I had to google what "supercooling" is:

Supercooling is the process of chilling a liquid below its freezing point, without it becoming solid.

This concerns me though... should it?

But don't they pollute the oceans?

We know avocados aren’t typically considered a “dangerous” fruit (like peaches). But we’ve got some news...

Avocado crime is on the rise. Mexican criminal gangs facing a lull in the drug business have turned to avocado theft, the FT reports. Their main target: the dozen trucks an hour leaving Mexico’s avocado belt for the U.S. 

Zoom out: The Mexican avocado industry is growing at a healthy clip. Sales to the U.S., the largest importer of Mexican avocados, bring in almost $2 billion annually.

Avo demand spikes right before the Super Bowl. The Hass Avocado Board said we’ll consume 153 million pounds of the good fat during tomorrow’s game. 

Two weeks ago, Mexican avocado exports to the U.S. had their best week ever. 

+ Bonus avocado content: The WSJ explores the rise of “avocado-hand,” the act of stabbing or slicing yourself while de-pitting an avocado. More than half of the 50,413 reported avocado-related injuries from 1998–2017 have happened since 2013.

Following the trajectory of every great athlete—years of training, daily Wheaties, and approval from the world governing body for track and field—Nike’s Vaporfly sneakers will appear at the Tokyo Olympics this summer after all.

The backstory: The $250 high-tech shoes were criticized starting in October after one marathoner broke the two-hour barrier and another shattered the women’s world record by 81 seconds (forever in competitive marathoning), both while wearing Vaporflys.

Critics called the Vaporfly advantage “technological doping.”

Yesterday, the World Athletics federation issued modifications designed to “protect the integrity of the sport” but punted on making an official ruling. 

Beginning April 30, shoes looking to get foot time in high-stakes competitions like the Olympics must be available for sale on the open retail market for at least four months.

World Athletics is also regulating design specs like sole thickness. 

That means the current Vaporfly model isn’t banned at the elite level, at least for now.

Why can't we all just switch to Velcro? 

Because Vaporfly isn’t your average sneaker (or tennis shoe). It uses a carbon plate designed to literally put a spring in your step. 

Over the last 13 months, runners wearing Vaporfly shoes have recorded the five fastest marathon times ever.

The number of Adidas-sponsored runners winning major marathons has been chopped in half since the Vaporfly launched.

Big picture: Nike and its rivals are locked in an arms race to roll out the highest-tech gear for elite athletes and earn screen time at mega-events like the Olympics. 

Looking ahead...any brand hoping to top Vaporfly’s promise of a 4% increase in efficiency before the Tokyo Olympics better hop to—the games begin July 24.

As fears of the coronavirus spread, U.S.-China travel is grinding to a halt. Three major U.S. airlines—United, American, and Delta—are canceling flights between the two countries, and not just for this weekend.

United and American will restart service in late March. But you can’t fly Delta to China until May 1 the earliest. 

Airline stocks took a hit yesterday, but then again...so did most stocks.

On Thursday, the State Department issued its highest-level warning—a Level 4—advising Americans not to travel to China. Then, pilots and flight attendants asked, “so why are we still traveling to China?” and demanded airlines cancel flights. 

Other transportation-related coronavirus news

The CDC has issued a quarantine for 195 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, as a preventative measure. It’s the agency’s first mandatory quarantine order in more than 50 years.

The virus is hammering a global freight industry that relies on China. Shipping rates for the massive ships that carry raw materials have dropped more than 90% since a September peak.

most recover.... but the numbers are still bad.

Wuhan Municipal Government Offering Free Cremations

Local reports

The Wuhan municipal government is apparently offering free cremations.  Here is the link on Weibo, which is attributed to the Wuhan Internet Information Office.  According to the post, "during New Year's Eve a funeral agency in Wuhan increased the price to receive remains, causing complaints from survivors."  To make up for apparent price gouging, "charges for the cremation of the remains of deceased pneumonia patients with new coronaviruses will now be free of charge".  We cannot 100% confirm the validity of the Weibo post, but it appears authentic.

