nswd



every day the same again

things you love

The US Has a Cloned Sheep Contraband Problem

This elephant learned to use a hose as a shower. Then her rival sought revenge — Behaviors reveal sophisticated tool use—and possible “pranking”—among pachyderms

Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya

One of the most confounding concepts to emerge from the cauldron of early 20th-century physics was the idea that quantum objects can exist in multiple states simultaneously. A particle could be in many places at once, for example. The math and experimental results were unequivocal about it. And it seemed that the only way for a particle to go from such a “superposition” of states to a single state was for someone or something to observe it, causing the superposition to “collapse.” Must the observer be human? Can AI Save Schrödinger’s Cat?

A bribery experiment involving people from 18 countries reveals that the phenomenon is largely subject to circumstance […] The bad news is that even those who consider themselves immune to corruption can easily become corrupt

This paper argues that unusual coincidences, particularly those involving historical events, can be viewed as design patterns, suggesting an intelligent influence over the course of events. A compelling case examined in detail using probability theory concerns the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) and John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). This and other coincidences involving historical figures disfavor the materialistic perspective and point to the presence of an intelligent agent acting on a global scale, beyond the arrow of time, influencing human lives and the course of history.

Happiness should be the outcome of doing things you love, not the primary goal.

As scientists of language, the Grimms compiled a massive survey of mythology, edited epic poems, launched a historical dictionary—and collected old stories. As cultural detectives, they cast a wide net, creating a history for a nation that did not yet exist. The idea of one Germany was itself a fairy tale, a political construct shopping for an origin myth, and neither brother lived to see Otto von Bismarck’s triumphant unification of Germany in 1871. […] No German authors have been more translated, not even Goethe.

Singles

2.jpg
Russian State TV Airs Melania Trump’s Nudes on Prime Time

North Korean soldiers hooked on porn after getting internet access for first time while helping Russia fight Ukraine

Men’s Perceptions of Female Genitals

On average, people in relationships had higher life satisfaction than singles. Singles, even involuntary ones, had higher life satisfaction than people in bad relationships.

This scientist treated her own cancer with viruses she grew in the lab

How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant — Chegg’s stock is down 99%, and students looking for homework help are defecting to ChatGPT

FBI says hackers are sending fraudulent police data requests to tech giants to steal people’s private information

DataBreach.com Emerges as Alternative to HaveIBeenPwned

We’re attempting to get a collection of humans to say every digit of the newly-discovered (and currently largest-known prime number) Mersenne prime M136279841

lip cells

3.jpeg
Swiss scientists have successfully grown lip cells in a dish, which will allow new treatments for lip injuries and infections to be trialed in the lab

Novel way to beat dengue: Deaf mosquitoes stop having sex — Mosquitoes have sex while flying in mid-air and the males rely on hearing to chase down a female, based on her attractive wingbeats. The researchers did an experiment, altering a genetic pathway that male mosquitoes use for this hearing. Female mosquitoes are the ones that spread diseases to people, and so trying to prevent them having babies would help reduce overall numbers.

Researchers are trying to “inoculate” people against misinformation by giving them small doses ahead of time — First, warn people they may be manipulated. Second, expose them to a weakened form of the misinformation, just enough to intrigue but not persuade anyone.

The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture A recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations.

We don’t understand color vision as well as you’d think from decades of academic study. We have classic theories of how red, green, blue, yellow, bright, and dark encode in the brain. […] “That’s still the theory you get in textbooks. But it’s a very naive theory,” he said. “There’s a whole mystery of how the brain really represents color.” […] In a pivotal study from 2009, their team at the University of Washington cured color blindness in monkeys […] Most color deficiencies come from anomalies in the cones, but one form called “dichromatism” is a genetic condition where one cone is entirely missing. The Neitzes treated dichromat monkeys with this categorically severe version of color blindness. And not only did they replace the missing type of cone with a first-of-its-kind gene therapy, they did this in adult monkeys, raising entirely new questions about sensory plasticity. I’m not getting this treatment anytime soon. The therapy is far from approval and, more importantly, I’m not so deficient that I want an eye injection that temporarily detaches the retina.

researchers report developing ultrasensitive, nanoscale sensors that in small-scale tests distinguished a key change in the chemistry of the breath of people with lung cancer. […] People breathe out many gases, such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, as well as other airborne compounds. Researchers have determined that declines in one exhaled chemical — isoprene — can indicate the presence of lung cancer.

