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Saturday, March 23, 2024
Sourdough from Scratch: 4 variations of friendship breads
What better way to celebrate friendship and camaraderie than with comforting foods all can enjoy. Sourdoughs and friendship breads may go in and out of fashion, but you can make them a staple of your inner circle with recipes that are easier than they appear.
Consider this Sourdough Starter, a 7-day process that may seem lengthy at first glance but requires just a few minutes in the kitchen each day. Without breaking the bank, this made-from-scratch solution includes just two ingredients – unbleached flower and warm water – so you can whip up favorites like Plain Sourdough, Everything Loaf, Cinnamon Brown Sugar Loaf and Chocolate Loaf.
Some are tempted to give up on a weeklong recipe, but if you can keep a houseplant alive, you can finish this simple starter and reap its delicious rewards.
Find more homemade favorites at Culinary.net.Sourdough Starter
Recipe courtesy of "Cookin' Savvy"
Total time: 7 days
- Digital kitchen scale
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Warm water
- Glass bowl
- Silicone spoon
- Mason jar
Day 1: In glass bowl, stir 50 grams flour and 50 grams warm water. Let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 2: Add 50 grams flour and 50 grams warm water to bowl. Stir and let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 3: Discard half the starter. Add 100 grams flour and 100 grams warm water. Stir and let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 4: Discard half the starter. Add 150 grams flour and 150 grams warm water. Stir and let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 5: Discard half the starter then pour remaining starter into Mason jar. Add 150 grams flour and 150 grams warm water. Stir and let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 6: Discard half the starter. Add 200 grams flour and 200 grams warm water. Stir and let sit at room temperature, covered.
Day 7: Place warm water in bowl and add spoonful of starter to water. If it floats, it's ready to make bread. If it sinks, repeat Day 6 instructions. If not floating by Day 10, throw out and start over.
Tips: If making bread every day, starter will need fed every day. If not making bread every day, starter can stay at room temperature and be fed every other day. If starter can't be fed, it can be safely stored in refrigerator up to 10 days, covered, without feeding.
To measure correctly, place empty bowl on scale then clear to zero before each measurement.
Plain Sourdough
Recipe courtesy of "Cookin' Savvy"
- Medium bowl
- Warm water
- Sourdough starter
- Salt
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Silicone spoon
- Sharp knife
- In medium bowl, combine 330 grams warm water, 90 grams sourdough starter and 10 grams salt. Stir well then add 525 grams flour. Using silicone spoon, mix dough to sticky ball. Let rest, covered, about 45 minutes.
- Pull dough from bottom and stretch to top of dough ball. Repeat around entirety of dough ball a few times then cover. Repeat process four times then cover and let sit at room temperature at least 6 hours but no more than 14 hours. Dough should double.
- Sprinkle flour on counter then spread dough flat on floured surface. Fold dough from sides then turn and roll into ball. Place on parchment paper and put back in bowl 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 500 F with uncovered Dutch oven inside.
- Using sharp knife, score dough then place parchment paper and dough in Dutch oven. Cover with lid and bake 20 minutes then remove lid and lower temperature to 475 F for 25 minutes. Internal temperature should reach 195-205 F. Let rest at least 1 hour before cutting and serving.
Everything Loaf
Recipe courtesy of "Cookin' Savvy"
- Medium bowl
- Warm water
- Sourdough starter
- Salt
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Silicone spoon
- Everything bagel seasoning
- Sharp knife
- In medium bowl, combine 330 grams warm water, 90 grams sourdough starter and 10 grams salt. Stir well then add 525 grams flour. Using silicone spoon, mix dough to sticky ball. Let rest, covered, about 45 minutes.
- Pull dough from bottom and stretch to top of dough ball. Repeat around entirety of dough ball a few times then cover. Repeat process four times then cover and let sit at room temperature at least 6 hours but no more than 14 hours. Dough should double.
- Sprinkle flour on counter then spread dough flat on floured surface. Sprinkle with everything bagel seasoning. Fold dough from sides then turn and roll into ball. Place on parchment paper and put back in bowl 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 500 F with uncovered Dutch oven inside.
- Using sharp knife, score dough then place parchment paper and dough in Dutch oven. Cover with lid and bake 20 minutes then remove lid and lower temperature to 475 F for 25 minutes. Internal temperature should reach 195-205 F. Let rest at least 1 hour before sprinkling with everything bagel seasoning, cutting and serving.
Cinnamon Brown Sugar Loaf
Recipe courtesy of "Cookin' Savvy"
- Medium bowl
- Warm water
- Sourdough starter
- Salt
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Silicone spoon
- Softened butter
- Brown sugar
- Cinnamon
- Sharp knife
- In medium bowl, combine 330 grams warm water, 90 grams sourdough starter and 10 grams salt. Stir well then add 525 grams flour. Using silicone spoon, mix dough to sticky ball. Let rest, covered, about 45 minutes.
- Pull dough from bottom and stretch to top of dough ball. Repeat around entirety of dough ball a few times then cover. Repeat process four times then cover and let sit at room temperature at least 6 hours but no more than 14 hours. Dough should double.
- In bowl, mix 4 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon.
- Sprinkle flour on counter then spread dough flat on floured surface. Spread cinnamon mixture on dough. Fold dough from sides, pinching to keep cinnamon inside, then turn and roll into ball. Place on parchment paper and put back in bowl 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 475 F with uncovered Dutch oven inside.
- Using sharp knife, score dough then place parchment paper and dough in Dutch oven lined with aluminum foil. Cover with lid and bake 20 minutes then remove lid and lower temperature to 450 F for 25 minutes. Internal temperature should reach 195-205 F. Let rest at least 1 hour before cutting and serving.
