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Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) announced on New Year’s Eve that she tested positive for coronavirus, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. “Today, I received a positive, breakthrough COVID-19 test result. Thankfully, my symptoms are mild & I’m grateful to be fully vaccinated & boosted,” the congresswoman and “squad” member tweeted. “I’m currently isolating & following all health protocols.” [cut] In her statement, Pressley touted the vaccines as life-saving and encouraged her followers to “do their part by getting vaccinated, boosted and masking up.” “Vaccines save lives. With this unprecedented pandemic continuing to rage, I am deeply grateful for the scientists,...

For centuries, concrete was everywhere in Roman Italy: in the awesomely durable breakwaters of artificial harbors, in the soaring vaults of great baths, in the foundations of the Colosseum, and - of course - in the spectacular dome of the Pantheon. But during late antiquity, concrete all but vanished from the Mediterranean world, and would not be used widely again until the twentieth century. This video explains why.Chapters:0:00 Introduction0:39 Understanding Roman concrete1:29 Early experiments2:25 The apogee3:33 Squarespace!4:19 Geographic limits of Roman concrete5:00 The decline of concrete6:28 Final notices7:26 Not forgotten, but goneWhy was Roman Concrete Forgotten during the Middle Ages?...

The great Maya city of Tikal transported zeolites for water filtration thousands of years before other cultures learned or adopted the idea, archaeologists have found. The filtration was probably much better than anything known to the Europeans who conquered the area 1,500 years later. The Corriental reservoir was one of Tikal’s sources of drinking water. Dr Kenneth Tankersley of the University of Cincinnati found crystalline quartz and zeolite when digging at the reservoir. Neither are local to the area and would have had to be brought a long way by the standards of a people who had no beasts of...

Saturday, April 16, 2011 Tepco Continues Desperate Struggle To Block Contamination TOKYO (Nikkei)--With its crippled reactors showing no signs of stabilizing, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) is employing a host of measures to minimize contamination from radioactive water released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The utility on Friday deposited 30 sandbags, each filled with 10kg of zeolite, in the ocean near the water intakes of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. The mineral is said to be effective in absorbing radioactive cesium. Tepco also set up several silt curtains near the intakes to filter out pollutants, and...