22 pesticides consistently linked with the incidence of prostate cancer in the US

Plans by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to build an AI data centre in the US that runs on nuclear power were thwarted in part because a rare species of bee was discovered on land earmarked for the project [Financial Times]

We found that in most of the countries analyzed, right-wing (conservative) individuals have, on average, more children and grandchildren than left-wing (liberal) individuals. We also found that the proportion of right-wing individuals increases from generation to generation. to some extent, demography may explain longer-term political trends.

Trading for a Chinese software company, whose name, “Chuan Da Zhi Sheng,” can be literally translated as “Trump Big Wisdom Win,” was halted after its Shenzhen-listed shares rose 10%.

An Observer investigation has found that dating apps are increasingly pushing users to buy extras that have been likened to “gambling products” and can cost hundreds of pounds a year.

Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids — Registered as a child, we were also able to access games like “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party”. We found over 600 “Diddy” games, including “Survive Diddy” and “Run From Diddy Simulator”.

one-off actions

Hydro panels technology ’sucks’ liquid out of the air, providing drinking water for remote NSW town

Experts say the time changes are detrimental to health and safety, but agree that the answer isn’t permanent daylight saving time

Facial recognition website PimEyes has become a hit among digital ‘creeps’ and others eager to investigate strangers. Researchers fear there’s no way to prevent it from being abused.

AI-driven 0-day detection is here

Agentic AI is the top strategic technology trend for 2025, #4 is Postquantum Cryptography (data protection that resists quantum computing decryption risks), #5 is Ambient Invisible Intelligence (enabled by ultra-low-cost smart tags and sensors that deliver large-scale affordable tracking and sensing)

Research has shown an association between agreeableness and sweet taste preferences

Scientists found a clear link between red meat and cancer

Nobody knows when kissing emerged among humans. But the practice of plopping one’s mouth on another human, whether in friendship or love, is not universal; which suggests culture, rather than instinct, may be at play. […] “Grooming consists of picking through the fur/hair of others to remove parasites, dead skin, and debris” […] as we lost our fur, and spent less time grooming each other, we may have retained some vestigial remnant of the ritual. One of these remnants is what Lameira terms the “groomer’s final kiss”. Although combing through a partner’s fur to remove detritus and parasites would have become less necessary, each grooming session would have included – or ended with – the latching of the lips onto the groomee’s body to extract stubborn detritus.

Jaywalking legalized in New York City

Viral ’subway surfing’ trend has led to deaths of six youths in New York

Las Vegas Ruined this man entire life

When Does Instagram Decide a Nipple Becomes Female? — For the past two years an algorithmic artist who goes by Ada Ada Ada has been testing the boundaries of human and automated moderation systems on various social media platforms by documenting her own transition.

A collection of one-off actions that improve your life continuously — however marginally

Canadian Journal of Zombie Science

the word ‘bananas’

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare. Two Australian mathematicians found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe. […] There would be a 5% chance that a single chimp would successfully type the word “bananas” in its own lifetime. Previously in unrealistic assertions: From the moment the impending storm is announced (Genesis 6:7, 13, 17) and Jehovah sets forth the design and dimensions of the ark (Genesis 6:14-16), problems start appearing.

What’s so special about the human brain?

A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

AI scam bots are trying to “recover” your Gmail account

The discovery of the Parshall Oil Field in 2006 set off a multi-billion dollar energy boom in North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Patch.

Burning Man is urgently calling for millions more in donations amid faltering ticket sales and staff layoffs.

Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

Fentanyl test kits sold by Overdrive Defense include tiny orange spoons for scooping samples of drugs to be checked […] Since introducing Starface in 2019, the two have moved into contraceptive pills (the brand Julie Care), moisturizer (Futurewise) and smoking-cessation products (Blip). Overdrive, founded by Mr. Bordainick with Ms. Schott as an adviser, is their latest venture. [NYT]

He has previously approached me a couple of times offering me a job opportunity — a project he claimed was a perfect fit for my background. I accepted his invitation. […] I went briefly to the bathroom that night during our meeting and when I came back I took a few sips of the drink before he stepped outside to make a call. The waitress then rushed over to alert me that my drink has been spiked.

