‘World’s first sperm race’ to be held in Los Angeles

study asks people to define romantic chemistry in their own terms, leading to 9 unique elements

two women meeting for the first time can judge within minutes whether they have potential to be friends – guided as much by smell as any other sense, according to new Cornell psychology research

researchers discovered that using “a unique sound stimulation technology” — a device that stimulates the inner ear with a specific wavelength of sound — reduces motion sickness. Even a single minute of stimulation reduced the staggering and discomfort felt by people that read in a moving vehicle.

New ChatGPT Models Seem to Leave Watermarks on Text

This meta-analysis finds no empirical support suggesting that GenAI has surpassed humans in creative idea generation

Saying “Please” and “Thank You” to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

OpenAI buys Windsurf for $3 billion […] a startup that’s been around for 2 years, with its current branding for about 5 months. […] Compared to Cursor, Windsurf has fewer users, has been around for less time, has less brand recognition, and has diminishing prospects for future growth. It’s not as tied to VSCode, which is a plus, I guess. But it all begs the question: why on earth is OpenAI paying so much? […] It’s true that OpenAI managed to get $40bn committed, and it’s also true that this is the largest amount of capital ever raised by a privately held company. But they’re going against Google […] In that light, the decision to spend 3 out of 40 of those billions is even harder to rationalize. Even worse, it’s not yet clear OpenAI actually has $40bn to spend — so far they’ve only got $10bn actually lined up.

Growth is Getting Harder to Find, Not Ideas

Movies are handmade, and just like any other art form, sometimes the seams that hold movies together become visible to the audience.

Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – c. 1056) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States for three periods between October 1032 and July 1048. Aged about 20 when first elected, he is the youngest pope in history. He is the only person to have been Pope more than once and the only person ever accused of selling the papacy. […] “It seemed as if a demon from hell, in the disguise of a priest, occupied the chair of Peter” […] In October 1032, Benedict’s father obtained his election through bribery. However, his reputedly dissolute activities provoked a revolt on the part of the Romans. Benedict was driven out of Rome and Sylvester III elected to succeed him. Some months later, Benedict and his supporters managed to expel Sylvester. […] [W]ishing to marry his cousin, Benedict then decided to resign in May 1045. He offered to give up the papacy into the hands of his godfather if he would reimburse him for his election expenses. John Gratian paid him the money and was recognized as pope […] Benedict IX soon regretted his resignation and returned to Rome, taking the city and remaining on the throne until July 1046, although Gregory VI continued to be recognized as the true pope. […] A German, Clement II, was chosen to succeed Gregory VI. When Clement II died in October 1047, Benedict seized the Lateran Palace in November, again becoming pope, but was driven away by German troops in July 1048. To fill the power vacuum, the German-born Damasus II was elected pope and universally recognized as such.

List of sexually active popes

Increasingly large discs (usually circular, and made from clay or wood) are inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it. Archaeological evidence indicates that lip plates have been invented multiple times including in Africa (Sudan and Ethiopia; 5500–6000 BCE) Mesoamerica (1500 BCE), and coastal Ecuador (500 BCE).

The lip plate, or debhinya, is arguably the most recognizable feature of Mursi culture. Women of the tribe begin the process around the age of 15, when their lower lips are pierced and gradually stretched to accommodate a clay or wooden plate.

Mursi women are famous for the wooden and clay lip-plates with which they decorate their lower lips, yet, to the informed and uninformed observer, the specific layers of meanings and kinds of information that they communicate are poorly understood. Building from initial observations and conversations during my first phase of field research among the Mursi, between May and August 2004, I will begin by discussing why most Mursi women adorn themselves with lip-plates, and what it is about the objects themselves that appear to hold such significance for the Mursi.

Mursi rarely paint for aesthetic reasons. Aesthetic body painting is only practiced by older boys, seeking to attract the attention of the girls and of one another. Generally, the Mursi paint for pragmatic and medicinal reasons, rather than for purely aesthetic reasons.

The Surma people use razors or branches with thorns for body scarring, then rubbing ash on it so it becomes raised. On a female they are signs of beauty and identity. The Suri Tribe and Mursi Tribe think hair is dirty so both males and females keep their hair very short. They use razors to create patterns and shapes in their hair styles.

Sponges, drill bits and wires: Surgeons mistakenly left objects inside thousands of patients since 2015

Plants feel pain and might even see […] Like animals, plants produce substances that suppress pain. He doesn’t see why that would be necessary if there was no pain. […] The vine imitated the artificial leaves, just as it had imitated the leaves in nature. For Baluška this is clear proof that the vine can see.

