The oft-used denoscription of early humans as “hunter-gatherers” should be changed to “gatherer-hunters,” at least in the Andes of South America, according to groundbreaking research led by a University of Wyoming archaeologist.

Archaeologists long thought that early human diets were meat-based. However, Assistant Professor Randy Haas’ analysis of the remains of 24 individuals from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa burial sites in Peru shows that early human diets in the Andes Mountains were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat

[...] “Conventional wisdom holds that early human economies focused on hunting -- an idea that has led to a number of high-protein dietary fads, such as the Paleodiet,” Haas says. “Our analysis shows that the diets were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat.”

For these early humans of the Andes, spanning from 9,000 to 6,500 years ago, there is indeed evidence that hunting of large mammals provided some of their diets. But the new analysis of the isotopic composition of the human bones shows that plant foods made up the majority of individual diets, with meat playing a secondary role.

Additionally, burnt plant remains from the sites and distinct dental-wear patterns on the individuals’ upper incisors indicate that tubers -- or plants that grow underground, such as potatoes -- likely were the most prominent subsistence resource.

https://www.uwyo.edu/news/2024/01/uw-professors-research-challenges-hunter-gatherer-narrative.html

In June, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a motion to study the feasibility of implementing a type of public campaign financing called “democracy vouchers” that could boost engagement in local elections. The city’s chief legislative analyst and the Ethics Commission were tasked with issuing recommendations for a program that would give every Los Angeles resident a set of vouchers that could be donated to participating candidates for city office, who could then redeem them for campaign funding.

https://readsludge.com/2023/12/08/los-angeles-considers-democracy-vouchers-to-expand-engagement-in-city-elections/

A key lesson of The Destruction of Reason is that, whether or not one thinks Lukács’s strict materialist dialectics offers the complete truth, the Left should not cede the terrain of reason and justice to the Right. Doing so is not only strategically unsound — too often the result of internalizing arguments that have their basis in reactionary thought — it also breaks with a long tradition of leftist critique that saw democracy, freedom, and equality as providing the rational basis for a better society. This is a tradition we can and should reclaim in a new millennium whose politics are once more defined by the spread of prejudice and hate.

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/georg-lukacs-irrationalism-right-wing-thought-philosophy/

More recent findings have also responded to some of those concerns. A study of 348 US undergraduate students by the University of Maryland last year found exposure to solutions journalism was “positively associated” with the increased likelihood to support collective action to fight for better policy. Other research has found it has improved coverage of gender violence and immigrants as well as conflict reporting.

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/solutions-journalism-growing-impact/

"In late 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, an anonymous hacker sent me hundreds of thousands of patient and prenoscription records from telehealth companies working with America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS). AFLDS is a far-right anti-vaccine group that misleads people about Covid-19 vaccine safety and tricks patients into paying millions of dollars for drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which are ineffective at preventing or treating the virus. The group was initially formed to help Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, and the group’s leader, Simone Gold, was arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. In 2022, she served two months in prison for her role in the attack."

https://theintercept.com/2023/12/16/hacked-datasets-verification/