3-in-1 Drink Spike Defense Test Kit

Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said

Leaked Training Shows How Doctors in New York’s Biggest Hospital System Are Using AI

How AI could transform the patient journey in health care [audio]

This study systematically assesses expert beliefs about the probability of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045. We define a nuclear catastrophe as an event where nuclear weapons cause the death of at least 10 million people. Experts assigned a median 5% probability of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045, while expert forecasters put the probability at 1%. [PDF]

All animals do things that prevent them from surviving, reproducing, being safe, or being happy. All animals get things wrong. Life makes mistakes.

A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month. […] the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression

As a child, he was kicked out of one of Macao’s finest hotels. Today, he’s the owner.

What It’s Like Being a Billionaire’s Personal Assistant

3-in-1 Drink Spike Defense Test Kit, the first and only test that detects all three of the most common date-rape drugs: GHB, Rohypnol (aka roofies), and ketamine.

The gothic style was meant to be heavenly and transcendent — so how did it become the vision of a haunted house?

Google Street View Is Showing Strange “Businesses” in the Middle of the Ocean

Biobelts

These companies are creating food out of thin air — Some 25 companies worldwide have already taken up the challenge, hoping to turn abundant carbon dioxide into nutritious “air protein.”

we estimate that wildfire smoke accounts for 18% of ambient PM2.5 concentrations, 0.42% of deaths, and 0.69% of emergency room visits among adults aged 65 and over

study finds cancer-causing chemicals in black plastic food-contact items sold in the U.S. Highest levels of toxic flame retardants found in a spatula, sushi tray, and beaded necklace—likely the result of dirty plastic recycling

Conspicuous logos and clothing colors influence perceptions of men’s mating priorities and attractiveness — Men who owned shirts with large logos were perceived as more likely to pursue short-term sexual relationships and use dominance to gain social status, often through intimidation. In contrast, men who wore shirts with smaller or no logos were rated as more likely to invest in long-term relationships and parental effort, using prestige (cooperation and skill) to gain status.

around 25% of men and 14% of women admit to sexual unfaithfulness

Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it’s haunted

Apollo astronauts first started by putting on highly absorbent underwear. They wore these under their suits in case there was an unanticipated bathroom accident. In addition, they had a urine collection device. This was essentially a heavy, rubber condom attached to a long tube that emptied into a rubberized reservoir. […] The next layer was a liquid cooling garment (LCG). This is a water-cooled nylon undergarment that looked like long underwear with clear plastic tubes running through it. Attached to the LCG was a biobelt. Biobelts were constructed of a cotton duck base, a fabric similar to an artist’s canvas, with Teflon-coated, Beta-cloth pockets.

A memo circulating in Donald Trump’s orbit says that if elected he should use private firms to check appointees’ backgrounds and give them immediate access to classified secrets after taking office. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office. The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office. But it would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Mr. Trump’s presidency, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Epshteyn himself. The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Mr. Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said. Once Mr. Trump took the oath, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said. [NY Times]

The Journal International de Médecine carried a startling article in 1987: “Mise en Évidence Expérimentale d’une Organisation Tomatotopique chez la Soprano,” or “Experimental Demonstration of the Tomatotopic Organization in the Soprano (Cantatrix sopranica L.).” In it, author Georges Perec notes that throwing tomatoes at sopranos seems to induce a “yelling reaction” and sets out to understand why

The Beguiling, Bizarre World of Midcentury Self-Help Records
— An album from hypnotist and pioneer in “hypo-anesthesia” Emile Franchel, REDUCE TENSIONS AND SLEEP DEEPLY was listed for a pricey $9.50 on its release in 1958. Buyers received a “highest ‘Hi-Fi’ quality” record, “pressed from virgin, vinylite under several exclusive, superior patents.” What’s more, it was pressed on translucent red vinyl! The notes urge the listener to “use the recording often. Learn to relax, to sleep at will, to feel better in mind, spirit and body, and to release the hidden forces within you.”