Scientists claim to have found color no one has seen before, contested discovery achieved by experiment firing laser pulses into eyes, stimulating retina cells

Musician’s brain matter makies music three years after his death — In collaboration with American experimental composer Alvin Lucier, who passed away in 2021, scientists and artists created an art installation using cerebral organoids developed from the composer’s white blood cells.

OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models still hallucinate, or make things up — in fact, they hallucinate more than several of OpenAI’s older models […] more concerning, the ChatGPT maker doesn’t really know why it’s happening. […] “Our hypothesis is that the kind of reinforcement learning used for o-series models may amplify issues that are usually mitigated (but not fully erased) by standard post-training pipelines” […] Hallucinations may help models arrive at interesting ideas and be creative in their “thinking,” but they also make some models a tough sell for businesses in markets where accuracy is paramount.

Russia is automating the spread of false information to fool artificial intelligence chatbots on key topics […] Russia and, to a lesser extent, China have been exploiting that advantage by flooding the zone with fables. But anyone could do the same, burning up far fewer resources than previous troll farm operations.

Is $1,000 worth being the AI face of obvious scams? Actors who sold AI avatars stuck in Black Mirror-esque dystopia

Trump Team Eyes Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700 Billion Government Payments Program — Ramp sells corporate credit cards and artificial intelligence software for businesses to analyze spending. […] Ramp is backed by some of the most powerful figures in Silicon Valley. One is Peter Thiel […] Ramp’s other major financial backers include Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures; Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and 8VC, a firm run by Musk allies.

For the first time, surgeons have successfully performed a heart transplant in which the donor organ never skips a beat in the process

A federal judge found today that Alphabet illegally monopolized some online advertising technology markets

For decades, the US tariff system has taxed women’s clothing more heavily than men’s. Tariffs on women’s clothing are currently about three percent higher than men’s, a policy that’s known as“pink tariffs”

Routine mortality figures from the United Kingdom and the United States suggests that musicians in these territories are a demonstrably at-risk group for suicide.

Dostoevsky’s characters are essentially case studies in existential dilemmas, and he uses their inner turmoil to dramatize themes like freedom, moral responsibility, and the fragmented self.

Scientists Can Use WiFi to See Through People’s Walls [2023]

Egg prices are so high that people are dyeing potatoes for Easter.

new imaging study showed that listening to favorite music affects the function of the brain’s opioid system, the brain’s opioid system is known to be involved in pleasurable experiences related to survival-critical behaviours, such as eating and sex.

AI-generated music accounts for 18% of all tracks uploaded to Deezer

OpenAI is building a social networkIs

Facebook “black market groups”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams

Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons hacked to imitate Musk, Zuckerberg voices [with audio]

An illusion of unfairness in random coin flips

Because it depends partly on the phase of the moon, the date of Easter Sunday can vary by as much as 35 days.

What Porn Taught a Generation of Women

Researchers Identify New Blood Group After 50 Year Mystery

Ripe oranges are usually oranger, so this bag makes the oranges look better than they may actually be. Maybe the secret is to never buy bagged fruit, since it’s harder to evaluate the quality of each orange. […] what if we had a picture of the orange with and without the bag under the same light and camera conditions, then checked the average pixel?

Shop this look: Buy cheap, faux gold dupes of Oval Office decor

Investigators determined the victim got on the R train about 8 p.m.. He lit up a cigarette given to him by another rider, filling the train car with smoke. The few people on the train moved to another car. The smoking man went on to quietly die of unknown causes. The train, which originated in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, came to the end of the line at Whitehall St., where R trains stop during overnight hours. About 11 p.m., a man stepped onto the train car, realized the victim was dead and went through his pockets, taking whatever the victim had on him. He then had sex with the corpse before finally leaving the train more than an hour later at 12:10 a.m. Then the body was robbed by a second man.

UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill

we suggest that a trait-like randomness generator exists in the mind

People with ADHD symptoms report more involuntary memories in daily life

Data centres accounted for roughly 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, will use twice as much energy by 2030

Directed by Gary Hustwit, Eno (2024) was made using generative software that randomly selects snippets of Hustwit’s interviews with Eno and archival footage every time the film is screened. As a result, no single viewing of the film is the same […] Hustwit and his friend Brendan Dawes, a digital artist and coder, called their generative software system Brain One (an anagram for “Brian Eno”). The software randomly draws from an archive of over 30 hours’ worth of interviews and 500 hours of archival film from Eno’s personal collection to project onto the screen. According to The New York Times, this mathematically means that there are approximately 52 quintillion (or 52 billion billion) possible permutations of this film, making it virtually impossible for someone to see the exact same cut twice.

