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In 2017, two cardiologists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who suspected such a link, published the results of a human clinical trial that will forever change the way people think about inflammation. The trial, which involved more than 10,000 patients in 39 countries, was primarily designed to determine whether an anti-inflammatory drug, by itself, could lower rates of cardiovascular disease in a large population, without simultaneously lowering levels of cholesterol, as statin drugs do. The answer was yes. (Jonathan Shaw, Harvard Magazine) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:51 PM - 0 comments

Rich guys are most likely to have no idea what they’re talking about, study suggests [more inside]
posted by peeedro at 12:08 PM - 28 comments

Autonomous cars and the trolley problem: We've talked about self-driving cars and the trolley problem before, but now there are adorable interactive graphics of people being squashed by a moving vehicle.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:47 AM - 56 comments

"Like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good."(The Guardian) "First, as the recent American experience with hyper-capitalism has demonstrated, there are several functions that the public sector actually does more efficiently and more equitably than the private sector." (American Prospect)"....we must also invest in selective growth in certain sectors, from renewable energy to organic farming, as well as low-carbon, socially necessary activities such as education and the caring professions. This will involve reversing the neoliberal capitalist dogma that has imposed austerity for decades (In These Times). Jamie Dimon runs JP Morgan Chase, a bank with $2 Trillion in assets. Representative Katie Porter asked him to create a livable budget for a single mom working at his bank. He couldn’t do it. (Twitter) Why American CEOs are worried about capitalism: Fearing a backlash against business if a Democrat wins the White House, some chief executives are pushing for pre-emptive reforms (FT)
posted by The Whelk at 10:45 AM - 9 comments

In cities around the world today, cyclists and transportation advocates are placing cups along the paint lines of unprotected bike lanes. This was a bit of flash activism spurred by the death last week of DC cycling activist Dave Salovesh. Check the FPP downstream to see why active transportation is making more vocal demands for specialized infrastructure.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 10:42 AM - 17 comments

Making Kin with the Machines. Last year, MIT Media Lab's Journal of Design and Science (JoDS) had an essay competition for pieces responding to Media Lab director Joichi Ito's essay Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto. The essays "explore machine intelligence in light of diverse ecosystems in nature and its relationship to humanity." This piece, which brings Indigenous epistemologies to bear on the AI question, was one of the winners. [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 10:30 AM - 2 comments

SteamWorld Quest: Letting Off Some Steam [Gamespot] “It's easy to be immediately charmed by SteamWorld Quest's colorful fantasy world and the band of merry heroes you'll journey across it with. Their plight is simple and straightforward, making its adventure of confronting evil and its tightening grip on the kingdom around you palatable without feeling overbearing. Underneath this whimsical veneer, however, is a daunting strategy game, one which uses its clever take on turn-based card combat to create a wickedly complex system of decision-making opportunities. But it's also one that is designed intelligently enough to make each part easy to learn and engage with. With regard to gameplay, SteamWorld Quest bears no resemblance to the rest of the games in the series. This is first and foremost a turn-based strategy game, with a light sprinkling of role-playing thrown into the mix...” [YouTube][Game Trailer] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 9:39 AM - 5 comments

Metafilter's Own Alison Wilgus on coming out late
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:46 AM - 33 comments

How angry pilots got the Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings “It’s very mysterious, and they still seem to exceed our aircraft in speed,” [former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee] said, calling it a “truly radical technology.” [more inside]
posted by last_fall at 8:43 AM - 86 comments

Last year, people took 84 million trips on shared micromobility (ie bike and scooter share) in the United States, more than double the number of trips taken in 2017. This infographic-heavy report from the National Association of City Transportation Officials shows where and how these rapid increases are happening - including the stunning fact that almost all of that increase came from scooter share programs, which didn't even exist the year before. How are our cities grappling with this trend? And could it ultimately reshape the design of our streets?
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:23 AM - 35 comments

[W]hat started as a rare-game reveal has turned into a credible "heist" tale, perpetrated by an alleged MAME vigilante, no less. Betteridge's Law may still apply, but someone appears to have gone rogue to release the first-ever ROM image of the ultra-rare Akka Arrh ("Also Known As Another Ralston Hally") arcade game, of which only two or three exist.
posted by Etrigan at 7:27 AM - 41 comments

Blizzard recently announced a new feature in Overwatch - the Workshop. This allows anyone on PC or console (currently only on the Public Test Region) to create new game modes using the existing maps and art, which can be debugged and then shared using a short code. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 4:51 AM - 10 comments