Chocolate Loaf
Recipe courtesy of "Cookin' Savvy"
- Medium bowl
- Warm water
- Sourdough starter
- Salt
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- Cocoa powder
- Sugar
- Silicone spoon
- Milk chocolate chips
- Sharp knife
- In medium bowl, combine 350 grams warm water, 150 grams sourdough starter and 10 grams salt. Stir well then add 500 grams flour, 50 grams cocoa powder and 50 grams sugar. Using silicone spoon, mix dough to sticky ball. Let rest, covered, about 45 minutes.
- Pull dough from bottom and stretch to top of dough ball. Repeat around entirety of dough ball a few times, adding 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips during process, then cover. Repeat process four times then cover and let sit at room temperature at least 6 hours but no more than 14 hours. Dough should double.
- Sprinkle flour on counter then spread dough flat on floured surface. Fold dough from sides then turn and roll into ball. Place on parchment paper and put back in bowl 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 450 F with uncovered Dutch oven inside.
- Using sharp knife, score dough then place parchment paper and dough in Dutch oven. Cover with lid and bake 40 minutes. Internal temperature should reach 195-205 F. Let rest at least 1 hour before cutting and serving.
Culinary.net
How to Write Better Emails: Communicating with Clarity and Kindness
by Casey McCormick, PhD
Wherever you work in higher education, email probably takes up a huge part of your daily routine. An overflowing inbox causes anxiety, a rude email can ruin your day, and that message-you've-been meaning-to-send takes up vastly more mental space than it should.
Despite email's omnipresence in our lives, there are very few hard-and-fast rules about how to do it, and differing communication styles can lead to misunderstanding, email bloat, and hurt feelings. So, if you're looking to establish some best practices and improve your digital communication acumen, read on to learn how to write better emails.
Formatting and Basic Etiquette
The most important aspect of any email is clarity -- ensuring that the recipient knows exactly what you want to convey. In addition to clear and direct language, simple formatting choices can improve the readability and flow of your email. Use line breaks to separate the greeting, body paragraph(s), and sign-off, and bold key dates or numbers to make them stand out. Keep your email as concise as possible: short sentences, 1-3 sentences per paragraph, and an overall length of no more than 150 words.
As for which salutations to use, follow the advice of journalist Victoria Turk in her 2019 TED talk. She recommends using "Hi" rather than "Dear," unless it's a particularly formal context, like an event invitation or job application. Turk also insists that "there is a correct way to sign off an email. It is 'Best wishes.' 'Best' and 'All the best' are also acceptable." Importantly, she urges email writers never to use "thanks in advance" as a sign-off: "You can't thank someone for doing something before they've agreed to do it -- that's not how gratitude works." If you're dealing with an email chain or thread, Turk notes that it isn't necessary to repeat salutations with each new message, as that could ruin the conversational flow. But if it's a new day, feel free to say "hi" again.
The subject line is a useful tool for bringing specificity to your email communication. A detailed (but succinct) subject description signals to your recipient exactly what to expect in the message so they are prepared to extract the appropriate information. It also makes the email easy to find later if anyone needs to search their inbox for the thread. Finally, when dealing with group email communication, make sure you follow "the CC rule," as Turk calls it: "Primary recipients of an email, who are expected to respond, should go in the 'To' field. Other recipients of an email, who are not expected to respond, and who are included as a courtesy or for their information, should go in the 'CC' field." "BCC" should only be used to safeguard sensitive information in a large group or to avoid a "reply-all-pocalypse."
Tone and Style
While it can be tempting to use five-dollar words and descriptive detail to convey your knowledge and excitement about a subject, this type of writing is not conducive to a clear and concise email. Remember that the goal is to make reading your message as easy as possible for the recipient -- that means no extraneous information, no flowery language, and no jargon. As Turk argues, "good etiquette is not about the fancy flourishes, it's about respecting other people's time." One useful trick for ensuring your email flows clearly and conveys its point succinctly is to read the message aloud to yourself before sending it. Would you want to receive that email? If not, revise and try again.
Clarity and concision are the primary goals of any email, but Turk warns that it is also possible to be too concise. "There's a line where brevity crosses over into rudeness," she says. "A single word is not a sufficient message" and "no one is too busy for please and thank you." Remember that you're having a conversation with a human being -- use full sentences and a friendly tone. That's why Turk is "pro-emoji" in most email contexts: "Emoji are great at communicating sentiment; they're basically a digital stand-in for facial expression." Of course, be careful never to overuse emoji (or exclamation points!), but a few small punctuation choices or emoji gestures can make all the difference in how your messages come across to readers.
Kindness Saves the Day
Higher education can be a stressful place, and unfortunately, lots of folks are overworked and underpaid. Emailing requires serious physical and emotional labor, and a never-ending inbox -- especially if it's loaded with unnecessary or poorly written messages -- can contribute to symptoms of burnout. Make your number one goal "reducing the burden of email," as Turk puts it. Model clear, succinct communication, and keep your emails to business hours unless the matter is truly urgent. If you tend to work at off hours, use the "schedule send" function as a courtesy to your recipient.
Lastly, think about a time when you received an email that made your day better. Maybe they are few and far between, but there are no doubt moments where a kind message can change your mood and pull you out of an inbox slump. When digital communication feels natural and sincere, it becomes easier to write and takes less mental energy. With some practice and intention, you will be writing better emails and, by example, helping those in your network do the same.
This article is republished from HigherEdJobs® under a Creative Commons license.
Why isn’t dental health considered primary medical care?
Ailments of the mouth can put the body at risk for a slew of other ills. Some practitioners think dentistry should no longer be siloed.
By Lola Butcher
The patient’s teeth appeared to be well cared for, but dentist James Mancini did not like the look of his gums. By chance, Mancini knew the man’s physician, so he raised an alert about a potential problem — and a diagnosis soon emerged.