Coffee Too Weak? Try This!

Cops investigating if Missouri foster mom traded a kid for a monkey to boost her exotic animal collection

number of US nonparents who never want children is growing

swimming sperm create swirling fluid vortices – shaped like rolling corkscrews – giving them an extra boost in the race to the egg

“Like, I had to be molested at the airport to go to Florida, right, just to get on an airplane, just because I’m not going to go through the ‘gay beam’ machine.“ […] the scanning process might somehow involve “virtual adrenochrome”

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an unprecedented effort was undertaken to investigate the credibility and plausibility of the aura, alongside other phenomena that confounded available naturalist explanations

Biggest brain map ever details huge number of neurons and their activity — The high-resolution 3D map contains more than 200,000 brain cells, around 82,000 of which are neurons. It also includes more than 500 million of the neuronal connection points called synapses and more than 4 kilometres of neuronal wiring, all found in a tiny block of tissue in a brain region involved in vision.

According to research, the stressful sensations caused by seeing others fidget are an incredibly common psychological phenomenon, affecting as many as one in three people

Elon Musk Rage Quits Livestream After Being Cyberbullied by Gamers

NJ cops claim their chief defecated in department offices, stuck a hypodermic needle into an officer’s penis, and spiked coffee with viagra

Fake job seekers are flooding U.S. companies that are hiring for remote positions, tech CEOs say. The rise of AI-generated profiles means that by 2028 globally 1 in 4 job candidates will be fake. Once hired, an impostor can install malware to demand a ransom from a company, or steal its customer data, trade secrets or funds. More: “I noticed they were using an AI filter to hide their real identity. So, I asked them to place a hand in front of their face as it would remove their AI cover. They didn’t do it and left the call a few seconds later”

Inflammation is a defense mechanism in which the blood flow increases to the site of tissue infection, playing a crucial role in the healing process by eliminating harmful cells. However, inflammation also leads to the destruction of cells, which is necessary for recovery. Mushrooms possess properties that allow them to act directly on inflammation. […] Edible mushroom are recognized as functional foods due to their remarkable potential for disease prevention and promotion of overall health and well-being. These varieties have antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, cytoprotective, cholesterol-lowering, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, and anticancer properties, as well as controlling blood pressure, being an immunity booster, and strengthening bone properties. In addition, they contain essential non-digestible oligosaccharides (NDOs) and ergothioneine, a potential substrate for gut microflora.

individuals conceived in colder months store fat differently from those conceived in warmer months […] those who were conceived in a cold season showed relatively higher brown adipose tissue activity. Brown adipose tissue is a type of fat that burns energy, keeps us warm, and helps regulate blood sugar. Along with increased brown fat activity, participants also showed increased energy expenditure, a lower body mass index (BMI), and less fat accumulation around their organs, which indicates better metabolic health overall. In those who are deemed overweight or obese, brown fat activity is often lacking.

the FBI then took over ElonmuskWHM’s money laundering operation and ran it themselves for nearly a year

Walter Matthau on Johnny Carson (1982)

Cashless society drives drop in children swallowing coins, researchers say — far fewer children are now needing hospital procedures to remove objects from throats, noses and airways

Welcome to the Worst Allergy Season Ever

Study shows women can hear better than men, women showing an average of two decibels more sensitive hearing than men across all the populations studied. Previously: results showed that among people in early and middle adulthood — aged between 24 and 65 — the men spoke on average 11,950 words per day, compared with 13,349 for the women.“This is consistent with the social stereotype that women talk more than men,”

Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming

How AI is creating a rift at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG

In more than 60 years of space activities, more than 6050 launches have resulted in some 56450 tracked objects in orbit, of which about 28160 remain in space. Only a small fraction - about 4000 - are intact, operational satellites today. […] More than 560 in-orbit fragmentation events have been recorded since 1961. Only 7 events were associated with collisions and the majority of the current events were explosions of spacecraft and upper stages. It is however expected that in the future collisions will become the dominant source of space debris. [video]

We demonstrate that first names actually evoke perceptions beyond gender and show that certain names are consistently and significantly perceived as more prosocial, assertive, or positive / negative than other common and timeless first names of the same gender.

