There’s a Curious Effect Urban Trees Might Have On Depression

omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceAlert: There’s already a long list of reasons to like trees, we know. Warding off depression could be the latest entry on that list, based on a study of 9,751 residents in Leipzig, Germany. For a more consistent measure, researchers used antidepressant prescriptions rather than self-reporting to gauge the mental health of communities, and then cross-referenced…

Electric Cars Would Save America Huge Amounts of Energy

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from Bloomberg, written by Liam Denning and Elaine He: Electrifying U.S. vehicles wipes out the equivalent of our entire current power demand. The U.S. consumes a lot of energy; last year, about 100 quadrillion BTUs (equivalent to 17 billion barrels of oil; which, we’ll admit, is only marginally less abstract). But only about a…

Xiaomi Sues US Seeking To Reverse Investment Ban

AmiMoJo shares a report: Xiaomi has sued the U.S. Defense and Treasury departments, challenging a blacklisting that blocks American investors from buying the Chinese smartphone giant’s securities. The lawsuit came after the Defense Department determined earlier this month that China’s biggest smartphone maker was affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. Beijing-based Xiaomi called the blacklisting “unconstitutional” and seeks a court ruling…

Elon Musk Grills Robinhood CEO Over GameStop Trading Freeze: ‘The People Demand Answers’

Elon Musk had just wrapped up a wide-ranging 90-minute interview on the audio chat app Clubhouse early on Monday, when he threw the hosts a curveball. “Do you want to hear the real story from Vlad [from] Robinhood about what happened on the Street with GameStop?” Musk asked. He advised the moderators to click on Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev so he…

Google Gave Top Spot For ‘Home Depot’ Searches to a Malicious Ad

“A malicious Home Depot advertising campaign is redirecting Google search visitors to tech support scams,” claims Bleeping Computer. Slashdot reader nickwinlund77 shares their report: BleepingComputer searched for ‘home depot’ and was shown the malicious advertisement on our first try. Even worse, the ad is the top spot in the research result, making it more likely to be clicked… [T]he ad clearly…

CNN: Tesla’s Net Profit ‘Doesn’t Come From Selling Cars’

“Tesla posted its first full year of net income in 2020 — but not because of sales to its customers,” reports CNN: Eleven states require automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can’t, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements — such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars….

How Reddit’s Co-Founder, Jim Cramer, and Wall Street Reacted to GameStop’s Surge

Friday afternoon CNBC reported that “heightened speculative trading by retail investors” (later referred to as “GameStop mania”) had “continued to unnerve the market.”
The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 620.74 points, or 2%, to 29,982.62, the first time the 30-stock gauge has closed below the 30,000 mark since Dec. 14…. The market also experienced the highest trading volume in years as the…

US Intelligence Officials Say Chinese Government Is Collecting Americans’ DNA

schwit1 shares a report from CBS News: The largest biotech firm in the world wasted no time in offering to build and run COVID testing labs in Washington, contacting its governor right after the first major COVID outbreak in the U.S. occurred there. The Chinese company, the BGI Group, made the same offer to at least five other states, including New…

Biden Orders Sweeping Review of Government Science Integrity Policies

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: President Joe Biden today created a task force that will conduct a 120-day review of scientific integrity policies across the U.S. government, including documenting instances in which “improper political interference” interfered with research or led to the suppression or distortion of data. The review is part of a lengthy memorandum from Biden on his…

‘Meme Stock’ Rally Rescues AMC Theaters From $600 Million Debt

This week’s bizarre “meme stock” rally, which has delivered lottery-like windfalls for holders of GameStop stock, also wiped out $600 million in debt owed by the AMC theater chain. Polygon reports: That’s because, on Wednesday, a private equity firm named Silver Lake — and private equity firms are popularly considered the “bad guys” in this snobs-versus-slobs drama — elected to convert…