“Actually, Bob had leukemia,” says Mancini, clinical director of the Meadville Dental Center in Pennsylvania. Though he wasn’t tired or having other symptoms, “his mouth was a disaster,” Mancini says. “Once his physician saw that, they were able to get him treated right away.”
Oral health is tightly connected to whole-body health, so Mancini’s hunch is not surprising. What is unusual is that the dentist and doctor communicated.
Historically, dentistry and medicine have operated as parallel fields: Dentists take care of the mouth, physicians the rest of the body. That is starting to change as many initiatives across the United States and other countries work to integrate oral and whole-body care to more effectively tackle diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint replacements and many other conditions. The exact relationship between health of mouth and teeth and physical ailments elsewhere in the body is not well understood — and in some cases, is contentious — but experts agree there are links that should no longer be overlooked.
In recent years, dental hygienists have started working in medical clinics; physicians and dentists have started a professional association to promote working together; and a new kind of clinic — with dentists and doctors under one roof — is emerging.
“We are at a pivotal point — I call it the convergence era — where dentistry is not going to be separated from overall health for much longer,” says Stephen E. Thorne IV, founder and CEO of Pacific Dental Services, based in Irvine, California. “Dentistry will be brought into the primary care health-care team.”
Sick mouth, sick body
The list of connections between oral health and systemic health — conditions that affect the entire body — is remarkable. For starters, three common dental issues — cavities, tooth loss and periodontal disease — are all associated with heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. “To me, the number one hidden risk factor for the number one killer in our country is oral health,” says Ellie Campbell, a family physician in Cumming, Georgia, and board member of the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health, founded in 2010 to increase awareness of how oral and whole-body health are related.
Periodontal disease, infection and inflammation of the gums and bone that support the teeth, is the main culprit. Nearly half of adults 30 and older have periodontal disease; by age 65, the rate climbs to about 70 percent. In the early stages, called gingivitis, gums are swollen and may bleed. Periodontitis, a more serious condition in which gums can pull away from the teeth, is the sixth most common human disease.
Periodontitis is associated with a slew of systemic ills: heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, diabetes, endocarditis, chronic kidney disease, recurrent pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, gastritis, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer and cognitive impairment.
Bad habits, including tobacco use, alcohol consumption and high-sugar diets, are implicated too. They raise the risk for cavities and most oral diseases, and are also linked to ills such as cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes.
Such connections were apparently lost on officials at the University of Maryland in 1837, when the university rebuffed a proposal from two physicians to teach dentistry to the school’s medical students. At the time, medicine wanted nothing to do with dentistry, which was practiced by unregulated and inadequately trained itinerants, says medical and dental historian Andrew I. Spielman, a dentist and oral surgeon at the New York University College of Dentistry. “There were a lot of charlatans,” he says. “They had a very bad reputation.”
The dismissal prompted the rejected physicians, Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris, to establish the world’s first dental school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Today, dentistry is a highly regulated profession, and the United States has 73 accredited dental schools.
Despite their disparate training, both doctors and dentists are aware that mouth health is important to whole-body health, Campbell says. “Ask a family practice doctor and they will say ‘Oh yeah, if the patient has diabetes, they’re going to have bad teeth and gums, and I can never get their diabetes better until the dentist fixes their gums,’” she says. “And the dentist is going to say, ‘Well, I’ll never get their gums better until the primary care doctor gets their sugar under control.’”
Mancini, the Pennsylvania dentist, says dentists often are asked to examine a patient’s mouth before physicians will proceed with certain treatments. “Physicians know any infection in a patient who’s being treated for cancer could be very much life-threatening,” he says. “The orthopedic guys are now sending all of their patients to the dentist for the same reason.”
Hurdles to holistic care
But working together to improve a patient’s health is not as simple as it might seem. A decade ago, the federal government hired the National Network for Oral Health Access to run a pilot program merging oral and primary health-care centers. The network’s dental consultant, Irene Hilton, a dentist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said three barriers to integration became clear.
The fragmented way that health care and dental care are paid for is one of them. While more than 90 percent of Americans have health insurance, only 77 percent of US adults ages 19 to 64 have dental coverage, which typically is sold separately from health insurance. The nation’s largest insurer — the federal Medicare program — generally does not cover dental services, and nearly half of Americans 65 and over have no dental coverage.
That causes problems for patients who need, say, a joint replacement that would be covered by insurance but who cannot afford the dental work that is needed in advance. Surgeons won’t replace a knee until patients first get their dental work done, Mancini says, “so we’re kind of the barrier to them improving their life.”
Another barrier is that dentists and physicians are not routinely trained to work with each other, Hilton says.
Dental students study anatomy, physiology and other sciences related to the whole body, then home in on clinical care for mouth and teeth. But many physicians have almost no training in oral health. A 2009 survey found that 10 percent of medical schools that responded offered no oral health curriculum, and 69 percent offered fewer than five hours on the subject.
A third issue is what Hilton calls infrastructure. In most cases, the electronic health records used by physicians are incompatible with those used by dentists, so sharing information electronically is impossible. Likewise, dental offices are typically not embedded in medical clinics, where doctor-dentist referrals might be easier.
If oral and systemic health are to be integrated broadly, “these are the things that have to be overcome or addressed,” Hilton says.
The situation is not much different in other parts of the world. In 2021 the World Health Organization — noting that oral diseases are a global public health problem affecting nearly 3.5 billion people — recommended that dentistry focus more on prevention and be more integrated with primary care services.
Demonstrated links
In the past quarter-century, a great deal of research has demonstrated the links between oral and whole-body health. For example, when researchers followed 15,456 patients from 39 countries with stable coronary heart disease for nearly four years, they found that those who had lost the most teeth had the highest risk of having a stroke, heart attack or cardiovascular death. Similarly, a study that tracked 7,466 US adults ages 44 to 66 for an average of 14.7 years revealed that those who had severe periodontitis had a greater risk of cancer than those with no or mild periodontitis.