A large study has found that different types of beverages are linked to the likelihood of developing depression and anxiety disorders […] higher intake of sugary and artificially sweetened drinks was related to a greater risk of depression among younger adults, while fruit juices and coffee were associated with a lower risk of both depression and anxiety across age groups

results imply that smoking bans lead to unintended consequences in the form of increased alcohol consumption

Florida ranked among the most likely to survive an alien invasion

Mr. Trump ordered a new set of global tariffs on Wednesday from the White House using his trademark Sharpie pen, a version of which is on sale at Mar-a-Lago for $3. […] The Trump family monetization weekend started Thursday night, as crowds began to form at both the Trump National Doral resort near Miami International Airport […] Every room at the 643-room Trump Doral, including the $13,000-a-night presidential suite, was sold out through the weekend. Not a seat could be found at the BLT Prime steakhouse bar, where a porterhouse steak cost $130. […] The president spent much of Friday at yet another Trump family venue, Trump International Golf Club, not far from Mar-a-Lago, sending out social media messages during the day, including, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE.” [NY Times]

ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude all recommend the same “nonsense” tariff calculation

UK bans £2.2bn ‘sneaky’ fees and fake reviews for online products

Trump abruptly fired the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command on Thursday […] He had been among the American officials most deeply involved in pushing back on Russia, dating to his work countering Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election. […] At the same time, the administration has shrunk much of the nation’s complex early-warning system for cyberattacks, a web through which tech firms work with the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies to protect the power grid, pipelines and telecommunications networks. […] America’s huge vulnerabilities, made evident in recent years as China placed malware in its rival’s utility grids and the telecom system, illustrate how easy a target the United States is for retaliation.

Fake cosmetics, massage pillows and sex toys are among the key elements of a suspected Russian-run sabotage plot that led to three parcels being detonated at courier depots in Britain, Germany and Poland last summer

clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

visiting Jonestown in Guyana, the settlement where more than 900 Americans died by murder-suicide

You see, when you learn to read you will be born again into another world …

An American tourist has been arrested after allegedly traveling to a remote island and attempting to contact one of the world’s most isolated tribes, about 750 miles from the Indian mainland

US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens

Researchers have discovered a new antibiotic molecule that targets a broad range of disease-causing bacteria — even strains resistant to commercial drugs — and is not toxic to human cells1

The colors around us aren’t just changing. They’re disappearing. According to major auto paint suppliers, more than 80% of new cars are now grayscale. Why Is the World Losing Color?

The technology acceptance model (TAM) is an information systems theory that models how users come to accept and use a technology.

John Cage recital that is set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change – 500 people made a pilgrimage to experience it

They met for 30 seconds - she then stalked him for four years

L.A. man stabbed, shot and pushed off cliff lives to testify about alleged cartel hit

Trump Tariffs Hit Antarctic Islands Inhabited by Zero Humans and Many Penguins

Trump spares pharmaceuticals from reciprocal tariffs

Trump Tells Inner Circle That Musk Will Leave Soon

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is intent on creating a one-million-person colony on Mars. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk also seems content to break anything that stands in his way—including potentially a Cold War era treaty that has kept humanity safe for over 50 years, the Outer Space Treaty (OST). Musk’s rejection of international governance could have lasting implications for life on earth, and could augur a new era of geopolitical conflict.

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Personality trait similarity among ordinary relatives is surprisingly low, with parent–offspring and sibling–sibling correlations usually r ≤ .15. […] we found that parent–offspring and sibling correlations were about one third higher than typically shown (r ≈ .20). […] Life satisfaction was as heritable as personality traits, sharing about 80% of its genetic variance with neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness. […] we provide further evidence that growing up together does not make people more similar

Research has found a substantial gender gap in orgasm, with men reporting reaching an orgasm at significantly higher rates than women […] in the visual pornography industry, women are much less likely than men to be shown reaching orgasm […] sample of more than 300 men and women who regularly watch pornography […] both male and female viewers believe that depictions of female orgasms are the most important feature of pornographic videos

Recent research found that people who were not married were less at risk than married people for dementia

we find that a pet companion increases life satisfaction by 3 to 4 points on a scale of 1 to 7

How Dining Out Differs Across Generations

A man has managed to power his home for eight years with a system using more than 1,000 recycled laptop batteries

The redesigned map of the New York City system, the first to be introduced in nearly half a century, is reminiscent of a version from the 1970s that was reviled by many traditionalists [NY Times]

The Story of the New Swiss Passport

Space pirates could hold satellite networks for ransom and threaten to derail globally transmitted live television broadcasts, like the FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games. However, beyond satellite hijackings, Taylor believes there could even be physical attacks at launch sites and ground control stations. […] in 2023, a team of Italian hackers successfully broke into the US Air Force Moonlighter to win a $50,000 prize

Climate change has slowed Earth’s rotation. The effect of melting polar ice could delay the need for a ‘leap second’ by three years.

