- I loved reading this story about an 11-yo who pulled one of the most valuable baseball cards in history. The best quote from the article? “My brain pooped.”
- Hackers are hijacking WordPress sites to push malware on unsuspecting visitors. This is another good reason to make sure your plugins are core files are routinely updated.
- This short article about the psychology of scene transitions in film is really interesting. (Watch the video, too!)
One of the more concerning consequences of the current administration is that when the most powerful nation in history is ruled by feckless ignorant toads, those who lust for power elsewhere are emboldened:
- Paramilitary group attacks an open market in Sudan, killing 54 people and wounding scores
- Congo says 773 dead in week-long fighting as military tries to repel Rwanda-backed rebels
- Last night I realized I can watch Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough on BBC through AppleTV. I had to pay for it, but I think that’s pretty reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve Brusatte make an appearance. I read his book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World a year or two ago and loved it. It’s really mind-blowing how much more we know about dinosaurs than we did when I was fascinated with them in elementary school. Scientists might even have finally discovered where dinosaurs first evolved! (The documentary is titled Dinosaur Apocalypse on AppleTV for some reason. I guess that sounds much more dramatic.)
- More Bird Flu Bad News: Infectious disease expert warns wind-blown avian feces may be route of transmission.
- Google searches for “adult tennis lessons” were up 245 percent shortly after the premiere of the Zendaya love-triangle sports-flick Challengers. – via The Athletic
- After reading a few of her Bluesky posts, I decided to subscribe to the tech newsletter rendezvous with cassidoo.
- Just in case you were under the misguided impression that the current administration cares about, y’know, people:
- The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been fired.
- On Monday the Senate confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as Secretary of Energy.
- A Coup in Plain Sight: An Explainer as the Crisis Solidifies
Posts tagged “evolution”
The Scarlet M
I’ve been thinking lately that there should be some way to flag others on Facebook to remind yourself to ignore them. Of course you can unfriend people; I’m not talking about that. I’m primarily talking about friends of friends. I kind of like the idea of a scarlet M, for moron. Frequently I’ll read a
- The Banana Song will haunt your dreams.
- The photo of an iPhone 4 on the cover of the September 2010 issue of Macworld was taken with an iPhone 4.
“He needed to know how Big Bird could possibly have arisen from evolutionary history: What are its relatives? How did it achieve such a unique bone structure? What happened to the other members of his species?” … The Taxonomy of Big Bird, Grandicrocavis Viasesamensis
(This is the same guy who is running The Beibignorance Project, a scientific exercise to determine just how little one can possibly know about Justin Bieber.)- There’s more to the story of how America got her name than just ol’ Americus Vespucci.
And while we’re talking about maps… Check out this awesome map of New Jersey (larger) based on the music of Bruce Springsteen.
- Serenity Now! could be the scariest movie of the summer. The Oregon Trail is going to be the big one at the box office, though.
- The Periodic Table of Swearing is now available in color.
- “Two Michigan coffee shops have said that since throwing their employees into bikinis to serve up cups of joe, they’ve experienced a sizable jump in sales.”
- I pity those who suffer from RAS syndrome.
- It’s nice to know that according to Laver’s Law, I have always been shameless.
- “There’s an age at which it is no longer cool to have your own name and number on the back of a jersey. That age is 10.” from Sports Rule #2
Genetics and Evolution
… some wonderful comments on genetics and evolution from the USS Clueless …
AI
Life began with direct coding on bare, carbon-chemistry hardware, like amino acids and proteins. Higher programming languages, like DNA and RNA, evolved gradually. Computers began in a similar fashion, with programmers coding on to the bare machinery of their circuits. Higher programming languages have followed, each generation more powerful than the last. There is, of
Far Side
“I know you miss the Wainwrights, Bobby, but they were weak and stupid people – and that’s why we have wolves and other large predators.” Update: I received an email from Gary Larson’s attorneys requesting very, very strongly that I remove the image. :0(
University of Otago Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology program
New Zealand My good friend Chris O’Brien was tentatively accepted into the University of Otago‘s Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology’s program to work on his PhD in Bio-Archaeology and Human Evolution.