ScienceDesk, to science
@ScienceDesk@flipboard.social avatar

"Stranger than science fiction." That's how an ecologist describes a strange fungus that hijacks cicadas’ bodies and behavior, turning them into "zombies."

CNN reports on the the fungus Massospora cicadina and how it's impacting some of the cicadas emerging this year: https://flip.it/cxfw5K

NatureMC,
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar

@pjakobs are fascinating creatures.
I described such an , too: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-07-when-gardeners-run-wild-part-1/id1630784381?i=1000606747381 These ants farm fungi but can become victims of a "zombie" fungus.

My reading tip: Merlin Sheldrake's great Entangled Life https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life - a
@ScienceDesk

fifischwarz, to boeken Dutch
@fifischwarz@waag.social avatar

'I must now return to my story with some haste, before another foolish white woman might think to seize it with the purpose of belching out some nonsensical tale on my behalf.'

21/52 ★★★★★

Recommended reading: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5857637470

@boeken
@bookstodon

marcel, to random
@marcel@waldvogel.family avatar

«Free speech is fine as long as the board shares my opinions» was my impression when reading the interview.

@davidgerard goes one step further with his deconstruction of tech billionaires' adoring uncensorable free speech.

A must-read on their disconnect from the plebs, a deeper analysis on social networks and society. A for this weekend!
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2024/05/10/jack-dorsey-bluesky-decentralised-social-networks-and-the-very-common-crowd/

Volksverpetzer, (edited ) to random German
@Volksverpetzer@digitalcourage.social avatar

Unsere Medien stecken in einer Krise - Volksverpetzer hat ein Plädoyer mit zehn Ideen gegen die Medienkrise veröffentlicht für Medienschaffende, die für Fakten, Freiheit und Demokratie einstehen wollen.

Unterstützt von @DJV @Freischreiber @medwatch_de @wpk und ProQuote.

Hier zum Plädoyer - und einem Plakat zum kostenlosen Download!

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/plaedoyer/

NatureMC,
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar

@Volksverpetzer @DJV @Freischreiber @medwatch_de @wpk
Als Journalistin: Ein für die Ausbildung und die Redaktionen.

Nur Punkt 3 irritiert mich: Muss das nicht heißen "Demokratie ist keine Meinung"? Es gibt klare Kriterien, was Demokratie ist und wo sie angegriffen wird/einem anderen System weicht.
Ich verstehe, was ihr mit dem "parteiisch sein" meint, aber die Überschrift ist sehr irreführend!
Für die "vierte Gewalt" ist Demokratie Teil des Arbeitsauftrags! https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/das-junge-politik-lexikon/321342/vierte-gewalt/

davidaugust, to random
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

A 45 year old American male has the odds of dying in one year of 0.004137 (less than 1%), and 62 year old has the odds of 0.015702 (less than 2%). The odds of a 45 year old and a 62 year old (who whistleblew on Boeing) dying naturally within 2 months of each other are…not good.

Boeing has 145,000 direct employees of various ages. How many might be lost soon in odds defying ways?

🧵 1 of 3

joseph11lim,
@joseph11lim@mastodon.social avatar

@davidaugust

Don't let anyone you love fly in a 🙏

Boeing's deliberately defective fleet of flying sky-wreckage
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

NatureMC, to nature
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar
evelynefoerster, to history
@evelynefoerster@swiss.social avatar

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Purple bacteria can survive and thrive under such a variety of conditions that it is easy to imagine that on many different worlds, purple may just be the new green.” 🤓
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sorry-little-green-men-alien-life-might-actually-be-purple/

paulfoerster,
@paulfoerster@swiss.social avatar

@evelynefoerster Purple… 🤣

Reminds me of “The Flying Sorcerers” by David Gerrold and Larry Niven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Sorcerers

fifischwarz, to mathematics Dutch
@fifischwarz@waag.social avatar

"The only shame is in humanity's unquenchable desire to destroy itself."

17/52 ★★★★★

An amazing story, see my review :
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6444761998

@boeken
@bookstodon

cmconseils, to books French
@cmconseils@mastodon.social avatar

Ever since they announced the movie with Ryan Gosling, I knew I had to check out Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary (especially after loving The Martian!). And let me tell you, I devoured this book in 3 days flat!

Ryland Grace, the main character, is totally endearing, and the story itself is gripping from page one.

_silversmith, to random
@_silversmith@mastodon.social avatar

Worth a read.

