At Antarctica’s Midwinter, a Look Back at the Frozen Continent’s Long History of Dark Behavior
Sunlight is beginning to return to Antarctica, but are there warnings for us from the “Madhouse at the End of the Earth”?
Read more...Category Archives: Curiousities
Coffee Break: Working Class Life in 17th-Century Italy, Science in Decline, AI and Scientific Understanding, and Neanderthal Art
Part the First. Tales from the Crypt. Subtitled The lives of 17th century Milan’s working poor – their health, diet, and drug habits – emerge from thousands of bodies buried under a public hospital. This article appeared in Science on 1 May 2025: In 1456, the Duke of Milan established a medical institution dedicated to […]
Read more...Archeologists Join Geologists in the Quest to Define the Age of Humans
A new archeology is being developed based on evidence of human activity in the Earth’s sedimentary record, and archeologists are helping to define the Anthropocene as a new stage in the geological record.
Read more...Forensic Science Faces an Identity Crisis
To avoid bias, should scientists direct evidence collection from a crime scene? Or should they stay removed from it?
Read more...Scientists Found a Potential Sign of Life on a Distant Planet – An Astronomer Explains Why Many Are Still Skeptical
Many uncertainties remain about K2-18b.
Read more...AI-Generated Images Can Exploit How Your Mind Works − Here’s Why They Fool You and How to Spot Them
Some tips on detecting AI-generated images.
Read more...Why Is the Trump Administration So Obsessed with Shipping Lanes?
The case that it’s about preparing for conflict with China.
Read more...When Algorithms Take the Field – Inside MLB’s Robo-Umping Experiment
Whether robot umpires would be better for the game is debatable, but they’d be bad news for labor.
Read more...Fifteen Songs About Airplanes and Flight
One last aggregation…..
Read more...Paradise Is a Police State: Examining the Techno-Optimism of Billionaire Silicon Valley Investor (And Unofficial Trump Administration Adviser) Marc Andreessen
The unlimited AI and energy now being unleashed is supposed to usher in a new utopia centered around low wages and prices. So why are Andreessen and friends so intent on a police state as part of the grand experiment we’re all being enlisted in?
Read more...Does Trump’s Attempted “Dismantling” of Spook-Infested, Regime Change Agency USAID Herald a New Foreign Policy Era?
It looks more like an attempt to bring under control rogue agencies that were hostile to Trump during his first term in office as well as a shift in the type of “values” the US will support abroad.
Read more...Meet the Cats Who Roam Rikers Island
Even cats in a prison setting find human servants!
Read more...How Is It That xAI’s (Naïve) Grok Does Not Reveal that xAI is a Public Benefit Corporation?
Lambert annotates a Grok transcript.
Read more...Game of Drones: “Watch the Skies!”
Several theories for the rash of drone sightings in New Jersey
Read more...Cities Made Differently: Try Imagining Another Urban Existence
History shows that there are many ways we can live together. An overview of some of the options from Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber.
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