Greenland Is Falling Apart - "Since 1972, the giant island's ice sheet has lost 11 quadrillion pounds of water." (cf. Forty-six years of Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance from 1972 to 2018; viz. chasing ice) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM - 13 comments

It'd be a pity not to recognize what's at stake.........Deadwood The Movie, Full Trailer.
posted by lalochezia at 7:56 PM - 41 comments

Some comics by Julia Wertz for The New Yorker about her relationship with her mother:
2017: “Conversations With Ma” (September 21)
2018: “Harry Potter and the Internet” (January 4), “Cheez Wizz And Tree Climbing” (February 27), “Life Advice”, “Health Advice”, “Dietary Advice” (November 22)
2019: “Modern Germ Theory”, “Alternative Uses” (January 2), “My Mother’s Daughter” (February 27), “Spring Cleaning” (March 18), “A True Story About Reading Pet Sematary as a Ten-Year Old” (April 2), “Making Wreaths and Having Kids” (April 25) [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 6:40 PM - 11 comments

Yesterday, FKA twigs released the gorgeous video for Cellophane, her first single since 2016. [Epilepsy/migraine trigger warning for flashing lights] Twigs says "when I wrote cellophane over a year ago a visual narrative came to me immediately, I knew I had to learn how to pole-dance to bring it to life, and so that’s what I did." [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 4:46 PM - 8 comments

New Orleans' Tank and the Bangas (previously) are back to NPR with a first listen of their sophmore album, Green Balloons. NPR's summary is that this is "music without boundary on instruments ranging from sax, flute, cello, vocal scratches, keyboards, synths, real drums, fake drums, a djembe and, of course, the poetry, philosophy, comedy and voice that is Tarriona "Tank" Ball," who called the new album the older sister to the prior album, Think Tank (YouTube playlist; official links to other platforms).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:03 PM - 7 comments

How did ice cream get so expensive? Economy, regular, premium, super-premium -- Faux-European sophistication vs. cheerful American stoners -- "These ice creams have pornographic amounts of butterfat"-- What is a batch, anyway? -- "collect the ice cream as it snakes out of the spigot like cold, bloated toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube" -- "Ice cream should get better if you scale up" -- Who's afraid of stabilizers? -- Air, ice, and crystals -- But is it un-American? -- Nostalgia.
posted by Hypatia at 1:57 PM - 105 comments

Why, when people learn we have one child, do they ask whether we’re thinking about another? The Question throws you, every time. It is meant well, sometimes, of course. But in my experience, it is nearly always thoughtless. (CW: miscarriage, pregnancy loss) [more inside]
posted by stillmoving at 1:36 PM - 43 comments

“I’ve had them killed by alligators and snakes but never by a bird like that. I know ostriches and emus have their moments, but cassowaries are an extremely, extremely dangerous bird. You don’t want to fool around with them. They have no sense of humor.” A Giant Bird Killed Its Owner. Now It Could Be Yours. [NYT]
posted by Mchelly at 12:37 PM - 37 comments

How "Liberal" Late-Night Talk Shows Became A Comedy Sinkhole This derangement presumably stems from a refusal to face the America that propelled Trump to the White House. For all they hate him, they yearn, as he does, for a “lost” country that younger generations view with skepticism. “No one wants to confront the fact that they grew up in a time that was pretty sexist and racist because then they’d have to stop being nostalgic for everything,” this writer says. “See: Aaron Sorkin.”
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:55 AM - 145 comments

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Piano. The NY Times asked their favorite artists and writers for 5 minute piano pieces that exemplify the joys of piano.
posted by storybored at 8:57 AM - 20 comments

R Oregon Trail series computer game of the 1980s and ’90s had narratives from the point of view of settlers traveling from Independence, Missouri to Oregon, it neglected the stories of the very people who lived on those lands. Enter a new game: When Rivers Were Trails, a Native-themed decision-based RPG created with the help of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation and Michigan State University’s Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab and financial support from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. In the game, an Anishinaabeg player in the 1890s is displaced from Fond du Lac in Minnesota due to the impact of land allotments. They make their way to the Northwest and eventually venture into California.You can download and play it now. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 8:52 AM - 3 comments

"We had decided that at each telescope we would play a song of our choosing for the final minutes." Rebekah Frumkin talks to Team Black Hole about life, the universe, and everything.
posted by princessmonster at 7:40 AM - 4 comments

Solving maple syrup's sticky situation: knowing when the season ends
posted by jacquilynne at 6:47 AM - 17 comments

