Briefly Noted

Things Read, Seen or Heard Elsewhere

Progress is great except when it traps you. Which is how an interesting theory about the origins of agriculture begins.

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Ugly online mobs have a beautiful real-world analog, flocks of birds.

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The life advice from which all other life advice flows.

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On second thought, San Francisco decides killer robots aren’t a good idea. Crazy that it got so far.

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No one really know how AI works. Too bad it’s going to control more and more of our lives.

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So you have an opinion. Good for you. That doesn’t mean anyone needs to take it seriously.

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Our relationship with shit – our shit – is creating a toxic environment. What to do about it?

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“We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.”

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Ghost’s canine bots are the scary older brother of every other dog robot you’ve ever seen, and a good reminder that we’re getting increasingly efficient at finding ways to kill ourselves.

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“This virus has humbled me as a professional and a person,” said Michelle Odden, associate professor of epidemiology at Stanford. “I did not think this level of failure in a federal response was possible in the United States.”

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For all its unknowns, the glorious constant of space is its surprises. For instance, when astronomers discovered what color it is.

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A technical glitch on a Chinese video streaming platform reveals a young, popular vlogger is actually a much older woman.

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An architect creates a seesaw at the US-Mexico border to show what happens on one side affects what happens on the other… Oh, and kids have fun.

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A spacecraft not much bigger than a loaf of bread is demonstrating that sailing the cosmos is a possibility.

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A letter sent fifty years ago from Charles Schulz to a ten-year-old boy shows how much hasn’t changed in American society and politics.

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A brain implant that transmits video directory to the visual cortex is allowing some formerly blind patients to see.

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As Los Angeles its green future, here’s a look at the light rail system it had over a 100 years ago.

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And now for something beautiful: the International Space Station crosses the sun.

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Welcome to the current state of deepfake videos where you could ask yourself how much more screwed could we be? And the answer would be, none, none more screwed.

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Those food shots you see on Instagram aren’t about eating what’s in the photo. Instead, they showcase the privilege of being somewhere where such food exists to begin with.

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“Men and women of the United States, this is a momentous hour in world history. This is the invasion of Hitler’s Europe—the zero hour.”

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Meet the space-weather forecaster leading the charge to help us understand solar flares and geomagnetic storms before it’s too late.

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Three decades after Jian Liu shot 60 roles of film of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, he finally has them developed and released to the world.

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