Near-Total Darkness

New Zealand airport puts time limits on hugs

Five elephants in a Colorado zoo could someday sue for their freedom, if the state’s Supreme Court sides with an animal rights group and declares them “persons” under the law.

Scientists Grow Crops in Near-Total Darkness Thanks to New ‘Electro-Agriculture’ Technique

Human brain can process certain sentences in ‘blink of an eye’. Findings differ from previous theories that words are understood one by one

Anyone Can Learn Echolocation in Just 10 Weeks—And It Remodels Your Brain

Why ghosts wear clothes or white sheets instead of appearing in the nude

Can You Photograph a Ghost?

What did we lose when we stopped writing letters?

Redditors Are Trying to Poison Google’s AI to Keep Tourists Out of the Good Restaurants

swirled poop replica

Meet the Italian ‘Fruit Detective’ Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings for Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared From the Kitchen Table

What makes a person seem wise?

An effortless way to improve your memory Just dim the lights, sit back, and enjoy 10-15 minutes of quiet contemplation, and you’ll find that your memory of the facts you have just learnt is far better than if you had attempted to use that moment more productively.

findings suggest that women are, on average, happier in singlehood than men

How fast is quantum entanglement? Scientists investigate it at the attosecond scale

Suchir Balaji spent nearly four years as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI. Among other projects, he helped gather and organize the enormous amounts of internet data the company used to build its online chatbot, ChatGPT. […] He came to the conclusion that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted data violated the law and that technologies like ChatGPT were damaging the internet. In August, he left OpenAI because he no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that he believed would bring society more harm than benefit. [NY Times]

Rockefeller didn’t make his money through innovation. He didn’t invent gasoline, cars, natural gas, processing methods, shipping, or anything else that would justify his wealth. Rockefeller basically stole his wealth through unfair business practices designed to gouge consumers, robbing them through economic force. He was a Robber Baron. A late 18th century businessman who used monopoly, dirty politics, bribes, and unscrupulous practices to rob the unfortunate of their money. […] I’m on a phone call with four employees from Apple. […] they wanted me to make “just one change” to my webserver Mongrel to support some crazy feature in OSX. […] these 4 lines would require hours and hours of work to implement. […] I was hoping that Apple would offer to hire me to make this change they needed. […] But, they did no such thing. […] There was a pleading, begging, hands clasped together, with all these reasons why I should do it for them. […] I believe we are in the era of the Beggar Barons. Just like the Robber Barons before, these are fabulously wealthy companies that built their empires by (directly or indirectly) begging for free labor from open source developers.

In addition to the soft-serve swirled poop replica, the desk in the middle of the National Mall near 3rd Street NW also held a rendering of an office phone and a nameplate with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s name on it. “This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election,” a plaque reads on a pedestal below the desk.

You may have heard the insane tale of a $660 million memecoin called Goatseus Maximus, which was shilled to the world by a shitposting AI called Terminal of Truths More: Truth Terminal is the most fascinating narrative I’ve seen emerge around Crypto and AI this year. It is a semi-autonomous AI agent that has created its own religion (The Goatse Gospel).

North West stunned fans after gifting her mother Kim Kardashian a luxury necklace with the words ‘Skibidi Toilet’ engraved in diamonds

without words

Can you think without words? Neuroscientist explains why language isn’t required for deep thinking […] Language and thought are distinct entities, operating in separate parts of the brain

US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’ […] $50,000 to test 100 embryos

ChatGPT-like AI model can diagnose cancer, guide treatment choice, predict survival across multiple cancer types

Archetype AI’s Newton model learns physics from raw data—without any help from humans

ByteDance intern fired for planting malicious code in AI models. Sabotage supposedly cost tens of millions, but TikTok owner ByteDance denies it.

Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries, could provide communities with drinking water at low costs

an estimated 20,000 whales are killed every year, and many more injured, after being struck by ships

Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil, even though the whale has been dead for more than two decades

permanent bipeds

22.jpg
During wakefulness our thoughts transition between different contents. Alongside, there are moments devoid of specific reportable content, known as mind blanking (MB). Currently, it remains unclear what these blanks refer to […] we hold that ongoing thinking comes at degrees of richness and that allegedly contentless experiences are distinct mental states with their own diversity, therefore challenging the view of the mind as a content-oriented operator.

