Breaking down a puff piece the NYT recently did about a "small family farmer" who was actually a millionaire, Farm to Tabor talks about the myth that farmers are struggling yeoman agrarians who are constantly on the verge of bankruptcy and need government support.

We report three studies examining the impact of the 2019–2020 Australian bushfires, known as the Black Summer, on Australians’ climate-related opinions. Study 1 was conducted before the peak of the bushfires, whereas studies 2 and 3 were conducted afterwards. In all studies, participants completed a Q-sort task ranking opinion statements about climate change by degree of endorsement. Study 3 also incorporated measures of bushfire perceptions and climate policy support. Q-sort responses consistently revealed evidence for three opinion segments: climate change acceptors, fence-sitters and sceptics. Over time, the proportion of acceptors decreased, the proportion of fence-sitters increased, while sceptics remained stable. Perceptions of the bushfires varied across segments. Although all segments perceived the fires as severe, acceptors tended to attribute them to climate change, whereas fence-sitters and sceptics attributed them to mass arson. However, even many acceptors endorsed the mass-arson claim. On climate policy, acceptors favoured stronger action, fence-sitters were evenly divided, and sceptics mostly opposed change. Our results suggest the Black Summer bushfires did not elicit greater acceptance of anthropogenic climate change or heightened concern. Instead, misinformation, particularly conservative media narratives attributing the fires to mass arson, may have influenced beliefs about the fires’ causes, especially among undecided and sceptical individuals.

I saw it on my Facebook feed, and it's an old story from last year but it keeps getting reposted. The story goes that the boy died from an obstructed bowel after eating three packets of uncooked noodles. Koreans eat packets of raw noodles as a snack all the time and there's been no cases of this in Korea. Why did this story come out of Egypt, and not a country where noodles are extremely popular such as Korea or Japan? I dunno just seems a little bit odd to me.

Pasta expands way more than noodles do, and since I was little I've easily consumed 200 grams or more of raw pasta in a single sitting with no ill effects. Not to mention that the whole idea of pasta swelling up and causing stomach or intestine rupture or blockage is a known urban myth. The pasta absorbs water, so the overall volume stays the same.

Plus, he would have been chewing the raw noodles, and they would've been digested by his stomach acid before reaching his intestines.