Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1737
Earth’s hottest day on record
According to data from the US National Center for Environmental Prediction, the global average temperature reached 17.01°C on July 3, breaking the previous record of 16.92°C set in August 2016.
17 ℃ doesn’t look that hot, but it actually includes high latitudes, high altitudes and the southern hemisphere experiencing winter. This is also the highest global average temperature in 44 years (on record).
During the Dragon Boat Festival this year, many cities in North China have ushered in the “hottest day in history”. Since the construction of the Southern Suburb Observatory in Beijing in 1951, it was the first time that the high temperature weather exceeded 40°C for two consecutive days; Northwest Canada, many places in the United States and Peru In Antarctica, a new July temperature record was also observed at the Vernadsky Research Base in Ukraine.
Scientists have confirmed that June of this year was the hottest June on record globally. According to Karsten Haustein, a climatologist at the University of Leipzig, July is likely to be the hottest month on record — “on record” in reference to the Eemian interglacial period about 120,000 years ago. interglacial stage).
Why is it so hot this summer?
Climate experts generally agree that the record heat is caused by a combination of human carbon dioxide emissions and the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon. Deke Arndt, director of the National Center for Environmental Information at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), described the effects of El Niño as “jumping up the warming escalator”.
In early June of this year, NOAA announced the emergence of El Niño and predicted that it will gradually strengthen throughout this year until 2024.
El Niño occurs on average every 2 to 7 years, typically lasts 9 to 12 months, and is associated with warming sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. When an El Niño occurs, it often leads to severe drought in some areas and excessive rainfall in other areas.
According to Zhou Bing, chief expert on climate services at the China Meteorological Administration, the extreme high temperatures in northern Chinese cities in June this year were also indirectly affected by El Niño.
Under what circumstances can high temperature be fatal?
People are more likely to become dehydrated in the heat, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. High temperatures can also exacerbate breathing problems, especially where air pollution itself is high.
“Hot and humid” weather is more dangerous than “hot and dry”, because it is more difficult for the human body to regulate its temperature through sweating in a humid environment. Heat stroke, with a mortality rate of over 70%, mostly occurs in high-temperature and high-humidity environments.
Weather forecasters are increasingly using “wet bulb temperature” to warn of high temperature risks. It takes into account the effects of humidity and temperature. For example, at 42 degrees Celsius and 40% humidity, the wet bulb temperature is about 30 degrees, while 38 The wet bulb temperature at 80% humidity is much higher at about 35 degrees Celsius. Even for a healthy person with shade and plenty of water, a wet bulb temperature of 35 degrees is enough to cause heat stroke. During the 2003 European heatwave and the 2010 Russian heatwave, wet-bulb temperatures did not rise above 28 degrees, but were high enough to kill thousands, according to a study published in the journal Science.
In addition, some scientific studies have shown that rising temperatures will also lead to higher suicide and crime rates.
According to a study published in 2018 by Stanford University economist Marshall Burke, for every 1 degree Celsius rise in average temperatures in the United States and Mexico, the suicide rate also rose by 1 percent. And for those with mental illness themselves, the heat can be even more deadly, as some antidepressants themselves can impair the body’s ability to sweat or cause dehydration poisoning. (Qiu Hao)
Internet “living fossil” Yahoo is about to go public
Recently, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone (Jim Lanzone) said that Yahoo plans to go public again, and has already made financial preparations, with a good balance sheet and profitability.
As a “living fossil” in the Internet industry, Yahoo was founded in 1994 and completed its IPO on Nasdaq two years later. As of the end of 1999, Yahoo had 120 million unique users and became the first Internet company with a market capitalization exceeding US$100 billion. But in 2016, Yahoo was acquired by the US telecommunications company Verizon for only $4.48 billion, and it exited the stock market three years later.
Over the past two decades, Yahoo has changed eight CEOs, including former Warner Bros. CEO Terry Semel, Google No. 20 employee Marissa Mayer, and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang. Mistakes:
- Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin planned to sell to Yahoo for $1 million at the beginning of the project, or get the platform of the founder of Yahoo, but were rejected by Yahoo. Later, Google’s business gradually grew, and Yahoo’s two attempts to acquire Google were also rejected;
- During Terry Semel’s tenure, Yahoo offered $1 billion to acquire Facebook, and cut the offer by $150 million before signing the contract. Zuckerberg flatly refused;
- Microsoft proposed a $44.6 billion premium acquisition to Yahoo in 2008, hoping to join forces with Yahoo to counter Google, but Yahoo’s board of directors believed that Microsoft had “seriously underestimated” Yahoo’s actual value, and ultimately rejected the deal;
- In addition, Yahoo also acquired music video site Broadcast, search engine Altavista, image social product Flickr, and light blogging platform Tumblr, etc. Most of these companies closed down.