In 2015, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine launched an initiative to support integration of the two fields — in education, insurance and professional practice. (The initiative gets funding from dental product brands and health insurance companies, and Thorne, the Pacific Dental Services CEO, serves on its board.) “We’ve published papers identifying links between periodontal disease and diabetes, hypertension, dementia, adverse birth outcomes, low birth-weight babies, preterm birth, spontaneous abortion, kidney disease,” says Jane Barrow, the initiative’s executive director.
But correlation is not the same as cause and effect, and scientists have not nailed down the exact relationship between periodontitis, which affects more than 11 percent of the global population, and various systemic diseases.
Periodontitis is associated with bacteria in the bloodstream and systemic inflammation, which can affect organs such as the liver and bone marrow. That, in turn, can trigger or aggravate other conditions. And the periodontal bacteria — that travel via the bloodstream, inhalation or ingestion — may also cause infections or exacerbate inflammation in other parts of the body.
When the major professional societies for periodontology in the United States and Europe convened a group of global experts in 2012 to review the science, they concluded that it was “biologically plausible” that the inflammation of periodontitis ups the risk of cardiovascular disease and influences type 2 diabetes and other maladies – but “plausible” was as far as they would go.
Seven years later, the European Federation of Periodontology and the World Heart Federation again gathered experts to review new studies on the link between periodontitis and cardiovascular problems. Again, though scientists had made some headway in identifying possible biological mechanisms to explain the link, experts have since concluded that the evidence does not yet prove that periodontitis actually causes strokes, heart attacks or anything else.
Flipping the question on its head, does preventing or treating periodontal disease help to prevent heart problems? Several observational studies, in which researchers observe individuals and measure particular outcomes, but don’t intervene, suggest that oral health care, including toothbrushing and dental cleanings, make a difference. For example, a study that tracked the health habits of 11,869 adults 35 and older in Scotland found that within eight years, those who rarely brushed their teeth had more cardiovascular problems compared with those who brushed twice a day.
That still does not prove that preventing periodontitis will hold heart problems at bay: Some other habit or feature of the toothbrushing group could have been the important factor. The relationship is difficult to tease out, Barrow says, because people who are taking good care of their mouths tend to take good care of themselves in general. “Could you say that people who are taking care of their mouths are in better health overall? You would probably find that to be true,” she says. “Is it because they’re taking care of their mouth? I can’t say that.”
And nobody else should say that either, according to a 2018 editorial in the Journal of the American Dental Association. The coauthors, a group of dental and public health researchers, cautioned against overstating the oral-systemic health connection. “The main reason for maintaining good oral health is because it is important in and of itself,” they wrote.
One of the contributors, Bryan Michalowicz, a dental researcher at HealthPartners Institute in Minnesota, later led a team that reviewed the medical records and insurance claims of 9,503 patients to see if periodontitis treatment improved the health outcomes of those with coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease or type 2 diabetes.
Overall, cardiovascular patients who received dental treatment and follow-up maintenance saw no difference in the rate of heart attacks, strokes, bypass surgeries or angioplasty procedures compared to those who were not treated, the team reported in 2023. Likewise, periodontal treatment did not significantly lower the blood-sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Overdue integration
But the data suggesting connections have been enough to spark many grassroots efforts at integration. In addition to the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health, the National Network of Healthcare Hygienists, founded by hygienist Jamie Dooley in 2018, helps prepare hygienists who want to integrate oral health into health-care systems.
And in California, Thorne’s business is trying to make those interactions easy by putting dental and medical services under one roof. In December 2023, Pacific Dental Services opened a clinic, Culver Smiles Dentistry, in a space shared with a medical practice. It’s the first of 25 planned dental-medical practices that will operate through a partnership between MemorialCare, a big Southern California health system, and Pacific Dental.
Health-care leaders, Thorne says, are beginning to realize that they can improve their patients’ health by incorporating dental care into primary care.
It’s sort of crazy, he says, that our mouth and our jaw and our throat have been considered separate from the rest of our body for so long. “It is changing now, and health care is realizing that the mouth is the gateway to so much of our overall health.”
Climate change is shifting the zones where plants grow – here’s what that could mean for your garden
With the arrival of spring in North America, many people are gravitating to the gardening and landscaping section of home improvement stores, where displays are overstocked with eye-catching seed packs and benches are filled with potted annuals and perennials.
But some plants that once thrived in your yard may not flourish there now. To understand why, look to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent update of its plant hardiness zone map, which has long helped gardeners and growers figure out which plants are most likely to thrive in a given location.
Comparing the 2023 map to the previous version from 2012 clearly shows that as climate change warms the Earth, plant hardiness zones are shifting northward. On average, the coldest days of winter in our current climate, based on temperature records from 1991 through 2020, are 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 Celsius) warmer than they were between 1976 and 2005.
In some areas, including the central Appalachians, northern New England and north central Idaho, winter temperatures have warmed by 1.5 hardiness zones – 15 degrees F (8.3 C) – over the same 30-year window. This warming changes the zones in which plants, whether annual or perennial, will ultimately succeed in a climate on the move.
As a plant pathologist, I have devoted my career to understanding and addressing plant health issues. Many stresses not only shorten the lives of plants, but also affect their growth and productivity.
I am also a gardener who has seen firsthand how warming temperatures, pests and disease affect my annual harvest. By understanding climate change impacts on plant communities, you can help your garden reach its full potential in a warming world.
Hotter summers, warmer winters
There’s no question that the temperature trend is upward. From 2014 through 2023, the world experienced the 10 hottest summers ever recorded in 174 years of climate data. Just a few months of sweltering, unrelenting heat can significantly affect plant health, especially cool-season garden crops like broccoli, carrots, radishes and kale.