Jailbreaking LLMs: A Comprehensive Guide (With Examples)

Kink and LGBT dating apps exposed 1.5m private user images online

The ideal age for a chimney sweep to begin working was said to be 6 years old, but sometimes they were used beginning at age 4. Those less fortunate would simply suffocate and die in the chimney forcing others to remove the bricks in order to dislodge the body.

Babysitter checking for monsters finds man hiding under child’s bed

Winnipeg woman run over after dispute about empty spot in parking lot

Adults engaging in sexual activity with children in virtual reality now illegal in Utah […] law makes it illegal for adults using avatars to make their avatar have sex with avatars being used by children

Most people dislike being gossiped about—except narcissistic men, who welcome even negative gossip

Whether humans inherently view themselves more positively than others underpins a fundamental question in psychology that has eluded scientific consensus for decades. […] Cross-cultural comparisons then revealed self-deprecation tendencies in trait-based self-evaluation in specific Eastern languages, contrasting with Western patterns. However, affective self-positivity—the tendency to associate the self with generally positive rather than negative words—was universally observed across 11 languages.

By the end of the six weeks, both the LSD and placebo groups had shown significant reductions in ADHD symptoms […] 80% of participants—whether they had taken LSD or placebo—guessed they had received LSD. Those who believed they had taken LSD tended to report greater symptom improvement, regardless of what they had actually received.

H&M is working directly with models and their agencies to create digital replicas of 30 different models this year that it will be able to use in AI-generated images for purposes such as social-media posts and marketing campaigns.

Sunday at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans and his Trio consisting of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian. It was recorded on June 25, 1961, at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Released in 1961, the album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time. Scott LaFaro died 10 days after this recording.

Same-sex love triangles in female monkeys

Mistakes are valuable learning opportunities, yet in uncertain environments, whether a lack of reward is due to poor performance or bad luck can be hard to tell. […] Participants consistently displayed a self-attribution bias, crediting successes to their own ability while blaming failures on randomness

Paralysed man stands again after receiving ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells

Wooden Rods aren’t often used as placebos these days, you’re much more likely to receive some kind of oral placebo (like sugar pills), a topical placebo (such as a cream containing no active ingredients), or an intra-articular placebo (injected directly into the joints). However, this presents a tricky dilemma - what do we do about the fact that different types of placebo can have different effect sizes? […] An intra-articular placebo is more effective at relieving pain than topical placebos, and topical placebos are more effective than oral placebos. […] characteristics of the physician administering the placebo can also make a difference […] Characteristics of the patient can also make a difference to how effective a placebo is - children are more receptive than adults.

Asked whether “scaling up” current AI approaches could lead to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), or a general purpose AI that matches or surpasses human cognition, an overwhelming 76 percent of respondents [475 AI researchers] said it was “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to succeed.

How Scammers Launder Money and Get Away With It [NY Times]

Consistent workouts can be a powerful way to fight chronic inflammation. […] the less chronically inflamed we are, the healthier we are. […] Chronic inflammation can also be linked to diet, stress, smoking, obesity, sleep quality and your level of physical activity. And it increases as you age […] Research suggests that consistent, moderate exercise can fight inflammation by tamping down on the release of inflammatory chemicals, and ramping up the release of chemicals that fight it, she said. Exercise can also lower inflammation indirectly, for example, by improving sleep quality and lowering stress. […] If you’re breathing harder than usual to keep up the pace, and you feel like you’re putting in moderate effort, she said, you’re probably fighting inflammation. [NY Times]

seasonal clock changes help align human activity with the sunrise, but the practice is associated with numerous health risks

Why Are So Many Young Women Convinced They’re Balding?

63 Chinese Cuisines Guide

web infrastructure provider Cloudflare announced a new feature called “AI Labyrinth” that aims to combat unauthorized AI data scraping by serving fake AI-generated content to bots. The tool will attempt to thwart AI companies that crawl websites without permission to collect training data for large language models that power AI assistants like ChatGPT. […] Instead of simply blocking bots, Cloudflare’s new system lures them into a “maze” of realistic-looking but irrelevant pages, wasting the crawler’s computing resources. The approach is a notable shift from the standard block-and-defend strategy used by most website protection services. Cloudflare says blocking bots sometimes backfires because it alerts the crawler’s operators that they’ve been detected. […] In January, we reported on “Nepenthes,” software that similarly lures AI crawlers into mazes of fake content. Both approaches share the core concept of wasting crawler resources rather than simply blocking them.