Afraid of spiders? Heights? Public speaking? They activate different parts of the brain

Some researchers argue that modern diets, especially those of the Western world, have skewed our immune responses in ways that have undermined immune resilience. More optimistically, others say that diet could also help to treat a range of health problems, such as cancers and chronic immune disorders such as lupus. Your diet can change your immune system — here’s how

38% of women have at least one tattoo, compared with 27% of men. This includes 56% of women ages 18 to 29 and 53% of women ages 30 to 49.

Anyone Can Turn You Into an AI Chatbot. There’s Little You Can Do to Stop Them

Startup focused on AI detection has developed a tool to verify human participants in video calls and catch fraudsters using AI deepfakes for scams

The only permanent bipeds of the animal kingdom alongside humans, birds have an extraordinary sense of balance. How do these direct descendants of the dinosaurs maintain this stability, especially when sleeping?

the company announced on social media that its merchandise had been hijacked, that they had no idea this kind of cargo theft was even a thing. […] Last year cargo thieves stole a $50,000 shipment of refrigerated yogurt headed for Florida and demanded a $40,000 ransom. How a small outdoor footwear company lost 5,000 pairs of shoes and found itself entangled in an international crime saga

We praise canonical authors for their boundless imagination. Then why do all their plots feel the same?

“Different matters are arranged in my head,” said Napoleon, “as in drawers. I open one drawer and close another as I wish. I have never been kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I desire repose I shut up all the drawers, and sleep. I have always slept when I wanted rest, and almost always at will.”

35 minutes

2.jpeg
Officials at TikTok discovered that there was “a high” number of underage streamers receiving a “gift” or “coin” in exchange for stripping — real money converted into a digital currency […] TikTok quantified the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos […] TikTok videos can be just a few seconds long. Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform. […] TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes beautiful people […] 95% of smartphone users under 17 use TikTok

His daughter was murdered nearly two decades ago. Earlier this month, he discovered that her name and image had been used to create an AI chatbot.

Spotify criticized for letting fake albums appear on real artist pages

Reflections on Palantir […] I left last year, but never wrote publicly about what I learned there.

Triphallia, a rare congenital anomaly describing the presence of three distinct penile shafts, has been reported only once in the literature. This case report describes the serendipitous discovery during cadaveric dissection of the second reported human case of triphallia

Cinema village

New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought

Meteorologists hit with death threats after debunking hurricane conspiracy theories

Luck comes in three main flavours

A new national survey of 1,000 American adults finds that 25% of adults now suspect they may have undiagnosed ADHD

Scientists found a way to make sound travel in only one direction

Attacks on large language models (LLMs) take less than a minute to complete on average, and leak sensitive data 90% of the time when successful […] The most common jailbreak technique identified was the “ignore previous instructions” technique, in which the attacker simply tells the LLM to disregard its previous prompts and directives. This attack aims to get a chatbot to work outside its intended purpose and ignore its preset content filters and safety rules.

The Barnard Bookstore is an out-of-print bookshop on 18th Street, west of Fifth Avenue. Since I had 20 minutes to kill before seeing Vanishing Point at the Cinema village, I thought I’d go in.

Apprehending Horse Thieves

Tesla highly anticipated “We Robot” event […] reports confirmed the robots were teleoperated — meaning controlled by a human in another room.

Tesla’s value drops $60bn after investors fail to hail self-driving ‘Cybercab’

‘Piss Bandit’ who taunts locals with urine bottles labeled ‘HIV positive’ is California’s number-one menace

Eating less can lead to a longer life

Rises in life expectancy have slowed dramatically, with life expectancy in the US falling

Science Says Being Generous, Thoughtful, and Kind Is a Sign of High Intelligence

The collateral damage of OnlyFans’ explosive success — financial ruin, family trauma and extreme behavior.

