Weekend Reads 4/29/17

The New Rules of Hydration

“Thirst is a very poor indicator of dehydration, especially if you’re up at altitude or training somewhere dry,” says Eric Sternlicht, an associate professor of kinesiology at Chapman State University. A 2016 study published in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism found that, when allowed to drink freely, 32 percent of collegiate athletes started exercise in a dehydrated state and more than 40 percent finished dehydrated.

How Tightly Should Congressional Republicans Embrace Trump?

She needs the Republicans who like Trump to vote for her. Of course, on the other hand, Trump’s involvement motivates Democratic voters too.…

It’s like inviting people to a wedding who you’re hoping — and even counting on — will say “no” in the RSVP. If that makes sense?

Money, Hell, and 'Kirk Drift'

But then I read somebody suggesting that it wasn’t really in the Bible or from the Bible, not in the way I’d always thought it was. They had the audacity to try to tell me that Paul never mentioned Hell, and that the idea was nowhere to be found in the Hebrew scriptures. And so I go angry and defensive and ornery, and I set out to prove that this nonsense was no threat to what I had been sure that I should be sure of. That anger began as a determination to disprove something true, but it also became the thing that finally enabled me to see the truth that was there the whole time.

The Planet Can’t Stand This Presidency

The effects will be felt not immediately but over decades and centuries and millenniums. More ice will melt, and that will cut the planet’s reflectivity, amplifying the warming; more permafrost will thaw, and that will push more methane into the atmosphere, trapping yet more heat. The species that go extinct as a result of the warming won’t mostly die in the next four years, but they will die. The nations that will be submerged won’t sink beneath the waves on his watch, but they will sink. No president will be able to claw back this time — crucial time, since we’re right now breaking the back of the climate system.