November 29, 2021
Our warm-blooded natures
It's time to fear the fungi - "Scientists assumed that the spread was due to human travel, but when they sequenced the cases, they were surprised to find that these strains weren't closely related at all. Instead, scientists were seeing multiple, independent infections of an unknown fungal disease, emerging around the world, all at the same time. About a third of people infected with Candida auris die from the infection within 30 days, and there have now been thousands of cases in 47 countries. Some scientists think this sudden boom in global cases is a harbinger of things to come."[1,2,3,4]
Even the popular polio shot had its haters
As [polio] outbreaks moved from city to city, swimming pools and movie theaters closed, and parents safeguarded children at home. Salk’s announcement marked the start of the largest medical experiment ever conducted at the time, a placebo-controlled study of 1.8 million children in 44 states, carried out in 1954, that would pave the way for the near eradication of the disease.
Duon H. Miller, the cantankerous owner of a cosmetics company in Florida, was having none of it.
Duon H. Miller, the cantankerous owner of a cosmetics company in Florida, was having none of it.
U Can Beat Video Games
As the host of the YouTube channel U Can Beat Video Games will tell you, the NES is known for having dozens of games with a difficulty level way above what current-day players are used to. But what if he told you about strategies and tactics to get you through the worst the system has to offer? And demonstrated how to perform them, playing through the whole game in the process? But... is he really just a golden retriever? [more inside]
What do YOU need today?
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have been working on a re-wilding project at their home for about three years now. Jeff regularly posts videos from his trail cam(s) to Twitter. Yesterday he posted a video of a young raccoon playing with a toy ball. The hashtag #vanderwild has more.
Gift Giving: Despair, Hope, and a Really Lovely Loaf of Bread
"The sense of despair that hangs over the process of choosing a present stems from our background awareness of how hard it will be ever successfully to identify a material object out in the world that could properly quench a sincere need in another adult." How to Choose A Good Present, from The School of Life. [more inside]
nature finds a way
World's first living robots can now reproduce, scientists say. Bongard said they found that the xenobots, which were initially sphere-shaped and made from around 3,000 cells, could replicate. But it happened rarely and only in specific circumstances. The xenobots used "kinetic replication" -- a process that is known to occur at the molecular level but has never been observed before at the scale of whole cells or organisms.
Do we change or is--have things been--are we in a sort of infinite loop?
Move over Joe Rogan: here's Tim Heidecker's "The Joe Rogan Experience"
Also, it's 12 hours long.
(Or, is it?) [more inside]
Also, it's 12 hours long.
(Or, is it?) [more inside]
It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out.
Radio Indígena is an Oxnard radio station whose target audience is central California farm workers. It broadcasts news, commentary, and live DJs for 40 hours a week, currently in Spanish and at least nine Mexican languages (Mixtec, Zapotec, and Purépecha). Evenings and weekends feature curated, diverse music playlists. You can listen to it in a web browser, using a phone app, and at 94.1 MHz FM in the Central Valley. Their COVID reporting, in particular, has received some
some
English
language
press.
'90s Dad Thrillers: a List
“A bold and brassy trumpet melody?”
"He smacked me the other way and my head naturally followed suit. Right, left, right, left. I might have been a front row spectator at Wimbledon if it weren’t for the balloons of blue and purple swelling across my immaculately sculpted cheekbones. They always go for the cheekbones first, don’t they?" "A Recurring Theme (Song)" by Mei Davis (published this year) is a light-hearted James Bond parody in which secret agent Achilles Lee has an accessory he can't get rid of.
the magic is already there
A lettuce dog, a laundry cow, and other domestic surrealism by the artist Helga Stentzel. [more inside]
« Previous day | Next day »