'“I don’t care if it’s simply unboxing presents, that’s work,” said Sheila James Kuehl, a former child star and co-author of the 1999 law that overhauled California’s labor protections for child performers. “It is not play if you’re making money off it.”' [Note: some mentions of child abuse in the article.]
posted by Catseye at 6:28 AM - 45 comments

Lichenia: A city building game for the Anthropocene. [Release Notes] “Lichenia is a new web-based game from game designer Molleindustria (Paolo Pedercini) that’s about “reshaping the natural and built environment, reclaiming dead cities, and growing sustainable ones.” It takes a few minutes to get going, but what else would you expect? Resurrecting a poisoned world is hard. Presented in an isometric perspective (and playable online for free), Lichenia tasks its player with placing some strange tiles on a polluted and ruined landscape. We don’t know what these tiles do. [...] Playing Lichenia is all about trial and error, but that’s because Pedercini wanted there to be an unclear relationship between what you were doing and the effects you had on the world.” [via: Waypoint]
posted by Fizz at 6:03 AM - 13 comments

Simon would wait all day for the cat in the window. Then one day, Simon asked the cat his name, and a beautiful love story began. Now, Simon and Theo will have their first date on Thursday, April 25th.
posted by gladly at 7:24 PM - 27 comments

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Autotune the News, Schmoyoho a.k.a Andrew Gregory has traveled back in time to finish his duet with Katie Couric about Climate Change. [more inside]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:20 PM - 19 comments

Before Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (Space.com) became the first woman in space (previously), 25 women were privately tested with the same rigorous criteria as the original Mercury Seven (Wikipedia), and thirteen candidates were identified for further evaluation (The Ninety-Nines), before NASA forbid the testing from continuing. They didn't stop fighting for the right to be considered beside the male candidates, but it wouldn't be until 1983 that Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Last year, Netflix released a Mercury 13 documentary (YT, trailer), and they received mroe attention recently with the passing of Jerrie Cobb, an aviation pioneer and advocate for women in space (Ars Technica). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:53 PM - 13 comments

The Sudbury Effect: Lessons from a regreened city (CBC Ideas) discusses ongoing attempts to undo the damage from over a century of mining and smelting activity in and around Sudbury, Ontario. A combination of extensive scientific study, government regulation, citizen activism, and some eventual, begrudging industry cooperation would result in long-term remediation efforts that have transformed Sudbury's once-notorious "moonscape" and recognized as a success story around the world. Watch 32 years of Sudbury re-greening from space with Google Timelapse. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:26 PM - 10 comments

I believe—like religion—that the glimmer, the metaphor, if you will, knows a great deal more than I do. And if I stay out of its way, it will reveal itself to me. (A 2019 Pushcart Prize winner) [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 1:05 PM - 12 comments

I found two identical packs of Skittles, among 468 packs with a total of 27,740 Skittles [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 12:20 PM - 54 comments

Why Do People With Depression Like Listening To Sad Music? (British Psychological Society): A new study in the journal Emotion (abstract) reports people diagnosed with major depressive disorder don't listen to sad music to maintain their negative feelings, but rather that they find sad music relaxing, calming or soothing. The research replicated a 2015 study that found people with depression had a far greater preference than controls for sad, low-energy music. However, when they heard these clips again, they reported that they made them feel more happiness and less sadness. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:58 AM - 60 comments

A Internet Argument Ender about local tax rates [via mefi projects] (in Ontario).
posted by sardonyx at 11:55 AM - 29 comments

The country soon-to-be-classic "You Can't Take My Door" is part of the upcoming album The Songularity, by Botnik Studios (previously). To write the lyrics, we are remixing all the best text we can find: Scottish folk ballads, Amazon reviews, Carrie Underwood, The Elements Of Style and more. Our predictive text computer program suggests lyrics in the style of these influences. We set the results to original music. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:46 AM - 11 comments

Romantic comedy is the only genre committed to letting relatively ordinary people — no capes, no spaceships, no infinite sequels — figure out how to deal meaningfully with another human being. Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much? [SLNYT]
posted by Mchelly at 11:24 AM - 51 comments

Have Huawei developed an AI that cleverly enhances your pictures of the moon? Or is it just adding artefactual moon-things to your shaky blurry snap cos it wants you to be happy? A user, Wang Yue, puts it to the test at Zhihu (Chinese language article), and Huawei respond to questions at Android Authority. [more inside]
posted by Joeruckus at 10:48 AM - 39 comments