Overall, we remain skeptical regarding how the Chinese government is handling the situation, and we very much continue to question the official outbreak tally as well as the death count.  Also of note is back on January 26th, we reported that prior to the coronavirus making the news this month, one cremation center in Wuhan reportedly [we are not able to confirm this] cremated more than 30 bodies in one night alone (and these deaths were not attributed to the coronavirus).  In the same update, we also reported that separately the Wall Street Journal had published an article examining how some hospitals had been  classifying the cause of death in many patients as just "severe pneumonia"and not related to the coronavirus (those deaths also were not included in the count of infected people and deaths).  It is difficult to know what exactly is taking place in China at present, but free cremations is a morbid development we have not seen before and is also a reminder of the earlier reports we heard of December cremations.

Dr. Liang Wudong, a surgeon who was treating patients in Wuhan, become the first doctor to die from the new Coronavirus at Hubei Xinhua Hospital. A reminder that while everyone else is trying to avoid it, frontline medical staff are risking their lives to cure it and help others.

California’s first case of coronavirus confirmed in Orange County

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-25/los-angeles-area-prepared-for-coronavirus

California has recorded its first confirmed case of the new strain of coronavirus, arriving in Orange County by a traveler who visited from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China....The patient is in good condition and is in isolation at a hospital, Orange County health officials said. Health authorities are following up with anyone who has had close contact with the patient, but also noted that people with casual contact — such as visiting the same grocery store or movie theater — “are at minimal risk of developing infection.”

Heartbreaking scenes from #Wuhan #China 2020: A man infected with the #WuhanCoronovirus tried to escape but security forces returned him into the ambulance van.#CoronavirusOutbreak #nCoV2019 #coronavirus #WuhanCoronoviruspic.twitter.com/XPyLsukcBk

— ISCResearch (@ISCResearch) January 25, 2020

A man infected with the #WuhanCoronovirus tried to escape but security forces returned him into the ambulance van.

Construction site of Huoshenshan Hospital as it appeared on 24 January

(or as many on social media are rumoring.... "I only see digging equipment for graves".....Hmm).  

Where are the cranes for this rushed construction? Maybe they just haven't arrived yet.

Age distribution of fatal cases in China.

The US Government is trying to get Diplomats and Citizens living in the ground-zero city of Wuhan out. Where will they land and will they be quarantined?

On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the Huanan Seafood Market.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6.

But a Canadian health monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the outbreak to its customers on December 31.

BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like Wuhan.

Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters.

But public health officials at WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own disease monitoring.

So maybe an AI can get there faster.

“We know that governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,” says Kamran Khan, BlueDot’s founder and CEO.

“We can pick up news of possible outbreaks, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of some kind of unusual events going on.”

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/

LOL... well... who are these people saying that? 

Did they know something we didn't?

Medical rumors

"Smoking and fireworks can prevent pneumonia"

In January 2020, a screenshot of a WeChat circle of friends was circulated on social media. The text of the screenshot claimed that after smoking cigarettes, cigarette oil covered the surface of the lungs, which could prevent the virus from attaching to and entering human cells, and claimed that the relevant content was in the 2003 SARS incident Confirmed [556] . This is a rumor that has been popular since the SARS incident in 2003 . The Hong Kong Department of Health has rumored that smoking can reduce the body's resistance. Repeated contact with the nose and mouth when smoking causes the virus to sneak in, and you cannot wear a mask to increase protection when smoking. At the same time, there is no data to support the fact that “no smokers died because of SARS” .

"Indoor vinegar can prevent pneumonia"

Indoor boiled vinegar SARS (SARS) spread during a sterilization method, commonly used as a disinfectant in fact SARS is peracetic acid , mainly by peroxy of oxidation , instead of acetic acid . 

"Vitamin C boosts immunity"

In fact, vitamin C can help the body maintain normal immune function, but it cannot enhance immunity and has no antiviral effect. In the treatment of diseases, intake of vitamin C is usually only a supplementary treatment. 

"OC43 virus"

A speech circulating on the Internet purporting to come from Professor Yuan Guoyong of the University of Hong Kong , referring to the virus as OC43 virus. Yuan Guoyong denied that it was related to the article and clarified that the new coronavirus is not OC43. 

Imperial College London scientist: each infected person infecting 2.6 others. That’s still 2x higher than seasonal flu’s 1.28 (ref above), and higher than 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic of 1.80 that killed millions.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/

Chinese doctor in the city of Wuhan in tears announcing that there are too many cases of sick people

@The Librarian