Dr. Lindsay Ryan: Many Patients Don’t Survive End-Stage Poverty [Gift Link]
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/opinion/doctor-safety-net-hospital.html?unlocked_article_code=1.j00.dZwA.Ry8mweLOueEz&smid=url-share

NatureMC,
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar
velshi, to random
@velshi@mastodon.world avatar
NatureMC,
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar
N_Henin, to random
@N_Henin@mastodon.social avatar

A yearlong investigation by The Insider has uncovered evidence suggesting that unexplained anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana Syndrome, may have their origin in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by members of Russian GRU Unit 29155.

https://theins.press/en/politics/270425

Sharonbw, to random
@Sharonbw@mastodon.online avatar

Good morning! Another cloudy day with showers. Today my mom will be discharged from rehab and move into her new apartment at assisted living. Her furniture + possessions are already there, so we're hoping it will be as seamless as possible. Still, it will be a big change to have a new living space after living where she'd been since 1978. (Yep, 1978.) Another lesson that no matter how old you get, you need to stay resilient!

Have a good day no matter how many changes come your way.

EllieK,
@EllieK@mstdn.ca avatar

@Sharonbw
It's what we all hope for, in the end.
Have you read Atul Gawande's book 'Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End'?
It's a "if you think you might get older as time goes by and/or think you might even die at some time (or have relatives or other loved ones to whom this might apply), I urge you to read this book. And if you happen to be over 50 (or care about someone over 50), read this book now.--You heard me. I said. NOW!"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696006-being-mortal
Hugs to you.

chargrille, to history
@chargrille@progressives.social avatar

A thread: https://progressives.social/@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes@treehouse.systems/112158149698062526

When US responded to ruling of plausible case, by stripping all funding from , I argued that was active US execution of against . New spending bill defunding it until 2025 outstrips that in viciousness & scope.

ALSO NOTE her citation of CNN reporting from 3 wks ago: UN clearly says Israeli govt used torture on UN staff to extract false confessions.

cc @AnarchoNinaAnalyzes



So let's review here: the U.S. and much of the so-called West, cut funding to a UN aid organization that represents the only way to to prevent a literal famine in Gaza, based entirely on unverified accusations from a government engaging in a literal genocide against Palestinians in the territory. Additionally, Israel has never presented any hard evidence that these allegations are true, and that UN agency says Israeli officials extracted flimsy confessions of a UNRWA relationship with Hamas using literal torture. Finally, despite this lack of evidence, Israel's long history of attempting to dismantle the agency that feeds Palestinians, and a UN agency's report that torture was used to extract confessions, the American government's bipartisan position almost two months later is that helping Israel engineer a famine in Gaza by suspending UNRWA aid for the next year at a minimum, is cool and good actually. In fact, we're also going to keep funding Israel and we continue to ship weapons to Netanyahu's military during an ongoing genocide. At what point does this stop being Israel's genocide in Gaza, and start being a joint American-Israeli genocide in Gaza? Because frankly, I think we're already there.

alainmi11, to random French
@alainmi11@mamot.fr avatar

RAPPEL :

« L’histoire du logiciel : entre collaboration et confiscation des libertés. »

Un EXCELLENT article, un condensé de l'histoire des ordinateurs, des systèmes d'exploitations, des logiciels, pour comprendre comment tout ce qui est né du partage et de la collaboration a été peu à peu confisqué par quelques entreprises.
C'est long, mais il faut vraiment prendre le temps de le lire !
(et de le conserver)

https://ploum.net/lhistoire-du-logiciel-entre-collaboration-et-confiscation-des-libertes/

Un riche et important avocat d’affaires, William Gates, qui travaille, entre autres, pour IBM, entend parler de cette histoire et annonce que son fils vient justement de lancer une entreprise d’informatique. Le fils en question, appelé également William Gates, mais surnommé Bill, n’a jamais programmé d’operating system mais il propose a IBM d’en faire un a condition d’être payé pour chaque personal computer vendu. Tant qu'’il y est, il ajoute dans le contrat qu'IBM est forcé d'installer son OS sur chaque PC vendu. Empêtré dans son procès antitrust et ne voyant pas un grand avenir pour une solution bon marché comme le PC, IBM accepte ces conditions qui sont pourtant étranges.
Mais il y a pire : si les libristes se battaient pour avoir le contrôle sur les logiciels traitant leurs données, les nouveaux acteurs se contentent de traiter les données des clients sur leurs propres ordinateurs. Les utilisateurs ont perdu le contrôle a la fois du code et du matériel. C’est ce qu’on appelle le « cloud », le fait que vos données ne sont plus chez vous, mais « quelque part », sur les ordinateurs de grandes entreprises dont le business model est d’exploiter au mieux ces données pour vous afficher le plus de publicités. Un business model qui fonctionne tellement bien que toutes ces entreprises sont, nous l'avons vu, les plus grosses entreprises mondiales.
La responsabilité n’en incombe pas à l'individu. Après tout, comme je l'ai dit, il est presque impossible d’acheter un téléphone sans Google. La responsabilité en incombe aux intellectuels et aux professionnels, qui doivent élever la voix plutôt que d’accepter aveuglément des décisions institutionnelles. La responsabilité en incombe à tous les établissements du secteur de l'éducation qui doivent poser des questions, enseigner le pliage d’avions de papier au lieu d’imposer à leurs étudiants de se créer des comptes sur les plateformes monopolistiques pour accéder aux données affichées sur les magnifiques écrans interactifs financés, le plus souvent, par Microsoft et consorts.

oliversampson, to random
@oliversampson@sigmoid.social avatar

h/t @pluralistic

@KarlSchroeder somehow captures and reifies all of the spaghetti thoughts I've had about and his horribly unoriginal visions of the future.

