‘Destructive’ swans in the crosshairs as California allows hunting
Hunters will soon be allowed to kill mute swans as part of an effort to cull the “destructive, non-native” species statewide, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. ⌘ Read more
Rust Clone of Core Utils Breaks Ubuntu Updates
Ubuntu 25.10 dropped the battle tested GNU Core Utils, in favor of the untested, incomplete “uutils”. ⌘ Read more
Virtual reality can help people understand and care about distant communities
For many of us, climate change feels like a distant threat—damage that will happen in the future somewhere far away to people we know little about. A new Stanford University-led study reveals how virtual reality can close that distance, enabling users to explore faraway places, develop a sense of attachment to those places, and care more about how a warming world is wreaking havoc on people’s lives. ⌘ Read more
ICE Is Mounting a Mass Surveillance Campaign on American Citizens
Autumn Billings , Assistant Editor - reason
_Stephan: In every country ruled by an authoritarian dictator, one of the hallmarks of such societies is the surveillance of the citizenry, to control any resistance to the leader’s authority. Well, now that reality has come to the United States. I’m not sure how I will get to my daughter’s wedding. I have been warned not to fly or go through any g … ⌘ Read more
We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.
Nicole Foy, ProPublica Ancil Payne Fellow - ProPublica
_Stephan: The Trump Gestapo is becoming more and more aggressive and racist. If your skin color is anything other than White, I advise you to get one of those [passport cards.](https://govplus.com/solutions/passp … ⌘ Read more
Looks like ICE recruits are a hot mess
Lisa Needham, Staff Writer - Daily Kos
Stephan: Creating the Trump Gestapo is turning out to be harder than one might think, but one option, which Trump is playing, is just to reduce the qualifications and integrity of the people you recruit, as this article describes. Of course, it helps to have a corrupt Gestapo leader, say someone like Tom Homan.
Stephan: It is no longer going to be possible to believe or trust any media coverage coming out of the Pentagon, as this British article reports, because the free press has been replaced by fascist media reporters. Essentially, the United States has become the media equivalent of Russia or North Korea.
, revealing the bodies to be soldiers of diverse backgrounds who may have fought in the Battle of Mursa around 260 CE. The multidisciplinary investigation, published in PLOS ONE, provides new insight into how the Roman Empire recruited armies from ethnically diverse backgrounds. ⌘ Read more
Geochemical research could help identify microbial activity in Earth’s rock record and perhaps in Martian sediments
Because oxygen-bearing sulfate minerals trap and preserve signals from Earth’s atmosphere, scientists closely study how they form. Sulfates are stable over billions of years, so their oxygen isotopes are seen as a time capsule, reflecting atmospheric conditions while they were evolving on early Earth—and possibly on its planetary neighbor Mars. ⌘ Read more
Hunters or collectors? New evidence challenges claim Australia’s First Peoples sent large animals extinct
Tens of thousands of years ago, Australia was still home to enigmatic megafauna—large land animals such as giant marsupial wombats, flightless birds, and short-faced giant kangaroos known as sthenurines. ⌘ Read more
How plant-fungi friendships may change in the face of warming soil and rising CO₂ levels
Just as the human body contains a multitude of symbiotic microbial companions, most plant species also live alongside microbial friends. Among these companions are mycorrhizal fungi, which help plants gather water and nutrients—particularly nitrogen—from the soil. In exchange, plants provide mycorrhizal fungi with an average of 3% to 13% of the carbon they pull from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and so … ⌘ Read more
Research shows that land can’t buy security for young Kenyans
An anthropologist from The University of Manchester has uncovered the hidden struggles of young men on the edges of Nairobi, who inherit land but lack the means to turn it into the financial security they desperately need. ⌘ Read more
Scientists release new survey of the biggest objects in the universe
Scientists have released a new study on the arXiv preprint server that catalogs the universe by mapping huge clusters of galaxies. ⌘ Read more
Fiji’s coral reefs show remarkable recovery after Category 5 cyclone
A new study led by WCS, University of the South Pacific, and partners has found that coral reefs in Fiji showed remarkable resilience after being battered by Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016. Despite losing more than half of their hard coral cover on average, reefs rebounded within four years, reassembling to nearly their pre-cyclone condition. ⌘ Read more
Why do Americans have shorter life expectancy and worse health than people in other high-income countries?
Mauricio Avendano and Ichiro Kawachi , London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Social Policy, LSE Health and Social Care | Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, - National Library of Medicine
_Stephan: I have published on this in science journals, … ⌘ Read more
Anti-science bills hit statehouses, stripping away public health protections built over a century
MICHELLE R. SMITH and LAURA UNGAR, AP Global Investigations Team | Medicine and Science on the AP’s Global Health and Science Team - Associated Press
_Stephan: Based on fact-based research studies, American healthcare, as I have repeatedly published, is terrible. But, and this is important to note, under dictator Trump’s adminis … ⌘ Read more
Trump’s EV retreat is a huge win for his No. 1 trade rival
Allison Morrow, Reporter - CNN
_Stephan: Because Trump, his vassals, and the Republican Party think climate change is not real, and just a “con”, America is going backwards, while China is being handed world leadership of the EV transition. It is just one of a dozen other trends reducing the geopolitical stature and economic success of the United States. Yet millions of Americans still don’t get what Trump … ⌘ Read more
Trump pushed Zelenskyy in vulgar ‘shouting match’ to cede land or be ‘destroyed’: report
Alexander Willis, Staff Writer - Raw Story
_Stephan: Dictator Trump is a geopolitical non-democracy supporting incompetent, as he demonstrates again and again. Americans may not be paying much attention to this, and it certainly isn’t getting appropriate media coverage, but I assure you the rest of the world is watching his mistakes, and reassessing t … ⌘ Read more
10 Common Misconceptions About the Renaissance
The Renaissance roughly spanned the 15th and 16th centuries and saw the revival of classical antiquity, with European scholars dedicating themselves to studying art and literature from Ancient Greece and Rome. It’s when William Shakespeare wrote his plays, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, and later thinkers like Isaac Newton continued the spirit of inquiry into […]
The post [10 Common Misconceptions About the Renaissance](https:// … ⌘ Read more
Who goes to the ballet? Education and social connections matter more than income, study finds
Why do some people regularly attend the opera, visit art galleries, or go to classical music concerts—while others rarely, if ever, do? ⌘ Read more