Yahoo’s most important and successful investment was the acquisition of 40% of Alibaba in 2005 for US$1 billion. Since then, Alibaba has gradually become a Chinese e-commerce giant, and it has also become the economic foundation that Yahoo can support until now. After being acquired in 2016, Yahoo divested part of its assets such as Alibaba and Yahoo Japan shares, and changed its name to Altaba. Altaba continued to reduce its holdings of Alibaba’s stock, and finally cleared its position in 2020.
In 2021, Verizon will transfer its 90% stake in media assets such as Yahoo and America Online (AOL) to private equity fund Apollo Global Management for US$5 billion. After the transaction is completed, the name is changed back to “Yahoo “. The current CEO, Jim Lanzon, announced his succession after the merger.
“Although the company has encountered difficulties at different points in time, our traffic is still very strong, and we will usher in the best days.” Jim Lanzon said that Yahoo’s total traffic still ranks fifth in the world, and in search No. 3 in the market, “even after all this time and being owned by a telecom company for 6 years”.
Yahoo currently has more than thirty business units, including finance, sports, news, mail and TechCrunch and other sites. Jim Lanzon also said that Yahoo will actively consider seeking merger and acquisition opportunities in related industries that have not yet established a business, and artificial intelligence will also provide a new opportunity for all businesses. (Intern Fu Xiaoyu)
Fukushima nuclear treatment water is about to be discharged into the sea, what are scientists worried about?
On July 4, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report on the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, arguing that the discharge complies with the IAEA’s safety standards, and the radioactive impact on humans and the environment is negligible. According to media reports, based on the report, the Japanese government will advance the sea discharge plan as scheduled, starting as early as August.
The report raised doubts in some countries. China stated that the report failed to reflect the opinions of all experts involved in the evaluation, and the conclusions were relatively limited and one-sided; the South Korean opposition party pointed out that the IAEA did not even inspect the equipment, and drew conclusions based on the data provided by Japan. Japan stated that it will continue to explain the safety of the sea discharge plan to the international community based on scientific evidence and transparency.
In fact, since the sea discharge plan was announced in April 2021, its science and transparency have been the focus of controversy.
The Japanese side believes that rowing into the sea is the best option. According to the plan, after the Fukushima nuclear treatment water is filtered, most of the radioactive elements except tritium have been removed; tritium is difficult to separate from the water, so it will be diluted to reduce the content to a safe standard, and then divided into 30 to 40 years annual emissions.
The resulting impact is minimal. According to Japanese government data, the tritium content of the treated water it plans to discharge each year (22 trillion becquerels) is lower than the tritium content of nuclear wastewater normally discharged by many nuclear power plants, such as Canada’s Darlington nuclear power plant (190 trillion becquerels) .
There are many doubts about it. The first is the difference between nuclear wastewater and nuclear treated water. The former does not directly contact nuclear fuel and has mature safety standards. Fukushima’s nuclear treatment water directly contacts nuclear fuel, and theoretically contains all the radioactive elements in it. The detection range and treatment methods should be different, but there is no clear standard yet.
People are more concerned about the possible presence of other radioactive elements than tritium. In August last year, a number of scientists jointly published an article in the “Japan Times”, calling on Japan to postpone the sea discharge plan until more comprehensive and reliable data and assessment results are obtained.
The article mentioned that Japan currently only takes a small number of water samples from about a quarter of its water storage tanks and regularly detects 7 to 10 radioactive elements. However, the data shows that the concentration of some elements such as strontium 90 and cesium 137 varies greatly between samples, which means that this sampling method cannot fully reflect the overall situation, and the filtering effect is also questionable.
The more general question is that the idea of dilution is inherently problematic, because radioactive elements will eventually accumulate in marine organisms and be transmitted to the human body through the food chain, with long-term effects.
Physicist Dalnoki-Veress, who has been involved in the assessment of Fukushima nuclear treatment water for nearly two years, mentioned in a report in June this year that a team of scientists proposed to Japan to design experiments to further understand the impact of radioactive substances on marine life. related implications, but have not been adopted so far.
In fact, the more mainstream views in the academic circles do not seem to oppose Japan’s approach. How to evaluate scientificity and transparency is not completely objective, but also related to value preference and optimism.
But Dalnoki-Veress stresses that draining the sea is not routine. Alternatives suggested by scientists include farming oysters in nuclear-treated water to speed up the absorption of radioactive elements, or using the water to make concrete so that radioactive materials cannot be released. (Lin Guangying)
OTHER NEWS
Wei Jianguo, the former vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China’s restrictions on the export of chip materials are just the beginning.
On July 5, Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China International Economic Exchange Center and former vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with China Daily that the implementation of export controls on gallium and germanium-related items is only the beginning of China’s countermeasures. There are still many means and types of sanctions; if the high-tech restrictions on China continue to escalate, China’s countermeasures will also be further escalated.