Pizza Hut Will Deliver Your Resume Printed on a Pizza Box to Prospective Employers

The Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves

still a virgin

Beer can artwork accidentally thrown in bin by staff member at Dutch museum

Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes

More than a dozen states sue TikTok, alleging it harms kids and is designed to addict them

Fear of positive evaluation (FPE) has recently emerged as an important aspect of social anxiety, alongside fear of negative evaluation

Neurotech startup claims to have achieved the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming … Using specially designed equipment, participants reportedly exchanged a message while asleep

“Hey, let’s call Trump,” Graham said to MBS while visiting with the Saudi leader in March. What happened next offers a fascinating window into how the Saudi leader operates and communicates with various world leaders and government officials. Woodward writes that bin Salman had an aide bring over a bag with about 50 burner phones, pulling out one labeled “TRUMP 45.”

Bitcoin creator is Peter Todd, HBO film says, Peter Todd denies being Satoshi

The Surprising Backstory Behind Gustav Klimt’s Obsession With Gold

Nearly every station in the London Underground contains an enamel plaque depicting a labyrinth. The collection were installed in 2013 by artist Mark Wallinger

Conceived by Richard Prince and limited to a thousand copies, this large-format artist’s book juxtaposes Irving Klaw’s photographs of 1950s pinup model Bettie Page with reproductions of artworks by Abstract Expressionist painter Franz Kline. According to Prince’s accompanying text, Klaw—the self-described “Pin-up King,” who with his sister Paula produced pinup and bondage photos of subjects including the iconic Page—maintained a studio at the New York address where Kline lived and worked. In Prince’s account, Kline would sometimes use Klaw’s models for figure studies, and Page became his secret subject and muse.

When they got together in 1994, Michael Jackson was 35 and told Lisa Marie that he was “still a virgin.”

cryptology

Embers of autoregression show how large language models are shaped by the problem they are trained to solve: next-word prediction over Internet text

We quantify the extent of crypto tax noncompliance and evasion, and assess the efficacy of alternative tax enforcement interventions. The context of the study is Norway. [PDF]

Sixteenth-century Venice conducted its affairs in code, so much so that cryptology was professionalized and regulated by the state

Under Roman law, subjects found guilty of patricide were subjected to poena cullei, the “penalty of the sack” — they were sewn into a leather sack with a snake, a cock, a monkey, and a dog and thrown into water.

We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.

Is Discovery Inevitable or Serendipitous?

Data brokers

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter

Chinese robot vacuums are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings – taken inside customers’ houses – to train the company’s AI models

Office workers in South Korea and China have taken to intravenous (IV) drips to combat fatigue and restore their energy for work.

AG1 combines the “just in case” marketing of the multivitamin industry and unproven wellness ingredients into an expensive cocktail for the worried well […] once we strip AG1 of its marketing hype, we are left wondering who really needs it in the first place.

California Just Became the First State to Ban Sell-By Dates

Higher intelligence is associated with less frequent use of partner-directed insults

World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission

Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 are being tracked across the internet using identifiers known as Advertising IDs. When children turn 13, they age out of the data protections provided by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Then, they become targets for data collection from data brokers that collect their information from social media apps, shopping history, location tracking services, and more. Data brokers then process and sell the data.

Brazil’s top court says X paid pending fines to wrong bank

birth control pills

Physicists showed that photons can seem to exit a material before entering it, revealing observational evidence of negative time [study]

birth control pills for men

In the current study, we investigate the familial genetic and environmental transmission of depression by incorporating data from both adolescent twins and their parents. Our results, based on both self- and parent-report, demonstrate significant additive and dominant genetic influences on depression. We also found mild yet significant sibling environmental influences, while familial environmental influences were absent.

Why is the Speed of Light So Fast?

Study of 500,000 Medical Records Links Viruses With Alzheimer’s Again And Again

newly released data finds that the US adult obesity rate fell by around two percentage points between 2020 and 2023. We have known for several years from clinical trials that Ozempic, Wegovy and the new generation of diabetes and weight loss drugs produce large and sustained reductions in body weight. Now with mass public usage taking off — one in eight US adults have used the drugs, with 6 per cent current users — the results may be showing up at the population level.

Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta’s Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers

Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap — and Companies Need to Prepare

transparency and choice

Woman with rare double uterus gives birth to twins

Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims […] the exposure of Satoshi as its alleged creator threatens to raise some huge questions, not least his potential complicity in crimes that have featured Bitcoin use. It could also establish him as one of the world’s richest people: Satoshi himself is estimated to control about 1.1 million Bitcoin. […] The big reveal is set to air next Wednesday at 2 a.m. CET (Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST).