Winters are also warming, and this matters for plants. The USDA defines plant hardiness zones based on the coldest average annual temperature in winter at a given location. Each zone represents a 10-degree F range, with zones numbered from 1 (coldest) to 13 (warmest). Zones are divided into 5-degree F half zones, which are lettered “a” (northern) or “b” (southern).
For example, the coldest hardiness zone in the lower 48 states on the new map, 3a, covers small pockets in the northernmost parts of Minnesota and has winter extreme temperatures of -40 F to -35 F. The warmest zone, 11b, is in Key West, Florida, where the coldest annual lows range from 45 F to 50 F.
On the 2012 map, northern Minnesota had a much more extensive and continuous zone 3a. North Dakota also had areas designated in this same zone, but those regions now have shifted completely into Canada. Zone 10b once covered the southern tip of mainland Florida, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, but has now been pushed northward by a rapidly encroaching zone 11a.
Many people buy seeds or seedlings without thinking about hardiness zones, planting dates or disease risks. But when plants have to contend with temperature shifts, heat stress and disease, they will eventually struggle to survive in areas where they once thrived.
Successful gardening is still possible, though. Here are some things to consider before you plant:
Annuals versus perennials
Hardiness zones matter far less for annual plants, which germinate, flower and die in a single growing season, than for perennial plants that last for several years. Annuals typically avoid the lethal winter temperatures that define plant hardiness zones.
In fact, most annual seed packs don’t even list the plants’ hardiness zones. Instead, they provide sowing date guidelines by geographic region. It’s still important to follow those dates, which help ensure that frost-tender crops are not planted too early and that cool-season crops are not harvested too late in the year.
User-friendly perennials have broad hardiness zones
Many perennials can grow across wide temperature ranges. For example, hardy fig and hardy kiwifruit grow well in zones 4-8, an area that includes most of the Northeast, Midwest and Plains states. Raspberries are hardy in zones 3-9, and blackberries are hardy in zones 5-9. This eliminates a lot of guesswork for most gardeners, since a majority of U.S. states are dominated by two or more of these zones.
Nevertheless, it’s important to pay attention to plant tags to avoid selecting a variety or cultivar with a restricted hardiness zone over another with greater flexibility. Also, pay attention to instructions about proper sun exposure and planting dates after the last frost in your area.
Fruit trees are sensitive to temperature fluctuations
Fruit trees have two parts, the rootstock and the scion wood, that are grafted together to form a single tree. Rootstocks, which consist mainly of a root system, determine the tree’s size, timing of flowering and tolerance of soil-dwelling pests and pathogens. Scion wood, which supports the flowers and fruit, determines the fruit variety.
Most commercially available fruit trees can tolerate a wide range of hardiness zones. However, stone fruits like peaches, plums and cherries are more sensitive to temperature fluctuations within those zones – particularly abrupt swings in winter temperatures that create unpredictable freeze-thaw events.
These seesaw weather episodes affect all types of fruit trees, but stone fruits appear to be more susceptible, possibly because they flower earlier in spring, have fewer hardy rootstock options, or have bark characteristics that make them more vulnerable to winter injury.
Perennial plants’ hardiness increases through the seasons in a process called hardening off, which conditions them for harsher temperatures, moisture loss in sun and wind, and full sun exposure. But a too-sudden autumn temperature drop can cause plants to die back in winter, an event known as winter kill. Similarly, a sudden spring temperature spike can lead to premature flowering and subsequent frost kill.
Pests are moving north too
Plants aren’t the only organisms constrained by temperature. With milder winters, southern insect pests and plant pathogens are expanding their ranges northward.
One example is Southern blight, a stem and root rot disease that affects 500 plant species and is caused by a fungus, Agroathelia rolfsii. It’s often thought of as affecting hot Southern gardens, but has become more commonplace recently in the Northeast U.S. on tomatoes, pumpkins and squash, and other crops, including apples in Pennsylvania.
Other plant pathogens may take advantage of milder winter temperatures, which leads to prolonged saturation of soils instead of freezing. Both plants and microbes are less active when soil is frozen, but in wet soil, microbes have an opportunity to colonize dormant perennial plant roots, leading to more disease.
It can be challenging to accept that climate change is stressing some of your garden favorites, but there are thousands of varieties of plants to suit both your interests and your hardiness zone. Growing plants is an opportunity to admire their flexibility and the features that enable many of them to thrive in a world of change.
Matt Kasson, Associate Professor of Mycology and Plant Pathology, West Virginia University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Friday, March 22, 2024
Legislative inaction and dissatisfaction with one-party control lead to more issues going directly to voters in ballot initiatives, with 60% of them in six states
Recent polls show Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with their system of representative democracy, in which they choose candidates to represent their interests once in office.
When available, voters have bypassed their elected representatives and enacted laws by using direct democracy tools such as ballot initiatives and veto referendums. Ballot initiatives allow citizens or legislatures to propose policies for voter approval, while veto referendums permit challenges to legislative action.
The number of initiatives and veto referendums proposed nationally has been fairly stable over the past two decades. Over the past five years, however, lawmakers have increasingly adopted measures making it harder to get these initiatives and referendums on the ballot.
Citizen-led ballot measures in recent years have been used in various states to expand Medicaid, preserve abortion rights and raise minimum wages. The most common topic for veto referendums over the years has been taxation.
America’s founders were wary of direct democracy and what they felt was the risk of the tyranny of the majority, a situation wherein the majority places its own interests above the interests of a minority. Scholars have found that these direct democracy tools have disproportionately been used to promote conservative policies over progressive ones. They also note the potential threats direct democracy poses to democratic rights.
There is growing evidence, however, that these direct democracy tools are increasingly being used in a more broadly representative manner. And these measures often address a variety of progressive policies. Arizona, my home state, provides an interesting case study.
Mostly Western states
The citizen initiative and veto referendum process varies by state. In general, citizens collect signatures to have an issue placed directly on the ballot for the voters to decide.
