J. Hector Galvez

This reminds me of those Star Wars guides where they used to break down all the different types of Imperial Stormtroopers...

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

"Harvard can't use race as a factor in admissions, but ICE can use race as a factor in detentions" is a retrenchment essentially to a pre-Civil War understanding of the Constitution. It's vanishingly few steps removed from "Latinos have no rights which the white man is bound to respect."

mRNA tech is some of the coolest, most powerful, most promising scifi shit humans are currently doing. They are being investigated to help with cancers, autoimmune diseases, M.S., stroke recovery, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and high cholesterol.

Shredding coconuts is one of 20-year-old Eurasian eagle owl Forrest’s favorite enrichments behind the scenes, and he’s not shy about letting you know it. From dramatic screeches to full-on head swivels, Forrest brings the drama just in time for #OwlAwarenessDay. 🦉

This is beyond unethical. Worse than a Black Mirror episode. I hope the backlash is swift and they never allow AI to “speak” for the dead ever again.

Low-dose metformin requires brain Rap1 for its antidiabetic action Metformin lowers blood glucose by inhibiting Rap1 in ventromedial hypothalamic neurons that regulate glucose balance.

Metformin, the first line drug for Type 2 diabetes, has been used for 60 years without a clearcut mechanism of action. It turns out it's not just reducing glucose output from the liver. Metformin also works via the brain www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

apple is as desperate as the rest of us for the ai hype bubble to burst so investors will fuck off asking about its ai strategy

Silicon Valley's Push Into Transportation Has Been a Miserable Failure The titans of tech brought plenty of disruption to our broken transportation system but delivered little in the way of innovation.

“Elon Musk admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project to get in the way of that actually succeeding.” — @parismarx.com in @gizmodo.com

He’s always been this way.

Made-to-order DNA goes big: new tech doubles size of custom genetic sequences Enzyme-based techniques and refinements in organic chemistry ease the generation of extended DNA sequences.

A technology feature in Nature describes how enzyme-based techniques and refinements in organic chemistry are easing the generation of extended DNA sequences. 🧬 🧪

Paris cycling numbers double in one year thanks to massive investment and it's not stopping The report delves into the nuances of Parisian cycling culture, exploring the vibrant community of riders who navigate the city's streets

Paris urban biking DOUBLED in just one year.

“Cycling in Paris has transcended mere trendiness; it’s become a fundamental aspect of the city’s identity. Despite challenges like inclement weather, cyclists continue to flock to the streets, setting new records and reshaping the urban landscape.”

The Running Novelist If I wanted to have a long life as a writer, I needed to find a way to stay in shape.

Haruki Murakami was about to turn 30 when a thought occurred to him: “You know what? I could try writing a novel.” Then he realized, “If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to stay in shape.”

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

A white mug with the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo holds a spray of lavender next to a stack of the eight books shortlisted for this year's prize: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins The City in Glass by Nghi Vo Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera The West Passage by Jared Pechaček Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

YouTube video by Joni Mitchell - Topic The Fiddle and the Drum

"The Fiddle and the Drum" - (1969) Joni Mitchell

Relevant today as when it was originally released.
youtu.be/H7YQLMH7wL4?...

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

theonion.com/this-war-wil...

What’s Happening to Reading? For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end.

For some, the traditional mode of reading—intense, extended, beginning-to-end encounters with carefully crafted texts—has become almost anachronistic. How will A.I. transform the ways in which we read?

Photo of the first edition of Joyce’s Ulysses, white text on blue cover, “Ulysses by James Joyce”. It’s a chunky book.

A little colour note for Bloomsday, the anniversary of Leopold Bloom’s adventures across Dublin. James Joyce requested a very specific blue for the cover of Ulysses: the blue of the Greek flag, a nod to Homer & Ancient Greece, and a token of the country that Joyce believed brought him good luck…

In a comic strip panel, person in a red shirt walks through a sunlit forest. The text says "Sometimes I go looking for a tiny part of the universe." "This part only takes up as much space as: half an apple, a salt shaker, or 2 ping pong balls." Each of these items is shown. Galaxies and stars swirl as the text says "But somehow, in an unfathomably huge universe," and then there's a complex mess of forest leaves, with one tiny Wilson's warbler in one corner, and the text says "this one tiny part" There's a close up of the warbler, blazing yellow against a sparkly yellow background, and the text says "can fill up my whole heart."

Tiny part.

Katherine Rundell’s Fantastic Four The best-selling author of “Impossible Creatures” takes us on a tour of fantastical worlds, old and new.

From “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C. S. Lewis, to “The Earthsea Cycle,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, the author Katherine Rundell recommends books set in fantastical worlds.

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Holy shit, you guys.

I just read Curtis Yarvin'a actual writing instead of a summary.

The man is 51 years old, treated as an intellectual by the Sand Hill elite, and he writes like the most annoying freshman honors student who ever discovered Nietzsche from a comic book guide to philosophy.

2005:
boomers: the internet is dangerous, be careful what you read and who you talk to
millennials: no it's not

2025:
millennials: the internet is dangerous, be careful what you read and who you talk to
boomers: no it's not

The group chats that changed America A loose private network on Signal and WhatsApp helped usher in the new alliance between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump’s new right.

So basically, the reactionary right wing & centrist elites whose identities are based on the idea that “the left” is a conspiratorial borg that coordinates its messaging and targets, have a group chat in which they coordinate their messaging and targets. How shocking. www.semafor.com/article/04/2...

"The group chats are 'the memetic upstream of mainstream opinion," says some VC asshole who now works at Trump's White House.

I guess I just think anyone who says stuff like "The groupchats are the memetic upstream of mainstream opinion" should be stuffed in a locker and never let out.

These groupchats are only powerful because of the sheer concentration of wealth. Your crowd isn't brilliant or clever. You're just rich.

De-Extinction Rebellion | Leo Kim Scientists want to control extinction. It will have consequences we can’t even begin to conceive of.

“For these wannabe Prometheuses, the future of conservation lies not in tackling the complex causes of extinction but in wresting the power of extinction for themselves.”

The End of Children Birth rates are crashing around the world. Should we be worried?

Given the discourse here today, really recommend this deeply reported and complex piece about birth rates.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073

I think we’ve had quite enough op-eds claiming that it was left-wing overreach, extending civil rights to minorities & thereby challenging cherished conservative beliefs about gender, sex and the true patriarchal order, that led them to lose faith in democracy and American international leadership