A Wave of Unexplained Bot Traffic Is Sweeping the Web From small publishers to US federal agencies, websites are reporting unusual spikes in automated traffic linked to IP addresses in Lanzhou, China.

www.wired.com/story/made-i...

Day 1453 of this damn war and despite all the talk and rhetoric and peace talks to come this week, no-one in Ukraine is anywhere near convinced the end is near.

A very late start to Sunday's🧵after the very late finish to yesterday's thread, and still questions are unresolved.

I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups Rather than offering a revolutionary new approach to gig work, RentAHuman is filled with bots that just want me to be another cog in the AI hype machine.

www.wired.com/story/i-trie...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference - United States Department of State SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you very much.  We gather here today as members of a historic alliance, an alliance that saved and changed the world.  When this conference began in 1963, it was in a nation – ...

in his rendering of the past 30yrs, the worst thing that happened to Europe isn't the resurgence of Ru imperialism but Europe's common market and supranational integration. He may have been a tad softer, but I see no substantive difference from JD Vance's 2025 speech. www.state.gov/releases/off...

Meet the unbearably cute patients at this one-of-a-kind hospital for bats See inside Tolga Bat Hospital, a place for Australia’s injured and orphaned flying foxes.

Tolga Bat Hospital cares for as many as 1,000 bats a year, the bulk of which are spectacled flying foxes, an endangered species and one of four distinct kinds of flying foxes in mainland Australia.
www.vox.com/climate/4780...

Okay this whole Wikipedia page is fascinating. At skim some of these regions had water that was green as often it was blue, but the idea that “terms for brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray will not emerge in a language until the language has made a distinction between green and blue” is a mindfuck

Food Delivery Robots Are Feeding Camera Footage to the LAPD, Internal Emails Show Serve Robotics, which delivers food for Uber Eats, provided footage filmed by at least one of its robots to the LAPD as evidence in a criminal case. The emails show the robots, which are a constant si...

Food delivery robots and Waymos are not our friends.

www.404media.co/serve-food-d...

A car (Volvo PV544) crash with a submarine, Lysekil, Sweden, 1961.

#car #accident #submarine #strangethings

Healthcare group urges RFK Jr to resign after remarks on cocaine and toilet seats President of Protect Our Care issues one-word statement to US health and human services secretary: ‘Resign’

Ever imagine such a headline?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I’m pretty sure you all needed to see this video of a baby manatee with its mom.

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

YouTube video by Museum of Science 1 in 5 Teens Form Bonds With AI

Teens are falling in love with AI. 🤖🧪

A new study from the @cdt.org found that 86% of high school students use artificial intelligence tools for homework, advice, and conversation.

youtube.com/shorts/7O4vX...

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

At her testimony in front of Congress last year, ex-CDC director Susan Monarez was asked what keeps her up at night.

She said, "The next outbreak".

Now, the #NIH will not make pandemic preparedness a priority for NIAID.

Recall that the US pulled out of WHO.

🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Kristi Noem: "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country."

New: We translated 1988 KGB training manual on how to psychologically profile agents for recruitment cultivation using their biographies, physical appearances and handwriting. Pliable middle children, cheerful fatties, and why the KGB loves a midlife crisis: t.co/cwKTQotsGI

Researcher skeptical of ‘Havana syndrome’ tested secret weapon on himself The CIA investigated a Norwegian government experiment with a pulsed-energy machine in which a researcher built and tested a “Havana syndrome” device on himself.

In 2024, a Norwegian researcher skeptical that pulsed-energy weapons could do damage to human brains built a device and tested it on himself. It didn’t go well. The Havana syndrome skeptics turn out to be fools rather than skeptics. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Hello again on Saturday 14 February, but Valentine's Day is no different for Russia, still killing & injuring any Ukrainians they can.

Day 1452 of the full invasion, with Ukraine trying make use of Russia's communication problems to push the enemy back.

Let's start the daily🧵

It's been clear for the whole of the last year (and before) that the Trump administration is focused on developing economic ties with Russia; supporting Russia's full rehabilitation; forcing Ukraine's capitulation; and preventing NATO/EU states acting as spoilers.

There will be people who are understandably desperate to hear this, but it's important to be clear-eyed about Rubio himself and what the Trump administration is doing. 🧵

Russia killed opposition leader Alexei Navalny using toxin from dart frog, UK says There is no innocent explanation for the toxin being found in samples taken from Navalny's body, Foreign Office says.

🇬🇧🇷🇺 BBC: UK Foreign Office says Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny killed using poison developed from dart frog toxin.

Synopsis Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For the past decade, Twitter has been a primary home of scientists on social media. In recent years, new leadership at Twitter has made substantive changes that have resulted in increases in the prevalence of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and harassment on the platform, causing many scientists to seek alternatives. Bluesky has been suggested as a good alternative to Twitter, but the phenomenon of academics switching social media platforms has not previously been studied. Here we report on the results of a survey distributed to scientists on Twitter and Bluesky (n = 813). Results overwhelmingly confirm that changes to Twitter have made the social media platform no longer professionally useful or pleasant, and that many scientists have abandoned it in favor of Bluesky. Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter.

Sadly not open access but the synopsis tells you what you need to know.

TESCREALists Keep Lying About Human Extinction No group of people is screaming louder than the TESCREALists about the risk of human extinction. Yet many of them simultaneously ENDORSE the extinction of our species! (3,200 words)

New article on the duplicity of people like David Krueger who argue that ASI might cause "human extinction." In fact, human extinction is *built-into* the TESCREAL worldview they accept. If things *go well*, then humanity dies out. Don't be fooled by their dishonest rhetoric.

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz Tech Billionaires Want Us Dead

I made a deep dive video into the TESCREAL ideology shaping Silicon Valley’s biggest companies and the AI arms race, and how a shocking number of tech billionaires are pro-human extinction

TESCREALists Keep Lying About Human Extinction No group of people is screaming louder than the TESCREALists about the risk of human extinction. Yet many of them simultaneously ENDORSE the extinction of our species! (3,200 words)

www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/tescrealis...

Mars Colonies Cancelled, the Doomsday Clock Ticks Forward, and a TESCREAL Quiz Plus a short discussion about whether your brain is a computer. (2,000 words)

New article on Musk's stupidity re: Mars, our worsening existential predicament, and a quiz that someone created to determine how "TESCREAL" you are! I also address the question of whether our brains are computers. Fun stuff! www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/mars-colon...

The Streamer “HH” Scandal Represents A Dangerous Convergence Of Misogyny And Nazism A livestream featuring Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Sneako, and other manosphere influencers praising Hitler illustrates the growing convergence of misogyny and neo-Nazism within mainstream online space...

A livestream featuring Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Sneako, and other manosphere influencers praising Hitler shows how misogyny is converging with neo-Nazism in online spaces. As these networks expand, Nazism is normalized, fueling hate and violence against women and other vulnerable communities.

Playing Calvinball with potentially lifesaving new vaccines

Friend of mine said he wouldn't know what to do if one of his kids were trans. I worried he meant that they wouldn't know how to support them, but he meant they would have to quit their jobs and move abroad. Insane that our government is intentionally making life harder for an oppressed minority.

"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” 9:12 AM Feb 12, 2026 604.8K Views

In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease