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PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
World’s Largest Ocean Reserve Off Hawaii Has Spillover Benefits Nearby, Study Finds (Maria)
The author writes, “Six years ago, the then US president, Barack Obama, created the world’s largest fully protected ocean reserve by expanding the existing Papahānaumokuākea marine national monument in Hawaii, a world heritage site that include islands, atolls and archeological treasures. Now scientists have found that the reserve, which spans … 580,000 square miles and is inhabited by whales and turtles, has brought unexpected benefits to the surrounding ocean.”
Judge: Trump Allegedly Engaged in ‘Conspiracy to Defraud’ US, Knew Fraud Claim Was Wrong (Sean)
The authors write, “A California federal judge has found evidence that former President Donald Trump allegedly engaged in ‘a conspiracy to defraud the United States,’ ordering the transfer of four emails from Trump attorney John Eastman to the House committee investigating the Capitol attacks. In an 18-page order Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Carter said the emails were used to press false claims of voter fraud in Georgia even though ‘President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong’ and that Trump ‘continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public.’”
The Shadow Movement of Right-Wing Sheriffs Using Their Powers to Resist Gun Control and Investigate 2020 Election (Reader Steve)
From The Independent: “Nearly half of sheriffs in a nationwide survey felt that in their home counties, they are the final word on what’s legal and constitutional — no matter what state or federal laws or Supreme Court decisions say. It’s a sign of the growing influence of ‘constitutional sheriff’ ideology that’s spread to departments across the country in the last decade, a mindset that’s pushed sheriffs to resist Covid rules, gun laws, investigate election conspiracies, pal around with militia men, and racially profile their constituents.”
What a Pregnancy Actually Looks Like Before 10 Weeks — In Pictures (DonkeyHotey)
From The Guardian: “Abortion is now banned or severely restricted in 14 states in the US, the outcome of a decades-long campaign by anti-abortion advocates. In many states, abortion is no longer seen as a health procedure, but a morality issue. … In 13 of those 14 states, abortion is banned even in the earliest stages of pregnancy. These images, supplied to us by the MYA Network, a network of clinicians and activists who came together earlier in the pandemic when some states tried to deem abortion as ‘non-essential’ medical care, show what tissue in the first nine weeks of pregnancy actually looks like.”
Mobile Homes, the Last Affordable Housing Option for Many California Residents, Are Going Up in Smoke (Laura)
From Inside Climate News: “There is a shortage of about 1 million homes for extremely low-income households, and about 5,000 mobile home parks offer rare affordability, as do individual mobile homes scattered on private land. But recent research shows [California’s] mobile homes often lie in wooded terrain that’s prone to burn.”
Dogs Can Smell When We’re Stressed Out, a New Study Shows (Mili)
The author writes, “It’s long been widely believed that dogs can detect extreme emotions by smell. Now scientists at Queen’s University Belfast in the U.K. have proven that a dog’s nose knows. Acute stress changes the compounds found in human sweat and breath, research has shown. For the new experiment, four dogs were presented with sweat and breath samples collected from human volunteers — before and after the people engaged in a difficult math exercise. The canine participants were able to detect with a greater than 90 percent accuracy which samples came from before and which came from after the 36 human volunteers had spent three minutes trying to count backward, aloud, from 9,000 in units of 17.”
Bizarre Blue Blobs Hover in Earth’s Atmosphere in Stunning Astronaut Photo. But What Are They? (Sean)
The author writes, “An astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) has snapped a peculiar image of Earth from space that contains two bizarre blue blobs of light glimmering in our planet’s atmosphere. The dazzling pair may look otherworldly. But in reality, they are the result of two unrelated natural phenomena that just happened to occur at the same time. The image was captured last year by an unnamed member of the Expedition 66 crew as the ISS passed over the South China Sea. The photo was released online Oct. 9 by NASA’s Earth Observatory.”