5 Chinese satellites practiced ‘dogfighting’ in space […] US “near peer” adversaries are “practicing dogfighting” in space to simulate orbital combat in yet another step up their wide-ranging effort to develop capabilities to deny, disrupt, degrade and/or destroy US space capabilities […] “There are five different objects in space maneuvering in and out around each other, in synchronicity and in control. That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another” […] [Russia and China] have demonstrated ability with two spacecraft moving closely around each other […] but the demonstrations of the ability to synchronize movements of several satellites at once is relatively new […] China has been using several satellites to stalk US government and commercial satellites stationed in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).

FBI seized this woman’s life savings ($40,200) without telling her why

bowel movement frequency significantly influences physiology and long-term health, with the best outcomes linked with passing stools once or twice a day, study […] bowel movement frequencies were categorized into four groups: constipation (one or two bowel movements per week), low-normal (three to six per week), high-normal (one to three per day), and diarrhea. When stools linger too long in the gut, microbes exhaust the available fiber – which they ferment into beneficial short-chain fatty acids – and instead ferment proteins, producing toxins like p-cresol sulfate and indoxyl sulfate. “What we found is that even in healthy people who are constipated, there is a rise in these toxins in the bloodstream”

Researcher uses AI to make texts that are thousands of years old readable — How should we live when we know we must die? This question is posed by the first work of world literature, the Gilgamesh epic. More than 4,000 years ago, Gilgamesh set out on a quest for immortality. Like all Babylonian literature, the saga has survived only in fragments. Nevertheless, scholars have managed to bring two-thirds of the text into readable condition since it was rediscovered in the 19th century. The Babylonians wrote in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, which have survived in the form of countless fragments. Over centuries, scholars transferred the characters imprinted on the pieces of clay onto paper. Then they would painstakingly compare their transcripts and—in the best case—recognize which fragments belong together and fill in the gaps. The texts were written in the languages Sumerian and Akkadian, which have complicated writing systems.

Book scanning robot preparing food for his LLM brethren

French Army Trains Eagles To Take Down Enemy Drones

U.S. military on Monday deployed robotic dogs—or robodogs—in joint drills with South Korean forces, simulating assaults on North Korea’s “secret” underground tunnel networks

The results indicate that water fountains can be a source of atmospheric air contamination with potentially pathogenic E. coli and A. hydrophila bacteria. […] some E. coli and A. hydrophila strains isolated from air samples exhibited multidrug resistance [2023]

Italian newspaper says it has published world’s first AI-generated edition

Blindspots in LLMs I’ve noticed while AI coding

The Social Security numbers and other private information of more than 200 former congressional staffers and others were made public Tuesday in the unredacted files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. “It’s absolutely outrageous. It’s sloppy, unprofessional,” said former Trump campaign lawyer Joseph diGenova, 80, whose private information was included in the release. […] More than 60,000 pages related to the 1963 assassination were released this week by the Trump administration. Many of the pages had been previously disclosed, but with redactions. Many, but not all, redactions have been removed. […] “Social Security is literally the keys to the kingdom to everybody,” said Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security. “It’s absolutely a Privacy Act violation.” Many whose Social Security numbers were exposed had become high-ranking officials in Washington. They include a former assistant secretary of state, a former U.S. ambassador, researchers in the intelligence world, State Department workers and prominent lawyers. [Washington Post]

More: The previously-redacted pages spell out specific instructions for CIA operatives on how to wiretap, including the use of certain chemicals to create markings on telephone devices that could only be seen by other spies under UV light. […] “Seven of ten JFK files held by the Archives and sought by JFK researchers are now in the public record. These long-secret records shed new light on JFK’s mistrust of the CIA, the Castro assassination plots, the surveillance of Oswald in Mexico City, and CIA propaganda operations involving Oswald,” Morley posted. “The release does not include two thirds of the promised files nor any of 500-plus IRS record, nor any of the 2,400 recently discovered FBI files.“ […] One document from August 1966 recommends a “certificate of distinction” for a CIA official who led the spy agency’s technical division. Previous releases of the same document contained redactions striking sentences that described how this individual led a team that “conceived and developed” the use of “fluoroscopic scanning” and X-rays, which allowed the CIA to “detect hidden technical listening devices” for the first time. [ABC]

Depression manifests in distinct ways across the life course. Recent research emphasizes how depression impedes development during emerging adulthood. However, our study suggests a more complex narrative. Increasing experience with cycles of depression can also catalyze (a) mature perspectives and coping mechanisms that protect against depression’s lowest lows; (b) deeper self-knowledge and direction, which in turn promoted a coherent personal identity; and (c) emergence of a life purpose, which fostered attainment of adult roles, skill development, greater life satisfaction, and enriched identity. Our synthesis reveals how depression during emerging adulthood can function at once as toxin, potential antidote, and nutritional supplement fostering healthy development.

