Jakub Samochowiec

60,000 African penguins starve to death after sardine numbers collapse – study Climate crisis and overfishing contributed to loss of 95% of penguins in two breeding colonies in South Africa, research finds More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found. More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines. Continue reading...

60,000 African penguins starve to death after sardine numbers collapse – study

Investors expect AI use to soar. That's not happening. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...

The numbers vary from study to study but hundreds of thousands of people have died because of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio illegally disbanding USAID — a body count on par with the first eight years of the Syrian civil war — In just seven months. It’s mass death that is simply unfathomable in scale.

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com.

We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans.

washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

Techno-authoritarians want to destroy fact-based media by weaponizing partially legitimate criticism.
It is an attack on the basic tenets of democracy.

I wonder if the United States can learn anything from the last time a major industrialized country decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world?

Almost a decade after the Brexit vote, GDP in the UK is around 6-8% lower relative to peer countries. (Source: www.nber.org/papers/w34459)

Hundreds of thousands of people, dead because of a decision made by the world's richest man

Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design.

news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Netherlands, 9:00 PM Ipsos-I&O exit poll:

Seat projection national parliament

D66-RE: 27 (+18)
PVV-PfE: 25 (-12)
VVD-RE: 23 (-1)
GL/PvdA-G/EFA|S&D: 20 (-5)
CDA-EPP: 19 (+14)
JA21~ECR: 9 (+8)
FvD-ESN: 6 (+3)
BBB-EPP: 4 (-3)
...

+/- vs. Last election result

➤ europeelects.eu/netherlands

U.S. Energy Secretary and Qatari Energy Minister Send Letter to EU Regarding Proposed Corporate Climate Regulations Secretary Wright and Minister Al-Kaabi sent a letter today to the Heads of State of European Union Member States, regarding the European Union's proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directi...

Habt Ihr eigentlich diesen Erpressungsversuch der USA und Katar zusammen gegenüber der EU mitgekriegt? Dumm, wenn man von Staaten abhängig ist, die LNG in die EU liefern.

Das wird noch richtig lustig!!!

www.energy.gov/articles/us-...

Großer Sieg für die Klimabewegung beim Hamburger Zukunftsentscheid: Große Zustimmung findet das „Gesetz für besseren Klimaschutz“ vor allem in zentrumsnahen Gegenden und Stadtteilen mit einer jüngeren Bevölkerung. Deutlich niedriger ist die Zustimmung in Gegenden mit höherem Eigentümeranteil. (1/2)

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

🧵 1/7

Have we passed peak social media? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/a072...

“I was hesitant to accept that— and the Prime Minister of Israel just says it.”

@timmiller.bsky.social & @cameronkasky.bsky.social react to Netanyahu openly admitting 🇮🇱 plans to influence the TikTok algorithm now that Trump-aligned billionaires control the app.

Full: youtu.be/qxZQT-923S0?...

“We studied more than 70 different elections that took place in 12 western European countries over several decades, and found that when mainstream parties take more anti-immigration positions, it leads to more support for the radical right, not less.”

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

workslop!

hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

Eine Folgestudie von Betterup Labs und dem Stanford Social Media Lab deckt ein Problem auf: Künstliche Intelligenz am Arbeitsplatz produziert hochwertigen Schrott in großen Mengen.

KI-generierte Inhalte, die professionell aussehen, aber inhaltlich völlig wertlos sind.

www.golem.de/news/produkt...

While Trump was displaying real-time cognitive decay at the UNGA, we were all cringing. Here is the Swiss Foreign Minister. We are all Ignazio Cassis today. Maybe everyday the Dolt in Chief speaks.

Das sollte auch in meiner Schweiz-TL genau zur Kenntnis genommen werden:

Bei rechtbürgerlichen Parteien zeigt die Forschung seit jeher: Anbiedern an SVP &co bringt nichts. Menschen wählen lieber das Original.

Nun zeigt eine ganz neue Studie: Das gilt auch für Parteien *links* der Mitte (s. Labour)

"40h pro Woche arbeiten. Das ist doch weniger als ein Viertel! Da geht doch mehr!"
Man hört das Argument von Wirtschaftstreibenden, jetzt auch vom deutschen Kanzler. Das Missverständnis dahinter: Viel arbeiten ist in erster Linie ein Privileg - das für viele einfach außer Reichweite liegt (Thread)

Exclusive | Exxon Held Secret Talks With Rosneft About Going Back to Russia Resuming business in Russia would mark a dramatic rapprochement after Exxon’s messy breakup with Moscow when Putin attacked Ukraine in 2022

Of course
www.wsj.com/business/ene...

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing There’s a stark difference in success rates between companies that purchase AI tools from vendors and those that build them internally.

So you're saying there's a chance...

Geballte «Wirtschaftskompetenz»: Die grössten bürgerlichen Trump-Fans In Zitaten: Wie führende Schweizer US- und Wirtschaftsexpert:innen all ihre Hoffnungen auf Donald Trump setzten.

«Trump liebt die Schweiz.» 🤫

www.woz.ch/2515/geballt...

Israel and the occupied territories: ICRC president calls for urgent collective action by states to end abhorrent suffering in Gaza

“There is no excuse for what is happening in Gaza. The scale of human suffering and the stripping of human dignity have long exceeded every acceptable standard – both legal and moral.”
If the Red Cross is THIS outspoken you know something is terribly wrong.

www.icrc.org/en/statement...

Protesters in Tel Aviv took to the streets carrying flour bags and pictures of malnourished children from Gaza, calling for the end of the war on Gaza and the hunger.

#protest #TelAviv #Gaza #hunger #IsraelGazawar #Israel

Luftlinie?

I have a new paper on "The Psychology of Virality" with @steverathje.bsky.social

We explain how similar psychological processes (eg preferential attention to negativity, social motives, etc.) drive the spread of information across online and offline contexts: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

survivaball.com.theyesmen.org