Just half the states allow citizens to directly engage in this kind of policymaking. Twenty-four states allow some form of initiative, and 26 allow for referendums. The majority of these states allow both the initiative and veto referendum.
Most states that equip their citizens with direct democracy tools are in the West. About 60% of all initiative activity occurs in six states: Arizona, California, Colorado, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington. The states with the most veto referendums are North Dakota, Oregon and California.
Initially, Eastern and Southern states left out these direct democracy tools from their state constitutions primarily out of fear that direct democracy would empower Black people and immigrants.
Direct democracy tools found fertile ground in the Midwest and West during the populist and progressive movements of the late 19th century. As these territories became states, they often built these instruments into their state constitutions.
A total of 2,536 citizen initiative measures advanced in the 24 states that allow them from 2000 to 2023, with 1,631, or approximately two-thirds passing.
Defaulting to direct democracy
Two trends are reshaping the use of initiatives and referendums.
The first is the continued partisan polarization in the U.S. and voters’ frustration with the two-party system and the parties themselves.
Most Americans want their elected officials to compromise on important public policy issues, but the two major parties are increasingly embracing an uncompromising mindset that undermines their ability to address important public issues. I explore this in the book I co-authored with colleagues Jacqueline Salit and Omar Ali, “The Independent Voter.”
Second, many states are now controlled by one party. Forty states are currently under trifecta partisan control – where one party dominates the governor’s office, House and Senate. By population, only 17.4% of Americans are living in states with divided state government.
When elected officials are unwilling or unable to compromise, and the majority of U.S. citizens are living in states where there is consolidated control of government by a major party, important problems can go unaddressed.
‘Essential to a truly functioning democracy’
The history of direct democracy tools in Arizona, where I live, provides an interesting example of how these tools have been used in a broadly representative manner.
In preparation for becoming a state, the framers of Arizona’s Constitution in 1910 wanted legislators to be the primary method of making laws, but they were concerned that legislators might not act on key issues. They viewed the initiative and referendum as essential parts of a functioning democracy, in which citizens could get around legislative inaction.
During Arizona’s constitutional convention in 1910, the Los Angeles Express newspaper urged its neighbor to push for direct democracy: “Let not Arizona be deterred from its purposes by menaces of the reactionaries or threats from such errant boys of big business… Let it write the initiative, the referendum, direct primaries, and the recall into the constitution and arm its people forever with the power of complete self-government.”
Ballot initiatives have been used by every kind of group for all kinds of purposes in the state. They have been passed both to increase and to curb public spending. Measures approved by voters have opposed affirmative action and immigrants’ access to state and local funds.
Other ballot measures increased the minimum wage, established a redistricting commission to combat gerrymandering and allowed the use of medical and recreational marijuana.
In 2024, initiatives likely to appear on the ballot include measures to expand abortion access and mandate open primaries.
While many state legislative bodies have been overturning or altering voter initiatives, citizens in Arizona prevented this from taking place.
Arizonans passed a unique voter-initiated constitutional amendment in 1998 known as the Voter Protection Act. It prohibits a governor’s veto or legislative repeal of any voter-passed initiative.
The procedures to put such initiatives and referendums to vote, however, are still largely controlled by the state Legislature. Arizona lawmakers have been successful passing legislation leading to a significant increase in rejected signatures. Because a certain number of signatures are required to get an initiative or referendum on the ballot, such legislation makes it harder to do that.
Direct democracy tools such as the ballot initiative and veto referendum have provided Arizonans with important alternatives to enacting public policy when elected representatives failed to do so. And these measures are being used to address a range of public policy issues, both conservative and liberal. Arizona can serve as a role model for how direct democracy can work for the rest of the states.
Thom Reilly, Professor & Co-Director, Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
5 Handy Ways to Jumpstart Productivity in Your Workspace
Designing a project workspace can take your creativity to new heights. Whether you’re into woodworking, metalworking, building models or repairing bikes or tools like chainsaws, having the right space allows you to focus on creating and enjoying each project to the fullest.
Completing a job to your satisfaction requires the right tools, equipment and resources to get the job done. Set up a workspace that lets you explore your passion with these tips from the DIY pros at Work IQ Tools:
Identify your needs. Every project comes with a unique set of tools and requirements for success. Make a list so you can ensure you account for every detail.
- Determine if a large, flat workspace is required or floor space is better suited.
- Balance comfort and craftsmanship by choosing a stable chair or rolling chair or decide if working on your feet is more practical.
- Decide exactly how much space you realistically need.
- Assess your access to adequate power sources.
- If you’re using paints and varnish or other odorous substances, ensure there’s proper ventilation.
Invest in the right equipment. Having the right tools allows you to work faster, easier and smarter. Incorporating a solution like the IQ Vise System is like having a built-in problem solver with smart features that improve functionality and capability. The vise features a ball and socket design that allows articulation and 360-degree rotation at any angle for optimal work positioning while complementing task-specific jaws are crafted to create the perfect grip for an extensive range of shapes and materials.
Plan for storage. Keeping all your parts and pieces neatly organized means they remain in good condition until you need them, and you can find what you’re looking for easily. When you’re planning your storage needs, think about the space you need at every stage, including how you’ll protect a project that is in progress when you step away from your workspace.
Light it up. A well-lit workspace gives you the visibility you need to complete each project to your satisfaction. Overhead lights rarely do the trick for hands-on work, so plan to add task lamps to your work area. Look for models with features that match your hobby needs, such as dimming capabilities and goose necks that allow you to position the lights just right.
Remember safety. Different projects require distinct protective gear, but virtually all DIYers can benefit from some basic safety precautions. At the least, keep a first aid kit handy for nicks and cuts, but also consider safety glasses, gloves, ear protection and other gear that can help protect you while you work.
Find more useful tools to create a functional project workspace at workiqtools.com.