Andy Kill, a spokesperson for 23andMe, would not comment on what the company might do with its trove of genetic data beyond general pronouncements about its commitment to privacy. “For our customers, our focus continues to be on transparency and choice over how they want their data to be managed,” he said.

research shows that adult brains are also negatively impacted by excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours. The study shows that in adults aged 18 – 25, excessive screen time causes thinning of the cerebral cortex, the brain’s outermost layer responsible for processing memory and cognitive functions, such as decision-making and problem-solving. Another study found that adults who watched television for five hours or more per day had an increased risk of developing brain-related disease like dementia, stroke, or Parkinson’s. Additional studies found that adults who engage in excessive screen time or have a diagnosed smartphone addiction had lower gray matter volume. Gray matter is brain tissue essential for daily human functioning and is responsible for everything from movement to memory to emotions.

Shifting away from undesired habits involves weakening the neural pathways that fuel them. Instead of relying solely on penalties for engaging in a bad habit, introduce a positive action right after to replace it. This method gradually diminishes the unwanted habit’s hold over you.

Hundreds of millions of small packages pour into the U.S. each year from China – some with fentanyl ingredients stashed inside. […] a few paragraphs buried in a 2016 U.S. trade law supported by major parcel carriers and e-commerce platforms that made it easier for imported goods, including those fentanyl ingredients, to enter the United States. […] In short, a regulatory tweak fueling America’s online shopping habit is also enabling the country’s crippling addiction to synthetic opioids. […] U.S. lawmakers inadvertently turbocharged this problem as part of the 2016 legislation by loosening a regulation known as de minimis. Individual parcels of clothing, gadgets and other merchandise valued at up to $800 – one of the highest such limits in the world – now enter the country duty-free and with minimal paperwork and inspections. Fully 90% of all shipments now enter the country this way, and most arrive by air. […] a fight is shaping up over whether and how to undo the rule change that helped set off this deadly import boom.

Is the World Really Running Out of Sand?

Meta confirms it may train its AI on any image you ask Ray-Ban Meta AI to analyze

Cybercriminals using stolen cloud credentials to operate and resell sexualized AI-powered chat services [which] often veer into darker role-playing scenarios, including child sexual exploitation and rape

REVEALED: Women will be having more sex with ROBOTS than men by 2025. That’s according to a professional

rival derogation

333.jpeg
Man amputates penis with an axe after consuming psilocybin mushrooms

At Exxon Mobil’s only “advanced recycling” facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned.

Will Plants Grow on the Moon?

anomalous decrease observed in lunar surface temperatures is attributed to the COVID-19 global lockdown effect

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers

How did birds survive while dinosaurs went extinct?

women were more likely to engage in rival derogation towards women with larger breast sizes

Impulsivity, Disgust

The external anal sphincter is the only part of the digestive process we have conscious control over. So, if we decide the time is not right to pass gas, we constrict the sphincter and the fart is trapped. Without a backdoor to escape from, the gases recede back into the colon. […] farts that are ignored during the day are mostly released during bathroom breaks or as the body relaxes in sleep at night. […] always holding it in can be bad for the bowels over time.

Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said. At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine.

Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first

Do AI companies work? The billions that OpenAI spent on building prior versions of GPT is not, because better versions of it are already available for free on Github. […] An LLM vendor that doesn’t spend tens of millions of dollars a year—and maybe billions, for the leaders—improving their models is a year or two from being out of business. Though that math might work for huge companies like Google and Microsoft, and for OpenAI, which has become synonymous with artificial intelligence, it’s hard to see how that works for smaller companies that aren’t already bringing in sizable amounts of revenue. […] the winners won’t be who ran the fastest or reached some finish line, but whoever was leading when the market decided the race is over.

Microsoft claims its new tool can correct AI hallucinations, experts advise caution

SocialAI is an online universe where everyone you interact with is a bot. More: SocialAI takes the social media “filter bubble” to an extreme with 100% fake interactions

The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure […] Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful

The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure […] Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful

NKRYPT is a cryptography related installation outside the Questacon science exploration centre in Canberra, Australia



kerrrocket.svg