Cavalcade of Mammals

No, a New “Study” Doesn’t Prove COVID Vaccines are Unsafe. by Rebecca Watson

The white rural reckoning Trump is betraying the very voters who put him back in power. by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman

On The Question of Rebranding by driftglass

Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported. Second Sight left users of its retinal implants in the dark by Eliza Strickl and Mark Harris

The Party Should Throw Them a Party. A proposal for how to build a more durable Democratic coalition. by Ned Resnikoff

Another unheeded warning from Cassandra Krugman by Xpostfactoid

Fake Jobs and Fake Facts. By Misrepresenting Constitutional Law, Muskawamy Prove Brandolini’s Law by Don Moynihan

Miss Fire Rocket Kit, $250. Level 1 and Level 2 certification kit.

Fringe science, Junk science
A Short History of Psi Research by Robert Todd Carroll
The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens. Credulous podcaster touts telepathy.

The 19th-Century Fight Against Bacteria-Ridden Milk Preserved With Embalming Fluid In an unpublished excerpt from her new book The Poison Squad, Deborah Blum chronicles the public health campaign against tainted dairy products. by Deborah Blum

How I Get The News. The Firehose Is Your Friend. by Oliver Willis

Could this famous conman be lying about his story? A new book suggests he is. Frank W. Abagnale Jr. is famous for cons documented in the blockbuster “Catch Me If You Can.” But science writer Alan Logan says the real grift is Abagnale’s entire story. by Xavier Lopez

Exclusive: A Stronger Playbook For House Resistance. An internal memo shows Senate Democrats aren’t the only ones who can gum up the works. by Brian Beutler

Roche SBX deep dive into the real specs. What is hidden behind the numbers presented by Roche?

Let’s be generous and say that 20 of the 20,000 genes have been made dire wolfish, and they didn’t miss any important enhancer elements. They still have 99.9% of the genes to convert! Let’s be generous–maybe only a subset of the genes are different, they should have a crude estimate from sequence analysis. So maybe they only need to change 1000 genes to capture the main dire wolf traits, so 2% done!

Though closely related, studies on their genes have found dire wolves split from other canids around 5.7 million years ago, with no sign of an exchange of genes with North America’s gray wolf ancestral populations.

To create these pups, scientists at Colossal used past genetic sequencing studies to make just 20 unique precision edits among the 2.5 billion base pairs in gray wolf germline cells. They then used surrogate dog mothers to give birth to the genetically engineered gray wolf pups.

Colossal hasn’t claimed an intention to make a genetically precise dire wolf. But even if they are trying to create a wolf that looks and behaves like they think a dire wolf would, Austin says that would still probably require tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of critical genetic changes.

Five of the 20 gene edits made to the gray wolves were apparently associated with light coat color alone, according to New Scientist’s interview with Shapiro.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/de-extinction-company-announces-that-the-dire-wolf-is-back/

Thursday Trump declared a fake emergency and is using it to apply emergency tariffs to nearly every country in the world (Russia gets a pass!). The tariffs were, best anyone can tell designed by interns using ChatGPT, and set tariffs at ruinous levels. Ruinous to the US! Thursday and Friday the markets had record falls, the worst days since the COVID and the 2008 bank runs.

After announcing the tariffs, Trump ran out of the White House and to his Doral golf resort to play in the LIV tournament. Why is Doral hosting this Saudi funded tournament? With it, the Saudis give Trump millions in bribes. To top off the dark comedy, Trump is playing in the tournament, and as he does, is cheating his way to a win in the Senior Club Championship. This will be his third golf championship ‘win’ this year.

Yesterday, Trump imposed tariffs on pretty much all imported goods, the largest tax increase in US history. This will drive up inflation and trigger a recession that will cause high unemployment. Trump is using a tariff authority meant for emergencies that Congress gave Presidents. Republicans could fix this today by passing a law removing the tariffs and removing Trump’s authority to impose them. The Republican party is choosing this huge tax increase and crashing the economy.

Step 2: collect bribes from companies that want tariff exemptions.

Trump demands millions’ for 15-minute meetings as execs scramble to stay on his good side

• MAGA
• Proud Boys
• Armed Militias
• And a guy dressed as Hitler

Back when only 1/3 of Americans were taken in by propaganda, and that 1/3 were split among different types of crazy. Fox news is the one ring that united them all.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1834690947350630

Clear ice with directional freezing
Making Flow – Interview with director Gints Zilbalodis

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” -Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” -Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism

Measles outbreak in low tax, low government capacity Texas, link

Facilitate Insight by Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation
“insight problem solving task while receiving transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the anterior temporal lobes (ATL). Only 20% of participants solved an insight problem with sham stimulation (control), whereas 3 times as many participants did so (p = 0.011) with cathodal stimulation (decreased excitability) of the left ATL together with anodal stimulation (increased excitability) of the right ATL.”

Layoff announcement tracker

Beck Weathers (Mt Everest 1996 disaster) general session speech at 2015 NADA Convention

Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory by Jennifer J. Freyd
“DARVO—deny, attack, reverse victim and offender”

Ubuntu 24.04 was going to sleep by default. Turning it off, link.

101 American Fossil Sites You’ve Gotta See by Albert B Dickas

From the FOX propaganda channel: Misleading Rumor Claims Trump Admin Found 75K-80K ‘Missing’ Migrant Children

Sterilizing seeds
“My recommendation is 10% Calcium hypochloride or 5% Sodium hypochloride for 30 minutes, and for complex surfaces of bigger seeds, it is essential to add 2% Tween 20 as detergent (a small drop for 1mL bleach in an Eppendorf tube with seeds).”
“Sodium hypochlorite (1-5%) or 10% Calcium hypochlorite are most common. Mercuric chloride 1% is also probably the best, but use of 3 compounds: Sodium hypochlorite, KMnO4 and H2O2 with washing by water after each one gave best results for nuts and beans.”
“Glass container, clean. Place seeds into it and pour hydrogen peroxide 3%. Soak for five minutes. Drain, pour distilled water and soak for five minutes.”
Growing Seed Sprouts at Home, link.

Rictors Seeds

Map of obscure islands

Musk’s Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government. Imagining how we’d cover overseas what’s happening to the U.S. right now. by Garrett Graff

So many unmarried men. For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors. by Ellie Robson

Book to read: The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard Hamming. Known for Hamming codes (checksums).

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens. Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!
It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? by Celeste Davis

Book to read: Much Ado About Numbers: Shakespeare’s Mathematical Life and Times by Rob Eastaway

Book to read: ‘Secrets of Automata – Ingenious designs for mechanical life’ by Michael Start of The House of Automata.

Making A Mechanical Watch From Scratch Is Fine Work
Tom’s Watchmaking Blog
Hobby CNC machining and resin casting
Part 01 of 03 – An Introduction to the Series 2 Movement

3D printed lens grinding machine by Von Fraens, link.
3D printed sphere machine by Von Fraens, link.

Shodan – search engine for Internet-connected devices.

Trump was a bad President, 1st term.

Glossary for The Sun Also Rises, wikipedia book link.

AI achieves silver-medal standard solving International Mathematical Olympiad problems

Indiana May Make Abortion Reports Public Records

Who Goes MAGA?