Workshop Assistants to Get the Job Done
No matter your craft or hobby, you can find plenty of tools and accessories that make it easier to navigate the intricate details of each project you tackle. Consider these IQ Connect plug-and-play workshop accessories that provide hands-free assistance where and when needed on the IQ Vise and around your work area via three additional mounting options.
Work Light: Task lighting helps illuminate dark or shadowed areas so you can see the tiniest details. A hands-free, 180-lumen work light that mounts in a magnetic holder, bench mount or clamp mount can add extra versatility. Rechargeable and featuring multiple light settings, it’s always ready and adaptable to your needs.
Magnifying Glass: Many hobby projects require intricately detailed work that’s difficult to see with the naked eye, whether it’s a minute piece of your project or the fine print on a tool. Look for a magnifying glass that’s at least 5 inches in diameter with at least two levels of magnification and an adjustable frame so you can get the angle just right.
Cell Phone Holder: A smartphone is often a hobbyist’s most valuable tool since you can use it to look up information, scan for design inspiration, record your process or add entertainment to your work session. An adjustable hands-free holder lets you get the positioning just right while giving you the freedom to tackle the tasks at hand.
SOURCE:Thursday, March 21, 2024
AI vs. elections: 4 essential reads about the threat of high-tech deception in politics
It’s official. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have secured the necessary delegates to be their parties’ nominees for president in the 2024 election. Barring unforeseen events, the two will be formally nominated at the party conventions this summer and face off at the ballot box on Nov. 5.
It’s a safe bet that, as in recent elections, this one will play out largely online and feature a potent blend of news and disinformation delivered over social media. New this year are powerful generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and Sora that make it easier to “flood the zone” with propaganda and disinformation and produce convincing deepfakes: words coming from the mouths of politicians that they did not actually say and events replaying before our eyes that did not actually happen.
The result is an increased likelihood of voters being deceived and, perhaps as worrisome, a growing sense that you can’t trust anything you see online. Trump is already taking advantage of the so-called liar’s dividend, the opportunity to discount your actual words and deeds as deepfakes. Trump implied on his Truth Social platform on March 12, 2024, that real videos of him shown by Democratic House members were produced or altered using artificial intelligence.
The Conversation has been covering the latest developments in artificial intelligence that have the potential to undermine democracy. The following is a roundup of some of those articles from our archive.
1. Fake events
The ability to use AI to make convincing fakes is particularly troublesome for producing false evidence of events that never happened. Rochester Institute of Technology computer security researcher Christopher Schwartz has dubbed these situation deepfakes.
“The basic idea and technology of a situation deepfake are the same as with any other deepfake, but with a bolder ambition: to manipulate a real event or invent one from thin air,” he wrote.
Situation deepfakes could be used to boost or undermine a candidate or suppress voter turnout. If you encounter reports on social media of events that are surprising or extraordinary, try to learn more about them from reliable sources, such as fact-checked news reports, peer-reviewed academic articles or interviews with credentialed experts, Schwartz said. Also, recognize that deepfakes can take advantage of what you are inclined to believe.
2. Russia, China and Iran take aim
From the question of what AI-generated disinformation can do follows the question of who has been wielding it. Today’s AI tools put the capacity to produce disinformation in reach for most people, but of particular concern are nations that are adversaries of the United States and other democracies. In particular, Russia, China and Iran have extensive experience with disinformation campaigns and technology.
“There’s a lot more to running a disinformation campaign than generating content,” wrote security expert and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Bruce Schneier. “The hard part is distribution. A propagandist needs a series of fake accounts on which to post, and others to boost it into the mainstream where it can go viral.”
Russia and China have a history of testing disinformation campaigns on smaller countries, according to Schneier. “Countering new disinformation campaigns requires being able to recognize them, and recognizing them requires looking for and cataloging them now,” he wrote.
3. Healthy skepticism
But it doesn’t require the resources of shadowy intelligence services in powerful nations to make headlines, as the New Hampshire fake Biden robocall produced and disseminated by two individuals and aimed at dissuading some voters illustrates. That episode prompted the Federal Communications Commission to ban robocalls that use voices generated by artificial intelligence.
AI-powered disinformation campaigns are difficult to counter because they can be delivered over different channels, including robocalls, social media, email, text message and websites, which complicates the digital forensics of tracking down the sources of the disinformation, wrote Joan Donovan, a media and disinformation scholar at Boston University.
“In many ways, AI-enhanced disinformation such as the New Hampshire robocall poses the same problems as every other form of disinformation,” Donovan wrote. “People who use AI to disrupt elections are likely to do what they can to hide their tracks, which is why it’s necessary for the public to remain skeptical about claims that do not come from verified sources, such as local TV news or social media accounts of reputable news organizations.”
4. A new kind of political machine
AI-powered disinformation campaigns are also difficult to counter because they can include bots – automated social media accounts that pose as real people – and can include online interactions tailored to individuals, potentially over the course of an election and potentially with millions of people.
Harvard political scientist Archon Fung and legal scholar Lawrence Lessig described these capabilities and laid out a hypothetical scenario of national political campaigns wielding these powerful tools.
Attempts to block these machines could run afoul of the free speech protections of the First Amendment, according to Fung and Lessig. “One constitutionally safer, if smaller, step, already adopted in part by European internet regulators and in California, is to prohibit bots from passing themselves off as people,” they wrote. “For example, regulation might require that campaign messages come with disclaimers when the content they contain is generated by machines rather than humans.”
This article is part of Disinformation 2024: a series examining the science, technology and politics of deception in elections.
Eric Smalley, Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
$50K per year for a degree in a low-wage industry − is culinary school worth it?
America’s culinary schools are feeling the heat.
When chef Gordon Ramsay appeared on an episode of the YouTube series “Last Meal” in January 2024, he described U.S. culinary schools as “depressing” places that “sandbag” students with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt before releasing them into a low-wage industry.