A

https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/the-science-fiction-of-the-1900s

"...he’s working on: Space flight. Settling Mars. Cyberpunk-style brain-computer interfaces. Artificial Intelligence. Self-driving electric cars. Humanoid robots. These are the 1900s’ vision of the 2020s; he’s trying to catch up to where 1980s SF thought we’d ‘advance to’ by now."

fsinn, to random
@fsinn@mas.to avatar

“Some within the party—the Christian nationalists—seem like they would be satisfied with banning same-sex marriage, abortion, and forcing media companies to run their religious propaganda. But the most extreme set—who can properly be called —will not be satisfied until LGBTQ people are locked up, Muslims are deported and banned, and women are prohibited from having any social or sexual autonomy.“

from @mattsheffield

https://plus.flux.community/p/the-right-wing-freakout-about-a-viral?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

TonyStark, to random
@TonyStark@progressivecafe.social avatar

I like this article, especially “Lesson 3” on the list of misconceptions, that Donald Trump has “electoral magic.”

Nikki Haley (and no, I don’t support her) just got 39% of the vote in South Carolina against the person who is supposedly in full control of the GOP. He will get the nomination but he is weak. Some of those 39% in the general will not be with him.

2024 election cycle shows how little we have learned from 2016:
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-election-2024-2016-lessons-rcna140268

ClintBarton,
@ClintBarton@progressivecafe.social avatar

@TonyStark

Excellent Article! 👍

fsinn, to humanrights
@fsinn@mas.to avatar

The Alabama Supreme Court has declared frozen cells to be legal persons.

We are on a dangerous precipice.

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-22-2024?r=2m1hl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

rmr, to scifi German
@rmr@openbiblio.social avatar

Bin jetzt über das Genre gestoßen: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

Das klingt vielversprechend - hat da jemand Empfehlungen für mich ( |s aber gern auch Literaturwissenschaftliches zum Genre)?

NatureMC, (edited ) to Plants
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar

🧵 Unbelievable: Robin Wall Kimmerer's gorgeous book "Braiding Sweetgrass" was published 10 years ago. Unlike other global bestsellers, the book has changed people, woken them up and inspired them to take action. Rosanne Deerchild talks with the author in her podcast Unreserved:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-105-unreserved/clip/16039842-gentle-book-giant-impact-10-years-braiding-sweetgrass

grrlscientist, to random
@grrlscientist@mastodon.social avatar

truly terrifying. absolute . will amerikkka🇺🇸 become a new state? how can we prevent this?

2 things may help: ELIMINATE THE . END THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

Dancing in the Dark: Steps to Avoid a Constitutional Coup in 🗳️

https://washingtonspectator.org/dancing-in-the-dark/

kegill, to history
@kegill@mastodon.social avatar

“If the of humanity were condensed into a single 24-hour day, this is roughly what it would look like…

“We’ve invented an upside-down world where Starbucks remains unchanging year after year, while rivers dry up and democracies collapse.”

From the author of FLUKE: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters (US, January 23rd; UK, February 1st)





https://open.substack.com/pub/brianklaas/p/we-are-different-from-all-other-humans?r=5wdm&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

PaulNemitz, to random

A on how to keep : ⁦‪@TimothySnyder‬⁩ On : For those who want democracy & rule of law in US & EU after 2024:now is the time to organize, to prepare to win & to talk not only about what is to be lost but what can be gained https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/on-tyranny?r=17wxcu&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

BrynnTannehill74, to random
@BrynnTannehill74@newsie.social avatar

My latest for The New Republic. The truth of the matter is that a little less than half of the Republican base absolutely, explicitly, wants fascism. Our political system was not meant to handle this. https://newrepublic.com/article/177796/polls-republicans-trump-maga-fascism?utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SF_TNR

HistoPol, (edited )
@HistoPol@mastodon.social avatar

(1/n)

The seems to be racing towards a tipping point. Arguably, considering , it is aready part that point.

by @BrynnTannehill74

"In my own experience as an analyst in U.S. Central Command who studied , I estimated that 👉you only needed 10 to 15 percent of the population to be supportive of the insurgents 👈to get a situation like what I saw in Iraq in 2005–2006. In short, you...

https://newrepublic.com/article/177796/polls-republicans-trump-maga-fascism?utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SF_TNR

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