The Ministry of Education requires effective prevention of incidents of illegal training infringing on the interests of parents and students.
On the 3rd, the Ministry of Education held the 2023 Summer Scheduling Meeting for Off-campus Training Governance, and made a comprehensive deployment of the summer off-campus training governance. The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to effectively prevent illegal training from infringing on the interests of parents and students, maintain a high-pressure situation, carry out special investigations, continue to increase joint law enforcement efforts, and quickly respond to clues about discipline-related invisible variation and illegal training issues, quickly verify them, and jointly deal with them. It is necessary to maintain the safety of parents’ prepaid training fees, make good use of digital supervision methods, do a good job in price and fund supervision, and minimize refund disputes.
Demand weakened, and the June Caixin services PMI fell by 3.2 percentage points.
Caixin Services PMI recorded 53.9% in June, which was the sixth consecutive month of expansion, but the growth rate slowed down. Among them, the new orders index representing demand fell to a six-month low. The report pointed out that due to the impact of rising prices of manpower and raw materials, the operating costs of the industry have risen significantly. However, due to fierce market competition and limited room for enterprises to raise prices, the sales price index continued to shrink in June, but the rate of decline narrowed.
The market interest rate has fallen, and the insurance industry “borrows new money to repay old ones”.
In the first half of the year, the insurance industry supplemented 85.539 billion yuan of capital through market-oriented methods, exceeding the 54.047 billion yuan in the whole of last year. The channels for supplementing capital include approved capital increase, issuance of capital supplementation bonds and issuance of perpetual bonds. Among them, capital supplementation bonds accounted for more than half, and perpetual bonds were used for the first time since the policy was opened.
In addition, at least 60% of the capital replenishment bonds issued in the first half of the year involved “borrowing new ones to repay old ones”. Previously, the coupon rate of the capital replenishment bonds issued in 2018 was around 5%. This year has just entered the fifth interest-bearing year (the issuance period of capital replenishment bonds is based on the minimum period of five years), and the current coupon rates have mostly dropped to 3% to 4%. %. Therefore, insurance companies reduce the cost of issuing bonds by “borrowing new ones to repay old ones”, and this situation is expected to continue in the second half of the year.
The first minimum wage in 15 provinces is above 2,000 yuan.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security released the minimum wage standards of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government as of July 1. This year, Shanghai, Anhui, Shaanxi and other places have successively raised the minimum wage standards. At present, there are 15 provinces across the country where the first-tier monthly minimum wage standard is 2,000 yuan and above. With the adjustment of the minimum wage standard, other treatment levels of workers linked to it will also change accordingly:
- Employee overtime pay and probationary salary shall not be lower than the minimum wage standard;
- Unemployment insurance benefits, sick leave wages during medical treatment, and the basic living expenses of employees during the suspension of work and production have a certain percentage (70%-90%) of the minimum wage standard;
- Social insurance is based on 60%-300% of the average social wage, and the minimum wage will increase the average social wage to a certain extent.
Shein is rumored to be discussing listing matters with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and others.
According to people familiar with the matter, Shein is negotiating with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and other investment banks on its future IPO in the United States, but the specific time of listing is still uncertain. Shein’s latest valuation exceeds US$60 billion, and it may become the most valuable Chinese company listed in the United States after 2021. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have been communicating with it, trying to persuade Shein to choose itself as the listed company. Place. Previously, Shein had been denied the listing news many times, and Shein and related investment banks declined to comment this time.
Nintendo Switch sold 380,000 units in June, breaking the record for the month.
In June, Nintendo Switch Japan’s domestic sales increased by 68% year-on-year to 380,000 units, setting a record for the same period of time. This benefited from the global popularity of “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” and “Super Mario Bros. The Movie”, the positive factors of the depreciation of the yen in terms of superimposed exchange rates, and the increase in demand for inbound tourists. As of the end of March this year, Switch sales were about 126 million units. Nihon Keizai Shimbun believes that as a game console that has been on sale for seven years, it is rare for Switch to break the historical record of single-month sales.
Toyota said it is confident that it will achieve mass production of solid-state batteries in the next five years.
Toyota said on Tuesday that it has made a major technological breakthrough and is confident in creating a solid-state battery with a cruising range of 1,200 kilometers and a charging time of no more than 10 minutes. Coupled with the optimization of the production process, the cost can be reduced to a level similar to or even lower than that of liquid lithium batteries . Toyota drew attention last month when it announced plans to mass-produce solid-state batteries as early as 2027. At present, liquid batteries are commonly used in electric vehicles. In contrast, solid-state batteries are not easy to catch fire and have higher energy density. The disadvantage is that production is difficult and costly.
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