He added that graduates are pressured to select jobs that will put them in the best position to pay off their loans, rather than ones that will give them opportunities to learn and grow as chefs. Ramsay singled out the Culinary Institute of America, one of the most prestigious cooking schools in the country, as it sets students at its New York campus back US$52,090 per academic year.
Then, at the end of February, The New York Times published a compilation of interviews from 30 chefs around the U.S. They chimed in on a range of topics, but they were pretty much in lockstep when it came to culinary degrees:
“People ask me, ‘What’s a good culinary school to go to?’” chef Justin Pioche said. “And I always tell them: Don’t go.”
Chef Robynne Maii added, “I always sing the praises of culinary school, but in community colleges only. All the for-profit schools need to go away. They’re completely unnecessary and they’re predatory.”
These sentiments are not unique to culinary schools.
Trade, technical and for-profit schools are routinely criticized for their lopsided cost-to-benefit ratio, with scholars such as Tressie McMillan Cottom and A.J. Angulo arguing that many of them have predatory financial processes baked into their business models. There has been a similar critique – often tinged with political undercurrents – over graduate degrees in the humanities, arts and social sciences, described by the Wall Street Journal as “elite master’s degrees that don’t pay off.”
Yet thousands of aspiring chefs continue to enroll in expensive culinary schools, rather than learn on the job while being paid. And in the research for my book on notions of success in the culinary industry, I found that many graduates from these institutions actually feel their experiences were worth the price of admission.
What might explain this paradox?
Beyond dollars and cents
Cooks and chefs regularly debate the merits of culinary school.
It’s also a question I asked 50 U.S.-based kitchen workers during a study I conducted from 2018 to 2020. Of those 50 workers, 22 had attended culinary school. And of those 22 chefs, 17 believed their education was worth the cost – over three-quarters.
They were clear-eyed about how much they would earn after graduation – very little – and they also grasped that the debt would constrain their future work choices.
Yet, to them, the worth of their schooling didn’t hinge on wages and earning power.
Instead, they found immense value in the friendships and connections they forged – and in learning the culture of commercial kitchens. Social scientists have terms for these benefits: social capital and cultural capital.
Interviewees described being able to meet mentors through school events, gain experience in award-winning kitchens through internships, form relationships with classmates and always have a degree to point to as proof of know-how.
Culinary school was particularly helpful for individuals who felt socially disadvantaged in some way. They may have lacked connections and experience, or they were a minority in an industry where white men are more likely to serve as executive chefs.
“Because I am a female it was harder for me to get a sous-chef job,” one chef explained to me. “I mean, I saw kids who were not nearly as skilled as I was who got sous-chef positions, and I’d always get passed up. But I really feel that that education [from the Culinary Institute of America] – especially as a woman – really helped me. A lot. I would’ve never got the jobs I got without it.”
In her 2015 book “At The Chef’s Table,” sociologist Vanina Leschziner found that elite chefs claim to not weigh academic degrees highly while hiring, a sentiment also found by the food website Eater. At the same time, Leschziner found that 85% of elite chefs in San Francisco and New York were culinary school graduates, with 67% holding degrees from the Culinary Institute of America.
At face value, it’s possible that degrees and certificates are dismissed or overlooked during the hiring process. But social connections are not. So perhaps the networks and friendships formed during schooling are a big reason why most high-status restaurants are staffed by culinary school graduates.
With these industry realities in mind, culinary school doesn’t seem to “sandbag” students; instead, it helps them overcome barriers that they ordinarily couldn’t.
Not all culinary schools are alike
Based on my interviewees’ enthusiasm, culinary school degrees seem like a no-brainer. But there are caveats.
First, these largely positive perceptions of culinary school came primarily from students who had gone to the Culinary Institute of America. Attendees of college or for-profit programs, such as the now-shuttered U.S. Le Cordon Bleu campuses, were less pleased about their experience, with just 66% feeling like their degree was worth it, compared with 90% of those I interviewed with degrees from the Culinary Institute of America. While some of this discontent was due to quality of instruction, a large part was related to schools’ prestige.
There are about 260 culinary programs across the nation. Schools at the top of the hierarchy, such as the Culinary Institute of America and the Institute of Culinary Education, are seen as places where high-status networks can be honed. This is, in part, a result of filtering out those who can’t afford to pay.
A degree from a top school is associated with the high-caliber restaurants and chefs that Leschziner wrote about; a degree from a lesser-known program likely yields far less social and cultural capital.
Second, I spoke only to individuals who still work in the industry, and that’s just a fraction of the culinary school population. Not all who attend remain in the industry. In fact, my interviewees estimated that only one-third of their classmates still cooked professionally.
Those who stick around likely present a more positive take: They had finished school and had found some measure of success in a notoriously brutal industry. Had I spoken to the two-thirds of graduates who had left the industry, this article might read differently.
Finally, because students devote a lot of time and money to an experience that yields little financial return on investment, adopting a rosy outlook on their schooling may smooth over any inner turmoil that might arise as they judge themselves and their past decisions.
A foot in the door
Determining the value of expensive culinary education is tough.
It can also detract from the very real problem of predatory and overpriced schooling, especially as the cost of higher education – in all forms – continues to rise, to the point of excluding large swaths of the population.
What’s clear to me, though, is that finances are not the sole – nor most important – reason why people choose to attend pricey culinary programs. My interviewees viewed culinary school as a social experience, one that provides meaningful networking and cultural opportunities to students and alumni.
As one award-winning chef told me, “If I wouldn’t have gone (to the Culinary Institute of America), I wouldn’t have gotten (my first) job as a personal chef. … Anytime people see (Culinary Institute of America) on the resume – whether it should or shouldn’t – it does open doors. So, I’m really glad I went there.”
Ellen T. Meiser, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Hawaii at Hilo
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.