Dose Of News Useful Today

Monday, April 12th

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Good morning. Up next: the Biden administration’s first budget proposal, a 3,400-year-old city uncovered in Egypt, and a monkey playing Pong with only its brain.

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, begins today. (Learn about its origins, meanings, and observances.)

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Daily Sprinkle

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

―Dalai Lama XIV

This Week at a Glance

Monday: Corporate executives meet at the White House to discuss global chip shortage

Tuesday: Labor Bureau publishes its Consumer Price Index report

Wednesday: Coinbase scheduled to IPO

Thursday: NOT Tax Day (extended to May 17)

Friday: Weekly jobless report

🎓💉 College: Vaccine Required?

On Friday, Duke University announced it will require all new and returning students to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination before they can enroll for the fall semester.

The school will provide exceptions for documented medical or religious exemptions and online courses.

Duke joins a growing list of universities instituting similar vaccination requirements including Rutgers, Brown, Cornell, Notre Dame, Northeastern, Syracuse, and Rutgers.

🤿 A deeper dive…
There are three good reasons to require student vaccinations, the chief operating officer of Rutgers - the first university to do so - told USA Today:

1. Their population interacts with others often.
2. They tend to be mobile.
3. Safety precautions may not be their top concern.

⚖️ Is it legal?
That depends on the university, according to experts, who say it may be easier for private schools compared to public.

Each institution must navigate federal law, state law, and their own autonomy to make requirements more generally (e.g., vaccine mandates currently in place).

🤔 What’s Next?
More than three-quarters of undergraduates anticipate receiving the vaccine as soon as it becomes available to them (77%), according to a CollegePulse survey of 1k students.

A poll of more than 1k members of the private FB group Paying for College 101 found most parents were in favor of the vaccine mandates.
A smaller segment of parents were fearful about long-term medical effects of the vaccine or felt it was an infringement of their civil liberties.

Some state lawmakers opposed to the mandates are considering - or have - taken action to prohibit entities like schools and businesses from requiring people to show proof of vaccines.

Vaccine passports are a terrible idea that deprive American families of basic choices

RIGHT → Fox News (Opinion)

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📝 Biden Admin Releases Budget

President Biden released the first budget request of his administration on Friday – a $1.52T proposal for the 2022 fiscal year (which begins October 1).

Biden’s proposed budget is an 8.4% increase over the $1.4T authorized last year, excluding emergency measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
It calls for a 16% raise in nondefense spending to $769.4B, and a 1.7% increase in defense spending to $753B.

More: See the full spending breakdown.

From the Left → NPR	From the Right → WSJ

🇪🇬 Ancient City Discovered in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt revealed the discovery of a Golden Age city dating back 3,400 years.

The city, known as Aten, was unearthed within weeks of the excavation starting in September 2020. It marks the largest ancient city ever uncovered in Egypt.

More: A Johns Hopkins University professor of Egyptology referred to the find as “the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun." See pictures from the site.

⏰ Catch Up Quick:

Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, died at 99 on Friday. | Rapper DMX also passed away on Friday at 50 years old.
Iran is calling a Sunday morning blackout at its Natanz nuclear facility “nuclear terrorism.” (From the Left | From the Right)
The brain of former NFL player Phillip Adams, who fatally shot six victims and himself last week, will be tested for CTE.
The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). (From the Left | From the Right)

🖼️ The Awe-Evoking Power of Nature…

Image: Reuters

La Soufrière began erupting on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Friday. Volcanic ash continued to fall on the island yesterday, with warnings of more danger ahead.

A security camera at a Wisconsin high school captured the exact moment a lightning strike destroyed a tree.

💰 A Fine Line

The Chinese government issued a record $2.8B fine to online retailer Alibaba on Saturday for violating the country’s anti-monopoly law.

The State Administration for Market Regulation said Alibaba was fined for “abusing its dominant position” to limit competition among retailers using its platforms.

More: Alibaba was founded by billionaire Jack Ma, who stepped down from its board last October. Later that month, Ma gave a speech criticizing China’s regulatory system that reportedly drew the ire of the CCP and resulted in Ma’s temporary public disappearance.

🗳️ Amazon Union Vote

Amazon workers at a plant in Bessemer, AL, voted against unionization by a 1,798 to 738 tally.

Roughly 55% of the 5,900 employees at the warehouse participated in the election (which features more than 500 challenged ballots).

More: The Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union filed a legal challenge contesting the election results, accusing Amazon of interfering with their employees’ freedom of choice – allegations the company has rejected.

From the Left → NPR

From the Right → NY Post

⛳ A Weekend Unlike Any Other…

Hideki Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters yesterday, scoring a 10-under for the weekend to edge out Will Zalatoris by one stroke.

With the victory, Matsuyama became the first male golfer from Japan to win a major championship.

⚾ In Other Sporting News: Pitcher Joe Musgrove threw the first no-hitter in San Diego Padres history - and the first of 2021 - Friday night.

☝️ 1 Last Thing…

🚇 Elon Musk’s Boring Company unveiled its $52.5M underground people-mover system on Thursday. The tunnel supposedly turns a 15-minute walk into a two-minute Tesla ride.

👰🏻💒 What a Wedding!

One woman got the surprise of her life on her wedding day, marrying the love of her life (par for the course) while simultaneously finding her long-lost birth mother (not so par for the course) – who just so happened to be her new mother-in-law (really not so par for the course).

In a series of events that could rival your favorite soap opera, mother-of-the-groom, Xi, was able to determine that her son’s bride was actually her long-lost-daughter from a birthmark on her hand.

Images: Sohu News

“My daughter I had been looking for so many years turned out to be my daughter-in-law!” said Xi after the emotional reunion.

It’s unclear how Xi lost her daughter about twenty years ago, but some have raised the possibility of child trafficking.

When her daughter was found on the side of the road as a baby, another couple adopted and raised her as their own. After the two mothers connected at the wedding, Xi was able to determine that the bride was indeed her daughter.

Soooo…. did the wedding still happen?

Luckily, Xi’s son was also adopted - meaning the couple shared no biological blood - and the happy occasion took place after all.

Gif: Neuralink

🧠 Monkey Business… a Macaque monkey was able to play a game of Pong using only its thoughts via a Neuralink computer chip implanted in its brain. (Video)

🧬 Sound Editing… researchers at MIT and the University of California, San Francisco, developed new gene-editing technology called CRISPRoff that, unlike the classic CRISPR-Cas9 system, is reversible and prevents damaging cells’ genetic material.

➕ Think Positive… a study conducted by behavioral scientists at the University of Virginia found people tend to default towards addition when attempting to solve a problem, even when subtraction represents an equal or even a better solution. (Full study)

🌻 This Little Light of Mine… Dutch design firm Vouw designed a new streetlight called the Bloomlight, which uses a series of motors and LiDAR - a laser technology used in self-driving cars - to bend toward individual passerby as if it were alive. (Video)

⏳ Once Upon a Time

What is the longest measurement in geological time?

A) Era
B) Epoch
C) Period
D) Eon

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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Dose of Knowledge Answer

D) Eon

Eons represent the longest measurement in the geologic time scale, followed by eras, periods, then epochs.

The geologic time scale was developed long before geologists had the means to recognize and express time in terms of years before the present – thus, the units of measurement may vary in length (e.g., the Archean Eon - 1.5B years - and the Proterozoic Eon - 1.959B years - span different, but similar lengths of time).