Why I’m Not Canceling My Travel Plans for COVID-19 | Outside Online

With a contagious virus seemingly out of control; supply chains disrupted and travel and tourism collapsing; an oil price war that has sent crude prices plunging to their biggest one-day drop since 1991; and stocks that may have just careened into a bear market for the first time in 11 years, the financial system is about to undergo its first real-life stress test since the financial crisis and recession more than a decade ago.

Source: It’s a ‘Swimming Naked’ Moment: The Financial System Has a Real Test – The New York Times

Milan became the European version of Wuhan over the weekend, when the bustling commercial hub and 14 regions in northern Italy went into lockdown, putting 16 million people – equivalent to almost half the population of Canada – into isolation.The extreme measures came two days after Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte closed all the schools, including universities, and one day after Italy’s coronavirus infection and fatality count surged. By Sunday, Italy had reported 7,375 COVID-19 cases – up by 1,492 in 24 hours – and 366 fatalities so far. Italy now has more confirmed cases than South Korea and second to China where the outbreak started.

Source: Italy locks down 16 million people in the north as coronavirus cases surge – The Globe and Mail

In late January, I posed a simple question to several experts in public health and epidemiology: How does the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak end? Back then, the virus was still mainly just spreading in China, and the scientists we spoke with outlined a hopeful scenario: containment.The idea is that through identifying and isolating the sick, the virus could be kept from spreading in communities around the globe. It seemed reasonable: Containment was how the 2003 SARS outbreak — also caused by a member of the coronavirus family — ended.

Source: Coronavirus: How does the Covid-19 outbreak end? – Vox