Good Morning, RVA: Layer up

Cooler temperatures roll in today, time to wear those layers.

April 23, 2015; 6:58 AM • by Ross Catrow

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, which is significantly colder than yesterday. Temperatures will climb into the mid-60s, but clouds will roll in this afternoon to blot out the sun. I think we should remain rain-free, though, if that’s any consolation.

Water cooler

The Associate Dean of Student at UVA much maligned in the now-retracted campus rape piece has written an open letter to the piece’s author (scroll all the way down for the full text of the letter). Legal action is, of course, on the way.

Impact Makers, a local IT firm, has given itself to the Community Foundation. Katie Demeria at Richmond BizSense has the odd and interesting story.

Matthew Freeman writing for Style Weekly dives into the world of Richmond coffee shops. We are lucky to have so many choices–in both where to drink our coffee and who roasts our beans.

A federal court has approved a settlement between the NFL and players affected by concussions. The settlement allows for $5 million payouts to players with severe neurological disorders–although some feel the set of neurological disorders is too narrowly defined. The previously linked article in the NYT and the related pieces in the sidebar are all good–if not super depressing–reads.

Vox has a semi-interesting and long piece about a Tea Party guy who thought about voting for Hillary for a hot second due to the tangible benefits Obamacare provides in his life. The best takeaway, however, is this headline in the middle: “It is incredibly uncomfortable to be on the wrong side of your tribe.” Think about that the next time you are mystified by someone’s emotional overreaction to something on Facebook.

Sports!

• Squirrels host New Britain and try to stop a six-game losing streak.
• Kickers picked up a 1-0 road win against the New York Red Bulls II last night.
• Nats fell to the Cardinals, 5-7. They’ll finish up the series today at 4:05 PM.
• Caps have a chance to pull ahead in the series against the Islanders tonight at 7:00 PM.
• The Washington Wizards are an NBA team currently in the playoffs! They’ve won the first two games of a seven-game series, which continues tomorrow.

What to expect

Today, we will tell you:

• How to spend your weekend
• Where you should eat
• What centuries-old hard cider tastes like
• Why you should check out Richmond’s newest grocery store

This morning’s longread

The Behavioral Sink

More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles. With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought–they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.

In the 1970s, John B. Calhoun ran several experiments with mice to study overpopulation. The results are terrifying, fascinating, and the inspiration for a ton of pop culture (like Soylent Green).

This morning’s Instagram

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April 23, 2015 6:58 AM 0