This book has been made almost entirely from recycled used copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Does a woman’s cognitive performance change throughout her menstrual cycle? […] the body of research in this meta-analysis does not support myths that women’s cognitive abilities change across the menstrual cycle.

results show that there is a different investment behavior—more extreme in men, more stable in women—and, consequently, men get higher levels of gross profit but also of losses than women

Sugary drinks linked to greater oral cancer risk, study

Ultra-processed babies: are toddler snacks one of the great food scandals of our time

1kg of compost contains up to 16,000 microplastic particles

Zuckerberg’s subordinates are letting him win at the board game the Settlers of Catan. (Another time, when she beats him, he accuses her of cheating.) […] During the delivery of her second daughter, Wynn-Williams nearly dies of an amniotic fluid embolism, goes into a coma and wakes up on life support. […] on her first day back, she got an impromptu performance review from her supervisor Joel Kaplan that criticized her for not being “responsive enough” while she was gone. [NY Times]

The fact that the two biggest crypto exchanges, FTX and Binance, failed and their founders were criminally charged and went to prison, should be proof enough of how rancid this ecosystem is. […] Like all financial operations characterized by irrational exuberance, the value of $TRUMP soon plummeted. Indeed, over 800,000 investor accounts lost a total of $2 billion. […] Trump is also staffing the Securities and Exchange Commission with crypto loyalists who have already begun to deconstruct the oversight of the crypto sector. […] For the time being, the two reserves (one for Bitcoin, the second for other digital assets) will contain only crypto seized in criminal or civil forfeitures. The crypto industry was disappointed that Trump didn’t mandate federal purchases of the currencies. But that will probably happen in the future. The new initiative calls on federal agencies to come up with strategies to buy more Bitcoin. And there’s now a bill in Congress calling on the government to buy a million Bitcoin. Previously: Texas museum removes Trump wax figure after visitors repeatedly punched and scratched it

See You Next Wednesday is a recurring gag in most of the films directed by John Landis, usually referring to a fictional film that is rarely seen and never in its entirety. Each instance of See You Next Wednesday in Landis’s films seems to be a completely different film. Landis got the title See You Next Wednesday from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is the last line spoken by Frank Poole’s father during Poole’s video letter from his parents. […] In An American Werewolf in London (1981), See You Next Wednesday is a porn film being shown in a seedy London pornographic theater. […] In the Michael Jackson music video Thriller (1983), the phrase is spoken by a deputy in the werewolf film that Michael and his girlfriend are watching. It is also visible as a poster on the outside of the cinema as they leave.

In nearly half of the world’s bird species, young birds learn by imitating the songs of adults. As birds learn songs from one another, mistakes inevitably happen, leading to variation in songs between populations of the same species, similar to the formation of dialects in human languages. […] However, scientists don’t yet fully understand what happens to these song differences when birds move between populations. Imagine you’re a local bird, and a newcomer arrives singing a foreign song. What’s to stop you from learning this new song? […] But birds tend to only learn songs from their own species, even when they are exposed to the birdsong of other species. This suggests that birds have genetic predispositions guiding them to learn only “appropriate” songs.

Male octopus injects female with venom during sex to avoid being eaten

Why straight women watch lesbian porn

Is our universe trapped inside a black hole?

Water droplets create “microlightning” when they split, producing electrical discharges without any external power source. These tiny electrical sparks can transform simple gases into complex organic molecules—including amino acids and RNA components—in just microseconds. […] this phenomenon may have been a major contributor to creating life’s building blocks on early Earth

Bryan Johnson — the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement — wants to start “foodome” sequencing. “We’re going to sequence the U.S. ‘foodome,’ which means test 20% of foods that constitute 80% of the American diet based on stuff we eat everyday” […] he’s obsessed with finding ways to extend his lifespan and preaching that gospel to others. He has taken extreme measures, including transfusing his blood with that of his 17-year-old son and undergoing shock therapy treatment to get more nighttime erections, which he says directly correlates to health.

