Hegseth needs to stand trial after this as a war criminal. Between this attack and the girls' school, there's no ambiguity. He is responsible for mass murder and must be held accountable.
U.S. elites treat everything Trump does with an air of unseriousness, because he is a ridiculous flimflam man. But applying that lens to the Iran war seems deeply inapt. Reminiscent in some ways of the lens many of those same elites applied to COVID from Nov 2019 - Jan 2020. An over-there problem.
I continue to be gobsmacked at 1) how common this formulation is 2) how antisemitic and generally bigoted it is 3) and how for all the talk of anti-semitism this is never cited as an example even though it’s quite literally the original incarnation.
U.S. forces likely bombed an Iranian elementary school on Feb. 28 during an operation targeting a nearby military base, a New York Times analysis suggests. It is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility.
It's a very rich vein of lunacy—I recommend consuming in controlled doses. Gotta love the ca. 2004 MySpace page aesthetic though.
And there could already have been space forams from the asteroid belt on the Chicxlub impactor, which then hybridized with terran forams and drove very rapid evolution in the aftermath of the impact...
Or we can get a whole special issue of the Journal of Cosmology thejournalofcosmology.com
Okay but they are planktic forams from a comet, which bolsters the case for the Younger Dryas impactor *and* panspermia
Criminally funny, but also I'm crying inside
Norway comes for the #TechBros
www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree
vimeo.com/1168468796?f...
Experts are concerned that the satellites could ruin dark skies, pollute the atmosphere, and worsen the space debris. The public has a limited time to comment.
skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...
Cool cool cool
"A Meta patent describing a system that would simulate a user’s social media activity after their death... and have a large language model simulate their posting or chatting behavior."
www.404media.co/metas-ai-pat...
The National Science Foundation is systematically being converted to the National AI and Quantum Research Foundation.
“I see it as the administration exerting political control over what has traditionally been NSF’s ability to fund the best science.”
Important assessment of chronic (long-term) and acute (heat-wave) impacts of ocean warming on fish biomass. TL;DR: long-term warming results in pretty big declines, and heatwaves cause abrupt shifts. #MarineLife 🦑🌊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"… turning a blind eye to malfeasance in our ranks gives the public legitimate reason to distrust our work." Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University
As the U.S. doubles down on glyphosate, a widely cited study asserting its safety has been retracted after it was discovered the paper was ghostwritten by Monsanto employees.
This incident, and ghostwriting in general, harms scientific integrity, writes Naomi Oreskes. https://scim.ag/4rIIu4a
NEW: An emboldened President Trump has shown an increased eagerness to leverage the full investigative, prosecutorial and legislative powers of the federal government to bend election mechanics to his will.
On rising fears of subversion w/ Nick C: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...
Trump plans to send $10 billion in funds that Congress hasn’t appropriated from the US Treasury to an organization that he will continue to chair personally even after he is out of office.
This is looting.
The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to spend taxpayer funds, and no law allows the president to halt if he feels some US states aren’t being “good stewards” of the money.
In case there’s any confusion on this, the Impoundment Control Act forbids it.
Taxation without representation.
AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases
www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research
🧪 #Macroecology
A photo of a large red comb jelly on a black background.
Calling all #ctenophore researchers and artists!
Joe Ryan is organizing the Ctenopalooza Ctwo meeting, which we will host at MBARI in California August 23-25. 🦑🧪🌊
www.mbari.org/event/ctenop...
Come swap notes with fellow enthusiasts about the latest news in comb jellies.
Congrats, very much deserved!
My new startup, GymBot: you hire one of our state of the art ai robots to go to the gym and work out for you.
I have never been more glad that I have resisted the digitization of my classes.
"The Trump Administration has begun the great public lands sell off in earnest."
Interior to Sell Off Millions of Acres of Public Lands in Alaska
open.substack.com/pub/morethan...
Surprise:
A pundit who still thinks it was a good idea for the United States to invade Iraq also thinks it is a good idea for the United States to invade Iran.
Another surprise:
This is kind of person to whom the New York Times gives space on their opinion pages.
www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/o...
Richard Bambach on his first day in his office at the National Museum of Natural History in 2005.
Obituary for a great paleobiologist Richard Karl Bambach (18 May 1934–20 June 2025) who infused the large-scale functional approaches to paleobiology and paleoecology.
doi.org/10.1017/pab....
🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio
The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents
This is important y’all. This is our chance to save the stars.