Medical visits for suicide-related issues among adolescents has doubled from 2007 to 2015, and is now over a million annual visits in the US. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among American youths age 10 to 18 years and attempted suicide is the strongest predictor of subsequent death by suicide (journal article). What can be done? [more inside]
posted by zenon at 9:57 AM - 34 comments

The Impact of Myopia and High Myopia. (PDF) A WHO report. "The prevalence of myopia and high myopia are increasing globally at an alarming rate, with significant increases in the risks for vision impairment from pathologic conditions associated with high myopia, including retinal damage, cataract and glaucoma. The impact of myopia is difficult to determine, because there are no standard definitions of myopia and high myopia, and recognition that myopia can lead to vision impairment is limited by the absence of a defined category of myopic retinal disease that causes permanent vision impairment. A further impediment to progress in this area is insufficient evidence of the efficacy of various methods for controlling myopia."
posted by storybored at 8:46 AM - 48 comments

LonelyStreams Shows You What Happens In Twitch Streams With Zero Viewers “But Twitch isn’t just star gamers; it’s pirate streams, bizarre Tim and Eric-style broadcasts, and average Joes just streaming their Overwatch matches. [...] All that anyone really needs to stream on Twitch is a computer and one of the various capture programs, like OBS or Fraps. If there are really thousands of unviewed streams hiding in the tall grass, it stands to reason that for the dozens of Fortnite players streaming, there’s plenty of weird shit in there too. And LonelyStreams gives me the perfect sieve to find them.” [via: Kotaku]

At any given point in time there are about 3000 livestreams on twitch alone with 0 viewers. Most of the creators are making great efforts of setting everything up and making sure their stream runs properly. It's a shame that nobody is watching. So feel free to browse around and appreciate their hard work.

[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:20 AM - 34 comments

Monumental Almaty is a project to document, research, and preserve works of monumental art in Almaty, Kazakhstan. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 1:03 AM - 8 comments

"I got fifteen lemons in the mail from a California friend with a lemon tree. This is what I did with them." An illustrated essay by MeFi's Own jessamyn (further story background on mefi projects). Includes secret messages, ideas for a lemon menagerie, and a variety of foods/meals. Also features community, and friends near and far. 🍋
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 9:49 PM - 48 comments

Before Gamergate, before the 2016 election, they launched a campaign against Twitter trolls masquerading as women of color. If only more people had paid attention. In 2014 Shafiqah Hudson noticed an odd hashtag purporting to be from black feminists arguing against father's day. But the language these accounts were using read to her as a parody of AAVE, and some of the photos were of people she knew didn't use twitter. This led her and I’Nasah Crockett down a racist rabbit hole that led to 4-chan, right before gamergate. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:59 PM - 49 comments

Post-human creatures interact via immersive social network. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:05 PM - 15 comments

Two gorillas have been photographed posing for a relaxed selfie with the rangers who rescued them as babies... Because they've grown up with the rangers who rescued them, they are imitating the humans and standing on two legs is their way of "learning to be human beings".
posted by growabrain at 4:53 PM - 33 comments

"Steve also comes out of the ice as a 27 year old. In 2012. Steve’s also an emotional Millennial, with similar experience of economic collapse & attack and disaster." Author CZ Edwards provides a deep dive into generational theory (and callouts of its bullshit) through insightful character analysis supported with plenty of historical details.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:21 PM - 33 comments

We asked Professor Regina Bradley and writer dream hampton to share their dialogue about the visual album with us, to show the many directions Lemonade is sending people, knowing the two of them don't come to the art or the artist from the same place, knowing they require different things if they're to feel represented, knowing that feeling is a major factor in what's happening right now culturally, but it's not the only thing.

Close To Home: A Conversation About Beyoncé's 'Lemonade'
posted by hippybear at 3:02 PM - 13 comments

In the western part of the United States, whole communities succumb to the urge to display their school or community pride by stamping their initial on the sides of mountains. Some are painted on stone, some are overlaid with painted concrete or rocks, and some are created by strategically clear-cutting dense vegetation. [more inside]
posted by zinon at 2:41 PM - 43 comments

The United States of Mexican Food is a project by Eater and Gustavo Arellano about the wonderful varieties of Mexican food in the US that are uniquely American.
Welcome to the United States of Mexican Food: The canonical dishes of regional Mexican-American food, from ACP to hot tamales, plotted from California to Georgia [more inside]
posted by vacapinta at 11:58 AM - 52 comments