Results consistently show that positive experiences are more likely to come to mind when they think about how karma influences their own life, but negative experiences are more likely when thinking about other’s karma, although this difference was weaker in Singapore and India than in the United States

no one can seem to agree on what an AI agent is, exactly

Scammers exploit Google redirect URLs to send phishing links

As late as the 1980s it was widely believed that babies do not feel pain. […] Babies were thought to be lower-evolved beings whose brains were not yet developed enough to feel pain, at least not in the way that older children and adults feel pain. Crying and pain avoidance were dismissed as simply reflexive. […] Most disturbingly, the theory that babies don’t feel pain wasn’t just an error of science or philosophy—it shaped medical practice. It was routine for babies undergoing medical procedures to be medically paralyzed but not anesthetized

Hannah Arendt, who fled Germany in 1933, later wrote that long before Jews, Roma, gays, Communists and others could be herded into death camps, they had to be “denationalized” — excluded from the society that guaranteed their legal rights. Enlightenment thinkers had posited that just by virtue of existing, each person has inalienable rights. Arendt, however, observed that the “right to have rights” could be guaranteed only by a political community. Without a state to claim them as their own, people have no laws, no courts and no political mechanisms for protecting rights. As a stateless person, [Arendt] experienced that loss of rights — unable to get papers, hiding from the police, interned as an “enemy alien” in France — before making it to the United States. [NY Times]

It’s illegal to mispronounce Joliet.

Three GLP-1 drugs are approved for weight loss in the United States […] cost about $1000/month and are rarely covered by insurance, putting them out of reach for most Americans. […] For the past three years, there’s been a shortage of these drugs. FDA regulations say that during a shortage, it’s semi-legal for compounding pharmacies to provide medications without getting the patent-holders’ permission. In practice, that means they get cheap peptides from China, do some minimal safety testing in house, and sell them online. So for the past three years, telehealth startups working with compounding pharmacies have sold these drugs for about $200/month. Over two million Americans have made use of this loophole to get weight loss drugs for cheap. [But] what happens when the shortage ends? Many people have to stay on GLP-1 drugs permanently, or else they risk regaining their lost weight. But many can’t afford $1000/month. What happens to them? Now we’ll find out. At the end of last year, the FDA declared the shortage over. The compounding pharmacies appealed the decision, but the FDA recently confirmed its decision is final. As of March 19 (for tirzepatide) and April 22 (for semaglutide), compounding pharmacies can no longer sell cheap GLP-1 drugs.

Just 5 Days of Junk Food Can Trigger Obesity’s Hold on Your Brain

Musk’s layoffs shrink workforce needed to realize Trump’s energy agenda

What It’s Like to Build a Sauna Kit in My Backyard

Emily Dickinson used envelopes and seals to turn letters into poetry, layering hidden messages and playful forms

Top UK comedy club bans audience members with botox after ‘numerous complaints’ […] “reactionless” faces […] audience members with frozen faces aren’t reacting to their jokes

just seven countries met the WHO’s air quality standard. Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Estonia, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand

The original Sphere, which cost about $2.3bn to construct, is home to the word’s highest-resolution LED screen and has seating capacity for up to 20,000 people. But the venue demands a significant investment from performers, who must create customised visual content tailored to the wraparound LED display, which cannot be used elsewhere. While this has been been feasible for its high-profile residencies such as U2, the Eagles, Dead & Company and Anyma, smaller venues could attract a broader range of artists who might not have the budget or demand to fill the flagship Las Vegas location. The possibility of 5,000-capacity mini-Spheres follows news that a full-scale venue will open in the UAE

This is a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the Starship V2 and the engine section […] The fixes will take much longer than 4-6 weeks

Start walking down the stairs some evening for an uptown No. 1 train at 28th Street and Seventh Avenue, and be on the lookout for a small, hidden bar. […] Jey Perie, 41, who grew up in France and moved to New York in 2012 […] opened La Noxe, a 600-square-foot hidden bar in between the street and the uptown train. The bar holds 30 people and is reminiscent of a speakeasy, “because it’s so hard to find, which was never my intention” […] We have a DJ on the weekends so those are our busiest days. Then we can sell 150-200 drinks a night. […] How did this space become so well-known? In March of 2021, we had been closed for months because of Covid, and then told we could reopen, but only at 25 percent, which is like eight people, only to close again a few months later. When we were trying to figure out how we were going to survive, a random girl booked a reservation. She made a TikTok video showing her opening the door and walking out. She only had 400 or 500 followers, but her video got a million plus views. That got picked up on other social media. The M.T.A. president gave us an award. We became a New York comeback story. She brought the news, and Jimmy Fallon had us on his show. We went from 10 people DM-ing on Instagram a week to 1,000 people. We started taking reservations on Resy. Without that video, we would be closed. [NY Times]

Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell’, Sean Hannity says he’s buying Tesla in solidarity with Musk, INTERVIEW OF PRESIDENT TRUMP AND ELON MUSK BY SEAN HANNITY, quote